Hello and welcome to the Sound On Sound podcast about electronic music and all things synth. I'm Caro C and today I'm talking to the brilliant composer Nenita Desai. Nenita has written scores for many BAFTA, Emmy and Oscar award winning and nominated films and TV series. Recent projects include the feature film American Murder.
Which is currently number one around the world on Netflix. Nenita produced a 360 degree score for the feature, The Reason I Jump, which won the World Cinema Documentary Audience Award at Sundance Film Festival 2020. Nenita's output varies greatly from epic classical scores to moody electronica, and she's really passionate about her synths too.
Hello Nenita, and thank you very much. for joining us today and welcome to this sound on sound podcast. It's lovely to speak to you. We met at SynthFest last year and it was nice to talk all passionate electronic music and tech nerdities with you. So I think I'd be interested to start with what you're up to at the moment and what wonderful projects you have going on.
Hi Cara. Thank you for inviting me on to your podcast. So what am I doing at the moment? I'm working on a variety of projects, uh, all mainly film and TV based. Um, I've got a feature film coming out early next year, which is based on a book called The Reason I Jump, which I'm very excited about. Um, but I'm working on a few TV series, uh, for Netflix, which is really fascinating.
Um, it's a true crime project and it's. There are lots of twists and turns and weird, bizarre, unusual music. So I'm very excited about that. And I'm working on a documentary feature for HBO, which is about personality testing, and I'm excited about that musically because. It's allowing me to come full circle to, uh, writing some electronica music and synth wave, which is, uh, been a real treat to get into because, you know, when people like to stereotype you, you know, they think, well, you do this kind of music, you do that style of music.
And I work for lots of different clients. Um, and I write in many different genres, uh, in, in, within the world of, uh, under the umbrella of film and television. So between all my different types of clients, I cover a lot of different styles because, you know, I might do natural history, which is big orchestral.
And those kinds of clients think, Oh, Anita doesn't do synthwave and electronica, and, uh, and then I'll do something else which pushes me in a different direction stylistically. So between all of them, I cover a lot of bases, and, and that's what I really love about. What I'm doing at the moment, which I've got about nine or 10 projects.
Um, and because they're all so different stylistically creatively, uh, it keeps me fresh, you know, as nothing worse for me than regurgitating the same style of music from project to project, because it just all blurs into one. And I know that, you know, a lot of composers, you know, specialize in one style, but I think my, one of my strengths is my diversity, which can be for the better or the worse.
I think I like to keep myself interested in what I'm doing and, and my part of my process is to jump from different styles. Yeah, I can relate to the keeping yourself fresh in terms of it. You're always learning. If you had your signature sound, which we all have, there'll be some thread in what you're doing, the essence of you.
But there's something about that. Just this week, someone said, Right, can you do me a podcast jingle? I want it in this. And I was just like, yes. It just throws that, you know, freshness in. And you're like, right, okay. How am I going to respond to that? And I think if anything, it keeps the creativity alive, but also it keeps you stretched, I think.
Yes, it does. Yeah, it does. And, and, and, you know, I mean, for me, one of my mantras is that writing music for film and TV, it's a lifelong learning process. You never, you never stop learning, you know, on every project, I'll treat myself to a new toy, which I'll immerse myself into or, or just a new process because You know, when I'm writing, for example, it's my default mode is to sit in front of the computer, uh, with my, with my screens in front of me, my master keyboard can control a keyboard and plugins and, and sample libraries.
And that's a very, which is great, but. You know, when you're doing that sort of 12 hours or 16 hours a day, um, seven days a week, you, you can become stagnant. And, and I think it's really important to mix up one's creative process and to inject that sort of, lifeblood into, you know, I'll, uh, I'll turn to a different music.
I mean, I'm a Jack of all trades and a master of none. That's the way I see myself. So I've got a room full of musical instruments, acoustic instruments, and electronic instruments, you know, synths and so on. And, and various controllers. and will turn my hand to them to just to try and mix things up, um, in the way that, you know, I'm not a great guitarist, but the way I'll write on the guitar will be very different to the way I'll write on the keyboard or I'll, I'll bring out, um, one of my favorite toys at the moment is a, is a halo.
