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NIC ENDO

Interviewed by Analog Tara in Manhattan, June 2001.

Nic Endo, noisemaker for Atari Teenage Riot, unleashes a forceful mix of classical, free jazz, punk, and industrial influences on her new solo album, Cold Metal Perfection (Geist). Based in Berlin, Nic is active with various Digital Hardcore Recordings projects and has recently organized DHR Fatal, a movement to raise public awareness and respect for the work of women electronic music producers. Following is what Nic had to say about her medley of musical influences, her production methods, and her attempts to harness a collective Riotgrrl-style energy within the field of electronic music.

Q: What is your background in music?

A: I'd never been in a band before ATR. My musical background is classical music; I started to play the piano at age 6 and did that for 10 years quite extensively. My parents wanted me to be a famous piano player, but I quit when I was 16. I also was a ballet dancer, so I grew up with classical music, and my parents were listening to it as well.

Q: I was noticing on the album that there's so much keyboard playing and string arrangements.

A: Yeah, that basically comes from my background. But doing electronic music, the stuff I'm doing now, developed from the years since I joined the band. When I was playing piano, later on I got interested in free jazz composition, but the problem was, I couldn't find any teachers who were capable of teaching that, so I kind of did it myself, and quit all these lessons.

Q: Were there artists who particularly influenced you at that time?

A: Oh God, yeah, I could mention a lot of artists, but just a couple: I love Sun Ra, for example; Miles Davis I respect a lot; Freddie Hubbard, Herbie Hancock, James White, who is actually from New York, I think; he's a saxophonist. He really inspired me on a couple of tracks on the new album. Basically he was combining elements of free jazz, funk, and punk as well - and he was singing to it. He was a real punk actually, because he was really confrontational with the audience and he really created a new style. But then I have other influences as well, like industrial bands. I listened a lot to Ministry and Skinny Puppy - when I was 16, 17 years old that was really cool. I like jazz singers: Billie Holiday, Aretha Franklin. You can't really hear it in the music, but it's the emotional side of it that really inspired me, the soul of it.

Q: I read in an interview that you prefer channeling your emotions through machines as opposed to vocals. How did that come about, and would you still say that's true now?

A: That's true. It's a personality thing; I consider myself a really quiet person, and when I joined the band, I got introduced to these instruments and I was playing around with it, decided to experiment with it, and I saw that these machines were like instruments for me to vocalize myself rather than using my voice.

Q: How did you happen to join the band?

A: I moved to Berlin in '96 and basically just hung out at the DHR parties; Atari was playing, and other bands, and there were a couple of DJs. I knew one of these DJs who was hanging out with Atari a lot, and I moved into his flat, and that's how I got to know Alec [Empire] and Hanin [Elias] and the others. Then I guess it was one year later, in '97, that Atari wanted to go on a US tour with Beck and The Cardigans. Hanin couldn't come on tour, so Alec asked me. In the beginning, he wanted me to just arrange tracks like they were on the record, and I did that for this tour, but I became bored with it really soon, because it was not really a challenge for me. So I started to add layers of noise to it, or start to experiment during shows with keyboards and everything on top of these songs, and basically the band was totally into this and wanted me to continue. That laid the ground for the 60 Second Wipe Out album, where I was doing lots of noise passages, and deconstructing the programmed songs with noise. It worked out very well.

Q: Where do you get the samples from for the noisemaking?

A: For example, with the new album, I do recording sessions. I play keyboards, I sample that, and then I manipulate the samples. It's the most time-consuming, but the most important part for me to manipulate samples. And it's always played by myself; I record everything on DAT or CD, so when I'm starting to work on a song, I just sample off my sample bank; I have it all on CD or DAT.

Q: And what equipment do you use?

A: It really depends on the project. The first record I did, White Heat, is a pure noise record, so I did that with just lo-fi equipment. I wanted to see how far I could go with just one little pocket sampler and 2 tape decks and the Roland SH-101. Then the other record, She Satellites, it's out on Geist too, I did that with a 4-track recorder, a Moog Prodigy, a Nord Lead, a Nord Lead 2, the Roland Space Echo. It's really simple; I really wanted to have an old sound, like from '50s movies. And for the new record, I used a much bigger setup: an Atari 1024ST, and the Notator program for sequencing; I used 2 samplers: the Yamaha A3000 and A5000. I really like the A3000 - the sound is more compact, it really has the pressure. The A5000, in my experience, sounds really synthetic; it doesn't have the power behind it, so that's why I just exchanged it for an Akai S1100, because that's better to use for beats. Then I used the Moog Ring Modulator, the Space Echo once again, I really like that, the analog delay machine... and also a couple of synthesizers; again the Nord Lead, I love that; the Moog Prodigy, the SH-101.

