leave luck to heaven

2011-11-27T09:58:00.000+08:00

2011-11-27T09:55:00.001+08:00

Matthew Herbert talks recording.

One area where Herbert has eventually compromised sound quality for usability is in his choice of sampler. “I’ve moved almost entirely, very reluctantly, to software samplers, mainly because of the quickness of editing. For example, the pig record is made with six months to a year’s worth of recordings. I record onto a Nagra V, onto a hard drive, and then transfer that onto a computer. So it’s very easy for me to drag it across and import it.

“A typical record of mine will end up with two to three thousand recordings, and handling all that data is best suited to the computer. It still doesn’t sound as good as the Emu, which I used for a long time. My favourite sampler is still the first Akai made, the 612, because it’s like an analogue synth, all knobs and buttons, and you can edit physically with two sliders. There’s no menus or anything like that, so it feels more intuitive and like an instrument, and it sounds wonderful as well. But just from a data management point of view, I feel compelled to use a computer, unfortunately.

“Also, I sample everything in stereo, but microphone inputs on hardware samplers have always been mono. I recorded the whole [One Pig] album in M/S, so I could decide how narrow or wide I wanted the stereo image. I could pull out detail, or sort of zoom out, more towards the atmosphere of the room. So before I’ve even got into making music, before I start to put the pieces of music together, just that one thing — how wide or narrow the stereo image is going to be — is an artistic decision for me.”
Once the raw recordings for a project such as One Pig have been safely transferred to their new digital home in the Mac, there arises the question of how to turn them into music. Again, the key issue for Herbert is finding a balance between matching the power and immediacy of chart music and respecting the integrity of the source recordings and the stories they tell. “You want the provenance to be clear, and you want the story to still carry through, and the atmosphere to still be there. There’s no point in recording a pig being born and treating it so it sounds indistinguishable from an electric guitar. So there’s a tension there, and that tension is something I’m always working out, and sometimes I get it right and sometimes I get it wrong. It’s a pretty hard thing to get right all the time, I think.

“There’s quite a few different techniques that I use. One of the main ones used to be to identify a key piece of audio that you feel carries the story most effectively, and then chop it up. I used to do that manually, and now — I can’t decide if it’s a good thing or a bad thing — Logic will chop it up at transients and lay it out over the keyboard in 10 seconds. So basically something that I spent the last 20 years doing manually, and has taken hours and hours of my time, can now be done incredibly quickly. But unfortunately, it nudges them straight up to the transients, whereas I much prefer a more random approach.”

Matthew Herbert’s horror of falling into lazy habits or repeating himself has led him to some interesting decisions as to how samples should actually be played. He dislikes samples that are ruthlessly edited, to the point where his manifesto now incorporates a prohibition against trimming the tail of a sample. “It makes you play differently if you hit the key and the transient is heard one second afterwards. It forces you to play in a very different way than if it’s instant. And that’s something that I find very unsatisfactory about modern software sample libraries and synths, just how instant everything is. There isn’t that element of chance there.”

He also forces himself to program the samples in different ways. “Particularly for someone like me, who’s played piano my whole life, I’m still inputting sounds for the most part on a piano keyboard, but just the shape of my hands and I how I play it leads me to input music in a certain way. I’m trying to break that, so recently I got a little Akai MPD thing and I’m trying to play bass lines and chords on that. It’s forcing me to use my fingers differently, so the chords aren’t just the same. That’s what the manifesto is about: giving yourself limitations and parameters to work around, and forcing yourself to engage with the process every time.”

2011-11-25T11:01:00.000+08:00

2011-11-25T10:56:00.003+08:00

The artist Donald Judd sat for an interview with Bruce Hooton in 1965 to create an ‘oral history’ for the Smithsonian’s Archives of American Art. In the transcript, Judd manages to say an awful lot while giving away precious little. But about halfway, this changes. Hooton describes a drawing of Judd’s as “monumental” – but Judd insists that the drawing is nothing more than a “post and lintel arrangement,” entirely unprepossessing.

Hooton, an experienced arts reviewer, has no idea what to make of this. He loses his cool:

MR. HOOTON: There’s no kind of philosophical point to the whole thing? … One decides to throw paint; one decided not to throw paint; or to simplify things. I mean…what?

Now, Donald Judd was always direct. He discussed his art with candor and disliked any attempt made by others to label it. But in answer to Hooton’s incredulousness, Judd stops talking about his work or even art in general. He just talks about experience, immediacy, and a different way to work and live. He talks about a moment, the moment, where something is created that changes everything around it forever.

Recently, Erik Brunetti moved to Marfa, Texas, with his wife Emmelie and their young daughter. Among other things, Marfa is home to the Donald Judd Foundation and a community of people who are there to work and live as Judd did: doing as they like, inventing their own interests, avoiding the played-out and narrow. These words were Judd’s, but in a way the ideas belong to Brunetti.