It's a kind of a hand pan. And, um, and I use it very sparingly. You know, it was right for one particular project I did last year and I started playing it and it just, it just injects a bit of, you know, it just excites me, uh, and, and forces me to be creative and to write in a different way. Um, instead of sitting in front of the computer, which I must admit I do a lot of the time anyway.
Mm hmm. Or I'll bring in musicians, you know, I'm very inspired by, you know, bringing in collaborators and musicians to play as well, which is, which is always very refreshing. Yeah. And you talked about going full circle back to synthwave electronica. What's your electronica roots, if you like? So I got into the industry via technology.
Um, I was always a bit of a geek. I loved computers. Um, I think my first computer was an old Amstrad PC and I was very much into video games as well. You know, I had an Atari 2600 and so really into computers. My, I started off by, I had a four track Fostex X26 multitrack recorder. And I think it's still in my parents attic and, um, uh, that, and I built up my own home studio.
So I had the Fostex X26. I had a Sony DAT recorder, TCD D3. I had a WMD6 sort of state of the art cassette recorder for sort of location recordings. Um, I just, I was really into sound. At school, I was. Uh, a performer and I wanted to be a singer and I was writing my own material on guitar and piano and I learned the violin, but, um, but I also loved synthesizers and I saved up, um, it took me, I think, a year and a half to save up to buy my first synth, which was a Roland D 70.
You know, I wasn't going to compromise with the D 50 as much as I loved it. I thought I'll go the full whack and get the, I think it was 76 keys. Um, on the Roland D 70, which I still have. I bought the Roland R eight drum machine and what else did I have? I had a. access virus b synth the the rack mounted version and a yamaha tg 77 the rack mounted version of the dx7 and when i went to university and i did a degree in mathematics and my thesis was on the wave equation so and it was all and and it was just sort of on the cusp of actually the DX7 had come out, but unbeknown to me, you know, I was, I was determined to make, to create and invent my own form of sound synthesis.
So I, so I studied the wave equation and got into, you know, creating sounds. And I thought, well, here I've, I've invented, um, uh, you know, sound synthesis system, which was actually what the DX7 used, you know, with sine waves and the wave equation and so on. Uh, you know, I wasn't the first to get there, sadly, but it really opened up doors.
I did a postgraduate course in music information technology. So I really studied. uh, psychoacoustics, uh, music and emotion, uh, music and streaming, uh, Xenakis, you know, the, the, uh, the Greek mathematician who's really into architecture as well and these great graphical drawings and how he constructed his music.
And of course my, my heroes really as a teenager. My heroes were Jean Michel Jarre, and my dream was to work for the BBC Radiophonic Workshop. And that's, you know, Delia Derbyshire and Elizabeth Parker, who worked at the, she worked at the tail end of the Radiophonic Workshop. So that was my dream job. I thought, you know, I can earn a living out of this.
It seemed like a sensible route. And then of course, I couldn't do it. I couldn't apply because the Radiophonic Workshop closed down. And of course, they no longer took on apprentices or trainees, studio managers. Yeah, so I mean, how did you know about people like, you know, before the internet? How did you know about people like the Radiophonic Workshop?
Because in a way, I gather that it was quite sort of a hidden kind of work really that was going on. No, I mean, it was this hidden world, wasn't it? And it was almost pre computers as well in many respects. So, you know, I grew up loving the Doctor Who theme and, and Vangelis all these artists, but with the Radiophonic Workshop, which was my, my ultimate dream.
You know, I, I have to admit Caro, I owe a lot to Sound On Sound because I would put all my pocket money into buying the, you know, the monthly Sound on Sound magazine. And I would pour over every article in every word in all these amazing interviews and articles. And it was one of the very few leading resources in music technology at the time.
I mean, yes, you had Mix magazine, which was very US based. And I used to buy the occasional issue of that if I could afford it. But Sound on Sound was like my my religious Bible. And still is, you know, I, I think I must be one of their oldest subscribers for, for over 25 years now. Um, so that's how I discovered the Radiophonic Workshop.
