Read – INTERVALS

UNRAVELING THE NETWORK

By Rick E.S. Mason Jr.

Default mode network’s music (excuse me for writing it with a capital D) can be described as eclectic: on his first EP ‘ikigai’ he experimented with dubstep, drum n’ bass, cutlery and squeaky synths, nowadays it’s Eastern European composers and jazzcats who inhabit his universe. But he (Marco Snijkers) also has some other interests: living next to an abandoned train track that leads into the nearby woods, he often goes off into nature to find himself spying on squirrels or whistling back at birds.

RM: How does your brain work?

MS: I don’t know… but it’s definitely different from yours. Recently I discussed this topic with someone and we both agreed that maybe everyone has another perception of the world. For instance, if someone is convinced that two people look extremely alike, you know, “this guy looks like that famous actor”, but you just don’t see it. Ask three people to draw a horse and you will get three different approaches of ‘a horse’: one might be child-like and one-dimensional, another one might be cartoonish and a third one might be very detailed and realistic. Or the color blue might differ from one person to another but we can never tell for sure because we cannot be another person. Maybe musicians listen to sounds in a different way than people who don’t relate to music that much. So how does the brain work? Who can tell? Scientists maybe? I don’t know, I think you’re asking a lot of difficult questions.

RM: I’ve only asked one question so far…

MS: And I already lost count…don’t make this too hard on me.

RM: The woods, do you find them relaxing?

MS: I wouldn’t say relaxing, I would say interesting: the sounds are intriguing, it’s like I brought one of my synths but someone else is turning the knobs. I guess that’s why I use a lot of birdsounds on my tracks, it’s an undefinable language. Next to that I also looooove Stravinsky’s Firebird Suite!

RM: Do you listen to a lot of classical music?

MS: Not really, but I enjoy it now and then. Especially the melancholic Eastern European composers. Stravinsky is one of my favourites. Lygeti, Penderecki and Arvo Pärt also were brilliant composers and that’s about it. The same applies to jazz: I like Mingus, Sun Ra, Coltrane and Miles and that’s about it. I’d like to live up to Miles Davis’ idea of one-take recordings: the first one is the best one because it comes from the soul. The second one comes from the heart, which should be a good one too, everything after that will not have that same touch as the first one. It has lost a bit of it’s soul.

For dreamsouls I wanted to do the trumpet part in one take. You can hear I’m almost out of breath at the end of the track, I hadn’t touched the instrument for several years. It was the hardest part of the whole EP, but it has this feeling of a live take, like a whole band playing together and recording it at once.

RM: You play the trumpet?

MS: I used to as a kid. But I kinda hated it. Nowadays the sound of a muted trumpet is one of my favourite sounds, next to analogue synthesizers. You keep creating new sounds, it just never ends.
In terms of cooperation I prefer machines over people. You don’t ever have to go to rehearsels, machines do not contradict your opinion on how to proceed, you can switch them on whenever you like, the only one getting tired during late night sessions is you, those tools are just always ready to go!

‘MAYBE MUSICIANS LISTEN TO SOUNDS IN A DIFFERENT WAY THAN PEOPLE WHO DON’T RELATE TO MUSIC THAT MUCH’

RM: What were your first encounters with music?

MS: That must have been before birth. My mom’s heartbeat mostly was in between 90 and 110 bpm, so I guess that’s where I picked up the preference for that kind of tempo when I create music. On the other hand, I also like 150 bpm or a downtempo beat.

Besides a fine number of beats per minute I’m also always looking for certain images. For INTERVALS I tried to capture Japanese land-scapes in my music, but I totally failed. It turned out to be something completely different.
But handtriloquism has a bpm of 100, so I’m pleased with that one. I’m also very pleased with the fact that I managed to only use samples on that track: I own two turntables and a lot of vinyl records and I like old school hiphop and turntablism so I had to do something with that. It resulted in handtriloquism.

RM: What does handtriloquism mean?

MS: It’s a made up word. When a guy sticks his hand up the ass of a puppet, the puppet suddenly is able to speak. It’s called ventriloquism.
When a guy puts his hands on a turntable to make it speak it’s called handtriloquism.

