Fine margins of genius: A Photek interview - part one

Plus Steven Julien, gyrofield, Joker and more

Dinosaur at play

I’ve been thinking about how to cover Photek on this newsletter for a while. Rupert Parkes is one of my favourite artists, a producer of seemingly limitless skill, who brought wild innovation to jungle in his textured productions, unlikely sound sources and ridiculously slinky drum cuts ups. But I have already written about how Modus Operandi, his razor-sharp debut album, redefined drum & bass and I didn’t want to repeat myself. Plus, Philip Sherburne did an excellent job with his own Pitchfork review of Modus Operandi earlier this year. So where to go?

And then I thought of my Line Noise interview with Photek, from 2019. It has done well enough but there are lots of people who don’t listen to podcasts or just prefer the written word. And, frankly, Photek hasn’t done many interviews of late. So why not transcribe our conversations for the junglist masses?

Below you will fine part one of the results. It is a long interview so I decided to split it into two, with part two coming next week. (So don’t forget to subscribe etc…) The interview went out in October 2019, around the release of Parkes’ Original Soundtrack for Mosul, a documentary about the battle to reclaim the Iraqi city of Modul from Islamic State. (I still haven’t actually seen it but the soundtrack is fantastic.)

We talked a lot about that, as you might imagine, but also delved back into 90s drum & bass, Photek’s favourite production and what he thinks of drum & bass today (well, in 2019.) I hope you enjoy it. Part two, next week.

Ben Cardew: You've just released the Original Motion Picture Soundtrack to Mosul, which is a documentary centring on the battle to reclaim Mosul from Islamic State. How did you end up doing that? 

Rupert Parkes: I met the the creator of the documentary and director, Dan Gabriel, through a friend. Dan's an old friend of another friend I know from LA, and he introduced us, and he thought we'd be a good fit. And he told me, ‘Hey, he's about to go into post on this documentary. You guys should meet.’ And we met the same day that he mentioned it to me. He happened to be in town. 

We hit it off immediately, musically, where we were totally in tune from beginning, and that's how it began. A month later, I was working on the movie.

BC:  It strikes me as being an exceptionally difficult thing to do because this is something where you've got a lot of different things. You have to think about different cultures… it’s a difficult subject. How did you do that? Did you have these things at the back of your mind always? Or did you just try to make the music without thinking too much about it? How did it happen? 

RP: I actually thought about that very carefully. And I decided, after talking to Dan, the director… he was into the approach that I came up with. I basically wanted to make it half electronic, half regional, so I could do my textural thing but I could also support the narrative of the documentary in a good storytelling way at the same time. My main concern was, would I be able to deliver regional-sounding music - being that I'm not from the region - just by going from my musical taste or stuff that appealed to me? And I had to sit with that doubt for a while until at one of the screenings I met an interpreter who worked in Mosul. He was actually from Mosul. And I said to him, ‘Hey, does the music sound legit to you?’ And he said, ‘Wow, you did an amazing job. It was not bad for a Westerner.’ I was pretty happy about that. 

BC: What is the role of music in a film like this? 

RP: In this film, it's to support, I guess, the experience that I imagine these people go through in some way. To help tell their story, because it's a very Iraqi-centric story. It’s not the usual, ‘foreigner in a foreign land’ kind of thing. So I think to try and support their point of view and the suffering that those people went through, in a respectful way that's not overdramatic, that you're not belittling their their experience. But still to make something that's engaging and compelling to a viewer who knows nothing about the conflict or the region.

BC: You talked about getting that local musical flavour, for want of a better word. How did you do that? Did you immerse yourself in that kind of music? 

RP: It's basically a quick bit of recon, just like what I usually do on anything. If I'm working on any kind of project, I'll do a reasonable amount of diligence, just listening to a lot of stuff, trying to get a feel for what my expectation is, versus what the actual reality is of instrumentation and that kind of thing. So a quick bit of research, same as I would do on on any other project. 

BC: Is there a particular track that you think really sums up what it is you've done? Somewhere where you thought you got it perfectly well?

RP: I think one of my favourite passages in the movie contains three cues in sequence, the first of which is Heading to Work. That's where we go with an Iraqi Special Operations team through the streets of Mosul trying to neutralise a sniper. So there's a really nice passage of music, which leads from Heading to Work into Drones into Proceed.

BC: You said that for fans of your early Photek material, there's some of that original mood and texture coming through in this score. What examples can you give of that?

