Published by Future Music on May 30, 2018

The favorite polymath of electronic music is back with a dazzling modular sensory journey

We were in Islington, London, and we became acquainted with the genius of James Holden. He and his recently expanded band will soon surprise some people, and it is well known that he will lift the roof of the rare city hall. 

Holden’s latest album, The Animal Spirits, is a cheerful, detached spin that combines his iconic modular synthesizer lines with the drumming talent of Tom Page (RocketNumberNine’s rhythm engine) as well as Etienne Jaumet, Marcus Hamblett, Liza Bec and Lascelle Gordon's instrumental talent. The Animal Spirits believes that Holden has gone further from the limitations of DJ booths and dance floors into a more free and collaborative music space. All the tracks on the album were recorded at one time in his studio in West London. 

Excellent tracks, such as Pass Through The Fire and Each Moment Like The First, can easily score the first manned mission to Mars, and they show how far Holden has gone from his early trance music and DJ roots . After the audition, James returned to the backstage kitchen, where we investigated his new album, his modular setup, his coding skills, and the requirements for running his own label Border Community. 

A sentence at the end of the press release said: "It is impossible to return to the prison of the rigid world of computer beats." Is it liberating to "off-the-grid" music?

"[Laughs] Yes, it does. It changes everything...what is possible, what is effective, and what is suitable, so it is a new field worth exploring." 

All the tracks in our collection of new albums are completed as singles in the studio. 

"I have a dogmatic statement about rules... [laughs] Like everyone who has a dogmatic statement, I violated some rules! It comes from Holger Hennig’s physical philosophy, and his work led me to be Max Humanizer patch made by For Live. His research shows that you can't fake a dialogue... If you put down a track and someone dubbs it, then the first track will not hear the dubbing and cannot respond, so this is no longer a dialogue. So, I know that the only way to make artificial time work is that everyone must play at the same time. If you don’t, you will lose something. This has become its core rule: everything that is the main part of the record must be in It happened at the same moment." 

You mentioned that you must build your own unique software to run everything in real time... 

"I know I have to use it during the recording stage. This can be traced back to the fact that Luke Abbot and I have been chatting for many years and working on ideas such as scale quantizers from modular work. Computers are good because they can play There are more notes than I can play with ten fingers; but if, because of this, they just rush to play the patterns you write at home, then this is a limitation. When I went to Morocco, I just thought,'This box is stupid , It can’t react to what’s happening at this moment!’. So, the software I built has layers... [laughs] It has many layers. Initially, all Max For Live devices communicate with each other, so we finished the album recording. , But it takes two and a half minutes to load on a high-end PC, and it crashes every 30 minutes. This is too much handled by Live. So, I integrated all my personal devices into a Max patch, which is more efficient high."

So, are there many parts of Humanizer, or are you planning to create something completely new this time?

"I had to rewrite Humanizer to work with Max, because Max handles timing differently than Ableton, so it’s painful. However, the interesting thing is that when you put a song into it, you don’t It’s really arranged in a fixed note grid; it’s more like, “These are the chords of a song with a series of movable keys. This is the shape of the riff and the rhythm of the riff.” Then you can add these components Each of them is processed, so you can reverse the improvisation and transposition or partial transposition. It can be used as a little decoration in the improvisation..."

Is there anything that makes you do things you didn't expect? 

"[Laughs] It will do all the unexpected things! This tour is an experiment to fix errors... There is nothing really stopping the show, but for the first three shows, you press stop and the software doesn’t I really want to stop...I just have to play a few more notes!"

"Exactly! Their lives are a bit too much! We have set up very few feedback loops, so if Tom (Page) on the drum is excited, then it can enter other parameters, although it is difficult to fine-tune them, so they don’t Will go beyond the top and damage everything."

During the tour, did you rewrite the software a lot? 

"It's determined now, although sometimes I just think,'You're just a fucking idiot, James. Why do you think you can rewrite Ableton in Max?!'. The boring parts, like playing clips, are really hard Coding, and all the interesting things, such as'smart computers', are fairly easy."

For live performances, is your Max patch talking to everyone on the stage?

