You've relocated to France?
Yeah, about three years ago we up and left Ireland with the family and a menagerie of animals, and crossed the sea to France.
Did you sell your old church studio, the Quivvy Church, around that time?
Well, it's still for sale actually. A couple of potential sales fell through. It's still on the market. I've got a new studio here now.
Right, that's Ker Landelle?
It's an old stone barn that I converted.
Are you living on the same property?
Yeah. It's like a collection of houses and buildings. It's actually an old farm that was converted with some land, some woods, and a big garden.
You had Quivvy Church for 25 years. I didn't quite realize how much of the recording of Dead Can Dance had been done on your own, and in that space.
And two solo albums, too. I did Eye of the Hunter and Ark there as well.
What led you to having your own space and recording setup, as far as the process and the creativity?
The first three albums we did in professional commercial studios. We got to a point where the technology was so good. I was using sequencers and a secondhand reel-to-reel 8-track. A large part of the budget was actually going into recording those albums. I just saw this opportunity, so I said to Ivo [Watts-Russell] at 4AD [Records], "Why don't you give us the budget you'd give to a recording studio, and we'll invest it in our own studio and start delivering albums that way." Basically I wanted to cut out the middle man. That way we'd obviously have more control, and more studio time. More importantly, right at the beginning we weren't seeing any money coming through for record sales. Getting our money back – seeing that come through really quickly – was much more empowering for us rather than waiting for the initial production debt to clear. So, in that belief we put more and more money aside from the money we'd earned on each album; we also improved the studio and eventually the studio space itself.
You mentioned using an 8-track and sequencers. What was the trajectory of technology you were dealing with? A home studio was not as easy to do 25 years ago as it is right now.
Yeah. There was no access to automation or anything like that – all mixes were done manually. On the digital technology, that front was really coming through and becoming affordable. There were so many formats we experimented with, some weird formats that were kind of aimed at the home recording market. Initially we were using Commodore 64 sequencing. We had that slaved to the very first sampler, an Ensoniq Mirage. Then we would get into the AKAI series, from the S-600 on. That would all be slaved with a mixing desk so that the sequencing would handle quite a few tracks in its own right. Then we would use the 8-track with a sync on one of the tracks.
Right, SMPTE?
Yeah, exactly. We'd be able to sync the Commodore 64. That meant we had the seven tracks available, as well as an eighth track purely for sync audio. We could run all the sequential sampler stuff independently, without having to commit it to tape. It was really empowering. We went from that to the AKAI format. I think it was the 12-track, with the old Betamax tapes. Remember them?
Yes. That's the one that pops its head up occasionally here and there in interviews.
It didn't last long. It was pretty harsh sounding. We pretty much tried every format we could. The more money we got that came into the equation, the more we upgraded and got better gear.
Did you move into tape-based digital, ADATs or DA-88s, at some point?
Yeah, Spirit Chaser was on ADAT. Into the Labyrinth was an interesting one. We did it on a 16-track 1/2-inch; a TEAC [80-8], which had dbx [noise reduction]. It sounds like a lot, 16 tracks on 1/2-inch, but the sound was really good. We did Into the Labyrinth on that, and it even won a few hi-fi audio awards! The way I've worked all along was to record the sequential sampler parts live through the desk. I never, ever "recorded" it.
Oh, right. Yeah.
So, anybody who's thinking about doing any kind of mashes or mixups of Dead Can Dance can forget it, because there's no multitrack in existence, which has everything on it. It's kind of nice, in a way. I come from that kind of school of, "When it's done, it's finished. It's a work of art. Throw away the template. That's it." That's the definitive version, and there shouldn't be any other version, really.
When you describe some of the technology used, it sounds like you'd be making a Depeche Mode-sounding record. However, you were making music that was hybrid but feels very organic-sounding.
Yeah. When it's sample-based, as opposed to real recordings and instruments, I try to energize the samples and make them more analog-sounding. To do that I use a lot of psychoacoustic types of interfaces, like [Aphex] Aural Exciters. I try to manipulate the samples so that they breathe more, as well as exploring the dynamics of them so that they become more harmonically interesting as they change over time.
