For example: \u201cSmoked Glass and Chrome\u201d : I would love to know how it was named.\u2028<\/p>\n
\u201cSplitting an Atom\u201d, \u201cRogue Bagel\u201d : How do the names relate to the music and any story behind them s\u2019il vous plait?<\/p>\n
Ott:<\/strong> For me, one of the tiresome things about making finished tracks used to be naming them. If you\u2019re not really paying attention, you end up making them too literal, calling them shit like \u201cFractal Mandala\u201d or \u201cJourney Into The Mind.\u201d<\/p>\n While I was working on \u201cHallucinogen in Dub\u201d I was trying to think of a name for the album which I was going to make after that, which became \u201cBlumenkraft\u201d and I thought of the phrase \u201cAre we there yet?\u201d.<\/p>\n I had just got an old printer working with my ancient 2002 PC and I printed out on a piece of A4 paper the words: \u201cAre we there yet?\u201d – in comic sans, because I\u2019m very contemporary.<\/p>\n I pinned it to the wall above my mixing desk, and decided that was going to be the concept for the next record. I met Zoe, whose husband I now am, in 2004, and the day after our first date I woke up and wrote (hums intro tune of The Queen of All Everything) \u2026 the sound of a man flooded with oxytocin. When it came to naming it, four years later, I went to my wall of words and phrases and – not \u201cRogue Bagel\u201d not \u201cSignals from Bob\u201d, ahh, yes, \u201cThe Queen of All Everything\u201d. That\u2019s what it is called.<\/p>\n \u201cJack\u2019s Bread and Cheese Snack\u201d\u2026 that\u2019s from a stupid juvenile English comic called \u201cViz\u201d that I used to read avidly.<\/p>\n When I moved house I laminated all the pieces of paper and kept them and now they are pinned on my studio wall as a source of inspiration.<\/p>\n Meanwhile, technology took over, and instead of sheets of A4 paper pinned to my wall I have I ended up with an Apple Note (shows me his apple phone note), and here are all my potential song titles. There we go,\u2019 The Bicycle of the Sky,\u2019 \u2018Mr. Balloon Hands\u2019, \u2018Hello My Name Is,\u2019 – the names were all written years and years ago.<\/p>\n When I finish a piece of music, I listen to it, and I look on here and just scroll down the list\u2026\u2019<\/p>\n \u201cHeavy Drugs World\u201d [something my mother once warned me to stay away from] Nooo..<\/p>\n \u201cOK Boomer\u201d – Funny for, like, five minutes in 2020 but that\u2019ll probably never see the light of the day<\/p>\n \u201cAgent Zigzag,\u201d I have no idea where that came from, could be used.<\/p>\n \u201cJensen Interceptor,\u201d that\u2019s a lovely old classic car from the 1970s, might get used might not. Probably not.<\/p>\n Some of them really jump out, some of them I look at and shake my head, like \u201cWhat was I thinking?\u201d<\/p>\n So each time I finish a song I just have to read down the list of potential names until I get a match. There\u2019s always one that jumps off the page and goes \u201cPing!\u201d<\/p>\n So, \u2018Smoked Glass and Chrome,\u2019 that\u2019s one of my favourite tracks\u2026<\/p>\n Ott:<\/strong> You wanna know why that\u2019s called that?<\/p>\n In Britain during the \u201880s, there was this fashion for dining room furniture which was smoked glass with a shiny chrome framework. It was ultra-hip at the time. If you had a smoked glass and chrome dining table and chairs, you were definitely upper-middle-class. If you watch British TV from that time the really aspirational families all had smoked glass and chrome dining room furniture.<\/p>\n It became a proto-meme in my family – a bit of stupidity which stuck and which ended up on my list. So when I came to name that track, I\u2019m listening to it playing, and working through my list of potential song names and PING! – \u201cSmoked Glass and Chrome\u201d. It sounds just like it, doesn\u2019t it? It fits the music perfectly.