Flip Mode - a conversation between Paul D. Miller, Ad Astra, and Dj Spooky that Subliminal Kid FlipMode: Intro: This was an interview between Paul D. Miller, Dj Spooky that Subliminal Kid, and Ad Astra (an alternater persona of Paul's...) that was commisioned by Russel Simmon's "One World" Magazine for their art issue. Basically they asked me to dialog about my last mix CD "Modern Mantra" - yes, there's a sense of humor going on here... Here goes: Dj Spooky is one of those cats you just see everywhere. He's at a dinner party in NYC one nite, the next he's doing a show at London's ICA on new software and music on the internet, and yet the next nite, he's in Tokyo doing a show with, oh, I don't know, Dj Krush or something... Basically he's a dj that doesn't really fit into the normal roles of a beat master like Funk Master Flex or GrandMaster Flash, but he definitely rolls.... On the occaision of the release of a new mix CD of his entitled "Modern Mantra" that features all sorts of hip-hop progressives like Dj Cam, Moby, Dj Krush, Aesop Rock, to other electronic headz like Bill Laswell.... basically he's a dj with alot of information and people streaming through his mind. We thought we'd just tap the flow for a bit, and see what downloads. Ad Astra, Saas Fee, Switzerland, June, 2002 Paul D. Miller Questions for DJ Spooky on the art of soundz of art, the art of soundz, and his new mix album "Modern Mantra." 1. What's the story behind "Modern Mantra"? Did Shadow Records specifically ask you to do it? Let's think of it as a multiple personality disorder. Paul D. Miller asks the questions, Ad Astra mediates, and Dj Spooky creates. Like Eminem, I guess, things are all multiplied when the sounds start flowin' I just think of the art of the sounds as a kind of Norman Mailer situation: Black, White, Asian, Hispanic... whatever works. That's the persona for the mix, and the mix doesn't care who makes it. "Modern mantra" is just a placeholder in my mind, ya know? Think of beats and flows... I always like to think of every mix as a kind of "myth science" - the science is in the collage, the flow, the flux. Like Duke Ellington used to say "who is playing in the shadow of whom?" I like the idea of a record made of shadows... it's a perfect metaphor for American electronic music. America made that become the digital exorcism of NOW. How to work out all that racial stuff of the 20th century when we're living in a different time I guess. I guess you could call my style "digital exorcism" or something like that... break beatz for the gene splice generation. Art for the multiplied mind... 2. What's the process of creating a mix like? What give you the idea of which songs to include, what order to put them in, etc. etc.? Do you like to cook? Aiigt - making a mix CD is a paradox: it's personal and impersonal, kind of like watching TV using TIVO software and trying to figure out what commercials to edit out, and what to leave in, or like deciding what chess moves you want to make in a game with yourself. Think of downloading yourself as an MP3 file... what sounds would you choose if it was all free...The tracks I choose were both from alot of people I know like Bill Laswell, Dj Cam, Dj Krush or Moby, to other people whose work I'd never heard of before, but I ended up liking alot, like Dj Goo from Switzerland. I like to just think of this all as audio alchemy, the order of the tracks was kind of like just figuring out which configuration would draw people into my mindset. The order was like "bring people in, open 'em up... show 'em that alchemy flow... and break it down again." That's why I always think of dj;ing as a cross-roads situation: the virtual style of a culture threaded through fiber optic cables, network systems, the here and now flipped into cipher mode: the code of the new streets, y'all - it's digital.I don't really cook, but I can use a microwave... 3. Alright - well... mix CDs are usually created to introduce many musicians at once, or as a backdrop for dance sh*t... What do you want to tell people with "Modern Mantra?" Africans been doing this for a long time... we're from a culture of reconstruction, so there's no rules aobut what I can take and put into my mix zone. Like the Modernists of the 20th century, dj's have to think of creating the artform in a world that's rapidly changing. Like Dj Premier said a while ago "you always have to update your formula..." Flip that through The whole mix scene is really saturated with compilations these days. I'm more into figuring out different people's tastes. Which is why I liked stuff like Dj Krush's "Code 4109" mix or even earlier stuff like Afrika Bambaata's "Death Mix" - "Modern Mantra" is an echo of that stuff... I want people to think of mix culture as actually that: a mix... So many compilations just focus on one thing, and man, that's mad boring. It's a diverse world... I want to make a soundtrack to flesh out those impulses, sound as universal language, sound as a way to show the linkages between everything. I'm not Buddhist or anything though... I just like beats. Maybe the inspiration came from when I did a collaboration with Mariko Mori for my last album "Riddim Warfare" but that was a while ago... who can say? 4. Is doing a mix CD different project from some of your other CDs, where you're essentially creating your own musical scenario. What makes the two types of situation different? yeah, no doubt... I want to flex on the mix CD scene for a little while 'cause that's what makes things flow through different zones.... it's like being possessed by different Loa in a voodo break... but the loa spirits all are fighting for one spot - the mix - how to balance between what's going on inside and outside my head... my own tracks are vector points for that kind of thinking process. I mix them with other people's stuff when I spin live, so I thought that the "Modern Mantra" mix would be a good way to balance these multi-verses, ya know? References for the mix are stuff like Charlie Parker's Birdland Sessions, Afrika Bmabaata's "Death Mix," early hip-hop stuff like "Flash to the Beat" or even Steinski and Double D's "The Lesson." But "Modern Mantra" is global - Dj Krush represents