Interview With Kieren Hebden

Kieren Hebden is an interesting figure for electronic music lovers.  His background in indie/post rock (with Fridge) and his positioning by the media at the head of the spurious 'folktronica' genre make people suspicious, though he has never accepted the categories which people put him in.  He is oft-derided by hardcore electronicists for what is perceived as 'coffee table' tendencies - yet anyone who has witnessed his live shows knows that he's as capable of as extreme and often as uncomfortable passages of freeform micro-edits and screaming noise as the most hardcore left-fielders. 

Scenesters are suspicious of him, too, for his willingness to remix anyone from AFX to Bloc Party, Beth Orton to Lady Sovereign, but his current clutch of mixes, especially those for Juana Molina and Madvillain, show a rare talent for totally transforming a song and showing it in new light without removing its soul.  Certainly his music can be difficult to get a handle on - his new Four Tet album 'Everything Ecstatic' covers everything from fairly straight hip-hop breaks to Boredoms-inspired multi-layered percussion wig-outs, raw rock riffing to blissed-out cosmic jazz chimes and chanting.  We met Kieren at his North  London home to see what he made of people's attempts to define him and his music.

Is there more media interest for the new album?
Well I'm kind of swaying around all over the world right now: there may be places where I didn't do much press last time around and places where I did more, so it's almost like filling in the gaps.  The last two days I've done twelve Australian interviews, for example.  I'd never been there before until last year when I went over and toured the country, so there's more interest now.  It's just taking the time to get everywhere, to do the initial work you need to do to get the ball rolling.  I maybe don't need to do so much in the UK now seeing as I've had about a zillion records out here now, I've been going for ages.

Does the UK 'indie' press pay attention?
When I first started with Four Tet there was far more space: there was both the NME and the Melody Maker, and they had special set apart sections for electronic music; nowadays I'd like to think they'll give my new record decent review space, but it's not going to be some big feature... there's so many young indie bands now, all competing for that space, they just don't seem to have the space.  They might be interested inasmuch as I did a remix for Bloc Party but that'd only be a passing mention.

Is there truth to the rumour that you're working with Bloc Party in a production capacity?
No no, just the remix.  It's been discussed, but no, I've only met them for five minutes of my life, they're cool but nothing that you call even close to a plan to do anything is there right now.

Talking of rumours, is it true you're knocking the Four Tet project on the head after this abum?
Well... I've got no plans to do any records for the near future under that name.  It's my third Four Tet album for Domino; I've done it really solidly for three albums, I've done the whole thing, and now I don't want to be in this constant 2-year cycle of doing a record, doing four months of promo, touring for a year, doing another record - I really don't want to be stuck in that.  So once this album is out, I see it as time to pursue some of the other things I've been hoping to do, things I'd been planning that had fallen by the wayside a bit - like the stuff with Steve Reid I've been doing.  That's the sort of thing I'd been interested in pursuing for ages but just hadn't been able to.

What's the setup for those shows you've been doing?
Just him on drums and me with my samplers and computers and things.  All the music's improvised, it's a duo improvisation.  I use the same sort of sounds and soundsources I might use for a Four Tet show, though I don't use anything percussive, I never give him any rhythms or any drums, I let him take care of all the rhythmic stuff.  We've done an album and that's all done and set for release early next year [on Domino]. 

And for someone who hasn't heard it, is it beat-oriented, or is it going into free jazz territory?
Oh it's got quite a solid rhythm, a real pulse going through it - not heavy hiphop-type beats, but you can certainly nod your head to it.  It's just his style really, coming from his background in soul and jazz.  He can play quite free sometimes but he's one of those drummers who's really got a solid kind of pulse running through and underpinning what he does.  When I talk to him, he's really aware of music; he's aware of - he's heard of everyone.  He'll talk about everyone from Can to Dr Dre to whoever when he's talking about music.  He's 62, I think.

Are there any other of these projects that you're actually working on or planning now?
Nothing that I'm working on right now, but plenty of things I want to have a go at.  I just want to be a bit more open to doing plenty of things, whether it be production or creating my own music that doesn't fit the Four Tet sound or whatever.   Remixing, too - I'm about to take on a Lady Sovereign remix, which excites me definitely - but really it's little bits and pieces like that and no huge plans right now.  Me and Prefuse 73 have been talking about making a record together; my friend Koushik [vocalist with Manitoba/Caribou and producer in his own right], too - we've been talking about doing something for a while.  It's just finding the time though, you know - if I'm in the middle of promoting the album I don't have any time to launch into a project like that, but maybe next year we can do that.

