E*Rock

INKBLOT
Autredirections interview:

01/ How would you define Inkblot ? What adjectives could apply to your music?

Inkblot is a glimpse into the chasm that is the human psyche - a world of transforming perception linked to the mystery of the beyond and...just joking. Inkblot is the project name for my musical world I guess. But I'd rather stick to descriptions. I've heard other people's descriptions and they're pretty interesting, some say child-like and melancholic, fragile and lo-fi, playful and warm, avant-poptastic! I don't know, it's really difficult to describe these things in words, If I could draw you a picture - that would work better...

02/ So you started playing the guitar as you were 12, then you learned how to play the drums and the bass, and then you started to be interested in electronic music. How did that happen ?

Actually I've never learned to play the drums, I can hold a beat, but I'm
not at all that coordinated. But yes, bass and guitar since I was 12 and in and out of different rock-like bands with friends throughout high school. I listened to a lot of different music at that time. I was kind of a sponge, still am I suppose. In the mid-90s I became completely immersed into electronic music, mainly electro and ambient music, when I realized how much freedom it allowed for me creatively, how it is like having an entire orchestra at your fingertips, how there are really no limits to what can be created. And the more I discovered new processes and sounds the more inspired and involved I became.

03/ How have you been discovered by Tomlab ? How did you know this label ? Are you attentive to European music productions ?

I had finished a version of The Langauge Game and had sent it out to a handful of labels where I thought my music would match their aesthetic. Tom Steinle got back with me in only a few weeks time saying he would like to release it. I had heard the Visor and For Friends releases on Tomlab and was very familiar with a lot of the music coming out of Cologne and surrounding areas. I was very happy a few weeks later when Tom called while visiting the states and we were able to talk about the release over the phone instead of via email. Eric Mast (E*rock) designed the artwork, and from that meeting I was introduced to his and his brotherE*vax's label Audio Dregs.

05/ Can you explain to us what was the message contained in The Language Game? What have you tried to express through I Thought I Was Something Else ?

It's not really a concept for the album, but The Language Game refers to a concept of Ludwig Wittgensteins' about constantly changing contexts and the role of language - the way it alters itself from context to context, the idea that nothing is fixed and everything is mutable and re-arrangable, that language and meaning are games we play with ourselves and with one another. The title I Thought I Was Something Else reflects this pretty well I think, in that there are moments when our identities change, either to one's self or to others around you, we're all chameleons in this sense it seems. But overall I wouldn't say that The Language Game has any message other than the music itself.

06/ With The Language Game, people described your music as lo-fi electronic. Do you think that this could still apply to Love Your Mother?

I used a lot of the same techniques to build the songs on Love Your Mother, but this time around I used a computer. I didn't use a computer at all for The Language Game. All the arrangements on Love Your Mother are for the most part arranged live in real-time on hardware sequencers, samplers and synths and captured like a performance - adding guitar here and there - and then processed in certain ways with the computer. I used awful mics and mixed everything in headphones for both of these releases, but a few months ago broke down and bought some nice monitors. I think Love Your Mother could be
called a lo-fi electronic record, but I was going for somewhat of a balance.

07/ To what extend do you think that your music has evolved since the
release of The Language Game ? Don't you think that your style and your skills have asserted themselves ?

I think its evolved to be a little more dynamic, not as minimal and rigid in it's construction as the music on The Langauge Game. On Love Your Mother I've paid more attention to color, for me its brighter and a little more diverse. I think that The Language Game unfolds slowly, while Love Your Mother is a little more mercurial and abrupt in its changes, but they are definitely linked together. As far as my style and skills asserting themselves, I'm not sure, but things are definitely changing stylisticly and hopefully one can only get more skillful.

08/ How did you compose Love Your Mother ? As a classic pop album, that is to say with a beginning, a progression and an end ? With some global concept? Or is it a collection of tracks recorded during several years, that you just remodeled for the occasion ?

I recorded Love Your Mother in about 4 months time and it was complete for about a year before its release. I had an idea occur to me that the first moment we encounter sound and especially rhythm is from within our mother's womb - the sound of the mother's heartbeat and other sounds of the body and outside world. Though no one can remember these sounds, they must have some subconscious effect.
So this is why it is important to love your mother, along with the obvious reasons. But I wouldn't say it has a concept as a whole, each song title plays an important role, like a snapshot to go along with the music. The titles are meant as impressions, little meditations maybe. I guess the album is a collection of impressions that stand alone, but must work together as a whole idea and hopefully listened to beginning to end.

09/ In a review published by Angry Robot, the journalist describes your music as somekind of a meeting between Morr Music and that of Mille Plateaux. Do you agree with that ? The journalist also wrote that your new album avoids IDM clichés. What do you think of this ?

There wasn't any conscious choice to avoid anything or to sound more like something else. I think that the tougher to describe the music the better and if I can avoid cliches within a genre where many things sound the same, then that makes me happy. These songs are really just a reflection of a personal aesthetic I'm trying to reach, hopefully an evolution toward something that can't be pinned down.

10/ There aren't many voices on the new album, we hear some with difficulty on Ism/Asm. Why don't you use more voices ? Are you sometimes limiting yourself as a composer ?

