Introducing: Sex and Circuitry

Introducing: Sex and Circuitry

Written by Dom Smith Friday, 17 October 2008 16:52

Music - Recorded

Sex and Circuitry have made a huge impression on the UK alternative and electro scenes already, achieving extensive radio play and media coverage. This lovely new project from Hailey (DJ Odissi), producer Pete Crossman and former Prodigy axe man Jim Davies is heavily loaded, and ready to unleash an intense mix of dance, rock and robot porn all over you.

S] S&C seem to be “darker” and “sleazier” than any of the core member’s previous projects – Would you say that S&C is the culmination of Jim, Pete and Hailey’s experiences within the industry? – Your ideal project perhaps?
 
JIM] I've been in bands where there is tension between members and different agendas so S&C is a joy for me! We are all best mates so gigging is no stress, no having to wait for hours for the 'late one' or 'the constantly drunk' one. This situation, it's ideal, we have made the band as compact and as easy to tour as possible.  I think the longer you are in bands you come to realize what is important and what isn't, for me these days it’s about playing music you are 100% into and doing gigs you can look back on and say you gave it your all. I'm sure we've all been in bands where you just feel like saying: ‘fuck it, I will go along with it but I am just not feeling it anymore.....’ So I guess for us S&C was a reaction in someway to the negative sides we have seen of the industry. We intend to do it our own way and in our own time.
 
HAILEY] As far as the lyrical content being "darker" and "sleazier" than things I've done in the past, I can say it's purely a result of this being the first project I've been involved in where I have had "total creative freedom" to express myself. As a session vocalist, often you have to compromise your artistic integrity to please the producers you're singing for. When you are a "dance producer" often you are producing tracks with a very specific arrangement, with a very specific style to suit a very specific DJ market. And to make life in the studio more oppressing, if you're a female dance music producer, often you face a lot of pressure to "tone it down" unless you want to read a lot of harsh remarks online about you being where you are purely because of your looks or saucy persona.

I've been in it a long time, and have gone past feeling like I have something to prove to "the scene". With S&C it's not just an "ideal" project, it's a dream project... it's exactly what I wanted to be doing when I first said at the age 15: ‘I want to be a producer’, for the first time I'm able to "let my hair down" and just be me from a creative point of view... and to be doing that alongside two of the best friends and creative minds I have ever had the pleasure of working with.... well, that's just the icing on the cake really!

 
 
PETE] I personally have never been in to the "fluffier" side of electronic music, in my opinion you cannot get better than a crunching beat, a heavy bassline and, the bit that tops it off for me is a huge driving guitar. I have always been quite crossover in terms of the kind of electronic music I write and produce, and that comes from a love of eighties bands like Depeche Mode and Tears for Fears. Later on you had bands like The Prodigy and NIN who readily made guitars a big part of their sound alongside electronic synths and beats. I guess you could say that I was never destined to make just clubby dance music, it’s got to be more than that to tick all the boxes. The culmination of all our musical tastes is what makes this work so well, and it happens to be the dark side that makes us all tick!
 
S] In what way are the band exploring new themes and ideas separate from previous projects within the S&C material, can you give some specific examples within your new material?
 
JIM] All three of us listen to mainly dance music but we each have our own slightly differing tastes, but there is an underlying love between all of us of bands like Underworld, Leftfield and the aforementioned bands NIN and Depeche Mode. The music that Pete writes on his own is more electro whilst Hailey is into everything from Dub Step and House to Drum and Bass. I tend to listen to more old school breaks and Drum and Bass, it makes for an interesting combination inside the studio.  Obviously, I come from quite a musical background being a guitarist so I tend to write from a slightly more musical angle. For example, I will come up with key changes and arrangements that make the tunes more 'song like' if that makes any sense. I think S&C is more diverse musically than anything I have done before, unintentionally almost every track is influenced by a different field of dance music. There’s some hard 4/4 style tunes, some Drum and Bass ones and some borderline Dub Step stuff. It’s different because in Pitchshifter we tended to stay within Drum and Bass tempos. It’s been really exciting, which explains why the album came together so quickly I think.
 
