Interview with Pearls For Swines
By Bert from Percussa
It doesn’t happen every day that we get in touch with an AudioCubes user from Belgium. After all, Belgium is mostly famous for chocolate and beer! Meeting Stef and Macha from Pearls for Swines was great though. We spent the day talking about music, their professional work, challenges in the arts in general, technology, and their use of AudioCubes, which turns out to be a cornerstone of their technology setup.
If you would have to put a name on your genre of music, what would it be ?
I used to play in an electro band. And then, I’ve met Macha who was looking for a musician who cares about images to collaborate with her. Quickly, we’ve played together and it’s very naturally that sound design elements came to be transplanted on the music. Actually, it’s difficult for us to put a name on the project. Every video & music we make has its own specificities. And usually, we work in reaction to what we’ve just done. We span a lot of genres, musical or not, and we try to remain homogeneous. Between us, we describe our music as zombieclash, grindhouse electro, minimal terror. But those terms don’t “officially” exist, except for us, between electronic & cinema.
Who would you name as your influences musically ?
Akira was a shock for me when I was 12. Its soundtrack is amazing. I love listening to this record. I listen to a lot of soundtracks, specially from horror movies : John Carpenter, Tyler Bates, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre soundtrack, Brian Retzel’ 30 days of night, Popol Vuh for Werner Herzog or Ash-Ra Temple for example. But generally, I can say I listen to a lot of music, no genres excluded. When I don’t make music, I listen to it. I always did. When I was a teenager, I was – and remain – a fan of Rock music : The Melvins, Nine Inch Nails, Iggy & The Stooges, Sonic Youth, Big Black. The minimal sound of some german labels like Kompakt, Basic Channel, 1000 Plateaux, also influenced me a lot. And Warp, of course ! They’ve changed my conception of music. Their productions were so different, so magic. I’ve listened so many times Warp records that it’s a part of me now. It’s been a few years now that I’m interested in atypical bands like the Liars, Animal Collective, Fuck Buttons, etc.
Do you also work on other projects like film music, music for publicity, games …?
We think about every track as a soundtrack of a movie that we might shoot. Sometimes, the video is never made but the track remains. We’re gamers. So we would love to make a soundtrack or a sound design for a game. Why not even a script ? It could be a very interesting experience. We really love to play. We both started in our childhood. So it’s also a part of us in everyday life and creation. Even a podcast for a game like GTA could be so fun. Just imagine the perfect playlist for a lonely night ride in the unlimited world of GTA …
How did you ever get into making music ?
I don’t know, I don’t remember a time when I didn’t want to be a musician. I grew up in front of industrial factories. It was always noisy. I think this night & day noise gave me this obsession for the sound. There’s always rythmics or melody in my head. I can’t fall asleep without music. I even dream about music.
When you go into the studio, how do you start on a new song ? Do you have it already in your head before, or do you just start experimenting and see what happens ?
Macha & I have a lot of discussions. The Pearls For Swines projects are born from those visual & musical idea exchanges. We can each experiment a lot on our side and then return to each other with something that we can both use. Music is not necessarily the basis of every project we make. It’s a bit 50/50. Sometimes, the visuals come first and the music follows. Macha’s story boards are very useful when I develop the music of a common work. And other times, it’s the opposite. The music is partly or totally finished when she starts working on it.
Did the way you make music change throughout the years ?
Yes, definitly! I was a guitar player. I had an accident and it was not possible for me anymore to play guitar with my hand. So, I started to record some stuff with a small multi-track sequencer. From that point on I kept going. In my opinion, present days are very exciting. There’s a lot of new tools to build your own sounds. Having my home studio is a big opportunity. Now, I can work whenever I want, without depending on someone else. For me, it’s very important.
When you are making music, do you sometimes have the feeling that you are missing a tool, that you want to do something that isn’t possible yet. If so, what are you thinking about, what tool would you wish that existed ?
Because we make music and video, the big missing tool for us is a perfect synchronisation between my music software and her video software for live and studio work. We wish a common software or platform existed for music and video but with specificities for each. Then, we could work with images and sounds perfectly synchronised on an equal footing. Having the freedom to play with the material during live situations is another important point. We don’t want to make any difference between sounds and images. The relationship between sound and image is really precise in studio, why should it be messy in live ? It’s why we’ve made Pearls For Swines. We want the audience to experience the musical & visual experiences at the same time.
Which elements attracted you in the AudioCubes when you got in touch with them ?
