Devine inspiration
As anyone who's tried to discern the difference between tech-step and drill 'n' bass can tell you, electronic music traditionally thrives upon nitpicking distinctions, often founded upon nothing more than a slight shift in BPM. But recently this hydra-headed genre seems split down the middle, polarized into two distinctly different camps with widely differing ideas of how much time one should spend in front of the computer.
On one side, there's the electro revivalists: groups like the DMX Krew and Adult, whose big and bouncy beats recall the guileless charm and naivety of '80s new wave. And on the other, the boffins: pasty-faced computer wizards typified by the likes of Autechre, whose endlessly intricate rhythms and twisted sonics attest to untold hours fiddling away with their studio equipment.
At the pinnacle of the American boffin brigade stands Atlanta resident Richard Devine, a man renowned as much for his music as for the amount of computers he uses in his live shows (at least three, at last count). Devine's previous releases on U.K.-based Warp Records and Florida's Schematic label (of which Devine is a part-owner) drew international acclaim for a signature sound informed as much by IDM pioneers Aphex Twin and Boards of Canada as by the electro and hip-hop he devoured as a suburban skate-punk. But his newest album, Aleamapper (Schematic), dumps the danceability in favor of his most complex and abstract work to date, an ominous and near-beatless excursion into the far reaches of computer music.
Devine himself admits he's flipping some out-there sounds. By e-mail (of course), he compares Aleamapper to "a film score to a horror soundtrack in the year 3000." But there's more to this description than hyperbole and Eno-esque "imaginary film" tomfoolery. His current move into more fractured terrain was inspired by his work soundtracking New Port South, a little-seen film helmed by John Hughes of Sixteen Candles fame.
"The part I did was actually for a character in the movie [who] is an electronic musician," he writes. "I went in and designed the music for this specific character, [which was] really intense and cut up, which most people know me for. Aleamapper kind of sprung from this score, but I decided to take a much different direction than with the movie piece."
Inspired to delve into what he calls "more cerebral and visual" territory, Devine decided to pursue an old sonic dream he copped from the classics of avant garde and electronic music. "I have always wanted to program sounds in a true 3-D surround field — to totally engulf the listener with dynamic movement. I was first influenced by the idea from Karlheinz Stockhausen's record Kontakte, in which he first played with the idea of surround sound in an open-air environment, [with] four microphones in a circular formation around a horn [that] was attached to a rotating motor. Each microphone recorded different sounds and then played back its corresponding speaker."
While more experimental pursuits long have been an ambition, Devine notes that with previous albums, including his Lipswitch EP released earlier this year, "the technology just wasn't there until now." Aleamapper, a dense and overwhelmingly dark work, discards the IDM formula in favor of tightly edited and sharply panned shards of sonic detritus. To describe this sort of thing as the sound of computers in conversation is becoming cliche — except that, in Devine's case, it's the literal truth.
"My current setup is nine computers, half Mac-based and the others are Windows-based machines," he reveals.
Conceptualizing the network of circuitry involved in this home studio boggles the mind — does Devine dream of wires? — but he's willing to deal with the hassles of networking for the chance to generate some nasty sonics. "The real power is that I can design my own synths and samplers inside the computer, so the possibilities are endless. I can create sonic landscapes using just processed and recorded sounds instead of using typical synthesizers and samplers."
With Devine currently splitting his time between the pursuit of a graphic communications degree ("a combination of fine arts mixed with computer manipulation") and a full-time job designing synth-modules for prestigious software company Native Instruments, there's no doubting his technical prowess — or his hectic schedule. Certainly, Aleamapper is a marvel of aural engineering. Each audio element gets immaculately polished to a hi-fidelity sheen, from the eddying clicks 'n' cuts of opener "Insil Segment" to the harsh, glitchy crackle of "Horizontal Deflection Plate." And the album maintains a consistent (and consistently menacing) atmosphere by cleverly utilizing recurring musical themes, as ominously time-stretched vocals vie for attention amidst swaths of distorted environmental sounds and granulated synth lines.
Luckily for listeners, the disorienting swirl isn't simply technological onanism. Devine marries his computer wizardry to a solid and insistently experimental musicality that recalls old-school European proto-industrial acts such as Nurse With Wound and Faust. Devine says, "I have been directly influenced by industrial music like Coil and Meat Beat Manifesto, and I've always loved psychedelically layered electronic music."
What's more, Devine's assured production and attention to detail recall the pioneering electronics of Iannis Xenakis and Pierre Henry. When he claims a background in classical piano dating to early childhood, you believe him: Aleamapper's cracked compositions have got chops to spare. "I think the album was more inspired by the works of Stockhausen and Trevor Wishart, [whom] I was studying at the time of this release," he says. "I tried to create a musical album, which showed more maturity in structural composition and in sound design."
Whatever its root and intent, Aleamapper arrives as an impressive slab of gnarled audio that sets a new benchmark for future electronic-experimentalists to beat. So what now? The ever-restless Devine is already looking further ahead in the future.
"Aleamapper is just one project I wanted to work on," Devine says. "It doesn't represent what I will always do. It was just a collection of ambient works that I wanted to release in between my other projects."
As Devine stays busy these days converting his studio into luxurious 5.1 digital surround sound, those additional pursuits he's considering include an album of "strange abstract house music" on Matthew Herbert's Sounds Alike label, as well as an interactive DVD release.
Pressed for further details, Devine plays coy. "I want that to be a surprise," he says.
Still, you can't help but wonder: What's he gonna come up with once he gets that 10th computer?