What Do You Have To Do To Do That?

I watched the Mercury Music Awards on Tuesday. Not something I usually do. Partly because I knew someone involved (ooh, get me), partly out of morbid fascination, and partly due to a seemingly sadomasochistic tendency to punish my brain via the non-stop inanities spewing out of Jo Whiley’s increasingly stupid head.

The winners, who I quite like actually, dragged themselves out of their victorious stupor by repeatedly claiming they won because their album was the most forward looking of the lot. Probably true, but the company they were in didn’t exactly qualify for membership to The Army of The New Sound.

The other Monday, instead of enjoying the last throws of the long weekend, I found myself listening to a documentary on 6Music about Tony Visconti, and those he’s produced over the years. Not only was it an insight into how people such as Bowie and Eno liked to work, but it was testament to what they had to do, to produce what we take as common place nowadays. An anecdote about Robert Fripp coming up with the guitar lead for "Heroes" via a pain staking process of marking on the floor where to stand in relation to his amp to achieve specific notes of feedback was particularly gratifying.

It was part of loose series 6Music are running on producers, of which a more recent one concentrated on the work of Holland-Dozier-Holland. It included track by track breakdowns of some of their finest productions, including Reflections by The Supremes, and also Levi Stubbs vocal tracks, which if you’re clever enough (unlike me), you could probably get copies of and play around with to your boot-legging hearts content.

So next to true innovators like that, this year’s corporate saviours of music seem a little myopic to say the least. Fair play to them, but in the grand scheme of things they’re maybe not as forward looking as they may like to think.

For forward looking, I’ve recently bumped into Neptune, and their collection of made-up instruments.

I like people who do their own thing. Whether they’re making an instrument, bending an existing one, or just seeing what happens when they do that, that back-to-basics, starting from scratch thing appeals to me. The desire to be unique, and to do what no-one else has done before. Pioneering? Maybe. Intentionally? Maybe.

Without wishing any lack of respect to the finer exponents of the arts, except where it’s deservedly due of course, it’s pretty easy to pick up an instrument that someone else has made for you to a common specification, and to play it. All things being equal, a guitarist can pick up any functioning guitar, and with a few minor tweaks and a tuning pedal, get the same note every time. Tonal differences and all that, but the note should be the same. A keyboard should play the same note every time you play it. Again, it has to be tuned, but the tuning is common and specific. Which is fine, but doesn’t it get a little bit boring? That over reliance on conformity?

So, Neptune. Originally intended as an exercise in performance over all else, their guitars made out of scrap metal soon started developing to the point where they could be relied upon to the extent that a pre-determined output could, sometimes, be achieved. Which also meant that, sometimes, it could not be achieved. And the times inbetween – well, that’s where it gets interesting. Kind of exploration rather than expectation.

Years of development, de-construction and various members has got to a point where home-made scrap percussion and electronics feature just as heavily as the guitars, and have established a sound that could, if so desired, be deemed potentially musical.

These two tracks are from their Patterns album, but their output is as varied in intent as it is format. A new album is due out late this year or early next, and if you listen hard enough, you might just hear them somewhere near you soon. Something to look forward to, I suppose.

Neptune - The Penetrating Gaze

Neptune - #13


Tiny Dancer