If recording artists wrote their own introductions, it might go like this: "Hello! I'm Riz Maslen, but you'd more likely know me by my nom de guerre of Neotropic or Small Fish with Spine. I've recorded for NTone and all sorts of other labels."
Soundproof: How often in your interviews do people ask you annoying questions about what it’s like being female in the electronic music world? Is that a common occurrence?
Riz: Every interview I get asked that. I’m not tired of it. Obviously it’s an important question, because there are very few women who make this kind of music. If I had the answer for why there is so few…I mean, I don’t really know why. I guess I’ve always been very much drawn to music anyway. I started off in many guitar bands and I felt that I really wasn’t going anywhere. I decided that there’s a lot of politics when you’re working with other members of a band. I decided that it’s time to do something for myself. The only thing that was really open to me was obviously to find something that didn’t need somebody to be a great player. I can play keyboards and I can play guitar, but really badly. It wasn’t really a good idea for me to go off and do something acoustic at that time. The other alternative was that I was lucky enough to work with some other producers who kind of inspired me and set me off in the right track.
Soundproof: Do you do most of your actual production?
Riz: I do everything. Everything is written in my house. I have a studio at home. Obviously when it comes to mastering, I take it somewhere else when it concerns the final cut, so it gets pressed up and stuff. Now I’m working more with live musicians, so we do a lot of pre-production at my house and then we go to another studio to record them. I’ll take everything that we’ve recorded back. I kind of take the best moments and then kind of restructure them with the intention of making them as organic as possible. I don’t like to put musicians under the pressure of like, "Oh, you’ve got to play this." It’s much more of a freeform thing. I’d rather they have their own interpretation on the music and then I take the best moments of what they’ve done and do like two or three passes and that’s enough to move on.
Soundproof: Do small fish really have spines?
Riz: Yeah, definitely. When I was growing up, we had these little fresh water fish, called sticklebacks. They’re very small, but they’re very quick. You try and catch them and they’ll always get away. We used to catch them in jars when we were kids. They’re quite good. They can kind of get out. So, I always liked the fact that I was always a small fish in a big pond. That’s kind of where the name came about. It kind of relates to when I was a kid and how these little fish…even though they’re very small…always managed to get away with things. I kind of think that’s where I am.
Soundproof: Where did the Neotropic name come from?
Riz: I think at the time I was watching some sci-fi movie and the word "neo" came up. Tropic obviously means, "New world, new place," and the time it seemed appropriate. I write things down a lot in books. If I get kind of stuck for any inspiration, I’ll refer to my little book. They’ll be words, whether it’s just a sentence or one word, that I’ve seen or heard. That kind of inspires me.
Soundproof: What was your favorite alien movie?
Riz: The first one. It has to be the first one.
Soundproof: Babylon 5 or Star Trek?
Riz: Old Star Trek for me personally. Then it would have to be Babylon 5. I’m much more of a fan of William Shatner and Leonard Nimoy, because it was so corny. Growing up, we had Doctor Who and stuff.
Soundproof: Do you know why Orbital is so big on Doctor Who?
Riz: Orbital? I didn’t even know they were into Doctor Who.
Soundproof: Do you know why they wear those goggles? I don’t know why we’re talking about Orbital.
Riz: I think it helps them see. It’s quite dark when they’re on stage. I think it’s actually quite an ingenious invention. I’m always there with the torch. I think it’s great that they can do that.
Soundproof: We should probably talk about you again. What are some upcoming projects that you’re working on?
Riz: Well today, we’re going to be playing lots of new material. It’s going to be showcase for all the new material. Right now it’s kind of in the balance whether I’m going to release it through Ninjatune. It’s not a departure from what I’ve been doing, but it’s kind of reverting back to where I originally came from. It’s a lot more kind of vocal based. I haven’t played the flute for fifteen years and I’ve picked it up again. There’s a lot of that that I’m playing. A lot of the backing tracks have been made by real drummers and real guitarists. I’m working with a lot more interesting people. I’ve been working with Nick McCabe from the Verve. I’ve been working with him over a few months doing stuff. I’m trying to broaden my horizons.
Soundproof: What do you think of the rebirth of vocalists in this genre of music. It seems like in the past two years there’s been a resurgence.
Riz: I think a lot of it’s like from that school. I think a lot of us come from that indie background anyway. I think for me anyway, it was where I started. I was very inspired in the mid to late Eighties by people like 4AD and obviously, the Cocteau Twins and This Mortal Coil, that kind of mixture of vocals and electronica. I think also, it’s a natural progression. You’ve got to move forward. For some of us it may mean taking a different tack on things. I’ve always been a lover of voices. Unfortunately at the time of writing the first album, I didn’t have the resources or the equipment to record things like that. So obviously, a lot of that was created by myself. Now I have, over the years, met a lot of interesting people and I want to work with them. I really enjoy working with other people. When you’re working alone a lot of the time, you get stuck in your own bubble. There is no outside influence. You become very isolated from the outside world. Suddenly, I’ve encountered lots of interesting musicians and it’s really nice to kind of have someone else come in and reinterpret what you’ve already written. Then you piece that together and reprogram things to see what that musician’s done. I just want to broaden my horizons. To move forward, you can’t stand still. Whichever way you may go…you can go to the other extreme and be totally avante-garde. Right now, this is the way I’m going, whether it lasts for a year or whatever. It might not. That’s the beauty of it. You never know what’s going to be around the corner.
