Head to Head with Andrew Coleman

England's bovinyl label founder Andrew Coleman is a man with a diverse collection of sounds running a muck in his head, and an uncanny ability for stringing them together in strange and undeniably beautiful ways.

Under his Animals on Wheels moniker through 2 albums and several singles for Ninjatune sub-lable Ntone, he serves up a glitchy jazz soup spiced with a range of off-kilter drum'n'bass and hip hop percussion. Under his own name on Thrill Jockey, however, his output is described as a "avant-electro, plickity-plunk piano release in the vein of recent Richard James or Global Goon."

With a new album for Thrill Jockey about to hit the shelves, and a follow up to the last Animals on Wheels album in works, we manage to squeeze a few moments out of Andrew's busy schedule to talk shop .

AAS : How did you first get into producing and what would you credit as some your earliest influences ?

AC : After having played guitar with some rather dodgy bands when I was at art college I sold my 'rock' gear to be able to buy a secondhand Akai s900 sampler and Atari ST computer. Ii was listening to plenty of 60's jazz at the time but my move into electronic sound was probably instigated by the Detroit scene and some of the more leftfield dance music being produced at the time (Carl Craig's 'at les' still remains a favorite of mine). the s900 broke after about a year of heavy use. I then moved to the wonderful world of PCs and sound software.

What's the climate like in the UK at present as far as music is concerned? Is there anything at home or abroad being done by other artists that really peaks your interest?

Now that we're past that hideous millennium where everyone was making top 10 20th century charts and looking back at how great everything was, things seem to be shaping up well in 2001. I really love the new independent hip-hop being made by acts like Mike Ladd / Infesticons, Company Flow, Dose One / The Anticon / Dirty Loop /Cloudead people and the Anti-Pop Consortium. Not only is the music finding new ground away from hip hop clichés but the vocal styles and lyrics are becoming amazingly inventive.

Alot of your material has a strong jazz element to it, is this something that is a result of prior training in more classical musical fields ?

No, I've had no musical training whatsoever. In a way I wish I had gone to study music rather than spending my formative years throwing paint around at art college but then I'm very aware that academic training can have as many downsides as ups. Set rules of procedure along with historical methods and theory can prove hard to deviate from once set in stone. At least starting from nothing means that rules I put in place are from my own trial and error methods. I was pleased to learn recently that Werner Herzog, the German filmmaker, was self taught in his artistic field. He did attend film school only to quit within a week and make off with one of the schools cameras! A true inspiration.

You mentioned a new synthesis technique (scanned synthesis; see community section for the link) the last time we spoke. Are you involved in the programming side of things with any of the tools you're using? I wish I could spend more time being a nerdy coder but I'm well aware of how much it would cut into the time I spend making music so I never get too heavily involved. I do love the innovations that come from people who do though. Scanned synthesis was developed by, amongst others, Max Mathews who wrote Music V (in FORTRAN! eek!), the program which led to Csound and probably most of the sound software we have today. I'm always amazed at the experimental styles of early electronica and computer music. That mix of optomistic sci-fi and the crazed scientist. Large machines with lights, dials and switches everywhere being tweaked by men in pinstriped suits. Those were the days! Raymond Scott will always be far cooler than Moby!

One of the things which is great about modular systems like the Tassman and Reaktor is the way the software allows a massive range of experimentation and synthesis techniques for the user without having to get involved in the most basic level of code if you don't want to. I'm rather happy not to have a monochrome console in front of me running FORTRAN...

The comment has been made by some musicians that computer based music can place too much emphasis on the technical aspects of production, there by taking energy away from the creative process.Thoughts ?

Computer based music is now at a point where we're spoiled with ways to make interesting sounds. Whilst this offers great scope for creativity it has led to some releases from the last few years becoming more and more reliant on novelty ideas over musical ones. Its all a little scary as I can't help but associate it with the hideous world of progressive rock and jazz. That kind of 'hey, look how impressive and technically flash I am' attitude. I recently read an interview with an artist on a certain famous UK electronica label (I wont mention any names) who went on about how he used thousands of samples in each of the tracks he made. For me, that's way too close to a generic progger guitarist announcing how many notes and scales and tri-noodle thingys he got in his ten minute solo. Yuck.

What's your kit consist of these days ? Any dream tools you'd sell the farm for ?

I have a self-made 1ghz (which still isn't fast enough!) a PC running Logic Audio, Tassman (of course) and a multitude of other softsynths and sound tools. I still have a little outboard Yamaha mu10 which gets used on the odd occasion (mostly just the vibraphone patch, filter cutoff down, res up, distortion on!) and a Yamaha an1x keyboard but the majority of my sound is software based now. My dream tool would involve the people of cakewalk getting together with emagic, having a nice chat over tea and biscuits, and then making the sequencer to end all sequencers. VSTi, DXi, audio envelopes, alias and looping parts- it would have it all. Now that is a dream...

What projects are you working on currently, and what can we expect to see from you in the next little while ?

I'm about to release my first album for Thrill Jockey records. Its called 'everything was beautiful, and nothing hurt' ( www.everythingwasbeautifulandnothinghurt.com .... makes a good url I reckon! catchy...).

I am also working on the follow-up to my last Animals on Wheels project (nuvol I cadira. www.animalsonwheels.co.uk ) for Ninjatune/ ntone which, all going well, should include a collaboration with the avant hiphop poet/rapper genius Dose One. I'm very excited about that. Beyond that I want to put a liveshow together which I hope will involve a drummer I know (He's the only person I know who might be able to pull off the drumming styles I'd need).

Thanks a million Andrew, and good luck with everything.