With every release, Miami’s own Schematic Music Company draws more and more attention to the bible-belt’s bass capital. At the end of 2000, superstar audio-electrician Richard Devine unleashed his premier full-length Lipswitch, one of the first long players released baring the tell-tale Schematic label. Divine, still based out of his Atlanta studio and home, plays a key role for the label. He is not only producer of self-described “fucked up futuristic shit” with his highly programmed multi-workstation set up – but he also masters all the music released on the label and aids in maintaining a necessary level of debauchery in general. I caught up with the man himself on a cold February night, suffering from the sniffles.
I had caught the RDevine and Phoenecia tour in Berlin the previous summer. He wasn’t very pleased with the turnout…
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Igloo: I was really surprised there were so few people there.
RDevine: I was fucking with Rom [Romulo del Castillo of Phoenecia]- and I was like, “man we’re nobodies in this city…” It was weird, because we’d play one town, and it’d be like five, eight hundred people.
Igloo: Really?
RDevine: Yeah, we played a big party in Cologne the next night. There were like, five or six hundred people. It was this party that SPEX did and it was huge – then the next town we played it was like that [Berlin]; nobody knew who we were. I figured we were going to hit a couple shows like that. In the UK we did really well – Sheffield, Manchester, Leeds, Glasgow – they were all really good shows.
Igloo: Who all did you play with?
RDevine: We did the Skam party with Andy Maddox, Rob Hall and Team Doyobi. We played with them and…there were a bunch of people. It was basically just us, and then locals, but it was mostly just us – Phoenecia and me. They kind of bribed me into it – I wasn’t supposed to go on tour. I was only supposed to play Sonar with them. It wasn’t really my choice, and it was so last minute – it was not a planned thing at all. And then I ended up staying away from home for three and a half months. And it sucked because I wanted to come home after doing that, but we were in Paris for two weeks. I was in Iceland for like a week. I was done after that. I wanted to come home, but I couldn’t because we had six more shows before I could go home, the Other Music party in New York…
Igloo: I love that track you and Scott Heron did together on the Slicker remix album.
RDevine: Oh yeah – actually that was a lot more me. What it was, John Hughs [Slicker] he gave us his sounds, and Scott called me and was like, “Rich I don’t know if I can do this shit, man. Do you want to do this shit together?” Because I wasn’t even supposed to be doing any Slicker remix. John asked Scott to see if I was interested. So Scott brings the sounds to my studio – Scott had already done 2 minutes worth on his MPC. So he says, “Why don’t you see what you can do with it man?” I had all the sounds on my hard drive. So I program 5 minutes worth of sound on my hard drive – Scott comes over and was like “That’s it! Let’s just send it!” So I gave it to him and John paid shortly after that, and that was it. I didn’t even consider it done. It’s funny how that happened. I personally like Scott’s Savath and Savalas mix the best.
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Aside from his characteristic programmed ultra-frantics which has been released on many different remix and album projects, Devine has a whole new sound developing for his next Schmatic release.
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RDevine: I have a new album coming out on Schematic – we’re waiting on the artwork. It’s hard to describe it. Have you ever heard Coil’s Black Light District album? You’ve gotta hear it! Go out and buy it. Essential. It’s the sickest album they’ve ever done. It’s [Devine’s forthcoming album] kind of like that, but on a high tech, electro-acoustic horror movie soundtrack tip. It’s way more soundtrack. There’s not as many beat structured songs, and it’s like an hour’s worth of really cinematic high-tech crazy movie style music. It’s a different sound… It’ll be really interesting. I don’t know how people are going to take it. There’s some really intense parts to it, and it’s really cinematic mind music rather than stuff that’s designed around a beat structure and then broken up. So it’s real different – a whole different direction. I haven’t really given it out to that many people – Rom and Josh have it. I’m sure I’m going to lose some people on it…
Igloo: Are you going to pursue this thing for awhile?
RDevine This was just a short project that I wanted to try. I’m also doing a peel sessions record for Warp right now, which will be four tracks of even more fucked up futuristic – like what I normally do, but cleaner I guess… I don’t even know where it’s going. I’m getting all this new software and hardware, so wherever technology takes me is how weird it’ll get, you know?
Igloo: Is that how its always been with you – that technology guides where your music goes and how your music is made?
RDevine: Totally – I utilize every piece of new software, and every piece of new hardware that I can get my hands on. I’m constantly rebuilding my systems here in my studio and I’m trying to stay up with the latest new trends in technology so that I always push my music even further – so that the next album will be even more… another level of intensity for electronic music.
Igloo: What kind of new software have you been using?
RDevine: A lot of stuff that Native Instruments has been letting me beta test lately. I’m beta testing their new MP3 software. It hasn’t even come out yet – called Tracktor. It’s not actually for music creation, but its going to revolutionize DJ-ing and the way people look at the computer for that, because it’s the most advanced software like that I’ve seen.
Igloo: It’s for live MP3 DJ-ing?
