Interview with Armen Chakmakian

Armen Chakmakian is an Armenian-American musician, composer, recording artist, and producer. A native of Glendale, California where he still resides, Armen attended the Berklee College of Music, UCLA, and USC. 

His professional recording career began in 1991 when he joined the GRAMMY® Award-winning band, Shadowfax as their keyboardist. It was his unique style of World Fusion blending indigenous Armenian and Arabic influences with contemporary jazz, and world elements that helped win him the prestigious job. A prolific composer, Armen began incorporating his signature style when he co-wrote the music for Esperanto. This led to him receiving his own GRAMMY® AWARD nomination when the Shadowfax production was nominated for Best New Age Album of 1992. For the next four years, he co-wrote, recorded and toured with the band as they produced an impressive body of work including the albums Magic Theater, Shadowfax Live and a 90-minute concert video of the Live album. 

Armen launched an indie label, TruArt Records in 1998 releasing his first solo album, Ceremonies to rave reviews. The album debuted #1 on the New Age/World radio charts (NAV Top 50) and received airplay on more than 600 stations worldwide. Two tracks from Ceremonies entitled Gypsy Rain and Distant Lands were featured on the European compilation CD series, Buddha-Bar, and Buddha-Bar IV, which were released in 2000 and 2002, respectively. To date, they have sold more than 700,000 units.

In 2004, the label released Armen’s second solo album, Caravans, a 12-track production melding the artist’s unique, contemporary jazz compositions with exotic world percussion and textures. Like its predecessor, this collection received dozens of glowing reviews continuing to build TruArts’ worldwide audience.

In addition to his solo career and time with Shadowfax, Armen has contributed to a variety of other productions including Cirque du Soleil’s flagship show, Saltimbanco. He has continued to experiment with various genres leading him to a new body of work composing source music and library music for television. In this area alone he has amassed more than 200 credits since entering the field.

1. Tell us about your inspiration and development as a musician.

I’m still developing!

I loved music as far back as I could remember.  I always wanted a drum set when I was a kid…in preschool.  So for my birthday one year, my dad bought me a cheap drumkit from Sears.  I was elated! The family gathered around as I sat on the stool and I started singing “Onward Christian Soldier” while bangin’ out the rhythm on the toms.  I got about 10 seconds into the tune before all the paper drumheads were torn and that was the end of my career as a drummer.  I had 2 older brothers; one a big band jazz fan and saxophonist/clarinetist; the other a lover of all things late 60’s/early 70’s rock. My parents always had music on the turntable - Armenian pop, Arabic pop, Armenian choir and some classical.  So I was getting it from all sides.  When I was 7 years old, my parents moved us into a new home, which happened to be next door to a woman who had kids coming and going.  I sat on the wall of our driveway and watched this happening for a couple of days before I finally walked over there, knocked on her door and told her I noticed all the kids coming and going and asked her what’s going on.  She invited me in, sat me down at a piano, next to her on a stool, and started to play.  That was the first time I’d been in the presence of a pianist and a musician of that caliber.  Nell Sansom Brown would be my piano teacher for the next 10 years.

A few years later my brother, the big band fan, started taking me to the USO gatherings where he’d sit in with musicians who had played with most of the famous big band leaders.  It was pretty incredible.  Then he taught me how to read basic jazz chord charts for some of those tunes and at around 10 years old we’d visited a couple of old-folks homes and played, as a duo, songs that were familiar to them.  I remember how they lit up and that felt amazing – to see all the smiles.  Age 12, my Uncle decided it’s time to start a family band playing some 50s tunes, Armenian pop songs, and some continental pop thrown in for good measure.  That’s when I started “gigging” and getting paid.  Picnics, Armenian weddings, birthday parties.  It was a blast to play with my cousins, brother, and uncle!  I was getting turned on to a lot of music from friends at the time too – Styx, Queen, Beatles…  then I heard Van Halen, the hair on my arms was standing on end. I’d never heard anything like that before.  I also loved Randy Rhoads who was the guitarist for Ozzy Osbourne’s first two solo albums.  I listened every weekend to the Dr. Dimento show and discovered Frank Zappa, which was the first time music made me laugh.  There was some 80s pop I loved too, but I was never really into lyrics.  I was too busy honing in on the groove and melody and what the instruments were doing to create that groove.  I was more into music than the piano or keyboards as an instrument so when my friend’s father took us to see Return to Forever – it blew my mind!

But I still felt like a drummer trapped in a keyboardist’s body, so I bought a drumset.  I was 15 and joined the high school marching band as a drummer.  Something very important happened to me in that band.  Three of the seniors turned me on to jazz, progressive rock, and music that you couldn’t really categorize.  Over the next month or so, I discovered Chick Corea as a solo artist, Peter Gabriel, Genesis, U.K., Michael Oldfield and Tubular Bells, Walter/Wendy Carlos, Tangerine Dream, King Crimson, Bill Bruford’s solo stuff, Alan Holdsworth, Mark Isham, anything Terry Bozzio played on and a bunch of other recording artists.  Those were the days where I’d go to a friend’s house and for hours, we’d sit on the floor.  I’d have the vinyl album cover in my hand for one record, and we’d listen and talk about what we were hearing. My friends would explain how the sounds were created, point out different things to pay attention to, and the time would fly by.  Those days were really important – extremely important to me and that’s when I started writing my own music on the piano.

My senior year of high school I took an analog synthesizer programming class at the local college and learned to program synthesizers and sequencers (1984), which was also huge.  Shortly after, I studied improvisation on the piano with Chuck Wild who later became the artist behind the Liquid Mind albums.  Chuck gave me great confidence because I never felt like I completely fit into a neat and tidy category as a musician or artist.  “What do you call that music you’re writing?”  I don’t know.  I was fortunate enough to always have musicians around me and would start my own projects.  Eventually, I met Chuck Greenberg and was part of Shadowfax from 1991-1995 until his passing.  What I admired most about my music heroes and Shadowfax is that they all had something unique about them… a style that was theirs and theirs alone. I wanted that and during my time with Shadowfax, I enrolled in a History of Armenian music class at USC and was introduced to hours and hours of music I’d never heard before.  I’d transcribe as much as I could and let it soak in…much of it was familiar to me already and then I would just improvise and play freely on the piano, recording everything I played.  Those improvisations and recordings eventually turned into my first solo album, “Ceremonies.”