So what's happened to the production job you were doing with Beth Orton?
We worked on that loads last year and it never got finished, then she wanted time to work on more songs, and then I started working on my album, so I sort of stepped aside so I could concentrate on the Four Tet.  Production jobs take so much time, you know; I am wary about them because it dominates what I'm doing when I get involved.  When I did the James Yorkston album, nothing else could happen with my life, and it got the same way with Beth's sessions.

So you like to be as meticulous with production work as on the construction of your own music?
It's just very different.  You have a sense of being employed by someone, of being hired and you want to do it well.  Those people have got you in the studio for your technical knowledge and ability, but it's their record and you've got to do what they want - and that means being there when they're ready to record, even if that includes sitting in the studio from 10am til 2am...

With that Yorkston album, a lot of people were surprised that it was such an understated sound; they maybe expected Four Tet glitch production...

I'm interested in production from a very traditional perspective: the idea of taking someone's music, recording it, capturing the best possible sound and performance from that person, just kinda oversee the whole recording process rather than try and interfere with it.

Who are the producers that you really rate, then?
Well there are two kinds of production I guess - there's that traditional type that I just mentioned, then there's the modern style which I suppose really is about stamping your sound as well as making the sounds work together.  I like a lot of the big mainstream guys - someone like Daniel Lanois, all the stuff he did on, say, The Joshua Tree and going through his work with Emmylou Harris; really really incredible sound on that, and the idea of capturing an incredible performance.  Jim O'Rourke I'd say is definitely one of my favourite producers - the way he records and mixes a band... that one he did with Sam Prekop [of Sea And Cake], you can instantly hear a really clear beautiful sound to it, and as soon as he was involved with Sonic Youth, the sound of the guitars and stuff on those records he did just got really really good.  Albini's pretty consistent too.  It's not about cleanness or anything, but about getting *life* in the recording, having a recording of a band where you can actually hear the passion and the recording sounds alive.  There's so much stuff that sounds kind of flat, there's so much pressure to produce something that sounds good on the radio or TV.  A lot of the producers that are coming to the forefront, the big American producers are loved by the record companies because their records sound good on the radion, but that doesn't feel like enough to me, it seems like it's a real short-term consideration.

Do you consider yourself an 'electronic musician'?
Yes, essentially, when I'm making my own music I do, because make it entirely on computers, and in the actual sort of process of doing that I am behaving as an electronic musician.  Whether what I produce fits into a genre, though, I don't know: obviously it's got links to other electronic stuff, it's part of that tradition in some way because of the methods and so on, but I think the music I make is not so much part of a specific tradition or genre. 

You once said that you considered your techniques to be those of hip-hop - essentially sample collage - is that still true?
Yes, the whole method of making my music is still the same as on the first Four Tet album, and yes, there is a clear, direct line from hiphop in terms of how that developed.  I think a combination of hiphop and British dance music from rave onwards; a mixture of those methods and ideas of making music is at the core of what I'm doing. 

Do you have an opinion on the fact that some artists, particularly in techno, have an attitude that synthesis is somehow intellectually or even ethically superior to sampling?
I don't think I've ever even thought about that actually.  I've never felt that the technical methods I use are based on any kind of principle, it's just that they are the best way I have can realise my ideas.  So if I thought I could make the music that I have in my head best using a guitar and three banjos, then that's what I'd use.  I'm not too precious about trying to stay true to an instrument or set of equipment - that's not really in my agenda so much.

Do you play any actual instruments on the albums?
I play a lot of vibraphones, and I have various drum machines which I sample; but nothing's ever a live performance - I might play two notes on the vibraphone and sample it into the computer and then building a melody.  But something like the bassline on 'As Serious On Your Life' on the last album would I think have been a bass solo from some obscure record, pitched right up till it's almost guitar pitch, then I picked tiny bits and constructed a hook out of them. 

Have you ever had problems with sample clearance?
Well I got into trouble a while back, from something I'd taken from this really old experimental dance piece, I'd taken a melody from it - I think it was on a Smithsonian Folkways collection, and we hadn't cleared the sample.  There was this really old woman who used to dance to this piece in this old underground experimental theatre, and one of her students actually brought my record in to perform one of their own pieces to; of course she instantly went 'I know this!'... It was just one of those things, it was really interesting to be honest... but we sorted it all out, it was a bit of legal hassle, but I don't mind at all if someone finds something I've used and brings me up on it.  I don't take the route of trying to track down every source; I use so many, and I've seen what can happen - I watched the Avalanches take two years before they could actually release their record and even then it had to be heavily altered.  I want people to hear the music, I want to just get it out there.  Most of my music is made of stuff that's been manipulated so much anyway, people would be really hard pressed to recognise any of the original material in there anyway, but if someone does spot a sample, like I say - I don't mind, we can sort it out.