There are actually more voices on Love Your Mother than on The Language Game, but used in different ways. Voices are something I like to use, but sparingly and usually only as texture, though there are a few lyrical fragments here and there. On the current album I am working on for Tomlab which should see release mid 2003 I am focusing on vocals and lyrics and more song-like structures. It is going to be a completely different record, so much so that I am not sure if it could be an Inkblot record at all, but my mind has a tendency to change a lot and I'm not really sure what the final outcome will be.

11/ What are you interested in when conjugating acoustics and electronics ? What kind of sensations do you think it creates ?

I'm interested in colliding textures and the new textures that result. Kind of like what it would feel like, or look like, if you were to mix
long-haired pink fur with rough unfinished concrete...or if you put gravel
in your pudding - it'd be sweet and soft, but a bit hard to chew. But
hopefully the sensation is a new one, or at least an interesting one.

12/ Your music is the meeting of acoustic post-rock (Thrill Jockey) and more "European" electronica" (Morr Music & Karaoke Kalk, Tomlab of course...); it sometimes evokes Savath + Savalas or Telefon Tel Aviv musics. How do you orchestrate this meeting ? How do you know if you have achieved a balance ?

This meeting isn't really anything I think about, it's more an outcome of my influences I guess. I like electronic sounds and I enjoy playing the guitar and writing that way. I just like the relationships between certain textures and if I take a liking to things intuitively during the process, then I think I'm headed toward what I eventually will give a title.

13/ You seem to have insisted on working all the sounds you used so that Love Your Mother would not sound too cold. Was it one of your wills ? Why ? Is it for the same reason that you don't create all your music based on DSP processes and that you use natural sound sources too ?

Yes, I think this was a conscious decision. Mainly because I think there has to be balance in something's intellectual beauty and it's sensual beauty, if it goes too far in one direction it is not as appealing to me. If it affects your intellect much more than its aesthetic charm than I think it is too dull, too sterile and all in the head. If it's too much the opposite then it can get melo-dramatic and insult your intelligence. So I guess I'm after some sort of a middle ground, but I probably lean more toward the heart-strings than the head-strings. But I don't think using DSP really has anything to do with it. You can create sounds with DSP that are extremely warm and beautiful and sound like
something natural, or you can create something less humane and clinical, but ultimately it seems to come down to its context and place in the arrangement. On the other hand, natural sources are harder to make seem cold. Maybe really all this talk of warm and cold is useless, maybe its more of the question - is what I'm hearing make me feel more alive or less ?

14/ Your music is always very melodic. Is it a necessity for you ?

Melodies humanize the music, they add colourful expression for me. But it is not a necessity. There has to be contrasts in order to change directions or moods, and the melodic vs. the unmelodic is one way to do it. Sometimes it is more necessary to be atonal. I'm not chained to the idea of melody, but I do think its unavoidable - you can probably hear melody in just about anything or any situation if you try hard enough.

15/ Your music can equally be distinguished by its simplicity, a very 'pop' sensibility. Where does this sensibility come from ?

I guess I have just listened to a lot of music with similar sensibilties...my influences are varied quite a bit, but I like the instant gratification of an accessible melody and that seems to be a big part of a pop sensibility.. Structures can be radically different, but its just a few
notes put together in a certain way that create this kind of sensibility. I
think I'm really just making music that I would listen to.

16/ It's difficult for us to imagine a music like yours coming from Austin, Texas. Do you belong to a musical scene there ? Or are you isolated ?

Austin is a college town, home of the largest public university in America, so there are a lot of young people here, but in and out like a factory. So when a scene or something similar gets started it breaks up quickly it seems, because people move on. But there are events here on a regular basis that bring in interesting artists and allow local electronic musicians to perform - the crowds are pretty consistant and you usually see the same faces, but I feel I'm probably more isolated than a part of any group that revolves around a certain style of music or anything - I've probably played an equal amount of shows inside and outside of Austin with diverse styles of people and bands. There are quite a few of electronic musicians here, but nothing has really merged into scene that has a definitive style to it.

17/ Can we expect to see you playing live in Europe ?

Hopefully sometime next year for my next Tomlab release...

18/ Could you describe us the spatial and climatic environment in which you compose Inkblot's music ?

All my music is recorded at home in a room set aside for it, a few years ago in my bedroom. When I had more free time and was still in school I liked to record early in the morning and usually in compact spurts. It seems once I get in my studio its hard for me to leave. But mainly it's in my head, a bit foggy, 98.6 degrees, probably 8 or so inches in diameter, but I'm not sure
how that breaks down into centigrade or centimeters... ;)

[stephane colle c/o autres directions ]

INKBLOT
[loop.cl]

How did you get into electronic music?
“It was really just a large part of my group of friends a few years back, for a while it was all we listened to. In high school my friends and I would make mix tapes of different cut-ups we had made, they were really awful but interesting. At that time music made strictly with electronics was very interesting and new to me. When I moved to Austin in 1996 I became much more focused on my music making and playing shows in galleries and bars. I got my first computer because I wanted to make music with it, but I don't really know much about computers, its just a medium that allows me to express myself with limitless options and choices, it allows a lot of freedom. But I don't really find myself listening to electronic music that much anymore. It used to be all I listened to, because there was nothing as interesting to me at the time. But now it has soaked in with all my other tastes and has just become a part of me”.

