(BKr) Burst is our pet bot
(AMM) Burst *is* very close....
(KAA) you love an inanimate object?
(AMM) it keeps us amused and out of trouble
(AMM) burst, botsnack
(BURST) :)

<BKr> Andrew, you have worked with a multitude of people. One of your best friends (as you have said) is Ben Ponton from Zoviet-France. You grew up together?

<AMM> I know him from when I was 13 or 14. We didn't go to the same school, but we know each other through a youth theatre. We used to mess around with an old reel-to-reel tape recorder, and electric guitar, saxophones, toy instruments, etc. Some of it was really good, actually. I still have some cassettees, and we used to tape the interesting John Peel sessions.
So we messed around. And then we had a Punk group, which was mad. Then I started working at Virgin Records and got Ben a job there, basically. So we've known each other for a long time, yes, but I was never in Zoviet France. He decided he wanted to do some, erm, experimenting with his life, and I didn't fit in with that, so we drifted apart after that a bit. We had CHARRM records together, and I used to help with making the record sleeves and so on, which were all made by hand at that point. Very nice man.

<BKr> Maybe you should explain who John Peel is, just for the record (and the unfortunate Americans)?

<AMM> John Peel was an anarchic DJ who had a very eclectic and odd radio show on Radio one in the UK. He would invite people he liked into the studio to do "sessions", and these are some unique recordings. He had The Fall on something like 20 times =)

<BKr> Another person you have done quite a bit with is Adi Newton from Clock DVA. How did the two of you meet originally and what was the outcome of your collaborative work?

<AMM> I knew Adi slightly from hanging around Sheffield. The Anti Group were playing in Stuttgart, and I was doing the live sound for Z'ev, who was on the same bill. They had sound problems, so I helped them out. Then I got invited to go down there a few times (to Sheffield), and one thing led to another. I basically changed Clock DVA's daipers for them on tour, and the tour stories could fill ANOTHER book. I did some recording and remixing for Adi. Just a natural outgrowth. He gradually lost people who would work with him, generally due tio financial problems, let's say. I eventaully became part of the live group for the last ever tour.
After that, Adi basically disappeared. Adi appears to have had some mental breakdown, and then announced recently a comeback and re-releases. But the other previous members have put a stop to that, I understand.

<BKr> You are credited for doing the sound of Clock DVA's live album Transitional Voices. Did you play on that tour or "just" tweak buttons?

<AMM> I mixed the whole thing. No, I wasn't on stage.

<BKr> You had a project together called Psychophysicists. What was that all about?

<AMM> Well, we planned it, and some of the work we had been doing ended up there, along with some basic Hafler backing tracks that I used live and some that I had given him to "rework". So Adi, as usual, needed the money, and sold the unfinished project to Soleilmoon without even telling me.

<BKr> Right now we are listening to Wire. I recall you have known these guys for quite a while. You remixed a 12 inch single for them, what is the story with you lot?

<AMM> I know them through Jon Wozencroft, of Touch and Neville Brody fame, who basically has been obsessed by them ever since I've known him, and made a point of meeting and getting to know them ages ago.They had a long track called "The First Letter" which wasn't on the album of the same name, and which they planned to play once at a gig in Vienna, then forget it forever (Wire are like that). So I decided to ask if I could remix it, in order to release it. Incidentally, I played on the same night in Vienna, even though I was in Amsterdam (I'm like that =) ..

<BKr> Haha, how did you do that?

Transfer interrupted!

<BKr> The inevitable thing would be to ask you about Throbbing Gristle of course. How did you know them, did you ever do anything together, and what were your "involvements" with them?

<AMM> I started writing to Gen (Genesis P-Orridge) many moons ago, and use to go and see him if I was in London. He liked to have me visit, I think, because I was a) from the North of England, and b) I wasn't really part of his "scene". I thought they were extraordinary. What they did makes a large part of what I do today possible, and many other's, too.
Anyway, the "working together" really happened because of the Dreamachine. The artist Brion Gysin (friend of W S Burroughs) invented a device called a Dreamachine, which is a revolving cylinder about 3 feet tall with patterns cut out of it. Inside, a lightbulb is supended. As the cylinder revolves, the light is interrupted. You look at it, close up, with closed eyes, and basically have visions. The longer you look at it, the deeper you go into it, and the more it surrounds you. What is happening is that the light patterns are so calculated to stimulate the alpha waves in the brain. One sees all sort of things. In fact, in time, all sorts of the archetypal images and symbols come past, along with the designs used in Arabic carpets and the patterns in mosques. But as with these thinmgs, it's pretty difficult to describe properly.
Anyway, this thing had been written about since the late fifties, and no-one had ever seen one. Gysin had been trying to get this manufactured for about 25 years, with no success. So I decided to try to do it. It took 4 years almost constant work, but I did it. The ultimate drugless drug experience available to all.
The video was archive material of Gen's, and some stuff I shot myself, for a pirate TV station in Amsterdam. So, along with a book, a CD or an LP, you got the Dreamachine in a kit, released by KK records in Belgium. THEY SAID IT COULDN'T BE DONE!
So Gen and I did some recordings of breathing exercises recorded through the dreamachine, and then I treated it so that the sound frequencies that stimulate the alpha waves were enhanced. And that was that.

