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| MuteResponse #1 - artwork by Espen J. Jörgensen |
The idea for MuteResponse came to me more or less
exactly twelve months ago.
I
was sat in the Curzon Cinema in Chelsea on 24 October 2012 listening to a talk as part
of David Byrne's How Music Works book tour. Byrne had selected a
different musician each night to join the debate, which for London
was curated by Sean O'Hagan. His fellow debater on the health of
music and the 'music industry' as we might have once called it, was
Matthew Herbert.
The
talk was a mix of interview and discussion. Both Herbert and Byrne
made entertaining speakers, each possessing an authoritative
viewpoint on just how dire it is for musicians trying to earn a crust
in today's digital era. In spite of each speaker's self-deprecating
mannerisms and an honest raking through of their individual paths to
becoming musicians, the evening was a sobering one, and if it wasn't for a call to arms at the very end, I would have left thinking that
all was doomed.
In
the concluding moments, Herbert emphatically stressed that the future
success of music depended on allowing the smallest scenes to thrive
and develop. It was delivered with such passion and gusto that it was
difficult not to feel compelled to do something with that. But, as
people began to file out of the cinema, I stayed back a few moments
and wondered how to do my small bit to protect the art form I enjoy
so much.
In
about half an hour I was stood at Sloane Square Underground station
mulling over what I could do. I was listening to, and reviewing, the
album Mind The Gap by Metroland that day and had sent over my finished
piece to Sven from the duo earlier. Metroland's album
reminded me principally of the work by Mute Records stalwarts
Komputer, and the confluence of making that connection and Herbert's
insistent request for participation came together somewhere on the
Tube between Sloane Square and South Kensington and the idea for
MuteResponse was born.
My
thought process was simple: I already am part of a small scene,
though not a musician; that scene consists of a bunch of people who
are fans of Mute Records, the independent record label established by
Daniel Miller in 1978. I already support Mute's legacy through my
website Documentary Evidence which I started a decade ago as a place
to write reviews and interviews with Mute artists or those connected
to the label; Documentary Evidence was never supposed to be anything
other than a place to post my personal views and opinions on whatever
Mute release I was listening to that day. I had no aspirations to
become a fully-fledged music critic, and I didn't really care if
anyone was even reading the poorly-scribed stuff I was sticking up
online.
By
2013 I seemed to have accumulated a number of fellow Mute fans who
were similarly smitten by the label, but something about what Herbert
had said made me feel like I needed to do something more, or, more
specifically, to provide a different sort of tribute to the legacy of
Mute. So I decided, between those two Tube stations to put together a
compilation of artists influenced by the label. The title
MuteResponse came to me almost as soon as I came up with the idea for
the album. Never let it be said that inspiration doesn't lurk in the
dark tunnels under London.
Helpfully,
what Documentary Evidence covers has meant that lots of like-minded
people send me their music for review. It's a nice problem to have.
That made the selection of tracks from some recent releases
relatively straightforward, but I also wanted to secure some
exclusive tracks, or things that I'd had the privilege of listening
to that had for whatever reason never seen the light of day. So I set
about a process of asking for permission to use tracks from releases
I'd been sent, inviting artists to send over a track for
consideration, or trying to persuade people who were sitting on
unreleased tracks that were unlikely to ever get released to allow
them to be used. That so many people wanted to see their tracks
included was a pleasant surprise and consequently the album came
together far easier than I ever expected to; so much so that it
became evident that it would need to be a double compilation. The
first track I received was 'Clues In The Rain' by Espen J. Jörgensen
and Rupert Lally, and so, appropriately enough, it is the opening
track on album one.
Securing
an unreleased track from Vic Twenty was, on a personal level, one of
the most pleasing events in the development of MuteResponse. Vic
Twenty, originally a duo of Adrian Morris and Angela Penhaligon
(Piney Gir) were the first group I ever wrote about on Documentary
Evidence after the single 'Text Message' was released on Credible
Sexy Units, a new label Mute founder Daniel Miller set up after his
main concern was bought by EMI. Adrian sent me a CDr of unreleased
Vic Twenty tracks while I was undertaking one of two interviews with
him, and I always hoped that 'Christmas In Korea (New Year In Japan)'
would see the light of day one day. Now it will, and just before
Christmas too.
People
have asked how I managed to get producer Gareth Jones on board with an
exclusive track, 'Summer Solstice 2013'. I first spoke to Gareth (and
also Olivia Louvel, and Paul 'PK' Kendall) about the project in the
bar after a Simon Fisher Turner and Factory Floor concert at the ICA
in March. I've spoken to Gareth a few times over the past ten years
but even so, asking him if he was interested in participating was a
nerve-racking experience. Nevertheless, he seemed genuinely enthused
by being involved. His track was a real surprise - a carefully
constructed, many-layered audio collage of London atmospheres - and
it is indeed a real coup to be featuring a piece by someone who's
name has been attached to many of my favourite records.
It
occurred to me early on that one relatively straightforward way of
offering a tribute to Mute would be by asking for cover versions of
songs by Mute artists. In the end it seemed like the most obvious way
to approach it, and therefore the least appealing way to do it; after
all, if the whole point of this was to show Mute's influence, it
needed to illustrate how Mute's early aesthetic had crept out to
infiltrate how people made electronic music; just putting out covers
seemed to undermine that somehow. There was just one exception to
that rule - an instrumental cover of Depeche Mode's See You' by Dave
Fleet. Fleet first sent me a demo of this about two years ago and I
was pleased to have been able to encourage him to finish it. We both
tried to find a vocalist for the track but finally decided it was
beautiful as it was, being a mixture of sensitive orchestrations and
whirring electronics. Fleet proved to be one of the most important
creative consultants for the project, giving me his opinion on tracks
I wasn't sure about, sourcing tracks from Jay Mass / Andy Clark and
Simplicity Is Beauty and securing the services of Chris Sharp to
master the overall project. In fact, without Dave's support and
guidance MuteResponse would have been just another idea that never
went anywhere.
Another
pivotal figure in the genesis of MuteResponse was Procedure, whose
'Isbjörn' is one of my favourite pieces from the entire project. One
day he emailed me asking if I had ever tried contacting Simone Grant,
who designed the first sleeves for Mute and whose creative insight
informed the distinctive imagery of releases by The Normal, Silicon
Teens, Fad Gadget and others. Within 48 hours I'd made contact with
Simone and she'd agreed to design alternative sleeves for the
project. Other alternative sleeve designs came from Espen J.
Jörgensen, p6 from Security, Olivia Louvel and Dylan Fleet.
Let
us return to the original reason for doing this in the first place.
The idea was to further encourage the development of a small scene,
namely artists influenced in whatever bleak way by Mute Records. That
was its original stated purpose and I believe it does that
effectively, albeit as a very narrow snapshot. However, for me it
also highlights more clearly that while the music industry might be
broken beyond repair, originality exists in greater abundance than
ever before. There are amazing artists out there producing many, many
great tracks that deserve far greater exposure than they get, but
don't because they're not on a label with a huge marketing budget. It
was that realisation that there was music out there that I'd never
heard of that made Mute so appealing to me in the first place.
I
hope above all that MuteResponse contributes in some small way to
raising the profile of the very talented artists who contributed to
this project, and whose music deserves far wider appreciation.
MuteResponse is released via Bandcamp on 4 November 2013.
-
MJAS, Woburn Sands, UK, November 2013
