As you can see from the timestamp on the Linkin Park post below, it’s been a while since I’ve published anything here at Mining The Landfill. Last November, I was hired as the Music Curator at ChinaShop, Red Bull’s music and culture website. Over the past year we’ve been steadily growing the site and expanding the scope of the content we cover: art, film, live shows and festivals, design and, of course, tons of music. Come check us out. I think you’ll be really happy with what you find. Below is a list of links where you can stay up-to-speed on everything I’m working on.

Twitter: @TheLandfill // @ChinaShopMag
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Rich Thomas Archive on ChinaShop

A note about Mining The Landfill…
Though there isn’t much current content here, The Landfill archives my 13+ years of music writing, and as you can see by expanding the Sort By tab on the right, there’s a ton of stuff to check out.

“I would say, in general, that we don’t have a standard way of doing anything.”

THE CATALYST

To understand the variant sound of A Thousand Suns—its elusive melodies, fractured guitars and protracted interludes—you first have to understand the way in which Linkin Park function as a band. Rarely, if ever, do more than a handful of the six members record simultaneously, nor do they “jam” as a group, traditionally speaking. There’s also no division between writing and recording, and demo ideas frequently make it into the final mix.

“I would say, in general, that we don’t have a standard way of doing anything,” laughs guitarist Brad Delson. “You go in for two months and you cut a record, right? Our process is nothing like that, and I think that’s one of the reasons the sounds on this album turned out the way they did.”

The band tapped legendary producer Rick Rubin, no stranger to shepherding artists through transitory periods, to coproduce. Having worked with Linkin Park on 2007’s Minutes To Midnight—in itself a bit of a departure, musically and vocally—Rubin helped reinforce their creative path and maximize the effectiveness of the band’s unique songwriting approach.

“When we did Hybrid Theory and Meteora, Brad and I did the bulk of the writing,” says Shinoda. “We would write the music and I would write the vocals and we’d give them to the rest of the band to make notes or change it, but essentially we were doing it like a hip-hop production team. This is the track, these are the vocals.”

“Rick tried to get us to cut more stuff live on Minutes To Midnight,” Delson continues, “and I think he realized that the strength of the band lies in a more hip-hop project approach to recording; a much more digital, studio-based way. That’s where our art lives.”

The key to A Thousand Suns would be a combination of organic, small-group writing sessions and diplomatic Monday roundtables, wherein new material, revisions and opinions would be shared among each member. The goal, according to the band’s self-penned bio, was to see whether or not they could “abandon the precepts of commercial ambition in pursuit of what they believe to be honest art.” To do this, they would need to start with a foundation of hand-crafted source material that blurred the lines between synths, guitars and percussion. For Shinoda, the group’s primary sonic architect and beat-maker, this meant getting back in touch with gear like the Akai MPC1000 and rekindling shades of 1994, when he was sampling and mashing together Wu-Tang Clan, Nine Inch Nails and the Smashing Pumpkins on a cheap Roland sampler.

“That attention to the ear candy sets the tone for a record,” says Shinoda. “If it gets as much attention as the song itself, it could really add up to something special.”

HYBRID THEORIES

The bulk of the album was recorded at Shinoda’s studio (The Stockroom), turntablist Joe Hahn’s studio, and NRG Studios in North Hollywood, where the band locked out Studio A, off and on, for roughly two years. Shinoda’s space is set up like a u-shaped control center, with important pieces of gear like his MPC1000, Access Virus TI Polar, Roland Juno-106, M-Audio Axiom Pro 61 and Moog Voyager just an arm’s length away. Rather than eat up desktop real estate with a console, all mix channels are housed in two SSL X-Racks that feature eight VHD Input modules, two Mic Amp modules, two SuperAnalog EQs, two SuperAnalog Dynamics modules, one Eight Channel Input and a Master Bus. All hardware and outboard compressors are run through three 48-channel, quarter-inch patch bays, which then connect to the X-Racks.

