Portland Style – Graintable
Portland-based producer and live performer Graintable first caught my attention when he popped up as one of the defining members of our online glitch-hop community. His tunes are head bobbing, melodic and with that live/improvisational quality that is all too rare in traditional electronic music. His music pays homage to a more organic movement which has led to offbeat styles like wonky, but is also meticulously crafted and dancefloor-ready – proven by his recent second-place victory in the Seattle laptop battle!
You’ve got an extremely unique take on glitch hop – a really raw live feel running through perfectly edited sounds. Are you from a musical background? How did you get started in music? What led you to this current style of performing and producing; did you always do such “live” sets? How long have you been playing out?
I started playing the drums when I was 13 and then came guitar, bass, and piano. I really liked the lower tones and percussive sounds of the bass so it eventually became my focus. I studied sound engineering and jazz performance for a few semesters in college but eventually ended up dropping out and moving to California. On the west coast I met some like minded musicians and we formed a “live electronica” band called Absynth. It was kinda like STS9 or the Disco Biscuits type stuff, I played bass guitar and synth as well as triggering off loops and one shots on Ableton Live. After touring the west coast for a while and self-releasing a live album with Absynth I decided I wanted to focus more on my own productions, so last fall we put the band on hold and Graintable was born. I guess my style of performing comes from my experience playing instruments and from playing live with other musicians.
Who inspires you right now? Did you have any mentors on your journey?
I’m inspired by my surroundings and experiences, just everyday life I guess. I don’t know if I’ve ever really had a mentor? I just kinda do my own thing.
How do you get your ideas for tunes, do you start more with live jamming or create ideas and figure out their performance afterwards?
I usually start with a drum beat or a synth sound and then just mess around until something clicks, something that makes my head nod. Then I’ll just start building on that and see where it takes me. Sometimes it goes nowhere and I end up going back to the original idea and starting over, or sometimes a new idea will come about and i’ll start over from there. Once I feel the track is complete I bounce out the seperate tracks (bass, drums, ect..) into individual audio files and then cut them up into parts I can perform in my live set.”
Describe your production setup, and your live setup if different.
I wish i could say i had a mountain of analog synths and bounce everything through a vintage tape deck, but that shit is expensive! I work mainly in Ableton Live with a few choice VSTs and an M-Audio Oxygen8 and Trigger Finger for control. I’ve also got a Korg Kaossilator which is super fun and sometimes i’ll break out my fretless bass. For live stuff I use an Akai APC 40, which i’m still just getting the hang of but it’s opened up quite a few new possibillities.
Where do you think this music we call glitch hop is going? How is Portland receiving it? Are you originally from there? if not, what made you relocate there?
Hmm, that’s a tuff one. I don’t really like to “label” music, I just know what I like and what I don’t like, so it’s kinda hard for me to say where glitch hop is going. However I will say that it’s great to see so many producers emerging that are taking the “glitch hop” sound and making it thier own, transforming it into something new. The only way a style of music is going go anywhere is if people keep being creative and re-inventing it. If everybody goes for the same sound it’ll just get stale and fade away. Portland’s got a real diverse music scene and people up here are just ready and waiting to eat up new forms of music. I’m not originally from Portland, I grew up in New Hampshire, went to school in Boston, then moved to Lake Tahoe, CA, and just arrived in Portland last fall. The band used to come up here for shows and I always loved it, so I just decided to move here.
What advice do you have for producers wanting to take their sets in a more live direction? Essential tools?
Ableton Live is a good start. It lets you manipulate audio and midi in anyway you can imagine. You don’t need the biggest baddest midi controller either, you just have to think of a fun and creative way to “perform” your music using what you have.
Fill us in on Chip Chop.
Chip Chop has actually been around longer than the Graintable project. Back when I played with Absynth, Adam (the drummer) and I would do “PA” sets with him on a small electronic drum kit (Roland SPD-S & KD-8) and myself on a laptop and midi controller. It eventually evolved into it’s own sound and we’ve been at it full on since last summer. Since we live in different states now, we collaborate on tracks via the internet. I’ll send Adam something and he’ll add to it, or vice versa and a track will go back and forth anywhere from 2 to 20 times before we’re finished with it, then when we perform it live Adam plays the drum parts on the electronic kit. Right now we’re working on our debut EP for Run Riot Records which should be available later this year. Both myself and Chip Chop appear on the Run Riot Records compilation “Motion Sickness”out now, and my solo stuff might see a release after the Chip Chop EP drops with a few remixes and dj mixes in between.
GET THE FREE LOST FROST EP HERE!
LISTEN:
Gouseion – \”We\’re In High School\” – Graintable Remix
www.graintable.com
www.myspace.com/graintable
www.youtube.com/graintablemusic
www.myspace.com/chipchopmusic
www.runriotrecords.com