Soundproof: What sort of thought goes into your album packaging, design and layout?
Riz: I have to take the whole thing into consideration because it’s a reflection of who I am. I’m not one of these people who just hand it over and expect an artist to do it. I’m not a graphic artist, but I do have a vision. I travel a lot and I’m inspired by each environment that I encounter. A lot of that does come into play. We use a lot of that in our show visuals. I‘ve just started making movies and stuff now on Super 8. It’s very low-fi, but I’ve always been very influenced by film and sound. I think it’s part and parcel of the environment that I most enjoy being in. I like to participate in every aspect of the music. Because at the end of the day, it’s kind of putting myself out there. For me as a record buyer…if I’m going into a shop and I look through the racks…whether I like the music or not…the first thing that catches your eye is the cover. It might be from a completely different genre that you’re not into; but I’ll pick it up and go, "Wow, that’s amazing." That’ll inspire me to go put the record on or find somewhere I can play it.
Soundproof: I hate to say this, but I thought the strawberry in the gears was cute. I found it kind of weirdly clever. I don’t know how much of that was your idea.
Riz: Well the thing is for Strawberry Alarm Clock, what I did was…I live very close to kind of a bric-a-brac. Every Sunday there’s a market, and they sell bits of clocks. So for me that inspired me. So I said, "Oh well, I’ll get somebody to photograph it."
Soundproof: Which came first: the title or the art?
Riz: The title. There’s humor in my music and it’s not all about being serious. I think the whole appeal of sticking the strawberry in the middle was kind of a way of taking it from being too serious. I’m not really a serious person.
Soundproof: Did you like the "Young Ones" growing up?
Riz: Of course. I’m a big fan of Rik Mayall and Adrian Edmonson. I like comedy and I think for many years this music has been very serious. I think a lot of us aren’t really like that. You imagine Autechre being really serious guys, but they’re not. You take them out of that environment and you take them down to the pub and it’s completely different. I think a lot of that seriousness comes from when you’ve been sitting at a computer all day long. You’re just sitting there for hours on end. Take yourself out of that environment and we’re completely different people. I think ultimately I do have kind of a dark side to me, but that only really happens when I’m making music.
Soundproof: You were doing some collaboration with Rob Gallagher from Galliano. What type of stuff are you working on?
Riz: I’ve known Rob for many years and he’s a really good friend of mine. He’s a real great writer. Right now, Galliano aren’t together anymore, and he’s trying to sort himself out. We’ve written a lot of stuff together, but nothing’s kind of come of it right now. We’re just kind of looking towards, that maybe he’ll be looking to release it. We’ll see, because he’s looking for a solo project. It’s really nice when you can start working with people that you’ve always been inspired by. Rob’s really inspired me as a writer. He’s one of those people where you just give him a piece of music and within two hours he’s written something. I like that. I work very fast and so does he. If things come of it, then great. I haven’t seen him for a while and I know he is sort of trying to work on releasing solo stuff. I know that he’s been using a lot of the stuff that we’ve written together in live shows. He’s sort of going around with Gilles Peterson at the moment, DJing and stuff. He’s very influenced by poets and stuff. I really like poetry…not that I know much about it. I think it’s a really good way to put your point across without having to be a singer.
Soundproof: Since you’ve had vocals in your Small Fish With Spine work and in your last Neotropic album, do you think that you might work on anything that would be primarily vocal or poetry-based?
Riz: I’ve been lucky enough to discover a writer. He’s never done anything on a mike. But I really am inspired by the way he writes. He writes from his own experiences, and I really like that kind of thing. He writes about everyday things that affect us all. He puts it on paper in a really neat way, without it being pretentious. I think a lot of poetry can be very pretentious. It is in a field on it’s own. I think, during the Sixties there was a lot of that going on and that kind of all went back underground. Know it’s kind of become a fashionable thing with a lot of American artists doing that. On the British side of things, it is beginning to kind of get a bit more apparent. I’m looking at maybe doing some more stuff with him too.
Soundproof: I’ve heard that you’re a big hip-hop fan. How do you feel about that scene and some of the artists and records that are out now?
Riz: I’ve got a friend who runs a label in Sydney, Australia called Mother Tongues. It’s basically Australian female rap artists. She’s just getting it off the ground. At the end of last year, I was helping them produce stuff for their artists. It’s all female-based. There’s no men involved. All the writing and production is female-based. The unfortunate thing about Australia is, it’s so far away. But there’s a wealth of talent there, a real wealth of talent. For me it’s refreshing for me to work with people who don’t sound American. They do rap with Australian accents. But, they’re talking about…obviously they’re an indigenous race…the Aborigines. A lot of these women are from those kinds of backgrounds, which for many years have been ridiculed and they’ve had a real hard time. Now, they’re beginning to come out and start talking about the politics that are involved. For me, that’s really important. They’re able to stand up for themselves. Ultimately, we’re trying to get a grant from the Arts Council in Australia, so they can fly me over and I can co-produce some albums with them. That would be great if I can do that. I’m just sort of on the periphery right now.
Soundproof: Do you have any last statements?
Riz: Not yet.
...back to features