2. Are you a Tolkien fan?

No.  I never gravitated towards that type of fantasy.  A part of me wishes I was because I see a lot of people who are total fanatics. I’m more of a sci-fi fan but I like sci-fi that can back up the technology – even if it’s technobabble that’s impossible.  Most of all I love biographies.  I love information.  I like reading a well-written manual too!

Shadowfax performing at CD101's "Jazz at the World Trade Center."

3. Tell us about Shadowfax.

If you asked me back then to name any band in the world that I’d like to be a part of, I would’ve told you Peter Gabriel or Shadowfax.  But Peter Gabriel isn’t a band so I’d have to throw that idea out.  As their keyboardist, I had free reign as far as sound design, coming up with parts, introducing music to the band, it was wide open.  There were no rules.  It was a great hang, I learned a lot about music, food, the music business and how to read a contract and understand every single word.  It was a band of brothers, a family, a school (I got schooled a couple of times!), and one of the highlights of my life.


4. Tell us about your label and studio albums.  

TruArt Records.  I started the label after going to 36 labels with “Ceremonies” and hearing, “That sounds great! What kind of music do you call it?”  I’m not exaggerating when I tell you that almost everyone I talked to at all the labels asked me the same question.   Instead of saying “I don’t know” or “Good music” or “Music that I think doesn’t suck”, I started asking back – “What would you call it?” Then I’d hear, “I don’t know.”  Some of the people told me if I could come up with one word to describe my music, they might be able to “do something with it.”  I thought that’s why labels had marketing departments.

I called my former piano teacher and friend Chuck Wild, who I talked about earlier in the interview and asked him how he ended up releasing his own albums on his own label.  He already had success with his Liquid Mind albums and has a very organized and brilliant business mind.  He introduced me to Suzanne Doucet who I brought on as a consultant and we ended up releasing “Ceremonies” tied at #1 on the radio with an Anne Dudley album in 1998 and had a track, “Gypsy Rain” -two tracks licensed by the Buddha-Bar series.  At that point, it was 90% business and 10% music, which was frustrating.  It was a great experience.  I loved working with the people I had brought on, and most of the buyers at the stores, but I didn’t like that it was cutting into my music time.  So it was 6 years before I had released “Caravans.”  The business model in the music biz had completely changed and Tower Records, which was my bread and butter was going to file bankruptcy in two years unbeknownst to me.  So the label is “inactive” at the moment while I have a career writing music for television.

5. Why did you choose to create these albums, and what do you hope to give to your listeners? 

It’s fun for me to turn my friends on to something that makes them smile or feel good.  Writing this music, arranging it, getting the musicians together to record, mixing, mastering – I love the entire process and felt that I had something to offer that was uniquely my own.  The hope was to turn people on to something that they’d enjoy listening to that was something they hadn’t heard before and have them feel good about it.  It’s the same reason I enjoy cooking for people or making someone laugh.  It comes from the same place.

6. Is there an underlying theme or message in your work?

Beauty.  “Art” has different meanings to different people.  There are the “I’m going to paint a glacier red” artists or the “I’m going to dress up a mannequin in an NYPD uniform, turn it upside down and sell it for $90,000” artists – these are real projects.  Whether they qualify as art or not is not for me to say.  I’m moved by things that I find to be beautiful.  Seeing or hearing something beautiful makes me feel great. It can be soothing, exciting, healing – that’s what I look for in art and that’s what I want to express.  I’m hoping the listener finds something beautiful and healing in my music.  I write about that in my liner notes.  I’m big on liner notes, which is an endangered species now.  There’s an anecdote about every piece I write…another way for me to connect with the listener.

7. How would you describe traditional Armenian music to anyone who has not had the pleasure of  listening to it? 

There’s a long timeline of music that came from the area well beyond what are now the borders of this tiny country.  Once the largest country in that area, those borders have been eroded a great deal.  Verbally, describing the music to a layman is difficult for me to really nail.  The music that I have heard and the notation I’ve read – it’s very simple music.  It comes so much from the heart… a pouring out of emotions at times.  Some of it has a sense of humor or can even sound a bit mischievous. Now that I think about it, I’m describing the overall personality of the Armenian people.  Much of it was written for dance, in odd time signatures or no time signature at all.  Originally there were no harmonies with multiple instruments.  It was all unison until it was influenced by European music and it continued to evolve.  There’s the instrument that Peter Gabriel introduced to the world when he composed his score for the film, “The Last Temptation of Christ” in 1988 – the duduk.  He talked about this Armenian instrument.  It’s kind of become the “poster boy” instrument for Armenian music to the rest of the world.  It has a gorgeous sound in the right hands.

8. Tell us about your collaborations and the part your Armenian heritage plays in your work.
  
When I was taking the History of Armenian music class at USC, and really diving into it, my teacher, Lucina Agbabian-Hubbard asked me if I’d like to meet Djivan Gasparyan, the duduk player.  He’s also an amazing singer and plays other wind and brass instruments.  Of course, I said yes.  I picked him up from the airport, stopped at a dry cleaners shop to drop off a pair of his pants, then went right to my studio and we laid down the tracks for “Distant Lands.”  I had the rhythm track all laid down, and he played a collage of existing melodies from other Armenian songs.  That’s one of his specialties.  He can hear a rhythm track and start playing from beginning to end playing melodies from maybe 3 to 6 different existing pieces to create this new cohesive melody.  It’s pretty amazing to hear him do it.  Parts of the melodies might be improvisations.  But in my recordings, everything I grew up listening to comes out somehow and that includes the old Armenian choral, pop, Arabic popular music and everything else that’s in that cocktail of a thousand songs that is somewhere buried deep inside of my brain.