At NRG, the band had a massive 64-channel Neve 8068 at their disposal, monitored through Yamaha NS-10s and their YST-SW100 sub counterparts, plus a pair of vintage Auratones, both sets powered by a Byston 4B amplifier. ProAc Studio 100s and a Perreaux amp, Rubin’s preferred combination, were also brought in. Many of the same hardware pieces, including an array of effects pedals, went back and forth between studios.

“The concept at NRG was to encourage the band’s workflow,” says engineer Ethan Mates. “We wanted to have a million things set up and ready to go at once. I think we had 48 Pro Tools inputs at any one time.”

To help the band keep track of everything, Mates and assistant Josh Newell created laminated sheets listing all the available instruments and their corresponding inputs. A quick peek at any of the video clips on LinkinPark.com—segments taken from their making-of documentary, Meeting Of A Thousand Suns—gives you an idea of all the toys at their disposal. With piano a main component to the album’s mood and pacing, a Yamaha C7, Rhodes suitcase 88, and a Hammond B3 with a Leslie cabinet were always available. Many of the bass parts were also tracked with keyboards; a combination of GForce softsynths and units like the Juno 106, Virus Indigo and Virus TI Polar. For songs that did have bass guitar, Dave “Phoenix” Farrell’s setup was a 1950’s Fender P Bass through a vintage Ampeg SVT head and an 8×10 cabinet. Miking was done with a Royer 122 and a Heil PR-40, one on top of each speaker, sent through the Neve console preamps and bussed through a Universal Audio LA-2A. As would be the case with guitars, different tones were achieved through a variety of effects pedals. On the caustic, low slung “Wretches & Kings,” a musical and lyrical big-up to hip-hop’s golden era, the bass was run though a Z. Vex Mastotron pedal with a copious amount of Fuzz. Other Z. Vex pedals like the Woolly Mammoth, Tremolo Probe and the cheekily named Super Hard On were used on guitars. With a 5000000 ohm input impedance, the Super Hard On isn’t just good for maximum crunch. Set to low gain, it increases clarity and overall presence for non-distorted guitars.

“The guitar played a great supporting role because it really filled out certain areas,” says Shinoda, who wrote and recorded many of the guitar parts on A Thousand Suns. “That’s been the joke inside the band. That if you left it up to our guitar player, there’d be no guitar on the record. It’s not that Brad dislikes guitar. It’s that he’s been so excited about experimenting with sounds and song structure.”

Three primary guitar rigs were set up, each to accentuate a specific vibe. A Fender Blues Jr. combo amp, miked on axis with a Neumann FET47 about four inches back from the speaker cone, was used on songs that needed more of a large, echoey tone. A Hiwatt Lead 100, run through a Marshall 1960A cabinet was miked with both a Sennheiser MD 421 and a Shure SM57, and was featured primarily on more dynamic songs like “Waiting For The End.” Mates also brought in an Orange Tiny Terror and PPC112 cabinet—the head upgraded to a “Holy Terror” with the aide of Mercury Magnetics transformers—which he miked with a Mojave MA-100. The combo amp was most often recorded to a separate track and used for completely wet effects, like a 100% mix from a Fender spring reverb tank or a tape echo with no original signal.

“If we were blending cabinets together, all the summed mics would end up going down a single bus which had the 1176 and a Chandler Germanium EQ after it,” says Mates, who set the 1176 for slowest attack and fastest release, maxing out at about 4dB of compression. “Using a compressor and EQ across the bus instead of on each mic helps glue the sounds of the different amps together and makes it easier to dial in things like sustain.”

As with bass, guitar and synth, the drums were also a mix of programming and performance. Drummer Rob Bourdon played a Gretsch kit on the more aggressive songs, while a ’60s Ludwig kit was used on slower, breathier numbers. With a few exceptions, miking was generally the same for both kits: AKG D112 and Yamaha SKRM-100 on the kick, Shure SM7 and Mojave MA-100 atop the snare with a Sennheiser MD441 underneath, Neumann KM84 on the hi-hat, AKG C451 on the ride, and Sennheiser MD 421s on all the toms. A single Royer 122-V and a stereo pair of Royer SF-12s and Neumann M49s captured the room. A small Rogers kit was also set up in a blanket-laden vocal booth and miked with a Shure SM7 on the snare, an Electro Voice RE-20 on the kick and a Neumann U47 for the overhead.