And, and, and then I used to follow everything that they were doing. So that was my way into the industry, really. And I was at the same time, I was very much into sound, you know, and not just, just music. So I got a scholarship to go to the National Film and Television School to study sound for film. And that gave me a great grounding in location sound recording, audio post production, and And while I was doing my post grad diploma in music information technology, I did a, um, a paper in, um, audio post production practices within the film industry.
So it was an excuse for me to go and visit all these amazing post production facilities, like Delane Lee. in Soho, which is still one of the leading, uh, audio post facilities with great, you know, Dolby, uh, dubbing theaters and, and sound editors working away on their digital sound systems. And I, I was sort of like an early digital baby.
I got in when, uh, even before Pro Tools, uh, had become widely used. I was using. technology. I became an apprentice, uh, an assistant sound designer on feature films, and I was working on the Synclavier, which was just, I mean, to be able to get my hands on the Synclavier, which costs about 250, 000 at the time, and I think there are about only Five or six of them in the UK.
So they were like gold dust. And, and it was an amazing opportunity for me to get my hands on that kit. Um, and you know, at the time the St. Clavier and the Fairlight were very much in vogue and the Fairlight was really taken on board by people like Peter Gabriel and Kate Bush used it a lot, didn't she?
Kate Bush and you know, um, and Trevor Horn, of course, Grace Jones, slave to the rhythm. And so I was blown away by that. You know, the way that the sampler was being used at the time, you know, was it 32 megabytes of RAM or whatever it was, which was so luxurious. And so I got to get my hands on that at work and I'd use it and understand the technology.
And at school, you know, going back to my teenage years, my music department at school had an EMS VCS 3. They'd spent. you know, a lot of money on it and no one was using it. And so I said to the head of music, can I borrow this? And, uh, and he said, yeah, sure, don't worry about it. You know, take it home. So I took it home.
Was that the one in the briefcase? Yes. The one in the briefcase, you know, the one like battleship. And I used to play around with the pins and, uh, and make squeaks and squawks out of it. And so I took it home. I borrowed it for two years and no one had noticed that it wasn't there in the music department.
Well, it needed to be used. It needed the life and the love. Of course it did. Someone had to use it. So when I left school, I took it back. Of course, I was honest. And, uh, uh, but I took it back and said, Oh, we didn't realize this was missing. Damn, I could have kept it. And of course now they're worth about 20 K or, you know, there's a vintage antique value.
Yeah. Yeah. So we have the Delia Derbyshire, Dave, with our educational work. We've got some licenses for, um, the IVCS3. you had, if you had a play on that at all. No, I haven't. It's fun. And they've come up with loads of amazing presets in terms of really, I think it's a guy called Edward Cosby in particular, that's been really making all these presets as a way in sort of thing.
But yeah, yeah, it's quite good fun. It's even got the every nun needs. It's the Synthi with the endorsement of Peter Zinoviev as part of the app as well. I mean, obviously, you know, the iVersions may not be the same or the virtual versions may not be the same. I started off on a Korg Poly 800 and I did love it, it was sort of the bridge between analogue and digital.
Yes. At the same time, I think I am quite in love with my Arturia, um, you know, my soft synths as well. Well, I have an Arturia MatrixBrute, which is, you know, that crossover between the analogue and digital and that's, that's huge fun. I really enjoy that. But at the time, so when I was working as a sound designer, I was working with the DAR sound station, which had a touch sensitive screen, and it was very progressive and forward.
It was at the cutting edge of technology. And there was another system made by SSL called the SSL screen sound. And it was a bit like a tablet, like a Wacom tablet with a pen, a stylus pen. Of course, we take it all for granted now with iPads and the Apple pens, but that was quite, you know, we had a multi channel set up and I could, um, I worked for a year in Germany.
After I finished film school, I got offered a job as a sound designer, a sound editor at this post production facility, which had just amazing gear. You know, they had a Neve VR Legend mixing desk, which I got to use, um, you know, the sort of real The height of, um, I mean, it was just the best mixing desk in the world at that time, alongside the Euphonics, which was, which was a different beast altogether.