9. Tell us about the production of your Ceremonies video.  

Albert Kodagolian, the director and me were part of a group of mutual friends.  He approached me one day and said, “You need a video, and I’m the one to make it for you.”  I said ok.  We talked a little bit about it and I told him, I want to make something with an old man, a pomegranate, a baby and a good looking couple.  So we met at a later time and he had it all storyboarded - all, minus the baby, and he suggested we shoot it in the desert because of the lighting and also we wouldn’t have to pay for lighting.  I loved his ideas, so I recruit the band and a friend who I know will look good in the video and we meet out in the desert – El Mirage lake bed in California.  Albert had a van that he would use for most of the shots involving camera movement.  He would be hanging out of the van while there was one person inside the van holding on to his belt and another person holding open the door so he wouldn’t get decapitated.  It was crazy!  There were people riding motorcycles, ATVs, and other cars, so he took these incredible shots where it looked like we were all out there alone in the desert.  By the time he got to shooting the band, the sun had just set, and we didn’t have great lighting, but he used that to his advantage as you’ll see when you watch the video.  The old man in the video was Albert’s grandfather.  He was the sweetest man, and was thanking everyone and was expressing his joy for having met us all and working with us.  The following day, Albert told me that his grandfather remembered none of it because of his Alzheimers disease.  He’s my favorite part of that entire video.  Albert proved correct telling me weeks earlier that he was the one who should make the video for me.

10. Do you have plans to release more studio albums?  

I think about it but have mixed feelings. I have enough music for another four albums.  Since the music biz was turned on its head in the mid-2000s, I don’t see a way to do it without making it an expensive hobby for myself.  I’d love to release more music.  The music part of it is the easy part; having to handle the business part of it as well, that’s just no fun for me anymore.

11. Tell us about your work with film and television.  

I received two phone calls in 2004 that changed the course of my music career.  They were both for television shows.  One call was to license a track from Ceremonies, “Echoes of a Prayer” for the show “Malcolm in the Middle.”  The second call was from a production company asking if I’d be interested in writing music cues for their television shows.  I’ve been doing it ever since.  I’m writing music I would’ve never have been able to produce on one of my albums, or anyone else’s for that matter.  The variety of genres I’m asked to compose is endless.  I’ve been doing it for about 12 years now and it’s a blast!

12. What do you find most rewarding in the creative process?

The beginning steps are the most fun, but finishing up a work or project is the most rewarding.  I had a ritual when I’d finish any album where I’d take the finished album, get into my car late at night and take a drive down to the beach while listening to it beginning to end.

Doheny Blues Festival, 2008.

13. What do you find most challenging in the creative process, and how do you overcome it?  

Different projects have different speed bumps or different walls I might seem to come up against.  The key is to just not stop.  To keep on it until there’s a breakthrough.  Sometimes, the challenging part is to get everyone in the same room if that’s what’s called for.  Other times, it might be all the editing involved.  Staying up late nights can be another.  It varies quite a bit for me.

14. What have you done to promote and market your music, and what advice would you give to other artists?  

If you asked me this back in the late 90s, I would’ve had brilliant advice.  But now I wouldn’t know how valuable my advice would be in this climate of the music business.  I don’t take the time to actively promote or market my music from my albums anymore.  The advice I’d give to other artists is to simply do your thing.  Create what you want to create and what satisfies you.  Try to find what’s unique about what you do and develop that.

15. Who, do you imagine, would be your ideal listener?

Very simply, my ideal listener would be someone who enjoys the music.  Of course, as the artist, I would like a listener who would drop everything and give the music their full attention.  They’d notice every nuance and be curious about things that they hear in the music and aren’t sure what they are.  Then, they’ll call (do people call anymore?) all of their friends raving about it and post flyers in the neighborhood pledging their allegiance to it!  I once met a friend of a friend who spoke with me about the keyboard textures and sound design on the record.  It felt good to have that part of my creation noticed since I rarely use preset sounds.  I like to make my own synth patches.

16. What are your interests outside of music? 

I love sports, cooking, and tea.  I played sports growing up and have two older brothers that were always coaching me.  One of my earliest memories was my father taking me to a Los Angeles Dodgers baseball game.  He knew the game well enough to understand what’s going on and I remember him jumping out of his seat when our team scored. He turned to the guy next to him and they shook hands.  I have some really great sports memories.  As far as cooking, I have a handful of some recipes I like to make but mostly like to try out new recipes and cooking for friends.  Tea:  I was really enamored by tea around 2008 when in one week I had an incredible Japanese Sencha tea and a Chinese ginseng oolong.  I didn’t know tea could be that amazing, and I’ve been in love ever since.  Dragonwell Lung Ching is my favorite.  It’s a green tea, I believe the most popular in China.  And, if I could pique your interest with this thought:  If you make green tea and it’s bitter, which was my experience for many years, you’re either (1) brewing it too hot (about 175 °F for green tea), (2) steeping it too long (3 gms for about 30-45 seconds for the first brew), or (3) using the dust that fell on the floor from the higher quality tea.