“There are times Rob is playing with the loops, (then) there were times he came to the table with a live drum part that was so spectacular that it killed all the sampled drums,” Shinoda recalls. “We want the listener to have a hard time telling when something is a physical instrument and when it’s not.”

“Burning In The Skies” begins with programmed kick and snare, with Bourdon providing hi-hat and tambourine. As the song builds, Bourdon’s parts are overlaid with the existing programmed beats. The Pro Tools session for “When They Come For Me,” the album’s most complex rhythmic track, featured over 100 active tracks, and took over a year-and-a-half to complete. “I don’t know how we’re going to play it live,” jokes Delson.

VOX POPULI

On Minutes To Midnight, Shinoda and Bennington experimented freely with microphones and signal paths, which ended up complicating the recording process. For one, it separated their voices a bit too much. Second, multiple setups made it difficult to punch in quickly and seamlessly to replace even short phrases. In the end, they ended up going with a Neumann U47, first through a Neve 1073 and then into either a Chandler TG2 at The Stockroom or a Universal Audio 1176LN reissue at NRG. Shinoda’s configuration for his raps was a bit different: a Shure SM7 into a 1073 and a Distressor on the end. In many cases, Shinoda and Bennington would record and double melodies and harmonies, then choose the “vocal hierarchy” during mixdown. With multiple tracks to choose from, they were able to blend and fade between each singer. “Robot Boy” begins its first of three separate movements with six overlaying vocals—a main and two harmonies per singer—then balloons to over 24 tracks packed with volume fades and EQ automation.

“We decided to go for a more vintage vocal layering, a la The Beach Boys and The Eagles, again to contrast a robotic, mechanical-sounding track,” says Shinoda.

As important as it was to create vocal consistency between the two, it was also important to apply that handmade sonic aesthetic to create divergences when the song called for chaos. In the pulsating, dance-rock “Blackout,” a mash of pedals and outboard gear was used. Bennington’s chorus was scratched up and imbued with stutter edits by Hahn, then run through a Thermionic Culture Vulture valve distortion unit and recorded back into the MPC, where each member took turns hand-playing different patterns through the pads.

“We had about 30 passes of each guy rocking out, and everyone had a different style,” says Delson. “We took the best moments and comped them into that cutout vocal solo.”

At the crescendo of the chorus on “Waiting For The End,” vocals are again mixed with pedals, guitars and scratching to create a unique robotic effect. While Delson played the riff, Shinoda manipulated an Electro-Harmonix HOG (harmonic octave generator), which was connected to an expression pedal to control the octave sweep and a resonant filter to add some edge. Layered on top of the guitars is a track of Hahn scratching Bennington’s chorus. The HOG is used again on the song’s spacey, pad-like guitar, but followed by an EHX Holy Grail reverb pedal and a Fulltone Tube Tape Echo.

“As we progressed throughout the process, Rick was adamant that nothing sounded standard, nothing sounded stock, and nothing sounded like anything you could just dial up,” explains Delson. “I joke with him that going on this wild, two year experiment was his doing, but he was quick to push back. Was he does is bring out the best in each group. He reinforced the path that we set for ourselves.”

“The best artists follow their instincts,” says Rubin. “It’s easy to remake the same album over and over again, and while certain fans will claim they want to hear more of the same, in reality it gets old fast. Linkin Park came to power at the end of the rap/rock wave along with Korn and Limp Bizkit. That wave no longer is in vogue, so to make another album in that style would have probably shortened their trajectory and the relevant lifespan of the band. But most importantly, Linkin Park have moved on as artists from that old sound. The new sound is likely to alienate some old fans who, for whatever reason, aren’t growing along with the artist they follow. Also, many new fans who would have never liked them before have the chance to find Linkin Park as a band they can love. For the long term creative health of the band, spreading their wings, challenging themselves and moving forward is the only choice.”

