Machinedrum Talks Dreams, BPM, And Reveals All About New Album "Vapor City" | The Creators Project

7/24/2019 Machinedrum Talks Dreams, BPM, And Reveals All About New Album "Vapor City" | The Creators Project

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Machinedrum Talks Dreams, BPM, And Reveals All About New

Album "Vapor City"

Image credit: Andrew Defrancesco

Machinedrum(Travis Stewart) is a prolific and multifaceted musicianworking under

numerous aliases and collaborations the US-born, Berlin-based artist has produced

everything from experimental ambient eletronica to dance floor friendly jams,

traversing a number of different styles and genres in the process.

Back in March 2013 it was announced he was signing to London label Ninja Tuneand

now he's set to release his first album with them on 30 September 2013 called Vapor

City. The first single and b-side, "Eyesdontlie" and "Body Touch", has already dropped

and below he gives his first interview about the album, which is based on a city that

Stewart kept having a recurring dream about.

Harking back to the days when releasing a new electronic album was an event and

came loaded with additonal materialslike some of the 90s Warp record releases

from Boards of Canadaand Autechreeach track will explore a different district ofVapor City and each month will see additional content. From short films to installations

and artwork, they'll explore and immerse us in this sci-fi-esque world.

The album is a shift away from the shuffle-friendly, track-skipping world of today, and
http://www.autechre.ws/exai/http://www.boardsofcanada.com/http://ninjatune.net/de/release/machinedrum/vapor-cityhttp://www.ninjatune.net/http://machinedrum.net/


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back to an age when listening to music meant listening to an entire album from

beginning to end. It's something that we've seen a bit of a revival of lately, with new

albums from Daft Punk, Boards of Canda, Autechre, and Oneohtrix Point Never's

forthcoming R Plus Sevenand it's perhaps no surprise that all these artists come

from the same era, which was a rich period for electronic music. Something of a

golden age and a time before torrenting and streaming made access to music so much

easier, along the way depleting some of its mystery.

Artwork from "Vapor City". Credit: Dominic Flannigan and Eclair Fifi

We Skyped with Machinedrum to find out about making the new album, the styles of

music that influenced it, and more.

The Creators Project: So can you just start off by explaining this recurring dream

youve been having that informs the album and the structure of it?

Machinedrum:Yeah sure. The last half of the year that I was living in New York, which

was a little over two years and a few months ago, I was visiting Europe a lot and I

started touring. Touring was starting to kick off a lot more for me based off a lot of

records I was putting out on LuckyMeand the Sepalcurestuff that was going on. I was

starting to get a little bit jaded about living in New York and the US in general and, I

dont know, felt some weird tension. I dont know whether that had something to dowith why I was having these strange dreams maybe two, three times a week but they

would be really tense. I would kind of be transferred to this same city in my dreams

where it felt familiar, even though I knew Id never been there. In the dream I felt like I
http://www.sepalcure.com/http://thisisluckyme.com/http://www.pointnever.com/http://thecreatorsproject.vice.com/the-collaborators/daft-punks-irandom-access-memoriesi---the-collaborators-giorgio-moroder


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knew all the places, I kept seeing the same streets, the same shops and clubs. Same

amusement parks and weird little details that I kept noticing were recurring and it really

started to freak me out that this kept happeningand it was also happening the first

half of the year that I lived in Berlin.

So it started to form this sort of combination architecturally between New York and a

bit of Berlin. A sort of old-meets-new sort of architecture. But it was very vast. And I

could almost, in the dream, sort of zoom in and see the city for what it was, and kind ofget an idea of where I was in the city. But it was crazy that I kept having this dream and

it started fading out as I was living in Berlin but I thought it was definitely something I

should explore more creatively, there was definitely a reason I was having this dream.

Cover art for "Vapor City". Credit: Dominic Flannigan and Eclair Fifi

The songs relate to the different districts of the city I believe. Can you just tell me


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about them and maybe some of the themes you were exploring when you were

building these songs from the cityscape?

Essentially what happened was, as soon as Id finished sending in the pre-masters for

Room(s)on Planet Mu I instantly started working on new tunes. It was around that time

I started having these dreams and I was making the songs, but I wasnt necessarily

relating them to the dream persay. As I started culminating a huge body of work over

the next year and a half I started trying to think about putting together an album, and

started talking to Ninja Tune. I hadnt really signed anything yet but the fact that they

were interested kick-started me to sort of think about piling all these songs together.