Back to categorisation - you mentioned a musical connection to the British dance music scene; do you also feel a cultural allegiance to that, or any other scene?
I see myself fitting into a few brackets.  There's part of me that fits into the British indie music scene - there's a line that goes through Stereolab and My Bloody Valentine which I feel related to.  At the same time there's a hip hop thing going from DJ Premier to DJ Shadow that links to me and the methods I'm using.  Then there's the whole electronic thing, going from Aphex Twin and Autechre which I feel close to.  But I don't really worry about it, I don't really care - I like the idea that time will let us know where it all fits in and what it was all about.  It doesn't feel important to me to understand it right now - I prefer the idea of looking at it in ten or fifteen years time when it's not even debatable but everything's quite clear what the relevance was, where it fitted in and what it was part of.

The acts that you've remixed recently certainly cover most of the bases.  How do you pick who you're going to do, is it record-company organised or through personal contact with the musicians?
Nowadays I do a lot with direct contact with the musicians, get asked directly, because I often end up doing things with bands that I've toured with or met or encountered somehow - but sometimes it is just through the record companies.  Lady Sovereign, say, I've never had any contact with her, just got the call from some record company guy.  But one of the things I'm really interested in about remixes is that though some people may see them as just a marketing tool, I don't see that as a bad thing necessarily - some of the best and strangest remixes have come about through very strange marketing moves made by people at the record company.  I mean, that's why they exist, essentially, just a marketing tool to reach out to other audiences.  Lots of things get done now for very artsy reasons, but I know that I really enjoy many remixes that have been done for completely commercial reasons - think of Armand Van Helden's ones for Tori Amos or Sneaker Pimps!

So you're happy ignoring supposed distinctions between indie artsiness and industry shenanigans... but you have done very 'arty' gigs unrelated to the music world in the past, for example the Vennice Bienniale?
Yes, well that was a party for this magazine, Modern Painters - they were throwing this party for all these big artists.  It was in the grounds of a monastery and I was set up in the middle of some huge art installation that was going on while all these big-name artists were swanning around me.  I didn't have a clue who most of them were - these people would be gasping, going 'that's so-and-so and they're talking to so-and-so' and I'd be none the wiser.  But they gave me an apartment in Venice for the whole thing and I had a *really* nice time, met so many absolutely fascinating people, and it was a really nice thing to be involved in, to get a glimpse of a world like that.

So do you do many things like that, off the beaten track of the gigs and clubs circuit?
I don't actually pursue much stuff like that because a lot of the time it can be really annoying, you can put a lot of effort into a gig where you actually don't get noticed at all.  So I've got a policy of trying to turn down arts gigs in arts centres; I get asked to do places like the Pompidou centre all the time and I turn it down every time - I'd much rather go to Paris, get booked into some shitty little club and play through a proper PA in a dark room where the kids will jump about.  See, in my experience things that have got either government sponsorship or are sponsored by a big company, they're not trying to make a good event, essentially, they don't really know what makes it enjoyable; they're just trying to make sure that the line-up looks good, that the advertising looks good and it keeps their reputation really solid - but when it comes to it they'll just be really stale, really dead nights.  So I'd rather do a show with, say, some students who are deciding to take a risk and borrow some money and put on a show, where they know they've got to pack it out and put on a good show or they'll never be able to do another one.  I do a lot of touring purely arranged by kids who contact me by emailing my website; my UK tour coming up is going to predominantly organised that way, bypassing all major promoters - I don't go through any agencies.  I don't have a manager either, I do everything myself, working with friends.  In terms of getting work, getting records released and stuff - that's all covered already - and I feel that if I did have a manager there'd be pressure to be more regular in doing those gigs that could get me more money, the fashion shows and so on; whereas I just want to be able to cherry-pick the good things, things like the Venice Bienniale!  For example, though I don't do many corporate gigs, I just got asked to play at the launch of the Sony PSP games console thing and part of doing that was that I'd get a free PSP, which I quite fancy, so I'm just able to accept that on a whim if I want - but I wouldn't want to do things like that every other day...

The dreaded term 'Folktronica'... is this something that exists, is it a viable word?
Hmm... well if you say it people know what you mean, so it must be *something*.  The problem is people read into it too much, get over-excited almost - they'll hear some band, hear some folky elements and think that they must be completely into all the ideas behind folk music.  I had a period where I was getting asked all the questions about whether I was making music because I was interested in community and getting back to ideas of tradition and all this kind of thing - and I just thought this whole thing had gone way to far.  It was almost like people were wishing I was going to come out with this idea that there was some really kind of strong big belief behind what I was doing, so they could do this big story about this new wave of electronic music that has a passionate idea about reviving folk music behind it.  I can see the attraction in people being able to get that story from it, but I don't know any musicians who have ever said to me that their music is folktronica, and that's the thing for me - I'm sure plenty of people would say 'oh yeah I'm making grime' and not think anything of it, but I don't know ANYone who says 'I'm interested in making folktronica' and that's the thing that makes me wonder if there's any meaning to this.