Right, to keep from becoming too static or repetitive.
Exactly. It's a real art to get in there and work with them. There are so many elements. If I've got a cello spread across so many octaves, I'll find that if I'm trying to emulate a real cellist that certain notes aren't actually expressing the right sound at a given time. I've got to get in and use LFOs for that particular note so that I can tweak it, all dependent on what I've written. That's the relationship.
It sounds like a meticulous process.
It is, but it's worth it because it's an education in itself. I'm pushing the creative boundaries all the time of what I can do with sampling technology.
Right. Is the process for your new album, Dionysus, still using a lot of samples?
Yeah. The biggest revelation to me for this album has been working with vocal sound libraries based on choral groups. They have these new engines built into them that are fantastic. They're called Syllabuilders; basically a directory of syllables. You have hundreds of these syllables you can actually put together in sentences, phrases, and words. It's very creative. All these syllables are sung by a range of large groups to just soloists. You can write your own phrases, and then you can play them polyphonically. You have a whole group harmonizing with each other, singing your words basically. It's really powerful. It's been a real revelation, working on this album. I wanted a collective chorus. It was never going to be song-driven by soloists. It was always going to be a collective group, like a commentary of singers that were commenting on the proceedings or developing change, intended for trance or what have you.
How did you decide that this would be a Dead Can Dance record versus a Brendan solo record?
Well, I decided on DCD because I wanted Lisa to be involved, and I thought it was time we made another album. We probably would have gotten to it sooner, but after the last album we were on a world tour for about one and a half years. The whole process of moving and having to build a new studio; I couldn't start work on a new album until two years ago. That's usually how long it takes; one and a half to two years. When the time came, I thought it would be perfect working with Lisa on this. It was definitely going to be a Dead Can Dance album, but also our first-ever concept album working together.
There are a lot of unusual instruments being used from all over the world. How did you start learning how to place microphones and get the sounds of all this? I assume that happened when you started running the Quivvy Church.
Yeah. Because of the kind of spaces, and because I work alone – I don't have an engineer – I haven't been able to really explore space or mic setups in a classical way. I tend to close mic instruments, and I use effects. I use a lot of reverb, as you've probably noticed. Really very few instruments escape the reverb process. I like to suck up as much tone and have as much edge to the recordings as possible, knowing that down the line I can filter out certain frequencies and reduce sounds. As you probably know, when you try to add bite on tracks that isn't there, it starts to sound very digital and hard. I like to soak up as much of the sound as possible. Then I treat it and give it its own ambience accordingly, rather than use the room sound or the microphone setup to get that.
I assume you're using a digital audio workstation. What are you working with these days?
I'm working with Logic Pro. Actually, Dionysus is the first album that I've totally recorded in Logic. The previous album, Anastasis, I did in Pro Tools. I still have the Pro Tools system there. To be honest, I really couldn't tell the difference. I'm using the Apollo, the Universal Audio interfaces. The plug-ins for that are fantastic. I thought, "Well, I might as well make the leap now." This seems to be where it's going. I was really happy with the quality.
Have you used the Ocean Way Studios reverb in the [Universal Audio] UAD system?
Yeah, I tried it one time. I'm more into natural plate reverbs. Actually the reverb I'm using a lot on it is the Lexicon 224. I really like it, and I'm using it live as well. I like those old-school big plate reverbs; the big '60s wall of sound-like vibe. Like The Righteous Brothers or Scott Walker; that dark plate ambience.
Are you using a real Lexicon, like an outboard one, or using plug-ins at this point?
Yeah, I've got two Lexicon model 200s, but they're old. I've got a weird little high-frequency noise that's coming into one of them. In the past, I always had to ship them back to America to get them fixed by a guy in the middle of nowhere, near Boston. It's really hard to find a lot of the parts now. I bought a couple old ones off eBay just to cannibalize the parts. I love the sound of those so much.