It was a bit daunting because its the most amount of songs Ive ever had to pick for an

album before. It was probably about 70 tracks I had to go through. I was quite inspired

when I moved to Berlin, I started writing songs all the time. Anyhow, Id made this kind

of master playlist of songs and I decided I was going to call this album Vapor City. Its

sort of the title Id given to this dream city but I didnt really think about the songsrepresenting the districts until I started putting together the tracks for the album. I

started noticing in this giant playlist I had made that sonically there was a consistency

between all the songs, that there was a heavy sort of sonic kind of quality between

like five songs would sound this way, be more a jungle kind of thing and five or six

songs would be this more washed out 80s kind of thing.

So it made me think about the districts in this city and I started to narrow down the

best all of those sonic groupings of tracks that I'd made. And it gave me the idea todevelop districts out of the city and create content based around that since there were

loads of tracks and I didnt want to just throw them away.
https://itunes.apple.com/us/album/room-s-bonus-track-version/id444017481


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Whats the sound of the new album, what sort of music was informing your tastes

at the time you were making all these tracks?

I think it's like every album I write, its sort of capturing the kind of music that Im into

at the time and what Im interested in, experimenting with. With Room(s) Id sort of

discovered this linkage with jungle rhythms and juke and footwork. And that was

definitely more of an experiment. I kind of learned a new approach with writing tunes at

that time where I was trying to spend less time on writing tracks. Basically trying to

finish up writing tracks as fast as possible rather than spending loads and loads of time

mulling over ideas and changing things around over and over. I wanted to take a new

approach, and I think that for Vapor Citythis is a more refined version of that

approach. But stylistically Im giving in more to the Exit Recordsstyle, autonomic kind
http://www.exitrecords.co.uk/


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of drum and bass.

I grew up listening to drum and bass and jungle, and when I originally started

Machinedrum, I wanted to explore this relationship between hip hop and jungle. I kind

of went away from that. Now I feel like in the past few years Ive been revisiting that but

from a different BPM standpointrather than making a hip hop track with kind of

jungle undertones with 80/90BPM, now Im making jungle tracks with hip hop

undertones with maybe 160/170BPM. Things have come full circle on the BPM chart.

Artwork for "Eyesdontlie" single. Credit: Dominic Flannigan and Eclair Fifi

What about the album artwork, how did you arrive at that paricular style? You

worked with Dominic Flanniganfrom LuckMe on it, right?

Well Ive been working with Dom for a lot of different releases. Obviously the ones on

his label LuckyMe, but I had him come in and do the direction for Room(s). And I really
http://thisisluckyme.com/art/dominic-flannigan/


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loved working with him and how I could give him a concept and he would take that and

interpret that in him own way. It just made me feel really good about having a concept

but not having to direct him too much. We had a lot of conversations about dreams and

that, but I knew at one point I was going to leave it up to him. So him and Eclair Fifidid

the illustrations. We were collaborating and brainstorming and were sharing a DropBox

and when they had ideas theyd throw them in there and Id give them some feedback.

But for the most part I just let them do their thing because Ive developed a trust with

LuckyMe and their art direction. I knew I couldnt get exactly what my dream was like

because its a dream, its changing every time. So I figured it was okay to let him sort of

take that and interpret it in his own way, and I think he did a really great job. They both

did.

The album sounds interesting, because it's a bit of a nod back to the way we used

to experience albums, from beginning to end. And the artworks quite important

to it as well. Weve recently moved away from that type of stuff with albums. Sodo you feel youre harking back to that? And is it a conscious decision or is it just

something that came with the ideas?

It was a bit of both. The conscious part of it was kind of wanting to go back to

experiential listening, some sort of memorable experience. Not just the flash-in-the-

pan style of listening that everybody has now. I wanted to create a special experience

that isnt just listening to music on your laptop speakers causally. I mean it could be

that. It could be whatever the listener wants. But I figured certain people appreciate

more thought-out kind of concepts. I didnt want to get too deep with the concept.

There were opportunities to go even deeper into the concept, but I felt we're in a place

now that people can understand it and it doesnt need to go much deeper than just

listening to the music. However I feel having these developed districts and an art

direction behind it adds that special flare to it that I think a lot of people can

appreciate, especially people from my generation. That was the only way you could

find out about music, going to record shops and picking out your favourite cover.
http://eclairfifi.com/


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What sort of interactive elements are we going to be seeing. You have the video

for "Eyesdontlie" (above) which has reactive visual elements to the music, which

was made by Weirdcore. What else can we expect?

Just working on the video with Weirdcorekind of opened my eyes. I planned in my

mind an ideal world I wanted for the live visuals, I wanted the Vapor Citytour to be a

perspective of traveling through Vapor City. And in my mind it would be perfect to have

someone recreate this city through visuals, but I thought that would be too large of a

task to ask somebody. But when I ended up talking with Weidrcore he seemed totally

up for it, at least for the "Eyesdontlie" video.