‘I DON’T LIKE CAPITAL LETTERS, THEY REMIND ME OF PEOPLE SCREAMING’

RM: Are you planning to play live versions of the tracks on this EP?

MS: Not really. Default mode network started off in early 2020 when I had some music of which I thought it would be ready to see the light of day and I kept recording almost daily because the ideas kept coming, but this music isn’t meant to be played live. I mean, I didn’t write it with the idea of playing it live. Besides, these tracks are so layered that it would be impossible to recreate them fully when performing, some parts would be pre-recorded and I don’t think you should say that you’re playing live if half of your set is build around pre-recorded stuff. On the other hand: it would be cool to work with several drummers or percussionists to create a wall of sound, so who knows, maybe in the future…

RM: Earlier on you talked about birds. Is it easy to create bird sounds on a synthesizer or do you record real birds?

MS: I never take equipment into the woods, I don’t do field recordings, but at home I have a Behringer Odyssey. It’s an analogue synthesizer on which I can create some pretty awesome sounds: the only downside is that it takes time to create every sound. So sometimes I cheat by sampling birdsong from records.

Besides sounds I also like to discover words. And by ‘discovering’ I don’t mean inventing words (apart from handtriloquism), but kind of looking at them from a different angle.
INTERVALS is written in capitols, because I noticed the V has nowhere to go when it collapses. But in general I don’t like capitol letters, they remind me of people screaming.

RM: Besides writing music you’re also involved with the artwork of your EP’s as well as some collage art on your website, what about that?

MS: Regarding to the collages I’d say I want to create surreal dreamscapes: scenes and situations that could never take place in real life, at least not in our reality as we know it. Making them is like walking through the woods, there’s a certain kind of peace to it. The ideas just pop up as soon as you start collecting images. And when I say ‘collecting’ I‘m refering to the old-fashioned way: I only use magazines, flyers and newspapers, next to a pair of scissors and a scalpel. So again analogue, not digital. It’s like working with samples: creating a whole new world by cutting and pasting when you find the right bits.

About the cover art: I often take my camera when I’m going outside and just shoot pictures of things I like. This could be anything: two planes crossing each other up in the sky, a piece of wood with some remarkable grain, animals, any kind of object or a nice, tall building. Like the one on the cover of INTERVALS, it’s a powerplant. I like industrial buildings, there’s something mysterious and mechanical about them. I like mechanical things, machines with flashing lights for instance. But it’s also a hats-off to Kraftwerk, (German for power plant – RM), they’ve also got this mechanical thing to their music which I really like! When I was younger I was always wondering why they had these huge versions of the Autobahn albumcover next to the highways, Kraftwerk was this big that they had to pay hommage to them all around the world?!?! Later I found out it was the other way round: the group had taken the blue sign with the two white lanes and a white overpass and made it their own. Their hometown Düsseldorf is just a 45 minute drive from my hometown by the way, sometimes I drive to Düsseldorf just to play Autobahn really loud, I love those German robots!

RM: Are you a robot?

MS: I’ve just told you I once got stuck in a small space for several months, so no. But maybe all human beings are going to be robots one day. Look at how fast things are going when it comes to technological development. A hundred years ago we were peasants, a hundred years from now we will be robots.

There’s this thing going on with humans slowly transforming into humanoids, so it wouldn’t surprise me if humanoids transform into robots one day. As you can hear the vocals on i am not a robot are computer generated. It’s the ultimate symbiosis of man and machine: the speech synthesis function played random notes after the lyrics were implemented, so in a way the computer created the melodies by itself. I only edited a couple of notes to make it more pleasant to the ear, but don’t blame me for not being able to sing along.

‘A HUNDRED YEARS AGO WE WERE PEASANTS, A HUNDRED YEARS FROM NOW WE WILL BE ROBOTS’

RM: Are you looking forward to becoming a humanoid?

MS: I’m pretty comfortable being a human being, so I’ll stick to that.

RM: Maybe that’s a good thing, just to keep that human element to your music. Anyway, I had a great time talking to you, thank you very much and keep up the good work!

MS: Well, thank you too and keep shouting “fuck the system!”

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