17. Where can we find you and your work? 

My albums could be found here:
CD Baby
iTunes

Examples of my tv music can be heard at:
Armen TV

Ceremonies Video

Neda’s Calling Video Tribute
Read about it here:
Armen TV
Armen TV

Souls and Saints Video

Social Media:
Facebook
Twitter
Instagram
Linkedin
 

Interview with The Wimshurst’s Machine (Augusto Chiarle)

The Wimshurst’s Machine is an award-winning 8-member Italian chillout orchestra that plays warm, infectious, environmental music. They are: Augusto Chiarle - sax and synths, Antonio Rapacciuolo - trumpet and cornet, Massimiliano Baudissard – acoustic drums, Roberto Canone  - sax, clarinet and keyboards, Daniele Scerra – electric guitar and visual arts, Fabio Rodi – keyboards and synths, Elvis Bergero – keyboards, and Duilio Chiarle – novels, acoustic and classical guitars. Seamlessly crossing between rock, jazz, world beat and progressive electronica TWM produce themes ideal for big-screen productions. According to co-founder and manager, Augusto Chiarle, The Wimshurst’s Machine is a steampunk project developed between friends and colleagues with little time to play together in person. Thanks to modern computer technology and software packages such as Propellerhead Reason, Apple Garage Band, Symphonic Orchestra, Sound Studio Pro and Apple Soundtrack, members of the band play together and record material even when living apart. 

1. How and why did you decide on the name The Wimshurst’s Machine?

Back in 2003, my friend Fabio and I just started to think about a music project and while talking in a pub a friend mentioned this old generator from the 18^th century. I was really charmed by it, what a shame it’s such a hard name to remember. But now we are TWM and the name will stay as it is.

Fabio & Augusto

2. What is your definition of ‘Steampunk’ and how does it relate to The Wimshurst’s Machine?

Fantasy and Science Fiction are always an essential part of our albums. If you have something serious to tell, you may also do it while entertaining - just as H.G. Wells and other great writers did. Our 'steampunk' gets inspiration from the early 20^th century, mixed with some more modern science fiction. Some call the subgenre “dieselpunk” or “raygun”; we do not mind if it is steam, diesel or ray, we like steampunk in itself, all included. The main idea came from two sources: 1st, the band name. Back in 2003 we chose to name the band after a very steampunk item, one of the very 1st electric generators created by mankind. And 2nd: we always loved the fantastic mix of modernity and retro-styled fashion of certain types of science fiction. That was already the perfect combination, even if the stage costumes only came in late 2010 due to our low budget.

Steam

3. Why did you choose to create electro-acoustic music, and what do you hope to give to your listeners?

The music genre came by itself. We played what we enjoyed to listen to. It’s easier to believe in your music if you like what you play. To the people who buy our CDs, we try to give more than just a collection of good tracks or good songs; we try to build soundtracks for written stories. Every studio album is a concept-album, with a story available as a short novel - Time Traveller (2007), or Thunder & Lightning (2010), or as a podcast - The Alchemist (2005), and A Traveller Who Didn’t Ask For Glory (2004). Often they are available as free downloads from the band’s website. Next to be released is an album, which includes an entire book as a booklet - we’re already working on it. So far, band member Duilio Chiarle, a professional writer with several important awards in his career, has written all the stories. Our Cover art changes, but in Time Traveller (2007) we had a full booklet with great illustrations by our other guitarist, Daniele Scerra - great and talented artist; his illustrations were featured in hundreds of books around the world, particularly Italy, France and Germany.

Breathe

4. Tell us about your latest album, Breathe.

Breathe is a live album, our first live album. We like to do something new for every CD project - a new road to explore. The CD is not of a single concert, but a compilation of previously unreleased tracks, played in live jams, recorded between 2010 and 2011. We created a lot of electronic music in the past, so “Breathe” is also a way to say: “You see, we do play live; and we do like to jam. Our music is not just computer-generated.” We also went for the jam sessions because we wanted to give our listeners all new tracks. In Breathe, you’ll find new age, ambient and soft electronica. I believe it is a very good album, which also features the great cover art and photography of the talented Italian photographer, Natalia Ghiani.

5. Is there an underlying theme or message in your work? 

Always. Music is the only thing that has no race, no country, no boundaries and no social differences. We can all be brothers and sisters in music, no matter what. So our motto is: “Music for a better world.” We also give charity donations of 50% of our earnings from music. Unfortunately, it is never enough.

Time Traveller

6. Which musicians have influenced you the most, and how?

Personally, when I was a teen, Mike Oldfield and The Alan Parsons Project mostly influenced me; both for the soft electronic style and also for concept-disc projects. When I heard albums such as Crises or I Robot, I was immersed in a story narrated by music - this charmed me the most. Other TWM band members have different influences. For example: with Fabio, it’s Depeche Mode and Jean-Michel Jarre. With Elvis, it’s classical music, and for Roberto and Tony it’s jazz.

7. Tell us about the Hollywood Music in Media Awards.

This will be the third year in a row we got a nomination in that contest. To be there, interviewed by TV and magazines while you walk on a red carpet, is a great thing. The first year, I went alone and had a lot of fun. Last year, three of us were there and I had even more fun, especially meeting so many talented musicians from around the world, and from every imaginable musical genre. This year, I believe we will be three or even four, and I’m looking forward to it once again. A fun and interesting experience that satisfies the ego and gives some reward for the effort involved in composing music, which is never an easy task. The opportunity to meet new musicians from around the world is magic.

Thunder and Lightning

8. What do you find most rewarding in the creative process?

When you create something, it’s like having a new baby. What you’ve created is not completely yours anymore and, somehow, it starts a new life by itself. But, it gives you a good feeling. The same feeling you get when you find a good story, or read a good book. It’s somehow an expression of yourself, a slight bit of you that vibrates in the air.

9. What do you find most challenging in the creative process, and how do you overcome it?

If you want to create something good, you have to be ready to work a lot.  And, regardless of how painful it is, accept that perfection is impossible. So, when the moment comes, you have to be prepared to say, “OK, it’s good enough.” Or you will never complete anything. Saying that something is ‘good enough’ is always a difficult compromise. To compose, we let just let things flow out. So far, during the years, just a couple of us have experienced a pause in the creative flow. But, as there are many of us in the band who compose, they regained it along the way, well before it could become a real problem for the whole band. For one of us, this lasted two years before everything finally returned to normal and was fine. As with everything in life, there are times the ‘real world’ makes you loose your grip on creativity; but creativity is also a cure for the crudeness of the ‘real world’. You have to manage somehow and find a good balance between things; but it isn’t always easy and varies from person to person. At least, I noticed that it is different for each member of TWM, even if seven people don’t count in terms of statistics.

