Interview with ngarjuna from a modular zine Feb, 2017
IV: Explain the concept behind the new album (Clickbate).
NG: Rather than focus exclusively on classic House or experimental coastal music I wanted to occupy an intersection between classic, old school lines and coastal techniques not as often found in electronic dance music. It's sometimes a delicate balance but you don't want either influence to overpower the other ideally.
IV: Tell us about your setup; are the 303 lines from the modular setup as well?
NG: Some of them are, yeah; some of the sawtooth 303 lines are actually the Intellijel Rubicon sigmoid piped into the DinSync.info VCF-303 filter; there are some software parts too doing sawtooth lines in ABL3. But the majority of 303 sounds, particularly the square wave patches, are from my new Abstrakt Instruments Avalon. And then there's a line in 'Captain Smartypants' that's actually the Avalon into the VCF-303 for some serial double 303 action.
I never seem to get bored with the basic sounds of the 303; that said, sometimes it's nice to have the extra features of the Avalon or ABL to take something to the next level.
IV: I can tell from your videos you have a nice Eurorack modular setup.
NG: Thanks, yeah the Eurorack is my baby. Right now it has grown into a four case setup with each case kind of specializing in something specific: there’s a ladder filter case for classic Moog sounds, there’s another east coast case built around diode filters, then a third east coast case that revolves around various 2600ish modules and finally my west coast case.
I’d say the west coast case probably sees the most action just because it goes so well with everything else: so the Make Noise voice finds its way into almost everything.
IV: You use the terms ‘east coast’ and ‘west coast’ a fair bit in describing your sound. Can you elaborate on what those designations mean to you?
NG: Well I think in Eurorack there’s a lot of coastal blending let’s call it; there are decidedly west coast modules with weird east coast features thrown in and vice versa. And Make Noise’s latest pride and joy is this 0 Coast which also is a blend of the coastal flavors. So maybe those coasts aren’t quite as far apart as they may have been 50 years ago when those designations actually meant quite a bit.
But to answer your question: I look at ‘east coast’ as standard subtractive synthesis. Take a harmonic-rich waveform and run it into a resonant filter, envelope a VCA and apply modulation. West coast, to me, refers to more of a Buchla patch design: take simpler waveforms and, with cross modulation, wave shape/fold them into a low pass gate.
It’s worth mentioning that there can be filters in west coast systems and waveshapers and wavefolders in various east coast setups. There aren’t really any hard and fast rules. But generally speaking west coast oriented modules encourage a very different workflow and patch sensibility, another thing I really enjoy about the Make Noise voice.
IV: Tell me a little about bringing it all together; different modular voices, the Avalon, drums…
NG: Lately I’ve gotten the most use out of Spark and Patterning on the iPad for drums. Sequencing…I’ve got a lot of varied choices: the Avalon gives me a strictly 303 approach, the Audio Damage sequencer is kind of a very powerful variation on that sort of more classical approach, the Make Noise Rene covers Euclidian patterning and all kinds of far out tasks…and then there’s Silent Way, my computer is always the centerpiece of my setup as it provides master clock. So then I also have all of the various ways that Silent Way can sequence including opening up the piano roll in the DAW. So while it was a small challenge getting everything to operate together at first it has left me with a situation where I can easily craft exactly what I want with a few great, varied tools in which to do it. I have keyboards too but I don’t seem to spend much time on them; which is funny because I envisioned this setup, originally, surrounding a very nice keyboard controller of some kind but I’ve sort of left that notion behind as I see how little I use piano style controllers.
IV: There’s a steep learning curve associated with modular systems; how hard was it to learn your custom setup?
NG: Well I’m one of those people who believe that a modular synthesizer is actually easier to use than most hard-wired synths specifically because so much of the actual path is exposed to the naked eye. Being able to see what is going where, what’s modulating what, etc. really sheds light on what’s happening ‘underneath the plastic cover’. Plus it gives you the opportunity (depending on one’s buying habits) to potentially expose yourself to a wider variety of synthesis methods. So if anything I’d say the modular sped up my learning curve in regards to synthesis.
IV: Is modular music musical?
