Life, death, and Ripperton’s beautiful garden

Life, death, and Ripperton’s beautiful garden

1 March, 2010 | 5.10AM

• Written by: Terry Church
• Filed under: Music News: ripperton

A dancefloor is a garden of humans. Its sun is music, its flowers are people, and its main business is sex and death. Beauty is merely a byproduct.

But no one wants to talk about death - not in the garden, or on the dancefloor - so Swiss producer Raphael Ripperton helps us think about life and its fragile beauty, through his debut album ‘Niwa’, which means ‘garden’ in Japanese.

Through isolated moments of bliss, serene interludes of melody, and samples from the world around us, Ripperton has carefully crafted a lucid and thought provoking house longplayer that took the best part of two years. It is his brave attempt to describe the impermanence that we all face.

With so few dance producers, or artists for that matter, willing to face the subject of death, it is the inclusion of corporeality tracks like ‘At Peace’ and ‘Random Violence’ that push the album towards something profound.

Yet when I catch up with Raphael Ripperton, in his house in Lausanne, Switzerland, I am surprised to hear the voice of a man with unbounded cheerfulness.

He chirps and giggles his words, like a tipsy Frenchman on a bike laden with garlic. Hardly a dark angel. Then again, have you ever met an unhappy gardner?

Where are you right now?
I’m at my place, just taking care of my daughter.

Where’s that?
Lausanne, about 30 minutes from Geneva.

Do you think where you live has affected your music?

I think nature and the environment, plays a big part in my music.

When you live in this country, it’s not possible to live without nature. People spend much of their time here in the mountains, outside of the city, swimming in lakes. I live in front of a lake.

I think you can hear this completely in my music.

How so?

It’s hard to explain but I’m always surrounded by nature. There’s a big park outside of my place, and I always go there with my daughter and spend some time there when I need some fresh air.

I did some field recordings there, which I used on my album like a red line, an interlude, between the tracks.

But it was only at the end of the album process, that I came to the idea of the garden. The album came together like that. It shows a different side to the music,.

Why was creating a theme important for you and your album?

Most of the time, I’m annoyed by electronic music albums. A lot of them don’t have much imagination.

If you listen to my album from start to finish, it flows organically, like a piece of music. Electronic is just the treatment, and I’ve always said that.

I didn’t just use synthesizers on the album - I played a lot of marimba, xylophone, shakers, and I worked with vocalists, and friends who played guitar, and percussion.

After that I reworked everything in my computer, but the process was much more musical than just a computer.

Explain what you mean by that.

The computer is just the treatment, the tool.

It doesn’t come out of the computer, it merely passes through it.

‘Niwa’ as you say, is a very musical album. Who did you collaborate with for it?

One of my best friends is an amazing guitar player. He’s f***ing talented.

For a lot of my tracks I get some really strong ideas and feelings, but I can’t do them myself.

I needed somebody who could play guitar really well. I can do a lot with my computer, but I wanted to keep the energy and feeling of this album as human as possible.

That’s really important for me. All the precussion was played by a friend, who used bongos and even a hang drum.

The hang drum is quite an interesting instrument, isn’t it?

Definitely. You know, it’s a homemade instrument. It’s just some guys at home who make the instrument themselves.

It’s not done in some factory, so every instrument they make sounds different from the rest. No two hang drums are the same sound.

But there’s only five notes on each instrument, so it’s very limited too.

How was it working with Christina Wheeler on the two vocal tracks?

Christina is from New York City, but lives in Berlin. She’s a great singer.

I wanted to have two vocal tracks, one at the start, and one at the end. I wanted to try to find a balance between the club and the home, so ‘Niwa’ sounds like a record I’d listen to at home. It’s a really weird mix, but it’s who I am.

When I went into the studio, I was open minded. My only priority was to have fun and make something harmonic.

There’s a lot of melodies and harmonies in your music. Did you have classical training?

I never went to school for music. I’m auto didactic, but I’m not a very good player of instruments.

I can play in my studio by myself, but I can’t play on stage with people.  I’ve listened to music since the age of 12. My father used to play me all different kinds of music when I was growing up.

The magical part of my music, is that it comes through me and from somewhere [laughs].

At least, I think it’s a kind of magic. I love to have freedom. To have no borders. When you work with real musicians, they have too many rules in their minds.

Also I live in Switzerland, so there’s no pressure. It’s not like it is in Berlin or London. Here I am no one. I tour a lot, but in my own country I am nothing.