10. What have you done to promote and market your music, and what advice would you give to other artists?

An independent label distributes us; this is less remunerative, but gives us more freedom. And I like freedom, so I don’t mind earning less money. To promote our music, we mainly use podcasts, websites and Internet radio stations. Our current label, the British label, Astranova, does our promotion; but mainly, we built our own image by ourselves and are trying to gain exposure through the Internet. My advice is: if you want to go for your own artistic expression, be ready to work as bartenders, masons or whatever is necessary while you make your music in your free time. So, if and when success comes, it comes with your own rules. If you like to play cover songs or dancehall or mainstream music, well, this advice may not be for you. But it works for me, as I like to be free to play what I like the most. Oh, and don’t be in a hurry. Success comes when you do not expect it, and seldom without a great bunch of work.

Aquarius

11. Who, do you imagine, would be your ideal listener?

I believe, anybody who loves steampunk, concept-albums and the fantastic. We have also released a couple of collections: Freedom Lights (2006), and Aquarius (2009) that can be enjoyed by an even wider audience and are also featured in some chillout bars around the world. So, you see, we like to be free but at the same time we do not fill our CDs with intellectual exercises - we decided to put a limit of two ‘experimental tracks’ for every twenty.

12. What aspirations, or reservations, do you have regarding your music being used in film and television?

Our music was born to be a soundtrack. Actually, we’ve already scored several movies, documentaries and stage plays. Our best placements were: The Quiet Assassin directed by Alex Hardcastle for Channel 4, back in 2006, which used our Freedom Calls as the main title theme, and the Italian movies Avanti, sempre avanti and Polesine, where we scored the entire movies. We love to listen to our music as a soundtrack, be it for a movie, a stage play, a documentary or a novel.

13. Where can we find you and your work?

Official Website

CD Baby

iTunes

Amazon

Interview with Synergy (Larry Fast)

Larry Fast is a synthesiser expert and composer, best known for his series of pioneering electronic music albums recorded under the project name Synergy. He is also known for his work with Peter Gabriel; playing synthesiser on records and on tour, and rounding out the production team on many of Peter's albums for nearly a decade. Larry has also worked with Rick Wakeman and Yes, Foreigner, Hall and Oates, Bonnie Tyler, Wendy Carlos, Tony Levin, Nektar, Iam Siam, Annie Haslam and others. He also contributed music to the Carl Sagan 1980 television program Cosmos: A Personal Voyage, and created the soundtrack for the 1982 film The Jupiter Menace.

1. You are one of the pioneers of electronic music. How did you enter, what was once, one of the most exclusive worlds in modern music?

It really started happening for me in the late 1960s. I had been an electronic experimenter since I was a kid, building and wiring things since I soldered my first wires together in the late 1950s. I also loved listening to music and took lessons on violin and piano, and later self-taught myself guitar and bass. Couple that with hi-fi and stereo, tape recording and the various aspects of audio circuitry and I was primed for electronic music. When the Moog products evolved into instrument systems from individual modules between 1964 and 1967, I wanted to own some of them. But still in school at that time, there was no way I could afford those thousands of dollars. So I started building my own devices. Some from circuits I found in technical magazines and others that I developed myself from classic oscillator and filter circuits. One of my first oscillators was a modified Morse code practice oscillator.

By the early 70s I was building electronic devices for other musicians such as Rick Wakeman from Yes.

But I had also started to write and record, to satisfy my own creative leanings. And by then had managed to scrape together enough money to buy some genuine Moog instruments, which were superior to my own designs and construction. I used the combination of Moog and my own equipment to work with bands and on my own. After a short-lived band experience I was offered a record deal in 1974 for what would become the Synergy solo electronic project.

Electronic Realizations for Rock Orchestra

2. How and why did you choose the name ‘Synergy’?

I was looking for a project name to hide behind - a sort of fictional band. Reading Buck Minster Fuller's Operating Manual for Spaceship Earth there was a chapter called Synergy. He was describing the combined effects observed in metallurgy, chemistry and environmental sciences. But the word did apply to the effects I had observed in multi-track audio recording. And it sounded a bit like "synthesizer", so I appropriated the then-obscure term for my project. Now, about forty years later, it is a much-overused mainstream term.

3. In my opinion, Electronic Realizations for Rock Orchestra is one of the most innovative and important recordings of the 20^th Century. Tell us about the development of this album, and the technology you employed to produce it.

The earliest form of the album started shaping up as a senior thesis piece in my 20th Century Composition course at college. There is an entire section of the appropriately named Legacy piece, which was written for that course. Slaughter On Tenth Avenue was a piece that I had performed on piano as a student in junior high school. It struck me a decade later, as something that would translate well into the electronic genre. Other pieces evolved from writing sessions with a short-lived band I had on a development deal with Warner Bros. Records, which didn't pan out, and things I wrote after that band broke up.

Soon after that I signed as a solo artist to Passport Records and began putting the album together in preproduction. The technology was fairly standard for the time.  Much of it is listed in the album credits. I used Moog instruments, which on that early album was mostly Minimoog along with modules from Oberheim and 360 Systems. Recording was quite conventional 16-track to 2-inch tape with dbx noise reduction. Mixing was done in both quad and stereo. The original quad mix is encoded in the stereo mix, though the quad fad of the 1970s soon faded so few people have heard the old surround mix. The original release was on the available formats of the day which were vinyl, cassette and 8-track. There was even a quad 8-track format released in very limited numbers.

Peter Gabriel Tour, 1977

4. Tell us about your work with Peter Gabriel and others.

That is a huge topic covering more than five albums and almost a decade with Peter Gabriel alone. Session work and touring with other acts has never really stopped, but was a fairly consistent 35-year-run with so many recording dates that I can't even remember all of them anymore. Without a specific question it's difficult to know where to even begin. For the years 1976 through 1985 or so, the recording and touring cycle with Peter Gabriel was fairly constant. Many of the other recordings that I worked on like Foreigner, Hall & Oates, Bonnie Tyler and others were slotted in when there were breaks in the Gabriel schedule. After that, it was easier to get involved in special projects.