I was looking for an interactive interface different from the classic keyboard with some knobs. I’ve seen the cubes for the first time in a video on the web and I had to have them. I’m more creative when I can touch and play with creative material like sound or music. And the cubes are visually very different from other interfaces. Because of their design and how they work, we can play music with them, design sounds and shoot visuals, all at the same time. It was a “plus” for our project.
How did it go when you used them for the first time ?
I’ve spent the 2 first days playing with them. I was amazed like a child when I was confronted with these palm-sized luminous intelligent objects. The handling of cubes is very simple. Quickly, I could not refrain any more from touching them. Directly, I started to include them in our tracks. I control a lot of things in real time with the Cubes. For example, I can control or generate different sound layers in my instruments racks. Sound design becomes physically modular with the Cubes. It’s a very pleasant sensation to sculpt sound with your own hands.
How many AudioCubes do you use ? Do you use them in the studio, for live performances, or both ?
I own 4 and they are involved at every stage of creation and studio recording. I also use them in live situations to control my sessions and effects.
Which other hard or software do you use ?
I use Ableton 8, Reason, Max/MSP, an Axiom controller and different plug-ins.
Would you recommend the cubes to other artists as studio tools or a live tool ?
Yes, of course. Cubes are perfectly suited to studio work, particularly in the exploration of sound. You can use them to launch your sounds in an interactive way. They are especially useful for exploring your sound universe. As I told you, you can control your live sessions with the cubes. They are very flexible at this level. Their possibilities are really huge. You just have to try them with an open mind and they will appear to be surprising.
How many times did you use the cubes already during your live performances ?
I was very lucky because I’ve bought them a few days before a live performance and they came home very quickly. So, I had the opportunity to include them in my sessions. And now, I use them every time. People are always curious and surprised when I take them out of my bag. They ask thousands questions about them : what is it for ? Can you do this with the Cubes ? Is it only light ? How much is it ? Etc. And sometimes questions appear during the live performance, it’s not always easy to manage it. But it’s fun.
Did you ever use the cubes during your dj-sets ?
I’m not really a DJ but when I do it, I take my cubes with me and I try to incorporate loops into my set. So the DJ set becomes a sort of live performance.
Should making music be fun or do you approach it more seriously or technically ?
It’s a mix. Fun and serious appear both in Pearls For Swines but not always at the same time. The approach has to remain fun but the way we approach our work is serious and very thoughtful. We always discuss a lot about what we want to get (from us, the audience, etc.). We try to do things in our own way and to evolve at each step. The fun is for us bound to the pleasure we take from doing what we do, even if the result (video or track) is not always very “fun”.
What are your projects now ?
For the moment, we’re working on an audiovisual DVD project and it takes a lot of time. We write, story-board, shoot, play, edit, make music, all at the same time. We hope it will be finished before the end of this year. It will be something between video clip & short movie, electronic music & soundtrack / sound design. We also plan to use the Cubes with video software. It could be interesting to control effects and layers with the Cubes. And for the live performances, maybe it will be more flexible than a big keyboard. Visually and in a narrative sense, we can use them the way we want. We can make them look magic, horrific, mysterious, etc. It’s a land to explore.
Links:
http://www.myspace.com/pearlsforswinesmusic
The 10 best records/movies in the history of music & cinema according to Pearls For Swines:
- Aguirre, Der Zorn Gottes – Werner Herzog – 1972 – Germany
- Tetsuo – Shynia Tsukamoto – 1988 – Japan
- Ichi the Killer – Takashi Miike – 2001 – Japan
- Evil Dead II – Sam Raimi – 1987 – USA
- Texas Chainsaw Massacre – Tobe Hooper – 1974 – USA
- Martyr – Pascal Laugier – 2008 – France
- Devil’s Rejects – Rob Zombie – 2006 – USA
- Akira – Katsuhiro Otomo – 1988 – Japan
- Jackie Brown – Quentin Tarantino – 1997 – USA
- Requiem for a Dream – Darren Aronofsky – 2001 – USA
- The Thing – John Carpenter – 1982 – USA
- Animal Collective – Merriweather Post Pavilion – 2009 – USA
- Aphex Twin – Richard D. James Album – 1996 – UK
- Fuck Buttons – Street Horrrsing – 2008 – UK
- Fantômas – The Director’s cut – 2001 – USA
- Squarepusher – Go Plastik – 2001 – UK
- Errorsmith – Smith’n Hack – SoundHack & others : everything
- John Carpenter – Assault on the Precinct 13 – 1976 – USA
- Modeselektor – Happy Birthday – 2007 – Germany
- LFO – LFO – 1990 – UK
- Programme – L’enfer tiède – 2000 – France
- Manuel Göttsching – E2-E4 – 1984 – Germany
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