It is impossible to overstate the importance of Erik Brunetti’s vision, as it continues to evolve through his label, FUCT, and as it manifests in his life and art. People who have been following Brunetti since the DEN ONE days speak about him with reverence: Too real to be an enigma, too tough to be ephemeral, but a legend and an icon all the same.

OK here goes… I can’t begin this conversation without acknowledging how strange things are in the world right now. Wall Street is down the road from where I am but it is also happening everywhere. I know this is a heavy question to start with, but have these upheavals influenced your thinking and your work?

I have always been politically aware. Always. I knew this was coming years ago. The USA has entrenched itself so deep with Middle Eastern affairs [that] it has finally come to bite us in the ass; Middle Eastern affairs meaning: supporting murderous hostile occupations throughout the Middle East. For example, Palestine – who are finally trying to climb out from under the apartheid of Israel [and] the USA – are finally seeking statehood at the UN, rightfully so. Obama has said he will veto this move. This has, in turn, isolated America from the rest of the world. Obama has completely lied in regards to Palestine statehood (see his speech in Cairo). Americans need to realize that Republicans and Democrats are the same exact thing. The US government is controlled by AIPAC: they make the decisions; they are the shot callers. With every election, every candidate panders to AIPAC due to campaign contributions, and the power they harness.
Currently, the US government is trying to “Wag the Dog” and invent these ludicrous stories of Iran teaming up with the “Mexican drug cartel,” who are “plotting to assassinate the Saudi ambassador.” This is fabricated to distract people from looking at the real problem: Wall Street. Israel [and the] USA are just itching to attack Iran, war is big business. All of this is directly tied to the criminals on Wall Street.

Tell me more about your political awareness and your art. How do they relate?

FUCT is not my art. It is a brand, with well-thought-out graphics and illustrations applied to garments, advertisements, photos etc. If you look at the entire entity as a whole, in theory, it could be considered art. I guess my mere being itself is the art. As I stated prior, I have always been immersed in politics, the government and world affairs. As a human being I feel it is my obligation to be aware. It is the force which controls the world, the economy, the people. I cannot walk around blindly being fed the news via the Western media. I have an immense library, in which I have read every book. I love to travel and meet people, I am the guy at the dinner table that will indeed bring up the forbidden topic of “politics and religion”.

Yes, I changed the orientation of that first question a little bit because I realised I wanted to know more about how political awareness fits into art for you, rather than how it fits in with FUCT. It makes sense to me that being aware and continuing to evolve – personally, politically, artistically – are key. I also think that this is especially difficult to do right now. There is always an option to close off because the world feels too messed up. Why do you think it’s important to stay open, stay evolving?

For me personally, I have a four year-old daughter. I want something left for her in 20 years. At the rate the government / economy is going there will be nothing. Everyone needs to evolve, and research what is taking place. The USA are the masters of deception, tricking the citizens via the controlled media. People close off, because they feel betrayed by their government. They were lied to. Most of the US citizens that pay taxes do not even know where it is going.

Can you explain a bit more about your art practice as separate to FUCT, and your plans for that?

I began FUCT while I was young, my thinking process had not developed to the current state it is in. My art and FUCT are different in the sense that FUCT is a brand, strictly for commerce and making a living, whilst my art is something I do daily, instinctively. Draw, paint, sculpt, photograph and so forth. However, my taste and thoughts cross over into some of the FUCT content. Currently, I am very much into theory, and the process of my art. When I make it, I I always need a synopsis or meaning or it is not relevant to me. Art is very subjective, depending who you talk to. I was born an artist, it is what I do. It’s that simple.

I moved to Marfa, Texas, to concentrate more on making art. I felt I had too many creative distractions in my peripheral to work in Los Angeles, so I left. My close friend Matt Jones turned me on to Marfa a while back. When I went there I felt a strong sense of support in the arts community. Marfa’s popularity is primarily based on the Donald Judd Foundation. [The Chinati Foundation is the contemporary museum founded by Judd in Marfa]. The town is very small, population 2000, everyone knows each other, etc. Christopher Wool lives and works in Marfa, Emmelie is always talking with Boyd Elder, the illustrator who did the Eagles album covers throughout the 70s, he lives there. It’s a great place. Los Angeles, at least to my knowledge, is too caught up in ‘street art’ and hype-driven openings, which produce the worst piles of shit I have ever seen. Just dreadful to look at.

Right back at the beginning, can you remember what you wanted FUCT to be? what was the space that you wanted it to fill for people?

I wanted FUCT to be the middle finger in the air, in the space of only surf and skate companies.(This was long before “street wear” came to fruition)

If you were just starting out in 2011, do you think FUCT would have happened?

FUCT would not have happened as a brand in 2011, FUCT would have become a movement.

I think in a way FUCT does qualify as a movement. It has inspired so many people for better and for worse (I know your feelings on Shephard Fairey etc). It has changed things in a lot of different fields and caused progress. Do you look at FUCT as a particular chapter, or is it still evolving?

I look at it as a chapter in my life. However, I am still evolving as a person.

What was the last thing you saw, read, heard, felt or did that made you go ‘holy shit’?