One of the most interesting projects was working with Wendy Carlos in 1997 on the live version of Switched On Bach performance at a Bach festival in New York. It was the first time that the classic 1967 album had been performed live by a synthesizer ensemble. It took months of work and was the finest all-synthesizer group that I have ever performed with. That kind of work was so different from the many rock tours that I have done that it really stands out in my experiences.

Cords

Sequencer

5. You have designed listening devices for the hearing disabled; and you own several patents for optical distribution using infrared audio technologies. Has this expertise helped you with your career in music, and if so, how?

In reality, it's the other way around. The technologies that underlie audio in the studio and synthesis are all about quality sound. For people with hearing losses, finding ways to compensate for their hearing through technology is very much related. I had already spent several decades exploring the nuances of audio circuit designs so it was not a big leap when I was charged with finding some new solutions to problems in accommodating those people with hearing losses covered under the Americans with Disabilities Act.  

The only aspect that was new to me was getting up to speed on transmitting audio over infrared light. But even that was not all that much different from the design of blinking LEDs that I had incorporated into a lot of my sequencers and computer interfaces for analog synthesizers. The one irony out of the whole exercise was that in all of my earlier years developing specialized synthesizer modules, nothing I had developed was clearly patentable. The changes that I brought into infrared assistive listening, a small side project, was patent-ready on multiple counts.

Games

6. Tell us about your new Synergy album. Why have you chosen to return to the Synergy project, after over 20 years, and what do you hope to give to your listeners?

There wasn't a conscious decision to stop doing the Synergy recordings. It was more a matter of economics. The record business has always been notoriously unstable and to some degree untrustworthy. Over the years, I found myself getting more commissions to work on corporate projects and in broadcast media, which took up as much, if not more, time to execute on a per-project basis. That left little time for making records just for art sake. That, coupled with the bankruptcy of the label I had been originally signed to, and a protracted fight to get the rights to the Synergy catalog back, put new Synergy recordings on hold for quite a while. 

What has happened recently, is that at my current stage in life (older) I can back off on the outside projects a bit. And in the current extended recession, there aren't as many commissioned projects as there once were, either. So that opens up some time for me to indulge in the Synergy project experimentation again.

The listeners are along for the ride, because I can't predict exactly where it will take us or even when it will be completed. I do know that the recordings will be high-bit audiophile digital masters, which will be down-converted to regular CDs and of course compressed audio for download sales and streaming. However, I'm actively pursuing the best way to make the audiophile versions available to the general public and in what formats. I'd also like to do 5.1 surround versions of the final mixes. I expect that I'll use many of the same creative tools, which these days focus heavily on software synthesis tools.

7. Is there an underlying theme or message in your work?

No, not really. You might pick up something from a title here and there, but I like the music to stand on its own, conveying spaces and emotions non-verbally. And even that tends to be "fiction" without a specific storyline. Think of it more as a soundtrack that doesn't have a movie attached to it.

Metropolitan Suite

8. Of the music you’ve created, is there one piece that you are particularly proud of? If so, why this particular work?

So far, the Metropolitan Suite is the most integrated collection of my earlier works. But it is very hard to have a single favorite piece. At the time any one of the Synergy pieces is being written, it is my favorite piece in the world. If it wasn't, why would I even bother to keep working on it? But after any collection is finished, some of the pieces just work better than others. And sometimes that is completely unexpected.  

The pieces I've created over the decades are so different from each other that various aspects of different pieces have strengths that are more appropriate for different listeners and in different settings. So no one piece could ever be my universal favorite for all times.

9. What do you find most rewarding in the creative process, and how do you overcome that which you find challenging?

I never quite know where the creative process is going to take me. I sometimes have a starting point with a rough idea of where I want to explore. Setting up some parameters of tempo, feel, texture and so on, gives me the beginnings of structure. Often I'll also have some kind of melodic hook or partial melody to get me started. And then it's off to that mysterious place in the creative thought process where ideas come together. I'm constantly switching between programming, arranging, writing and rewriting parts. These days it is all integrated into an ongoing recording process in the computer. Even the mixing is roughed in at this point, as the piece develops. The simultaneous job functions are somewhat of a departure from the analog days where there was a writing phase along with programming sounds on the synthesizers. But other than rough sketches on a 4-track recorder, there wasn't a whole lot more that could be done outside of the studio other than plan and note things like patch setups and the settings on the outboard equipment. Then, after all of the preparation, there was a distinct master recording phase onto multitrack tape, and then another period of time where recording was finished and locked, and mixing could begin. And the mastering for LP manufacturing.

Now many of these phases occur as part of one continuous process with the ability to revisit individual notes on any one part and make a quick change after the mix and mastering have been done on a first or second pass. I find that work sessions will last many hours with intense concentration, which is almost like going into some kind of zone. A lot gets done to move any production forward during that process. But sometimes I will hit an impasse where I can't decide which path to take, or I find that I'm unable to make some kind of decision about a musical part or a mix level or the sound of a patch. And I find it best to just leave it all for a while and stop working on it. Hearing it fresh an hour later, or a day or two later, usually makes the resolution of whatever the problem was become obvious. Often the right path is easy to get to, but if it won't resolve, then there is probably some kind of fundamental problem with the decisions that I've been making, which need to be revisited. At those points, the best thing to do is to go back a few or more steps in the process and try to re-imagine an alternate way to make the production evolve.

Computer Experiments, Vol. 1

Audion

10. What advice would you give to someone considering a career producing electronic music?

That is a difficult question because I’m not really sure that electronic music in the sense that I started working in even exists as a meaningful genre anymore. What is now called electronic music is more of a dance and beat genre using laptop software, dedicated devices and other tools, which evolved from the work done forty plus years ago. But what used to be electronic music, a composer and technologist's medium, was always a very small group of people and to some extent with limited opportunities.