<\/p>\n MM:<\/strong> And \u201cRogue Bagel,\u201d any particular story behind that?<\/p>\n Ott:<\/strong> The working title of that track was \u201cDave\u201d it was called \u2018Dave.\u2019 for about three years.<\/p>\n MM:<\/strong> Who\u2019s \u2018Dave\u2019?<\/p>\n Ott:<\/strong> My dog. I have a dog called Dave but he\u2019s only three so it was nothing to do with him.<\/p>\n When I start a new song, I boot up the computer, get some sounds going, and after a while I think \u201coh this sounds good, this is going to work\u2026” Click \u2018Save as\u2019\u2026<\/p>\n I don\u2019t want to waste time thinking because I\u2019m trying to keep my flow so for a working title I type the first word that pops into my head, which on that particular day was \u201cDave\u201d. \u2026 and it stayed \u201cDave\u201d for three years.<\/p>\n The day I finished mixing it I had been working all night, and I was starving. I went to the kitchen looking for something to eat, and the first thing I found was a bagel in a bag. So I pulled it out and it was this freak bagel – it had loads of onions on it\u2026 all the other bagels had a I toasted it and added cream cheese and black pepper, and I sat listening back to my mix, eating this rogue bagel. The song was very nearly called \u201cFreak Bagel\u201d but I thought \u201cRogue Bagel\u201d rolled off the tongue better. My song names are supposed to be a bit abstract. They all mean something, but also they\u2019re supposed to throw you off\u2026 the further they throw you off, the better\u2014the better for everyone.<\/p>\n Splitting An Atom: When I\u2019m working in the studio, I\u2019m usually working at night. Before I met Zoe, I lived on my own for a long time as a studio hermit. It\u2019s kind of a lonely existence and can drive you a bit mad. For company I had two cats and a small black and white TV If you listened really carefully you could hear it, but as soon as you played music it got drowned out. Back then, during the \u201890s and early 2000s, the only thing on TV at night was this thing called the Open University. It\u2019s a distance-learning university that you use if maybe you cant get out of your house or if you can\u2019t commit to going off to university, but you want to study for a degree.<\/p>\n The teaching material was all broadcast on the BBC at night when there were no other programmes on, and the idea was you\u2019d set your VCR timer to record your \u201cModule 4 Computer Basics\u201d curriculum, and then you study it the next day.<\/p>\n For losers like me who were up all night, that was the only thing on TV, so the Open University\u2026.wait, what was the question?<\/p>\n Oh yeah, so there was an OU program about nuclear fission and with the title: \u201cPhysics Module 06. Splitting The Atom: A history of nuclear fission\u201d, and I\u2019m like click! And so I write it down: \u201cSplitting the atom\u201d. And when I came to think about it\u2026splitting THE atom? What? There\u2019s loads of atoms\u2026AN atom..split an atom .. didn\u2019t split THE atom, so \u201cSplitting an Atom\u201d sounded better. MM:<\/strong> I don\u2019t intend to! We could discuss each and every track, but we\u2019ll save some for my imagination.<\/p>\n MM:<\/strong> I\u2019d like to bring up the Eastern, specifically Indian influences in your music.<\/p>\n Ott:<\/strong> I\u2019m going to disappoint you\u2026<\/p>\n MM:<\/strong> No artist I have come across has ever successfully sampled \u201cAao Huzoor Tumko (Sitaaron Mein Le Chale)\u201d with such grace and panache!<\/p>\n Ott:<\/strong> I\u2019ve heard that sample in loads of places\u2026<\/p>\n MM:<\/strong> Ironically, this includes Indian artists. we should be able to sample our own music and reinterpret it.