Watching Rick Perry on the Republican debate. Everything that came out of his mouth was horrific.

What was the last thing that made you go ‘holy shit’ in a good way?

My daughter continuously does things that amaze me.

Tell me about Love Awareness. Actually I want to make that a bit more specific: ‘Love Awareness’ sounds hopeful. It seems to fit in with what we have been talking about. Does it, for you?

Yes, I would agree with that. It is hopeful. Originally, it was just a name for the FUCT blog but has developed into something more, it seems to have taken on a life of its own. We began receiving emails about (and accusing us of) being a cult and so forth. That is where the inspiration for “The Doctrine” viral commercials stemmed from. We decided to make The LAPG come to life via film. I still need to film the third and final clip. It ties the first two together.

I think it’s interesting how, at the moment, people in creative fields but also more consumer-based ones are taking it upon themselves to send messages out to people that there is still hope. In a way, it’s consumerism being turned on its head – it’s like using marketing to get alternative viewpoints and ‘the truth’ out there. Is that another way that FUCT is evolving?

FUCT has always been an honest brand. We do not have a board of directors or shareholders to report to. FUCT has always been subversive counter culture in the purest form. It’s not an act we take on because it’s trendy to be nihilistic for a season. What we put forth is what we are. FUCT has very deep roots in various subcultures.

What is the future of FUCT?

The future of FUCT is strong. We have always been on the path of revolution / anti-government / anti-big business, therefore consumers want to support our brand. They feel like it matters, and can sense the legitimacy in what we create. It is very communal in that sense. We are bringing on board some really creative kids from up north to shake things up even more. The things they are doing are reminiscent of what FUCT is currently doing. Very DIY group of kids. Also, we are in the process of compiling and releasing a FUCT book, spanning the existence of the brand.

After everything you’ve done, if you had one message, what would it be?

Jail the Feds, Free the Heads.

The Heavy Mental - Erik Brunetti Interview by Amelia Stein

2011-11-24T17:48:00.000+08:00

Ritornell. Great studio!

2011-11-24T17:40:00.002+08:00

Korg Monotron delay and duo. Fun fun fun! Time for those dubby sirens.

2011-10-18T16:09:00.001+08:00

2011-09-09T09:25:00.002+08:00

2011-08-25T12:34:00.000+08:00

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2011-06-14T09:46:00.001+08:00

2011-06-09T10:14:00.003+08:00

2011-05-30T09:45:00.001+08:00

Serious gear porn @ ric604

2011-05-24T12:15:00.004+08:00

2011-05-19T12:48:00.001+08:00

2011-05-18T11:42:00.002+08:00

2011-05-09T11:19:00.001+08:00

2011-05-06T13:41:00.001+08:00

2011-05-06T13:14:00.000+08:00

2011-05-06T13:12:00.001+08:00

2011-03-19T12:58:00.001+08:00

Allen Farmelo's wonderfully designed API console. Read about how he draws his inspirations from architecture and nature landscapes. Inspiring!

2011-03-09T16:47:00.003+08:00

1960's Fender Proto-Types ~ A PAIR OF THEM!!! Also as part of this purchase are two rare and seldom found instruments ~ proto-types from Leo Fender's laboratory that were given as gifts to Geoff Fullerton by Leo Fender. It is rare to find such items as Leo Fender traditionally ordered all proto-types to be destroyed. Both of these instruments are featured in Mr. Fullerton's Book "Guitar Legends ~ The Evolution of the Guitar from Fender to G&L." These are instruments of interest which would best be viewed in a museum setting. We do not look at these proto-types as instruments to be played. They are unique in that you have a window into the creative mind of Mr. Fender and can appreciate the multi-faceted direction he took in product innovation and design. Also included are copies of written appraisals on both proto-types done in 1994 valuing them at $20,000 each.
Source: Buffalo Brothers Guitars

2011-03-09T16:45:00.001+08:00

2011-03-06T11:14:00.001+08:00

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2011-02-10T08:08:00.001+08:00

2011-01-16T08:53:00.001+08:00

Beautiful. Tehn never cease to amaze.

2011-01-04T10:07:00.001+08:00

2011. Same shit different day.

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2010-07-29T17:42:00.002+08:00

Been hanging out way too much at the Macrumours forum. But this is a pretty interesting read.

The state of Apple's professional line.

2010-07-28T11:52:00.001+08:00

2010-07-27T12:06:00.001+08:00

2010-07-22T09:57:00.000+08:00

2010-07-22T09:55:00.000+08:00

2010-07-05T17:28:00.001+08:00

Gie mixing studio. The guitar cabs are actually bass traps.

2010-07-02T12:19:00.007+08:00

The trance version is pretty cool.

2010-07-02T12:13:00.001+08:00

2010-06-30T18:25:00.000+08:00

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2010-05-16T11:16:00.002+08:00

2010-05-04T12:27:00.002+08:00

Learn a new phrase today - style stalking

1.
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2010-05-04T12:16:00.002+08:00

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