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IKUE MORI

Interviewed by Analog Tara in Manhattan, November 2002.

Ikue Mori is one of the most revered improvisers on the downtown New York experimental music scene, a pioneering artist who has created an expansive, eloquent sonic vocabulary and trademark style using drum machines as improvisational instruments. She now works with the interactive composition software Max/MSP to stretch the musical possibilities of the Alesis drum machine sounds she began working with in the mid-1980s. Below, she talks about her history and methods as an improviser.

Q: When did you first start playing music?

A: When I moved to New York in 1977. I started playing drums, acoustic drums.

Q: And what made you decide to come to New York?

A: I always wanted to be out of Japan, since I was little, and then when I had enough money, me and my friend came just to see New York. It seemed like the most interesting things were happening in New York around that time, so we just came to see, like sightseeing. And we ended up meeting people and asked to be in a band, and it started so quickly. Within six months I went from never being a musician to playing CBGBs! It was really quick, yeah. It was an exciting time.

Q: How did you end up playing the drums specifically?

A: I met Arto Lindsay and other people making 'no wave' music and just started picking up instruments. A lot of young people who were not musicians just started picking up instruments and started having a band and playing. So I wasn't a musician, but I could fit in. And I was with my friend, he was a musician, and so he was asked to be in a band, because he was already playing instruments. So I was involved with people who were kind of always jamming, playing instruments, and I was just playing it too. And then I met people starting a new band and looking for a drummer, and I started playing with them.

Q: What music were you listening to at the time?

A: Pretty much rock, music from New York. It's always been rock music, even before I came to New York. Traditional Japanese music I was never interested in when I was in Japan. I kind of rediscovered it, and appreciated it, when I moved here.

Q: And from there, how did you end up working with drum machines?

A: Five years I was playing in one band, playing drums, and then the band broke up and I was looking for something new. Somebody gave me a small Roland TR-707 drum machine, a really simple drum machine, and I just fell in love with it. I found myself more enjoying programming than practicing. I can't really practice drums anyway, in an apartment. I've been living in this apartment 20 years. So it's kind of convenient to use drum machines. And I was always more interested in making songs, composing things, rather than practicing things. Then I got more sophisticated drum machines that you can do a little more with. Like making the different voices different pitches, making melodies.

Q: More like synthesis.

A: Yeah, so instead of using this kind of pattern and groove and repeating things, you can use the drum machine not just for keeping a beat but making more interesting broken beats and rhythms. And then I moved from using one drum machine to two drum machines. And also around the same time I was involved in improvising music. Before, when I was playing drums with bands, we never improvised. Even though we were jamming, it was never improvising, it was really kind of set things. So about the same time I found the drum machine I was also involved in the improvisation scene, where you really have to react to other people's sound and music. So I began to program more and more in that way with the drum machine. I was still playing drums then; in the course of 10 years, I kind of shifted to less drums and more drum machines, and then no drums and 3 drum machines, effects, and a mixer. I played with that setup for about 10 years before going to the laptop.

Q: And when did you start playing drum machines?

A: 1985 until the mid-'90s, I was pretty much playing only drum machines.

Q: Back then especially - and it's still true now Ñ people really don't see the drum machine as an improvisational instrument; it's used more for preset beats. What inspired you to push its boundaries?

A: I used instruments to react, for improvising, to be more spontaneous. A lot of different fragments, thinking not just of beats, but fragments of sound. So with a bank of sounds, you can preset sounds as numbers, like this number's all this sound, or program the same sound at different pitches, and then the numbers trigger what I want to play or hear, more like an instrument. I was really never interested in using the drum machine as a beatkeeper.

Q: Do you have a favorite drum machine?

A: I've been using Alesis for a long time; the Alesis HR-16 A and B, and the SR-16 Ñ the small one. I have 3 different kinds because they all have different sounds, voices. The second one was more effective sounds, and the first one has more percussive sounds. Somebody tried to have Alesis endorse me, because in interviews I always say, "Alesis, Alesis..." but I think what I do is too broken!