But, um, I was using the SSL ScreenSound and I was recording, I was a Foley artist. I was going to ask if you got to do any Foley. Yeah. So I was doing foleys and then I'd have to edit, be a foley editor as well and edit my own foleys. So that taught me a lot about, you know, you know, being both sides of the studio, you know, being in the studio, recording the foleys, you know, with, you know, crushing cabbages and, and um, putting, and um, you know, footsteps and all of that, which I was really, you know, taught me a lot about, you know, watching picture and anticipating body movements and, you know, working with squeaky suitcase handles and, um, all sorts of things.
And mic placement. Yes. Yeah. And then editing it afterwards. And then, uh, I was also, you know, doing sound design. I work, managed to work with Werner Herzog, who's just such a amazing filmmaker and still is today, such a legend in the industry. So, so I did that, but then I missed London and I came back after a year.
I just thought I can't live in Germany anymore. I love Germany, but I was missing the, the buzz of London. So I came back and I was unemployed and I didn't know what to do. I was desperate after a few years of working in film, as creative as it was, I, it wasn't, my, my true passion was music, and I loved film and I loved music.
And so I, I had met Peter Gabriel when I was at university, and he, he came to the university to, to meet the students and um, and, I was showing him some work that I was doing at university, which was doing some hypercard MIDI programming, uh, on these little Mac SEs, these really old Macs. And I, and I did some, um, sort of mid early, in the early days of MIDI, I was writing a little program, software program to allow people to understand Indian classical rhythms.
Because I'd studied, um, Indian classical music as a child and, uh, you know, these different complicated cross rhythms. And so it was a little sort of tutorial program that demonstrated all these Indian classical rhythms. And he found that really interesting and he said, look, Naneeta, look me up when you finish university.
And of course I didn't because I gone into the film industry, but when I came back to London after my, my, uh, time in Germany, I remembered what he said and he was a huge hero of mine, a musical hero and, and what he was doing with world music and, uh, real world and WOMAD was just so inspiring. And I remember hearing the soundtrack to The Last Temptation of Christ, um, Passion.
on the radio. And I thought, what is this sound? It's just incredible. And so what turned me onto into music was really, I wanted to be a music engineer and a music producer, or more an engineer, really. And so I wrote Peter a letter. uh, to real world. I had a handwritten letter, uh, and then two weeks later I got a phone call from the studio manager.
I said, Nanita, we've got your letter, would you like to come and visit us? And, you know, I mean, I just, it was like going to real world, you know, this, the, the big room and, you know, see the setup. So I, so I went along for a meeting and it ended up being a four hour meeting where I got a tour of the studio, had lunch there.
talk to the studio manager. He introduced me to some of the engineers and I came back to London just buzzing with, uh, with inspiration. And, um, then I got a phone call saying, would you like to be Peter's assistant engineer? Um, during the real world recording week sessions. So that was, those were, that was 1992, 91, 92.
And. Unbeknown to me at the time, it was, it did feel like, it was a bit like going to Woodstock, you know, it's one of these legendary moments in musical history where what Peter did was, it was a bit like a summer camp, he set up, um, this environment over a summer where he invited 70 of the world's top world music artists and engineers and producers and they set up About seven or eight recording studios that were operating round the clock and any and all sorts of collaborations and sessions would go on where they put together a classical string quartet with a West African band with a trip hop record producer just to see what kind of Uh, music that I'd come up with and people were writing tracks on the spot.
And so I, I was in Peter's room, um, you know, working with Dave Botchell, who's a, he, he was one of Peter's, he was Peter's engineer, main engineer at the time. and with Peter in the room and we'd have, um, there'd be recording sessions going on all day and all night. And so, you know, I got to work with Nigel Kennedy and Billy Cobham and, and, uh, Papa Wemba, this amazing West African band at the time.
And Sinead O'Connor would come in to do backing vocals. And I remember there was one moment where it was 11 o'clock at night and we were working hard. And, um, Daniel Lanois was in the big room and he said, we, we're putting together a choir. I need, I need some backing singers. So Peter said, Oh, Nanita, we'll go and do that for you.
So I ended up being on the backing vocals on, on some tracks with Daniel Lanois, you know, it was engineering. And so that was a real, um, really special moment. And now we're looking back on it. It's regarded as one of the, you know, one of those special musical. historical moments in, in, um, recording.