HAILEY] All of the initial ideas start at my end with basic loops, a few sounds with synths and vocal ideas. After seven years of being told to set the tempo on your sequencer to 135 and make music that goes "bleep bleep wow wow wow", I have been like a kid in a candy shop when it comes to toying with different speeds and different styles of music. As Jim mentioned above... I listen to everything (and not just dance music, even random things like tango and Russian gypsy rock) Of course the 'breakbeat' element shows through a lot, because that's where my roots as a producer and vocalist are. But I really strive to seize this project as an opportunity to pour as much of my quirky eclecticism as possible into the tunes from their conception.
 
PETE] Up until the S&C project began I had never really worked with female vocalists very much in a band sense, I had always leaned towards using male vocals on my previous projects. I always feared that female vocals over hard electronic rock music would somehow make my music weaker but then up pops Hailey, and it turns out that she can snarl with the best of them! She has also got so much more in her locker in a vocal sense. I think the track "Paperdoll" from the album is such a good example of what I am talking about. It’s hardcore in every sense. She really sets up the tracks in a great way, I just seem to understand what she wants from the ideas both her and Jim put together. I love getting my hands on them and moulding them with my own sounds and beats. It’s such an easy going thing with us all, the tracks come together so quickly.

 
S] Each member of the band has explored different avenues of the electronic genre in their work – Jim has said before that he is disenchanted by the rock scene currently, so what created the desire for S&C to exist, apart from to “shake things up” in the scene?
 
JIM] Yeah I have said a few times now that I have no interest in the rock scene these days, there’s nothing new and exciting, maybe that will never happen again, back in 1998 when the album www.pitchshifter.com came out there had genuinely been nothing like it before. It was an exciting time with lots of crossover bands coming out, now every band sounds exactly the same, but maybe that’s just how its goes, maybe the crossover scene will come round again in a few years time and the younger kids will be as excited by it as those who were there the first time. The way NIN are constantly pushing the boundaries is exciting to me, musically they are always evolving. I would like to think that S&C feels fresh and exciting to others, there are not many electronic bands out there at the moment, the ones I've seen have been quite laid back, not 'take ya face' off style like us, which I think is needed in both the dance and rock scenes.
 
S] We know Hailey did some work on a Victory Pill remix and that Jim has also worked on some of her Odissi material recently. Of course, Pete Crossman was involved in Victory Pill – What then, is the recipe for S&C success, what does each member bring to the creative process?
 
JIM] Like I said earlier, I tend to approach writing songs from a more 'musical' point of view, we have got a really good system going between us now. In the past, Hailey has had loads of vocal ideas which she'd send to me with some loops behind that I could cut up and arrange after adding live bass and guitar. This is where the songs came to life for me. I could then add key changes and write big riffs over the original ideas which would then take them to a completely different place. From then, Pete would get involved and add more meat to the bones from a production point of view. He has really hardened up all the beats and added a lot of synth nastiness that compliments my guitars.
 
PETE] The recipe for Sex and Circuitry is as follows:

1. Solid beats
2. Nasty bass
3. Nasty synths
4. Huge Guitars
5. Catchy snarly sexy vocals
6. A big pinch of trying hard as you like to squeeze the hugeness of everything in to one complete track!
 
S] What are the future plans for the group in 2009, any exclusive news?
 
JIM] We’re giving away a remix of the track 'Input' by DJ Quest very soon. It's a stormer, we wanted to get something out as soon as possible so giving the remix away was the best idea I think. The album is done we are just working out the best way to put it out, which isn't easy these days. The gigging aspect is the most important for us at the moment, we're on the case with getting the live thing going next year.
 
S] It has been said that for S&C working in the studio has been stressful, as far as you can, can you elaborate on some of the best and perhaps worst moments you have shared together stuck in a room recording with each other?
 
JIM] Stressful? Nah, it was fun! We had no time constraints so any stress was probably brought on by ourselves trying to get the best results. All three of us have a good work ethic. Pete and Hailey are night owls and think nothing of staying up in the studio all night, I like to sleep however! But, I found my side of things came together really quickly because I was so inspired by the ideas I was given. We did set ourselves a goal to get the album done by the summer 08, which I think is a good thing or you just keep going and going and tweaking and tweaking. I actually remember sitting in the studio last News Years Eve with Pete and Hailey in different locations, so we were firing stuff across on Ichat!
 