What kind of field recordings are you interested in? Voices seem important.
“I really do like the sound of the human voice, there's something very soothing about a nice speaking voice.
I especially like when you're drifting asleep in a room of other people talking and all the conversations blend together mixing with everything else that is going on in the room and everything is slightly unrecognizable. But the sounds I record are very random, so most of what I sample is fast and spontaneous, collecting sounds from whatever seems interesting at the time and forming something out of it and making it work. I'm interested in all sounds, I don't really discriminate too much when choosing something to sample. I just feel that it will work if put in the right place, so I concentrate more on the arrangement, seeing where things will fit and will not, changing things hundreds of time until I feel satisfied with what I'm hearing”.

Your idea of dreams as relating to track five [“After careful deliberation I find it hard to deny the fact that what we all need is less sleep and more dreaming”]?
“I don't really see much difference between the world of our dreams during sleep and the ideas we create while awake. Our ideals, relationships, interpretations, meanings, values are all created in the mind like dreams, they don't actually exist outside of ourselves. There is a fine line between the world we view as true and the fantasy world we create alone in our minds. In a way, just being conscious is dreaming, we're all locked in our own individual dreamworlds - subjectivity. And to sleep instead of dream is in a way to be somehow less than subjective, disregarding the full impact of one's emotional fluxes, intuitive understandings and irrational moods in favor of a more objective scientific or overly rational outlook. And to me, this is not only boring and unimaginative, but unhealthy and restricting if not balanced by imagination and the so-called irrational. At times I think the more emotional or expansive one is at a certain time, the more alive they are at that time. And yeah, there’s a child-like or mercurial quality to this, but the rules of logic, order and system seem so unattractive, silly and arrogant if I think about them long enough. I think they shut off so much of the world that is available. And I am glad that the word "child-like" has been used to describe my music, there is so much music and electronic music in particular that seems so serious and overly concerned with technology and the rational. Kind of limp and stiff at the same time, but still somehow clever”.

Can you make a living from music in Austin?
“Sure, but not at what I do. I would really hate it if making music ever became a job. There are a handful of bars and venues that help support this kind of thing, but usually its just friends at parties or little events”.

Text Guillermo Escudero

e-mail interview by takagi masakatsu
2001.dec.18

INKBLOT (jeremy ballard)
He is a musician living in Texas, usa.
He traveled around usa. with me and jon shefield on october, 2001. He released his first album from tomlab in cologne, germany before.

Q1
Could you introduce yourself?
Where are you living now and how old are you ?
And how is the situation of your place ?hello, I am Jeremy Ballard and I make music as Inkblot.
I am living in Austin, TX and I am 24.
My girlfriend and I live in house just outside downtown Austin south of the Colorado River.
We've got two pugs that run around like crazy.
i just graduated from art school last summer and am now working at a digital print shop
and doing freelance design work and making music as often as I can.

Q2
How many years have you been making music ?
Before the project of "INKBLOT", what did you do ? I've been making music since I was about 12,
playing bass and guitar, but not electronic music until I was 18 or so.
Before Inkblot I was in a few bands and just really into music.

Q3
You released your cd from tom label.
How did you get contact with him ?I had heard a few Tomlab releases and really liked the aesthetic of the label.
So, I sent Tom a demo of "The Language Game" hoping that it would fit in there.
Tom got back with me very quickly and we worked out a plan for release.

Q4
On your "language game", Did you have any concepts ?

For a while during recording I would randomly sample snippets from a variety of sources as fast as I could,
and no matter what they were or ended up sounding like i would find some use for them.
At times I felt it was like finding scraps of materials and building some form out of nothing,
or only out of my immediate means and what was instantly available.
Its not really a concept album by any means,
but the connotations of Wittgenstein's language theory and his "langauge games" were very inspiring.
And I kind of see this random context "grab-bagging" in some relation to this idea of the "language game".
both center around context and the idea that this context is forever-shifting
from song to song from conversation to conversation from view to view.
I wouldnt say that this was the concept for the album,
its more just the way i think of and view the world - at least right now.
But underlying all of it was just wanting to create songs that i felt were beautiful in some way,
these conceptual ideas never really exist to me until after the process is over
and I can reflect on what has been done.
and then maybe something can generate out of that.

Q5
You also going to release the next album from audiodreg.
Did you change the style of your music or something ?

No, this new record has nothing really to do with a change in style,
more with my inability to stop making music ;)
Eric Mast who runs Audiodregs with his brother Evan had designed the cover for "The Language Game"
and asked me to release something with them.
it was at first to be an EP, but I got a little carried away,
so now it is a full-length.
There's a little more guitar on "Love Your Mother" and more DSP,
and it is maybe a little more romantic, and maybe a little ore poppy a times.

Q6
Now are you living from only making music ?

Oh no, it would be nice though.

Q7
You did the usa. tour with me and jon shefield.
How was it ?

It was so much fun!
to hang out with you, shinako, tom and jon and meet so many nice people along the way.
defintley something to remember.

Q8
What kind of music are you listening to nowdays ?

Well, in my player right now is:
Gastr Del Sol Leonard Cohen Sam Prekop Carpet Musics and Stephan Mathieu

Q9
what is the most unforgetable event in your life ?

When I was 17 my brother died in a motorcycle accident.
This will stay with me forever - Ive never viewed life in the same way since.
I lost both my grandparents that year too, and carried all their coffins.
These were all strange and unforgetable experiences that I think made me more sensitive
to certain things than I was before,
yet in many ways had positive effects.