:: You can read outtakes from this interview at Examiner.com.

I could sit here and wax philosophic about things like historical significance and underground credibility, but really the proof, as they say, is in the pudding. Over my 12 (short/long?) years of writing about all different sorts of music, the Ninja Tune label far and away represents the largest cache of artists, albums, singles and DJ mixes that I count among my all-time favorite. And while they’re not the only label to send rolling papers as press package swag, they’ve definitely sent the largest and widest.

This year marks their 20th birthday, and they’re celebrating with a string of awesome parties worldwide, as well as a killer boxed set. Not familiar with the Ninjas? Open another browser window, dial up an archival show from their Solid Steel radio series, place your order for Big Dada’s Well Deep compilation, and check out an interview with co-label boss (and one-half of Coldcut) Matt Black after the jump.

Ninja Tune XX: 20 Years Of Beats & Pieces comes out October 5. Since only 3,500 copies were made, chances are you won’t be able to get one by the time you read this, but you can drool about it here. More on the incredible 20-year anniversary parties in the States you can attend here. You can also read up on a number of Ninja Tune artists by clicking here and going straight to the search page with all my various Ninja Tune interviews and reviews; easily the most well-represented label on this site.

Latest tracks by Ninja Tune XX

Given a boxed set of this magnitude, what mindset did you have going into curating it and selecting the songs? A 20-year anniversary only comes around once, after all?

Matt Black: First thing, we have to give some major credit for the selection to Peter Quicke, who is the actual managing director of the label. It was a team effort headed by him and with the support of the rest of Ninja Tune, including Jon and me. We did have a point where, independently, I think the three of us realized that it would be much cooler to do what Pete termed a futurespective than a retrospective. We were all thinking, What’s the way to make this moment really something rather than just a formality? Rather than looking back and doing a greatest hits, we would say, “Well actually, we’re still as hot as we’ve ever been and we’ve got our finger on the pulse.” That idea really formed the frame for the compilation, and I think the more I listen to it, the more I feel quite well satisfied that we’ve made a good snapshot of where electronica is at the moment. I coined a term in the last couple of days, which is “lush brutality,” to describe the sound. I think the beats have gotten harder and bigger and more fucked up, but the arrangements, the music on top, has also gotten a lot more sophisticated than it was in the past. And I think the tracks on the compilation were chosen, perhaps subconsciously, but with that criteria in effect. That’s what’s given the compilation its musical strength and a certain coherence as well. I think many of the new wave of artists credit Ninja Tune with having provided some of the precedent for what they’re doing, so it was natural for us to get into bed together and see what came out. I guess I would point to Floating Points (Ensemble), Dorian Concept and Flying Lotus as three of the new wave of talent who I think have a direct affinity with Ninja Tune and who’ve done amazing work remixing our stuff and also doing new tracks which are on the compilation. They’re three of my favorites, but there’s a lot of other people who come up as well, like Gold Panda and some of the new Ninja artists like Eskmo.

One of the most exciting thing about Ninja is how you’ve explored and bolstered your singer/songwriter contingent. Fink’s last three releases or Andreya Triana’s new one. There’s a new wave of those quieter, less beat-driven artists. Has that been something you’ve been working towards?

Matt Black: I think that’s part of what I mean when I talk about the elevated musicality of the new wave of material that we’re doing. A few years ago it was enough to put on a good loop and stick some noises on top and arrange it and fuck around with it for five minutes, but that really just doesn’t cut it anymore. It comes back to the realization that records that sell a lot have vocals and that primary hook that music lovers worldwide appreciate. I’m much more likely to be singing a song for my son that’s got some lyrics rather than trying to remember how an acid bass line goes. Songs and vocals have the tradition in being able to last in a way that sometimes sonic novelty doesn’t have. Sonic novelty doesn’t always age very well. Sometimes it does. King Tubby’s dub classics retain their quality and brilliance, but not all of electronic music, and I include our own stuff, has aged so well. Yet a good song is a good song forever. Jon’s always been a big fan of soul vocalists, so we’re delighted to have that revived on Ninja Tune. And if you look at Coldcut’s work, some of our biggest record had vocals.