Q: On the album, it doesn't sound sequenced, it evolves in kind of a "live" way, sort of improvised. Is that how you recorded it, as live passages that are sequenced later?

A: That's true. Sometimes I arrange everything in the computer and it's there; sometimes I record a rough mix and play something on top of it with the keyboard if I feel there's something missing. It really depends; I decide very spontaneously.

Q: And in a live setting, do you use a sequencer, or is it more improvisational?

A: It's more improvisational, totally, yeah.

Q: What equipment do you travel with?

A: I try to keep it very simple, because with Atari, for example, if you have a bigger setup, you always have a problem at airports, and sometimes they wouldn't let us go through with it. I want to avoid that, so I try to pack not so much, so I can take it with me and not have any problems. Another thing is, I can't really afford to bring my setup that I use at home, because a lot of times, things get damaged and destroyed, and I can't afford to get that repaired again and again. So I try to keep it very simple. I don't bring, for example, my A3000; I'd rather bring maybe 5 little pocket samplers to cover the memory of a bigger sampler.

Q: What about working alone versus collaborating? Do you have a preference?

A: Actually, I'm used to working alone a lot. I really like that; it's really important to me for my solo recordings. But for a change I like to work with other people as well. At the moment I do remixes for a New York hardcore band; and I'm doing a remix for a hip hop vocalist from L.A., Mystic; so I try to do very different stuff. I really like that, working with hip hop artists as well as hardcore bands, because it's more of a challenge for me, and I also like the idea of mixing different styles, people from different backgrounds coming together. I think it's the only way to evolve or develop new directions in music. If I would just collaborate with Merzbow, the noise artist from Japan, it's like, what else would come out? It might be cool, but I'm really looking for new kinds of directions. I'll also be working with Hanin Elias, the singer from Atari, for a couple of tracks. I'm pretty open for collaborations or doing remixes. But I love to work on my own; it's more simple, and I need my space and to be alone to get something out like Cold Metal Perfection, because it's really intimate and personal.

Q: Do you have a studio setup where you live?

A: Yeah, it's in my living room. It's like a hybrid studio, it's really small. I can actually sit on the floor and everything's around me; it's much more comfortable. The TV's always on when I'm recording. I can always put a couple of videos in there, put it on mute... I just look at the screen, I need that.

Q: A distraction while you're working...

A: It depends on the movie. If there's no sound and you do music, it's like you're doing a soundtrack.

Q: Tell me about DHR Fatal. I read the page on your [DHR] website where you talk about your experiences being a woman in a field dominated by men...

A: First of all, DHR Fatal is not a label. A lot of people think that it's a label, but it's actually not. It's a starting movement... DHR Fatal speaks out against oppression and exploitation of women in the music scene, which is dominated by men. It came out of experiences from when Hanin was joining the band, and when I joined, and we found we had similar experiences, like not really being taken seriously, our ideas, our actions, what we were doing... It's really upsetting. So Hanin and me, we created DHR Fatal as a space for girls so they can work independently from men if they want to. I think it's cool to have a space for girls to get involved, to get motivated, where we can push each other to do stuff, where we can exchange information and support. I think that's really important, because there are far too few women involved, and you might feel very alone amongst men. DHR Fatal is that space; we represent it with that logo on the site. So it will be an association of female artists that share similar feminist ideas - that might be all different - but in the end, we're all sticking together.

Q: Do you think there's more potential for change, for women to be recognized as instrumentalists, in electronic genres versus more longstanding music genres like rock or jazz?

A: I think with electronic music, it's just starting, but I have a good feeling about it. It feels quite strange for me... There've been so many women involved with electronic music way before, years before, and still they don't really get the recognition they deserve. And I think, for example with jazz music, lots of jazz singers now get the respect, but they're dead. And there were lots of female jazz bands in the 1920s or something, but they're pretty unknown. In rock music, for example with Riotgrrl, that was - that is - a really good thing. It's not really dead; people think Riotgrrl is over, but it's not really the music genre itself, it's the information they gave, and the spirit that continues to make an impact. It actually helped me a lot, even if I do electronic music, and not rock music, it doesn't matter. It totally helped me and encouraged me to do stuff myself. So I think that is really important. I really hope that something like Riotgrrl is going to happen in electronic music too. So with DHR Fatal, we see it as a starting movement, this is our basic aim. Of course, it needs more women. At the moment, it's just Hanin Elias, it's me, and Lolita Storm, another band from the U.K. But we have a lot of fans who are female, young girls who are totally into this idea and feel really encouraged, motivated to start their own bands. I think that's what I call successful; I think it really makes sense.

More info at www.digitalhardcore.com.