|
An interview with Bigger.
 |
Bruno Thomas takes us on a journey inside the private universe
of the cube's Bigger
to get the low down on the making of Permanent Scars
It’s Monday afternoon and the studio is typically filled with the sort of paraphernalia you might expect to see in an audiophile’s survival bunker. Speakers, water bottles, hard drives, CD’s, keyboards, lava lamps, sunlight rationing coupons…
|
Bigger sits in his favourite studio chair banging away on a computer keyboard in front of a cluster of monitors mumbling something about phase correlation and the peculiarities of mixing 5.1 surround. “ I love the fact you can’t get away from it…” he chuckles. “When you are in the middle of the surround mix and your whole world is this swirling, all encompassing train wreck waiting to happen ...”
I’m in the Sydney studio of the cube. Bigger and his wordy compatriot and fellow cube Tmac have just completed their debut album “Permanent Scars” and Bigger is now completing 5.1 surround mixes of tracks from the album.
We really want to get our words and music across to as many people as possible via downloads, the message board and our own posts. The net allows you to connect with people remotely and yet you can form closer ties with fans of your work – to get feedback from them and to give the same in return…very cool ...”
He shuffles in his seat and seems to get a little more animated, "We have a very hands on kind of approach to what we do. Obviously we write and record our own music and co direct and produce our own videos, but we are directly involved in the evolution of our web presence too."
We discuss the vagaries of record company angst at the lack of control they have with the net and we agree that while the big boys are still scratching their heads, the smart labels and artists are looking at the net as a way to promote and encourage people to participate in a hands on way.
Eventually the conversation came around to how the album was recorded so I posed the following questions...
What did you guys set out to do when you started recording your album?
Bigger: We gave ourselves every option. Anything we felt like doing, we tried. Musically, I have wide musical tastes and T’s lyrics just take me places. We initially had a few technical constraints when we first started writing and recording because we were building our studio at the same time. We just couldn’t wait for it to be finished – too keen to get on with writing. We eventually finished the studio and moved into it and continued on.
How did the songs come together?
Bigger: T had written a lot of spoken word and I was particularly inspired by what I had read. Reading the words made me want to create sound scapes that would create that place in my head. Sometimes I wrote tracks that T would write words for. He improvised over some of them as well and came up with some incredible landscapes.
How did you record the album?
Bigger: We have computer based recording system and the warehouse surrounding the studio is great for all sorts of acoustic reasons - great for drums, percussion and guitars. We did all of the vocals in the control room with headphones on. It just seemed to work so well. I have a favourite Groove Tube valve mic and that accounts for just about all of the vocals on the album. I use Cubase SX and also did a lot of the recording on the Paris DAW system. We started the album with an old Mac 7300, which we squeezed the life out of but eventually got a maxed out Mac G4, which made the rest a whole lot easier.
There are a number of styles on Permanent Scars. The album seems to be quite varied musically. Why so wide a palette?
Bigger: We are the sum of our parts. We both love lots of styles and I just don’t like the idea that people have to pigeon-hole you for the sake of it. I get as affected listening to Eminem as I did to Frank Zappa. Audioslave are the new Led Zeppelin and Destiny’s Child are the new millennium Supremes, with all the problems sorted out ... It’s just that all of these things are as relevant to our musical culture as anything else and it seems logical to me to produce each piece according to how it fits with the telling of the story. Boundaries are boring ...
What next?
Bigger: I’m continuing on with 5.1 mixes of the album for a DVD. The album is being released in the UK and Europe in the new year, with the DVD to follow. We’ve thrown around a few more ideas for tracks for the next album. Just can’t help ourselves I think. Once bitten ...
|
