Album of the Week: Limacon ‘Tarry Not’

Album of the Week: Limacon ‘Tarry Not’

15 January, 2010 | 10.09AM

• Written by: Terry Church
• Filed under: Music News: album of the week, limacon, thoughtless music

You’re never more than a beat or two away from a warbled roulette of bass on Limaçon’s darkly radiant debut album ‘Tarry Not’, our first ever Album Of The Week on Beatport.

It is aptly titled, for it doesn’t beat around the bush, or bookend its intention with a half-cooked intro and an anti-climatic pad rendition, as so often dance producers do when faced with the daunted longplayer. 

From the first kick on the album’s opener ‘Shaken’, you’re thrown straight into the deep end. And how deep it is.

Christopher T. Lee’s complex techno excursions evolve at a brisk, unforgiving pace. Layered constricting circles of bass and bleeps coil around the feet, and curl their way into your brain, feeding it with images of forgotten cities, and the blurry lights of the future.

Like a rush of blood, it pulses, heats, and urges you to the floor with the promise of adrenaline.

So often it delivers. From the beautiful Trentemøller-styled melodic moments on ‘Labels’, to the pitched-down minimal waves of sound on ‘Limantour South’, it fuses dancefloor-friendly rhythms with complex funk at every head-spinning turn.

We caught up with Limaçon as he jumped off a plane in Washington D.C. during his East Coast tour, for an in-depth chat about production, music, and his album.

Describe the San Francisco techno/minimal scene right now. Who’s making the best moves?

San Francisco is great. It has blossomed over the last four or five years. A lot of forward thinking minds have moved in, and they’re really into the scene.

Unlike a lot of other cities, San Francisco is not so much about playing for the crowd, as it is about supporting the scene.

A lot of guys are bringing out people who many may not have heard of, and there’s a lot going on compared to four or five years ago. 

Kontrol is one of the strongest techno nights in the city, and has really exploded. Every month, they bring in top talent from Europe and the place is packed every event.

What was it like growing up in North California?

I was born in wine country. It was in high school that I really discovered electronic music. My dad got some tapes with electronic music on it from some of my brother’s friends.

It was Aphex Twin, Orbital, The Orb, and so on. Then one day, my dad got some tickets to The Orb and asked me if I wanted to go and see them in concert. I didn’t really want to go, but I did, and it changed my life.

To feel those bassbins rattle your chest for the first time at an electronic music event is amazing.

When did you make the switch to dance music?

At first, I was into leftfield and ambient. Then in about 1999 or 2000, I got into the rave scene as it blew up.

I found the dance aspect of electronic music so energising. I began to expermient with genres.

Then around 2003, I got hold of a Steve Bug mix from Paxahau, and it got me seriously into minimal.

It was so stripped down, yet groovy, and totally original.

It’s funny you should mention Steve Bug as he released your first track.

All of labels influenced me. Originally I sent him some demos. I didn’t expect much as my first demo was quite housey, and this was when Poker Flat were still mainly pushing minimal.

But Steve contacted me and said he wanted to sign it to Poker Flat, which was really exciting.

How long did it take you to get to your first release?

I started producing in 1997, at first with just a synth. I just twiddled and played around really, until 2003 when I got more serious and started finishing tracks properly.

I had been obsessed with playing electronic music live using only hardware for many years, but I realised that I needed to start making complete tracks.

It took a long time to learn how to mix down and produce. It took two years to get my sound right.

And actually, before my Poker Flat release, I had a number of releases lined up with other labels but they all fell through during the great distribution collapse, so it was mainly luck that Steve Bug released my first one.

That must have been hard - to have all of your first releases disappear during the distro collapse.

Yeah it was. It’s still hard to get labels to listen and respond to your stuff now. You have to keep pushing, and keep sending out demos to see what you get back.

What do you do for a day job?

I was a higher education administrator, but I’ve just got a full time job working with a manufacturer who makes professional camera bags. I’m a pro photographer, so it’s great to be involved in that field.

What’s your photography like?

I’ve sold a couple of prints. I mainly do fine art, nature photography, and a lot of macro. With any skill, it has to be used as a trade, and you have to use your skills to do work for other people.

It’s the same with music. It has to be for someone else, and that’s quite the conundrum. To have all this personal passion for something, and you have to make it work for someone else, that’s a bit weird.

Well, you could always set up your own label?

I’ve thought about it as I’ve had some difficulty forging good relationships with labels.

Auralism and Thoughtless Music are the two I’ve found myself closest to. They both gave me more freedom than other labels.

And they took my photography and used it as label art which is totally cool.

Thoughtless gave me a lot of artistic freedom. They don’t have a locked down label sound like you get with a lot of other labels.

A lot of labels can be like, “This is the label sound”, but I think that’s detrimental to a label’s development as it doesn’t leave room for experimentation.

Well I guess, they have a chosen experimentation, but it can be like they’re digging their own grave. Things always change. I’m never stuck with the same sound for more than two tracks [laughs].

What is your sound?

My sound? Refinement. So much of my music is about refinement. I started young, and made frenetic, fast music.