HAILEY] Stressful is the wrong word. I think it was more intense than anything. From start to finish the album took us six months, which is quite a feat considering the three of us were all working on our other projects as well at the same time. I think all of us were so "buzzing" with the album that there was never a time when we were together that things were tedious to the point that it was a downer. If ever we were starting to feel "overloaded" we would just switch from production to playing on the Xbox or watching footy...
 
PETE] The speed at which this whole project came together was pretty scary from a production sense, anybody who is into producing music will tell you that it takes a fair amount of time to get tracks up to a production standard, and we set the task of doing the whole thing inside of the six months. The rough demos came together so fast and then I was at it full steam with the production. I do find that there is nothing better for me than to actually create a bit of stress within my own head, this helps to get me focused. It's not the people in the band who make it stressful, it's the pressure that I put on myself as a producer to get sh*t done really fast that makes me tick. Sitting with Jim and Hailey was all good, I'm so used to being in a studio with Jim now after the Victory Pill album so one more person in the shape of Hailey didn't hurt at all, it was all good really.
 
S] Artwork and imagery has always played a strong part in your individual careers, what kind of artwork can we expect on the album, will they co-exist with the awesome colours and animation on the MySpace?
 
JIM] Yeah, the image of this band has been really important from day one, Hailey's a very talented graphic designer which helps. Every band should have one. Especially with the name we have we wanted to play on that mix of sleaze and machinery...robot porn if you like!A lot of the lyrics are quite full on really. There's no holding back and the music is equally full on and dark. The image is as important as the music for us, it has to be, which is why when we get gigging properly next year the visuals will be an important part of that.
 
HAILEY] I've always been really into the idea of "concept bands" that are a bit more than just monkeys on stage playing alright tunes. There has to be something more to make it memorable. From the moment we started this, I had it in my head that I want S&C to be not just a band, but an "experience" that the listener will get sucked into, be it whilst listening to the album, or watching us live. Needless to say the imagery used in the artwork and visuals are a very important part of that to "set the scene" for the listener and/or party goer. From the moment the first sound crawls out of the speakers I want it to be like: "BANG! Welcome to our world, enjoy your next hour down the dark back ally of our collective f*cked up subconscious's totally immersed in a sonic world of futuristic, nu-burlesque insanity and guitar driven electro sleaze." 

S] Each of you have different experiences of taking your work out live (Hailey has DJ’ed) and Jim (with various bands inciting sweaty mosh pits) what do you love most about taking S&C out, how different is it and how would you like to expand it in the future?
 
HAILEY] Throughout my whole "DJ" career I have never really felt "comfortable" DJ'ing. I always felt some kind of guilt from standing behind the decks getting treated like some kind of musical "goddess" for playing other people's tunes. I always wanted to give "more". So, over the past few years I have been DJ'ing using Ableton and a laptop and incorporating live vocals. Those that know me, and know my love for performing would most likely say that my starting a band was bound to happen at some point in time and that it is just the "natural progression" of things.
I adore being on stage, it's like a second home, and for me its the best and most self satisfying feeling ever to put YOUR OWN music on display for the people who've come out to watch you. It's different and so much more exhilarating than DJ'ing in that aspect.
 
S] You have played a gig in Manchester before, at Monster Monster and you have said that this was a great experience. So, we would like to ask when will you be returning to the North, and what do you think of the Northern alternative scene?
 
JIM] It was awesome! It was our first gig and it was really touch and go as to if we'd be ready on time, but we made it. To see it go down so well live was a really buzz and confirmation for us that we were on to something really good. I think only up North could you have a night so diverse and cool as Monster Monster, I'm sure we'll do it again.
 
HAILEY] Monster Monster is a class night period! It really was the perfect place to debut S&C live as they very much stand for the same things that the band itself stands for "image wise". That being said, every night I've ever played "up north" has been wicked. I really hope we make it back up that way sometime soon.

Check out more on Sex and Circuitry at their Myspace.

To check out an awesome live package of the band in Zagreb, click HERE!

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