RP: I think the best example of that is Refugees, which is a scene where we're watching Iraqi National Forces vetting refugees crossing a river, trying to weed out any suicide bombers or ISIS members within the refugees trying to make the river crossing to escape a battle. And in that scene, it really almost sounds like classic Photek, minus the beats, if you can imagine. A lot of the palette that I would have used is similar to Modus Operandi, similar to Ni - Ten - Ichi - Ryu, similar to to those kind of very typical Photek soundtracks.

BC: Would you be tempted to do a version that added the beats? Or does that not seem right for this kind of music? 

RP: Yeah. I mean, definitely that cue in particular. I think the end title credits [Mosul End Title Card] almost sounds like it's going to break into a drum & bass thing at a certain point. It did cross my mind. And I actually thought, ‘What could I do project wise, if I was to pull all of these tracks from the soundtrack into a drum & bass big remix project? How would that pan out?’ 

The question would be, how much of it would make that worthwhile? How many of these would translate in a worthwhile way? I think there's certainly a few, maybe four or five - four or five cues on this album would make good drum & bass tracks, if you added beats.

BC: I’d certainly be interested! 

RP: I guess time and schedule permitting, maybe I'll explore that a bit. 

BC: It seems like people who produced drum & bass in the 90s went into lots of different things, lots of different productions, like Adam F going into hip hop production. What do you think you learned from producing, from drum & bass, that you take into the soundtrack work? 

RP: It's interesting that people branched into into those areas because I feel like those are the core elements that combine to make drum & bass. It's an eclectic form of music and I think actually that one of the defining techniques of drum & bass is pulling in different influences into this kind of rigid form that depends on tempo and energy and kind of patch-working different things into into one track, different influences into one sound. So I think that something that I definitely learned from from drum & bass was how to incorporate different forms of music, then seamlessly integrate them into a new form of music. 

And I think the other thing is production, just production technique. Being at the cutting edge of trying out new ideas in terms of technique was something I got from from drum & bass. I think drum & bas was at the leading edge of musical technique for a long time. I think the rest of music has caught up a bit now and that's come full circle, where everybody who produces electronic music has the same outlook. But certainly in the 90s, drum & bass was very much about combining influences and pushing the boundaries of the technical approach. 

BC: Obviously there were lots of fantastic drum & bass producers, and there still are. But particularly in the 90s, the kind of productions you made always really stuck out to me as being particularly advanced. How did you get those kind of sounds? How did you get that kind of advance? Was it just hours and hours and hours and hours in the studio?

RP: I think it's really that simple. I think there are definitely other producers who are more technically educated, but I was just technically adventurous, and I was very diligent and relentless in putting in the time in the studio and just trying a different thing, just trial and error, relentlessly putting the time in. I mean, it was somewhat of an obsession for many years, just seeing what I could get out of these machines and how I could misuse a sampler, from what it was intended for to what I could use it for. So yeah, technically, by the book, I would not be the most advanced, but probably just the most relentless.

BC: Was there a moment when you realised that you were doing something unique, something that other people weren't doing? 

RP: There was a core group of drum & bass people - that was kind of their mission, almost, it wasn't mandated or anything. I think we were just all looking for something new and incredible. We'd come through a generation of bands, just standard band kind of format music. There was the genesis of hip hop and electro at the time, which was really exciting. And it was almost like, OK, what can we do about the whole band situation? At least that's how I felt. There must be more than this, than guitar, bass and drums. Come on: we can do better than that. 

BC: What is your favourite tune of yours from the 90s?

RP: This is how I view it now, with hindsight: I think the first perfect record that I made was the UFO / Rings Around Saturn single. I think that was Photek 5, release number five on the label, if I remember rightly [note: it was actually Photek 6]. I think that's my favourite - either side of that would be my favourite. It was the first time I was like, wow, I wouldn't change a thing. Now, there are other tracks for sure that I love. But those were kind of high scoring and if I was grading my own music, I'd pick that particular single.

BC: How did you get into doing soundtracks? On one hand, it seems like a very logical leap from what you were doing before. And in another way, it seems kind of unlikely.

RP: First of all, I was so inspired by film music and film for a lot of the inspiration for the music I was making. So in that way, it was very natural. I would always hear sounds and musical scores from films and think, oh, I want to incorporate that into a track, almost more than other records, so that was a kind of a natural place for me sonically. 

But it really began when I was on tour. I was in the US, I was in Los Angeles and I was signed to Virgin Records at the time. They were approached by Paramount Pictures for a collective of artists to work on a TV series they were developing, a co-production with Jet Li and Mel Gibson. And I happened to be the only one of the roster who was in town at the time who they wanted to speak to. And I ended up just getting the job. They said, ‘Oh, we love your your ideas. Why don't we just…? We'll make it about you.’ So the guy from Virgin Records says, ‘Well, that wasn't the plan. You know, there’s Chemical Brothers, Massive Attack and all these other people, Daft Punk, you said you wanted to talk to.’ And I just happened to be in town. It was that simple. So I went and I scored my first TV series. 

