Martin Franklin

Martin Franklin: "Frozen Lands" Pre-release Interview (AmbiEntrance© - 1998) Martin Franklin speaks with us about the sounds he creates in his project Tuu, as well as the other musical outlets in his life. We thank him for his participation and look forward to his upcoming release Photo by Val Rylands

Link: How long has Tuu been performing? How would you describe its evolution as a musical entity? Franklin: Our first album, One Thousand Years came out in 1993, so we have been playing together as Tuu since 91/92, prior to that I had played both with Mykl O and Richard Clare, our original flautist, in other projects. I played with Richard in a duo format which essentially laid the foundations for the Tuu trio. It was my desire to expand the role of the electronics in the music that made me ask Mykl to join us. I'd played a lot with Mykl before that, making some very experimental music, several Theatre soundtracks and our installation based sound performances, Flow and Elements. We have always played live concerts and I think that has been essential in shaping the forms of the music, taking it out for "field research". It's always very hard to summarize what one is doing or has done because, as a creator the drive is always to push further rather than evaluate the past. I do think though that after spending some time concentrating on refining the Tuu sound and mode, we're at a time of re-evaluation now, and strangely enough the Frozen Lands pieces which I've been working on for much of this year have come out as a return to purely environmental works. I tried to describe mainly landscapes and physical emotions with these pieces rather than anything strictly musical. Link: By its title alone, I was already wondering about the Frozen Lands. Your other works seem more evocative of deserts or jungles... is Frozen Lands different "geographically"? Franklin: It's a strange thing this geographical feeling, it's not at all intentional. I am always surprised by the steamy, tropical feel of some of the Tuu tracks. The Frozen Lands music uses this location as a bit of a metaphor. It is certainly reflective of the sounds in the music but also, during the recording process of these pieces I had a very strong mental image of a landscape. I'm always a bit shy of being explicit about these things. It's hard to really convey it without sounding pretentious or misleading. The music in this collection is centered around another of the pieces which I wrote to accompany an exhibition of ceramic sculpture by Nikki Coe, an artist friend of mine who sadly died just prior to a major exhibition of her works. Her husband finished off the work that she had in progress and staged the exhibition according to sketches he found in her notebooks. I played live at the exhibition opening and the music was recorded and used as ambience for the duration of the show. Several of the hastily composed pieces have been somewhat of an obsession for me over the last few years. The Frozen Lands piece is the last of those works which I had planned to develop. The track Stone to Sand on MESH was one of the others. During work on this piece I had very strong mental images of boats, which I later realized where also a theme in Nikki's sculpture. My interpretation of this image was related to the Greek notion of the Ferryboat of dead souls, crossing to the Underworld. At first I considered the piece to be her soul-journey to the Other Side but during the extremely difficult process of finalizing this piece I felt more that the means of transport had transformed into the very land itself and had become this nameless, awe-inspiring terrain of The Frozen Lands Link: Who's playing with you on the new disc? Franklin: All of the 3 recordings on The Frozen Lands are solo pieces. There is something about the nature of these works which is very solitary and just would not suit the presence of more than one person. This is really the first time I've released any solo playing. In the past I've always used others musicians to enrich my pieces and to bring them alive with human interaction. But somehow I felt that these pieces just weren't about human interaction, they are an attempt at representing something other than that. Link: Will it be released as a "Tuu" disc then, or a Martin Franklin CD? Franklin: Yes, the CD will be released under the Tuu name. I've always been the group director, over the last couple of years we're moved into more of a situation where different musicians have been brought in to play without there necessarily having to be any long term commitment to the project. Our guests Tim Burness and Nick Parkin on Mesh are examples. I think as one gets older, ones priorities in life change and the common idea of a "band" becomes harder to keep together. As I'm not in a position of offer any of my musicians a living wage, it is only natural that they will have to do other things to make a living, which will affect how much commitment and energy they have to give to a project like Tuu. In the long term I think a more flexible approach to the personnel of Tuu is the most workable, with myself as the common artistic factor and producer and a collective of like-minded players to draw on. My solo compositions have always been included on the Tuu CDs, so The Frozen Lands collection is really just an opportunity for me to expand and develop my thinking within the Tuu framework. Link: Whereas Terma and Mesh were released on Fathom, Frozen Lands is being released on Amplexus. Why different labels? Do you prefer working with a larger or smaller producer? Franklin: The Amplexus releases really appeal to me. Stefano puts a lot of work into the design and packaging to create these beautiful limited editions. He approached me to do a release in his series of 20 minute 3" CDs and I really liked the idea. Being only 20 minutes long, it can almost be considered as one continuous piece. There are always varying attractions of working with labels who operate in different ways. I put a lot of time and effort into producing my music and expect a label to put an equal amount of energy into the release. But it can be in