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In the couple of years since Head On, Cris and Jamie have each released more (baffling) solo material, Jamie on Warp and Cris on NovaMute. The second Super_Collider album, Raw Digits, has just come out on their own imprint, Rise Robots Rise, part of Brighton’s No Future collective. Michael Upton played a game of email tag with Jamie Lidell…
Igloo: Raw Digits seems a lot more chilled out than Head On, which I guess lived up to its name. Well, it’s not exactly smoothed out, but it’s not so upbeat and tracks like “Gravity Rearrangin” really are pretty mellow. What was your intention when you set about writing this material?
JL: To mellotize in the face of the steppers is what we gone done. There was no unity on Head On. It was full of the spirit but there was not a lot of munging. This second album is honed and set to give more sustained pleasure.
Igloo: I read in the press sheet that you were in different cities during the recording of this album. Was the music written during times when the two of you were in the same place, or did each of you do your own thing for sections of it?
JL: Oh no, we always need to share the same room to stop arguments over the placement of bass drums. We never did do the mail bits about thing, always seemed such an impersonal, if potentially practical, idea.
Igloo: Despite the title, the music on Raw Digits strikes me as anything but raw. There’s huge amounts of detail in the sound, with little events gurgling about, plenty of rhythmic changes, and so on. How much work would you say goes into any given track?
JL: Hands are raw from the sheer nudging. I guess it took a month per track on average. Crazy really. We write, record and produce (compel?) on the fly quite often which means it takes a lot longer than it might with a more traditional approach. If only we were traditional…nah ! We get there by our means.
Igloo: I have to say I’ve found each of your albums messes with my head in a big way. Repeated listens have been required to start to get a feel of what’s going on. A big aspect of this is the lack of repetition which I was hinting at in the last question. To kinda pointedly pick a couple of labels out of the air, what’s your feeling about say the metronomic techno of yer average Tresor release or the accessible riffs of most of the Warp roster?
JL: Since drum machines slapped the musical domain, there’s been a steady flow of the dull chugs clogging the floor. How many have let the kick drum roll out a easy high? I know I’ve done it and heh, there’s nothing inherently evil in sheer simplicity, but there’s not much more to be added to the whole metronomic empire me feels. There was (is!) a lot of it about, Prince got into it, we got a lot of boom chack boom chack from him … and with good reason, he writes so fast, and as a single hander it makes good the speed flow … now no need to mic up a whole kit, toy with the limited (?) sonic repertoire allowed by skin beating. Like the washing machine, much labour can be spared, the pain of creating slackened to a point where suddenly an arranger can be a drummer can bash out a riddim. I like a metronome to roam … but I still bop to the chunk chunk when I’m on various flavours of high.
Igloo: ‘Radianations on the Rise’ reminds me plenty of modern RNB. What do you guys think of that stuff (eg. Destiny’s Child, Missy Elliot, et al)? (I guess the wandering keyboards are quite Parliament as well… The ghost of Bernie Worrell)
JL: Modern eh? This one started out as a remix actually, we tried to reference the radio chunk in ourselves, that’s as close as it comes these days! It’s got the Berlin Kreuzberg in the fray, this Turkish flurry o’licks to lean on. They’re lodged well in there. Cris conjured them in a daze and boy/girl does it set the mood, gives the nag…the sparse is in the mix, the miniepic structure is the funk. We absorb the RNB through a side alley and it comes out Turk. Nudging all the way!
Igloo: In the music of artists like Parliament or Sly Stone a vocal concept is often key to a piece of music. In terms of vocal style Jamie seems to be riffing on what these guys were doing, but lyrically, I have no idea what’s going on. How does the writing of the vocals fit in to the overall composition process?
JL: It’s crucial like marmite. Check the lyric sheet on the final album (you won’t have seen it yet! it’s schweet to behold … ah yes). There’s a load of battling in the lyrical outburst. No accidents. I’m surprised that nobody seems able to work out a word. Needless to say, as with all aspects of the way we work, it’s all in there, the impact of the melodies is strong, the meaning waves to another place, it’s snapshots, thought shots, running in a stream I try to make my own. Like impressions, never clear and not structured in a story telling way without wide metaphors at ever turn. Sheets of lyrics condense in the finished product.
Igloo: I saw you guys play in London in 99, fairly soon after Head On was released. The live show was pretty raw, with Jamie singing into what looked like one side of a pair of headphones, and the tracks getting pretty crunchy. Given the shift in vibe between releases, how will you be approaching live shows with this new material?
JL: With the smooth side stepping that dusts the new album, we have a tight 5 piece that’s been road tripping about the Europians [sic] for the last few week months. The old rough’n’tumble approach has been focused into a pack of 7 tracks with the emphasis on the song. We used to skip between brilliance and nonsense on stage, now we have it in a new bag. I get to wear a dress at one point though. Watch it!
Igloo: Head On was released on Loaded, and i remember from articles at the time that that was largely because you knew the guys from the label in Brighton. What’s the deal with Rise Robots Rise, then?
JL: The deal is we deal with the deals from here to the next level. We’re at level 2 now, second release the album, first the single. They have the look and feel of organic produce. We like it like that. Loaded were a cool bunch, we just didn’t have quite the right sound for it all to blow up on their imprint. The split seems to have gone smoothly. They understood well our new intentions and the blessings we got make the buzz even stronger. RISE!
Igloo: Since you both write solo material, what do you each get out of Super_Collider?
JL: Raw digits! Literally! And a whole new set of opportunities to bust heads in our unique, unmistakable style.
Igloo: What’re you planning from here?
JL: I got solo to do for Warp…rather overdue, should be on it right now actually, something completely different. Collisions ought to start again in the autumn, new material in a tempo hyped style might do wonders for our next outing… I can’t divulge more… watch them robots…
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Raw Digits is OUT NOW on No-Future