<\/p>\n Ott:<\/strong> Maybe you are too reverent, perhaps you have too much respect for it? Ott:<\/strong> There was a who guy posted on the internet just after I released Blumenkraft going, \u201cWho\u2019s this fucking idiot? How can he put Bengali vocals with Romanian percussion.. doesn\u2019t he know that these things don\u2019t go together?\u201d and there\u2019s a lot of people who think like that. But I didn\u2019t sample Romanian percussion, I didn\u2019t sample Bengali vocals, what I sampled was one nice sound and then another nice sound. I didn\u2019t think to note their country of origin.<\/p>\n MM:<\/strong> So the second part of the song, after Aaoo Huzoor \u2026you know what that means, right?<\/p>\n Ott:<\/strong> Haven\u2019t got a clue! Not a clue! Don\u2019t tell me I don\u2019t want to know\u2026it\u2019ll spoil it for me. I\u2019ve got my own idea of what it means.<\/p>\n I can sing the whole thing though. Phonetically, I can speak perfect Punjabi. That\u2019s what my daughter Daisy said before coming to India, she said, \u201cDad, can you speak Indian?\u201d I said, \u201cKind of. I know a few songs.\u201d<\/p>\n So, I wasn\u2019t sampling Indian music. I wasn\u2019t sampling an Indian song. I was just taking a nice sound that I found. I treat it the exact same way I would say a breakbeat, a synth sound, a bassline, or percussion sample, or the birds in my garden. What I chose was her passion for that song, because I can hear it and feel it. I don\u2019t much care what she is singing about. Occasionally I have to find out a) what the language is and then try and get a translation cause I have no idea what is being sung and you can\u2019t be too careful. I live in fear of unknowingly using a sample from some 15th century Flemish folk song with lyrics which go \u201cDeath to the Walloons, Walloons are evil..\u201d<\/p>\n I used a sample in \u2018Harwell Dekatron\u2019 of an old Dutch man talking about something in an interesting voice and I had to ask on Facebook to find out A. What language he was singing in and B. What he was saying? As it turned out what he was saying fitted perfectly with the concept of the song but only by sheer coincidence. I like sheer coincidences.<\/p>\n MM:<\/strong> Imagine you\u2019re in Goa, and there\u2019s someone next to you, and they\u2019re just talking in some language, it\u2019s the same effect. So the second part of the song, what is that?<\/p>\n Ott:<\/strong> I have no idea. Is it not part of the same song? It could have come from anywhere. With Ableton Live and Melodyne and suchlike, you can make anything work with anything. You can take a phrase sung or played in a microtonal scale that doesn\u2019t match anything else in the track, and you can quantise it to a western Chromatic scale for a start, transpose it into any key you want, you can stretch out the time, move the rhythm about, make anything fit anything. As long as you like the emotion, the sentiment that is expressed, then everything else is adjustable. In the old days, we just had samplers in racks. You could pitch things up and down, but they would get faster or slower. Time-stretching was primitive and made everything sound like a cyberman. Or Metalheadz.<\/p>\n You\u2019d hit the time stretch button, then you\u2019d go make some toast because it would take about 9 minutes to timestretch one vocal, and when you come back it would be going \u201cbrrr..prrr..grrrr\u201d, it would sound like In the early 2000s computers got faster, and you had tools like Ableton Live and Melodyne. Suddenly you could seamlessly put any vocal or instrument over any other, any melodic sound into any key or time signature, any scale, move that note out there, drop that an octave, copy it, add a harmony, move that up, move that down, etc, etc.<\/p>\n So now that everything fits with everything else, all you\u2019ve got to do is find the sounds which stir your heart, and you know you can make them fit.