It’s quite special. In France, there is a saying, that you can be king in your castle but where you live you’re no one.

Here we don’t have a lot of media. Radio is very commercial, and very narrow minded.

I think that’s why the Swiss producers make music that’s quite different.

That’s my theory anyway, I don’t know if it’s true or not. A lot of people don’t know how many producers come from Switzerland, but there are a lot.

There’s certainly a lot of deep house producers coming out of Switzerland at the moment. Why’s that?

Yeah, it’s true. There’s a lot of deep house guys, but I don’t know why. Maybe because we’re more peaceful. Maybe we’re all deep [laughs].

Do you hang out with any of the other Swiss guys?

I have a good connection with Agnes. We’ve been close friends for many years. We work a lot together on projects. I know all of the Geneva crew.

This is your debut album. Why did it take you two years to release it?

I think the album format is really intersting. People say that, now with digital, the album format is dead because people can pick and choose which tracks they want to download, but I think it’s the perfect format for consuming music.

You know, a 45, 50, or 60 minute piece of music is the perfect length.

I like to make stuff for the dancefloor when I do EPs, but I wanted my album to be personal.

I don’t really understand why anyone would put 12 club tracks together as an album. What can you do with that?

I release EPs for club tracks, but my album is more what I like, what I was, and what I want to be. It’s like a photo book, and when you go through and look at all the pictures, you remember previous experiences.

When you listen to a song on my album, it might take you back to when you were nine years old, and you met this sweet Dutch blonde girl.

I hope it reminds you of some feelings from the past. Music is really special for that. It’s a direct connection to the heart.

In fact, maybe it’s even more powerful than a picture, as not every picture takes you back, but if you listen to a song you can remember when you first heard it and who you were with. It instantaneous.

Did you feel any pressure, with this being your debut?

No I think it was the opposite. Because it is my first album, I didn’t feel any pressure at all. No one was waiting around for me to release it.

I think the first album is probably the easiest.

‘Niwa’ means ‘garden’ in Japanese. Why Japanese?

I wanted to call my album ‘garden’, but the french term for garden is ‘jardin’, which isn’t very poetic.

I’ve been to Japan many times, and niwa is a really beautiful word, short, and I thought, very appropriate for my album.

Have you been to Japan?

I went there two years ago, and then I went back about three months ago. Both were tours of about 10 days.

Japan’s a really amazing place. People say it’s a cultural shock, but that’s a difficult thing to understand. Everything is completely different there.

I’ve traveled a lot everywhere, but the first time I went to Japan, I had a big shock. Everyone was so polite and attentive to you there.

They respect you all the time. I like that spirit.

Did you visit any gardens in Japan?

Yeah, I went to some of the old Japanese gardens. I think they are the most beautiful things you can ever see from a human.

It’s like a child’s dream. The way they take care of their gardens is amazing - every single leaf is taken care of, like on the bonsai trees.

It’s like living with nature by hand. It’s not weird or extravagant, they’ve just tried to find perfection.

Their gardens are really peaceful. As soon as you walk into them, you feel like you can’t do anything to ruin it. It’s not possible to drop trash in there, or a cigarette. It’s a pure place.

Those gardens clearly had a major effect on you.

I’m like a sponge. Everything around me gives me inspiration. I like traveling. I like meeting new people.

When I visit a new country, I drop my stuff off in a hotel room and go outside. I don’t care about the hotel room. New experiences are like food to me. I need food to be creative.

What about musically? Which producers and artists would you say have influenced you?

I have so many influences. I really like Fennesz - he’s a guy who makes f***ing amazing ambient and really organic electronic music.

Isolee is one of my favourite producers. When I heard his first album, I thought ‘Ok, maybe it is possible to do something really beautiful and pure in electronic music.

Ripperton ‘Prends-Moi Avec Toi’ (La Reinterpretation d’Isolee)

I like folk music. Radiohead as well. I’ve been listening to all different kinds of music lately.

I recently heard Four Tet’s album and I thought it was amazing. It’s not that often that you get such a strong album in electronic music, but Four Tet’s LP was a real journey.

That’s what I’m searching for really. With an EP or a club single, it’s easy, you don’t need to think too hard. But with an album, you want to tell a story.

So what’s the story of ‘Niwa’?

[laughs] Well, on my CD, I put down the months that I worked on every track, when I started a track, and when I finished. So you can feel a sense of time with it, a certain time of the year.

Every track has a story really.

What is ‘L’Ardo’ about then?