I think there was a pioneering spirit. It was a time when it all felt like it was blossoming and it felt like anything was possible. And I guess, I hope you felt that generally with technology. I think it does open up the possibilities more in terms of your palate, but also how you can touch certain.
Especially when it comes to film and stuff, in terms of touching certain emotional, um, frequencies, if you like. Yeah, I mean, I think, you know, you need that. You need time to find your voice and that time to experiment. And, you know, being at university is a great opportunity to do that. But, I mean, I never, I didn't, I wasn't I was a digital baby and I, and I came from a tech background and that was my route and path into composing music as opposed to scoring music the traditional way and going to music college and doing a degree at the Royal College or the Royal Academy.
And really, you know, the combination of my background in world music and, and just having that open mind to, um, sound as, um, obviously sound, my background in sound design as well, just having that openness is so important to what. I do today, you know, because music is, you know, sounds or sounds and, you know, use those, use in all sorts of sounds to achieve the emotion and the storytelling that I'm trying to get across.
Because what I do now, I see myself as a storyteller, you know, being a media composer these days means you have to have this really diverse and wide skill set of being able to program, mix, engineer, record, do everything and compose everything yourself. Um, but at the same time, just to inject fresh voices and fresh creativity, I think collaboration is also so important.
And I love bringing in musicians into my work as well. Um, you know, so I'll be recording with the BBC Symphony Orchestra one day, to the London Contemporary Orchestra, to a small ensemble, to individual session musicians who'll come to my studio. Because, you know, where I'm not a master of You know, the violin.
I'm not a violinist. You know, I need to bring in those people and also sustain the industry and help, you know, it's because writing music can be so isolating and I am stuck in my studio at the bottom of my garden whole day. And, um, and I, you know, I like traveling, you know, I'm We need to be inspired, you know, for me, it's with traveling and meeting other musicians from, from all over the world.
Yeah, definitely. I think that, um, that exchange, I'm really aware of that at the moment in terms of that magic that happens by meeting other ears and minds and hearts. It's funny that the one thing that I learned from working with Peter was his process. his ideology is that it music, it's all about capturing the magic of performance.
So he used to keep a tape running all the time. And that was one of my jobs was that we had a DAT recorder running, recording everything that was going on in the room at the time during a session. So if Peter would stop, you know, we'd do another take or Peter would say that's a really good take to such and such a musician.
And I'd make a note. I had this. big book where I'd write down everything that Peter said. And, and then two hours later, he could turn around to me and say, Oh gosh, Anita, there was this really amazing take that, that Nigel Kennedy did. What did I say at, uh, and I'd have to have this memory like a Rolodex and, and I'd have this log book.
And I said, I'll go back. And I'd make a note and a star next to five stars next to. a point at 20 past two in the afternoon where Peter said, that was a really great take, you know, and I'd rewind the dat to that point and play it back to Peter and the musicians. And, and then they go, Oh yeah, that was a really one because there was so much improvising going on.
You know, it was very much based on improvisation. So he'd play, I'd play that back and he'd go, yep, that's that moment. I really love that little phrase there. And so you can see why it takes Peter so many years to write an album because he's just an ideas man and surrounds himself with a really great team that can support that unique way of working.
Um, of course, I mean, that was. before digital, before computers were really being used. I mean, of course, he used the Fairlight, um, but it was, it was a musical, in a musical synthesis way, whereas, you know, we weren't really using computers in the way that we use now. I was the computer. I was just going to say that as totally what I'm imagining.
I'm imagining this young clever lass is really keen, like your eyes are an Alice in Wonderland and basically you are his computer where he always take machine where he's going. I just want to go back to that. Can we rewind to that bit? And you know exactly which bit you're, you're, you were his voice activated computer.
Yes.
Excellent. And in terms of, is there any. kit that you had back then that you still hold near and dear? Oh, well, I, I sold off, I, one, the one piece of kit I regret selling, actually, is the Yamaha TG 77. I had it for one sound, uh, at the end. I just kept it for one sound, and so I miss that sound. But, um, But I, yeah, I, I still have my Roland D 70, which I, which I loved a bit.
