diNMachine
All the latest from diNMachine.
We caught up with NYC’s diNMachine after the release of Dance to Reason, and today we catch up again with the esteemed Michael J. Schumacher about the band’s new LP The Opposites of Unity from Greedy Dilettante Records, featuring the world premiere of their video for “eW.A.F.T.” made by both Schumacher and the band’s own Nisi Jacobs.
Return to the ecstatic and eclectic wold of diNMachine with Miachel & Nisi’s visuals that take you on a trip through Sunset Park in Brooklyn, the New York harbor, the Verrazano-Narrows bridge, a train ride through New Jersey, and more. As “eW.A.F.T.” as a song is centered on ideas of motion and momentum, gaze into the mandala design by Camille Laoang, witness the whirling dog Jimmy, birds in flight, to the shaky clusters of leaves gathered by a chain linked fence. The visuals further illustrate all the grooves involved on the track being sprung to life and applied to the animated and alive world around us that we all inhabit.
Michael Schumacher discussed the video with us with the following insights:
This is Nisi and my first video together. I’m the director and she’s everything else: editor, colorist, FX coordinator…
Most of the footage was captured on my iPhone. There’s a train ride through New Jersey, images of Sunset Park Brooklyn, New York Harbor and the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge. The “mandala” image is by artist Camille Laoang. That’s Jimmy the dog spinning in circles.
The themes originate in the song: twitchy grooves, sunshine, the clackety rhythm of trains, the whorl of space, a bird in flight. Mostly I was trying to capture the sense of movement and momentum the song gives to me.
The pop music envelopes continue to be pushed by diNMachine on The Opposites of Unity where composition minded creations roll forth into new forms and self-styled structures that defy convention and pigeon holing. The opening track experienced in the previous video debut of “eW.A.F.T.” illustrates this in a rhythmic wind-tunnel runnel that re-definies the soundtrack to your morning commute spent with ear-buds plugged in on public transit. Nu-New York styles of jazz and rhyme rolls forward on “Jabbr Wawky” that exhibits sounds heard about Sunset Park in Brooklyn and features bars and verses from Black Saturn that keeps the cosmic collage firmly grounded together. “Brisé” rides through a variety of understated frequencies made for choreographer Liz Gerring that is the sound of an early morning evolving into day, with “Dbl Trbl” sounding like a funky & fresh take on a Carnival street fair celebration. The everything and the kitchen sink approach continues on a masterful course on the “Give and Go” where the collective chaos always remains in control, while the 15 minute closing stunner “Fawcett” is the kind of rhythmic, atmospheric roller-coaster music majors could write a thousand theses on.
Michael Schumacher provided the following introductory preface on the new record The Opposites of Unity with the following insights:
“Rock and…”
Rock is our starting point and we go anywhere from there. Drones, EDM, Prog, Latin, Funk. Even Baroque counterpoint. Rock musicians have traditionally been multitaskers. John Lennon was a poet and an artist. Miles Davis, who made his share of rock music, was a boxer. David Byrne is a photographer, a writer, a sound artist, and is now composing broadway musicals. Thurston Moore is a book collector. Jim O’Rourke does pretty much everything.
So why not embrace the other part of that sentence, the “…”?
With thirty plus years of making music behind me I want to make rock music that embraces the varied experiences of life, that isn’t just designed to accompany or enhance a specific range of emotions. As people get older, don’t their musical horizons expand, don’t their tastes shift? The music industry wants to grab their attention early and hold on to it through nostalgia. I say that musicians can grow and expand as well, that a middle-aged rock band doesn’t have to make the same music they were making when they were twenty-five.
When I compose, I’m looking for a catalyst, for a germ, an idea, that’s going to kick off the song. With this record, mostly it came from synth lines. As often as not that initial impetus will end up pretty buried under the things it inspired. So for example in “eWAFT”, the first thing was a bass synth track that kind of pulses along underneath. Eventually I pitched it to go with the string pad. In “Jabbr Wawky” the original riff was the talking bass line that comes in at 0:33. The riff suggests a tempo, a tonality, a groove and a vibe. It’s like the first four notes of the famous Fifth Symphony. The rest of the movement all derives from that first cell.
Neo-PrAgUe-PhUNK is what I’m calling our “genre”. Neo is the character from the Matrix who’s new. Prague is Europe but it’s also progressive. PhUNK is funk and punk.
“Jabbr Wawky” is my favorite track, merging non-linear form, grooves, low-end, evocative melodies, field recordings and a great rap. It’s like a Bach fugue, there’s a part where five melodies are playing at the same time but you barely notice because it’s so easy to listen to.