different ways, Fathom Records for instance will sell a far larger quantity of records and give the music a wider promotion than Amplexus. But they can't produce a purely artistic item in the way that Stefano can. It's taken me a surprisingly long time to understand the business reality, but simply a larger organization needs to earn a larger amount of money to sustain itself and that tends to affect the way in which they interact with their artists. There are positive things to be gained from both ways of working, being able to do both seems ideal for me. Link: When can we expect the Frozen Lands to be released? Franklin: Amplexus had it planned for release early December but we had a few hold ups with the artwork. It's at the factory as we speak. I would realistically expect it to be out in the shops by mid- January 'though I'm hoping to see copies back from the factory before Christmas. Link: Tuu's music is obviously patterned after various ethnic sounds; specifically, where do these influences come from? Franklin: I think the influence of non-European music is almost inescapable in our modern culture. My early memories of influential music are a mixture of a televised Ravi Shankar concert and "Top Of The Pops". At that time I was in no position to understand whether there was any musical value difference in the two things, they're both equal, both on my tv screen. Actually from my view now Ravi Shankar would certainly win out. There are certain musical forms which, I think have achieved a state of perfection and balance which will communicate across cultures. In this case the form of the Indian raga is certainly one, Gamelan music would be another. After being exposed to these musics it is hard to resist the subtle effects of this balance. So, I think, what i'm trying to point out is that rather than being "obviously patterned" after generic "ethnic" music, our music feels like a natural response to the sounds we're draw to in our environment. Link: Are your songs "just music", or are there some less obvious meanings happening there? Franklin: I think that real music has to be made with some sort of motivating consciousness or soul behind it. Much of what we are exposed to today is really just sophisticated noise masquerading as music. In that sense what Tuu have created is "real" music, and that is the secret behind it, it is made with a sincere intention, which has nothing to do with providing a "product" Link: Where do you obtain your more "exotic" instruments? Do you ever travel to foreign locations to absorb the sounds? Franklin: I never consider what I do to be exotic or ethnic in a traditional sense, it's more a futuristic, mental exotica that I'm interested in. I can hear foreign music by simply stepping out on the street outside where I live. There are a lot of Asian and Afro-Caribbean people in this area and have been for probably 25 years. Are the sounds of their culture still exotic ? or can I claim them as a legitimate reference in my environment ? Most of my acoustic instruments have been found around London and the South, hidden away in various percussion shops and markets. Link: I loved Terma; it seemed especially "dark" to me. Is that sense of darkness only in my perception? What's the story behind this release? Franklin: Terma has come out with a mysterious, darker quality than some of my previous recordings or maybe just a further exploration of that aspect of the music. It's only partly intentional. My collaborator on that album, Nick, is certainly very conscious of producing what he describes as dark music, so that may have tipped the balance there. I originally met with Nick on the Maps Without Edges album with Eddy Sayer, which we released under the group name of Stillpoint. City Of Tribes Records have just reissued it in the USA this year. I really love the sound of the Middle Eastern Ney flutes which Nick plays, so we agreed to work on something together. I had the offer of a couple of concerts in Italy over the summer of 97, so used them as an opportunity to work on this collaboration. We played a large outdoor square in Bologna and within the walls of a medieval castle in a place called Aulla. On our return to England I suggested that we should record this material and subsequently recorded and produced the Terma album. Personally I didn't find collaborating in this way to be completely satisfying. With my work in Tuu, the musicians have developed a fantastic rapport, based on much playing and improvising together, which I missed in this kind of one-off collaboration. Link: How much does your music affect the rest of your life, and in what ways? Franklin: For a few years now I've had the feeling of being "carried" by my music. In as much as it's given me so many experiences and opportunities that I may not otherwise have had. As well as the concert and recording work you know of I do a lot of work using music in a community setting, in enabling people to create their own music. I work a lot with youth groups, people suffering from mental ill health and physical disabilities, enabling them to connect to the uplifting and empowering experience of expressing themselves through music. Several of these projects are in conjunction with video, animation and dance work. I'm now in that strange position of working with music all day, it's be coming a real effort to sit down at home and work on more music ! More just through the effects of being surrounded by sound all the time. I now appreciate more that I need silence to create my music. Link: How did you originally get involved with the community service work? Can you tell us about it? It sounds both rewarding and demanding... Franklin: I've been doing this kind of work for several years now. I work with all sorts of groups, from physically disabled people, individuals with mental health needs, learning disabled groups and young people. I work with music to empower people who would not necessarily have a voice or a means of expressing themselves. I've had some incredible experiences playing with these people. Link: What are you doing within your video, animation and dance work? Franklin: I'm particularly