Q10
Please tell me your future plan ?

In February i'll start working on a new album for Tomlab,
possibly a European tour in 2002,
fixing up the new house and I'll be applying to grad school for design next year as well
and i guess i'll take it from there...

Thank you mr. jeremy and sorry for the delay to update... thank you.

INKBLOT

Interview with Jeremy Ballard (USA)
by E*Rock [Thumb #12]
10/00
www.tomlab.de

I first heard Inkblot when Tomlab had asked me to do some artwork for an upcoming release. I got a CD-R of snappy beats and subtle, textured arrangements. The album was by Inkblot, who was Tomlab�s first American artist, and one that I immediately took a liking to. When my brother moved to town we wound up listening to the album on repeat for days on end, and I ended up interviewing Jeremy a short while before his debut album, The Language Game, was finally released.

So how did Inkblot come about?

I got my first synthesizer, well my only synthesizer, when I was seventeen, something like that. I guess it was 1995, like five years ago now. I got really into dance music at the time, started going to rave parties, a lot of my friends were DJing an stuff, so I would go over their house and mess around with their turntables. I also got some records and some belt-driven turntables. I started messing around with my synthesizer to see what I could come up with - it had a little sequencer on it and a lot of good sounds. Then I got more and more into it.

Did you play in any other bands or anything before that?

Yeah, I played bass, drums, and guitar before. I good friend of mine that I grew up with was a drummer, so we�d all get together and improvise and do whatever. Then somehow, I kind of dropped that music altogether for about three or four years and was totally into electronic music. I was into the west coast kind of stuff like Hardkiss and Single Cell Orchestra, stuff like that. Then I slowly started playing stuff. I�d go to a party and I didn�t understand what was happening up there, there was just all this music coming out. So I was intent on figuring out what was going on, and started messing around, trying to make my own... [end of sentence lost in a sea of phone static.]

Well, I don�t think the stuff you�re doing now is very close to straightforward dance music.

No, not at all. I�ve really gotten away from that stuff since those days.

Yeah, the dance scene gets stagnant after a bit.

It was new to me then, but now when I look back it�s very simple.

Well, also if your record is too different you can�t mix it so easy with the others, so no one�s going out of their way to do something drastic.

There was a lot of formula.

That can be said of any �genre� I suppose. Do you ever play out live with the stuff you do now?

Yes, not very often. Austin is not a very big electronic music town at all - I think it�s probably pretty similar to Portland though.

I�m not sure there are many big electronic towns in the US-as far as getting a draw for the experimental type of thing.

Yeah. I guess I play live about every three months, there�s not really any place in town that�s totally supportive of it, so if I�m going to do it it�s going to be with more rock-like bands, or post-rock, or whatever. So I�ve played college radio stations, or at record stores, or at someone�s party. Other than that there�s not many places to go.

House parties are more fun anyway because people are there to have a good time.

Yeah, exactly, people are more receptive. That�s the other thing - people don�t know what to do at a show. Do I just stand here and bop my head, do I watch, or what do I do? So they end up just talking amongst themselves. There�s really not much to look at. �I can�t tell what he�s doing.� I�m trying to get more visual aid so that people can put their attention on something.

That�s why I don�t like to play rock clubs, because people expect to have a band to watch, and it�s hard to entertain people by yourself, while operating your equipment.

�Where�s the lead man?� It�s music to do stuff to.

You use pretty varied sound sources. It�s not all synthesized, there�s lots of natural sounds. Do you get out the mic a lot and just record things?

Yeah, on The Language Game I used a really crappy dictaphone mic. I would just run it into the mixer and sample from it and mix it in live - or I�ll sample my guitar a lot. Lately I have a process of just picking sources at random and sampling half a second or something, and then getting my bank full of samples. So I have all this different stuff to work with and now I try to make some structure out of it and it some architecture. It�s more interesting for me that way, because it�s a little bit more random. I never sit down and say, �Oh, this is what I�m going to do today.� It�s more of a process thing.

You give yourself a palette to work with? That�s more like collaging, because you take bits of different pictures and reassemble it.

I try not to sample anything longer than like a second, because it seems to be more interesting when you don�t recognize what it is - or I can�t even remember where I got it from...

Well, it takes the sound farther out of context. You�re forced to give it an entirely new identity.

Right. Out of context, within a context of all the other things that don�t have any context as well.

How old are you?

I just tuned twenty-three.

Did you ever have any formal music background, or was it just from playing with friends.

Yeah, just from playing with friends. I took a music theory class in high school and totally failed it. I don�t know, I guess I wasn�t ready to concentrate on music like that. So getting into music was just from listening and more from wanting something to do.

How long have you been in Austin, Texas for?

Since I graduated high school, almost five years ago. I like it. It�s the best place in Texas.

That�s what I�ve heard too from friends. You do visual art also?

Yes, I�m an art student at [University of Texas] majoring in studio art, mainly I do multi-media stuff. I�m trying to get a portfolio together now to apply to graduate school, but I graduate in May unfortunately.

Do you have a particular school in mind?

Um, I know I want to get out of Texas for now. I�ve lived here all my life. Maybe Cal Arts, or Chicago Art Institute, I�m not sure yet - anyplace that will accept me, and where my girlfriend feels like moving to also.

Is the Language Game your first release?