My son, who is 11, lovingly refers to most electronic music as “morse code music.” “Dad, are you going to put on more of that beep, boop, boop, bleep stuff?”

Matt Black: (Laughs) I actually think they abolished Morse Code not too long ago. Beeps from the past, man. We don’t want to be beeps from the past.

I always ask Ninja Tune artists what its like working with the label, because even though it’s a very singular experience for each, there’s a lot of shared sentiment regarding the close-knit nature of the operation. What are some of your pearls of wisdom, both as a label operator and as an artist dealing with other artists?

Matt Black: One of the sound bites we’ve got is one from Peter Quick which I think we bandied about for the 10th anniversary: Careful with the cash, crazy with the music. One thing that came out of (our early years) was the realization that if you wanted to be successful and have a business, you had to run it on business principals. They had to be in there somewhere. If you were 100% hippie, you were just gonna fall on your face eventually. Ninja Tune was run as quite a tight ship, financially, from the beginning. We also took care to not spend beyond our resources. When a new company has some success in the beginning, the typical next move is to go to the bank and get a massive loan so that you can expand. We never did that. Jon and I have a distrust of banks and a dislike of being indebted to anyone, especially to banks, so we never went down that road of larging it up and getting the big West End offices and the expensive company cars. We’re not puritanical. I think we’re just sensible about our priorities. It seemed like a stupid risk to take, when it’d be better to take whatever profits we were getting and invest them in a sustainable way into the artists, into the music, and into doing business in a fair way. When we launched Ninja Tune North America, the normal thing would have been to get an office in New York or LA, but the rent in places like that just kill you. So it was a lot more practical to set up in Montreal with a guy who was a local there who really understood the scene and had a lot of local support. I think there’s a certain amount of principles we’ve taken into the music business without being experts, and I think we just sort of naturally concluded that we could do things in a slightly more punk way and in a slightly less bling way as well. That’s on the business side of things. In terms of dealing with artists, someone said to me the other day, and the penny finally kind of dropped, that there aren’t any of us indie labels in the UK who are run by people who are recording artists themselves. Ninja is really the only one. There may be others, but we’re the only long term players with that model. Originally, Ninja was started as a mechanism for Jon and I to have great freedom as artists to release our own material; then that attitude did attract other people, for a variety of reasons. In a way it was kind of a fuck you attitude to the music business. We felt we got a bit shafted by it and wanted to show that it was possible to run a record label where you did pay your artists what you owed them, and where you didn’t try and make the promotion of them more important than the music. I think because Jon and I had that experience of being a bit put through the sausage machine of the music business, we got a pretty good idea of what we wanted it not to be like, and we formed Ninja according to those criteria.

What was it like when Speech Debelle won the Mercury Music Prize last year?

Matt Black: That was a bit of a weird episode all around. Do you know about that?

Just that there was a parting of ways with Ninja shortly thereafter.

Matt Black: Yeah, it was a pity really. We were so euphoric to get that award and then afterwards…I never expected Speech to be Lily Allen and to sell hundreds and thousands of records. I always thought she was a unique underground outsider voice with some commercial potential; with some reach beyond the underground. But I think she did fall into the trap that a lot of young artists fall into. Being surrounded by yes men isn’t very good, and Ninja Tune don’t do the yes men bit. We like to be a bit more real about it, and I think she got seduced by the yes men and it didn’t work out. It was an interesting experience for all. I wouldn’t dwell on it, and she might come back to the fold, as Roots Manuva did a few years ago. He was larged up and left and went off to get a big deal elsewhere and found that he didn’t really get on with major labels and came back to Ninja.

Okay, we’ve now come to the awards show bit of our interview. I’m going to give you a category and you tell me which Ninja artist would best fit that bill.

Matt Black: (Laughs) As a daddy you have to be careful not to favor your children too much, but okay, we can play that game.

Class Clown.

Matt Black:(Laughs) Well, there’s a few good ones. Infinite Live on Big Dada springs to mind. He’s a major joker. You could say Mr. Scruff is a bit of a class clown as well.