I’ve found myself scaling it back over the years, and working more and more with space. It’s not so overwhelming now.

As you can see, I try to talk about the aspects of music, rather than certain genres. The construct of a particular piece interests me, and not necessarily what genre it is in.

You can feel that construction of sound in your music. Sonic evolution is always there, lurking in the background.

Yeah, there’s quite a wide range of sound and crossover material in my tracks. You need that evolution of sound.

It can be jarring on the floor, to have new lines constantly coming in, but that makes it totally fresh.

It gets people into a new head space. That makes my tracks great as bridge-tracks between genres in a DJ set.

And when I play my tracks, people really dance.

How do you play out these days?

I haven’t played live since I stopped being all hardware. Right now I use three decks, and an Elektron Machinedrum.

It’s a phenomenal piece of kit for playing out. You set the tempo on Machinedrum to match it to the decks. It’s not synced through midi, but rather beat-matched via headphones.

So that means you can mix into someone else’s DJ set using hardware?

Yeah, it’s really cool. The Machinedrum is basically a percussion synth.

Why did you stop doing the full hardware live sets?

Full hardware was such a big headache. I basically did eight bar loops, and subtracted or added loops together to build up, or breakdown tracks. But it became really hard to keep up with everything.

A track was basically a collection of tracks on 8 bar, and every time I played it out it was different.

I also found that the hardware sound quality was not as good as turntables.

And, as sad as it sounds, I actually think softsynths are much more diverse and flexible than hardware.

Hardware takes so much back-end work and massaging, and the signals that come out are so hot and raw that they never sound as good as properly mastered records.

How does your studio look these days?

Along with the Machinedrum and another Elektron synth called the Monomachine, I still have my first ever Nord Lead synth, and a Novation SuperNova.

I’m mainly softsynths these days, and use Native Instruments’ Massive and Absynth.

I run it all through Acid Pro. Believe it or not, I made my whole album in Acid Pro 7.

However, I will be moving to Ableton Live 8 soon. I’ve had it sitting on my shelf for like four months, as I’ve been too busy to check it out.

Acid Pro is quite unusual.

Well I came from the loop-based way of producing. It was all 8 bar or 16 bar loops, and Acid really fitted that mould.

I loaded my hardware loops into the computer and then did the layout. So Acid was good for audio loops, but not so great for everything else.

Like, I can’t sidechain in Acid. I can do a mono sidechain, but there’s no stereo sidechain which is retarded.

No sidechaining? That’s unbelievable. Especially considering how much bass movement you have in your tracks.

For basslines, you have to sidechain really. I didn’t do it for a long time, but it helps so much to bump something out of the way.

You can have a bassline running throughout a track, but the kick still needs to be heard. Bass you can do in mono, but it gets really fun when you control other elements through sidechain like a pad to a snare, or rhythmic percussion to a synth. That causes it to pulse in really cool ways.

Your music is full of pulse, particularly in the low-end.

Bass is what moves you. That’s what it’s all about. That’s why people are on the dancefloor.

A lot of my musical progression has been about where the bass hits. How it moves you.

I love the different aspects of bass. I believe each frequency has its own place, and my basslines are made up of lots of different elements.

Sometimes one bassline will be made up of three or four synths. Each one has lots of different elements, so it hits lots of places in the spectrum.

Bass is what moves you. That’s what it’s all about. That’s why people are on the dancefloor. A lot of my musical progression has been about where the bass hits. How it moves you.

I can’t stand tracks that have those one line instruments [sings a flat arpeggiated sound]. To go from one thing to another to another - that’s your hook.

Your album ‘Tarry Not’ really proves the concept of moving sound. It constantly evolves.

It’s really about refining. It all has to gel at the end of the day. I pick elements that will fit well into an instrument before I refine it. It’s a lot like a puzzle - you have to find two or three elements that gel together.

What’s your favourite synth for causing bass chaos?

What’s really nice about the Monomachine is that you can do parameter locks, which will lock a parameter to a particular note. So you can do it all over a synth line, and it’s so quick to dial in different measures.

You just press a button and move the knob to where you want it to be. That’s really important as making music has to be quick, otherwise you’ll lose an idea. That can be frustrating.

It must have taken you years to get to that point, where you can dial out tracks quickly.

From afar, electronic music seems easy, but it’s actually very complicated. Sound design is very difficult. That’s a whole other schooling [laughs]. You have to train your ears to understand different frequencies.

What speakers do you have in your studio?

Near field, Mackee HR824s. I also have the 1200 sub that comes with them, although I only turn it on at the end of a mixdown for those super low ends.

I used to mix tracks with the sub turned on, but found that the room coloured it too much.

It’s the room thats the most important thing when considering sound quality, much more so than your speakers. No matter what speakers you have, you’ll still hear the room.

I used to have a small boxy room, but quickly realised the downfall of that - it creates a lot of additive waves right in your face.

All my tracks weren’t punchy, and there was a big trough in the 70. So I tended to overpower the 70, and on a different system it boomed way too loud.

Keeping your sound away from walls is really essential.