"It's mainly Tom, because the trigger comes from him, which affects the timing and various expressions. The problem with using modular performances is that they are great, amazing and a fun way to play in the studio, but If you need to re-patch and change 50 knobs between songs, it’s a pain. So, I split the work between the computer and the hardware, and I have more than 20 audio cables going in and out of the module back to the computer’s network Grid matrix, so you can patch anything to anything. In the computer, I am running my clone of Make Noise Maths, of which there are 10. There are various my favorite modules, some polyphonic synthesizers and a Mellotron Copy."

Is it still running in your Max patch? 

"Yes, but you can route them into the filters in the module and saturate everything nicely, or cross-modulate; if you modulate the cutoff frequency of many of these analog filters, it sounds amazing, and the plugin seems It can never be captured exactly right. I think it is difficult to achieve mathematically. Saturation gives all good courage and a bit of vitality... It can do some things. Sadly, my Sofatube modular setup cannot be fully achieved. Things, nonetheless!

"I like to play this on my laptop while flying, but yes, it's not very courageous. What I like most is these strange things that happen in the circuit, you don't fully understand the software yet. It's like Like the SEM filter, when you reconnect the bandpass to the CV and reduce the cutoff frequency to a low level of just a basic waveform... it’s great."

What I like most is these weird things that happen in the circuit, you haven't fully understood the software yet. Just like the SEM filter, when you reconnect the bandpass to the CV and reduce the cutoff frequency to a low level of just a basic waveform... this is great.

This solves the question of whether you are brave or reckless to bring modular equipment to the road?

"[Laughs] There are both! Every time the BA flies, they seem to give it a good vibration... During the flight, the internal Doepfer power connector fell off, and the drop was not just the conveyor belt. A small collision on the road, isn’t it?!"

What is the process of recording a song that is beautiful every moment like the first one?

"That's just Tom coming to rehearse before the actual recording. I'm recording all the rehearsals so that I have notes, although I just throw the microphone at random instead of measuring the distance to the snare drum or something like that. On the tape, you can hear I told him that I had an improvisation that I really like, but I haven't really figured out where it went. I was thinking maybe it was a halftime with a double cap. Tom tried it, but it didn’t really work, so We tried a broken beat on the bass line and it sounded great. This is the song. Literally, I assigned the Mellotron to the output when I was trying to perform the arpeggio position, and then the Mellotron came in and I pressed the wrong one. Key! However, I know I should keep it because that wrong note caused everything else in the song." 

How do you know when you got the shot you want? 

"Having a band makes things easier because they know when they are satisfied with their performance. The entire album was edited once, and I had to delete Etienne (Jaumet) and say'naaaargh' at the end of a song 'Because he played a wrong note after playing a perfect shot."

How did you decide which modules to broadcast with you? 

"It’s really hard to simulate things with a computer. So, I really like those Verbos harmonic oscillators. They have a good, rounded sound. I tried some Max imitations to replicate, but I couldn’t Do it. I think mine is a bit broken or misaligned, which means they are a bit rough, which is cute, but I spent a week trying to fake them, but it’s impossible. Next to it is Cwejman RES-4, I’m going in and out Use it in the feedback loop of the computer. It performs well in Pass Through The Fire and Go Gladly Into The Earth, with rounded bass notes. It is also great in the delay path, where you can turn up the resonance and send out loud and clear The pop and shit! Then, I have a middle row of filters, such as Dave Smith and SEM, which are basically for saturation; and then Doepfer SEM filters, which are really bad for cross-modulation things. 

"At the top, I have a harmony, two-voice synthesizer with a Cwejman dual oscillator and a Wasp filter at the end. It sounds great. The entire process uses the Erica Tube mixer as the output stage. It’s very low fidelity, but if you put it in the right place, it’s really good, so I have a VU meter to make sure. Expert Sleepers for audio input/output work well, so I I really like it and the Endorphin.es MIDI interface to make 16 CV channels. I have the Eowave Ribbon controller, which is very useful. It can be used for the scale quantizer most of the time, but you can also set the length of the reverb It’s very interesting. I’m using one of the CME keyboards to send pressure on the notes. It’s very good, even though it’s ultra-thin. This is technology, really. In the course, Etienne has those OTO pedals, a hybrid Sound and a delay, so he can do things with them. I hope everything is true, so if you want to delay something, you have to bring it. Tom has a trigger box and a drum machine, but That’s just for clicking the track."

