A Quote by Mick Harris

I turn on the machines and start to think about ideas and take it from there, it usually begins if it's a beat, a track creating a beat/beats and then the bass-line/lines, then comes the sounds--drones, atmospherics etc, then the edits of various sounds I created and keep going till I feel I have enough sounds ideas to start working and building a track. I have many banks of sounds that we hear that can be manipulated in the machines.
I usually speak with all my drummers so that I write my songs with them in mind, and we'll have bass sounds, choir sounds, and then you can multi-task with all these orchestral sounds. Through the magic medium of technology, I can play all kinds of sounds - double bass and stuff.
I became interested in the delay, having sounds recorded and played back and then come back. I did many different configurations of sending signals from one track back to another track, or to the same track, or crisscrossing them and so forth. I worked on masking the delays so when I played into the machine, I would make long tones and collect sounds in such a way that you didn't hear the delay, although sometimes you did.
Every time I hear sounds, I see pictures. Then, I start getting ideas. It just drives me crazy
Most of the time I approach a track as series of experiments: seeing what fits, and trying to manipulate sounds into each other so they have some kind of dialogue, and then start building a structure around it.
Sometimes you might get inspired by something, write about it, then later that lyrics sounds better on another beat. That's happened a few times. Like 'Dance Wiv Me' - those lyrics didn't start on that beat.
I still feel like if I can get a song to work with, say, a basic beat, a rhythm, some chord changes, and a melody, a vocal melody - if it works with that, then I feel it's written and there's something there. So I intentionally don't get involved with arranging stuff or fussing over the sounds and the edits and the beats too much, at least not in the beginning, because I feel like then you can fool yourself that you've got something there, when you might not.
I just love crafting and shaping sounds. Actually, many of the sounds that I work with start off as organic instruments - guitar, piano, clarinet, etc. But I do love the rigidity of electronic drums.
I think a lot of electronic musicians are drawn to starting with texture because the whole reason we're working with electronics is to try to create new sounds or sounds that cannot be created acoustically. When you're doing that, it's nice to be able to just create a different palette for every single song. I feel like a lot of electronic music sounds like...Each album sounds like a compilation more than it does a band.
I work a lot with sounds based on stream of consciousness. I like the way it sounds, then I turn it into something that makes more sense.
I just hear a beat and start mumbling words. I just hear sounds and rhythms, and it just kind of comes intuitively. Formatting a song, figuring out a flow, how I respond to the beat.
We Can't Stop' has so many different vibes to it. She sounds country; the beat has these live, knocking drums; and then it has these pop melodies. It's a feel-good record.
I don't want to hear from a band that pretty much sounds like another band. Oh I've heared this riff before, or I've heared these words that everyone is saying. I want to hear new poetry, new guitar riffs, new drum-beats, new sounds. Then I'm really interested.
I love music/sounds that have a passion, a fire, an energy I can connect with. I love angry sounding beat tracks, dark sounds for sure but I also love delicate sounds, they both connect I think. Discharge back in 1980 was a big explosion in sound for me to hear the anger and the energy, still an influence on me. Miles Davis has been an influence, as much as John Coltrane, Brian Eno, John Hassel. So much around me has influenced me: my everyday life, everything around me, the family, etc.... It has an impact.
With every song, all the elements have to work. First, the beat has to be great - you start there. You start with the music, and then the ideas follow. Then you start thinking of rhymes, and then you record it, and sometimes - this happens to me a lot - it doesn't come out as good as it did in my head when I first wrote it.
I love that tension between machine sounds and organic sounds, and also the contrast between abrasive sounds and soft sounds.
We are no longer the same after hearing certain sounds, and this is more the case when we hear organized sounds, sounds organized by another human being: music.
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