disorder
Maciej Faron Interview
Q: Let’s talk about production for a moment. Your songs were bounced to 1/4 tape and mixed through a Neve Console. For us audiophiles the analog summing and saturation from the tape gives a little bit of magic and glue. Did you notice a difference after this process?
A: Oh yeah man, there’s all the difference. But see here’s the funny thing, I grew up listening to the music from the ’60s and I’d say that most of the music I listen to even today goes back there, so the distortion, saturation, mono, these things, is how to my mind music does sound,or should sound, probably just cause I don’t know better ha-ha. We got so captivated with what digital music, hi-fi, mixing in the box etc. can do, that we forgot to ask what it should do. And while digital sound is great for a lot of stuff like some fm synths or classical music, when you have guitars, and drums I just don’t see it being justifiable. Today there’s that notion to make everything sound big; the kick has to be huge, the guitars are supposed to shatter the ground while bass penetrates your chest. I wanted Disorder to sound very small but in a big way. Like if you listen to Phil Spector recordings they are not big in a sense, they are mono, full of hiss and stuff gets blended together but at the same time, production implies something bigger than life. Also another reason I prefer working in analog is because it makes you commit to the choices you made. You cannot go back and say adjust the eq after you bounce your mix, if it’s there it’s gonna be there forever and that’s commitment. It’s about taking chances, following your instincts, keeping it real.
Q: Disorder seems like a great band name but has never has been used before expect for a punk band that came out in 1980. How did the name come about?
A: Oh that’s a good one. I have no idea really to be honest. When I was writing the album I would name demo tapes Disorder 1, 2, 3, etc. and the name kinda stuck. It’s almost like it was decided for me by the spirits and I just followed through ha-ha. I also like the wordplay that Disorder sort of hints at. The way it means directly one thing but at the same time can be read in different ways is also a common theme when it comes to how I write my lyrics.
Q: Post-punk seemed to an influence on the album. You can hear a bit of Joy Division in there along with a band like The Happy Mondays. I was also reminded of the band U.S. Maple and to a lesser extent Sonic Youth. Can you explain in your own words some of the music you were influenced by?
A: It’s funny I’m usually not influenced by bands, artists, music per se, but more by the concepts they stand for. Say, the biggest influence on “Sum” was Dr. Bob Moog and his legacy. When I wrote a guitar part I was trying to imagine that I was playing a synth on the guitar rather than more obvious chords, and then also the solo is treated with a lot of resonant filters which give it that sort of analog synth movement. My idea behind “Pieces” was to imagine a Joy Division song but if Bernard Sumner played only arpeggios and then had two big solos in the middle. “Dischord” opens with the drum fill, which is something I always wanted to do, carrying on the tradition of songs like “Be my Baby” or “Like a Rolling Stone.” Production wise I was very inspired by “White Light White Heat” by VU (I think that’s very apparent ha-ha) and some of the Bowie’s Berlin stuff. When it comes to guitar playing, I was really looking up to bands like Chrome, Butthole Surfers, J S Manics from Dinosaur Jr and Dick Dale. With bass I often ask myself “What would Peter Hook do?” and take it from there. So yeah, I think it’s more conceptual than direct influences. For me it’s all about trying to connect with that place in space and time where that other music came from, and hopefully, engage in some sort of conversation with it.
Q: Let’s talk about production for a moment. Your songs were bounced to 1/4 tape and mixed through a Neve Console. For us audiophiles the analog summing and saturation from the tape gives a little bit of magic and glue. Did you notice a difference after this process?
A: Oh yeah man, there’s all the difference. But see here’s the funny thing, I grew up listening to the music from the ’60s and I’d say that most of the music I listen to even today goes back there, so the distortion, saturation, mono, these things, is how to my mind music does sound,or should sound, probably just cause I don’t know better ha-ha. We got so captivated with what digital music, hi-fi, mixing in the box etc. can do, that we forgot to ask what it should do. And while digital sound is great for a lot of stuff like some fm synths or classical music, when you have guitars, and drums I just don’t see it being justifiable. Today there’s that notion to make everything sound big; the kick has to be huge, the guitars are supposed to shatter the ground while bass penetrates your chest. I wanted Disorder to sound very small but in a big way. Like if you listen to Phil Spector recordings they are not big in a sense, they are mono, full of hiss and stuff gets blended together but at the same time, production implies something bigger than life. Also another reason I prefer working in analog is because it makes you commit to the choices you made. You cannot go back and say adjust the eq after you bounce your mix, if it’s there it’s gonna be there forever and that’s commitment. It’s about taking chances, following your instincts, keeping it real.
