Smooth as Sylk
May 1, 2001 12:00 PM, By James Rotondi
“I'm coming from the DJ point of view, so the drums have
to be rocking.”
Like many globe-trotting DJs, King Britt appreciates fine clothes, good eats, and a bangin' party. But get him back to his home studio in his native Philadelphia, and the man formerly known as Sylkworm — DJ for ’80s jazz-hop act Digable Planets — eschews such pleasures for the mechanical joys of the MPC-2000 and Roland VS-1680. It stands to reason that with a prolific output including remixes and tracks under the monikers Scuba, Oba Funke, and Sylk 130, Britt is obviously not slacking off. He's remixed Macy Gray, Tori Amos, Brandy, and Zap Mama and charted dance hits like “Strong Song” (as King & Wink), “Supernatural” (as Firefly), and “Tribal Confusion” (as E-Culture) with his Ovum Records partner, mega-DJ Josh Wink.
But the project closest to Britt's heart is Sylk 130, the funk-soul collective he launched in 1998 with the release of When the Funk Hits the Fan (Ovum), a loving and surprisingly authentic musical tribute to the late-’70s soul platters that Britt heard while he was growing up in Philly. The new Sylk 130 release Re-Members Only (Six Degrees) is a similarly conceptual homage, this time paying respect to the ’80s generation. In fact, the album features cameo performances from several ’80s singers, including Yaz's Alison Moyet, ABC's Martin Fry, and Alma “Last Night a DJ Saved My Life” Horton, as well as guest vocals by disco diva Kathy Sledge, Pos and Trugoy of De La Soul, and Ursula Rucker.
“The first Sylk 130 album is basically about my foundation,” says Britt, “what my parents force-fed me, and what constitutes my roots. Re-Members Only is about the period in the ’80s when I really discovered my own taste in music — everything from the Smiths to New Order to This Mortal Coil.” Britt says he'll set the next installment of his trilogy in the future, with a cyber-rock-soul vibe he likens to “Stereolab meets Blade Runner.”
Meanwhile, Britt-ophiles can chew on Re-Members Only, a soul-food feast of booming Linn and Oberheim DMX — approved drum samples, retro synthesizer flavors, gorgeous chamber-string arrangements, and some incendiary vocal performances, such as Moyet's soaring star turn on the single “Happiness.” Other highlights include “For Love,” with one of the last sax performances of the late Philly great Grover Washington Jr., and the smooth piano work of R&B producer James Poyser (Eric Benet, Erykah Badu) on “Incident on a Couch, Part II.” Unlike many DJs-turned-producers, Britt is not content to let half-committed singers simply riff over static two-chord breakbeats. As a result, Britt and his fabulous friends have given the electronic soul genre what it most desperately needed: great songs, baby, great songs.
A lot of artists are doing ’80s revival records now, so your timing for Re-Members Only is right on the money.
When I started working on the album, I was worried. I did it two years ago and I was trying to stay ahead of the curve. I knew the ’80s thing was coming, and boom — now I'm right in the heart of it. Everyone's embracing it.
It seems like you used a lot of early digital drum machine sounds. Are those actual Linn drums or samples on the album?
I'm heavily into sampled sounds. When you sample drum sounds from records, you get so much more than just the sound of a drum. You get that particular room sound and how they EQ'd and processed it. So 90 percent of those sounds on the record were drum hits taken from records. There's only one full drum loop on there, and I can't talk about that! The drum sounds on the track for “One and Only” with Martin Fry is a Linn drum I sampled; the machine belongs to Grover Washington Jr.'s son. But I EQ'd the Linn drum sounds as I sampled them so they'd sound a little heavier. Drums are my thing; I'm coming from the DJ point of view, so the drums have to be rocking.
On “Happiness,” my boy Ted Thomas played live drums into my Roland VS-1680. I EQ'd his breakbeats, processed them, and then sampled and cut them up with the Akai MPC-2000 XL. I programmed new beats using his drum sounds. I went for that huge ’80s gated reverb sound — I basically wanted the drums to sound like Scritti Politti on that song. I had a lot of help on the album, too. John Smeltz, who does engineering for the Roots and Common, and Phil “The Butcher” Niccolo, the original hip-hop drum guy, helped a lot with the drum sounds. Before the drums go to tape, we run them through a Neve console with a beautiful sound. John also uses the new Euphonix board.
Take me through your production and writing process.
I start by getting together the drum sounds I want to use, and I'll program a nice groove on the MPC-2000 XL — usually a two-bar, sometimes a four-bar figure. Then I'll pull out some keyboard sounds. I have a Mini Moog, Memory Moog, Roland MKS-50, and all the controllers, like the Roland PG-300 programmer. For this album, I really wanted ’80s sounds, and of course a lot of those synthesizers are from the ’80s. I would just tweak some of the presets I normally never use, but the sounds were so true to the era.
With the keyboards I come up with the chord progression to go over the drums — maybe a four-bar loop for the verses. When I'm putting this stuff down I'm hearing the vocals in my head. I actually imagine Björk or Chaka Khan singing melodies. Then I'll do the bass lines. I grew up with that Stevie Wonder bass sound in my household, so my songs have got to have funky bass lines. Then I decide what the hook is going to be, and I'll copy over the drum part to a chorus section and change the chords underneath. If I want to write a bridge, I'll program one more sequence, but there are usually only two or three sequences per song based around drum patterns.
