NZ Musician October/November 2004 (Vol: 11, No: 8) By Stephen Jewell (photography by Ian McRae)
Pitch Black Angels
Pitch Black's Michael Hodgson (left) and Paddy Free make their comeback after a four year break.
Since releasing their debut album 'Futureproof' in 1998, electronic duo Pitch Black - aka Michael Hodgson and Paddy Free - have been at the global forefront of musical technology, with their innovative VJing in particular garnering praise from international companies.
Their second album 'Electronomicon' was released in 2000, and in the four years since Pitch Black have once more moved with the times as I discover when I visit them at the Kingsland headquarters of their long time label Kog Transmissions. There I find the pair hunkered down in a studio with Kog's Chris Chetland, mastering their third long player, 'From Ape To Angel' on their G4 iBooks.
"We would certainly have to say that beyond using Logic or Pro Tools or any of those systems, the biggest significant shift in the music scene since we did 'Electronomicon' is the advent of Ableton Live, which has become an absolute staple compositional tool for us," says Hodgson. "It's had a huge impact on our creativity and has just turned making live music on its head, allowing us to go to places we haven't been before."
"And laptops have become viable in the last four years," adds Free, who reveals that was what 'From Ape To Angel' was recorded on.
"A pair of powered speakers and the laptops. One system would be on the speakers and the other one would be on the headphones."
"You can write on the plane or on a bus," continues Hodgson. "It's incredible. These things have also impacted on us by just allowing us to go to places that we couldn't go before. It certainly helped me as the less musically technical person to have more of a contribution to the musical process. I've been able to come up with more fully formed, stronger ideas than I could with Logic or other programmes."
Pitch Black's lengthy leave of absence can be attributed to Hodgson relocating to London in 2001, although he returned to New Zealand each summer to play various shows while Free joined him for a couple of European summer tours.
However, the pair only began to work on 'From Ape To Angel' in earnest when Hodgson returned in 2003 to live in Wellington, with Free still based in Auckland.
"It's a hell of a lot easier than when Mike was based in London for two years," says Free. "That put the brakes on our creativity a bit. We thought we could collaborate long distance but it didn't really come off. In the end, it was great because Mike was able to set up tours and stuff but it stopped the output. So being in Wellington is nothing," he laughs, admitting that despite the increasing ubiquity of the internet "...you just can't beat two people in a room".
"Just seeing if one person's nodding their head and if the other person's also into it. It's vibe, man! You have that spontaneous thing between two people where you're both into it and stuff comes out of that."
"I also think four years between major pieces of creativity is actually quite a good time because by the time we got back together to really pull this one together, we had so much material," observes Hodgson. "Our lives had changed so much and we'd done so much stuff because even though we haven't had vocals - up to now at least - our music is still reflective of our experiences. I feel really comfortable having this much of a break. I feel like I've reached a point where I'm actually ready to go back into this process again, whereas I couldn't have said that I was that ready for 'Electronomicon'. I don't think we had quite the material there but it's been good playing live around the world and having all the experiences we had. Some of the gear has also changed and there's been a shift in music so it's been a good time to have away."
One thing that hasn't changed is Pitch Black's choice of record company. Despite last year's upheavals which culminated in the departure of other key artists like Concord Dawn and P-Money, Hodgson and Free have chosen to remain with Kog Transmissions. However, 'From Ape To Angel' will be distributed through independent Rhythmethod and not previous Kog distributor Universal Music.
"Kog have scaled back everything they're doing and that's fine because it means we get all their attention," says Hodgson. "The world doesn't need another record label and we didn't want to set up our own and have to chase shops and things like that. We're happy to just deliver the master of the music to them and we get to use their wicked facilities. Plus loyalty is a good thing. There's not enough of it in the music industry and Kog are people we know we can relate to."
"As for the future, it would be good to do a DVD. Who knows? I think we'll just get through this album first."
From Ape To Angel' also finds Free and Hodgson drawing on a wider sonic palette than on previous albums.
"We've always picked bits from genres that we've liked," says Free. "I wouldn't know how to make a by-the-numbers breaks track or house track. I don't know the rules. But there's aspects of all those different styles that we like in our music. We just accumulate what pushes our buttons."
"When we first started the process of recording the album, we knew we had a number of tracks that we'd already played live so we decided to go into the Coromandel for a week," continues Hodgson. "We came out of a four day session with four new tracks and that made up the rest of our album. Then in the course of making the album, one of the tracks we've been playing for years just didn't make it. We ended up ditching it, which was quite a surprise and quite interesting - how the new stuff powered over the old stuff."