Q: Disorder seems like a great band name but has never has been used before expect for a punk band that came out in 1980. How did the name come about?
A: Oh that’s a good one. I have no idea really to be honest. When I was writing the album I would name demo tapes Disorder 1, 2, 3, etc. and the name kinda stuck. It’s almost like it was decided for me by the spirits and I just followed through ha-ha. I also like the wordplay that Disorder sort of hints at. The way it means directly one thing but at the same time can be read in different ways is also a common theme when it comes to how I write my lyrics.
Q: Post-punk seemed to an influence on the album. You can hear a bit of Joy Division in there along with a band like The Happy Mondays. I was also reminded of the band U.S. Maple and to a lesser extent Sonic Youth. Can you explain in your own words some of the music you were influenced by?
A: It’s funny I’m usually not influenced by bands, artists, music per se, but more by the concepts they stand for. Say, the biggest influence on “Sum” was Dr. Bob Moog and his legacy. When I wrote a guitar part I was trying to imagine that I was playing a synth on the guitar rather than more obvious chords, and then also the solo is treated with a lot of resonant filters which give it that sort of analog synth movement. My idea behind “Pieces” was to imagine a Joy Division song but if Bernard Sumner played only arpeggios and then had two big solos in the middle. “Dischord” opens with the drum fill, which is something I always wanted to do, carrying on the tradition of songs like “Be my Baby” or “Like a Rolling Stone.” Production wise I was very inspired by “White Light White Heat” by VU (I think that’s very apparent ha-ha) and some of the Bowie’s Berlin stuff. When it comes to guitar playing, I was really looking up to bands like Chrome, Butthole Surfers, J S Manics from Dinosaur Jr and Dick Dale. With bass I often ask myself “What would Peter Hook do?” and take it from there. So yeah, I think it’s more conceptual than direct influences. For me it’s all about trying to connect with that place in space and time where that other music came from, and hopefully, engage in some sort of conversation with it.
Q: The last song "midtown south" contains a recording of people talking. I was trying to make out exactly what this was. Can you tell us a little about the recording?”
A: Oh this one’s funny. So what I wanted to have in this one since it’s an instrumental was some sort of radio thing going on, just ‘skipping’ thru different stations, fm tuning sound. That was partly inspired by the intro to the Hail to Thief album and how (Spirit) Wonder Boxes and EVPs work. But soon enough I realized that it's not only gonna be hard to execute in a way that is musical, but also I'd be facing a pretty serious copyright infringement case if I have a four-minute song with like 300 samples in it so I had to look somewhere else. Now, before 9/11 NYPD was using regular short distance radio to communicate between the units, and I think in the summer of 1994 there was this guy who was living somewhere around LES, and he found out about the frequency they were using and started hacking their radio, cutting into conversations when officers were on patrol, teasing them, sometimes insulting them, it was very bizarre. Anyways, the voices come from this recording and the title is derived from the very first thing guy says over the comm which is “Midtown South is a faggot” but the last word is drowned with an opening bass note. Now, for the record, having lived in New York for a bunch of years I have nothing but respect for New York's finest and especially the 14th Precinct, Midtown South so yeah it’s more about the voices talking about one thing and music carrying you somewhere else, it creates that sort of tension. I also find it fascinating that this recording of that one guy made its way after 20 years to a piece of music, it only shows how crazy things go.
Q: Your self-titled debut EP came out in June. Are you working on an LP?