RDevine: Totally – it’s just like having two 1200s in your computer with a nice mixer. I’ve been DJ-ing for a while. I’ve got the whole setup here in my studio, but when I got this I was like, “Holy shit!” I never have to bring my records out again. All I gotta do is bring my laptop with me and encode all my really rare vinyl that I like to spin so much. And then with this Tracktor software, I can scratch in real time. The timing resolution – the contact with your mouse and movement of the sound is so tight…it’s just ridiculous – you can match beats and just lock shit on so tight. It’s sick. I couldn’t believe it – my expectations weren’t that high of it, but I’ve been using a lot of their software… since the beginning they’ve been supporting me and helping me out. I’ve known them for a really long time – since they’ve been doing generator 1.57. Have you seen the new Native Instruments site?
Igloo: Yeah, I was there today actually.
RDevine: Ok, because they’ve got some MP3s and stuff that I did with Reaktor.
Igloo: Yeah, I snatched them up already.
RDevine: They’re just sample files – just like sound examples. They’re really cool people. There’s a new sampler they just put out called Battery – it’s sick. I’ve been using it – I used it for my last live show, and I’ll probably use it for the next ones, when I go to Berlin and Cologne. It’s the most incredible real-time software sampler that I’ve ever used. We’ve been using the EXS-24s and Logic and those were pretty nice. And then I got Battery, and I was like, “Oh my god, this is getting sick,” It’s going to take things so much further if you have a really, really mean machine. I’ve got a custom built NT server workstation here with a gig of RAM – it’s a dual gigahertz machine. I’ve got two 1 gigahertz chips in there. This is a system I built myself. It’s a lot cheaper to build the system yourself, actually.
Igloo: Have you always built all your own gear?
RDevine: Most of the time, yes. Macintosh, no. I buy all my Macs. I don’t tinker with them that much. As far as audio equipment, yes, I have tons of custom equipment that I have had worked on – with this person that’s built stuff for me. We’ve come up with the designs, and then he’s built the stuff for me, and I’ve also helped design some of the circuit board layouts and stuff. I’ve been doing that for a long time as well. I’ve probably mentioned him in articles before… my friend Tim Adams. He’s designed a lot of custom synths and stuff here in my studio, I have a lot of modular synths he’s designed and built for me. I got into this a really long time ago, like 16 maybe 17. When I was 17 I had some pretty serious shit at my place. I accumulated crazy shit here in the Atlanta area, because no one was doing this kind of music back then. I had the rarest museum of modular synths. I just sold my last ARP 2600 to Josh for $2300. I can’t get any of the parts for it anymore.
Igloo: What kind of music were you making back then, when you were just collecting synths?
RDevine: My inspiration came more from Morton Subotnick back in the days, because he was one of the first electronic composers that I heard. Tim Adams let me borrow Sidewinder and Silver Apples in the Moon and this one record called Environments. I’d never heard music like that. After hearing Morton Subotnick, I just wanted to get me some modular equipment. I never heard any of your typical dance type shit at first – back then there wasn’t any type of scene here in Atlanta. I just happened to meet this guy that was into synths and stuff because I had gotten this Oberheim expander that was broken that I had gotten at a pawn shop, and I went to this synth dealership here in Atlanta, and I wanted to know where I could get it fixed. This guy was like, “Where did you get this? How did you find this?” He thought I was some little kid or something, and he was like, “I’ll give you $900 for this, kid,” and I’m like, “No…” I knew how much this thing was worth, and it was not $900. I don’t even know how I got it. It just turned up at the pawnshop. He recommended me to this guy Tim. He said he was an incredible synth tech here, he’d worked for ERC, and he used to work for Sequential and Oberheim. That’s how Tim and I became friends, because I had to take this synth in to get fixed. He opened me up to the whole underground world of analog synthesis and the composers that came along with it. That’s what really influenced me early on and I was surprised that no one else was doing that. Those people had been doing that for years – things that were completely pan-crazy, and you constantly have that shifting, morphing flux of different sounds that never repeat, you know? Hopefully, I’m going to get some money saved up here, I’m going to completely change my studio to a 5.1 system, where I’m doing full surround. We just attended this conference that Digidesign did. It’s their new tour promoting their new Pro-Tools system Pro24 mix, and some new interface for Pro Tools. It was pretty big. You could go around and check out the new software and hardware that they’re coming out with. They had this guy who’d done a bunch of big motion picture surround sound, like for A Perfect Storm or something. I heard it and was like, “I’m sold, that’s me, I know what I need!” I was totally sold. It’s funny because when we were in Spain…
Igloo: For Sonar?
RDevine: Yeah – we saw Stockhausen the first night.
Igloo: He did the big opening ceremony, right?
RDevine: Yeah, everybody was there: Coil, Peter Christopherson, Merzbow. We were sitting front row. In this old theater he had 8 speakers set up – this 8.1 system that Stockhausen had. And this was the first time that I had ever experienced a full surround-sound experience – where I could hear sounds come behind me, and in front of me and then meet in the middle, and morph into something completely different and then go back into the other speakers in the corner. He would tape delay things, and it would start in one speaker, and it would feedback until the feedback would roll into the next speaker, and then the next… you could hear it completely go around you in a circle!!! The whole time – it was like the future. I couldn’t believe it – I was hearing the fucking future. When the lights came on, we just refused to believe it was over.
