Music: Mwvm Interview
Our Take
mwvm is an interesting one man drone project, made entirely via guitar manipulations and samples. With the debut album Rotations, now out on Silber Records, I decided to ask some questions of the man behind the sounds, Michael Walton.
First off, I wanted to say that I really enjoyed Rotations. How did you learn some of the manipulation techniques used on the album, and did you study with someone or teach yourself?
Thanks for your kind words. I'm pleased you enjoyed the album.
I'm pretty much self-taught. Unfortunately, school friends and the friends I grew up with were never really into making music so there wasn't anyone I could share everything with! I guess the desire to make sounds that I found exciting overcame the daunting learning curve that came with it. Gradually, just like any other hobby, with time it all began to make a little more sense. Of course, magazines and later on the internet played their part.
With "rotations", the effects chain a raw signal runs through, how the treated raw signal was layered and ultimately arranged was an integral part of the recording process. For example, I would record a guitar or organ through some pedals and sample it. Maybe detune it with a LFO modulating the pitch slightly or tinker with the ASDR. Once sampled, I might feed it back through a valve amp or split and arrange a sound in EQ frequency bands. The majority though, is good old guitar, various effects and loopers to a valve amp.
How long did it take to make Rotations, and how many changes did each song go through (i.e. did you spend quite a bit of time fine tuning each track or did you let it flow into its own sound)?
12 months. I didn't really change the direction of any songs. I kinda just piled on more layers, rather than chiseling parts off. The refinement of some pieces took much longer than others though. "Context. Where?" and "Oratory Clout" were work in progress for like 7-8 months or something. Mainly re-records, EQing and the degrading of sound. It's also the first time I've worked on a bunch of tracks at the same time, usually starting out as background glimpses. If I'd get tired or felt that I'd bleed myself dry of ideas, I'd move on and start stirring in with something else. Some rough sketches would take a good few months to crystallize, others would just fall out of the guitar in a few hours. It's difficult to predict how results will pan out, you can't plan things like that, it just happens. Plus, I'm very critical of my own work so that doesn't help the writing and recording process. I know a few musicians who can work really fast. I'm envious of folk like that...
Is there an overall theme to Rotations?
Yes. I felt I'd covered various moods that would appear, die and reprise throughout the record. Maybe it reflects how miserable I get!
How did you get involved with Silber Records?
I sent Silber a demo. Obviously, I dig the label and the affiliated bands. Luckily, Brian liked my record.
Your website and Myspace mention remix opportunities for Rotations, have a lot of people gotten involved in this and what have the results been like so far (if you've gotten any back yet)?
Yeah, the remixes have been great. Lots of interesting takes of the record. Quite exciting to hear actually.
Describe a typical live performance.
I loop guitar parts using a laptop running Ableton Live. I also use pedal loopers too. Basically, I record "on the fly", then trigger synthetic sounds with midi controllers as the set progresses. The idea is to stay true to the recordings. What you hear on record, is what you hear live. However, I've changed my approach to performing live. I'll be using a guitar, a bunch of pedals and an amp for the next few performances. The laptop thing got too complicated and it became a chore to use it. I missed my guitar amp.
Is there ever a chance you'll make it outside of the UK for shows?
I'm a realist. Not a great deal of people are going to be interested in what I do and I don't really like to push my music in peoples faces. Maybe a little mwvm won't hurt folk though. Well, actually, there was this one time when these rather resonant shrieks of feedback annoyed one girl at a gig or so my wife told me. She overheard her saying something like "If he doesn't stop this shit now, I'm leaving. It's giving me a fucking headache!". Haha.
I'd love to go over to the US and play a few cities. Obviously, only if I wasn't gonna lose substantial amounts of money.
If you could put your music into a game or film, what would it be and why? For games, I could see your music working in titles such as Rez (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rez) or Flow (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FlOw).
My older brother loves computer games. He'd probably know more about this than I would. I, ermmm, get motion sickness after a while so I can't play games these days. Sad but true. Could my music compliment a game? Yeah, why not. I suppose something like "Eye of the Beholder 2". That was a great game when I owned an Amiga. Film scores is a difficult one. Like a lot of artists who do similar music, this question always pops up. It's highly unlikely I'll ever get involved in a film score but if I did, I'd record something along the lines of Air's Virgin Suicides. Now that is a brilliant record.
Do you get inspiration from things other than music (as these are listed on your Myspace)? For example, does the area you reside in influence the sound of this project?
No. I don't think anything does. The music I listen and my peers are the sole reason I'm a musician. It's an emotional thing I guess. It makes me tick. Or something like that.
I'd like to thank Michael for taking the time to answer our questions. For more information on mwvm, visit http://www.mwvm.co.uk/ or http://www.silbermedia.com/.
Chris Dahlberg
November 24, 2007