I use e Yamaha 03D mixing desk at home, and I record all the drums in automix. That way I don't need to do drops within a sequence. I'll do it live as if I were DJing. I keep the sequence running, and then I automix everything. After that, I dump it all to the Roland VS-1680 with MIDI Time Code, so if I need to add something, I can do that on a virtual track — it's all in time. The whole song is sequenced at that point, and the drums and drops are where I want them.
Once the song is completely written, I dump it from the 1680 to tape in the studio. Then the singers come in and do their thing, and after that I'll bring in instrumentalists. For instance, on “Incident on a Couch, Part II,” James Poyser came in and played acoustic piano over the whole electronic sequence. I also brought in a harp player, and she played harp just for the fills — that whole track is a tribute to Trevor Horn and Art of Noise. After we do vocals and instruments, I go back and do another automated mix using the SSL, with an ear to the vocal tracks. I might want to drop some drums here or there or make some final tweaks. Then we throw it to tape, and that's it.
I did a lot of writing with two of my good friends. Tim Motzer is a fantastic guitar player, and he and I wrote “For Love” together. Philip Charles — that's my boy. He's a sound designer and one of the best bass players in Philly. We wrote “Romeo's Fate” and “Beauty of Machines” together.
What is your basic setup?
At home, my setup is the Akai MPC-2000 XL; Roland JV-1080, JD-990, and JD-800 synths; Memory Moog; Mini Moog; Roland VS-1680 digital workstation; Korg Vocoder; Korg MS-20 analog modular patch-bay synth; and Moogerfooger pedals — the low-frequency pedal and the Ring Mod pedal; I use them as inserts on the Yamaha 03D. If I need extra effects, I use the 1680, which has two effects cards. In the studio, sometimes we'll use Pro Tools to make certain kinds of edits. I listen to everything through Mackie-powered studio monitors.
On hip-hop or house tracks I do everything at home. For house and dance stuff I like lo-fi, but it still has to sound clean. But for big productions, like Sylk 130 or this young lady I'm producing — Michelle Shapiro, on Warner Bros. — I'll preproduce at home and then go into a tape studio to cut it. I'm going to start using Logic Audio. My roommate just got Propellerhead's Reason. When I saw it, I was going, “Oh my God! What the fuck?” All you need is Reason, a laptop, digital I/O, and a MIDI keyboard. It's crazy!
How did you create the stunning string arrangements on “Happiness” and “Rising”?
I'm a huge strings fan — both the kind of sounds that Rotary Connection used in the ’60s and the sort that 4Hero does now — so they had to be done the right way. They had to have depth. On “Happiness” and “Rising” we wrote the string arrangements after the rest of the music and vocals were done. I worked in The Studio, owned by Larry Gold, who is a Philly legend. He used to do strings for Philly International, and he's done everything from Jennifer Lopez's “If You Want My Love” to Brandy to R. Kelly. He also used to play cello in a band called Woody's Truckstop with Todd Rundgren in the ’60s, so he goes way back. Because he's a string player, he built his studio with strings in mind. It sounds great.
On those two songs, Larry did the arrangement on a Synclavier. We retweaked them a little; then he brought in the string quartet, and we doubled that. The doubling makes it sound rich, and so does the way we dropped it in the track. You want to go easy on the reverb — not too much, just a nice small-room sound. I'm coming from the DJ point of view. I wanted the strings to be rhythmic, so I used the Roland JV-1080 orchestra card and came up with ideas for those stabs in the verses. I played a basic line for the chorus on the keyboard. Gloria Schenk, who is with the Philadelphia Orchestra, expanded on my ideas, making the chorus parts much fuller. She loves to do other projects besides classical. She had a string quartet in the house, and we went into the studio and knocked it out.
A lot of DJ-oriented vocal music is really just a groove with singing over it, whereas these are really songs — verses and choruses, great hooks, cool changes.
Well, there was no joking with the vocalists, even on the first record. Everyone was professional. Take the Kathy Sledge track. I wrote the words, everything, so I knew exactly how she should sing it. Generally I'll hum or sing it to the singer, so they at least can get the cadences down. But that's Kathy Sledge — she's going to kill it! I give them a guideline, and then they go with it. I don't even need to tell Alma [Horton] anything; she's from the church — I hum it once and she just brings it. For the Alison Moyet song, I sent her the instrumental tracks pretty much done. She wrote the words to it, so she had in her mind how she was going to sing it.
You give the singers a lot of nice chord changes to sing over.
Sometimes we run into problems. Kathy had a somewhat hard time with the changes I wrote for “Rising.” I grew up with James Poyser, even bought my first keyboard from him, so I always ask him for advice. And I said, “How do you think these chords sound?” He's like, “Man, for someone who never took lessons, these are like jazz progressions.” But I honestly have no clue what I'm playing. I just do what feels and sounds right to the beat. I asked James if I should take lessons, and he said, “Just keep doing what you're doing.”
I read your “Best of 2000” picks on your Web site (www.kingbritt.net). You have very diverse tastes, don't you?
You have to, man. Every genre of music is saying something, and all music is relative — especially now, because of technology. You listen to country music now, and they're using hip-hop beats. Like Shelby Lynne: that really isn't a country record — it's more like ’60s soul. There are no boundaries anymore, at least to my ears. Radio needs to embrace that way of thinking. In the ’80s, radio was very diverse — you'd hear all kinds of music on one station. When that happens again, the world will be a better place.
It's hard enough for James Rotondi to make a living in the boxing world, so every now and then he's got to do something that might not agree with his principles. Basically, he has to forget he's got any.
| Want to use this article? Click here for options! |  |