<\/p>\n You\u2019ve even got polyphonic Melodyne now, so if there\u2019s a part that you want to use in your E minor track but it\u2019s got a big awkward major chord in the middle of it, just get in there and drop the third and it fits, and it\u2019s seamless!<\/p>\n It\u2019s not without its glitches but the distortion of the pitch shifting or bending sometimes adds something. Sometimes I\u2019ll take a pristine recording and in the process of making it fit it\u2019ll become weirdly distorted and broken. I like those.<\/p>\n So yeah, boundaries dissolve, you can just blend anything.<\/p>\n I\u2019ll play at Ozora in Hungary. I\u2019ll play \u2018Smoked Glass and Chrome\u2019 and people there, the Finnish guys, the Brazilians, the English, the Italians they go\u2026\u201dAh nice Indian vibe, . Cool, nice flavour.\u201d It\u2019s a little bit like seasoning. Then I come here [Goa] and play it to this audience and it\u2019s different. They understand the words, and these songs I\u2019ve blithely bent out of shape have decades of cultural weight and resonance.<\/p>\n I did a remix for Ninja Tune recently, a reworking of a very-well known Indian song and I\u2019ve played it all over the world. Playing it here in India was a revelation because here it wasn\u2019t just a bit of Indian flavour at the end, it was a song everyone in the place knew really well and the reaction of the crowd took me by surprise.<\/p>\n I was suddenly aware of how I\u2019d taken her beautifully-inflected Indian microtonal scales, forced it all into Western chromatic confomity and slapped a crunchy bassline over it. I felt self-conscious for about a minute and then it passed.<\/p>\n MM:<\/strong> How\u2019s India for you?<\/p>\n Ott:<\/strong> I have no idea. I\u2019ve been here for 3 or 4 days, I have seen almost nothing of this country. The tiny little bit I\u2019ve seen so far? I\u2019m completely besotted.<\/p>\n MM:<\/strong> So Ott got Ott\u2019ed?<\/p>\n Ott:<\/strong> No Ott puns\u2026 we covered this at the beginning. :0) Theoretically I\u2019m very well travelled. I\u2019ve been to Mexico, but all I did was fly to Cancun airport, take a taxi to a 6-star beach resort, played a gig, taxi back to the airport, fly home. I have a stamp in my passport that says I\u2019ve been to Mexico, but I\u2019ve not really been to Mexico. Same with India.<\/p>\n MM:<\/strong> It\u2019s like .. me going to Thailand with my family.<\/p>\n Ott:<\/strong> What do you know about Thailand?<\/p>\n MM:<\/strong> Nothing<\/p>\n Ott:<\/strong> Exactly. And that\u2019s ok, you don\u2019t need to know about the places you go to. If you come to Britain, I don\u2019t expect you to know when the Stonehenge was built. I don\u2019t give a flying fu\u2026<\/p>\n MM:<\/strong>1856?<\/p>\n Ott:<\/strong> 1953<\/p>\n MM:<\/strong> Yeah you guys did good, I mean .. you put the stones on top of each other.. like we managed to build the Taj Mahal and all that, but you guys did good.<\/p>\n Ott:<\/strong> Hahahahaha!<\/p>\n I read that during the 1950s the farmer who owned the field where Stonehenge stands decided to tidy things up a bit. Some of the stones had fallen over so the farmer came along with some ropes and a tractor and stood them all back up. They put them where they thought they should go and that\u2019s what you see today. Stonehenge has been looking like it currently does since 1953. When he died, he gifted it to the nation, so now the nation owns it. But it hasn\u2019t since antiquity, only since 1953. People have been busy climbing it, knocking it over and carving their names into it for thousands of years.<\/p>\n MM:<\/strong> Tell me about it, like here in India you may go to some historic site, caves, whatever, and you\u2019ll see there, \u201cRaj love Priya\u201d C\u2019mon Raj! You didn\u2019t find any other way to express your love?!<\/p>\n Ott:<\/strong> Humans are scum\u2026<\/p>\n MM:<\/strong> Definitely<\/p>\n Ott:<\/strong> Everywhere you go. Go on ask me another one.