Yeah, well I put out one here that I pressed maybe 100 of. It was before I had a sampler, so it was all synthesized off of drum machines and was a lot different sounding. Now when I listen back it�s really distorted and hot and I did a terrible job on the production. It�s nasty and brittle. It totally changed when I got a sampler. I have an Akai MPC 2000 that I use. It�s a great machine.

Was that first release a CD-R?

I actually got it manufactured. I found a place that was able to do a really small number and I just sold them around town, giving them out to friends...

How did you end up hooking up with Tomlab?

Actually, I finished The Language Game here and was going to release it as another thing like the first, but then I decided to send it off to a few labels. Tom called me back like a week later and said, �I like your stuff, let�s put it out.�

I like the piano sounding melodies on The Language Game CD.

I�m trying to give more of a live feel to it. If I record it live, then maybe I can pull it off live too.

Especially when you�re playing by yourself, you have to figure out a way to perform it all live.

Yeah, it�s a hassle getting ready for a live show. You spend forever working on it that it makes you go, �I think I�m going to rent a power book or something, just dump everything into it and make it really boring.�

I always wonder if Aphex Twin was actually doing anything at those shows, when it was just him and his PowerBook lying on the stage.

Did Aphex Twin come through Portland? We don�t get any good shows here. Tom�s trying to set up some sort of European tour next year. That would be pretty fun. It�s kind of weird because I�ve only played a few places here, then I�ll get to go over to Europe and play all over. It�s also strange because the whole thing takes place electronically. I�ve talked to Tom on the phone one time. We always emailed and I said, �I�d like to talk to you personally sometime if we�re going to do this.� So he called me and he was a nice guy.

I can hear your dogs barking back there.

Yeah, you can hear them? I have two Pugs and every little thing that goes in from of the window freaks them out. It�s kind of annoying.

[end]


