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 | M. Griffin: Hypnos Recordings Interview (AmbiEntrance© - 1998) M. Griffin is keeping busy... Besides working alone (as with his newest, Sudden Dark), or as half of the electronic duo, Viridian Sun (Solar Noise), Griffin also runs their label, Hypnos Recordings of Portland, OR. Hypnos has just released a 2-Disc comp, The Other World featuring a slew of ambient celebrities and relative unknowns. M. has also designed websites for Jeff Greinke, A Produce and others. |
| Link: For starters, tell us who you are with some general background info.
Griffin: I'm a visual artist and writer who has always been more interested in music than in these other things, but for some reason never thought about creating my own music until I had first worked my way through practically every other medium of expression I could find. Some of my first recordings, from November of 1995, found their way onto Sudden Dark. Now that I have started in this direction, though, I expect to keep making music and experimenting with sound until I'm too old and weak to work the keys any more! Link: What can you tell us about your musical beginnings and inspirations? Griffin: When I was 11 or 12 years old, my dad introduced me to Jarre's Oxygene, the first electronic music I had heard, followed by Georgio Morodor's Midnight Express soundtrack. In high school I started getting interested in more New Wave stuff, and started to get interested in synthesizers. My favorite bands were Devo and Kraftwerk and The Human League, so although I still wasn't making music of my own, I had very clearly formed an interest by this time in electronic music. In college I became aware of stuff like Tangerine Dream, Eno and his work with Bowie and Talking Heads, and also Laurie Anderson and New Order. Gradually I became more interested in atmospheric, abstract music and somewhat less preoccupied with rhythms and melodies, though I still to a lot of song-oriented stuff: Kraftwerk, Bowie, David Sylvian, Stina Nordenstam. To be honest, though, I don't feel any of this stuff has a direct influence on my own music. I get a lot more inspiration, really, from visual art and even literature. I've never had the sense, while listening to music, that I should create something like what I was listening to. No doubt the effect of the music I've heard has seeped into me indirectly. But many times, I've been looking at art or photography books, and been suddenly moved to rush into my studio and make sounds. Mostly I start with a simple idea and follow my ears until I end up with something that satisfies me. Link: How did "M. Griffin, musician" become "M. Griffin, Hypnos Recordings founder"? Griffin: The decision to start making sounds and recording them coincided with the idea that I would be involved in the whole process of releasing them -- not just recording music to tape, but actually creating a CD, from concept to recording and mastering, and finally the titling, artwork and package design. At some point it occurred to me that I would like to release other people's music as well as my own. I've always loved CDs themselves almost as much as the music, or maybe a better way to say this is that for me the whole experience of enjoying a CD involves not only listening but looking, touching, reading, holding the thing in your hands. The presentation can be a large part of how you "receive" the artist's message. Look at the releases of labels like ECM or Factory or early 4AD, where art direction is an important part of the whole, and substantially contributes to the experience of the music. Think of the mystique of early New Order or Cocteau Twins, which had as much to do with the choices pertaining to visual presentation as it did the sound itself. At the same time, I should clarify that I don't think graphic design can "carry" an intrinsically uninteresting or undistinguished recording. The sound comes first. Link: Besides these roles, you've got a "day job", AND design websites, such as the Jeff Greinke and A Produce sites? What can you tell us about these? (And how DO you find time?!) Griffin: Finding enough time can be difficult, but I see all these things as being interrelated. My day job, while not even remotely related to music, helps me finance the startup phase of Hypnos, and to understand how to manage a business. I run the financial and administrative end of a big steel processing company in NW Portland, and studying the various customers has given me a chance to see what causes the problems of so many small businesses, and what makes others flourish. Believe it or not, these same ideas can be applied to the running of a small record label, though the scale and aesthetics are different. As for the web sites, I started on that before Hypnos was taking up so much of my time. In 1996 I contacted Jeff Greinke as a fan of his music and offered to help him set up a web site. The work to set this up has been done gradually, and it continues to evolve as he gives me updates and news, or releases new material. Roughly the same thing happened with A Produce, though I started his web site after Hypnos was going. Both these guys have been very understanding of the fact that I'm pretty busy all the time, so sometimes updates to their sites don't happen as immediately as we'd like, but it gets done. Though it was something I didn't really think about at the time, there was a substantial benefit to Hypnos in having