Igloo: How long did the whole thing last?
RDevine: It was about 2 hours! This guy has an understanding of sound dynamics that we don’t even have a grasp on. The precision that I was hearing in his music… you just don’t hear that in any of our music, you know? We have not reached that level of understanding yet.
Igloo: What sort of other projects are you working on now?
RDevine: I’ve got this Richard Devine website that I’ve been working on. You can link to it from the Schematic page. It’ll be a totally interactive toy. All these things where images will move behind each other and shift and shake. It all builds up – all kinds of crazy stuff. We’re almost done with it. I would say we’ve got about another 2 or 3 weeks before we can have it up. I want to have it as polished as possible before it goes up. It’s not the kind of site where you can go and check out Richard Devine’s schedule for the next couple of months. It’s more of an artistic visual/interactive experience. We’re testing it for different systems and configurations right now, because not everybody has the wizz-bang million dollar systems we do, you know?
Igloo: Anything for you fans, right?
RDevine: Yeah, were trying to keep that all in consideration too, but at the same time give everybody a full ridiculous ride. Hopefully it will be cool. I hope people will get into it.
[when asked whether any more danceable music is in the plans anywhere]
RDevine: I just don’t want to limit myself to making music that’s formulated too much. A lot of times – a lot of electro, a lot of house and a lot of techno stuff is really formulated music, where it’s based on certain bars – you’ve gotta break things down, or bring things in on 32 16s, and that’s cool, but the only variations you have are with your sounds, and melodies, and samples that you bring into the whole composition. If it’s too broken up, the DJ market won’t buy it; they’ll be like, “How’s this going to work with all my other records?” Because they design music to work with other people’s music, which is cool because that’s pretty much what they want… I just think lately we’ve [Schematics] all been pushed away from that, and not really wanting to make music that’s designed to be played with other people’s music. Which is funny because a lot of times I’ve heard DJs saying that they have a lot of difficulty mixing a lot of the Schematics stuff. Some of it mixes good – some of the PBO [Push Button Objects] works great…
Igloo: Mostly, I’ve found they [Schematics’ records] work best with each other.
RDevine: Right, our music works really well together, but when you try to mix it with other stuff – the Metic, and some of the more abstract Phoenecia stuff is really difficult. The beats aren’t very defined – everything’s very textured and watered and organic. It’s not really music that’s designed for dance floor, you know? I don’t really like having any limitations or rules with my music. ‘I want a drum roll right here, a snare rush up to this…’ I don’t know… I don’t want to hear music where I know what to expect. Where I know what’s going to happen. Even Rom and Josh are getting away from the electro thing more. Their new one, “Brown Out” – it’s really way more organic sounding. Very ketamine sounding. It’s nothing even remotely Odd Job or Soul Oddity sounding at all. Completely different stuff – really experimental, dark, organic, textural – it almost sounds like – it’s electronic music, but it almost sounds like live instruments. It doesn’t sound synthetic in any way. When I listen to it, I almost feel like I’m listening to some ethnic Indian CD or something, but my mind knows what equipment they used in their studio. It’s a whole different sound that they’re bringing to the table, which is nice. They’re using a lot of the same stuff that we’re all using, but they’re doing something completely different with it – giving it a more acoustic, humanist sound rather than it be so tightly machine based. But yeah, I think the electro days are over for all of us. Unless somebody pays us a lot of money, then we might have a change of heart…
Igloo: You could do a Madonna remix or something.
RDevine: Yeah, then I could get my 5.1 system! But I don’t think that’s going to happen.
[The conversation moved on to the Winter Music Conference and Miami – Beta Bodega put on a big anti-winter music party with Schmatics, Beta Bodega, Forcee Inc, Vladislav Delay, Ectomorph and many others.]
RDevine: Yeah it’ll be a blast. At the Schematic house it’s going to be madness – we’re going to have 10 or 15 people staying with us. It’s always such a trip down there – we definitely love to party. I don’t know any other people, other than the guys at Warp, that like to party as much as we do. We like to see the dirt, you know what I mean? I always thought we were the worse until I met Steve and all the Warp people though. I thought I could drink – you know growing up in the South… I hung out with some pretty fucked up skateboarders and some weird people.
Igloo: I’ve had some weird experiences with southern skateboarders.
RDevine: I know dude! The comedy – I know all about it! It’s so weird, because nobody I meet listens to our kind of music – or on the rare occasion I might meet someone who’s into that, but most of them are really geezer type kids. I’ve been trying to keep a really clean image with the magazine interviews – they just want to know about the technical aspects of how I make my tracks and shit. Nobody ever asks what actually happens on the weekends.
Enough said…
Richard Devine’s Lipswitch is now available on Schematic Records.
