Arriving amidst comparatively minimal fanfare earlier this year on Jim ‘Spoonbill’ Moynihan’s Omelette label, Interview Techniques – the debut album from Melbourne duo Richard Burns and Thomas ‘Soup’ Campbell (aka Editor) – easily represented one of 2009’s more interesting local dubstep-centric releases. With the sheer breadth of styles and influences that rear their heads throughout the tracklisting, ranging from chipcore sounds on ‘Got Game Boy’, to the dark-humoured Dr. Strangelove-esque sampling of ‘Fat Scoops, Humes And Death’, in many senses it seems carelessly reductionist to simply tag Editor as just another dubstep duo. Given the myriad sounds and styles swirling in Interview Techniques‘ brew, one of the first things I’m keen to find out when I catch up with Richard Burns concerns the sorts of musical paths he and Campbell had pursued separately before coming together as Editor.
“Before working together as Editor, Soup and I had musical backgrounds in a variety of different styles,” Richard explains. “I was just coming out of a degree in classical trumpet, although during this time I was focusing on playing as many jazz/reggae/dub gigs as possible and avoiding tutorials. Soup was just finishing a degree in audio engineering and during this time was also honing skills on the guitar and playing in different bands. He was also involved in live mixing and beat production with a band he started called Miso. They came on tour with a band I was playing with called The Red Eyes and we started talking about collaborating on a project. When Miso was temporarily put on hold and I left The Red Eyes to pursue different music, we began Editor.”
“At the beginning, it was a quartet and we had a violin player and keys,” continues Richard. “The direction of the music was leaning towards downbeat trip-hop/dub, although Soup and I had previously explored these styles in a variety of contexts and the more we worked on tracks, the more we found we were tired of the sound we were creating. It was predominantly the two of us composing material and what we were doing was sounding alright, although we had already explored it in various forms. We still had the capacity to play in these styles in other projects and wanted to do something new. Around this time, we started listening to lots of dubstep and moved in that direction as a duo.”
While I can certainly see why many listeners would simply tag Interview Techniques as part of the swelling dubstep scene, for me the overall tag doesn’t sit completely comfortably, with far more divergent influences such as 8-bit gamecore and wonky sounds filtering their way into the tracklisting. It’s something that Richard agrees with. “I think due to the nature of our musical backgrounds, the music we create doesn’t reflect a traditional dubstep format, if there is such a thing. A lot of the tunes have themes and ideas that may only appear once, and the tracks often end up in opposite directions to where they start. This stems from our backgrounds playing in bands, and also working as a duo and never having a shortage of ideas. As a result, we have to be careful that our compositions don’t become too busy.
“In a lot of dubstep that I hear it seems the producers are content with merely a strong bass line and beat. After a few variations they repeat the form exactly the same and then release it. I tend to find this model of track writing uninteresting, although this is merely an opinion. We never made a strong commitment to writing only dubstep, and we approach our sound with an open mind and never have a specific outcome for the direction of our tracks. Our skills as producers have improved dramatically over the period of writing Interview Techniques, and the tracks we are writing at the moment are getting more wild although still remain true to our roots in reggae and hip-hop.”
Richard’s also keen to emphasise the creative advantages of operating as a duo. “We definitely contribute quite differently in the material we bring forward, although we share a common aim with the music. The tracks often take a strange journey due to one of us having an idea that the other would never have thought of. We have many different ways of working on tracks ranging from one of us bringing something into a session, jamming on synths together, starting a track from the most intense point and working backwards, working separately and more.
“Soup is extremely fast using Ableton, so more often than not he is driving and I’ll usually be messing around with synths and giving orders. I had never programmed beats or music before we began this project and I have learnt quite quickly through Soup and the hundreds of hours we have spent in the studio. It has definitely helped having a strong understanding of music and a clear idea of how a track should sound.”
Knowing that Jim ‘Spoonbill’ Moynihan pretty much signed them to his Omelette label on the strength of their live gigs, I’m keen to find out how they manage to translate the intricate detail of their studio productions to the stage. “When we play live we predominantly mess around with dubs, samples and forms of tunes,” explains Richard. “Soup always brings something new he is working with such as computer joysticks, drumpads, Casio keyboards, bits and pieces from hard rubbish and the tip shop, using them to a variety of effects. I play some trumpet, keys, mess around with some synths and dub samples. Soup manipulates what I am playing live.
“At the moment we are trying lots of different things and keeping it musically interesting. Currently there is a strong emphasis on getting more variation and content into our live visual set-up. We don’t take ourselves too seriously in ideas we throw around and [our]visuals reference anything from vintage video games, Japanese sci-fi, psychedelic animation, evolution and anything we think will mess with punters or give them a laugh.
“We are starting to free up more time for local shows and touring, and can expect to be doing some festivals over summer and into next year,” he continues. “We are well open to invitations to come and play interstate anytime…(hint hint). The album has had the most positive response on the West coast of America, so we are also looking into options exploring the idea of going over there or Europe to play at some stage next year. We are constantly writing new material and we expect to have another full length album by around April next year. We have a few local shows and festivals and will be beating the heat in the studio as much as we can over summer. We are genuinely excited about the direction our music is taking right now and can’t wait to unleash it on a decent system.”
Editor’s Interview Techniques is out now through Omelette/Amphead.