Is modular hardware reliable in performances?

"It's more stable than Ableton, just because, I guess, it does less and you work in the hardware instead of the Max for Live link, which in turn links to other Max for Live patches." 

When you put down the recording, do you still bring everything into the studio?

"I use Reaper for recording and mixing now because the workflow is better. Knowing that we have to record everything on-site, I have been asking a lot of annoying questions to the stage staff and engineers on the tour, trying to figure everything out. That part , Learning and experimenting... Now I am more confident about doing the next thing in the studio. I want to do everything by myself, which is a little bit spirited in some ways. I could have hired a very good engineer for a few minutes It takes a few days to set up everything, but now I know this."

Is the album as you wish? 

"More or less... I don't know what this sounds like, but it's good to listen to all the recordings at the end of the course. I know it's done." 

In view of the increasing number of modular heads nowadays, do you have any wise suggestions for taking modular heads out of the studio? 

"Well, I really don’t like modular purism, so it’s not shameful to have a computer there, as long as it doesn’t tie you down. You must also recognize when modules tie you down. I’ve seen someone In live performances, they basically only have a mono synth, a double synthesizer and a reverb, so you might as well be on Ableton, really! I have seen a lot of people pretending to face the audience, and then You go around the back, there seem to be three wires inside!"

I have seen many pretending people, their backs to the audience, and then you go around the back, there seem to be three wires inside!

Have you added anything to your studio setup recently?

“It’s been a long time since I bought any new modules, because I really like this hybrid setup. If I want a new module or like the idea of ​​other people’s modules, I will only write my own imitations. I kind of stop at Assemble a modular device in the living room, and drink tea in the living room at night, but compared with the mini modular device of the laptop, I cannot use it because it is more direct. I do have a 500 machine now Rack, so this is my new "selling car and buying preamplifier" thing!"

So, did you really evaluate a software modular environment like Sofab et al.? 

"They are fun. I have also been using the free VCV Rack."

Does wearing so many different hats on Border Community make you a little angry? 

"I'm very lucky because my partner Gemma has always been there...this is really her label. It's hard, you work with your partner six days a week, and you sometimes think that we have no way to master this. , I hope HMRC will give us two weeks! The imminent specter of Brexit is also worrying, because it is likely to make this band impossible...This is my opportunity to take British musicians to visit Europe. To some extent Last, the production spirit of the new album is contrary to Brexit. The influence of Morocco made me realize that Moroccan Gnawa music is a trance... It has a lot of Jeff Mills background! It has the proper tension and release of the old-school trance. I want to take this band around the world... We have been touring for a month, and the music is already changing shape and structure." 

Will the modular bubble burst at some point, as it did in the 1980s?

"It is possible, and has caused some opposition, people joking that they don't want to hear your meaningless gossip! I think you have to accept this criticism and use your actions to refute it, and show people that it can be musical. Yes. There are many music modules now. If I were still buying modules, I would like Intellijel Arpeggio boxes and the like." 

With so many modules now, how do you decide which one to choose?

"That's the problem, really, because no one makes enough money to buy them! I found that once you have multiple enclosures, you will look for another VCA somewhere, otherwise the cable will not reach your entire The atmosphere will disappear. I see Scanner seems to keep his things as Verbos boxes and Make Noise boxes, maybe this is the way to do it."

Are there any other hardware synthesizers used in the album to complement the modular stuff?

"It's just modular, although it took me a long time to copy the sound of the Prophet 600 into the soft synthesizer I programmed. My Prophet 600 is broken, so one oscillator on one sound is broken, but it would be better : If you play a little bit, on the fifth or sixth note, the situation is different. Therefore, I also built it into the software version, and I have four to five different controls to determine how it changes It's not stable. I have a Korg Mono/Poly in the studio. I hardly use it on any track, but because of the control of each sound, it can inspire so much inspiration." 

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