NG: I’m probably biased but: hell yes it’s musical. Leaving my own musicality out of the picture for the moment there are plenty of great examples, notably Kaitlyn Aurelia Smith who manages to be extraordinarily musical on Buchla and other sorts of abstract setups. By now there are a lot of different people using a lot of different modules to accomplish a wide variety of musical aims; but one needn’t look too far back to see the likes of Stevie Wonder, Chick Corea or Rick Wakeman performing very musically on modular systems. Not to mention Wendy Carlos, of course; I think everyone can agree that Bach is pretty musical, right?
The whole notion that modulars are for fart noises and weirdo avant garde noise music is nonsense. Modulars are popular in weirdo avant garde noise music because they’re so flexible; but no less so at performing less experimental tasks. As Eurorack has shot up in popularity there has been some push back, I guess the kids call them haters. So in an internet discussion every example of modular music will either be deemed atrocious to listen to (‘modular is only for fart noises’) or too simple (‘I could have made that sound on any number of fixed architecture synthesizers’) to justify the setup. But that’s mostly just noise, internet people talking loud and saying nothing. There are so many cool people doing interesting things with Eurorack modules right now and videos abound which prove this point. Tons of really great stuff all day long on Matrixsynth and the like.
IV: Who would you say are your chief musical influences?
NG: I guess for me it all started with the Beatles. 'Revolver', actually. I really grew up on the Beatles and everything that was associated with that time period (though I was a child of the 70s and 80s). From there I can cite a few a groundbreaking moments in my musical discovery: hearing Marvin Gaye's 'What's Going On', Hendrix's 'Nine To The Universe', seeing one of any number of Phish shows, discovering James Brown's catalogue, Charles Mingus...too many to name them all honestly. But three stand out above and beyond the rest:
1. I grew up out in the suburbs of St. Louis which were, like, really white and not that funky. So I grew up without the benefit of soul music by and large. Hearing Roger and Zapp for the first time was mind blowing; like, where have you been all my life kind of moment. There's nobody like Roger Troutman. Of course this blossomed into a full blown love for funk and soul music.
2. In college I inherited a cassette tape of some Duke Ellington stuff. I hadn't really ever checked out jazz like I had classical (through my lessons and some librarying). This was also mind bending and led me to Louis and Bird and Miles and Trane and eventually my favorite Mingus and so much more.
3. Perhaps the first monolith experience, though, was earlier at the St. Louis Public library where I stumbled onto a new record from the Beastie Boys with this insane, psychedelic foldout. Everyone my age was familiar with 'License To Ill', in fact most of us could recite every lyric (possibly to this day). But 'Paul's Boutique' received no such fanfare. So I borrowed it and spun the record and couldn't believe how funky it was. And between the BBoys and the Dust Brothers I got introduced to the likes of Funk Factory and all kinds of great soul on that record. This also began a long term love affair with rap and hip hop which continues to this day.
IV: A lot of musicians…well, a lot of people are worried about the state of the world right now. And your music seems to reflect some of that angst.
NG: For sure, very angsty. Not sure how significant my statements are in the scheme of things but yeah, I tend to use my music as an outlet for what I’m reacting to in so-called ‘real life’. Right now I think the thing that stands out is just the sheer amount of intentional misinformation coming out of various government institutions. Personally I’ve always been rather cynical and skeptical about the information coming from these sorts of sources but what we’ve seen this year and last has been nothing short of alarming.
IV: Hence the Clickbate cover?
NG: It's funny you mention that, that image wasn't originally meant as a political statement of any kind. I was looking for something prurient but on the absurd side of things and that photo of the two elephants was great. In retrospect the symbolism of two elephants fucking each other is rich and topical but it was a happy accident.
IV: What’s next for ngarjuna?
NG: Very next is to finish the second Gist album; Rich and I have taken a very relaxed pace with it but it’s getting closer to being done and that is one that I’m already very proud of, there’s some really cool stuff on the new Gist album. Rich really brings something special to the table every time. After that we’ll see, I’ve considered resuming the ‘West Coast Bach’ series; I have a few nascent projects that could see the light of day once ‘Clickbate’ is purely in the rearview.