interested in the video work at the moment. It's really interesting to be able to work so closely with music and visual images. I'm just working on a video myself to accompany Silent Writing from The Frozen Lands. Most of the footage was shot at a local monument on a hill just outside Windsor. It's got a very elemental feel, just shots of the sky behind these large rocks which are used to build the monument. I'm hoping to digitize some of it and put it up on the Tuu website soon. I also produce commissioned music for Dance and Theatre projects. I've been doing this as long as I've been producing CDs, the challenge of creating spaces for the performers to work in is quite close to what I try to achieve in the music for CD. Both have a strong sense of environment and space. Link: Can you give us some examples of your commissioned dance/theatre projects? Franklin: My attraction to commissioned work goes through phases. In the past I've worked on a lot of touring Theatre productions, some notable ones being a radical production of A Midsummer Nights Dream which was staged in collaboration with Aklowa, a Ghanian drum and dance ensemble. The opening scene of one of the Aklowa members creeping onstage singing an African spirit-evoking chant to my backdrop of distorted radio voices and sustaining chords is very memorable. The actors ensemble enters together as a composite Puck, then the drummers group kicks in with a slow pulsating polyrhythm. Yeah ! Great stuff. I have also worked a lot with a company who specialize in work which informs young people about various social issues: drug-use, sex, reckless driving etc. The particular company produced some very hard-hitting instantly appealing Theatre to convey the messages in a way relevant to their audience. The music had to have a corresponding impact, so I ended up writing a mixture of moody, funky drum'n'bass pieces. Interesting work which, as a musician, lets you try on other hats and expand your own sonic palette. The most recent things have been this Autumn when I've produced a piece which was used for the finale section in the end performance of a multi cultural dance project called Global Moves at The Roundhouse in London. (It's a very historic unusual round venue, used in the Sixties for the UFO Club where Pink Floyd, Crazy World of Arthur Brown and all the luminaries of the psychedelic era played) The last project which I worked on was another dance commission, this time for the annual piece of choreographed work taken on by the Berkshire Youth Dance Co., which is a company made up of the most promising young dancers in my region. This kind of work always demands a degree of flexibility from the musician, you can't always think of it as "yours". It's functional music, which strikes a balance between your own artistic sensibilities and the brief given by the commissioning body. For example the BYDC choreographer wanted the piece to have, in his words, a " jazzy, ambient, street, house, percussion" feel. Quite a job to decipher what's in peoples mind sometimes. Link: As you referred to the expression "Jai Guru Dev", in last month's Question of the Month, can we assume you're also into meditation? Franklin: Both myself and Mykl O, my Tuu keys man are meditators. I would say that it is a fundamental ingredient in how we view the music that we make and our approach to it. It particularly affects the way in which we think of live concerts, with the music structured to descend to deeper levels as the concert progresses. If the listeners are willing, it is possible to reach some really intense levels of stillness. It has been my privilege to experience this many times. Mykl has moved to live in New Zealand now, so the prospect of live work with him is pretty distant now 'though we've talked about working on Tuu pieces via the Net. Link: What are your future plans for Tuu? Anything noteworthy forthcoming in your other projects? Franklin: I am in a bit of a state of flux now as far as Tuu work goes. I felt driven to produce The Frozen Lands but now I'm kind of waiting for the next thing to come along. I have a feeling that it may be a lot more electronic sounding but who knows. In February I have a concert in Amsterdam with Sandip Bhattacharya, a tabla player I originally met when we played at the SFINKS festival in Belgium. We agreed to do something together and this seems to be the chance. I will be playing Water Drums and Octapad midi drums, Sandip will play tabla, as part of a series of concerts of music by improvising percussionists. Other than that I have a couple of tentative plans to produce some work with an Asian guitar and tabla duo here and for some time I've had a couple of pieces with a poet friend of mine on the shelf. He writes this really dark, angst filled stuff which would work really well with some heavy, moody ambience. Link: You mentioned in the December QOM that a new Mac for Christmas would be nice... How much of your work is done on the computer? What programs do you work with? Franklin: It's here now !! I always try to keep things in perspective as far as the use of the computer goes. Unlike other kinds of music technology, I've found that the computer tends to overly dominate the creation process. We've used sequenced material in all of our albums since All Our Ancestors, it's really great at the mixing stage to have the electronic sounds so flexible. We have developed a system where the human performances dictate the main form of the piece and the parts which are recorded into the computer are tailored around the those performances. Up to now we've used Cubase as our sequencer. Now I have a more powerful Mac system myself I'm interested in exploring some of the audio editing and recording programs.

Link: I appreciate your input, Martin and wish you luck in your future endeavors. Is there anything you'd like to add? Franklin: You're welcome. It's always an interesting opportunity to analyze and discuss what one is doing, which doesn't always happen during the normal course of things. Hopefully these thoughts will feed back into the music and let us go forward.

This interview posted December 25, 1998