To say that Londoner musician Matthew Herbert is unhappy with England's Prime Minister Tony Blair is an understatement. So it's no surprise that he channels his protests - the war in Iraq, corporate globalization, the western world's dependence on oil, to name a few - into his music that began around 2000 and includes his most recent album, “Scale.”
Herbert, a classically trained pianist, is a true darling within the electronic music world and has remixed songs by artists like REM, Björk and Serge Gainsbourg. Herbert began playing both the violin and the piano at age 4, and began singing and performing in orchestra at 7. The son of a BBC sound technician, Herbert studied theater at Exeter University and later made the 1998 work “Around the House” which is a collection of household sounds - the toaster, washing machine and a toothbrush - that he sampled and transformed into actual songs with grooves.
Herbert welcomes human error within his work and feels that mistakes in either the recording or programming process are “Šthe welcome intervention of random humanity in a sterile world.” Coincidentally, Herbert founded his own record label called Accidental Records. Since 1998, Herbert has recorded several more albums and in 2003 made a big-band record “Goodbye Swingtime,” which was recorded at Abbey Road studios with 16 session musicians.
Over time, Herbert's work has become more political and his latest album “Scale” is not only filled with pop, jazz and house rhythms and melodies but also touches upon the current economic and sociopolitical climate. Herbert incorporates an array of diverse sounds - closing coffins, gas pumps and someone getting sick - along with drum instrumentation played in the most unusual places - a cave, in the water and in a hot air balloon.
The Beach Reporter recently spoke with Herbert about his new album, “Scale” and some of his favorite “sounds.”
For your work ‘Scale' - drums in the car, in a hot-air balloon, in the water and in a cave - what do you feel was the most dramatic situation as far as altering the sound of the drums?
The hot air balloon was quite intense as the basket was barely enough room for one person, let alone three and a drum kit. I'm sure we could think of something more full-on - maybe next time. Leo Taylor, and me, the drummer, had a lot of fun doing it. I won't pretend we weren't scared though.
What are your thoughts on the traditional recording process?
I understand it from a technical point of view. However, from an artistic perspective it is very safe, very predictable. You are relying on the musicians to tell the story. The real stories from the outside world are kept out behind thick double glass doors and concrete walls.
It seems to me that the arrangement/composition process requires a whole different kind of technical aptitude than playing an instrument. Do you find this to be the case?
You rely on those around you more. So for example, Pete Wraight, the arranger, knows much more about orchestral harmonics than I. I give him the melody and countermelodies along with the harmony, and he makes informed decisions about what is the best way to convey them. The same is true with the recording process: You ask professionals. The engineer's experience is one of the reasons you use a studio like Abbey Road.
You really have that kind of timeless, hip, swanky, groove-oriented sound that reminds me of Quincy Jones in terms of the openness of your songs, if that makes any sense. Are you a fan of his work?
I am a fan, albeit a distant one. I am an admirer of the way that he applies the rigor of professional playing and orchestration to the spontaneous idioms of pop music.
It seems like you embrace almost any kind of sound. Do you ever find it a challenge to have a focus when putting together a song simply because anything can go? Does it take you ages to finally complete one, with so many layers of sound being weaved together?
It can get hairy sometimes, but at the end of it, the story comes first. If you think that the war in Iraq was wrong in the first place, and badly handled now, then you find sounds to represent that. The songwriting should be telling that story anyway, so it's just a case of putting it all together. You wouldn't have the sound of a toaster on a track about the Iraq war, not unless you were telling a very specific story.
What are some of your favorite noninstrumental sounds?
The sound of George Bush and Tony Blair being led out of office in handcuffs;
The sound of fresh bedclothes on my skin;
The sound of car drivers riding bikes to work;
The sound of a ripe apricot grown in my own garden coming off in my hands; and
The sound of the arms industry paying the same taxes as every other business.
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