the "official" web sites of these well-known, established artists located at hypnos.com -- it lent Hypnos a sort of immediate credibility by association, which didn't hurt. I'm now in the process of working on a web site for Richard Bone, which will also be located in my web space. There are also at least a dozen "single-page" info sites on the Hypnos Artists page, for what I call "Hypnos Associated Artists," people like Jeff Pearce or Vidna Obmana or Alpha Wave Movement, who have contributed to a Hypnos compilation, or people who may release material on Hypnos in the future. Link: Of your many functions, which do you consider to be your "primary role"? Griffin: I really don't separate what I do into "web designer," "musician," "label owner," etc. All these things seem to overlap so much that I never think to myself, "OK, now it's time to do some 'web designer' work, so take off the 'label owner' cap..." I think I could answer that question, though, by saying I could give up the web design without suffering any real pain, if I could ever afford to hire a full-time webmaster to maintain my designs, and make updates. On the other hand, I could never stop recording music, at least in the foreseeable future, and I get such gratification from developing and guiding Hypnos... Link: Will any of your web "clients" be working with Hypnos? Griffin: First, all three contributed tracks to the Other World compilation. Also, Bone and Greinke have recently arranged to release one of their upcoming projects on Hypnos. Richard Bone's project, The Spectral Ships, is an exploration of minimal ambient. In the past, his recordings have varied from ambient atmospheres, to rhythmic electronica with occasional Latin influences. I think Richard has decided to keep these two "sides" more separate. QuirkWorks Laboratory Discs, Richard's own label, has just released Electropica, which is a good example of Richard's take on Bossa Nova-flavored electronica. At least in this instance, I think the idea is to release the "quirky" stuff on QuirkWorks, and the more atmospheric work on Hypnos. Greinke has released work on so many labels, but has had some bad luck with some of them vanishing, like Linden and Raum 312, or changing focus, like Silent. It's exciting for me to release material by someone who has such an established body of strong, diverse work behind him. As for A Produce, we've had numerous discussions along those lines, but no definite decisions have been made. He runs his own label, Trance Port, and does a good job getting his work out there. There are tentative plans for an A Produce/M. Griffin collaboration at some point, though there is no certainty that this material would be released, on either label. Link: Can you briefly describe the artists in Hypnos' creative pool? Griffin: Well, of course I was the first one to "sign on." Though Sudden Dark was planned as the first Hypnos release, it was pushed back to get the Stokes and Viridian Sun projects out first. Saul Stokes actually ended up having the first Hypnos release, Washed in Mercury. Saul lives in Bellingham, Washington, near the US/Canadian border. He designs and builds his own synthesizers, sequencers, and various other strange analog electronic gear. I actually met Saul's brother Ian, who is also an electronic musician, and through Ian I found out about Saul and began to correspond with him. Originally I had intended to release only abstract, non-rhythmic music on Hypnos, but Saul's demos convinced me otherwise. His approach is fresh and inventive, and avoids the pitfalls of so much electronica, plus he sort of crosses-over into mellow ambient quite often. Using this "one of a kind" gear, Saul really can't help but have a unique sound. His follow-up to Washed in Mercury" should be out on Hypnos in mid-98. The third Hypnos artist, and the second to be released, was Viridian Sun, which is an abstract improvisation project, a collaboration between myself and David Tollefson. David and I have known each other for twelve or thirteen years, and he's always been in various rock bands, playing guitar and bass. He started making experimental recordings, a new direction for him, at about the same time I did, so it made sense for us to try recording together. Our first sessions together stunned both of us, and I immediately knew that I had to release this stuff. The Solar Noise CD was edited down from about 7 hours of live-in-studio recordings, and this is the way we will probably work in the future. The fourth Hypnos release is a various artists compilation, which I will discuss below. Next up will be a solo CD from David Tollefson of loop-oriented ambient guitar -- I've said elsewhere that comparisons could be made to a slightly deranged version of Fripp, or a less polished Jeff Pearce. Following that will be Richard Bone's The Spectral Ships. Bone is better known for the varied electronic music he releases on his own QuirkWorks label, but this one will be in a more minimal ambient direction, darker and perhaps simpler than his previous work. The latest news is that Hypnos will be doing a special CD reissue of Jeff Greinke's 1987 release, Places of Motility. No release date has been set, but I would expect it to be out in the spring of 98. It will be a "special edition" of sorts, digitally remastered and with additional, otherwise-unavailable tracks. This is the last of Jeff's early LPs and cassettes to see release in the CD format, and we're both very