How do you do it?

I have this amazing IK Multimedia plug in, that tunes your room and adjusts your music to cancel out your room sound.

It gives you between 16 and 32 monitoring points to put your mic, so it takes a really complete picture of your entire room.

That sounds really useful.

Yeah, and it’s only 600 or 700 bucks. Do you know how much it would cost have some guy come and tune your room?

Let’s talk more about your album. Firstly, where did you get the title ‘Tarry Not’?

I’ve always had drive in my life. To be productive. To do something worthwhile. My music is an example of that.

It’s thoughtful, has a lot of depth, but also works on the floor. It’s great for dancing. A lot of thought, drive, and energy has been put into it, and into my life.

You can’t wait around in life, you can’t dilly dally.

I let the music sell all on its own, and not on my connections...everyone says let the music speak, but really it’s more who you know.

Is that so?

When I got into music, and tried to make music, I realised it would be a struggle. I’m not really a social person. I’m not a party person.

I don’t have a big following, or too many friends. So I put most of my energy into the music.

I let the music sell all on its own, and not on my connections. That’s a really hard way to go about it. In this business, it’s who you know, naturally. I mean, if you know someone, there is a bigger chance that you’ll give them a break or a gig.

Everyone says let the music speak, but really it’s more who you know. It’s kind of a closed circuit.

When did you first connect with Thoughtless Music?

I’ve always been a fan of Noah Pred’s productions, from back in the day on labels like Immigrant.

When I heard that he had started up Thoughtless, I was intriguid. I shopped him some tracks, and it was an instant match.

‘Rise’ was our first release together. Then we did another EP, and a couple of remixes, before this album.

We have a great working relationship, and my sound seems to gel more with his label, than any other. A lot of the labels I’ve worked with were just one-offs.

Tracks like ‘The Line’ are quite banging, but then you’ve got cuts like ‘Limantour South’ and ‘Shaken’, which are quite slow and deliberate. Where did those slower grooves come from?

I love slower grooves. With ‘Limantour South’, there were some people in San Francisco that were playing tech house, but pitched down to about 110.

When the tempo comes down, you get this really slow groove, that’s much sexier.

You have so much more space to work with, to play with. When you up the tempo to, God forbid, 130, it’s the drive not the groove that keeps you dancing.

I’ve worked a lot with slower tempos too. ‘Nudge’ is the fastest track on the album at 128, which is strange as it’s quite hypnotic and relaxed, but driving too. I try to not go any higher than that because you tend to lose space and funkiness.

That sounds quite interesting about the pitched down techno in San Francisco. Is there a microcosm of slow techno nights in the city that we should know about?

Well [laughs], Kenneth Scott who releases on Auralism, plays at a club night in San Francisco with this other DJ called Travis Dalton. The night’s called Bionic, and there he plays a lot of different styles, but always at slower tempos. It’s pretty cool.

There are some guys exploring slower dubstep-influenced techno in San Francisco.

I also dig the slower techno of Drumcell, the Droid guys, and Tim Xavier, who does this totally cool techno at about 121.

I don’t know if it would drive peak time floors, but I like the slower tempos.

Some of the more melodic tracks on your album like ‘Labels’ reminded me of Trentemoller.

I was on similar vein to Trentemøller when he first came out. ‘Labels’ is actually one of the oldest tracks on the LP and people seem to love it, which is weird, as it has been around for so long.

Other guys that influence my work includes Marek Hemmann, who’s just awesome.

Also Audio Werner is very inventive, and has tons of drive for the floor that never compromises.

Catz n Dogz’ quality is impeccable. And Kilowattz’ production and progression is spotless. My god, he’s good.

A lot of the time, the artists I tend to gravitate towards or get influenced by, are not the same guys that I necessarily play out on the floor. The floor has its own place.

That’s why a lot of very artistic music doesn’t get the press it should, because everyone is focused on driving the beat home. Things can get real simple, real monotonous.

It’s easy to lay down a 32 bar groove and slowly progress it. Boom you got a track. But for artistic standards, you’re not putting in enough time.

What sort of feedback have you had for ‘Tarry Not’ so far?

Paco Osuna and Alexi Delano are playing it. Maetrik digs it. Brendon Moeller and Orde Meikle from Slam like it. Luciano also said he’s playing it. The press seemed to be interested too, which is really great.

So how does it feel to be our Album Of The Week?

It feels great. It’s what I’ve been striving for my whole career. So often it has to do with the press you get that dictates the success of a record.

I also think that it’s very commendable that Beatport is so active in showcasing new music that you guys think is hot. That’s refreshing for an artist.

For a long time, I thought those banners on Beatport’s homepage were paid for.

And I need to know what the world thinks about my music, otherwise it’s just artistic masturbation. A lot of it is acknowledgment, to be heard, to be seen. It’s great, if people are listening to the album.

What’s sad is when you put time and energy into the music, and it just disappears into the ether. So many tracks go through Beatport each day. And it would be sad to see your music go through without a bat of an eye.

• (5) Comments
• (1817) Views
• Get Limaçon 'Tarry Not'