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Hum & bass >> Montrealer David Kristian bridges Dr. Who and Dr. Alex Paterson by CHRIS YURKIW
"It was a case of having either this very common studio or this one rare synthesizer, so I went with the synth," says Kristian. "I looked for one for 10 years, so when I saw it I didn't want to wait five seconds." If David Kristian were a pop musician he might have written a loving ode to the VCS-3, like David Bowie's "TVC 15." But Kristian is one of those non-faces of electronic music, rigorously producing a track or two a day in his own world/bunker and cataloguing and rating them all. He reckons he has some 3000 to date, ranging from techno (as heard on his first LP Synaesthesia) to self-styled drum & bass (on 1995's Clubfoot EP, which got him some attention in the U.K.). So upon obtaining his very own VCS-3, Kristian set aside the beats and set about paying tribute to one of the earliest, crudest, craziest examples of the analog synthesizer sounds he loves so much. The result is his new album called Cricklewood (Alien8). "A lot of the music that was made with the VCS-3, other than the Dr. Who music, was pretty normal stuff. Tangerine Dream used it for background textures, Pink Floyd and Genesis used it, and even the Who and the Stones. But the music I was trying to do with Cricklewood was even more prehistoric: the music of Louis and Bebe Barron, who did the Forbidden Planet soundtrack [1956]. They would make tube circuits, overload them and make them self-destruct, and then they would record this and slow down the tape 150 times. And because tubes are such nice harmonic devices, they would get these sounds that were melodic, like these little sparkling, spacey kind of noises." This past weekend, at the first ACREQ (Association création recherche électroacoutiques Québec) show of the season, Kristian worked diligently at centre stage to reproduce his Cricklewood sound, twiddling knobs, playing with the VCS-3's joystick, and bending down occasionally to tap a bass guitar ("as control source") that stood on a stand. After the performance, Kristian was swarmed by fellow techie/trainspotters who wanted to know how he made those sounds, or perhaps to just get a glance at the VCS-3. It was like kids watching a DJ's tricks, and Kristian recognizes the opportunities given to him by the breakthroughs--both aesthetic and commercial--of electronic music in the '90s. "The rave scene liberated me from being a bedroom experimenter. I got to finally release stuff and I'm grateful. When the techno scene came along I said, 'Hmm, I can keep on doing the music I'm into--all I have to do is add a beat on it.'" David Kristian's Synaesthesia and the Clubfoot EP are available on the Montreal label Discreet/Indiscreet. Cricklewood is out on Alien8 recordings
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A couple of years ago, Montreal tape-head David Kristian traded away the better part of his home studio for one mythical piece of synthesizer history, an unremarkable looking panel/board called the EMS VCS-3.