Best Dressed.

Matt Black: Daedelus.

Most Athletic.

Matt Black: After the “Witness The Fitness” video it’d have to be Roots Manuva, wouldn’t it?

Most Resourceful.

Matt Black: Kid Koala.

The Gear Head Award would go to who?

Matt Black: Coldcut

And the Barfly Award?

Matt Black: (Laughs) Oh I don’t know…maybe The Herbaliser.

There are a lot of young guys on Ninja, but there are also the older cats who constantly tour and produce, but who have families to attend to. Who really puts it down with the family? The Family Man Award.

Matt Black: Strictly Kev.

We can’t very well leave you out now, can we? What have been some of your proudest achievements with Jonathan as Coldcut?

Matt Black: Possibly you shouldn’t be asking me this, but I suppose it’s a fair enough question, so if I’m allowed to blow my own trumpet, as I’ve been invited to, I think we’ve had a few moments of glory that I’m really happy with. I don’t think we’ve put out anything that’s totally shit. (Laughs) Some of our fans may disagree, but I think our first record, “Say Kids, What Time Is It?” with “King Of The Swingers” mixed over “Funky Drummer” was pretty decent. I think “Beats + Pieces,” our second track, with a combination of Led Zeppelin, Grand Funk Railroad, Doctor Who and The Four Seasons…some people say that’s the record that started Big Beat. “People Hold On” was a good track. The royalties from that have been keeping us alive for the last 23 years. The “Paid In Full” Seven Minutes Of Madness remix has got to be on the list as well.

And of course the Journeys By DJ 70 Minutes Of Madness mix.

Matt Black: That jumps forward a bit. In the ’90s, that was definitely one of our major products. I was pretty happy with the CD-ROM we did with Let Us Play. I think we made our multimedia mark quite well with that one. We did this track with Mark E. Smith from The Fall called “(I’m) In Deep.” I feel quite happy that. That was a kind of a sign post that suggested that indie music and electronic dance music could have a pretty good sex life, and I think that idea was born out quite well in the years afterwards. I like things like that. “Autumn Leaves,” the (Mixmaster) Morris mix, is something I’m pretty proud of. On the last album, I think “Walk A Mile In My Shoes” was a really good song. To get Robert Owens, which was one of the younger Ninja’s suggestion, was a stroke of genius. “True Skool,” the one with Rodney (Smith, a.k.a. Roots Manuva), that’s worked quite well for me because my son’s mates are like, “Hey, did your dad make that track on the PSP? Wicked!” It’s still earning me some credibility.

Word is you’ve got some new music planned for 2011.

Matt Black: A new Coldcut album and a new Coldcut mix. I may regret saying this, but we’re going to see if there’s life after Journeys By DJ. We are also doing stuff with super-producer Dave Tayor, alias Switch, alias Solid Groove, alias the only UK producer the Americans give a shit about. (Laughs) Our man Dominic Smith, who manages Flying Lotus and Cinematic Orchestra, is helping us with that as well. He’s managing Coldcut and he’s a pretty magic man, so I’m really happy to have him working with us. We haven’t really had anyone like him before who really understands us and deals on that kind of level.

Get your daily dose of Ninjitsu here.

Dubnobasswithmyheadman, Second Toughest In The Infants, Beaucoup Fish. Three groundbreaking electronic music albums, all created by the same group and released in the same decade. Impossible to top, right? Not if you’re Underworld. Karl Hyde and Rick Smith have been making music together since 1979, but you could argue that the material they’ve released over the last five years has been some of their best. Barking marks the first time the band has collaborated on album tracks with artists outside of the core group, and the results are astounding. Personal favorites include “Bird 1″ (with Dubfire from Deep Dish), “Scribble” (with High Contrast, which you can download below) and “Diamond Jigsaw” (with Paul van Dyk). (Click here for a tracklist and full collaborator credits.) The ebullient and always poetic Karl Hyde took some time out of a recent vacation to rap with me about the new record and his own artistic journeys this year.