<\/p>\n MM:<\/strong> In my humbling experience as an avid Ott listener and believer\u2026<\/p>\n Ott:<\/strong> Do not believe\u2026anything!<\/p>\n MM:<\/strong> \u2026I feel that your music has a very nurturing and organic vibe and sound.<\/p>\n I would say that your Sonic signature has a prevalence of feminine energy. Would you agree with that statement? And could you elaborate a little on it, please?<\/p>\n Ott:<\/strong> Masculinity and femininity is a sliding scale, right? Nobody is down one end or the other. Nobody is exactly 100% masculine or feminine, or they would shatter. Ott:<\/strong> Possibly. But nobody is 100% anything. One of the things that attracted me to Zoe was her balance in that respect. She has a really good balance of masculine and feminine. I think I do too. I think I\u2019m in touch with my feminine bit, whatever that is. I\u2019ve always felt slightly uncomfortable in this frame cause I don\u2019t feel intrinsically big, hairy and male. I\u2019m not conflicted about my gender or anything but I\u2019ve never felt entirely comfortable in this body. When I was little my sister used to tie my hair in bunches and put me in dresses and stuff, I loved it! I remember feeling at the time that I\u2019d be just as happy as a girl, although back then, aged 7, I knew nothing of The Patriarchy\u2026<\/p>\n I\u2019m comfortable now, but as a teenager, I was a bit like \u201cOh fuck, I didn\u2019t want to be this I wanted to be something else.\u201d I felt slightly too big and too male.<\/p>\n MM:<\/strong> It\u2019s like the DJ thing?<\/p>\n Ott:<\/strong> Yeah, people like the macho energy and they\u2019re into it, but that\u2019s not what I\u2019m into.<\/p>\n MM:<\/strong> Definitely, especially in the context of today, and in this country.<\/p>\n Ott:<\/strong> I grew up in a bit of a rough town. It was an army town, a lot of military energy in the place. Everyone had a skinhead. It was a relief in my twenties to move away and discover that not everyone wanted to kick your head in for fun.<\/p>\n Incidentally, I love the way everything defaults to vegan here. There\u2019s usually a discreetly hidden chicken Yeah we are sensitive to these things, or liberal, where applicable, as per convenience\u2026<\/p>\n Ott:<\/strong> When we arrived here I rented a car. I\u2019m driving around Goa, thinking \u201cOkay, don\u2019t kill a cow, don\u2019t kill a child, in that order. Everything else goes.\u201d<\/p>\n We\u2019ve been hanging out with the cows, they\u2019re awesome. Our cows back home are enormous, here they are skinny and clearly not bred for meat. They\u2019re lovely! Our daughter was playing with the beach dogs the other day, that\u2019s one of the best thing about Goa.<\/p>\n MM:<\/strong> So, can you tell me about about the evolution of (your) sound?<\/p>\n Ott:<\/strong> If you heard some of the shit I listen to\u2026<\/p>\n MM:<\/strong> I want to hear the shit you made – back in the day\u2026<\/p>\n Ott:<\/strong> Oh, no way. I\u2019m not gonna show you my laundry basket. Or the 200 DAT tapes of experiments I made before I got to \u201cSomersettler\u201d. No way. That\u2019s all secret. Actually, I moved house recently and I found my old DAT machine in the loft, with boxes containing all my old DAT tapes. [Do you know what DAT tapes are? They\u2019re Digital Audio Tapes, little cassettes about the size of a matchbox which enable you to record CD-quality digital So I found my old box of DATs, 200 of them, 90 minutes on each, so about 300 hours of unreleased bullshit. Interesting bullshit to me because I was 20 when I started doing it, but still bullshit.