Issue #010 (January 2005) Bec Paton Selects Email this article to a friend Bec Paton in conversation with Matthew Levinson Music affects people in a thousand different ways. Whether colour or memories; embarrassing, sentimental, inspiring or even if it just makes you want to move your body. This issue’s Selects comes from somewhere between Canberra and Sydney, and a bit of Christmas Island too. Bec Paton is one of the few DJs who can do more than string together an hour’s worth of good tracks. She approaches DJing like a musician approaches an instrument, or an artist whose colours are caught in the irresistible grooves of her record collection. Based in Canberra until recently, her style caused a stir at Sydney’s Frigid and Newcastle’s TINA Festival, as well as just about every Canberra party of note. Since graduating in graphic design - and winning Canberra University’s most creative designer award - she’s moved to Sydney to pursue a career. It’s the kind of pivotal life experience that’s worth recording, and what better than a Cyclic Selects. While house-sitting a Newtown terrace, Bec rifled through record crates and talked up some favourites. Nine Inch Nails Downward Spiral (Nothing Records 1994 CD) This is really primal, sexual music for me, like it actually physically arouses me in some way. So maybe we won’t put that one in, because that just makes me look like a tart! But I can remember being in year nine - I had a radio in my bathroom – and Closer came on the radio. I was like dirty dancing in front of the mirror, and it was probably one of the first times I actually felt like a woman. It still wells up a full-on animal emotion in me. I’ve gotta watch where I hear it. I still listen to it, but only with certain people! Various Artists Endlessnessism (Dot 1998 4LP) I found this while nerding out at Gorman House Markets [in Canberra]. It is the musical equivalent of Chinese whispers or a relay race, where one track is taken as a starting point and it’s remixed by each artist in succession until all of the artists have completed their tracks. It’s quite cool seeing how an element is taken and the way it progresses through the album. It really does vary, which is kind of cool. You get a really beautiful understanding of how music is written just from hearing how these people have done this. It features artists such as Quant, Bedouin Ascent and The Bowling Green, and ranges from really slow trip hop stuff to quite beautiful drum’n’bass. Luke Vibert YosePH (Warp 2003 3LP) I hate the sound of the 303, but he’s taken it somewhere else and it’s just so bloody creative. You kind of get that aesthetic just because of the machines, but the way he puts sounds together and the ideas in that album are just brilliant. It had such an overwhelming effect of ‘Oh my god, this is fucking brilliant’ that it made my heart beat faster. That Slow Faster track just bends my mind, I love it. He’s basically shifting tempos. It’s a fast chaotic thing that you’re hearing, but then all of a sudden your mind bends and it’s this half-speed thing, but nothing’s actually changed. It’s some of the best music I’ve ever heard, just pure love, love at first sight! Pink Floyd Dark Side of the Moon (Capitol/EMI 1973 LP) I grew up listening to this with my Dad. We were living on Christmas Island and there wasn’t any TV, we just had videos and this was one of them. Dad used to be a surfer and while listening to this he taught me about how he picked up on riding the waves, the signals of the waves and how he felt about surfing and stuff. I think that was a big album for him when he was surfing. So I have these full-on visuals every time I hear it of Dad and I surfing tidal waves. When I’m excited about what’s happening in my life I’ll have these dreams where Dad and I are surfing to Pink Floyd’s Dark Side of the Moon. It’s pretty weird too, because even though Dad’s now handicapped it doesn’t affect these dreams, we can still surf tidal waves together. 7-Hurtz plus Massive Attack ?Electroleum, Unfinished Sympathy ?