The Crisis of Electronica. Part III

Part three, in which Andrei Gorokhov continues his conversation with Felix Randomiz

Felix Randomiz: I used to work far more intuitively... more freely... I played more.

A.G.: What do you mean, "played"? You banged on the keys?

F.R.: Hmm, yes, banged on the keys, ha-ha-ha...

A.G.: Did you use the standard presets of your synthesizers? (Note: a preset is a combination of a large number of synthesizer parameters that together produce some overall effect or other.)

F.R.: No, no, that was inadmissible... The ban on using presets was a kind of paradigm. It wasn't up for discussion. The reason was that the standard presets sounded simply lousy.
But now the worldview has changed - both clicks'n'cuts and the program Reaktor played a considerable part. A huge number of new sounds that used to be perceived unambiguously negatively, as defects, as distortions, have now become admissible. This would seem to be a positive development. But at the same time a completely new situation arose - there came to be too much of this music, a real overproduction and a riot of arbitrariness. Real mountains of rubbish have been produced in this field.
That is, on the one hand there was a development and broadening of perception, the situation opened up and defused in many ways, and on the other hand we found ourselves in a situation of unprecedented arbitrariness and non-obligation. Everything lost its meaning.
Before, to achieve a more or less passable result, you had to strain very hard and use your brain. And the result held enormous meaning for you. Now you can do it this way, or that way... there's no meaning in either case.
Now you can announce a new style, show how it's made, everyone does their peep-and-poop, it all gets published... someone is bound to like it! Who? The one who listens just as superficially.
And so it grows, like a snowball.

A.G.: Isn't this the same as what happened in the situation with jungle, drum'n'bass, minimal techno? After the breakthrough comes the glut, the hollowing-out and the endless treading in place. In the new situation, though, one can only speak of a single style loosely - everything grouped under the heading of clicks'n'cuts sounds fairly diverse. Perhaps we should speak of a "Reaktor style"? Or of the harm that Reaktor caused?
By the way, what is the novelty of Reaktor? What did it make possible?

F.R.: Reaktor made it possible to program synthesizers at a fairly low level, almost machine-level. That is, you can assemble sound-generating units out of very basic elements. This is, of course, the old idea of the modular synthesizer, a synthesizer assembled from separate building blocks - modules. The emphasis is placed not on the complexity of the individual modules but on the complexity of the connections between them; the modules themselves can be quite simple.
All this sounds attractive - you're supposedly guaranteed complete freedom to combine basic elements. The trouble is that this low level of Reaktor is used by practically no one. There are a couple of people who use these possibilities creatively - building unusual synthesizers or rhythm machines - but in 90% of cases we're dealing with variations on already-known solutions: yet another thousand subtractive synthesizers with... No, in that sense Reaktor didn't renew the situation at all.
The situation crystallised in such a way that a division of the spheres of application of this program occurred. There are several spheres that Reaktor serves, there's a quite specific public that works precisely with Reaktor precisely to solve these specific tasks.
Incidentally, this isn't specific to Reaktor; with the program Max/MSP it's the same situation. Whoever works with Max/MSP makes quite definite sounds and music. In other words, these seemingly universal programs are used in extremely specific situations.
You asked about the harm Reaktor caused? Reaktor contributed to the democratisation of noise. It became clear how it's done. Now everyone thinks they can do it too, they understand it too, it's actually as easy as pie. You can publish your limp and muddled junk, you can perform with it at a concert - and no one raises the question of what kind of composer you are, what conception of the aesthetics of sound you have, or whether you even understand which sounds and musical passages are valuable and interesting and which are not.
All that became unnecessary... it's enough to pile up some non-committal weirdness plus noise here, a creak there, a stutter and a stumble in between - I can do that.. and I can do it... and he can do it...

A.G.: Are such complex programs as Reaktor necessary for making music?

F.R. (laughs): A good question. I have a fairly ambivalent attitude towards Reaktor. Personally, I find it interesting to devise various synthesizer designs and then realise them in Reaktor. That is, Reaktor is interesting to me. But at the same time I've never once used a single one of these synthesizers to make actual music. That's why I stumble on this question: are programs like Reaktor or Max/MSP necessary? Yes, they're necessary, but... not for making music.

A.G.: To what extent is the genuinely interesting music of recent years dependent on computer programs?

F.R.: That is, you're asking again: are these programs needed to make interesting music? My answer is: no.

A.G.: Do computer music programs have a future? Granular synthesis was conceived in the early 60s, realised in the early 70s, and today it's available to anyone with a computer. Several parallel audio tracks is an old idea. The use of white noise is another old idea. Squeals, harsh noises, jabs of noise were used by Stockhausen in the mid-50s. Sampling appeared even earlier. Algorithmic build-up of a musical flow has been going on since the mid-60s. The modular structure of synthesizers is also the 60s. What's left? Nothing at all. Doesn't it turn out that Reaktor is not a breakthrough into the future but rather a breakthrough into the past?

F.R.: Yes, all this has become more accessible, cheaper. It's all become easier to combine and to use in general. Everything functions much faster. Yes, no new methods of sound synthesis are appearing, but it's of enormous importance that certain possibilities are becoming more accessible than before.
Take, say, time stretching - stretching, slowing down a sound without changing its pitch. The algorithm is based on granular synthesis. An old and well-known thing. But just a couple of years ago, to stretch a sound you had to wait half an hour while the sampler coped with the enormous computation. Now it's possible in real time. Which means this process can be modulated, influenced, played with. An enormous field of possibilities opens up. Theoretically speaking, they're all reducible to discoveries of forty years ago, but the music being made today was impossible back then, simply because working has become more convenient today. And this development is certainly continuing.
I'm not at all sure we need a totally new view of music or of sound generation to arrive at completely new musical structures. It seems to me it's a matter of the convenience and transparency of the user interface.