Barking comes out September 13 on Om Records/Cooking Vinyl, and can be purchased in a multitude of formats via Underworld Live. They’ll be playing one show in the US before the end of the year – Hard Haunted Mansion in LA on October 31 — but you can always hear their Crude webcasts online.

MP3: Underworld - Scribble (6:58)Underworld - Scribble (6:58)

So where are you at this moment?

Karl Hyde: You won’t believe this, but I’m standing on a beach looking out at the Atlantic and I’m surrounded by holiday makers and it’s kinda weird. Seagulls wheeling overhead. But, you know, I’ve been in weirder places.

Sounds like a job for the cellphone camera.

Karl Hyde: (Laughs) Yeah, I do have a spare hand.

I think the last time we spoke Artjam was in its infancy, and you’d been a huge proponent, not just in idea but in deed, of cataloging life through cell phone pictures and digital micro diaries. Since then, social media has exploded with the sharing of photos and places and ideas. Thinking back to when you first started doing this for the Riverrun Project, what are your thoughts on the way we, as a society, have become such rabid digital compilers and sharers?

Karl Hyde: I wish there wasn’t so much of it, because not a lot of it is very interesting. I find the system is clogged up with a lot of images and words and publishing of small aspects of personal lives. I feel there’s got to be a better way of doing it in such a public domain. I think there’s been a devaluing of the personal by making it so public. I think that’s really what I’m trying to say, and I cherish the personal. One of my nieces, she writes letters to me, and they blow me away. A letter comes in the post and it’s between her and me, and I really feel like she sat down and wrote it and posted it and its arrived to me. It’s like a conduit between the two of us and I’m holding something physical in my hand. The virtual world has eroded the real experience. I walk through the streets of cities and I document them, but I walk through the streets of cities. I can’t concoct something that I haven’t lived. I like being with people. It’s the experience of standing in front of a real audience whose really giving you the message they want to give you. All those things are deeply important to me. Pencil and paper has become more important to me now than an iPhone. The computer world, the digital world, a digital photograph, a cell phone, the app store. I’m looking for balance. I don’t see any of those things as being bad at all—at all—‘cause I love ‘em. I think they’re fantastic and it’s what we wanted in the early 1980s, but there’s a lack of balance.

Do you think that’s shifted the manner and the frequency which you share your stuff?

Karl Hyde: Yeah. For example, I’m flying to Tokyo on Friday to open up my first painting exhibition, which is on paper and there’s one version of everything. (Laughs) I’ll webcam it and we’ll put it up on the internet, but to see it you’ve got to be there. I’m doing a live painting there for the people that turn up. Rick and I, together with John Warwicker, formed Artjam. For all the web radio shows and broadcasts that we do, which we deeply love, the balance to all of that is being in front of a real audience and being in contact with real people. I’m on vacation here and I was just walking around an art gallery and this guy comes up to me and starts talking to me about a concert he saw us in two weeks ago. That carries deeper resonance for me than something I see on a blog. But at the same time, I’m so happy that we can go to the laptop tonight and publish something instantly and not be imprisoned by some of the old mechanisms that were around releasing only in the physical form. That was depressing. Now we’ve got much wider possibilities. As artists, the digital world has liberated us, to an extent, but it can also imprison us if that’s all we do. That’s why moving between different medium—like moving between two older guys living in Essex and all these younger guys living in the rest of the world—is important. It’s the energy of the moving between. It’s the freedom of choice. That means everything.

I really appreciate you taking the time to rap over your vacation.

Karl Hyde: Oh, one last thing. There is one band out there that I’m absolutely loving; a band called HEALTH, who you probably know. Really, really a fan of the last album, to the extent that we’ve made contact them.

Are you planning on working with them at all?

Karl Hyde: Could do, yeah. There’s a performance on YouTube of them doing “We Are Water” that absolutely blew me away.

Talk about young and full of beans.

Karl Hyde: Absolutely, man. Young and full of beans. I thought, you know what, they kinda remind me of us years ago. Yeah, I like what they’re doing.

“The amount of complexity and work that went into it is really not apparent in the record, but it’s there.”