	INKBLOT Autredirections interview: 01/ How would you define Inkblot ? What adjectives could apply to your music? Inkblot is a glimpse into the chasm that is the human psyche - a world of transforming perception linked to the mystery of the beyond and...just joking. Inkblot is the project name for my musical world I guess. But I'd rather stick to descriptions. I've heard other people's descriptions and they're pretty interesting, some say child-like and melancholic, fragile and lo-fi, playful and warm, avant-poptastic! I don't know, it's really difficult to describe these things in words, If I could draw you a picture - that would work better... 02/ So you started playing the guitar as you were 12, then you learned how to play the drums and the bass, and then you started to be interested in electronic music. How did that happen ? Actually I've never learned to play the drums, I can hold a beat, but I'm not at all that coordinated. But yes, bass and guitar since I was 12 and in and out of different rock-like bands with friends throughout high school. I listened to a lot of different music at that time. I was kind of a sponge, still am I suppose. In the mid-90s I became completely immersed into electronic music, mainly electro and ambient music, when I realized how much freedom it allowed for me creatively, how it is like having an entire orchestra at your fingertips, how there are really no limits to what can be created. And the more I discovered new processes and sounds the more inspired and involved I became. 03/ How have you been discovered by Tomlab ? How did you know this label ? Are you attentive to European music productions ? I had finished a version of The Langauge Game and had sent it out to a handful of labels where I thought my music would match their aesthetic. Tom Steinle got back with me in only a few weeks time saying he would like to release it. I had heard the Visor and For Friends releases on Tomlab and was very familiar with a lot of the music coming out of Cologne and surrounding areas. I was very happy a few weeks later when Tom called while visiting the states and we were able to talk about the release over the phone instead of via email. Eric Mast (Erock) designed the artwork, and from that meeting I was introduced to his and his brotherEvax's label Audio Dregs. 05/ Can you explain to us what was the message contained in The Language Game? What have you tried to express through I Thought I Was Something Else ? It's not really a concept for the album, but The Language Game refers to a concept of Ludwig Wittgensteins' about constantly changing contexts and the role of language - the way it alters itself from context to context, the idea that nothing is fixed and everything is mutable and re-arrangable, that language and meaning are games we play with ourselves and with one another. The title I Thought I Was Something Else reflects this pretty well I think, in that there are moments when our identities change, either to one's self or to others around you, we're all chameleons in this sense it seems. But overall I wouldn't say that The Language Game has any message other than the music itself. 06/ With The Language Game, people described your music as lo-fi electronic. Do you think that this could still apply to Love Your Mother? I used a lot of the same techniques to build the songs on Love Your Mother, but this time around I used a computer. I didn't use a computer at all for The Language Game. All the arrangements on Love Your Mother are for the most part arranged live in real-time on hardware sequencers, samplers and synths and captured like a performance - adding guitar here and there - and then processed in certain ways with the computer. I used awful mics and mixed everything in headphones for both of these releases, but a few months ago broke down and bought some nice monitors. I think Love Your Mother could be called a lo-fi electronic record, but I was going for somewhat of a balance. 07/ To what extend do you think that your music has evolved since the release of The Language Game ? Don't you think that your style and your skills have asserted themselves ? I think its evolved to be a little more dynamic, not as minimal and rigid in it's construction as the music on The Langauge Game. On Love Your Mother I've paid more attention to color, for me its brighter and a little more diverse. I think that The Language Game unfolds slowly, while Love Your Mother is a little more mercurial and abrupt in its changes, but they are definitely linked together. As far as my style and skills asserting themselves, I'm not sure, but things are definitely changing stylisticly and hopefully one can only get more skillful. 08/ How did you compose Love Your Mother ? As a classic pop album, that is to say with a beginning, a progression and an end ? With some global concept? Or is it a collection of tracks recorded during several years, that you just remodeled for the occasion ? I recorded Love Your Mother in about 4 months time and it was complete for about a year before its release. I had an idea occur to me that the first moment we encounter sound and especially rhythm is from within our mother's womb - the sound of the mother's heartbeat and other sounds of the body and outside world. Though no one can remember these sounds, they must have some subconscious effect. So this is why it is important to love your mother, along with the obvious reasons. But I wouldn't say it has a concept as a whole, each song title plays an important role, like a snapshot to go along with the music. The titles are meant as impressions, little meditations maybe. I guess the album is a collection of impressions that stand alone, but must work together as a whole idea and hopefully listened to beginning to end. 09/ In a review published by Angry Robot, the journalist describes your music as somekind of a meeting between Morr Music and that of Mille Plateaux. Do you agree with that ? The journalist also wrote that your new album avoids IDM clichés. What do you think of this ? There wasn't any conscious choice to avoid anything or to sound more like something else. I think that the tougher to describe the music the better and if I can avoid cliches within a genre where many things sound the same, then that makes me happy. These songs are really just a reflection of a personal aesthetic I'm trying to reach, hopefully an evolution toward something that can't be pinned down. 10/ There aren't many voices on the new album, we hear some with difficulty on Ism/Asm. Why don't you use more voices ? Are you sometimes limiting yourself as a composer ? There are actually more voices on Love Your Mother than on The Language Game, but used in different ways. Voices are something I like to use, but sparingly and usually only as texture, though there are a few lyrical fragments here and there. On the current album I am working on for Tomlab which should see release mid 2003 I am focusing on vocals and lyrics and more song-like structures. It is going to be a completely different record, so much so that I am not sure if it could be an Inkblot record at all, but my mind has a tendency to change a lot and I'm not really sure what the final outcome will be. 11/ What are you interested in when conjugating acoustics and electronics ? What kind of sensations do you think it creates ? I'm interested in colliding textures and the new textures that result. Kind of like what it would feel like, or look like, if you were to mix long-haired pink fur with rough unfinished concrete...or if you put gravel in your pudding - it'd be sweet and soft, but a bit hard to chew. But hopefully the sensation is a new one, or at least an interesting one. 12/ Your music is the meeting of acoustic post-rock (Thrill Jockey) and more "European" electronica" (Morr Music & Karaoke Kalk, Tomlab of course...); it sometimes evokes Savath + Savalas or Telefon Tel Aviv musics. How do you orchestrate this meeting ? How do you know if you have achieved a balance ? This meeting isn't really anything I think about, it's more an outcome of my influences I guess. I like electronic sounds and I enjoy playing the guitar and writing that way. I just like the relationships between certain textures and if I take a liking to things intuitively during the process, then I think I'm headed toward what I eventually will give a title. 13/ You seem to have insisted on working all the sounds you used so that Love Your Mother would not sound too cold. Was it one of your wills ? Why ? Is it for the same reason that you don't create all your music based on DSP processes and that you use natural sound sources too ? Yes, I think this was a conscious decision. Mainly because I think there has to be balance in something's intellectual beauty and it's sensual beauty, if it goes too far in one direction it is not as appealing to me. If it affects your intellect much more than its aesthetic charm than I think it is too dull, too sterile and all in the head. If it's too much the opposite then it can get melo-dramatic and insult your intelligence. So I guess I'm after some sort of a middle ground, but I probably lean more toward the heart-strings than the head-strings. But I don't think using DSP really has anything to do with it. You can create sounds with DSP that are extremely warm and beautiful and sound like something natural, or you can create something less humane and clinical, but ultimately it seems to come down to its context and place in the arrangement. On the other hand, natural sources are harder to make seem cold. Maybe really all this talk of warm and cold is useless, maybe its more of the question - is what I'm hearing make me feel more alive or less ? 14/ Your music is always very melodic. Is it a necessity for you ? Melodies humanize the music, they add colourful expression for me. But it is not a necessity. There has to be contrasts in order to change directions or moods, and the melodic vs. the unmelodic is one way to do it. Sometimes it is more necessary to be atonal. I'm not chained to the idea of melody, but I do think its unavoidable - you can probably hear melody in just about anything or any situation if you try hard enough. 15/ Your music can equally be distinguished by its simplicity, a very 'pop' sensibility. Where does this sensibility come from ? I guess I have just listened to a lot of music with similar sensibilties...my influences are varied quite a bit, but I like the instant gratification of an accessible melody and that seems to be a big part of a pop sensibility.. Structures can be radically different, but its just a few notes put together in a certain way that create this kind of sensibility. I think I'm really just making music that I would listen to. 16/ It's difficult for us to imagine a music like yours coming from Austin, Texas. Do you belong to a musical scene there ? Or are you isolated ? Austin is a college town, home of the largest public university in America, so there are a lot of young people here, but in and out like a factory. So when a scene or something similar gets started it breaks up quickly it seems, because people move on. But there are events here on a regular basis that bring in interesting artists and allow local electronic musicians to perform - the crowds are pretty consistant and you usually see the same faces, but I feel I'm probably more isolated than a part of any group that revolves around a certain style of music or anything - I've probably played an equal amount of shows inside and outside of Austin with diverse styles of people and bands. There are quite a few of electronic musicians here, but nothing has really merged into scene that has a definitive style to it. 17/ Can we expect to see you playing live in Europe ? Hopefully sometime next year for my next Tomlab release... 18/ Could you describe us the spatial and climatic environment in which you compose Inkblot's music ? All my music is recorded at home in a room set aside for it, a few years ago in my bedroom. When I had more free time and was still in school I liked to record early in the morning and usually in compact spurts. It seems once I get in my studio its hard for me to leave. But mainly it's in my head, a bit foggy, 98.6 degrees, probably 8 or so inches in diameter, but I'm not sure how that breaks down into centigrade or centimeters... ;) [stephane colle c/o autres directions ]