My advice would be more universal to anyone considering working in the music business. Know your craft and be as good at it as you can be. Have high standards and specific artistic and business goals. And especially, learn the business side and have a good lawyer you can trust. The music business changes every week and if you don't understand how you are going to get paid for all of your hard creative work, then it's just a hobby.

Tony Levin Band, Seattle

11. Evolution is an inherent facet of modern music. What new developments are you aware of, with regards to the application of technology in electronic music production?

Of course there are always some new developments in the evolution of sound technology, but what I'm seeing now in many ways is the commercialization and affordability of many of the concepts that I was fortunate enough to experience in the mid 1970s and 80s at Bell Laboratories. The underlying technologies and concepts of digital sound and synthesis were being developed back then. But it was extraordinarily expensive and time consuming. What we're seeing now is the evolution of those ideas to become available at consumer prices and on standard computers, pads and phones. And that allows further evolution of the user interface and development of ways to use underlying audio technologies in creative new ways that are a part of the social evolution of digital music. That encompasses everything from how the music is created to the many ways that digital music is distributed.

The Jupiter Menace

12. My earliest memory of your music is from Carl Sagan’s Cosmos. I also have the soundtrack for The Jupiter Menace. What aspirations, or reservations, do you have regarding the continued use of your music in film and television?

Most of the last few decades when I have been out of the direct public eye has been spent working in broadcast media, TV, radio, advertising and special projects related to film and scoring. Being based on the east coast that tends to be a bit more anonymous than working on Hollywood projects. But I have almost no reservations about either licensing my existing work for these kinds of uses or accepting commissions to create new music in these same fields. I have probably written and recorded more commissioned work over the last 20 years than all of the earlier Synergy albums combined. As a purely economic matter for the working electronic musician as the established record industry continues to unravel, these alternative media provide a much-needed economic base to replace what the record companies once provided.

13. Tell us a little about any good electronic music you’ve heard recently.

I don't listen to music much, so I can't comment on anything new. After spending time in the studio, I find myself listening to news and talk radio in the car and watching TV in my downtime at home (or on the computer while travelling). I do keep some of Wendy Carlos' classic pieces and a lot of Beatles in my iTunes collection to remind me to keep my standards high. Those works, the earliest of which are nearly a half-century old, really defined production values, composition and in Wendy's case (as well as some later Beatles pieces on Abbey Road) the purest essence of Moog-based synthesis.

14. Tell us about your interest in photography.

That's been a hobby since I was very small. I've been documenting phases of my life, and where I've been, since I was in single digits. That's my historian side.  There's also the visual artist side, which I also express through photography. Of course for the last 15 years or so I've given up most of my darkroom work and use digital cameras and photo software.

It was only natural that I'd have a hand in both photographing some of my album art and working closely with the art directors and photographers that they brought into the projects.

Reconstructed Artifacts

Semi-Conductor

15. Describe ‘Synergy’ in one sentence.

The sum is greater than the whole of the parts.

16. Where can we find you and your work?

It is all available on iTunes as well and a number of major online download sites.  Physical CDs of some of the titles can be found on CD Baby (www.cdbaby.com).  As of this writing there are some changes underway in the distribution of the rest of the Synergy titles on CD so the best thing to do is check the updated information on the Synergy website:  www.synergy-emusic.com.

Rush - Time Machine 2011

On 25^th May, I had the pleasure of being entertained by three virtuoso musicians: guitarist Alex Lifeson, drummer Neil Peart and bassist Geddy Lee – a belated birthday present to myself. The venue was London’s O2 Arena, and I was 4^th row, centre-stage watching my favourite rock band: Rush, on their 2011 Time Machine Tour. I was close enough to the stage during the show, to wonder if I had been singed by some of the pyrotechnics. Past, present and future came together onstage as Rush performed to sheer perfection, their classic hits including the entire ‘Moving Pictures’ album, as well as new material from their forthcoming ‘Clockwork Angels’ album. Although I have been a Rush fan, since I first heard ‘The Spirit of Radio’ on the radio back in 1979, this was the first Rush concert I had been to. OK, so I don’t get out much… Bite me.

For anyone who hasn’t heard of Rush, it may be worthwhile to read what Wikipedia, the free encyclopaedia, has to say about them. And no fan should be without the excellent ‘Rush - Beyond the Lighted Stage’ DVD, released in 2010. It is one of life’s great mysteries that this phenomenal band has yet to be inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, despite over 40 years of professional activity during which they achieved 24 gold, 14 platinum, and 3 multi-platinum records, with estimated album sales of over 40 million units.

Regarding ‘Time Machine’, subtitled: ‘The Future As It Ought To Have Been’, lyricist Neil Peart relates how he had an idea for a fictional world that would make a great setting for a suite of songs that told a story. An avid science fiction fan, Neil Peart proposed a ‘steampunk’ approach. He described ‘steampunk’ as a genre of science fiction pioneered by authors such as his friend, Kevin J. Anderson, as a reaction against the dehumanised, alienated and dystopian societies portrayed by ‘cyberpunk’ futurists. 

Unlike ‘2112’ and ‘Red Barchetta’, both set in what Neil Peart described as a “darker kind of imagining, for dramatic and allegorical effect,” ‘Time Machine’ is inspired by the steampunk definitions: “The future as it ought to have been,” or “The future as seen from the past,” citing the scenarios imagined in ‘20,000 Leagues Under the Sea’ by Jules Verne. The results left me speechless: stage and lighting design evocative of the Victorian age, comical short films that transported me to a parallel universe and music… such incredible music.

