DEADZONE
I was not part of the original deadzone. It was all over before I came along. I suppose perhaps I could be called its second generation. I'm sure there's a few of us. It's a music industry legend. An inspiration.
The following is an extract from a letter I received, wrapped around a cassette tape:
There was a solo artist, nihilist, insomniac, made haunting hollow atmospheric soundscapes from his 'depression of existing in the industrial urban wilderness' that broke into soulless organic breakbeat, glitch or darkore, whatever they call it now. He pioneered a few interesting techniques I haven't heard elsewhere, building up layers of textured ambience. Lots of effects units and samplers, an expensive mic and a portable recorder. Spent years at it and produced only one limited run studio album 'protogravic', now unavailable. A real perfectionist. He called himself Dead.
There were two tribal jungle dubstep dudes, very shamanic in their spooky voodoo ghost steppin' vibes. They took lots of drugs. They were more bouncy, a lot going on with the bass rhythms. Drum&Bass. Drum machines and tabla drums, they had a strong ethnic feel, percussion instruments and a sequencer for cut&paste their stuff together, mixing acoustic and electric. They used a lot of rainforest loops stolen from vhs videos. They did half a dozen or more simply numbered 'albums' straight onto tape, all of very similar material, perfecting their experiments, you can hear they had a great time doing it. They called themselves Dead.
There was a loose partnership of three guys, the two of them could never work together, I don't know if it was envy or personality clash the way some creative geniuses can be. They respected each others music enough to share a studio guru friend caught up in a tense tug of war battle between them. The one was into early black metal inspired techno, type-o-negative meets happy hardcore. The other was into blippy psychedelic trance. Between them they had a groovebox, an electric bass guitar with effects pedals, a rock drum kit and a few classic synths. The studio tech fused the work he was doing with both his mates together into a product format, creating his own debut work, 'frixion'. He released it under the name Dead.
There was a cellist / violinist who was working with a basic 4-track recorder to layer up some gothic acoustic folk music. Very emotional, sometimes sinister and sometimes beautiful, she was too deep for most people to cope with and exactly what others needed to hear. She did one album, her background was classical so basically it was a nameless symphony. I was lucky to be sent a pirated copy and even more lucky to track her down. She used the name Dead too.
I was good friends with a guy who worked in a local backstreet music store and instrument shop. Music was his passion. It was through him I was able to hear all of this and make the connections. I speak about all of this in the past tense because it has all gone now. The world moved on. Maybe the sun came up on us. To early man, too damn early.
I found them all. I invited them one by one to meet me as a fan to discuss their music, and because they knew I had my finger in a few pies, being a local artist of some very small repute, having had one exhibition of my work of similar themes to their music, they identified with although none of them had seen the exhibition. I invited them all together to a banquet meal. Had to chop and change the dates until they could all make it to the same feast. It was unforgettable. Candle-lit and chopsticks. Come as yourself and relax. Choosing the appropriate background music for the event was the difficult bit, it took me weeks of lists for mix-tapes before I gave up on that plan and decided to do a random selection of their own work so they all knew what was what and who is who.
I opened the door to them wearing a stylish oversized black death shroud hooded cloak, of course. And a cheap white plastic expressionless kids face mask made to look like a deaths head skull with marker pen. They all had a shock when they saw there on the table a stack of cd's remastered from their original recordings, my gift to them to say thank you for bringing this into the world. Modern technology makes this possible without too much expense. All of the cd's though by different artists were all released under the name Dead.
Everybody said; what the fuck?
I'd made an old fashioned quill from a calligraphy nib and an excessively big black floppy feather, dyed of course. The scroll presented for the group to sign was less of a contract and more of a proposal. They all signed it, naturally. The band, the sound system, the collective, whatever terminology you would prefer to use; was formed.
We were lucky. The trance guy brought along his girlfriend, who it turns out is a passable vocalist. She has a husky, breathy voice with a gravel in it. like the sea-shore on a pebble beach. She agreed to put it to good use.
To begin with, I gave them some Oblique Strategies to get them started. Outline themes for songs, from haunted house to deep space. A lot of dark themes; killer gets laid, share depression heart, infinite empty, industrial planet, chemical eco-cide, secret, pan's last seed, stuff like that. Feelings invoked by mindscapes, soundtracks for images we see in the minds eye and all around. We started a folder of related imagery that turned into collage boards. Everyone got on board with that and it really became the brain of the operation; to make songs that describe each picture.
Between us we hired an old whitewashed stone-walled warehouse space with electric and an atmosphere conducive for creativity of this nature. All of them brought along some of their own kit and as a crew we pooled resources to invest in some more second-hand items that we decided were essential. Of course the tech guys just moved straight in and started jamming from dot one, its what they do. Most everybody hit it off amazingly, with enough people to help each other stay focused on what was working well. If it works, say that it works and work with it.