	INKBLOT [loop.cl] How did you get into electronic music? “It was really just a large part of my group of friends a few years back, for a while it was all we listened to. In high school my friends and I would make mix tapes of different cut-ups we had made, they were really awful but interesting. At that time music made strictly with electronics was very interesting and new to me. When I moved to Austin in 1996 I became much more focused on my music making and playing shows in galleries and bars. I got my first computer because I wanted to make music with it, but I don't really know much about computers, its just a medium that allows me to express myself with limitless options and choices, it allows a lot of freedom. But I don't really find myself listening to electronic music that much anymore. It used to be all I listened to, because there was nothing as interesting to me at the time. But now it has soaked in with all my other tastes and has just become a part of me”. What kind of field recordings are you interested in? Voices seem important. “I really do like the sound of the human voice, there's something very soothing about a nice speaking voice. I especially like when you're drifting asleep in a room of other people talking and all the conversations blend together mixing with everything else that is going on in the room and everything is slightly unrecognizable. But the sounds I record are very random, so most of what I sample is fast and spontaneous, collecting sounds from whatever seems interesting at the time and forming something out of it and making it work. I'm interested in all sounds, I don't really discriminate too much when choosing something to sample. I just feel that it will work if put in the right place, so I concentrate more on the arrangement, seeing where things will fit and will not, changing things hundreds of time until I feel satisfied with what I'm hearing”. Your idea of dreams as relating to track five [“After careful deliberation I find it hard to deny the fact that what we all need is less sleep and more dreaming”]? “I don't really see much difference between the world of our dreams during sleep and the ideas we create while awake. Our ideals, relationships, interpretations, meanings, values are all created in the mind like dreams, they don't actually exist outside of ourselves. There is a fine line between the world we view as true and the fantasy world we create alone in our minds. In a way, just being conscious is dreaming, we're all locked in our own individual dreamworlds - subjectivity. And to sleep instead of dream is in a way to be somehow less than subjective, disregarding the full impact of one's emotional fluxes, intuitive understandings and irrational moods in favor of a more objective scientific or overly rational outlook. And to me, this is not only boring and unimaginative, but unhealthy and restricting if not balanced by imagination and the so-called irrational. At times I think the more emotional or expansive one is at a certain time, the more alive they are at that time. And yeah, there’s a child-like or mercurial quality to this, but the rules of logic, order and system seem so unattractive, silly and arrogant if I think about them long enough. I think they shut off so much of the world that is available. And I am glad that the word "child-like" has been used to describe my music, there is so much music and electronic music in particular that seems so serious and overly concerned with technology and the rational. Kind of limp and stiff at the same time, but still somehow clever”. Can you make a living from music in Austin? “Sure, but not at what I do. I would really hate it if making music ever became a job. There are a handful of bars and venues that help support this kind of thing, but usually its just friends at parties or little events”. Text Guillermo Escudero


