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As CTG returns, so does Artist Of The Month, and this time around I've handpicked one of my favourite artists of all time. It'll come as no surprise that this guy has been chosen, he's got years and years of great music to his name, as well as being an extremely popular community member, who always manages to make folk smile with his humour. So, I'd like to introduce the wonderful Zepsi!
slammy: Congratulations on being chosen as Artist of The Month, Zepsi! It's been a long time coming as far as I'm concerned, and thoroughly well deserved! To get the ball rolling, can you tell us a bit about whom Zepsi is?
Zepsi: First of all, thank you for choosing me to be AoTM, it's a pleasure.
Briefly spoken, I'm a 25-year-old man from Norway whose biggest interest is music, and in particular making it. Like many others who frequent this site I started out using a tracker program (in my case Impulse Tracker) some ten years ago, while today I use an audio/MIDI sequencer and various hard- and software to realize my tunes. Apart from that I spend my days studying, having just started my third and final year at the university.
slammy: What are you studying?
Zepsi: I'm taking a bachelor degree in music technology. It's basically a course that teaches us how technology can be used to realize musical goals in different ways, including how to record music in a studio, live sound, sound synthesis, audio in art installations, control interfaces and so on. A little bit of everything in other words.
slammy: So basically, you're doing what the rest of us *should* be doing! Sounds like good fun in fairness, and you've already released music directly related to this course - can you tell us a bit about that?
Zepsi: I take it you're referring to a song named Android in a Cloud of Flies, which I added here earlier this summer. It was made as the final exam for a class named Music Technology and Creativity. During that course we learnt the basics of using MAX/MSP and Csound, so the final exam assignment was to program a minimum number of instruments in Csound (with emphasis on having few input parameters that controlled several aspects of the sound at the same time) and use these to make a piece of music. In addition we were to use MAX/MSP to fulfill some simple requirements regarding the composition (having a random sequence of notes in D Dorian, and also to have a 2Hz beat tone in D1, both of which can be heard during the last part of the song). Additionally, a tracked song of mine named Dance of the Living Dead Mime Artists was originally a game music assignment for a class I had the semester before. I built some more upon it, and then released it here.
slammy: They are awesome tunes too! So what inspires you to throw the usual theory to the wind, and create music using unusually time signatures and progressions?
Zepsi: Thank you. I'm not sure how to answer that exactly. But if you by progressions mean those songs that tend to change through more or less abrupt changes, I'll blame that influence on Mike Oldfield. Listening to his music in the past made me realize a thing or two about musical freedom, and how the usual song structure isn't the only way to go. Change in real life happens in many different ways, so why should change in music always be so streamlined and predictable?
About time sigs I'm not sure exactly who to blame. But the reason I do it is simply because I like the feel of odd time signatures, especially simple sigs like 7/8 and 5/8 that I tend to use quite often. Also, changing time sigs throughout a piece creates the same effect as described above, that you can change the direction and feel of things more or less drastically.
slammy: It certainly leads to interesting listening and a very unique sound, which is instantly recognisable as being Zepsi-sequel! Outside of music, what else goes on in the world of Zepsi?
Zepsi: I'm tempted to answer «the usual stuff», although I realize that's not much of an interesting answer. But really, outside of music I do tend to just do the same regular stuff that most people do. I study, watch movies, drink beer in the weekends (though weekend is a relative term when you're a student), play games, spend time in front of this here laptop (checking the ctg forums on a daily basis is important) etc.
slammy: Is there a future Mrs Zepsi?
Zepsi: No, there's only Mr. Me. 
slammy: From my point of view, that’s a good thing - leaves you more time to realise your music! If you weren’t into making music, what do you think you'd be doing instead?
Zepsi: That's a good question. I would definitely do some other art form if I weren't able to make music. Either create images of some sort, or write. I think those are the things that come closest to making music on your own.
slammy: What 3 items would you take with you, to a desert island?
Zepsi: An acoustic guitar, a notebook and a pen.
slammy: How surprising!  Where do you think your music will venture in the future?
Zepsi: I'm sure there won't be any drastic changes in the way I make my music, so it will most probably just keep on with its slow evolution, with the occasional new impulse appearing now and then. I do hope to become better at playing various instruments along the way though, to broaden the possibilities a little.
slammy: You're a man who is very much interested not just in the music, but the instruments, which help you, make music. Can you tell us a bit about your current equipment?
Zepsi: I do like the flexibility synthesizers give, and the fact that you can make really quite personalized instruments on them, so that's what I mainly have. I prefer to work with hardware synths, more out of habit than anything else I guess, but also because they seem more reliable, plus they are physical units that you get a closer relationship to than with software synths. Therefore I have some hardware synths of different kinds. Virtual analogues, romplers and an FM synth. My favourites are the Korg MS2000R and the Korg Z1, the first one a rather simple virtual analogue with quite some character, and the second one a synth that uses different kinds of synthesis methods, and therefore is my most flexible synth programming-wise. I especially find it important to program my lead sounds myself, while it varies how deep I dig into the programming on the other sounds I use.
Moving onto the acoustic side of things, there are a couple of old acoustic guitars laying around at home that I tend to put to use whenever I visit Vernoma Street, and the same goes for an accordion I bought second-hand a couple of years ago. My most recent acquirement lies in the middle of the electronic and acoustic world though, namely an electric guitar and a Vox ToneLab SE amp/effect modeller that I bought just a couple of weeks ago.
There are other things too, but I think what I listed now are the essentials.
slammy: What innovative methods would you use, should there be no such thing as synthesizers?
Zepsi: I don't think I would be very innovative at all. I would probably just take whatever conventional instruments I was able to get hold of, and use them the best I could. Layer various instruments to get different timbres, and also use non-instrument sounds for diversity's sake. There's a lot of wasted sound potential in things you can find laying around in a normal house.
slammy: That's very true - I do seem to recall a nifflas track that had the use of Pringles can sounds amongst other things. Now, if you had to pick one of your pieces as a piece that defines you, which one would it be?
Zepsi: It's hard to give one true answer to that, but The Watchmaker's Dream is probably the one that shows the broadest range amongst my relatively new stuff. There are changes in feel and direction throughout it, there are different time signatures, there's layering of different instruments to create new timbres etc, so it pretty much includes most of the things we've been talking about in this interview regarding my music. At the same time I make music that's quite different from it too.
slammy: What are you currently working on?
Zepsi: I have just written my next song for a concept of mine called Music from Vernoma Street, in the sense that I've been sitting with my guitar and written the whole structure with chords, melodies and lyrics. I haven't started recording yet though, but will do that very soon (this weekend in fact). The release will be an instrumental piece, a crippled version if you will, since I'm not a singer and not too keen on letting everybody and his dog hear the lyrics either. But like usual it's a melodic piece, so it shouldn't suffer too much by it.
Also, I have a coop project going with a friend of mine, called Urusai Mr. Yokai, where we are currently working on two songs. Both should be finished and released within a couple of months I think. They are both quite proggy with changes in direction and time sigs, and will feature vocals. For those not familiar with the project we have an artist page here on ctg where you can check out our first release, Nintendoom.
slammy: Well I for one, look forward to those! What advice would you give to the upcoming artists?
Zepsi: Just relax and make some music.
slammy: That just about wraps this interview up. I'd like to thank you very much for taking the time to participate in this interview, and one final thing, is there anything you'd like to say that I might have missed?
Zepsi: I think you got it all there. But allow me to thank you for interviewing me, it was a pleasure and an honour. Also, thank YOU for having taken the time to read this, and of course thanks to those who download and listen to my music. I appreciate it.  |
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