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TOM:
Would you all agree that it's disturbing the way some
"future" DJ or down-tempo music artists lay claim to
a "jazz heritage" when they sample old soundtracks
or songs? It seems to me that in a lot of cases they're just
ripping off the accomplishments of previous artists in the
name of post-post-modernity, rather than mastering an
instrument, learning music theory, and proceeding to challenge
boundaries progressively.
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GEOFF:
Sure, it creates a massive
dilemma. If we can, we're about being original, in the sense
that the beats are always fresh. On the last album, the only
sample was in my long De La Soul thing. We don't sample from
hip-hop tunes; we won't sample from bootlegs. We either have the
pure material or we make it ourselves. That's the only way we
feel like we can keep original or creative. |
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TOM:
Keeping your sound for yourself.
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ADRIAN:
Yeah, that's exactly it.. |
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GEOFF:
It was
a massive dilemma for us on the second record, because what you
had, especially in the UK-- I don't know whether it happens over
here or not, because everybody is so involved in music and seems
to be with samplers and all of that-- you had a style
everywhere, and everyone was like, Whoosh, we're going to do
that. You had two or three albums a week released in Europe, of
the rarest breaks you've ever heard in your life, in complete
and utter sample-frenzy tunes. On one might be some religious
record, like gospel, with the heaviest beat in it. Another might
be... |
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DAVE:
A folk record. |
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GEOFF:
Or something like that,
with a mad guitar bit. Also, you've got big industry that sells
samples. On the front of a magazine they will give you a CD that
says "Five Thousand Funky Breaks!"...
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ADRIAN:
Crusty loops! [Laughter
all around] |
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GEOFF:
I've got nothing against people who are sampling. But we would
get these tunes in-- Andy [Smith], who is the most serious
record searcher, goes anywhere and finds breaks, then breaks 'em
back and loops them up-- and two days later there would be a
bootleg album and there would be your beat. |
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ADRIAN:
So you've lost a massive
part of your song. |
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GEOFF:
You've lost the basis of
your tune. It takes you six months for your album to come out,
or even two years, and then someone else is going to loop it.
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TOM: Given
that intelligent beat music in wrapped up in this process, how
do you create something that's original and modern, rather
than merely reflective?
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GEOFF:
The only way to stay pure
is to write your own beats.
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ADRIAN:
But also it's fucking cool
to sample you own material. I mean, it's absolutely agony at
times, because you buy a load of records and go through them
trying to find breaks, and you might find one thing. Well, we
kind of had to make that stack of records. We had to make loads
of samples and see if they?d work, and we discarded tons of
stuff. |
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TOM:
You're a jazz player as well-- right, Adrian?
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ADRIAN:
I am, yeah. |
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TOM:
That must relate to Portishead?s respect for the live element.
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ADRIAN:
We definitely know that we
want that. When we play live, we don't use samples. There's
nothing going on that you can't see. |
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TOM:
The DJ is used as a musician.
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GEOFF:
Right. If we can create
what we do live, with live instruments, we will do that. It's
nothing against people who play with samplers. We just choose to
work that way. |
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ADRIAN:
That's our identity. |
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GEOFF:
Totally. But going back to
sampling: You have this thing where hip-hop crews can use beats
that have been used before, and when they put it all together it
sounds like "hip-hop," whether they're appearing in
New York, or Bristol, or Rome, or wherever. |
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ADRIAN:
It doesn't matter that
you've heard the beat before. |
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GEOFF:
They don't sound tripped
out, breakbeat things, even with the same sample ingredients;
they sound like hip-hop. But the trouble is that in the UK,
you've got all this tripped out, hip-hop stuff-- which, to be
quite honest, we're not particularly into, because for us it's
the straight, when it comes to beats... |
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TOM:
With sample ingredients you don't get the same raw energy.
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GEOFF:
To me, looping up a funky
break and putting a weird sound over it is not the way of
creating something original. For us, this new approach to
playing live and recording all our own material-- whether it be
arrangements of the horns or strings, or pure breaks for a
sampled drum loop-- all relates to trying to recreate that raw
vibe. It came to the point with us that live was the only
direction to take our music in order to move progressively. |
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ADRIAN:
It's an obvious step from
where we were before, because you sample other people's records
and you become part of that sound and begin to understand the
way those sounds are made. So to move on, you do it yourself:
you make your own sounds. We can make our own sounds, so we
aren't stuck with a sample that won't change key. We can make a
sample fit easier, if you like-- we can make it go to the
chorus-- and it's totally ours. It doesn't come from anyone
else. |
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GEOFF:
[Interrupting] I mean,
there is a massive dilemma... Sorry. |
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ADRIAN:
Yeah. But there is a
downside in making your own sounds to sample-- in that the
really cool thing about sampling is the way two samples work
together or don't work together. The techniques involved in
making them work are all you've got. Your limitations make it
what it is. It was difficult for us to retain that creative
tension when we were making our own sounds to sample. |
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TOM:
How do you retain that tension?
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ADRIAN:
We're totally involved in
the minutiae of samples-- even down to how much of the vocal
will get snipped off at the end to give it that... something. So
it's not like we create a pastiche of a sample; it's more like
making something new in the language that we all know. |
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GEOFF:
Exactly. We talk about it
so much. |
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ADRIAN:
Take reverb. If you're
gonna sample something off of a stereo, you might sample off one
side of the stereo and not the other, and you'll get the reverb
from the snare drum or from the guitar. You won't ever get the
real sound of the guitar, but you'll get this kind of whoosh
sound. We are into that, so we make something like that. |
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GEOFF:
Like with a vocal: there's
the part you always sample, that's got that little bit at the
end where it's just going to finish that line and then go boomp
and drop. But the reverb carries on, and the reverb is part of
the break. So when we make a break, we make that reverb be at a
start of the bar. You go into every little, tiny little bit of
what makes a good break, and just do it yourself. |
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TOM: Playing
live and creating your own breaks is a challenge to you, too,
isn't it?
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ADRIAN:
Yeah, and we're growing
with that one, developing more things. |
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TOM: Playing
live does open up an im new direction.
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ADRIAN:
I think that's how we're feeling it. For the next tour we've got
to get our heads together and find a way to do the album. We're
not going to try to reproduce the tour music perfectly. We're
going to have to find versions of it-- and new ways of doing
things for ourselves. (3)-NEXT
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