Mark de Clive-Lowe: Ask Me Anything

Selaws said:
I might not be able to attend the AMA unfortunately, but I do have a question so I will post it now.

Firstly Mark I just want to congratulate you on a fantastic set of albums. I have been aware of your music, mainly from your London break beat work and collaborations, and there's a clear and consistent thread of hybridity to the sounds you produce. Heritage still manages to mix genres and different types of music but seems like a much more personal project.. Did you find your approach to making Heritage was different to some of your other work? If so, did you find yourself learning something of, perhaps, your Japanese heritage that you weren't previously aware of? Thanks
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thank you! yes, heritage is by far my most personal project i've done and has been a gateway into a lot of understanding of myself and my own roots. my approach was a little different in that it's predominantly a live record - i'd done that with the 'live at the blue whale' EP, which in some ways was a tester for this way of working. all three nights of the live show were recorded multitrack, we played the same repertoire each night; then did one day in studio just with the 2 brandons - bass and drums - playing all the same repertoire again. after that i edited between the live and studio recordings - sometimes putting the horns from the live on top of the studio rhythm section, or maybe the melody statement would be from the studio, then the solos i'd flip to the live recording. i tried to make it all as seamless and invisible as possible in that respect - even when you hear the audience now and then, that could easily be a moment from the studio or a combination of both. in the past most of my releases have been studio productions largely focusing on crafting moments rather than capturing them.

i learnt so much through this process - there's a story behind every single piece on both albums, and i knew those stories already from my own personal experiences - but through this i understood a deeper meaning within each story and found myself understanding my own roots, ancestry and spiritual homeland (japan) a lot more. the albums are about what japan means to me and what being japanese means and feels like to me. i'm more connected to all that now more than ever and that connectivity is being constantly reflected in my life with new understandings, groundings and opportunities directly coming out of this project
 
Mark, thanks so much for joining us, hope breakfast was good.

Heritage and Heritage II are clearly intrinsically linked. What made you decide to release these as separate entities rather than a traditional double album? As a vinyl nerd, I love the decision btw because the artwork on both is gorgeous and the 12” format shows them to their full potential.

Thanks for the great music.
 
Chucktshoes said:
Hello there @Mark de Clive-Lowe, I don’t have a question as I am just now starting to dig into your work and don’t know enough about it to ask a question that isn’t inane. However, I would like to thank you sir for join us here at N&G. Looking forward to reading this AMA.
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Well if you're not going to ask something inane, then I am.

Mark, if you could have one superhero power, what would it be and why? :D
 
Mark de Clive-Lowe said:
thank you! yes, heritage is by far my most personal project i've done and has been a gateway into a lot of understanding of myself and my own roots. my approach was a little different in that it's predominantly a live record - i'd done that with the 'live at the blue whale' EP, which in some ways was a tester for this way of working. all three nights of the live show were recorded multitrack, we played the same repertoire each night; then did one day in studio just with the 2 brandons - bass and drums - playing all the same repertoire again. after that i edited between the live and studio recordings - sometimes putting the horns from the live on top of the studio rhythm section, or maybe the melody statement would be from the studio, then the solos i'd flip to the live recording. i tried to make it all as seamless and invisible as possible in that respect - even when you hear the audience now and then, that could easily be a moment from the studio or a combination of both. in the past most of my releases have been studio productions largely focusing on crafting moments rather than capturing them.

i learnt so much through this process - there's a story behind every single piece on both albums, and i knew those stories already from my own personal experiences - but through this i understood a deeper meaning within each story and found myself understanding my own roots, ancestry and spiritual homeland (japan) a lot more. the albums are about what japan means to me and what being japanese means and feels like to me. i'm more connected to all that now more than ever and that connectivity is being constantly reflected in my life with new understandings, groundings and opportunities directly coming out of this project
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Thanks for your detailed reply. Im spinning Heritage ii as I read your reply and it's incredible how flawless everything seems, especially considering its predominantly recorded live.

Cheers again for doing this and have a great day!
 
uvwxVinyl said:
May or may not be able to make it at that exact time based on my family responsibilities but I have a couple of basic questions - in case they aren't asked by someone else.

Mark, thanks for doing an AMA with us. I only came to know about you through this community. I think Heritage I & II are fantastic and that Ronin Arkestra is one of my favourite releases from this year.

Are you aware /following the modern Jazz revival movement in the U.K. & in London in particular? I see lots of similarities with your recent projects, especially the blending of hip hop & electronica with jazz. If so, what are some of your favourite artists from this scene and could we expect collaborations in the future?

I was also wondering, if no one has asked you this, what are your (let's say top 3) all time favourite albums?

