In The Company Of... Jacques Greene

Jacques Greene made a very big splash with his debut release on the Lucky Me label, ‘The Look,’ at the start of this year. The four track EP followed a feature spot on Night Slugs’ Allstar compilation, with the track ‘(Baby I Don’t Know) What You Want,’ by a couple of months and delved further into his lush world of garage flecked house. As adept at hyperchopping vocal samples as he is layering chords and crunch over thick drum work, ‘The Look’ proved to be a great introduction into the world of the Montreal based producer whose music sits so easily with the current London borne dancefloor trends. A remix of Radiohead, a follow up EP for Lucky Me called ‘Another Girl,’ a 12” for the Uno label and a three track white label release have all appeared in the months that followed the original bout of internet hysteria, but each one goes a long way to confirm Greene’s talent and cemented the kind of quality a lot of people expected from him. But as if to second guess those same people's assumption, Greene’s forthcoming UK tour is a little bit different… This Friday he’s bringing his full live show, which includes a second person - fellow Lucky Me artist and geographical cousin Ango - joining him on stage and an array of daunting looking hardware equipment, to Four Tet’s FABRICLIVE CD launch. So in anticipation we caught up with the producer before he sets sail for our shores to quiz him on the live setup and how the whole thing works dramatically. So in taking the Jacques Greene project live you’ve expanded the music out over hardware equipment, with two people performing it. Can you run us through the equipment you are using? We’re running an AKAI MPC as the main clock for our drum machines and sequencers, as well as a sampler/MIDI sequencer. We have this modern analog clone of the Roland TR-808 called the Acidlab Miami as well as a TR-909 running the bulk of the drums during the show. Andrew plays a lot of the main chords and melodies on his Akai Miniak, and we also have a Dave Smith Tetra, two racks of analog modular synthesizer and a Roland TB-303. The entire rig runs through a board and a bunch of effect pedals. Yes it’s as complicated and as occasionally frustrating as it sounds. From the footage we’ve seen it seems to be quite involved and energetic... a proper electronic performance. How does it all work for you live? Do you guys vibe off of each other/edit on the fly? Rehearsal means we know these songs through and through, we know their structures but we’ll play within the boundaries of the songs that we’ve set for ourselves. If we feel a song should go techno for 4 minutes, we go for it. We’ve set the stage up in a way that we are facing each other to allow that kind of communication to happen. Due to the lack of computer and the nature of the machines we’re using, it ends up being closer to a live-band deal than an Ableton Live-assisted live set. I have no problem with Ableton Live and I use it quite a lot in the studio, however I really wanted this to sound and feel very different than my records. Is it you just performing the tracks live or is it more an interpretation of them? I guess it’s more of an interpretation. Some of them are closer to the ‘source material’ than others for sure. The instruments and gear that we have with us limit us in certain ways but also offer new possibilities and directions for some of the tracks. What made you want to perform the tracks live in this way? I take it as red this is the way you produce but, to play devil’s advocate, it must be a lot of equipment to lug around/setup etc? It definitely is a lot of equipment and truth be told it’s been a great source of stress and logistics to figure out how to bring it over there, what we can rent, what we need to bring ourselves. But it’s just so much fun once we play. There’s nothing quite like hearing a Roland TB-303 in the club. Jacques Greene – The Look [Lucky Me] Have you guys worked together before? Can you introduce us to the Jacques Greene team? How did you hook up? We have many friends in common and have been playing and attending the same parties for years. The hook up made all the sense in the world as we see eye to eye on most things music and both saw the value in putting together a show like this and being dedicated enough to meet up for rehearsals and so on. Do you think the live partnership has changed the way you make music independent of each other? It definitely has mine. I’ve been using more crude live effects such as just running a hi hat through a delay pedal and just recording the tweaking live, stuff like that. I’m playing a lot more keys in the studio now, less MIDI. Do you think the audience react more to such a dynamic and visual performance rather than say a laptop live set? How has your set been received? Is it more fun for you this way? It was received very well the one time we did it in the past, at Mutek. I would hope people would react more to this; however an important thing we’ve kept in mind is to not detract from the dancefloor and show TOO much. I hate having to stop and stare at a guy while he exerts his technical proficiency at whatever it may be, whether it’s a virtuosic guitar solo or a super complicated modular synthesizer patch. If that stuff adds to the actual music and the feeling in the room, that’s great, but it’s a very fine line. Catch Jacques Greene’s live performance in Room One this Friday. PLEASE NOTE: Advance tickets have sold out. There will be an allocation available on the door. For the best chance of avoiding queues and to get discount entry join fabricfirst.