[Note: I think he is referring to the 2001 TV film Invincible]

BC: Do you have a favourite film soundtrack?

RP: My favourite film soundtrack would probably be Apocalypse Now or Heat, the Michael Mann movie with Robert De Niro and Al Pacino. 

BC: What is so good about the music in them? 

RP: With Apocalypse Now, it's as much the entire soundtrack, the score and licensed music all combined. It's just such a bizarre collection of sound in that movie, which I love. That movie, to me, is the perfect storm. And I think from Heat, Heat is a score, it's this really restrained tension and impending jeopardy that comes in that movie throughout - from all of the music.

BC: There's a trend with electronic music producers for re-recording film soundtracks, Jeff Mills, for example, has done it. Would you ever do that? Would you ever think of doing something for Apocalypse Now, for example, or Heat or whatever, or is it just best left? 

RP: It’s a tough one because obviously the ones that you love, that you would want to work on, you think are already good. So it's almost like, try and find the movie where you thought the camera and the story and the performances were great and the music was awful - that would be the one to approach. And I can't think of any off the top of my head. 

I don't know if I'd want to release the music or the movie but I would love to get either of those movies with all the music removed and just load them into my system and just play with it. That would be really a dream come true. It's pretty unusual to get the finished movie, access to a finished movie without the sound, because you want the dialogue, you want all of the folio effects, because you want the story the way it was, but to get that without the music, what a treat for any composer. And I think most composers would feel the same: once it's been done, it’s been done. You'd have to get a movie that you really hated the music to actually want to do that for real. 

And here we end part one. Part two comes next week. Why not subscribe if you don’t want to miss it?

In part two we talk about remixing Bob Marley, the state of modern drum & bass and whether he thinks jungle fulfilled its potential.

Some listening

Steven Julien - Wraap't feat. Fatima

Steven Julien and Swedish singer Fatima previously collaborated on Funkineven’s Phone Line  - one of the smartest, catchiest electronic numbers of the decade - in 2012. On Wraap’t they return for a glistening piece of classic Nu Jack Swing, inspired by Julien’s teenage years working in a barber shop. The result is suitably lush, absolutely blossoming with endless love and funky bass effects and I can feel my hair getting fresher as I listen. Spotless funk for your summer.

Sandunes - Signs (Zed Bias remix)

Sandunes, aka composer, producer and pianist Sanaya Ardeshir, is one of Indian’s most prominent electronic music artists and the original Signs feels (to someone who, admittedly, doesn’t know the most about Indian music) like a brilliant halfway point between the two worlds. To this Zed Bias adds UK Garage flavour on the remix, creating a very stylish, natural and intriguing cross over. This is one of those records you want to ask the DJ about but they’re too busy chatting to their friends and taking pics for their Instagram to get better bookings in terrible clubs.

Or:la - Chant (Midland's 'Arpeggiate Me' Remix)

It’s remarkable how far just a drop of wonkiness can go. A case in point: Midland’s remix of Or:la’s Chant initially sounds like a fairly standard electro-ish house number, with a chant-a-long-able hook. But the nagging keyboard line running underneath the song all has just enough curious bendiness to send everything into a far more inspiring space. Not quite an anthem for weirdos. But not far off.

gyrofield - Lagrange

… And this is a lesson than Hong-Kong-born, Bristol-based producer gyrofield has learned well on Lagrange, the first fruits of their debut 12 inch for XL. The song sounds like drum & bass being attacked by a hive of psychedelic bees, rumbling, tuneful and yet touchingly vulnerable, the production rustling and twitching around a stepper beat like a child taking refuge in a wood from a large imaginary monster. Lovely.

Joker - Elastic Band

Oooh feel the stretch! Enjoy the tense and release! Yes, dubstep legend Joker’s new single is well named, sounding VERY MUCH like a grotty elastic band being stretched around the dance floor in some unimaginably exciting children's game adapted for grubby adults. And sometimes that is more than enough.

The playlists

Maurice Ravel once said that the only love affair he ever had was with music. I can EXCLUSIVELY reveal that the French composer shacked up with BOTH of my playlists, sometimes at the same time. Should you want to check out the filth that so attracted the mild-mannered French man, they are here: The newest and the bestest, with all the best new music of the last three years; and the Newest and the Bestest 2024, which is a variation on the above that you can probably work out.