‘L’Ardo’ actually has the same harmony as ‘Farra’, which has a 6/8 time signature. Farra is actually a place in the mountains in Italy, where my family has a house.

It’s a really green and beautiful place, like a big prairie. There’s big trees there, and just near it is a river called ‘L’Ardo’.

So Farra is the village, and ‘L’Ardo’ is the river. That’s why I used the same harmony on both, but worked it in different ways.

If you listen to ‘L’Ardo’ you can feel the water, and the patterns it makes.

‘Farra’ came more from the feelings I get when I’m there. My friend who played the guitar on my album, he visited our house, and we sat outside, drinking beer, and playing guitar. That’s why the track feels quite magical. It was a magical guy, in a magical place.

What about ‘Solastalgia’?

‘Solastagia’ is one of the tracks I did with Christina Wheeler. I read this really interesting article about solastalgia. Do you know what that is?

No.

It’s a word that was created to explain the feeling people get when they leave their own country because of war, or desertification, and even though their life is better than it was before, they are still depressed because they left their roots.

These scientists did some research and found that even though people may have had a better life after moving, they were somehow, still tied to their home. So it’s a song about how humans need to stay close to their roots.

It’s an ecological song, I guess. My daughter is two years old, and I did the track for her. The album finishes with that track, because I wanted people to think about the environment and the impact our world is having on ecology. Like, ‘What will the future be like for our kids?’.

Do you consider yourself an environmentalist?

I’m not an ecologist, but I’m interested in it. I think everyone needs to be. I respect nature. If you’re not into nature or the environment, you still have to be concerned with it and respect it.

The artwork for ‘Niwa’ is quite interesting. Were you involved in that side of things?

Yes, I worked with Green’s designer. I sent him some links with paintings, pictures, and other things I liked, and he came up with this idea.

The image is interesting. Some people see the moon, some seen a light. It’s really open, and I think that’s beautiful as you can make your own interpretation.

It’s natural but futuristic at the same time, and if you listen to the album, the artwork matches that. It has a really nice spirit.

‘Ecotone’ is one of the most dancefloor-friendly tracks on the album. But it still has an environmental feeling to it.

Ecotone is the border you get in between two different ecosystems, like in between a forest and a field. So the track builds between two opposing forces.

‘Random Violence’ is a curious title for a track that is quite relaxing.

You know violence can take on so many different faces. Violence doesn’t mean a fight. Life is really violent. You never know when violence will happen, which is what I wanted to explain with this track.

If you lose your best friend tomorrow in a car accident, that’s random violence. That is life. For me, you never know what will destroy your life, or a part of yourself.

That’s why every morning, I wake up and promise myself that I’m going to enjoy today and make the best of it, because it could be your last.

Do you really make the most of every day?

Definitely. I probably do about three days a week in the studio, and then I travel on the weekends. The rest of the days I take care of my family, and see my friends.

If you weren’t a producer, what would you be doing?

I always ask myself this. Like if the music stops in two months, what the hell would I do? I don’t know.

I’m not very good at studying. I like to work alone, I’ve never been comfortable working in a team or with other people. I’ve always followed my own way.

I started DJing when I was 18, and I didn’t have to make many choices. When I was younger, I was really into skateboarding and snowboarding, and then I chose music.

Is ‘Echocity’ your homage to Detroit?

Yeah, this track reminds me of Detroit. It’s a pretty powerful track. It has a really beautiful background, and reminds me of Derrick May or Carl Craig.

The bassline came from me just fooling around in the studio. The beats were just turning, and I tried to find the right kind of bassline for it.

It was kind of difficult as the track is quite minimal, with only about seven or eight channels, so I needed a bassline that changed constantly. It changes every two bars, instead of every eight, so the track works because of the bass.

What’s your studio like?

It’s very small. If there are two people in it, it’s full. I have a wall of vinyl which gives me inspiration.

I have quite a lot of analog gear, instruments, toys, and microphones.

What software do you use?

I mainly use Logic and Ableton. I use Live to fool around with live stuff, and I mix with Logic. I find it difficult to finalise in Ableton.

You can play with Ableton as it’s a toy and great for creativity, but for finalising stuff it’s not perfect.

On the hardware front, I use a Roland SH60, a Moog Voyager, a Korg Electribe - I have two, some pianos, and some weird stuff without names.

I use a lot of plug ins too.

What’s your favourite plug in?

I mostly use delay. With a good delay, you can do amazing things. It’s the secret weapon of every good producer. I really like dub reggae, and that whole scene was about the delay effect.

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