Q: Too unconventional...

A: Yeah.

Q: And more recently you've been working with a laptop. What sort of software setup do you use?

A: It's really continuous from the setup with drum machines. People already playing with laptops showed me that I could do this setup in a laptop. And it was kind of a liberation from schlepping all the equipment. And I realized, it's all sampling anyway, even if it's in the laptop. But I'm using the same drum machine sounds, and using Max and MSP, which allow you to design a synthesizer sampling the same sounds that I was using. I have a key assigned for all the patches so then you can really play like a drum machine, pushing buttons. But with the laptop you can really do even more processing and manipulation. So, for me, it's expanding the vocabulary to more sounds. I used the laptop starting in 2000. But the sounds are still really percussive - it's an extension of using drum machines, you can tell.

Q: Definitely. What excites you most about the music you make? Like are you always seeking new textures in sound?

A: Yeah! Mostly different sounds and rhythms. But I'm playing different projects with different people, and I have to be careful not really repeating too much of the same thing, because it's so recognizable. So I'm always kind of changing a sound, or seeking a new stretch, a new voice.

Q: And when you're performing live, do you think in terms of constructing a narrative as you're playing, or is it more spontaneous?

A: It really depends. When I improvise with people, it's more spontaneous. But when I do solo performances, it's more narrative things, kind of set things.

Q: Are there other things that influence your music? Like other musicians, or visual influences?

A: I'm inspired by a lot of visual things, like I really love film and old movies; I'm always watching them. What I really want to do is making music for film, or maybe for dance, more visual things. A lot of different things inspire me, excite me. Musically, I'm really influenced by film music.

Q: Any type in particular?

A: Different kinds of images. The movies that I really like are film noir, like '50s to '60s, like dark, black and white movies. Up to the '70s I like, but not many new experimental films.

Q: And of your own recordings, do you have a favorite?

A: Well, I always like recent ones more than older ones. Garden, I like, because it's kind of the end of my drum machines era. By 1996, kind of whatever I wanted to do with my drum machines was really established, I thought, with Garden. This new laptop album, Labyrinth, I like, too, because it's moving a little bit in a different direction from that, even though it's using the same sounds, a little more stretched. But Labyrinth was already 2 years ago, so I'm ready to make new solo things. And also, I want to work with image, for my solo performances, rather than just sitting there behind the laptop - that really bothers me, imagining people watching, so boring!

Q: It seems like your music would really lend itself well to having a visual counterpart.

A: Really, I'd like to work with visuals, but nobody asks me! Besides making my own images, to kind of interrupt my music.

Q: Are you gathering images from other sources, or are you filming things yourself?

A: Yeah, filming, just stills. Right now I don't have a moving image, just a lot of stills. I'm going to go into Jitter, the visual program from MSP, so I can use my patch to control these images, manipulate image with my sound; it's really kind of convenient, so I think I'm going to learn more about it. That's my next thing, for the next year. I'm excited.

Q: Whom are you collaborating with these days?

A: A lot of different things. Mephista - this is kind of a mixed improvisational group with Susie Ibarra on drums and Sylvie Courvoisier, piano - like acoustic, electronics - they're very incredible musicians and improvisers, it's really fun to play. We have a CD out. Another project is playing with Zeena Parkins, I'm making a recording with her now. And I'm thinking of making a recording with Jim O'Rourke and Tim Berne, a trio. I'm playing with a jazz group, as a sideman, with Dave Douglas's septet. So it's different things. Mostly jazz projects!

Q: IÕve been interviewing women for this Pinknoises project, and it still seems relatively rare to find women on the scene, and you're certainly one of the pioneers. Do you see yourself that way, or did you when you were first involved with making this kind of music?