<BKr> You joined Psychic TV for a while. Can you elaborate a bit on that?

<AMM> Later, I became part of the live PTV set up, and I did a special project for an Italian book about PTV using Gen's voice, which I processed heavily. Basically I did tape playing and general mayhem =)

<BKr> Were you in on any PTV albums or only the live set?

<AMM> There's some live cd's where you can clearly here Haflerisation taking place. Never on the records, unless you count being at some of the recordings (very few). Frankly, I would never have been interested, but I did do some research work with him, and for him, and some "tactical" stuff, to do with texts and stuff.

<BKr> Brian Lustmord. You told me once he is your "lost twin brother". Tell us about you and he, and have you ever done anything together?

<AMM> The lost twin bit is that he used to look like me. I've never actually met him, but we used to call each other because of Clock DVA and stuff. We wrote a bit, too, swapping Atari computer programmes, and such like. I always found him an affable guy. We've never done anything together. The plan was that he should be involved in Psychophysicists, but Adi sold it before we got a chance. By that time, Brian had moved to LA.

<BKr> You have worked with White Stains for a brief period too. What came out of that?

<AMM> Heheheheheh. Well, I had know Carl Abrahamsson, as he organised the gig in Stockholm where I played nude, and he kept in touch. He had some ideas about Enochian calls, and I had a track that was somewhat related to that area. So I had him do some calls over the top of that, which go released on "Dreams Shall Flesh", where I appear next to Anton La Vey, playing "the satantic hambo" =)
He's kept in touch ever since. He published the book of my texts called "Plucking Feathers From A Bald Frog".

<BKr> You did an album with Reptilicus called "O", how did that happen?

<AMM> Reptilicus was just that I was living in Iceland, knew the chaps, and we had a sort of shared equipment situation. They had a bunch of basic stuff, and we went into the studio and I mixed, produced and contributed to the thing. Heavily, I might say. You can tell the tracks where I won, and where I lost =)

<BKr> What is / was your involvement with Hilmar Örn Hilmarsson?

<AMM> I knew Hilmar from just living in Iceland. Hilmar was in the studio one night, SUPPOSEDLY working on the Frostbite album. But as usual, he wasn't. So I came in, and Hilmar was under two women, totally drunk. He would periodically come up for air, and then press "rewind" and then "play" while I remixed. The B side we did more or less together. It was #1 in some UK dance chart for a while. I wish I'd done more with him, but he's ternminally lazy.

<BKr> Any other collaborations you want to talk about?

<AMM> Z'ev - I met him when I first played in Amsterdam and stayed at his place. We talked for hours and hours about all sorts of abtruse things. When I moved there, we started working together. I produced and mixed for him. We had another group, with his girlfriend Dr. Dorothea Franck, called Mother Tongue (one album on Touch). I used to do his live sound, too. There are two or three records that we did together.
I regard him as one of the true originals. He has never gotten the recognition he deserves, but that's partly his fault. Without him, no Einsturzende Neubauten, no Test Dept...

<BKr> Who would you like to work with in the future?

<AMM> Myself =)

<BKr> What Hafler Trio album and what collaboration are you most proud of?

<AMM> Most proud of? Either the trilogy, or the box set, or the sexual trilogy. Probably the sexual trilogy, as I think it's changed more people's lives for the better, out of all of them

<BKr> If you should sit down and listen to something you did yourself, what would it be?

<AMM> Oh, I can't answer that - I simply don't have enough distance from the records yet. It takes many years. IF I hear any of them, like when I had to re-master them, I'm always struck by how much is in them, and I'm proud of that, I suppose. You can go back to them again and again. They aren't two dimensional, to my mind. This is purely subjective, you understand.

<BKr> We shall get further into that in the last bit

<AMM> No more collaboration stuff?

<BKr> Well, unless you have something to add

<AMM> I dunno. they're all interesting people =)

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