Unlike 'Electronomicon' which was mostly recorded in a windowless studio in Auckland, 'From Ape To Angel' was produced on the road over the past two years in Coromandel, Piha and Wellington before "...a final coherent mix and mastering session" at Kog. Free and Hodgson also worked with a vocalist for the first time, collaborating with former Auckland, now London-based Sandy Mill, who has previously provided vocals for acts such as Subware, Spacesuit and SJD.
"Sandy had sung with us at a few gigs in London and it was something that we wanted to try," says Free. "We had one or two vocal samples on the first album and it was sort of an inevitably that we would work with a proper vocalist."
"It was good," adds Hodgson. "We just chose a night. Sandy was back from London for a month so we just bought some food and some bottles of wine and went into the recording room. She'd heard the tracks but we didn't know where they were going to go."
Mill features on two tracks on 'From Ape To Angel,' the breakbeat-infused Freefall and Elements Turn, an instrumental version of which featured on the Whale Rider soundtrack.
"We wrote that in Kaikoura a couple of years ago," recalls Hodgson. "We'd never recorded it but we'd played it live a couple of times. The song, or at least the lyrics, are actually about coming back to New Zealand after losing the plot overseas. It's about the power of the land, and about getting restored by this land and then going back out into the world a stronger person. It fits in really well with what happened to me while I was overseas and probably a number of other people."
Elements Turn appears during the first act of Whale Rider, when Paikea's father is driving her away from the village but she changes her mind after hearing the call of the whales, gets out and returns to live with her aunt and uncle.
"They used it in the first time that beats kick in," notes Hodgson. "Just before I went overseas, I was talking to Niki (Caro, director of Whale Rider), and she was looking for some music. She'd shot the film and they were in the editing process. So I said I'd dump a whole lot of stuff we'd been working on onto a CD and gave it to her."
"It hadn't even been recorded properly," adds Free. "It was just recorded onto the sound card of Mike's computer. When Niki came back and said she wanted this minute of music, I had to try and master it up, eek it up and polish it up so that it sounded good."
"There was no way we could recreate that moment because it was the first time it ever got jammed," continues Hodgson. "I was overseas and Paddy was here. It's been great because Whale Rider has become such an icon and it seemed to work. We've been getting emails from the weirdest places from people who have heard it in the film and stayed until the end of the credits, saw our name and looked us up on the net."
And it was mostly through such word of mouth that Pitch Black have made a name for themselves overseas, not officially releasing their albums in Europe but instead selling them at gigs and over the internet through Wellington-based Smoke CDs.
"We got over to England and discovered that PR companies wanted £2000 to promote your records but they wouldn't even generate a by-line in a local newspaper," admits Hodgson.
"We were at the point where it just didn't seem worthwhile because they couldn't work out what category to stick us in and the records were so different to the live shows so we concentrated on playing live. We've also licensed lots of tracks to compilations and the relationship with Smoke CDs has been great. They give good, reliable service and that's our current on-line presence, short of getting into iTunes. People email us from all over the world and we just flick them onto Smoke CDs."
Free and Hodgson will head back overseas in November for a whirlwind tour of Britain, America and Australia but first up a slimmed-down Pitch Black will tour New Zealand in October.
"The live show has definitely developed," says Hodgson. "Technically with Ableton Live, we can ditch the 44 kilo keyboard and it's also much easier to update things quickly. You can go straight from the finished session into the live session all on the laptop. You don't have to put it into the sampler and then MIDI sequence the sampler. We're shedding at least 100 kilos off the touring rig which is a huge saving when you're taking 250 kilos around the world."
Just as 'Electronomicon' spawned 2001's 'Electric Earth and Other Elements' album, Hodgson and Free are intending to release an album of remixes of 'From Ape To Angel' next year, but beyond that they are making no concrete plans.
"We're just going to keep touring and keep making music," declares Free. "We've been gigging constantly over the last four years, although not so much in New Zealand, and it's been long overdue to get an album out. Now that we have, we've got a new impetus for a new round of touring, so we'll see what happens. We've only ever done one music video before so it would be good if we could get maybe three or four videos from this album. If we do, that'll be something new."
"We didn't actually apply to New Zealand On Air in the latest round because we didn't have the song," continues Hodgson. "There was no point stressing about applying because we don't fit their mandate. As for the future, it would be good to do a DVD. Who knows? I think we'll just get through this album first."
www.pitchblack.co.nz
Gear List
- 2 Mac G4 Powerbooks
- 2 RME Multiface audio I/D
- Logic Pro
- Ableton Live
- 2 Remote 25 controller Keyboards
- Roland A-37 controller Keyboards
- Mackie SR24 mixing desk
- 2 Boss SE-50 FX boxes plug-ins for Africa, Eurasia and most of the South Pacific
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