excited about it. Link: How did Hypnos' Other World 2-CD comp come about? Griffin: Originally I had planned to release a single-CD compilation project, which would include tracks by all the Hypnos artists and a few other "unknowns" that I found. Gradually, though, I got into contact with so many fantastic and interesting artists that I found myself adding more and more to this thing, until it became a 2-CD project. If I would have waited another month or two, it would have been three CDs, and would have been a "who's who" of electronic/space/ambient music! The compilation was planned around a theme, because I wanted all the tracks to be unified in some sense, while still reflecting the sensibilities of the individual artists. My long curiosity about the nature of consciousness and perception, along with a more recent interest in meditation, ended up defining for me the theme of this project. I wanted the artists to explore the mind of sleep and dreams, the mind of mediation -- how is this "world" different, less real or more, than our waking reality? I was very surprised to find what an enlightened bunch electronic musicians are! Several of them were experienced meditators, and most had a deep interest in this very subject. As such, the project ended up being much richer and more resonant than I could have expected. I think that because of the theme, many of the artists took a greater interest in their contributions than they usually would. Let's face it, most of the time when a musician is asked to contribute to a compilation, they dig out some old unreleased track or something from one of their albums, and send it along without giving it another thought. All the tracks on this compilation are unavailable elsewhere, and almost all were composed specifically for this project, with the theme in mind. In a few cases, artists had existing, unreleased tracks which happened to be appropriate to the project. A second Hypnos compilation will be issued in a year or so, this one based around a new theme, as yet undecided.. Link: Is your interest in meditation related to your interest in ambient music? Griffin: I guess ambient and space music are sort of "inward" musics, in that they can evoke mental imagery and take you on a sort of drug-like trip. I had been interested in this sort of music for a long time before I first started meditating. It really surprised me to discover how many electronic musicians either meditate regularly, or are at least interested in the subject. Furthermore, at least 1/2 the electronic musicians I know are vegetarians, though I'm still not sure why that would be. Link: Your work on Sudden Dark, and Viridian Sun's Solar Noise, has a very "spacey" feel. Are you at all into/influenced by science fiction? If so, who and/or what? Griffin: I don't think science fiction is particularly at the center of either release, though I agree that they both have that spacy feel. I'm a fan of stuff like 2001, Blade Runner, Star Wars, Alien, and the more classic and visionary sci-fi like Star Trek, Things to Come, and Forbidden Planet. I don't particularly like films just because they have space ships and aliens. I'm more interested in speculative futures, and various human themes and ideas which might be easier to explore in an imaginary setting than a realistic one. David Tollefson of Viridian Sun is into the same stuff, for the most part, and during the recording of Solar Noise we definitely discussed the deep-space atmosphere of it, and the images it evoked. Coincidentally, the name "Viridian Sun" can be connected to the film STAR TREK: GENERATIONS. Several people have asked us if this was a "nod" to that film, but I was as surprised by the parallel as anyone. Link: Will you be "restricting" Hypnos artists to the current genres? What if Hanson or the Spice Girls wanted to record for you? Griffin: Hypnos is interested in a pretty wide scope, but I think you've managed to come up with a couple of examples that fall outside that. Recently I was joking with Soleilmoon, my distributor, about the likelihood of a Hanson release on Hypnos this year. Maybe it really WILL happen. That way, if I get to know the Hanson kids a little better, maybe I can figure out if they really ARE boys. Link: Will you be performing live and/or touring? Griffin: Viridian Sun has performed live on occasion, and will probably continue with such performances, since it sort of duplicates they way we work in the studio anyway. Also, Saul Stokes performs frequent live shows, in his local Bellingham area (where he recently opened for DJ Spooky and Scanner), in Vancouver BC, Seattle, and most recently here in Portland. As for myself, solo, I can't imagine at present how I would do anything interesting live by myself -- the multi-layered textures on Sudden Dark certainly couldn't be created on a stage without backing tapes or sequences, and I wouldn't waste an audience's time with that. I personally hate watching performers sit there behind a rack of gear and press "start" on their sequencer or tape machine, and pretend to twiddle knobs until it's time to press "stop" at the end of the song. My own interest is primarily in recorded music. Live performance, if it's truly "live," is a completely different mode of expression anyway. It's exciting to perform on a stage in front of people, but I like recording things and refining them until they finally become what I intended -- or something unintended, a wonderful surprise.
