Sweeping Beauty
Dec 1, 2006 12:00 PM, By Ken Micallef
Dance and electronic music have always held the capacity to free the imagination and kick-start the soul. And while the all-important beat is typically revered, certain bold souls have expressed a more visual, even cinematic component in their music. In the '90s, Hollywood films such as The Jackal and City of Industry latched on to drum ‘n’ bass and trip-hop, using experimental textures to create mood music for sinister story lines. In the wake of Trainspotting, Ohm+: The Early Gurus of Electronic Music and even the barmy It's All Gone Pete Tong, there exists an even larger audience for music that mixes the lush textures of soundtrack composers — like John Barry and Nino Rota — with a four-to-the-floor groove. A seemingly impenetrable wall has always existed, until now.
“Where we come from sonically and what we try to do musically — the two are fairly linked,” Hybrid's Mike Truman says from a session at L.A.'s Wavecrest Studios. “One of our great passions is spending hours with Reaktor and MetaSynth creating an atmosphere that can kick off an idea for a track. The music we love goes from noise and orchestral arrangements to the soundtracks of Lalo Schifrin and John Williams and anything in between, whether it is really lush and tranquil or something glitchy and 22nd century. So the title I Choose Noise just stuck.”
C'MON FEEL THE NOISE
Referring to Hybrid's third album, I Choose Noise (Distinctive, 2006), Truman and partner Chris Healings surpass the lush textures/breakbeat rhythms of their debut, Wide Angle (Kinetic/Distinctive, 2000), and the darker follow-up, Morning Sci-Fi (Distinctive, 2003). Credit for the Welsh duo's musical maturation is due to the copious soundtrack work it has landed of late (including Domino, The Chronicles of Narnia, Man on Fire and Kingdom of Heaven), as well as collaborations with esteemed conductors and orchestras. But it also has something to do with the duo's ambition to move beyond done-to-death beats and preset sounds.
“I Choose Noise is definitely a product of our recent working methods,” Truman confirms. “We don't do as many singles and remixes now because we like tracks that you can't play out. In the dance-music industry, that is seen as a waste of time. So the only way we could make music like that is by creating an album that works cohesively from start to finish; that is the next dimension.”
“We don't only make dance music,” Healings adds. “So much of the music we listen to, everything from Arvo Pärt to Toru Takemitsu, doesn't have a beat behind it, and it stands up happily on its own. What we draw on is more wide ranging than club bangers.”
Hybrid claims an envious remix catalog that includes tracks by Radiohead, R.E.M., Moby, Future Sound of London, Jean Michel Jarre, UNKLE, the Crystal Method and BT, but the group's current workload is devoted to creating soundtracks for Hollywood blockbusters (next up: Catacombs, and director Tony Scott's Déjà Vu) and most recently, collaborating with Jane's Addiction's Perry Farrell for his new band Satellite Party's album coming out on Columbia in 2007. Hybrid still DJs at various residencies, but recording soundtracks with some of the best orchestras in the world gets them more excited than remixing 12-inch singles for club kids.
“Musically, we have pushed further into sound design and mood and texture,” Truman states, “making I Choose Noise more cinematic and sweeping. When we worked on Catacombs [which stars singer Pink and actress Shannyn Sossamon], we had to do 76 minutes worth of music in four weeks. It is a bizarre album: part Aphex Twin, part glitch. Our work methods have become much more efficient because of film work.”
Produced by Hybrid and featuring the vocals from Perry Farrell, Judy Tzuke, John “Quiver” Graham and Kirsty Hawkshaw; guitars from Farrell cohort Peter DiStefano; and the 36-piece Seattle Session Orchestra conducted by Harry Gregson-Williams, I Choose Noise challenges accepted notions of dance music. If anything, the album distances Hybrid even further from their dance-music base, with some tracks only briefly alluding to groove and bpm. This is a concept album, from the ethereal opening track “Secret Circles” and the 007-meets-big-beat grandeur of “Dogstar” to the breakbeat-infused title track and blissed-out closer “Just for Today.”
SUPERSTRINGS, RADICAL REAKTIONS
Although the album was conceived at Hybrid's Electrotek Studios in the Welsh countryside in Swansea, between a bird preserve and a wooded valley, I Choose Noise was recorded at several locations: the Seattle Session Orchestra at Seattle's Bastyr University Chapel, the drums in Swansea and the vocals and guitars at Wavecrest in Venice Beach. Eighty percent of the album is composed of acoustic instruments recorded on site, then digitally warped/assembled at Electrotek. Reaktor ruled in “making new noises.”
“There is never a moment when one computer doesn't have Reaktor running,” Truman says. “Reaktor is designed so you can add your own unusual presets, programs and ideas. It is a very open architecture for anything from synths to granular synthesis, sample transforming, beat slicing — it is a one-stop shop. A lot of the presets that people make for the community you can download on the Native Instruments Website. Some of it is genius; it may do only one thing well, but it might do that incredibly well.”
Other working tools came into play when developing string arrangements. Hybrid handed conducting/scoring duties off to Harry Gregson-Williams, but it all began at Electrotek.
“We use libraries of sample strings, the Vienna Symphonic Library and SONiVOX MI's Sonicimplants Symphonic,” Truman says. “We use those for mapping out a basic idea, then we might sample textures from other contemporary works, then we take what we've written and all the samples, and a friend orchestrates it. Then the synth strings and samples are deleted or muted, and we record the live strings [in all of three hours for I Choose Noise]. Then we return to Swansea and put the strings in the mix. The original mix doesn't sound that impressive, but once you put the real strings on it, it all comes to life.”
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