I still have my Roland, I'm a big Roland fan, it turns out. I, I, I had the Roland S 70, uh, 760 sampler, which I used on a feature film, a science fiction feature film to do all the. sound design on that. I had a lot of monster creature effects which I sampled into that and I used to make up my own sounds and I, I love my D 70 and I had the Roland 5080 with all the expansion cards.
Um, so I, I really, that served me well. In the first six or seven years of being a film and TV composer, I really relied on that. And I had the Opcode StudioVision. That was my first DAW system that I used with the Opcode, uh, MIDI interfaces. So I had things like the Emu Proteus modules and the Yamaha synths.
I was using a lot of hardware synths and I had a Yamaha SPX90 and a Lisa's QuadroVerb, which is really special, lovely reverb, actually. But my setup now is, I've been buying a lot of hardware since, you know, I minimized my setup to just be working really in the box, um, with loads of plugins and sound libraries.
My first plugin, now my first plugin I ever bought was the GRM tools plugins and They no longer worked. They sort of stopped making them. I think something happened to the company and Uh, I upgraded my system and it just no longer worked And then only last year or a couple of years ago I discovered them that some french company had taken over the company and they reissued them And so I re bought all the GRM tools plugins, which were fantastic in terms of I love using granular synthesis and there's a freeze plugin that they use.
And so I like manipulating the human voice with those, with, uh, those plugins. So I use those, which just happens to be the first plugins I ever bought about 20 years ago. Yeah. Yeah. And nice to have that familiarity, I guess, even though there's obviously lots of newness in there. Yes. Yeah. And, and so I've, my studio has been growing a lot over the last couple of years.
I've got, um, an API lunchbox with a really, I mean, I just have a really nice, clean signal path. U87 is my main mic. Uh, I've got a couple of Neumann TLM193s and some, uh, KM184s for plucked stringed instruments which has a lovely brightness to them. Right. And I've got the, uh, I've also recently bought the Universal Audio, there's a digital modeling microphone that they have.
Oh, alright. Got the universal audio Apollo, um, interfaces. So I'm a big user of all their analog emulations, you know, all their plugins. Um, so for in terms of mastering my mastering bus, I'll use, um, pull tech. EQs and multiband compressors if I'm working on a feature or, you know, something. Um, I mean, I use ozone as well.
Isotope ozone is useful for mastering. So you do your own mastering as well then? Well Or you are a mastering engineer as well? No, that I'm not. Same here, I do mastering. But I would never call myself a Maastrichtian. No, I mean, if I'm, yeah, if I'm doing an album or something, I mean, I do have a Shadow Hills, um, dual Van de Graaff in API lunchbox form.
And that has this lovely dark gritty texture to it, which is good for certain types of soundtracks. Uh, and if I'm doing a dark soundtrack, um, which I'm a lot rather dark music in terms of emotionally dark music, then that does come in, uh, quite useful. It just gives this, it gives the music such a character.
It has its own character, but I wouldn't use it. Um, ordinarily depends on the color and, uh, the emotion that I'm after really. Um, but yeah, Neve preamps, 1073 preamps in API lunchbox with the Neumann U87. Um, and that's, that goes into my computer via the universal audio Apollo's. Sounds like a very nice setup.
Yeah, I've got a lot of guitar pedals. Uh, which go into my synths. I've got Juno 60 and, um, and what else have I got? Arteria Matrix Brute, uh, the Prophet 6, uh, Moog Voyager, so, you know, I'm very much interested in that. you know, away from the software and the plugins. I think it's important for me to be tactile and have that human connection with instruments and hardware because it just forces me to write in a different way.
Um, and that's very much, I mean, using different types of controllers, like I'm a big advocate of Roli. I love the Roli, uh, seaboards and the rises. I was one of the first, first person in the country to have, in the UK, to have the Big, rolly, grand, stage, 88 key, um, keyboard. It says it gives a fresh approach.
How would you say it does that? Yeah. I mean, for me, you know, with technology, it's always been about, you know, going back to Peter's ideology about capturing the magic of performance. And, and for me, it's about, you know, doing that, but also breaking down the barriers of technology and getting your ideas down.