And after seeing what he was capable of and talking about what I wanted for the live

visuals we decided that that would be the route to go and he was totally down to flesh

that out and try to recreate essentially Vapor City in its own abstract way. Im really

excited about getting to work on these live visuals with him. But therell be some otherinteractive developments down the road, we plan on doing some sort of installation at

some point. Those are all in the works.

Tell me more about the live tour.

Audio-wise its me on synth and vocals and playing guitar, and manipulating elements

of the tracks, and Ill be playing with a drummer whos also triggering some sounds and

stuff like that. But essentially were going to be playing the album live, thats kind of

mixed together in a different way. But its going to be a different journey through Vapor

City than you would listen to on the album, and visually youre going to visit all these

districts whilst hearing the songs. I think seeing the live show will really tie in the

concepts together for people. Itll be a very powerful experience for them.
http://thecreatorsproject.vice.com/blog/all-up-in-your-face-weirdcore-qa


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Are there any other people that youll be working with or partnering up with that

you can mention?

I plan on with the installations, its going to be working with very different people but at

the moment were trying to come up with some ideas with LuckyMe and also been

brainstorming ideas with Richard Devine, who actually did a lot of the sound design on

"Baby It's U" [track off Vapor City]. The song is made up of a lot of hydrophonic

recordings he made, and Ive been talking to him recently about eventually putting

together an interactive piece based around that. But other than that theres some

vocalists from that album that when Im in New York Im going to try to have themperform with me on stage, and Ive just been working with a lot of my friends to get

remixes and interpretations of the songs. Kind of building content for each district.

Were going to roll out each month after the albums release, so each district is going

to be represented and youre going to get contentartwork, short films, mixes,

remixes, stuff like thatbased on that. I have a lot of friends who are really stoked

about helping me with that.

Has the experience been a cathartic one, or was it just the realisation of a long-

held ambition? Or just been a lot of fun?

A bit of all of that. Working on music for me is always cathartic. Kind of my therapy,

especially from traveling and having a sort of stressful life. I cant complain too much,
http://www.richard-devine.com/


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Im playing shows and its pretty great. But just the traveling and everything I feel like

my home is in the music, and I kind of escape all my problems through making music

and in that sense it is cathartic. But its also fun, some of my best tracks come from

when Im fooling around and trying to have a laugh and it ends up being one of my

more popular songs. So its kind of a combination of all that.


You said you had a repository of 70 songs, what will you do with the rest?

Those songs will emerge as b-sides on EPs, or theyll be bonus content, because were

doing this thing called Vapor City citizen where you sign up to become a Vapor Citycitizen and youll get free content based on what month it is and what district were

representingI feel a lot of the songs, the stronger ones, will surface in that way. But

Im not that worried about them not seeing the light of day. With this approach of

trying to finish songs as fast as possible has led to me having this surplus of songs and

I was kind of ready for that. I used to get really angry if I spent loads of time on one

song and it never really went anywhere. But now I'm kind of into the idea of

abandoning pieces and just looking at them as essential to getting to where Im at now

as an artist. Its part of the learning process, and I take things I learned from writing

those songs that people might never hear, but theyre essentially hearing them through

other songs.


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"Body Touch"

Is there any concept albums from the past, or anything like that has been an

influence?

I feel like a lot of Warp stuff that was being put out in the late 90s felt like they were

more than just an album. Theres something about Boards of Canada, Autechre

releases, the packaging and everything, and the mystery behind it, it felt more

powerful than just a regular album. I think that more in itself speaks out to me more

than a specific fleshed out concept album.

It feels like a lost world almost.

Yeah, its coming back though. Like, with Boards of Canadas album that came out this

year, I feel theyre harkening back to that feel and Daft Punk as well. I feel like were

coming back into an age of album listening, in the past year or two and I feel like its

becoming a popular thing and Im excited about that. Because I feel like that is longerand more memorable and you tell your kids about that kind of stuff rather than, Oh

yeah I remember that one single that was hot in the club. Even with the 50 minute

time length of this album with 10 tracks, people were at first like, "Isnt that a bit short

for an album?", but I really felt it was the perfect length because it kept making me

want to re-listen to it. And thats the first time Ive ever had an album like that. Even

some of my earlier albums with Merck RecordsI literally would try to fit on as much

audio as possible that you could put on two CDs and I think thats not necessarily the

right approach. With Vapor Cityit gets you right to the point where you feel like you

might want more, but that feeling makes you want to just listen to it again.

@stewart23rd
https://twitter.com/stewart23rdhttp://www.merckrecords.com/

Machinedrum Talks Dreams, BPM, And Reveals All About New Album "Vapor City" | The Creators Project

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