The 'rules' are simple; be productive and bring no groupies, hangers-on, time-wasters. Keep it to ourselves; its a secret project, its a focus group. Introduce nobody new without group consent. Sharing this secret boosted everybodies self-esteem. We call the studio, the Dead Zone. It's probably not the ones you'll find on the internet. But it's growing. A few black drapes, some pot plants on the window ledge, home-made theme-board posters on the walls. And the stuff they are coming out with! Makes me shiver.
There were two tribal jungle dubstep dudes, very shamanic in their spooky voodoo ghost steppin' vibes. They took lots of drugs. They were more bouncy, a lot going on with the bass rhythms. Drum&Bass. Drum machines and tabla drums, they had a strong ethnic feel, percussion instruments and a sequencer for cut&paste their stuff together, mixing acoustic and electric. They used a lot of rainforest loops stolen from vhs videos. They did half a dozen or more simply numbered 'albums' straight onto tape, all of very similar material, perfecting their experiments, you can hear they had a great time doing it. They called themselves Dead.
There was a loose partnership of three guys, the two of them could never work together, I don't know if it was envy or personality clash the way some creative geniuses can be. They respected each others music enough to share a studio guru friend caught up in a tense tug of war battle between them. The one was into early black metal inspired techno, type-o-negative meets happy hardcore. The other was into blippy psychedelic trance. Between them they had a groovebox, an electric bass guitar with effects pedals, a rock drum kit and a few classic synths. The studio tech fused the work he was doing with both his mates together into a product format, creating his own debut work, 'frixion'. He released it under the name Dead.
There was a cellist / violinist who was working with a basic 4-track recorder to layer up some gothic acoustic folk music. Very emotional, sometimes sinister and sometimes beautiful, she was too deep for most people to cope with and exactly what others needed to hear. She did one album, her background was classical so basically it was a nameless symphony. I was lucky to be sent a pirated copy and even more lucky to track her down. She used the name Dead too.
I was good friends with a guy who worked in a local backstreet music store and instrument shop. Music was his passion. It was through him I was able to hear all of this and make the connections. I speak about all of this in the past tense because it has all gone now. The world moved on. Maybe the sun came up on us. To early man, too damn early.
I found them all. I invited them one by one to meet me as a fan to discuss their music, and because they knew I had my finger in a few pies, being a local artist of some very small repute, having had one exhibition of my work of similar themes to their music, they identified with although none of them had seen the exhibition. I invited them all together to a banquet meal. Had to chop and change the dates until they could all make it to the same feast. It was unforgettable. Candle-lit and chopsticks. Come as yourself and relax. Choosing the appropriate background music for the event was the difficult bit, it took me weeks of lists for mix-tapes before I gave up on that plan and decided to do a random selection of their own work so they all knew what was what and who is who.
I opened the door to them wearing a stylish oversized black death shroud hooded cloak, of course. And a cheap white plastic expressionless kids face mask made to look like a deaths head skull with marker pen. They all had a shock when they saw there on the table a stack of cd's remastered from their original recordings, my gift to them to say thank you for bringing this into the world. Modern technology makes this possible without too much expense. All of the cd's though by different artists were all released under the name Dead.
Everybody said; what the fuck?
I'd made an old fashioned quill from a calligraphy nib and an excessively big black floppy feather, dyed of course. The scroll presented for the group to sign was less of a contract and more of a proposal. They all signed it, naturally. The band, the sound system, the collective, whatever terminology you would prefer to use; was formed.
We were lucky. The trance guy brought along his girlfriend, who it turns out is a passable vocalist. She has a husky, breathy voice with a gravel in it. like the sea-shore on a pebble beach. She agreed to put it to good use.
To begin with, I gave them some Oblique Strategies to get them started. Outline themes for songs, from haunted house to deep space. A lot of dark themes; killer gets laid, share depression heart, infinite empty, industrial planet, chemical eco-cide, secret, pan's last seed, stuff like that. Feelings invoked by mindscapes, soundtracks for images we see in the minds eye and all around. We started a folder of related imagery that turned into collage boards. Everyone got on board with that and it really became the brain of the operation; to make songs that describe each picture.
Between us we hired an old whitewashed stone-walled warehouse space with electric and an atmosphere conducive for creativity of this nature. All of them brought along some of their own kit and as a crew we pooled resources to invest in some more second-hand items that we decided were essential. Of course the tech guys just moved straight in and started jamming from dot one, its what they do. Most everybody hit it off amazingly, with enough people to help each other stay focused on what was working well. If it works, say that it works and work with it.
The 'rules' are simple; be productive and bring no groupies, hangers-on, time-wasters. Keep it to ourselves; its a secret project, its a focus group. Introduce nobody new without group consent. Sharing this secret boosted everybodies self-esteem. We call the studio, the Dead Zone. It's probably not the ones you'll find on the internet. But it's growing. A few black drapes, some pot plants on the window ledge, home-made theme-board posters on the walls. And the stuff they are coming out with! Makes me shiver.