song: industrious
contax
by mikrosopht
ello C0ntaX! where you at?
London... En-ger-land...
I hear the scene there is the best it gets eh?
I like to think so... There are certainly a lot of innovators out here, but then, I've heard a lot of good stuff from all over the world... I think that England as a nation's a little more into having their perceptions of music changed. We're not afraid to have a track slap us in the face and do something different...
...saying that though... We have our fair share of teeny-bopper mindless music drones too!
thats a great mentality to have, the welcome of change in style. heh yeah werd to b0yz0ne!! hahaha so where does your music figure into the scheme of things in London?
lol! I'm not too sure myself as musically I've been in a state of flux for the last year or so... I think that it's finding a happy medium between break beat and techno/trance... Which is strange for me as I don't really listen to techno and I only really got into trance half a year ago... I like some of the ideas there (not that they're too cerebral!) ;-) I like to think that my music in some small way is, in the scheme of things, on da street, as that's the most important locale!
your musical style builds in a strong way throughout the track and usually ends up to be something on a grand scale, how've you come to write music in this manner? what are your grass roots like?
Time to let the cat out of the bag... The reason that my music tends to get bigger towards the end of the track is that I've never yet planned out a track from start to finish. I tend to sit down and play around with some things that have been banging around in my head since the last time I wrote a track... I pick something that sounds like it could work and then build on it... It rolls along for a while and then that provokes more ideas... It's an exponential thing so I get a shit load of stuff in my head towards the end of the track... That's pretty much it. Build + Build + Build + Stop ;-)
so does this method get the desired resultz that you want with your choonz?
Time times yes, some times no. I have a graveyard directory on my machine with about 50 tracks that I started, got half way through and felt that they weren't going anywhere. Then, once a week I pick my four favs out of them and roll them into a track that either does or doesn't then go back into the graveyard. (This is why I tend to release about 3 tracks every monday morning!) ;-)
It's a bit scrappy, but I'm not a structure nazi.. I like things sounding a bit free form
thats a really unique way of composing! I heard that you wrote a choon fer a company recently, could you go into detail n behind the scenes about that for tha enooze hedz?
It'd be a pleasure squire...
heh I dropped my toast!
I've never been very good at making music to order... Someone comes up to me and asks me to make a type track and I'll fail totally. So this was a bit of a challenge. They asked me if I'd do the track 'cos I've been boring people to death with my tracks at work for ages. I was given free reign to do what I wanted as long as it was appropriate (no subliminal messages) and that it wasn't too fast. So I figured a slow synth riff and a subtle 'non-tune' on the top (y'know... The sort of tune that's totally wall paper. Not outstanding any way) Mix it all together with a breakbeat and a classic old skool 'tracker' effect here and there... The cherry on the top was dropping some large sound effects in like the sound of the London Underground and the sound of the sea etc... The end was Coast2Coast... A flight across England. I hope to expand this in the future by taking a piece of string and dropping it across the map of England, then trying to map out with sound all the places it passes through... Interesting concept maybe, but it remains to be seen if it'll turn out okay or just sound like a badly constructed sound effects CD! ;-)
(Damn I wish I had some of that toast... I'm at work right now, it's 12:15... I've missed my last tube... I'm sleeping on the floor basically!)
*hands C0ntaX a slice of rye* thar ya go buddy!
<-- Accepts greatfully... >nummie!<
hehehe... so you mean youre staying the night @ work?
Yup... I tend to do this a lot... All work me... (Well, actually I've been pissing about with Orion and I lost track of time!)
I doubt that it could be a cheese sound fx cd, rather more akin to the movie landscapes of the orb with a breaky atmosphere... now that would be a gr8 nu trip!
:-) I'm just scared it'll turn out like that terrible KLF ambient album... I love the KLF to bits for what they did to music, but that album really was something... and not a good something!
whuzza KLF? Im bad with acronymania I cant keep up!
Kopyright Liberation Front... They wrote a book on how to make a number one single (really in depth) then, they followed it to the letter and hey presto, a number one hit! (They then went on to burn £1,000,000 of their cash for some weird reason... I didn't agree with that too much!)
that sounds pretty manufactured to me. burning money is only kewl if you are popular because then you're controversial. sounds like they just wanted the flash pan syndrome eh?
I think that maybe that was the point... They were the ultimate manufactured band... (more so 'cos they told everyone they were!) ;-0
heheheh well Im glad I got their message! haha. so have you ever thought about doing that sort've stuff just for shits and grins?