that Japan flava, Dj Goo - flows from the Swiss secret bank accounts of the turntablist scene... etc etc ya know? It certainly isn't about just sampling some old soul and funk breaks.... but even if it was, that'd be fun too... everything has its place and moment. That's the "Modern Mantra" situation. That's why I call my style "ILLbient" - it's hip-hop but from the inside tuned out... it's not about the outside world crushing you with media bombardment.... but more active appraoches to using the media around us. That's what my visual work is about too. I'm a trans-media baby who makes art for a world made of information. I take as I give.... I like electronic music that brings people's sense of environment into sharp clarity, and the CD was something that flows like that. Think of it as a kind of ILLbient soundtool for reading. Sound text becomes literary text. I like the idea of the "phonograph" as sound writing - "phono" and "graph" are the terms that translate the situation, ya know? 6. You've done some collaborative CDs, such as with Scanner and Freight Elevator Quartet. Do you anticipate working with those musicians again? Is there anyone else you're dying to collaborate with? yeah, I'm mad into doing collaborations. There's some folks out there that I haven't worked with yet, like Kut Masta Kurt, or Pierre Boulez that are in the near future, but that still remains static. Collaborations are like having a conversation or a file exhcnage with someone you think can reflect and bounce back something interesting. I also want to do something with Ornette Coleman sometime too... Some of the wierder collaborations I've done with people like Thurston Moore and Yoko Ono are just sitting on my bookshelf... I want to release some of that stuff. I'm starting a record label to do exactly that: it's called "Synchronic" and the first releases are from stuff I did with Killa Priest a while ago, and the record version of Marshall Mcluhan's classic book "The Medium is the Massage" - all that stuff starts the autumn, so check www.synchronicrecords.com for the release schedule. I think that record labels are going to be like electricity or water service - they'll be on all the time, and you just tap what you want at the moment. It's all going to be digital, and everyone will be able to download whatever.... Scanner uses cell phone decoding devices to make his records. I use records to make records.... So I guess I'd be into making a recording of all the streets, all the people who ever existed, and who could ever exist, and that would be my favorite record. I'd make a poster for the show too... ha ha 7. You have an album project called "Optometry" that drops in July on Thirsty Ear--what can you tell me about what that will be like? "Optometry" is a jazz project, but it's a beat situation, ya know? I worked with some of my favorite jazz downtown musicians like Matthew Shipp, William Parker, Joe Mcphee etc etc to come up with material that could be sampled and re-spliced... the philosophical zone that we all span is like "wildstyle' jazz meets hip-hop in the remixed city... I like to think of it as be-bop for the gene splice generation... It was fun to mess around with alot of jazz elements played by "live" people - I've done so much sampling for a long time... I think on my next full length album, I'll probably have alot more "live" stuff too... I love the idea of people playing "elements" and opening up the situation to the computer... I really want to do some Duke Ellington stuff sometime in the near future, but for the moment, I think I'll roll with the "Optometry" jazz thing as a way to flip the equation on dj culture - jazz is all about flow, and so is dj'ing, so why not combine 'em in some new ways. 8. You're one of these catz that just doesn't stop. Mixes, visual material, webcasts, travel - what other projects do you have going on, currently or in the near future? I'm in the middle of starting a new magazine, check out the test issue: www.21cmagazine.com and I'm still working on my new album. My other large scale "art project" is a remix of D.W. Griffith's film "Birth of a Nation" - it's an old Ku Klux Klan film that I've wanted to fuck around with for a while... that will premier at Massachussett's Musuem of Contemporary Art.... there's also a remix of a chess game Marcel Duchamp played with himself a long while ago that I'm tying to music, and that's going to premier at L.A.'s MOCA... both of those are towards the end of this summer... it's a hectic time... 9. What's your deal with travel? You're always someplace elese... even if I'm sitting across from you, I can see in your eyes that you're someplace else... this is just a screensaver, right? I have to admit, yeah, I ain't really here right now. This is a hologram rep for Subliminal Kid Productions, just flippin' you some telemarketing skillz. What's the next question.... 10. What's your interest in myth science? What are records to you? My favorite Sun Ra recording is a pretty rare record of him playing electric organ near the Egyptian Pyramids in the late 1960's for an hour. It's some of the weirdest sounds I've heard produced by a human being. I love Sun Ra because he always pushes things... The Sun Ra VS John Cage record is like some kind of far left field juxtaposition - think, I don't know... like a Penguin in Jamaica or something... to get an idea of how wild that is... just think about when two vectors collide in a mathematical set of variables, and you couldn't come up with a weirder collaboration. I want to do stuff like that... but yeah, anyway, my favorite Ra recording is "Sun Ra Live at the Pyramid." It's another one of those wildstyle situations I love to think about: electricity, pyramids, wild costumes, and someone who didn't accept any of the divisions we normally see in electronic music, jazz, or history: it was all a mix. That's the Afro myth science of the 20th century. I want to think of this world as total flux. Nothing is fixed, nothing permanent. My music is the soundtrack for those who do no accept this world as it is, but who want to make their own mix of what they see around them. My music is flip Mode, opensource mentality for the electric world.