Influences: Cristian Vogel

This album was the benchmark in terms of studio production for me. Still is in many ways. So much
spirituality in the sound, and significantly, they achieved this feeling of transcendence through many
hours of meditating on the sounds of analog recording technology. Although contemporary
musicologists often refer to the sense of space in the Basic Channel recordings, I feel they are also very
dense recordings in themselves. The sense of space is opened up through using repetition and sound
design as structure, but not by using less sound events. There’s so many layers of sound working
together.

I had the great honour of meeting Morton Subotnick in Copenhagen this year (2016). I must admit I
was tearful when I heard him performing it live. I happy that I got to tell him in person how much this
record had influenced me. Silver Apples of The Moon was the first piece of experimental composition I
heard which truly had no notes in it, and no sound sources that I could recognise in any way. It was like
a treasure cave for my sampler, and I sampled hundreds of fragments from the vinyl in the early
nineties. Only since the resurgence of EuroRack modular synthesisers, have I finally been able to
synthesise for myself, something like these Buchla sounds – 40 years later.

First time I was invited to DJ’d abroad and get paid for it, was in a run down three floor concrete
building called Suicide during Berlin Love Parade 1993. I remember preparing a meticulous set of
vinyls and getting over there on my own, falling head first into Berlin sub culture. I was pretty fresh to
the whole record spinning thing (because I had been playing live up until then). This track was when
everything came together during my set, and the experience I had at that moment, I remember to this day.

I had no idea how to get this kind of energy in my early studio experiments. Then one day I turned up
the gain way too high on the kick drum channel, past the recommended safety zone, saw the needles
pinned to the top of the VU Meter and all the clip lights came on – and the music grew fur and teeth.
Then I understood. The spirit of music is so vast and so free, not even wires can really contain it! If you
put limits on music, it will transform and evolve to get around them. Thanks Jeff for all the teachings
since then.

Music keeps expanding even when you turn down the volume.

I was born in Chile, but as I grew up in the UK in the 80s, I didn’t really hear much latin music. The
Sabroso compilation on Virgin records, which this track is taken from, meant a great deal to me when a
friend of the family gave it to us in 1989. Since then, there’s a bunch of things I have learned from
Cuban and Central American music over the years. I think even in relation to my latest album, The
Assistenz, you can see a common parameter – musical density.

So much of the modernist music from American composers in the 60s and 70s influenced me. There
was such a liberating shift towards sound design and away from performance virtuosity. Its like the ear
became the instrument. I listened to this record a lot in my 20s. I loved imaganing the scene portrayed
by filters and whispers. thought it was the most intimate sound possible until I heard….

This set of 5 pieces surprised me like no other music when I discovered it, which was quite late on –
something like 2009. Luc Ferrari instantly became one of my favourite composers, for his wit,
personality and mastery of sound and its cognitive affects on the mind and body. I love every Luc
Ferarri recording I have heard so far.