It has been something that has allowed people to put on events where they could quite happily put on events or get involved with things where they could quite happily put on a straightforward laptop electronic performer alongside an acoustic singer-songwriter, and get away with it, have the audience get their heads round it.  People accept all those different things - but in terms of the way the music is actually made I think there's a misapprehension: I think people are honing in on the electronics too much.  I hear exactly those production techniques appearing on chart pop records, on rock records, everywhere.  Pretty much all records now are made on Protools, so all those methods and sounds that are so inherent in electronic music have now become really standard production techniques - the same way that in the 80s, with drum machines and synths and so on: one minute it was Kraftwerk and it was the weirdest thing anyone had ever heard, then a few years later it was just bog standard to have it in rock records.  So I feel that something very similar is going on, that maybe these things aren't 'fusions', that they don't really need the 'tronica' tag at all - they're just making folk music with a modern production.  It's so linked to current technology, and maybe current technology's always weaved its way into whatever music's around at the time, and perhaps people get a little confused between the ideas of new technology and new genres.

Well, 'tronica' aside, there is definitely a surge in interest in folk music at the moment, and you've talked about love of old folk records; how long's that been an interest?
Not long actually, it was only about five years or so ago when I started making Pause, and I really was interested in bringing folk sounds into what I was doing, there was a really clear idea that that was what I wanted to do - so I made a conscious effort to go out and find out about that side of music.  It's no different to what I've done with other styles, I explore music in that way: I'll find out about something and suddenly become really interested and intrigued and want to explore that whole area.  The same way I've explored psychedelic rock, or free jazz, or prog rock, or drum & bass - whatever, you get interested in these things and you look at all the things around them, see what they link to... I think it is very natural for there to be phases in this sort of thing - things start getting reissued and that'll alert you to this area of music.  So the guys from Spinney Records gave me the Vashti Bunyan reissue when they did that, three or four years ago I suppose, and because I was already listening to Fairport Convention and so on, I really got into that so it made me read up and follow it up even more and start getting into, say, The Trees - and suddenly I found I actually had a bit of knowledge of a scene.  Exactly the same happened when Acid Jazz was around, suddenly there was this surge of interest in rare grooves and people were busy finding out about that stuff.  And again, when the first 100% Dynamite came out suddenly the old Studio One was brought to people's attention and all my friends were talking about that all the time, or when the Trojan re-release programme started.  It just takes a few little triggers that re-ignite interest and then of course record companies do want to sell their stuff, so when the interest's there, it will build and build.

So you're not one of those crate-diggers that values the rarity of your records and gets peeved when they're re-released and everyone can buy them?
No, no, not at all.  I mean, I think it is very important that re-issues are done properly, with proper attention to the sound; a label like Stones Throw I think are brilliant for that, the liner notes too are really impressive, they'll manage to track down so many of the original musicians to comment.  We were talking about sample clearance earlier, and you get people moaning about sampling, but the amount of careers of musicians that must have been revived through being sampling is huge.  The obvious example being James Brown - how many extra records must he have sold through the world hearing him be sampled in classic hiphop tracks?  I think it's definitely got a way of keeping music from the past alive in a really positive way.

So is crate-digging and record shopping in general a big part of your life?
To an extent yes - I have a huge appetite for music, I want to hear every new band that comes out, I listen to Radio One a lot, read music sites on the internet all day... I probably buy way more music than I could ever listen to, you know there's so many things where I'll listen to half a side then it's passed over... then I'll get involved in my own music again for a bit and get distracted, or an album comes out that's really fantastic and I'll listen exclusively to that for two weeks.  I buy an awful lot online, electronic stuff on Boomkat for example; it's great to just be able to flick through at your leisure, listen to the samples of some German minimal house track or whatever - but at the same time, you can't beat going into a record shop and just hearing something you'd never have picked up yourself and going 'oh what's this?'.  I also have the great luxury that I travel round the world all the time, and in fact I probably buy the most records when I am out of the country.  Places like Amoeba in Los Angeles - it's the best record shop in the world, I can't think of anything that compares to it; it's the size of one of our biggest supermarkets in this country, you could spend three or four days and not get round it... it's full of incredible, interesting records - the sort of place I can go and come out with thirty albums.