A: Yeah, and I still do; it's really only a few women. Electronic music is not even the worst ratio, you know - in improvising music, and jazz too, women are always kind of the minority. And sometimes I feel like I don't get taken as seriously as a man. But New York is great, though. New York has probably the most women musicians I can find, like at Tonic. So many women to work with. And they come here, too, because they find it's really comfortable for women working. Yeah, I think it's great for women. Maybe in Tokyo it's like that too, but not everywhere.

Q: Have you performed a lot around the world?

A: Yeah. Well, mostly in Europe, but going to a lot of festivals, I see a lot of women from New York! Some in jazz and improvising music, but women are really a minority.

Q: Why do you think that is?

A: I don't know... What do you think?

Q: It's not easy to pin it down. Sometimes I think it relates to how women in this culture, at least, are not encouraged to interact with certain kinds of technology the same way that guys are.

A: Yeah, electronics especially. I mean, I'm still not a technical person at all. My interest in making songs is not in technical terms at all. Working with women, it's easier just to describe my emotional side. It's more easy to connect, in a way, because you don't have to really explain in technical terms. But I think men are more into using different expressions to communicate. Do you find that?

Q: Definitely.

A: I can be more personal with a woman. It's easier to express, and music can be more personal.

Q: Do you think that comes across at all in the sound, in the musical expression itself, or is it just in terms of how women talk about how they use equipment?

A: Yeah, how they react with machines, it's kind of different. I mean, Zeena, or some of the women I work with, talk about machines like it's something else.

Q: How did you learn about playing music working with your laptop? Did you spend hours by yourself?

A: Yeah, pretty much.

Q: It seems like it's that way for most people. It has to be, I guess, it's like learning an instrument of any kind.

A: But it's not really a traditional instrument, you have to find a way... and there's so many possibilities! Ten years ago, it wasn't possible to think just a laptop could do this. A lot has to do with the speed and calculations.

Q: And with the speed of laptops now, you must notice it particularly having come from playing drums - I mean, the way you react to that kind of instrument in an improvisational setting compared to how you react to a machine, it must be totally different.

A: Yeah, but see, I've been playing a drum machine for about 10 years. And that's how I react, with pushing a button, and with the numbers. You know, how you find the sound by number; for me, that came from the drum machine.

Q: Like saving patches to certain locations, and then in a live setting you recall them from where they are?

A: Yeah. And then with all this processing, processing is all numbers, with calculations. And then repeat this group, and patterns, that kind of element with music.

Q: Do you see yourself working with different kinds of drum machines in the future, or are you happy with what you have?

A: No, I think the drum machine is pretty done for me.

Q: Maxed out...

A: Yeah, maxed out. I mean, Alesis is enough for me. And now, it's kind of using that but more developing a different sound out of it. All those elements, now it's not just a beat from a drum machine, now you can make a beat from a scratch and then you can really, really make granular sounds. Before, I was using factory sounds, even though I was breaking the rhythms, but using the sounds of the drum machines.

Q: Yeah, there's so many possibilities now, it's sometimes hard to...

A: ...focus! Yeah, because the machine can do so much, you really have to find your own sound, like your "identity" kind of sound.

Q: Yeah, so many shows I've seen with laptops, it's very hard to distinguish one person's sound from the next.

A: That's one of my problems, too, listening. But sometimes a person will have their own sound and voice.

Q: It's true, there are exceptions.

A: And I can't stand watching people performing with laptops!

Q: I guess it's like this with any instrument, though; like there's so many piano players that sound the same.

A: Yeah, of course! But there are exceptional people who have their own sound, with guitar or drums also. You can recognize it.

Q: Have you had any gigs you'd consider your favorite, or most astounding in terms of the atmosphere, the audience, or what you created in a site-specific situation?

A: I don't know... sometimes it's really hard to tell because sound on the stage and sound outside are so different. And you feel like it's a really great concert, and really grooving, and when you listen to the tape, it sounds like it wasn't my best. I really can't single out; some shows are great and some are a failure.

More info at www.ikuemori.com; check for upcoming events at Tonic.