<\/p>\n So I started listening through them, starting with \u201cOtt DAT 1\u201d\u2019 which was the very first DAT tape I bought in 1990. It was lovely to hear it after all that time. Then I went to \u201cOtt DAT 2,\u201d and gradually my naming scheme became more sophisticated with dates and tape numbers and names of tracks and stuff. I\u2019m up to about 75 hours at the moment, and I\u2019m transferring it all from that machine to the computer, onto a 6 TB hard drive, and probably every 10 hours I hear something interesting, mark it and put it in the pile over there marked \u201cInteresting\u201d. I\u2019ve almost got an album\u2019s worth of curious little bits of sound. It might be from that afternoon when I bought a new synth or tried out a new technique\u2026<\/p>\n But I was 20; I had no money, and each synth was like 6 months wages.What money I had was frittered away on stupid shit like rent and food. I had to get the most out of everything I had and I had to make the most of each combination; plug that into that, and then that into that, MM:<\/strong> People who want to see your laundry\u2026<\/p>\n Ott:<\/strong> Exactly, it\u2019s interesting to me if nobody else.<\/p>\n MM:<\/strong> If there is one word I could describe your music with it would be Organic. How did you develop the level of sonic dexterity that you possess, not as a means of professing technical prowess, but as I feel, to merge electronic and acoustic music into one symbiotic, sentient compassionate force that is your music?<\/p>\n Ott:<\/strong> A desire to hear it, a really strong desire. If you gave me an analogue synth and a laptop, I\u2019d get to making music. I could make something out of those two tools, but I\u2019d need acoustic instruments or voices to make it sound whole. If it\u2019s all just synth and drum machine, it doesn\u2019t sound finished. It needs something else, pretty much anything that has been recorded as vibrating air on a transducer. It could be a sitar, it could be me playing the bongos, it could be a vocal, it could be\u2026 just a sound.<\/p>\n I live near a school, and I\u2019ve got a field recorder. Sometimes, when the kids throw out of school, or they\u2019re going off to a swimming gala, I put the mic out the window and record the kids going \u201cawawawawa\u201d as they walk past. Then I put that in the track really quietly behind everything else, so you can barely hear it. In fact, it\u2019s a bit like the TV on nearly-silent in the corner of the room. It\u2019s so quiet you can\u2019t hear it\u2026.but it\u2019s there. You<\/p>\n can\u2019t hear it, but you can perceive it. Your brain is perceiving stuff that your ears don\u2019t realise they\u2019re hearing, if you know what I mean. And so through almost every track, there are outside noises. of the pebbles on the beach. It\u2019s going all the way through\u2026\u2026..you don\u2019t necessarily know it\u2019s in there, but it\u2019s in there.<\/p>\n Purely electronic music I find a bit claustrophobic. If it\u2019s never had contact with the outside world, if it\u2019s been sealed inside a machine, it\u2019s a bit like eating food from a tin. I\u2019m always looking for juxtaposition, something to make it jar a bit.<\/p>\n For me, the whole thing is squishing incompatible elements together. I\u2019ll take a random sitar player, a sample from somewhere, and I\u2019ll stick it with a TB-303 acid line and now you\u2019ve got something because now it\u2019s a sitar player sitting on top of a space-age plastic synth, hurtling through space in 1983, and to me that\u2019s an interesting juxtaposition<\/p>\n MM:<\/strong> It\u2019s like if Ravishankar jammed with YES\u2026<\/p>\n Ott:<\/strong> Or even better if Ravishankar jammed with The Prodigy. That\u2019s a gig I\u2019d like to see. Is he still alive? MM:<\/strong> Nope\u2026<\/p>\n Ott:<\/strong> Shame, great player. Ott:<\/strong> Is she good?<\/p>\n MM:<\/strong> Yes\u2026she plays in a fusion context..she has a Latin band<\/p>\n Itay: She opened Boom festival<\/p>\n Ott:<\/strong> \u2026for me it\u2019s all about smashing it all together and making things that shouldn\u2019t fit, fit.