The concert began with ‘The Real History of Rush’, a satirical documentary that presented a fictitious band called ‘Rash’, playing a polka version of ‘Spirit of Radio’ in the 60s, before being transported via a time machine to 1979 where I found Rush onstage at the O2 Arena, performing the much-loved song. You’ll note from my photographs, that Geddy Lee wore a ‘Rash’ T-shirt on the night. 

The show was presented in two halves. In the first, Rush gave us stunning performances of tracks spanning their whole career. After a brief interval, came ‘Moving Pictures’, my favourite Rush album. All 7 songs were perfectly rendered before Neil Pert wowed the audience with his reinvented drumming style in a blistering drum solo exploring progressive rock and jazz themes. Throughout this stunning performance, his new drum kit revolved 360 degrees showcasing his virtuoso skill. Frankly, I have no idea where this man got the energy. In fact, all three members of Rush seemed to possess superhuman endurance. The skill, energy and concentration displayed during the show were mind-boggling. After a high-energy performance of ‘Far Cry’ the band left the stage to a rapturous standing ovation. Then, as if that wasn’t enough, they returned to perform an encore including the legendary ‘La Villa Strangiato’, one of the most technically-complex rock instrumentals ever made, clocking in at well over 9 minutes.

The pictures of the concert, on this blog, I took with a compact camera and my BlackBerry; ‘professional’ photographic equipment wasn’t allowed at the concert. There is no shortage of Rush imagery to be found, but nothing compares with the connection you have with pictures that you’ve taken yourself. Somehow, I managed to capture both Alex and Neil staring right at me. In this image-dominated world, Rush may not be as famous as some less skilled bands. They may not be considered ‘cool’ by the style police; but as far as I’m concerned, their skill as musicians is unrivalled, and I love them. ~ Wayne Gerard Trotman

Interview with Johannes Roussel

Johannes Roussel was born in 1963. He has been a project designer, working in the research and development department of companies that manufactured home appliances. Later, he moved to marketing, within this industry, as a product manager. He published his first comic book in 1989, but only started his career as a comic book artist in 2003. His early work, in this field, was set in the British navy at the end of the 18th century. He describes it as being of the same genre as the movie ‘Master and Commander’, and the novels the movie is adapted from. His latest comics are about car racing in the 1960s.

1. Tell us about your latest album.

My last album is always my next album. I used to issue a new album every two years but my last album is from 2006. I am working on a new project, and as I composed I found out there were some tracks with a strong vintage flavour. So I decided to split the project in two albums, with the vintage one that will be called ‘Time’. I hope to polish all the tracks and release this vintage project before the end of this year. I recently uploaded a track from this new project, entitled 'Steps', on Soundclick.

2. Why did you choose to create ambient electronic music, and what do you hope to give to your listeners?

I didn’t choose to create ambient electronic music, it just came naturally; I was always attracted to electronic music. This began in the seventies when I first listened to Pink Floyd, Klaus Schulze, Kraftwerk, Tomita, Terry Riley and others.

3. Of the music you’ve created, do you have a favourite? If so, why this particular work?

Art is somehow very frustrating. I am not very satisfied with what I have created so far, and I think creation is a race to an unreachable perfection.  When I work on a piece, I spend a lot of time polishing, mixing and perfecting; but eventually, I must give up and let the baby go as it is.

4. How is creating electronic music different from creating acoustic forms?

I have no experience in creating acoustic music. I once played in a band where I had the only electronic instrument, but I was not involved in composing the music we played. I think electronic music, as it is now made with the help of the computer, gives you an incredible flexibility and the ability to make mistakes and experiment. Composing and producing electronic music was always a dream. The equipment was very expensive. Instruments were high priced and not very versatile, and you also had to buy the recording equipment and the effects. Now you can have all the equipment you need, included on your computer, almost for free. I started to compose when Soundblaster provided Midi compatible soundcards with integrated virtual synths. They started to promote their own sample format called ‘soundfonts’. I started to play with those soundfonts and created a lot of my own. I still have them on my webpage available for download. But this technology had some flaws. Midi was not a very versatile technology, soundfonts had their problems too, and computer performance was very often an issue. For me, it really started when SynapseAudio released their first version of Orion. I downloaded the demo version, and after a few hours I had composed my first track; and it was far better than everything I had composed before. The software is so intuitive that I felt it had been programmed just for me. For the first time, you had a virtual all-equipped studio. Recording, mixing, effects and synths, all included in a cheap package.

5. What have you done to promote and market your music, and what advice would you give to other artists?

I began composing my music at a time when the Internet was just beginning to provide music in the new mp3 format. I began promoting my music on mp3.com. A few months later, I was the most listened to French artist, and in the top 10, in electronic music. I had 1.2 million plays and downloads on mp3.com, before the website closed in 2003. Now I have reached 170000 plays on Soundclick, where I have my music hosted. It was easier to promote your music ten years ago. There were very few community sites, and enthusiasts hosted them. Now there are so many sites available, for you to listen to free music that your chances of being listened to are close to zero. If you want to promote your music today, I would suggest that you play your music live, and create a dedicated channel on YouTube.

6. What aspirations, or reservations, do you have regarding your music being used in film and television?

I was asked a few times to have my music used for free in small productions. I always accepted, that’s not a problem for me.

7. Tell us a little about any good electronic music you’ve heard recently.

I can suggest some artists I discovered recently:

Thomas Dvorak and the awesome soundtrack he composed for the game, ‘Machinarium’.

Ulrich Schnauss composes very dreamy music. He has a very distinctive style.

Muadhib is a French musician I discovered recently. I also discovered that he lives in the same region as I do.

Cameron Lasswell. Not only electronic but also jazzy.

Monkeybacon. Half electronic and half acoustic, with vintage textures.

I have two electronic stations on Soundclick where you can listen to music I have selected:

X-eption 1

X-eption 2 

8. What do you do when you’re not creating electronic music?

I am a comic book artist; when I don’t compose, I draw.

9. Where can we find you, and your work?

You can listen to my tracks on Soundclick. And you can purchase my albums on my webpage: http://johannes.fr