A: Yeah, the record is already written with 15 songs total, some of them I reckon being more b-sides, bonus track quality, so realistically we're looking around 10ish that I'd like to see on a record and then some just for the fans. I'm currently looking for a good record deal to realize these songs to the fullest; now, obviously I can do it all on my own and self-finance the whole thing but I don't think the constraints that this will impose will enable me to completely realize the vision I have for the music. So, we'll see how it goes. If anything, Disorder 1 (that's the title of the record) will be released either in the form of two other five song EPs later this year and in the spring of 2017 or a fully-fledged record.To be honest, at the end of the day, I'd rather have it done properly with a strong management team and label backing behind the music than going fully indie but I realize that this music is very different to what is being sold today in the music business, so yeah. The rest of the record is kind of peculiar, the songs are very different from the stuff on this EP in a weird sense; there's a lot of very pop orientated stuff (when I think pop and Disorder, I mean Nirvana-esque grunge sound), some more extreme and experimental music and then some that falls in the middle.
Q: What else do we need to know about Disorder?
A: Oh how do I know. I guess, its important to me that ultimately Disorder is not a band or a collection of songs but a set of ideas and feelings that have existed long before I was born and will carry on after I’m gone forever. The spirits that realized these recordings are much older and much more powerful than me as an individual and when I was writing this record I’ve done what I could to just be a receiver really. To me, the act of creation can never be some sort of ego nourishing process of monetary, sexual or fame gratification; it’s always a service. And it’s not even a service to the fans or whoever but to the place where these feelings that inform the music live and the spirits that channel them abide. Also, The EP is free to download from our Bandcamp in a very neat quality so go crazy, burn your mum a copy.
A: Oh this one’s funny. So what I wanted to have in this one since it’s an instrumental was some sort of radio thing going on, just ‘skipping’ thru different stations, fm tuning sound. That was partly inspired by the intro to the Hail to Thief album and how (Spirit) Wonder Boxes and EVPs work. But soon enough I realized that it's not only gonna be hard to execute in a way that is musical, but also I'd be facing a pretty serious copyright infringement case if I have a four-minute song with like 300 samples in it so I had to look somewhere else. Now, before 9/11 NYPD was using regular short distance radio to communicate between the units, and I think in the summer of 1994 there was this guy who was living somewhere around LES, and he found out about the frequency they were using and started hacking their radio, cutting into conversations when officers were on patrol, teasing them, sometimes insulting them, it was very bizarre. Anyways, the voices come from this recording and the title is derived from the very first thing guy says over the comm which is “Midtown South is a faggot” but the last word is drowned with an opening bass note. Now, for the record, having lived in New York for a bunch of years I have nothing but respect for New York's finest and especially the 14th Precinct, Midtown South so yeah it’s more about the voices talking about one thing and music carrying you somewhere else, it creates that sort of tension. I also find it fascinating that this recording of that one guy made its way after 20 years to a piece of music, it only shows how crazy things go.
Q: Your self-titled debut EP came out in June. Are you working on an LP?
A: Yeah, the record is already written with 15 songs total, some of them I reckon being more b-sides, bonus track quality, so realistically we're looking around 10ish that I'd like to see on a record and then some just for the fans. I'm currently looking for a good record deal to realize these songs to the fullest; now, obviously I can do it all on my own and self-finance the whole thing but I don't think the constraints that this will impose will enable me to completely realize the vision I have for the music. So, we'll see how it goes. If anything, Disorder 1 (that's the title of the record) will be released either in the form of two other five song EPs later this year and in the spring of 2017 or a fully-fledged record.To be honest, at the end of the day, I'd rather have it done properly with a strong management team and label backing behind the music than going fully indie but I realize that this music is very different to what is being sold today in the music business, so yeah. The rest of the record is kind of peculiar, the songs are very different from the stuff on this EP in a weird sense; there's a lot of very pop orientated stuff (when I think pop and Disorder, I mean Nirvana-esque grunge sound), some more extreme and experimental music and then some that falls in the middle.
Q: What else do we need to know about Disorder?
A: Oh how do I know. I guess, its important to me that ultimately Disorder is not a band or a collection of songs but a set of ideas and feelings that have existed long before I was born and will carry on after I’m gone forever. The spirits that realized these recordings are much older and much more powerful than me as an individual and when I was writing this record I’ve done what I could to just be a receiver really. To me, the act of creation can never be some sort of ego nourishing process of monetary, sexual or fame gratification; it’s always a service. And it’s not even a service to the fans or whoever but to the place where these feelings that inform the music live and the spirits that channel them abide. Also, The EP is free to download from our Bandcamp in a very neat quality so go crazy, burn your mum a copy.