<\/p>\n MM:<\/strong> In fact, I have the same approach with food<\/p>\n Ott:<\/strong> Yeah, exactly, some chefs do that brilliantly. You want snail porridge? Bacon and egg ice cream?<\/p>\n It\u2019s like, palak paneer pesto pasta Ott:<\/strong> That sounds really good!<\/p>\n Just the name would sell it<\/p>\n Ott:<\/strong> If you can take food that doesn\u2019t go together and make it go together, like Zoe once made the most amazing chocolate cake with beetroot and avocado\u2026<\/p>\n Speaking of avocados, have you heard of Mr. Bill?<\/p>\n Ott:<\/strong> Yes<\/p>\n He loves avocados!<\/p>\n Ott:<\/strong> Everyone loves avocados. I just wish we weren\u2019t busy uprooting the rainforests to grow them. Humans – individually awesome, collectively disastrous.<\/p>\n Why can\u2019t we just do it properly?<\/p>\n Yeah\u2026 but its like\u2026you know what George Carlin said, right? The planet is fine, just worry about yourselves<\/p>\n Ott:<\/strong> We\u2019ll be extinct, and all the other species will go \u201cPhew!\u201d We\u2019re like the unwelcome guest at a party. \u201cSo glad they left, weren\u2019t they just awful?\u201d MM:<\/strong> Yeah they will feel bad,, people are sensitive here<\/p>\n Ott:<\/strong> I get that. But also, I don\u2019t hate people quite so much here, can\u2019t put my finger on it. When I\u2019m at the market, and there are all these lovely ladies with piercings and brass\u2026I think to myself\u2026I love you. It\u2019s different here. What they put out, it\u2019s something I\u2019ve never experienced. I\u2019ve never felt it before.. there\u2019s a kind of instant familiarity.<\/p>\n MM:<\/strong> You could wear that T-shirt in Mumbai or Delhi, it would totally make sense<\/p>\n Ott:<\/strong> So if I hate people, will I hate them more in Mumbai or Delhi?<\/p>\n MM:<\/strong> Equally.<\/p>\n Ott:<\/strong> I hate cities, and apparently, Delhi and Mumbai are the uber cities<\/p>\n MM:<\/strong> (Gives Delhi background)<\/p>\n Ott:<\/strong> So Goa is kind of like beginner\u2019s India? Like if you want to see India but not right-in-your-face-India, go to Goa?<\/p>\n Goa is India with training-wheels. Ott:<\/strong> Languages, that blows my mind here, when people switch seamlessly between languages to suit the occasion<\/p>\n MM:<\/strong> And it gives you a kind of internal schizophrenia\u2026<\/p>\n Ott:<\/strong> I was surprised to discover that Jess and Ashwin [my hosts in Goa] speak English most of the time. I don\u2019t know why that surprised me, but it did, I\u2019ve come 5000 miles, and everyone speaks English. We get it easy, we Anglophones, we\u2019re almost encouraged to be monoglot. I mean we did sort of scalp the world, raided countries for their minerals\u2026<\/p>\n MM:<\/strong> Yeah, and left us with \u2018Cricket\u2019 in return\u2026C\u2019mon! Why not Football at least\u2026<\/p>\n Ott:<\/strong> Cricket\u2026 people standing around on a piece of grass on a nice day going..*clapclapclap* Itay: It\u2019s wrong baseball\u2026<\/p>\n MM:<\/strong> Hahahahaha\u2026(going off on a tangent)<\/p>\n
\n\fI\u2019d be sitting watching TV or hear a thing on the radio, or a thought would pop into my mind, and I\u2019d play with it for a moment and then forget it; you think of an interesting phrase, and then you lose it. So I started writing them down, and by the end of that year, the whole wall above my desk was covered in words and phrases. There was still the phrase \u201cAre we there yet?\u201d but all around it, \u201cRogue Bagel\u201d \u201cSmoked Glass and Chrome\u201d “Queen of All Everything\u201d.<\/p>\n
\n\ffew bits of onion, and this one was really dark, toasted, with loads of onion\u2026it was a rogue bagel.<\/p>\n
\n\fwhich sat flickering away in the corner of the studio, with the sound almost off.<\/p>\n
\n\fSo, yeah, I remember why they\u2019re all called what, you won\u2019t catch me out!<\/p>\n