What recent purchases of new stuff have floated your boat lately?
Alva Noto did a really nice CD of three 3" CDs, he's someone I really really like; I haven't heard the second album of collaborations he's done with Ryuchi Sakamoto yet, but I'm really looking forward to that if it's anything as good as the first one.  I quite like some of the new Autechre album - I wasn't into the last one very much but this one has some really good moments.  It's a little frustrating though: I've been listening to the Anti EP recently, the one they did in protest at the Criminal Justice Bill, and it got me thinking about people making music with an overtly political message in it.  One of the problems that I have with electronic music nowadays is that so much seems to be about isolation, hiding yourself away on your own or with a couple of friends and listening to it privately - especially when that whole Postal Service thing happened, that mixture of electronic music with emo or indie, it just became really sort of feeble and insular in some ways.  I think that, combined with the negative press dance has had - the whole 'dance is dead' idea - has made promoters back off a bit, think 'oh we should book more rock bands because that's what everybody wants' so you see less and less live, exciting dance music.  A few years ago people had the confidence to get up there with computers and actually do it, but now it feels a lot like people have just given in.  I was so happy to see that Autechre are touring this new album, I think that's important - the fact that they see their music as something that can be performed, and that's important about my music too...  And that got me thinking about how electronic music in the past used to be a lot more outgoing; that 'Anti' EP as an electronic record is quite experimental, quite indulgent in some ways, but at the same time it's got a really strong political message which isn't something that people seem to be bothered about doing right now.  It's such a strong medium of communication and there's such a confidence behind it, it really made me think that people should be that much more outgoing about what they're doing.  On the British side of things it all seems a little empty at the moment, the 'new britpop' revival bands and they're ripping off Gang Of Four, but it really seems like there's no substance to it, it's just a poise, a set of chords and a style of dress.  Gang Of Four were a massively politically committed band, but so many of these bands just feel like it's just so many slogans.  I saw Gang Of Four at Coachella recently, they played a really good set, then I'd see a new band straight after who were aping their sound, and I'd just be 'why are you doing this?  Where's it going?  What are these guys trying to do other than get in the NME and on Zane Lowe's show?'  I feel like people aren't looking beyond that.  But there's no time for these bands now - who get so tied up in the commercial machine - to even think about what they're trying to do now; as soon as any attention falls on them, they're expected to land a £700,000 record deal and instantly do this carefully synchronised campaigns round the universe and endless tie-ins with MTV.

That's what happens when people get sucked into the London-centric industry circus, though.  There are still places where it's different, though?  Somewhere like Optimo...
Exactly.  There's some real substance there, which has come from a particular place, which has grown in a very natural, healthy relationship with the people who love it.  I mean, if instead of building that club for years, they'd come along doing what they're doing now and suddenly burst on the scene, all the hipsters would have said 'oh it's the best mix tape in the world, these guys are amaaaazing' then six months later no-one would ever remember them again.  It's all so short term the way the fashionable world works, but they've successfully bypassed that.  I played up there once, when Pause came out, and I swear I'd never seen anything like that before, it was the best club I'd ever been there.  The best clubs I've ever been to were that, and the Rooty parties that Basement Jaxx were putting on in Brixton.  They started getting over the top but for a while they were just great.  They were doing their own edits, stuff like twisted versions of old Prince songs, you'd hear them try out stuff like Where's Your Head At for the first time - that and Optimo share such a great anything-goes spirit, making the absolute most of musical technology available but not being afraid to play something really obvious and classic if it feels right.

So is your own DJing still important to you?
Totally important.  It's really important to hear music loud, to play music to people so they react to it in an instant, physical way; it helps not to - like I said - get too caught up in making music for listening to on your own at home.  It need to make sense when someone plays it loud in a car or loud in a club, it's got to work in those contexts to, and I really have to get out and play every now and again to remind myself of that.  I play really eclectic, but I'm not interested in indulgent kind of DJing, I believe in entertainment 100% - and I think it takes a good DJ to play that eclectic and hold the crowd and pull it off.  It does take some skill to play a record from the 60s, say, next to a new record alongside something else altogether and make it work, make the timing right and the contrasts and connections between them flow.  I only DJ for fun really, I wouldn't do it if it was a grind.  It is getting harder and harder though, because if my name's on the poster I do get people coming up and complaining that I'm not playing my own music, it gets quite awkward.  I'm really going to start doing it more anonymously, being the inhouse DJ for small clubs; I mean it's my favourite kind of gig anyway, a small packed club, about 150 people, it's truly more fun than the big things.

Interview by Joe Muggs