Nah... I'm too dull for that (I'm a programmer after all) I don't go in for 'image' which is why I love producing electronic music where the guy in the studio/bedroom is miles away from the PR machine (if there's any PR machine at all) It's all about the music and no bull shit. Boy/Girl bands can just fuck off as far as I'm concerned.
word. so where do you see sexy Dj C0ntaX in 10 years? Im just quoting your site, not trying to pick you up or anything :'X
;-)
Tough question that... My plan is thus: Cash in the shit load of shares I have in the company I work for in 3 years time when they vest.
Build a fuck off large studio
Start a record label (if I haven't already by that time)
Give the record label to my mate K to run
Put out as much of the Metem crew (and anyone else I really rate) on various sub labels
Keep doing what I do now. Working the 9 to 5 and making music from 5 to 9.
So, in ten years, I guess I'll be the same as now but with more bills and more toys!
sounds gr8! so what music do you enjoy listenin to?
How long have you got!? ;-)
hehehe as long as it takes
Here's what I dig:
Nu Skool Breaks Drum 'n' Bass (mainly old skool) Trance House Techno Industrial Gabba Goth (on the electronic side like Coil) Hip Hop (especially UK stuff) Dodgy 80's kitch 70's Funk (They knew how to break) Anything with a pulse but especially stuff that's not afraid to site outside or between boundaries. Oh, and no fucking guitars...
so do you like schooly D?
hehe... You've thrown a name at me there, and I dunno it... Sorry.
oh hes sum rapper Ive heard on a Monster Breaks compilation. Sounded a lot like snoop dogggg but I guess hes been around for awhile. heh. OK! now a question I have no idea about: who is your one favorite metempsychosis member? y?
That would be very unprofessional of me to answer ;-)
ok then moving right along... ;8']/ what kindve plans do you have in the near future regarding releases and such n such? are you really the next Dean Martin?
You betcha! ;-)
damn.
I have a couple of things in the pipe line... I'm currently working on the Anger E.P. (as Anger's one of my fav tracks) I have a remix from Dr. Awkward and Orph is also working on a mix (although he's backlogged with stuff at the moment) and my mate K will hopefully do one as well. Also K's got some mad Drum 'n' Bass waiting to pop and I'm going to lay down a track for the B side. This is probably where my joint label with him will start
who is Dr. Awkward? and K?
Dr. Awkward's a geeza I met on the Octamed mailing list. He joined in out last remix competition. I love his flow. K is my bestest mate in the whole world. He's the guy that I started this music journey with and hopefully will end it with him to. We live miles apart now (shame as we used to live practically next door to each other) For my money, he's probably the most talented undiscovered artist out there.
Oh... Just remember, I'm also working on my long awaited remix of Nomex's The Fire Is The Centre track from the Dead by Dawn album
kewl nfoz! so when did you get started writing music with K? did he introduce you to it?
We both started out the same time... He came from quite a musical family (as did I (My dad being the only person that hasn't released vinyl!)) I got a copy of Med on a cover disk of Amiga Format... We were both interested in what it could do... We played with it... That was when I was 12 and he was 10... We've been doing it ever since, although for some weird reason, we both just stopped making music for 4 years, round about the same time)
He was the other half of Phrenetic. The name of our drum 'n' bass project.
n1c3! ok that brings up a couple ?z I gotta ax: * what has your family released? * what 4 years did you stop making musica?
My sister does experimental noise stuff... My bro-in-law is Nomex from Praxis Records. My mum was a folk singer and flung down nuff vinyl in her day, my two youngest sisters did backing vocals in a charity record (okay, that's lame, but it was for a good cause) and I've had the Liquid Sky E.P. out of Whitehouse records. Following on quite neatly, the 4 year sabbatical was caused by the Liquid Sky E.P. and geography. I moved away from my home town to London just after the release of the record. K and I weren't very happy with what the record label did to the record (they buried it as they were getting sued for copyright infringement of samples and we'd sampled half of the CandyMan film!)) I was a bit fucked off with music and then I got my high stress job... These things meant that I either didn't have the time to do music, or just didn't want to. So I stopped. I pretty much stopped listening to music during that period. It was a low time for me. Then, all of a sudden, I head OctaMed (the tracker I used to use on the Amiga) was coming out on the PC (and I'd just bought myself one of them) I guess I got all mushy and nostalgic and started buying all the music I could get my hands on. It came out about a year and a half ago and I haven't stopped since! ;-)
bad ass! thanx a ton for sharing sum of yer info with me! But now iz the time that I say one last question: what do enooze readers need?
Octamed... Orion... Pioneer RMX-9s... An idea... A 'pHuk j00' attitude... A wish not to make music for money, but the love of it. And of course, good contacts... (C0ntaX, geddit!?!) ;-)
contax website