(Output 2003 2LP, Circa 1990 CD) What’s it called when you hear music, you see stuff? Synaesthesia. I actually have a synaesthesia experience with this album. I first came across it when I heard the CD at your apartment. I hunted it down straight away on the net. When I first got my beautiful white vinyl package I put it on and just lay on the ground and had a bit of a weep. Not because I was being a sappy bitch, just because I was struck by the beauty of it. I don’t cry every time I hear it now, but my heart still wells up every time. Another one that’ll make me cry is Unfinished Sympathy by Massive Attack. That’s a sure thing. Jethro Tull Thick as a Brick (Chrysalis Records 1972 LP) Jethro Tull kind of sounds like psychedelic folk music, and this is a really kooky, joyful album that’s full of storytelling. The head guy’s pretty much a minstrel, he sings and plays the flute and he dances around like an elf. As a child growing up, it just captured our imaginations. We actually had a game called Jethro Tull, which was acting out these stories. We built a boat out of bark and finger-knitted string. The tree trunk was the mast of this boat and we made a pulley-system so that we could get lollies and other supplies up to the lookout, which was at the top of the tree. Primus Sailing the Seas of Cheese (Atlantic 1991 CD) I love the way Les Claypool plays the bass, it’s really rhythmic, like he plays real slap bass. A band that can make songs that sound that complete and are so charming and really great to dance to, just out of a bass and drums, I think that’s really impressive. I listen to this every couple of months because it reminds me of being a grungy girl in high school. Bass is one of my favourite instruments anyway, and that is really well done. Also it’s such a cheeky, skanky album. I love that kind of personality, that’s part of my personality! I’m like ‘Yes! I’m going to skank around and be cheeky and make dodgy calls and that kind of thing.’ Mr Bungle Disco Volante (Warner Brothers 1995 CD) When I first heard this I thought I was listening to a child’s nightmare. It’s really creative music making, they’ve got coconuts on their feet while they’re doing all this other stuff. It actually has disco elements in it, but crossed with people pulling teeth out of someone’s head. It’s pure madness and I love how chaotic it is. And I like being a little bit frightened by it too, like it’s got that sinister dark side of human nature that is always fascinating. I love the roughness, it is an incredibly violent album and that’s disturbing. I don’t ever want to experience that first hand really, but at the same time it’s fascinating to hear madness like that. It’s almost like a fetish really isn’t it. DJ Shadow Entroducing (Mo Wax 1996 2LP) Even though I think the Private Press is a better album, Endtroducing was the first time I heard abstract hip hop beats. I was smoking pot at a mate’s house in [Canberra suburb] Campbell and they chucked it on. I had to find out instantly what it was. Before that I was a total band snob, but it opened up a whole new world for me. It’s one of those things you can listen to, hear all the layering and let it sift across your brain on a number of levels. You can just capture the sentiment, or you can break apart all the sounds and get caught up in the textures. There are different levels and that was the first time I’d really heard that with electronic music. Sergei Prokofiev (as played by the Australian Ballet Orchestra) Romeo and Juliet (1934 CD) I really love moving to music and communicating a story. It’s a very primal thing, which is why people love to go dancing, because we are animals and it is something we have in our blood. And this music is so powerful and so rich. Prokofiev is a fairly modern kind of classical composer, so it’s quite cerebral too. I was a ballet dancer, although I was more caught up in the art side than how high my leg was in the air. I actually know every single step from John Cranko’s choreography of this piece. Even now, I could have a phrase in my head and I’ll end up pirouetting down the supermarket aisle, much to my mother’s disgust ‘Stop your bloody poncing!’ she’ll say. Frank Sinatra Duets (Capitol Records/EMI 1993 CD) This is a shower deal. There’s nothing more fun than being in the shower and belting out show tunes at the top of your voice, well salon tunes or whatever they are. When you move your feet in the shower you can actually make really good tap dancing noises. So you can tap dance along and sing, and I love it! I love it so much. I’ve got a pretty deep voice for a girl, so I can generally do most of the guys as well; I chorus the parts too, though it always comes back to Sinatra’s duet with Bono on Under My Skin. This one time I was at home and I thought I was home alone. I’d been having a fantastic session in the shower and came twirling out naked straight into [my flatmate] Sofie’s brother’s arms. I’m butt naked shrieking out this dance tune doing a spectacular twirl and he was so upset. His face went white, it must have been so confronting!