\n\fMM:<\/strong> In general, yes. Like, if I play to my Dad some fusion music, he will be like, fusion is ok for 2 mins, then confusion. He\u2019s very orthodox<\/p>\n
\n\fWhat attracts me to a sound is what it\u2019s made of. Her performance is obviously coming from the heart. She really means it, and you can hear that – it\u2019s something you can\u2019t disguise. If she was just\u2026going through the motions and not really feeling it, I wouldn\u2019t have chosen that sample.<\/p>\n
\n\fChewbacca. It was useless for manipulating samples unless you wanted them to sound like science fiction characters.<\/p>\n
\n\fI\u2019m aware I\u2019m in tourist-land, and I\u2019m staying in a 5-star hotel, and what I need to do is drive from here to Bangalore or take a train somewhere or take a bus.<\/p>\n
\n\fMM:<\/strong> Except maybe Hugh Jackman..the wolverine<\/p>\n![\"ott-untz.jpg\"](\"https:\/\/images.squarespace-cdn.com\/content\/\n\nv1\/5f30371f103c7a088563b8b1\/1597054836478-42V1XBQS\n\nC6N1AP1SWQ5I\/\n\nke17ZwdGBToddI8pDm48kJJ8XKoYEqfp4LXlwAf18wBZw\n\n-\n\nzPPgdn4jUwVcJE1ZvWQUxwkmyExglNqGp0IvTJZamWLI\n\n2zvYWH8K3-\n\ns_4yszcp2ryTI0HqTOaaUohrI8PI01Izbl_1jXKsB1SDtOsFIs5\n\nxLJiRHhppbMRC0oOXO1EKMshLAGzx4R3EDFOm1kBS\/\n\nott-untz.jpg\")
<\/p>\n
\n\fsausage or boiled egg in the dimly-lit corner if you really want it but it\u2019s pretty much plants for breakfast.<\/p>\n
\n\faudio. Do you know what a matchbox is?] It\u2019s what we used to master onto until computers got fast enough to record audio, which was only in about 2000. Before that, we had to record onto these old digital tapes. Before that it was reel-to-reel. Before that, it was, you know\u2026<\/p>\n
\n\fand then that and that into that, and it was all experimentation, trying to get the most out of really basic equipment. Listening back 30 years later I\u2019m surprised at some of the things I managed to do with the shit equipment I had, like a cassette deck and little microphones that you got free with your cheap hi-fi, plastic microphones and bits of twisted wire. I\u2019m working on putting together an album of all these stupid little snippets of things that are interesting, like a collectors only, and I\u2019ll probably just release it and people who are really into the music will want it.<\/p>\n![](\"https:\/\/images.squarespace-cdn.com\/content\/\n\nv1\/5f30371f103c7a088563b8b1\/1597343254843-\n\nGD31W81D1JB7VIBO4H9O\/\n\nke17ZwdGBToddI8pDm48kI6AZQcdarEnWkqyAs5cZZxZw\n\n-\n\nzPPgdn4jUwVcJE1ZvWQUxwkmyExglNqGp0IvTJZUJFbgE\n\n-7XRK3dMEBRBhUpzigo9lff4cLF4GrjrfEYzY4u55qZJBSR\n\noj16W5VRV8CDn7xyKurIm2KQwoyg2fsfg\/ott.2.jpg\"\n\nalt=\"ott.2.jpg\")
<\/p>\n
\n\fSometimes it\u2019s like \u2018The Queen Of All Everything\u2019 with water running all the way through. It starts out quite loud in the beginning and gets quieter and quieter as the track goes on. Or like in \u201c382 Seaside\u201d. There\u2019s the sound of a beach in there going all the way through, waves crashing which I\u2019ve quantised to be in time with the track, so you don\u2019t really hear them, but then there\u2019s\u2026.whshhhh\u2026wshshhhh\u2026\u2026you know the sound<\/p>\n
\n\fMM:<\/strong> His daughter Anoushka Shankar is a famous sitar player<\/p>\n
\n\fYeah, I\u2019m down on humans at the moment. I\u2019ve got this T-shirt that says \u2018I Hate People.\u2019 It\u2019s upstairs in my suitcase. I can\u2019t wear it in this country<\/p>\n![\"Ott+Baby+Robot.jpg\"](\"https:\/\/images.squarespace-cdn.com\/content\/\n\nv1\/5f30371f103c7a088563b8b1\/1597055775749-4XSHGBM\n\nCSVPKE5ZQ40FF\/ke17ZwdGBToddI8pDm48kKos_-\n\neT1M4Lm-\n\ndipipP_3l7gQa3H78H3Y0txjaiv_0fDoOvxcdMmMKkDsyUq\n\nMSsMWxHk725yiiHCCLfrh8O1z5QHyNOqBUUEtDDsRWr\n\nJLTmS0k9nmfOWkBD2X4dgpGrpWCDnkiv-\n\n_IFt4j97ZITxSlUvYs4Ox7ejMfZjsYyJn6n\/\n\nOtt%2BBaby%2BRobot.jpg\")
<\/p>\n
\n\fMM:<\/strong> So I\u2019m from Mumbai, I know the place, people, language\u2026<\/p>\n