Cheers!
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cheers! glad you're enjoying the sounds. the ronin arkestra project is a special one too - and the album just got mastered ;)

yes, i'm well aware of what's going on in the UK. a large part of the blueprint for what's happening now is what we did in the west london/broken beat scene 1998-2008. if that hadn't happened, i believe a lot of what you're hearing now wouldnt be happening. key to to the new movement as well is the jazz refreshed crew which came directly out of the west london scene. kaidi tatham and i were the first artists to play that event and certainly helped establish it. my freesoul sessions clubnite was a fully improvised live event that featured the likes of richard spaven, jason yarde, bembe segue, kaidi tatham and more - there's an album of recordings from it on my bandcamp if you're curious. things like that laid the blueprint for sure.

shabaka hutchings is the stand out artist there for me - his three projects are all fully realized - great writing, concepts, execution and he, as an instrumentalist, composer and band leader, is fully realized. i'm excited to hear him evolve. i played the jazz refreshed festival a few years ago and had shabaka and soweto kinch on horns with me - that was super fun. last year's uberjazz fest i hosted a session with makaya mccraven and we had shabaka, theon cross, nubya and others join us on some freestyle vibes - there's always connections. 10 years ago i brought united vibrations into studio to collab with me and they had an amazing young - then unknown - drummer named yussef dayes. he was killing then too. i've had moses boyd on drums with me for a london show too. there's so much talent there and i'm always about collaboration. of all of them shabaka and moses are the ones i'd want to get in the studio with first. jason yarde too - he's my age, but still for me, the illest sax player to ever come out of the UK. my only reservation about the UK jazz explosion is that i hope the hype doesnt dilute the artistry. there's a lot of young players in it and they're mostly super capable - in some cases i do want to hear deeper work compositionally and conceptually :) excited to see it all grow tho!

all time top 3 ?!?!?!?!??! you're crazy. some faves tho off the top of my head...

ahmad jamal - the awakening
cesar mariano - sao paolo brasil
robert hurst - robert hurst presents
flood - herbie hancock ( pretty much ANY herbie tho!)
my funny valentine/four and more - miles davis (same - ALL miles!)
welcome to detroit - j dilla (and all dilla)
fantastic vol.2 - slum village
roni size - reprazent
carl craig - innerzone orchestra
keith jarrett - death and the flower
 
blissfullychaotic said:
Thanks Mark for taking the time out of your schedule to answer questions from the community!

Since these albums (I & II) are related to your heritage being split between New Zealand / Japan I would like to know more about your musical experience through those cultures.

I lived as an Expat in China for 4 years and found the music scene to be flourishing with talent yet people outside the country did not know much about what is going on.

While I think the American audience is more aware of music coming out of Japan, I am very curious about which albums or artists or songs from Japan & New Zealand influenced you the most while growing up? and how did these pieces of work influence the music you created on these albums.


Thanks again~
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i grew up with japanese folk songs and kids songs around me - my mother made sure of that! so there's always been a familiarity and kinship with the sound, even before i realized it and also while i rejected it (the teenage years!). i started touring in japan with my first tokyo trio in 1996 and one of the early gigs was an improv trio + kagura show. that was a trip and something i'd love to do again now that i have a much deeper understanding of the culture, music and specifically how i fit in with it. it wasnt really specific albums in japan but my last year of high school there was a life changer - i spent more time in the jazz clubs than at school and really got into some local musicians at the same time as i fell in love with the whole lifestyle i saw them living. in the early 2000s i collab'd with japanese beat contemporaries dj mitsu the beats, grooveman spot, kyoto jazz massive and others. it's such an amazingly rich culture there - both in traditional and contemporary terms.

NZ doesnt - in my opinion - have a fully formed musical identity of its own. much contemporary music comes out of a melting pot of roots/reggae, dilla and badu - not to over simplify, but yeah. saxophonist nathan haines was always prodigious and he was an influence and later mentor and friend in london too - one of my first collabs there was for goldie's metalheadz label with nathan's sci clone project and he also introduced me to phil asher/restless soul which was the gateway for me into my entire UK experience. growing up in NZ there was a period in high school when i was part of the voodoo rhyme syndicate - a collective of djs, rappers and producers heavily influenced by US hip hop of the day and new jack swing. for a while there i wanted to BE teddy riley (cue up the first Guy album)

one more recent album i love is hozan yamamoto's ginkai - an ECM style jazz record very heavily japanese with gary peacock on bass too.
 
agutierrezb said:
Question for Mark:

First of all, thank you so much for being here. I found about your music through this community, and I have both Heritage vinyl records on the way. While your music is beautiful and your albums are definitely worth picking up, it was actually seeing videos of your live performances that really sold me on your art. I think one cannot fully put into perspective what you're doing until you see the way you mix live instrumentation and sampling/digital manipulation. That being said, is there a balance between the live playing and the more electronic/sampling based elements you strive for when performing live? Do you sort of plan this beforehand, or do you just go with the flow, potentially letting a performance lean very heavily on either side on a given gig?

Thanks in advance, and please keep the fire coming!
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thanks! :) i love exploring the balance between human and machine. organic and technological. it's very much a reflection of the world we live in. that said, i'll lean to each end in different circumstances. sometimes i'm just playing acoustic piano - especially in the bands of artists like dwight trible and kamau daaood - and in those cases i'm obviously without any technology at all, but i still hear the piano like a producer and get into the idea of loops and samples but all played. when i'm doing a solo live set for the dancefloor it's obviously much more beats and electronic led and i get to play with the sonics and textures however i feel inspired to. that's something i really love doing - creating moments produced live on the fly from scratch that couldnt have possibly been preconceived or prepared for. i live for those moments. there's very little forward planning - with the band there's a setlist and often some sort of gameplan with a piece, eg who will take a solo, but other times i might just give the guys the loosest of sketches and see what happens (evergreen from live at the blue whale is like that). the last heritage show in LA i had the 7 piece live band, string quartet, two dancers and live VJ, so there was more prep in that, especially with the string arrangements happening - but even in that context, i make sure to leave room for magic moments to take us all by surprise
 
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