MEDIA

INTERACT

COMMENTS

05/07/08

Text: Bryan Hood, Chau Tu, Nik Mercer
Photographers: Alexander Wagner

Holy Ghost!

How did you condition yourselves for recording "Hold On"? Were you listening to a lot of anything in particular? What style and aesthetic were you aiming for?

We work primarily in our studio at my house and there's nothing special about the process. We sit down with a half baked/super rough idea that one of us have started and slowly add stuff.

"What do you think it needs?"

"Of course."

...and this sort of continues until it's evolved into something that inspires a vocal idea from Alex. It's pretty loosey-goosey but there is some discipline in terms of committing to certain ideas and sounds early. Our old band tended to work with the "we'll fix it in the mix" approach which is to say we'd record a bunch of stuff that didn't sound particularly good and then endlessly noodle around with it in the computer. With Holy Ghost! Alex and I try and get the sounds and ideas as fully realized as possible before bringing them to James or Tim.

With "Hold On" everything was done before we went into the DFA studio to mix with James. We all decided that the vocals should be rerecorded for better sound and performance so the video you saw is just James coaching Alex through a good vocal take. There was no, "well, maybe we should try it like this... " or farting around. We went in, rerecorded the vocals and then mixed it all in the span of a couple of hours.

However, the songs we're working on now are not as fully formed as "Hold On" and we hope to take greater advantage of James and Tim as producers on the LP. Having worked with them quite intensively with our old band we're well aware of the magic that can come about from their creative input and, as proud as we are of "Hold On" we would like the LP to have a bit more of their golden touch.

Oh man, I've already got a good feeling about this. I was hesitant to ask that question since many bands respond with a dumb, "I dunno... it just sort of happens" response. Yours was refreshing.

I also understand that you DJ and remix quite a bit. How do you approach those music-making endeavors... and what do you think of this remix culture we've entered into?

Well, obviously because we make dance music drums are important. However insomuch as I'm a drummer and the fact that we are both very much big fans of great rap producers/drum programmers (Primo, Dilla, Pete Rock, Hi Tek, etc.) we tend to labor over them a lot―the way they sound, move and dictate the dynamics of a song.

Beyond that were both big synth nerds. We began obsessing over them in high school and since then have built a good team of lovely old analog synthesizers. One of our particular favorites is called a Roland Paraphonic which is a pretty cheap but absolutely beautiful string synth. That gets a lot of use and it was one of our first purchases many, many years ago.

Alex is also a very talented piano player so he gravitates towards the classic electric pianos. So we tend to use real piano, Rhodes and especially Clavinet and a Wurlitzer a lot.

The equipment we use is an integral part of the music we make. Most of it is old, weird and tends to be somewhat unpredictable which is part of the fun. Were not computer people really. Not that we're Luddites or anything but the gazillions of easy options they offer can be distracting. Obviously technology has made decent home recording a lot more affordable which is great, but programs like Ableton and the music people use it for dont do much for me. And sounds bad. Most of the time. Of course, there are exceptions. Our buddy Jacques Renault does awesome stuff with Ableton.

I appreciate all that, man. I think that true musicianship has been fading from the dance music side of things; there's not been the same level of craft and thoughtfulness applied to the cuts of today. Obviously, I'm not in the "scene" like you are and I'm not a musician or producer or anything, but it seems pretty clear to me that you know more than most and apply it in a tasteful and sophisticated way.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zgez1yQPm7o

Sorry for the delay. Was in Europe for a couple of days with limited Internet access.

Woah, what a random bunch. I don't have much to say, but the M83 video made me think of a video I've been super into lately. I don't know if you ever skated but it was a pretty huge part of my life as a kid through high school. I don't really do it anymore but every once in a while I buy or see a video that makes me fall in love with it all over again. This is the intro to the new Lakai video, directed by Spike Jonze. I don't have anything against m83 but have just never gotten into him. His music is perfect for this, however. I imagine this video will have the same effect on kids as the early Bones Brigade videos had on me as a kid. Imagine being 10 years old and seeing this?

Lakai's Fully Flared Intro with Music by M83

No worries! I enjoyed reading your response, so I'm thankful for that, anyway.

More broadly, what do you like about DJ'ing? What don't you like? And... have we reached a sort of "critical mass" of DJ's? Are there simply too many out there?

As I understand it the MoMA approached Jon at DFA. The label has done a few events at P.S.1 in the past so it made sense I guess. As far as any underlining symbolism or connection between DFA and the Color Chart exhibition, I don't know. I suppose you could say something about a common pop aesthetic but you could also call be pretentious for saying so. What else? Oh, the light boxes on either side of the DJ booth were ours. They were made by Marcus Lambkin (AKA Shit Robot) for LCD's "Movement" video and have been collecting dust in the DFA offices so, given the theme of the show, Tim thought it'd be fun to bring them and play them with a drum machine (they're controlled by MIDI). I loved that people thought they were part of the exhibition.

All in all, it was a great night and I think everyone had a blast. I did for sure, but unfortunately I think we were the weakest part of the night. Tim and Tim's set was amazing and watching people freak out when they dropped James Brown was an all time highlight for sure.

I didn't realize the light boxes were made by Shit Robot... interesting. And yeah, isn't that a great part in T & T's mix? The James Brown drop? They are good. While I wasn't there, I wouldn't say your set was the weakest one... and I'm not saying who was, either!

So: in terms of dance music, what are you listening to and how do you feel about what's going on in that world? Are we headed toward fairer, purer waters or is this the junk we'll have to put up with in clubs for years to come?

As someone who DJ's it's a bit frustrating. As a dude who plays a lot of long disco tracks there's nothing worse than going on after some dude has been playing electro/French house bangers off of Serato since 8 PM.

As a fan of music I don't really care. I'm not into much of that blog house stuff but there are always going to be trends in every genre and some/most will inevitably be bad. They come and go. I mean, I don't mean to poo-poo all that stuff. I like a lot of the French stuff, particularly the Alan Braxe/Fred Falke, Kris Menace, Lifelike crew, but I guess those dudes arent so hot right anymore, are they? I don't know. I cant keep up, but 90% of what I hear sounds totally disposable to me. I'm really more a fan of great songs that you can dance to than of Dance Music and I don't really hear very many great songs amongst the stuff that's really hip right now. Of course, there are exceptions―say what you want about Justice but "D.A.N.C.E." is pretty irresistible.

Likewise, there's no shortage of great dance music being made outside of the current trend and living in New York there are plenty of great promoters and DJs who support it. It's pretty easy to avoid here if you want to. N.M.

Holy Ghost! - Hold On