RAPOON

The beautiful wildness of the Northumbrian landscape cannot help but influence the creation of the music, which has little or nothing to do with the city I live in. My music and art is about a connection with the landscape and the sense of history that is held within it. The Cheviot hills are full of megalithic hill forts and carved stone outcrops, which are covered with ancient glyphs and symbols. There are trails which still exist that were once used by the clans of the border reivers (outlaws). My own family name is connected to one of the notorious clans that roamed along the borderline between England and Scotland. Northumberland is known as one of the last 'wildernesses' in England and I hope it remains so for a long while yet. The whole area evokes a sense of timeless wonderment.

The disagreement over anonymity was not that I felt one way or another about the idea, at the time, it was a disagreement about the actuality of it. In principle ZF was an anonymous collective, in practice it wasn't. One person kept publicly taking all the credit which I felt was unfair, especially as I was doing the lion's share of the work. I think the whole notion of anonymity was a useful con, and I don't think it had any value back then, or now.

If the visual work is abstract then I use the same approach, a blank canvas just waiting to be filled with whatever comes to mind. Some of the same decision making occurs in both practices but there are differences as well. There is more of a physical connection with painting and that influences the way the piece develops. Music is more cerebral and conceptual, although I do play every instrument that is incorporated and this, I guess, is a physical connection of sorts. Painting and music are both 'in the moment' and the later reflection and refinement occurs. When I haven't been painting for a month or so it becomes a physical need to get back to it, a nagging unsettlement that needs addressing.

I'm not sure it is a choice. I work all the time and I do edit, a lot. There are twice as many pieces unreleased resting on hard drives and even old 4 track tapes. A long time ago I was a junkie and addicted to heroin and amphetamines. I spent four or five years being, largely, unproductive. I spent 10 months on a pencil drawing (quite large, A1 in size). Every square centimetre of this drawing was highly polished and near perfect photo-realism. Many years later it became the cover for Un Flic, something unimaginable when I was doing it. This is partly the reason I am so productive now. That and the fact that I love doing it and feel fortunate enough to have escaped a very different possible outcome to life.

I don't use digital software for rhythmic elements anymore, I use both real drums (percussion) and performance samplers (Teenage Engineering EP-133, 1010 blackbox, Akai MPC sample etc…). Almost all of the rhythmic structures originate from recording live performance and sequencing. I have a large collection of percussion instruments including Tablas, djembe etc. plus many home-made instruments. I record a lot of the rhythmic elements live and create loops and layers afterwards.

That whole area permeated through my whole persona and is still the place I call home, and the place I miss the most. I returned there in 2018 with a friend to shoot some video and stills that would become part of a project performed in Augsburg. We walked far out across the mudflats and my friend got a bit worried in case the tide came in suddenly. I hadn't thought about it until he said that, then I realised I was still in tune with the landscape and that I would be able to sense intuitively when the tide would turn. There would even be a change in the smell in the wind. It turned out to be true and we got back onto the grasslands and watched the tide come in. The Solway will never stop being a part of me.

You mean fight for attention? If so, the answer is definitely yes. Painting was my first love and I feel agitated if I am not involved in producing new art. It is true that I spend most of my time making music but I am always thinking of visual pieces to accompany it and pieces that exist outside of any reference to the music. Both start with an empty canvas and create themselves in the process.

I partly answered this one already… I do edit, a lot. I have been told throughout my life that I am doing things wrongly. If I had listened to all those people I would have done nothing. I respectfully don't give a crap what other people think. If they like it, fine, if they don't, also fine. I have never tried to please anyone other than myself, and I am my biggest critic.

It is an imaginary one that reflects the "real" life we inhabit. In later years I have become more interested in writing and creating stories that are purely fictitious but rooted in experience. As for ethnic motifs, I think there is a collective unconscious and that some symbols are universal. There are a great number of commonalities in cultures which, supposedly, never had any contact.

The very first Rapoon album (dream circle) was a deliberate break away from the music of ZF. After that album I didn't want to constrain myself doing one particular type (genre) of music. Raising Earthly Spirits had been recorded whilst I was still in ZF, in fact it would have been the next ZF album if I hadn't left. I can't work without feeling the need to try new things and new approaches, some work, some don't. As a person, I have made mistakes. As an artist, I have made mistakes. I am far from perfect in both personas but I keep trying to be better.