A.G.: Is there anything else one might wish for, something computer programs still can't do?

F.R.: Oh, a great deal. All the programs are still at an extremely immature stage. Say, the program AudioLogic doesn't so much help you make music as, rather, get in the way. It's all only just beginning.
The program Ableton Live offers a far more interesting approach to sequencing and arrangement: you can already not just repeat samples in a loop but play a little. That's a huge step forward. But after fiddling with this program for about a month, I saw that it can't be used for anything interesting; I constantly run up against the fact that this isn't yet possible, that doesn't work, this isn't provided for... It slows you down and squeezes you into little children's booties. We'll see whether it fulfils its promise; for now it's still a toy.
The program developers shouldn't be busy searching for new effects, new methods of sound generation - they should be putting their efforts into the user interface, into the interaction of the musician with the program. And in this area practically nothing is being done, to my enormous regret. Instead of confronting me with the principled possibility of some effect or other, they should be helping me apply it flexibly and vividly. If an effect is merely possible, then only its non-dynamic, inflexible application is possible. So that I can tune it smoothly, combine it flexibly with other effects - they need to give me these possibilities! For now, as soon as some idea comes into my head, I start figuring out how to outwit the program, that is, to fool its developers. In other words, any program is perceived by me as an obstacle in which I try to find a crack.

A.G.: How widespread among musicians is the feeling of dissatisfaction with such behaviour of computer programs?

F.R.: All the musicians I know are simply in despair. We're deluged with new versions of programs, they try to convince us that there are more and more possibilities, that we've finally become free. In reality, though, working becomes ever more complicated and ever more unpleasant. In my view, many dream of the diametrically opposite development - of reduction, that is, of the simplification of programs. What's needed isn't programs that contain a whole universe within them, but simple, easy-to-handle specialised tools - like a screwdriver, a hammer, a drill.
I noticed long ago that when I start working with sound, trying out various audio sequences, I arrive at the most interesting results using the simplest technical means - the simplest filter, the simplest volume curve... with the emphasis, in doing so, on the combination of simple tools.
When I get a new, complexly-built program, I discover fairly quickly that its complexity is eyewash. A program like that doesn't allow complex work at all; you make simple steps, and it takes all the complexities upon itself, that is, it does the same thing every time. And since its sound doesn't depend on your efforts, that means it imposes its own sound on you. But it should be exactly the reverse: it does the simple things so that I myself can take the complex and non-obvious steps.

A.G.: I won't torment you any longer, one last question. Music programs have room to develop, but does music have room to develop?
F.R.: In my memory there have already been several such moments, when it seemed that that was it, stop, nothing interesting would happen from here on... and against expectation something does happen after all, a new impulse comes from somewhere.
I see the current moment like this: work is going on over minor cosmetic improvements, the construction becomes finer, more elegant, nothing new is being built, but what was built before is now being erected far more thoughtfully.
Of course, this is in a certain sense a stagnation. But people with good ideas will always keep appearing. I simply trust my feeling that everything will yet be set in motion.

A.G.: How old are you?

F.R.: 34.

A.G.: How do you assess the new generation? Is it capable of putting forward new idea-bearers? Or will the new impulse come after all from the ranks of the old guard? But then neither Aphex Twin, nor Atom Heart, nor Pan Sonic, nor Mouse On Mars, nor Oval, nor Autechre have shown anything fundamentally new for many years now.

F.R.: Oo-oops... ha-la-la-a-a-a... mm-mm-mm... I think the new impulses have to come from a new generation of producers. By which I mean not actual age but, rather, freshness of head.
If you grew up with certain ideas, models, approaches to the work, then you fuse with them and are to a certain degree their prisoner. If we look at things more narrowly, we can say that an emerging new program will more likely be mastered and applied by younger people, who will most likely apply it more freely and easily. The old masters, on seeing a new program, will most likely not abandon their old methods and principles.
But this situation is not at all clear-cut. The old master is able to understand and appreciate many so-called "new things" far better, since he was present at their development and formation. He has a far deeper understanding of what's happening.
The young simply start applying what's there. Where it came from, what prehistory it had, how it sounded 10-20-30 years ago - they don't know and, it seems, don't want to know. Maybe the young, simply applying what fell into their mouths of its own accord, will make something of it. There's such a chance. In truth, we don't know whether our old experience helps us keep our balance and orient ourselves better in space, or whether we become its prisoners. Your own history - the history of your successes and failures - is also a set of boundaries whose existence you don't always account for at all.
A.G.: But still, why does the old guard spin its wheels and fail to react to the new situation, why are the classics' new albums so uninteresting?

F.R.: You think so? OK, I can agree with you. What I find interesting is that when you look at Atom Heart, at Aphex Twin, at Oval, you see scale, ambition, in any case a very high level of personality.
Whereas the heroes of the new generation... hmm, I don't want to name names... but somehow it's all a bit shallow, or something... or... no, no, I'd better shut up before I say something I shouldn't... well, nothing truly new comes from them, they're just guys who cottoned on to how easy it is to make certain special things.