As Sheffield is the birthplace of modern electronic music, it’s always exciting to hear about new boundary-pushing projects from experimental artists on the scene. Step forward Toby Marks, better known as Banco de Gaia, the master of modern chillout; and Andrew Heath, electronic soundscape composer, who will be bringing their new project, Motion, to the Steel City this month.
The album-making process saw the artists travelling to four corners of the UK and recording sounds in locations ranging from Welsh slate mines to the Leeds & Liverpool canal. The result is an intriguing series of tracks linking back to core earth elements of air, water, fire, iron and stone.
You’ll be able to experience this live at Regather this month, where they’ll be supported by Sheffield-based experimental outfit Animat, but I first of all caught up with Toby and Andrew to get an insight into the creative inspirations behind the album.
How did this collaboration come about. Is it something you’ve had planned for some time?
Andrew: Toby and I had talked about possible collaborations a long time ago but it actually seemed to happen by chance. Back at the end of 2017, Toby invited me to join him for a few days in the wilds of Norfolk for a spot of field recording. He had done a little research and found a few things that might be interesting and fun to record, such as a narrow gauge steam train and seals on the coast nearby. We basically spent a few days visiting locations around the area and recording anything and everything we could find that remotely made a noise. The recording of the steam train that in a way, kick-started the whole adventure. We had multiple microphones and contact mics – microphones that you attach to the fabric of what you want to record – set up within the train carriage and recorded the whole journey as the train sped up, slowed and came to a standstill.
We liked the way this recording ebbed and flowed just as a piece of music would and at this point the idea of creating something came about. We both worked with the sounds we had recorded and over the next month or two, and the first musical piece came into being. We played a live version of this at a performance in Glastonbury and at this point Toby hatched the idea of recording odd but interesting, mechanical journeys around the UK. It was then a process of identifying other locations and defining the parameters for each piece of music.
Were there any sounds you thought you wanted before you set out, or were they all just ‘found sounds’ from your journeys?
Toby: On the first trip I knew there was a grey seal colony up there so I definitely wanted to capture that. Once we decided to make a whole album and do more recording trips we did have some ideas of what we wanted to record but also grabbed whatever we found as well.
Andrew: Beyond what we then defined as the main structure of each piece, the recordings of the four ‘particular’ journey – steam train in Norfolk, chain link ferry in Dorset, deep mine lift in Wales and the gliders in Yorkshire – but we used many additional ‘found sounds’ that we happened on quite by random and then collected from each area. The rules we set ourselves was that only sounds from that area were to be used on that piece. In our minds, this lead to a cohesion of sound for each piece and enabled each track to be presented as a story of a place.
Did you ever go back to re-record something you wanted, or were the sounds just as you came across them?
Toby: No, we didn’t have the chance to re-visit so just used whatever we got
first time. Because we specifically went on recording trips we did get
a lot of good stuff, though.
Andrew: In a way, it went against the methodology of what we were doing. I have learned to capture a sound complete with any mistakes, rogue elements, such as car noises and other random sounds, as I find that it is often these unwanted elements that end up creating the most interest.
How many hours of recordings did you start with before you edited them down to the tracks on the album?
Toby: I’m not sure but between us it must be 100 hours. I think the Yorkshire thunder storm accounts for about 5 hours on its own! Obviously we both duplicated some recordings but we did get some individual stuff too.
Andrew: In many ways, because you’re dealing with raw sound elements which are defining your musical piece, there are so many more options of how to edit and move towards a cohesive musical piece. Especially when you factor in all the sound mangling that we did to the original sounds!
At what point did you decide to divide them into North, South, East and West?
Andrew: That was actually quite early on. At the same point as the concept formed and both Toby and I feel that it’s a nice narrative to take sounds from four points of the compass in the UK and bring them together. It’s a small point for me but I feel that as the country is so divided politically at this moment, this is our small offering to somehow reunite us all.
There’s some instrumentation on each track. How did the process of matching them with the sounds evolve?
Andrew: That’s a very good question. I’d like to say that we both played to our strengths here. We both bought our individual sound and style to the four pieces, but beyond that we had to respond and be led by the actual sound recordings. So additional musical elements both supported and punctuated the recorded sounds as well as the ‘found sounds’ bringing their own musicality to bear such as the cable whine from a water powered lift in Wales or the drone of a stone cutter from a quarry in Dorset.
You’re about to tour and perform these tracks live. How will that work?
Toby: The key decision is what to try to play live and what to have as backing. Once we worked that out for each track it was a matter of reproducing the right tones and learning the notes. As we had performed the parts in the first place it was easier than trying to learn stuff written by someone else: I tend to know where my fingers are likely to go when I’m playing guitar so that wasn’t too tricky. The technical side, synchronising both our sets of gear, has been an interesting challenge but we’ve found ways to keep it fairly simple so it all seems pretty reliable.
Toby Marks and Andrew Heath will perform at Regather on May 11th.