Link: If asked to score a "soundtrack" for the weather phenomenon El Nino', what would it sound like? Griffin: That's an interesting idea. Maybe the best guy to take on such a project would be Jeff Greinke, with his education and interest in weather... I guess I'd need to know a bit more about what El Nino actually LOOKS like before I could take a stab at it. I imagine the soundtrack would be open and airy, since El Nino is an atmospheric phenomenon, though I guess I would need to illustrate its unpredictable and troublemaking nature. Link: What's your general outlook for the role of ambient/electronic music in the future? Griffin: Well, I think the record industry's attempts to "break" electronica to a mass audience were an abject failure. Of course, music like Chemical Brothers and The Prodigy has nothing to do with electronic music -- it's really just lame rock music made with electronic devices. My fear is that many people out there who might actually enjoy some of the better stuff are perhaps put off by junk like MTV's AMP, or the hundreds of sub-par ambient/electronic compilations put out by labels looking to earn a quick buck off this "hot new style." You'll notice that all the hype surrounding electronic music has managed to miss the people who are doing really interesting work in the field. At the same time, maybe it's setting the stage for listeners of all types to be more open to music made with technology. I have found that when I play good ambient music for people unfamiliar with it, about 99% of them really like it, whether they're into jazz or classical or rock or techno. The question, then, is how this little niche will find a way to make itself known to a larger audience. Link: What's your electronic sound-making equipment of choice? Griffin: A variety of synthesizers, new and old, by Roland and Korg and Oberheim. The usual stuff, really. To me, the way to get distinctive sounds is not to look for the technological holy grail, but to use the gear you have in a distinctive way. To me, the choices you make in programming and processing and the mixing are more important than what box you're using. If I was asked to name the one thing that made my work sound different, I'd say it's the fact that I program my synths in ways the designers never really intended. Also I tend to play the patches well above or below the key range at which they would sound "normal." Link: I always ask... What advice can you offer to someone interested in creating their own ambient/electronic/experimental music? Griffin: It seems to me that most people are really just interested in imitating the sound or feel of music that they have heard and enjoyed. To someone like that, I can't really offer any advice. The world doesn't need another Brian Eno or another Tangerine Dream, and you couldn't do it as well as they did in the first place anyway! Of course, if mimicking your heroes gives you satisfaction, that's OK with me... but I don't need or want to hear it. On the other hand, to someone interested in seeking their own sound, doing something new and distinctive, I would advise keeping your ears completely open, and taking a playful, almost random approach to experimentation. In this way, you'll find yourself going down roads that never would have occurred to you otherwise, at which time you can focus on and develop the ideas you find. It's important to discover what it is that you feel defines your sound and your approach, because that way you will feel you have an identity and a reason for being, artistically. Without these things, you'll just be tinkering on and on, haphazardly and pointlessly. The idea, I think, is to eventually find focus, and then work on refining your expression. |
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Link: Thanks very much for sharing with us at the AmbiEntrance. Best of luck with Hypnos... Keep us posted!
Griffin: Thanks for the opportunity. I enjoyed it! Be sure to check out the Hypnos Recordings website, where you'll find more info as well as M. Griffin's other links. |  |
This interview posted January 28, 1998
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