Holy Fuck interview
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Holy Fuck interview
24 January, 2008 | 11.51AM- Section: Music News Topics: Beatport Blog
We caught up with lo-fi electronica crew Holy Fuck from Toronto, Canada to find out more about their wacky, improvisational edge.
They refuse to use computers or traditional electronic music instruments to make tunes, instead opting for battery operated toys, guitars and dodgy machines.
Check out their brand of electronic music in the player after the jump.
You’re famous for using non instruments and miscellaneous objects to create electronic sounds. What’s the most bizarre object you’ve used for a track?
“How much is that doggy in the window” or at least the first three notes of it are heard at the ending of the ‘Pulse’.
“Using a battery operated baby learning toy, we pressed a button over and over, in time with the song, to create a looping melody that suited the end of the song.”
Why is it your aim to make music without the use of computers or traditional electronic music production methods?
“It started as a mission statement.
“But now we feel free to move on from it.
“If anything doing it this way for the last couple years has allowed us to really get creative with minimal resources.
“We’ve embraced the compromise and limitations of organic stuff, battery operated devices, and cheap mixers.
“This gear doesn’t come with ‘limitless sample banks’, we don’t have to worry about BPMs or quantizing loops or incompatible file formats.
“There’s a freedom to operating outside of current technology and trends.
“Hopefully, in a weird way, this music we’ve had so much fun making won’t end up sounding dated.
“It will hopefully always sound a little bit shitty… and hopefully unique.”
How did you guys first discover you could get electronic sounds out of non instruments?
“Most of these things we use are still instruments.
“We started in rock bands.
“So we gravitate towards guitars and drums.
“But along the way we picked up lots of junk on our cross Canada tours.
“I guess it’s easy to get bored with something you do every night.
“So for me, personally, midway through a tour I’d get excited about going home and fucking with my fourtrack and a bunch of the noisemakers I picked up at thrift stores.”
How often do you look for new non instruments, and where do you look?
“We always look. It’s fun. You don’t have to get nerdy about it.
“There’s no thirst for the perfect keyboard or whatever.
“Chances are every thrift store you find will have some cool thing that makes a beat.
And it’ll be cheap. Which is good as most of what you buy will be novel at best and otherwise just sit in your closet.”
You like to do everything live at gigs, but doesn’t that run the risk of it all turning to chaos?
“Sure, some shows sucked.
“But we’ve spent so much time touring that we’ve now whittled that chaos down into a pretty soft and harmless thing.
“When it gets too comfy we usually change things up.
“Which for us means trying out a new song idea, based on some new beat we found in a pawn shop.
“Chaos is good right? It gives us something to struggle with.
“Or should I say we struggle as it is already… might as well make it enjoyable.”
Are you just making it up as you go along – or is there some planning involved?
“There’s planning involved. Where is the van?
“Do we have time to pick it up from the mechanics and still make it to New York in time for the gig?
“What time is load-in? Are those checks going to bounce?
“Let’s not forget the merch this time. You know, planning.”
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