So, you know, like, for example, a violinist, you know, they can do vibrato and with pressure and velocity and get all their dynamics out. But when you're playing a keyboard, which is my main, my default instrument, getting Uh, you know, expression into performance is harder because I'm having to record the musical part on the keyboard into logic, my logic pro, and then I have to artificially program in the expression and the dynamics and the CC controller information.
And by the time that's all been done, I've forgotten my idea. You know, I want to get, so I want to break down that. barrier of what's in my mind when I'm inspired and I want to get an idea down as quickly as possible quickly down in logic so that it sounds good as it can very very fast capturing the magic yeah because otherwise that magic of inspiration creative inspiration is gone if I'm having to think about it too much and technology has this There is that problem with technology because we have so many options, you know, that we can do so much that you get bogged down in the details and you lose that magic of inspiration.
So something like the ROLI, which is, you know, that, uh, the velocity after touch and the MPE capabilities of it mean that I can have that. I can inject that expression, uh, into a performance when I'm playing the keyboard that a violinist can or a guitarist can with vibrato and bending the notes and, and, you know, that all, all those different aspects of musical performance.
So. Um, I love it, you know, and I, and I'm always playing around with new, new ways of doing that. Um, like the Jouer Play, that's another little, uh, it's a French company. The French are really great at coming up with wacky controllers. I've got, um, the, is it the Lié Touché? Touché, which is, works really well with the Arturia Matrix Brute.
Um, so I've got that, uh, that sits next to me, um, next to my controller keyboards. You know, I love the touch strips on the, um, I've got the native instruments, um, and sort of mark two S 25 keyboard. for key switches, but I also use the touch strips on it as well. And there's another one, it's a pallet gear.
So pallet gear come up with these little portable modules, it's modular blocks, which, and you can assign CCs to these little modular blocks of faders or little knobs. And they're really, It's great for a portable setup, uh, on my laptop, on my MacBook Pro, but I, you know, it's so easy to use, uh, in terms of assigning CC controllers, so, um, so I really like that as well, um, and I've, I'm really looking forward to the new Osmos controller keyboard, which is a development of the Hakon technology, uh, the Hakon keyboard.
They're sort of, it was competing with the Roli Seaboards. But I've got the little Roli Rise keyboard as well, and I think they're really great because it's all about making technology accessible to everyone, um, at a lower price bracket. But I use it as an additional sort of keyboard alongside my cheap Akai MPK88 controller keyboard.
Any dreams or hopes? for the future of technology within music? Well, there's this, the whole thing about AI isn't there? Um, I think, um, I think in terms of speeding up workflows and breaking down the barriers that that technology can pose, uh, I'm always interested in new technologies and using them. But they are just a tool, you know, really, for me, the most important thing are the ideas, as much as what's funny is that as much as you know, I use sound libraries all the time.
And I look for the imperfections and things. I think that with the advent of digital technology, digital sense, you know, from the analog, there's this. Big Surgeon going back to the old analog because of the warmth and the human humanity that it brings into music. I've noticed the way I. Right. And what I look for when I'm working with collaborate with, with, uh, bringing musicians is that I look for sound libraries that have imperfections.
And so I, I, you know, I, I'm interested in the, the boutique sound libraries. Yes. I use spitfire, which are my default libraries that I use and orchestral tools and, and ADO and sound iron and, and all of those big established library companies, but also. Working with real musicians so that I'll, I'll do recording, I'll have experimental recording sessions and then out of that, I'll create my own little sound libraries, you know, uh, my own contact patches and contact libraries that give me that individuality, you know, for every project that I'm working on.
So, for instance, I've got a new Netflix film coming out, uh, at the end of this month, end of September, it's called American Murder. And it's a true crime film. It's about a remarkable murder, uh, about a man who murdered his wife and and two, uh, young children in cold blood. And, uh, fairly recently in America.
And I can't say much about it, but I can say that there were Uh, the whole film is based on social media and text messages and Facebook and Twitter. And so the mobile phone plays a big part in how this story is told. So my unique way into the film was, okay, I'm going to record phone to the, you know, put the phone tapping on the mobile phone.