Sound sources from “Jabbr Wawky”: an air-horn signalling the start of a swim meet in the ocean near San Francisco; a street musician playing flute in Mexico City; someone whistling; an auctioneer selling off stuff in a foreclosed restaurant in New York City; a ping pong game in the student center where I teach; shooting pool in a Brooklyn bar…
Black Saturn’s rap tied the whole thing together, delineating the sections perfectly. Somehow he intuited the core and made it clearer. It makes the song feel shorter, too, which is a good thing.
“Fawcett” uses recordings of water pipes for the drones. In New York, the pipes can make terrific noises, I guess maybe air gets into them and they start to resonate. I tuned the recordings to make chords.
I used to compose a lot of drones, often using a prepared electric guitar. My second solo release was called “Fidicin Drones”, which I recorded in Berlin, on the Fidicin St., using a Hohner guitar with E-bow, files, saw blades, pieces of rubber and the horse hair from a bass bow. I have a Soundcloud playlist with some of my drone compositions.
The “Freddie the Freeloader” quote in “Fawcett” is intentional.
Greedy Dilettante (Garrett Frierson and Chris Butler) added some crucial input towards the end of the mixing process. The songs are dense and they encouraged Marcelo and I to open things up where we could. Going forward (we’ve got another release planned for “asap”) they’ll be co-producing our next record, helping with a “diNBox” which is a piece of hardware that plays random sounds and considering a physical release (LP?) of The Opposites of Unity.
I have to thank Joshua Fried for introducing us to Marcelo Añez, who mixed the record. I love his approach. He’s Venezuelan and spent a lot of time in Miami working with Gloria Estefan and the Miami Sound Machine. He’s got a Latin Grammy. He’s also experienced in theater, film and live sound, so he’s bringing this huge range of aural knowledge to the table.
I compose using chance operations, like John Cage did. I ask questions: when should this change happen; what order should these notes be in; what synthesizer patch should I use? It’s also a very useful technique for modulating effects; I’d rather set up a Max patch and let it do its thing than play the knobs. It makes the process interactive, you respond to the randomized signal rather than “feeling” it.
When I was 16, I told my piano teacher Seymour Bernstein that I wanted to write music that combined my love of both rock, R&B and classical, but I got sidetracked with a long (and ongoing) detour into sound art.
diNMachine’s The Opposites of Unity is available now from Greedy Dilettante Records / Bandcamp.
Pages: Page 1, Page 2, Page 3, Page 4, Page 5, Page 6, Page 7, Page 8, Page 9, Page 10, Page 11, Page 12, Page 13, Page 14, Page 15, Page 16, Page 17, Page 18, Page 19, Page 20, Page 21, Page 22, Page 23, Page 24, Page 25, Page 26, Page 27, Page 28, Page 29, Page 30, Page 31, Page 32, Page 33, Page 34, Page 35, Page 36, Page 37, Page 38, Page 39, Page 40, Page 41, Page 42, Page 43, Page 44, Page 45, Page 46, Page 47, Page 48, Page 49, Page 50, Page 51, Page 52, Page 53, Page 54, Page 55, Page 56, Page 57, Page 58, Page 59, Page 60, Page 61, Page 62, Page 63, Page 64, Page 65, Page 66, Page 67, Page 68, Page 69, Page 70, Page 71, Page 72, Page 73, Page 74, Page 75, Page 76, Page 77, Page 78, Page 79, Page 80, Page 81, Page 82, Page 83, Page 84, Page 85, Page 86, Page 87, Page 88, Page 89, Page 90, Page 91, Page 92, Page 93, Page 94, Page 95, Page 96, Page 97, Page 98, Page 99, Page 100, Page 101, Page 102, Page 103, Page 104, Page 105, Page 106, Page 107, Page 108, Page 109, Page 110, Page 111, Page 112, Page 113, Page 114, Page 115, Page 116, Page 117, Page 118, Page 119, Page 120, Page 121, Page 122, Page 123, Page 124, Page 125, Page 126, Page 127, Page 128, Page 129, Page 130, Page 131, Page 132, Page 133, Page 134, Page 135, Page 136, Page 137, Page 138, Page 139, Page 140, Page 141, Page 142, Page 143, Page 144, Page 145, Page 146, Page 147, Page 148, Page 149, Page 150, Page 151, Page 152, Page 153, Page 154, Page 155, Page 156, Page 157, Page 158, Page 159, Page 160, Page 161, Page 162, Page 163, Page 164, Page 165, Page 166, Page 167, Page 168, Page 169, Page 170, Page 171, Page 172, Page 173, Page 174, Page 175, Page 176, Page 177, Page 178, Page 179, Page 180, Page 181, Page 182, Page 183, Page 184, Page 185, Page 186, Page 187, Page 188, Page 189, Page 190, Page 191, Page 192, Page 193, Page 194, Page 195, Page 196, Page 197, Page 198, Page 199, Page 200, Page 201, Page 202, Page 203, Page 204, Page 205, Page 206, Page 207, Page 208, Page 209, Page 210, Page 211
