Q+A VAULT / RECOIL
Just yesterday, I acquired a copy of the ‘Stalker’ / ‘Missing Piece’ single. On ‘Missing Piece’ – Night Dissolves (great remix!) there’s an additional vocal not present in the original version. Was this vocal provided by Hildia Cambell (You, Alan, are listed as the only b. vocalist)?
Correct. She was overlooked from the label copy (not my fault) and it was too late to rectify the matter by the time we discovered the error. Hildia originally recorded an entire vocal for a different version of that track which was completed and mixed but has never been released. It was actually very commercial (and I like it) but I never thought it quite fitted in with the style of the rest of ‘Unsound Methods’.
I have the vinyl of the ‘Faith Healer’ single which has a few good mixes, the best of which I think is the L.F.O. mix. In this piece, there is an ‘atmospheric’ sound produced by myself on some very old analog synth. Is it true or is it a sampled sound?
I don’t really understand your question – I had nothing to do with the LFO mix.
I bought your single ‘Drifting’, I think is a very good remix but ‘Shunt’ remixed by Panasonic was wrong. I think it’s very stupid. Four minutes of bass drum and 2-3 samples from your original which is very good. Why was this remixed by Panasonic? Have you a good feeling from this remix?
You’re entitled to your opinion. I like the Panasonic mix. For me, it works perfectly as the last track on the CD after the frenetic version of ‘Control Freak’.
Would you have Eno, Glass or Flood remix any of your future tracks?
I’d probably be happy for any of these to do a remix.
What digital synth do you use most often and where did you get that sample of those evil strings that you use in songs like ‘Stalker’?
The only digital synth I’ve been using recently, is the Korg Pro 1X, which co-incidentally is where the string sounds for the Stalker remix come from, in addition to a live cello which was played by Oliver Kraus. There are no sampled strings on this remix. The high string harmonics come from Oli’s cello.
Is there a Recoil or DM demo called ‘Postulae’ and what year is it from?
Certainly not Recoil, and I’ve never heard a DM demo by this name.
Are you interested in remixing other artists? If so, which ones?
Not unless something really special comes along – I haven’t got the time to devote to any other projects.
How do you decide who will remix your work?
No particular method, I just try to think of someone interesting. Sometimes people like Dan Miller make suggestions.
Why no RRC remix on the Stalker/Missing CD single? Instrumental/Rough mix versions of work would also be appreciated by fans interested in your work process.
Primarily because I just didn’t have the time and also because I rather like it as it is and I think it rounded off the whole single really well. As for rough mixes, I’m such a perfectionist, I don’t think I would be comfortable letting people hear something that wasn’t 100% right.
On the original press release from Mute for the release of ‘Unsound Methods’, it mentioned that there were additional remix contributions from Flood and U.N.C.L.E. What happened to these?
Flood did a mix which was intended for release until Mute decided that they only wanted one format instead of two, as originally planned. At the time of the press release we thought it would be released, as well as a remix which U.N.K.L.E agreed to do, but never completed.
Do you prefer the remixes of the ‘UM’ singles or the originals, and do you plan to continue to do the majority of the remixes yourself (as they tend to sound better then the ones done by other remixers)?
I think I do prefer the remixes and there are elements in them which, in hindsight, would have improved the L.P. versions. I will probably in the future do more of my own remixing, although an outsider’s perspective can sometimes give a new twist to a track.
I was just wondering about the additional vocals that are found on your remixes, especially the Punished Mix of ‘Stalker’. As noted in the liner notes, Maggie Estep adds some additional lyrics to this track. Were these vocals recorded in your original session with her or did you call her back to add some more vocals at the time of mixing?
Maggie’s vocals were all recorded during the original session and interestingly, her vocal lines which were included in the ‘Stalker’ remix, were originally sung to a completely different track (on the album) – can you guess which one? I never throw anything away…..you never know when you might need it! Likewise, on the ‘Drifting – Poison Dub’ mix, there are some vocal additions provided by Douglas which, just like Maggie’s, were originally sung to a different track (also on the album) – any ideas? Looks like you may have set the questions for a future Recoil competition….
On the United Mix of ‘Barrel Of A Gun’ and Barry Adamson’s mix of ‘Control Freak’, there the same vocal samples used. Any connection between the two? I was curious about any production link between you and DM on this.
I’ve talked about this before. I had no idea about the use of this sample (which comes from some other source apparently) when Barry Adamson submitted his remix. If I’d known that it had been used on a Mode remix, I’d have edited it out.
Why did you include ‘Red River Cargo’ in un-remixed form on the B-side of ‘Stalker’? It somehow feels as if you’ve knocked a hole into the unity of the album by doing so.
Each single CD felt like a mini-soundtrack to me and adding that track seemed to complete the ‘Stalker’ release as well as acting as quite a nice advert for the LP.