And I did a percussion session, recording session with this great percussionist who recorded himself. doing little rhythms with his fingers tapping on the plastic and out of that I created some really tense rhythms of the fingers hitting plastic and there are some in the film you see these big oil drums they're absolutely huge so I took some of the location sound recordings of these oil drums and um and twisted them and distorted them and used them as part of the, um, the rhythms and the soundscape.
Uh, I mean my, my latest film, which is called The Reason I Jump, I did a lot of experimental recording, uh, with It was a very, it was a high concept score. Yeah, I can imagine. Yeah. Cause I, I work a lot with the work I do with Drake music is working with disabled people. Plus I've read that book. It was actually working with a facilitator, John Henry.
So you need to read this book. And I think to support that would be, yeah, the various sort of sense, a special sensitivity in a sense. Yes. Well, I mean, in terms of the sounds that I used and my sound palette and the emotional side of the. Getting across the emotions in the story. You have five characters and they're all non verbal.
They don't speak. And so I wanted to give them a voice. So I use the human voice in the score, but the original book upon which the film is based, the reason I jumped is written by a 13 year old Japanese boy and he wrote the book in Japanese and then he got translated into English. So I took the original Japanese phrases.
And they're very sort of existential, metaphysical, beautiful, uh, almost very elegant and simple and, and beautiful in the way it's written. And there are some phrases, for example, like, We are outside the flow of time. Because, uh, neurodiverse. People, um, from his experience is that his perception of time is different.
So, um, so I took phrases like that and I broke them. It was like, um, a broken jigsaw puzzle that you had to piece together. And so I recorded these vowels and consonants of these words. We are outside the flow of time and broke them down into their elements and then recorded it and then. Pieced it together and I used a lot of, um, granular synthesis and, uh, treatments and also GRM tools and, uh, all sorts of, um, interesting treatments to sort of make it sound taking organic sound sources and.
And not making them sound electronic, but sort of twisting them and distorting them and taking all these elements, aspects of autism and translating it into music. So autistic people, they, they respond to repetition a lot. And so I brought in those repetitive movements in the music as well. And, um, so it's, it's all about the storytelling and, and trying to translate and get across the emotions in the film, you know, whether you're portraying different characters and their personalities and themes and translating that into a sound palette and into a, uh, a musical concept for the score that affects the, uh, viewer in a very subliminal way without them realizing that how everything is in.
And that's what I love about filmmaking and scoring music for film. Yeah. So using technology in an organic way, um, you know, that, that sort of interests me. Yeah. And like you say, keeping that humanity at the core. Absolutely. Yeah. I think at the core of it, because what do people respond to, you know, when you watch a movie or a TV program or you're listening to music, ultimately for me anyway, um, it's about, it's about.
The, how it makes me feel and, and I love the, the ability to be able to make people feel something, whether it's fear or, or joy, you know, when they're watching and experiencing, uh, a piece of art or watching a film. That, um, it's about, in a, in the nicest possible way, manipulating people emotionally and making them feel something, and, um, that, I, one, I never lose sight of that, so, you know, um, emotions and storytelling and humanity is at the core of everything I do, um, even though I'm in Surrounded by technology and I, and I embrace it and use it for it to it's, for it's strengths and what it's best at as opposed to letting the technology be there for the sake of the technology.
Wow. Fascinating stuff. And I feel like it's just still the beginning for you by the sounds of things. It sounds like it's an ever expansive journey. It is. Yeah. I never know what I'm, yeah, I never know what I'm going to do, be doing from one day to one week to the next. So, uh, so yeah, it's all very exciting.
Still, still excited after all these years. Good. Fantastic. Fantastic. And thank you for being so, yeah, being able to articulate all that and, you know, over the years you are, you're up there with the, the pioneers that have, you know, seen through a lot of changes and, and still, yeah, as you say, still keeping it new.
Thank you, Cara. It's been an absolute delight talking to you today. Thank you for having me. Thank you for listening and be sure to check out the show notes for further information as well as links. And details to other episodes in the electronic music series. And just before you go, let me point you to sound on sound.com/podcasts where you can explore what's on our other channels too.
This has been a CAR C production for Sound on Sound.