	INKBLOT Interview with Jeremy Ballard (USA) by ERock [Thumb #12] 10/00 www.tomlab.de I first heard Inkblot when Tomlab had asked me to do some artwork for an upcoming release. I got a CD-R of snappy beats and subtle, textured arrangements. The album was by Inkblot, who was Tomlab�s first American artist, and one that I immediately took a liking to. When my brother moved to town we wound up listening to the album on repeat for days on end, and I ended up interviewing Jeremy a short while before his debut album, The Language Game, was finally released. So how did Inkblot come about?* I got my first synthesizer, well my only synthesizer, when I was seventeen, something like that. I guess it was 1995, like five years ago now. I got really into dance music at the time, started going to rave parties, a lot of my friends were DJing an stuff, so I would go over their house and mess around with their turntables. I also got some records and some belt-driven turntables. I started messing around with my synthesizer to see what I could come up with - it had a little sequencer on it and a lot of good sounds. Then I got more and more into it. Did you play in any other bands or anything before that? Yeah, I played bass, drums, and guitar before. I good friend of mine that I grew up with was a drummer, so we�d all get together and improvise and do whatever. Then somehow, I kind of dropped that music altogether for about three or four years and was totally into electronic music. I was into the west coast kind of stuff like Hardkiss and Single Cell Orchestra, stuff like that. Then I slowly started playing stuff. I�d go to a party and I didn�t understand what was happening up there, there was just all this music coming out. So I was intent on figuring out what was going on, and started messing around, trying to make my own... [end of sentence lost in a sea of phone static.] Well, I don�t think the stuff you�re doing now is very close to straightforward dance music. No, not at all. I�ve really gotten away from that stuff since those days. Yeah, the dance scene gets stagnant after a bit. It was new to me then, but now when I look back it�s very simple. Well, also if your record is too different you can�t mix it so easy with the others, so no one�s going out of their way to do something drastic. There was a lot of formula. That can be said of any �genre� I suppose. Do you ever play out live with the stuff you do now? Yes, not very often. Austin is not a very big electronic music town at all - I think it�s probably pretty similar to Portland though. I�m not sure there are many big electronic towns in the US-as far as getting a draw for the experimental type of thing. Yeah. I guess I play live about every three months, there�s not really any place in town that�s totally supportive of it, so if I�m going to do it it�s going to be with more rock-like bands, or post-rock, or whatever. So I�ve played college radio stations, or at record stores, or at someone�s party. Other than that there�s not many places to go. House parties are more fun anyway because people are there to have a good time. Yeah, exactly, people are more receptive. That�s the other thing - people don�t know what to do at a show. Do I just stand here and bop my head, do I watch, or what do I do? So they end up just talking amongst themselves. There�s really not much to look at. �I can�t tell what he�s doing.� I�m trying to get more visual aid so that people can put their attention on something. That�s why I don�t like to play rock clubs, because people expect to have a band to watch, and it�s hard to entertain people by yourself, while operating your equipment. �Where�s the lead man?� It�s music to do stuff to. You use pretty varied sound sources. It�s not all synthesized, there�s lots of natural sounds. Do you get out the mic a lot and just record things? Yeah, on The Language Game I used a really crappy dictaphone mic. I would just run it into the mixer and sample from it and mix it in live - or I�ll sample my guitar a lot. Lately I have a process of just picking sources at random and sampling half a second or something, and then getting my bank full of samples. So I have all this different stuff to work with and now I try to make some structure out of it and it some architecture. It�s more interesting for me that way, because it�s a little bit more random. I never sit down and say, �Oh, this is what I�m going to do today.� It�s more of a process thing. You give yourself a palette to work with? That�s more like collaging, because you take bits of different pictures and reassemble it. I try not to sample anything longer than like a second, because it seems to be more interesting when you don�t recognize what it is - or I can�t even remember where I got it from... Well, it takes the sound farther out of context. You�re forced to give it an entirely new identity. Right. Out of context, within a context of all the other things that don�t have any context as well. How old are you? I just tuned twenty-three. Did you ever have any formal music background, or was it just from playing with friends. Yeah, just from playing with friends. I took a music theory class in high school and totally failed it. I don�t know, I guess I wasn�t ready to concentrate on music like that. So getting into music was just from listening and more from wanting something to do. How long have you been in Austin, Texas for? Since I graduated high school, almost five years ago. I like it. It�s the best place in Texas. That�s what I�ve heard too from friends. You do visual art also? Yes, I�m an art student at [University of Texas] majoring in studio art, mainly I do multi-media stuff. I�m trying to get a portfolio together now to apply to graduate school, but I graduate in May unfortunately. Do you have a particular school in mind? Um, I know I want to get out of Texas for now. I�ve lived here all my life. Maybe Cal Arts, or Chicago Art Institute, I�m not sure yet - anyplace that will accept me, and where my girlfriend feels like moving to also. Is the Language Game your first release? Yeah, well I put out one here that I pressed maybe 100 of. It was before I had a sampler, so it was all synthesized off of drum machines and was a lot different sounding. Now when I listen back it�s really distorted and hot and I did a terrible job on the production. It�s nasty and brittle. It totally changed when I got a sampler. I have an Akai MPC 2000 that I use. It�s a great machine. Was that first release a CD-R? I actually got it manufactured. I found a place that was able to do a really small number and I just sold them around town, giving them out to friends... How did you end up hooking up with Tomlab? Actually, I finished The Language Game here and was going to release it as another thing like the first, but then I decided to send it off to a few labels. Tom called me back like a week later and said, �I like your stuff, let�s put it out.� I like the piano sounding melodies on The Language Game CD. I�m trying to give more of a live feel to it. If I record it live, then maybe I can pull it off live too. Especially when you�re playing by yourself, you have to figure out a way to perform it all live. Yeah, it�s a hassle getting ready for a live show. You spend forever working on it that it makes you go, �I think I�m going to rent a power book or something, just dump everything into it and make it really boring.� I always wonder if Aphex Twin was actually doing anything at those shows, when it was just him and his PowerBook lying on the stage. Did Aphex Twin come through Portland? We don�t get any good shows here. Tom�s trying to set up some sort of European tour next year. That would be pretty fun. It�s kind of weird because I�ve only played a few places here, then I�ll get to go over to Europe and play all over. It�s also strange because the whole thing takes place electronically. I�ve talked to Tom on the phone one time. We always emailed and I said, �I�d like to talk to you personally sometime if we�re going to do this.� So he called me and he was a nice guy. I can hear your dogs barking back there. Yeah, you can hear them? I have two Pugs and every little thing that goes in from of the window freaks them out. It�s kind of annoying. [end]

INKBLOT Autredirections interview:

INKBLOT [loop.cl]

INKBLOT

Interview with Jeremy Ballard (USA) by E*Rock [Thumb #12] 10/00 www.tomlab.de

INKBLOT
Autredirections interview:

INKBLOT
[loop.cl]

Interview with Jeremy Ballard (USA)
by E*Rock [Thumb #12]
10/00
www.tomlab.de