Ibiza or Bust | Nightmares on Wax

Nov 1, 2008 12:00 PM, By Bill Murphy

FOR THE LATEST CHAPTER IN THE ONGOING SAGA OF NIGHTMARE ON WAX, GEORGE EVELYN AND FRIENDS OPTED TO PACK UP THEIR GEAR AND GO MOBILE

It goes pretty much without saying that aside from getting robbed, shot, divorced or called next at the dentist's office, moving — that is, boxing up everything you own and relocating to a faraway place — is one of the most stressful events you'll ever experience during your brief stay on this planet. So you'd have to be off your rocker to add intentionally to the deluge, right? That's what everyone, including execs at the Warp label in London, told producer and Nightmares On Wax founder George Evelyn when they learned about his plan to liven up his cross-border odyssey by overhauling a camper van so he could record a new album on the road.

“When I put it to the label, they were like, ‘That sounds crazy, but we're up for it,’” Evelyn laughs. “But really the only way I could get my studio from my hometown in Leeds to my family's new place in Ibiza was to do it myself. And maybe there was a bit of paranoia in that, but that was when I thought, ‘Well, if I'm gonna deal with my gear, I could be doing something. What if I set my studio up on a camper van?’ Then I could spend however many days it took traveling to write the next album. So the whole project just started mushrooming out of that one idea.”

Actually, traveling in all its forms — physical, mental, even extraterrestrial — has been a recurrent theme of many a Nightmares On Wax project, going back to the breakout disc Smokers Delight in 1995, which yielded such cuts as the stretched-out desert groove “(Man) Tha Journey.” The album itself marked a significant progression beyond N.O.W.'s 1990 acid-bleep club hit “Aftermath,” recorded with Kevin Harper and based on a sample of The Main Ingredient's “Happiness Is Just Around the Bend,” but by the end of the '90s, Evelyn — also known to N.O.W. fans as E.A.S.E (a loose acronym for Experimental Sample Expert) — had set the wheels fully in motion, delving into gradually more funky, downtempo moods with Carboot Soul (1999), Mind Elevation (2002) and In a Space Outta Sound (2006).

Harnessing similar elements of funk, dub, soul and chill-out, Thought So… (2008) is a musical itinerary of Evelyn's 10-day trip from Leeds through northern France, the Pyrenees, the Spanish cities of Segovia and Cadiz, the Sierra Nevada and eventually on to the island of Ibiza. But deeper still, the album is a testament to group ingenuity and perseverance — after all, not everyone can just jump in a van and expect to throw down solid, usable takes over days and nights of jamming, but that's exactly how Evelyn, engineer Bruce Wood, keyboardist Robin Taylor-Firth, guitarist/bassist Chris “Earl Tutu” Dawkins and percussionist Shovell got it done.

“I think this album definitely has more of a live feel to it,” Evelyn says, “but if I'm being totally honest, I think it really captured a combination between Carboot Soul and Smokers Delight as well. Carboot Soul was really inspired by being on tour and playing live, and Smokers Delight was my first real dive into combining live musicianship with sampling and beatmaking. So it's almost like a full-circle thing, but with a bit more of a fresh approach. We just got to do what we feel comfortable doing; it wasn't a case of trying to be anything apart from what we were experiencing in the moment.”

CRAMMING LOGISTICS

Before he could pull out of his driveway, Evelyn had to start with the obvious: a proper power supply. Starting with Logic Pro 7 (running on a MacBook Pro) and a MOTU 896HD interface, the mobile studio was tricked out with a Buzz Audio Elixir preamp, Empirical Labs Distressors, a Tascam 2-track digital recorder (for capturing local atmospherics), an Akai S3200XL and MPC1000, a Yamaha DX7 (MIDI-connected to a vast library of synth sounds), a Technics SL-1210 turntable, a bulging DJ bag full of records and numerous mics, amps, cables and other instruments and outboard effects. With all that stuffed into a van, you can't just plug into the cigarette lighter.

“In the end, we found a guy who normally works on big tour buses,” Evelyn explains. “He found us an inverter, which transforms the power from the camper battery to a normal four-way plug system. But of course we actually had to customize that, too, and this is all happening while I'm running around town making sure that we've got enough rolling papers. [Laughs.] Everybody else is ringing me up going, ‘This isn't gonna happen!’”

Rhythm tracks were the order of the next five days on the road; with Taylor-Firth and Dawkins onboard, Evelyn would usually start things off with a beat or a loop, or he might use the downtime at a rest stop to come up with a bass line and hum it into his cell phone. Naturally, there were some minor technical obstacles to overcome when the whole studio was in motion, but instead of fighting them, Evelyn simply chose to fold them into the result.

“There was one funny thing about having the inverter,” he recalls with amusement. “I might be sampling a record or recording Chris' guitar while the camper was moving, and every time the driver changed gear, the inverter would go up and down in frequency. I think you can actually hear it on ‘Bringing It.’ It's a whirring sound, but I decided to leave it there because it's part and parcel of where we were. We just had to adjust. We might be going down the mountain and Robin is rocking from side to side trying to play his keys, and he's just like, ‘We need to stop.’ [Laughs.] So the driver would stop for a break, and we'd just get on with it. Then you look outside, and there's a waterfall coming down from the Pyrenees, and it's like, ‘Shiiiit!’ It was pretty inspiring.”

SOUND MIND & BODY

Not only was Evelyn intent on maintaining a loose, live feel throughout the sessions for Thought So…, but after 15-plus years of making records, he found himself returning to an unadorned, what-you-hear-is-what-you-get method of creating songs. Quantized beats wouldn't cut it; by accessing his massive library of live drummers and sampled breaks, he'd tap out a live rhythm until the sound and swing fit the surroundings. “Calling,” for instance, is a downtempo hypno-jazz instrumental that ebbs and flows with elongated string swells (fine-tuned over the years by Taylor-Firth using blended layers of E-mu Proteus and the Vienna Symphonic Library's viola) and Shovell's tastefully placed percussion. Evelyn identifies the song as a key product of his less-is-more aesthetic.

Acceptable Use Policy blog comments powered by Disqus

Want to use this article? Click here for options!