20/20 vision
Ivy Lab’s music is released on their own label, 20/20 LDN, which has also become a welcoming home for the likes of Mono/Poly, Up High Collective and Deft. But in this age of streaming, TuneCore, DistroKid and Beatport, is there really a future for independent labels?
Gove: “Running a label is getting harder, financially and logistically. But there’s always going to be a place for independent labels as they act as a calling card. A label is musical shorthand. Think about Metalheadz, Ninja, Mo Wax. And that early Dubstep label, Hemlock. If an artist was signed to that label, you knew where things were heading. The real problem is finding people who sit under the same banner as us. Artists who will give 20/20 that unified sound. There is so much music out there!
“Financially, things have changed massively over the last 10 or 15 years. The days when you could be a cool, bedroom producer releasing an album every couple of years… someone like Burial, for instance. That’s not so easy. As a label, we’re going to struggle to offer you a payday. It can happen. A track can go viral or get picked up by an ad campaign, but there’s no guarantee. 20/20 is more of a shop window and we can act as a conduit for you to get DJ work. That’s when you get your payday. On Saturday night.”
something is not right. You watch TV and think the world’s going crazy. Every day, there’s a creeping sense of unease.”
But at the same time, there’s also a lot of humour in Ivy Lab’s music. It’s pretty much impossible to listen to Astral Pirate Theme (from the 2018 album, Death Don’t Always Taste
Good) without smiling.
“I agree. That is a really silly song,” says Gove. “Where does that come from? Well, what I’d say is that with all those old movies, there is also a sense of humour. It’s tongue-in-cheek. It’s cheesy and corny. Cheap and tacky. Tension and humour existing side by side.
“When you’re making electronic music – or maybe any kind of music – it’s very easy to drift into the pretentious arena. Everything has to be serious and po-faced. And we’ve been as guilty of that as anybody. You can easily get lost amongst the technology and your pretentious ideas. But the fact that we have been there means we have also earned the right to be silly. To have a laugh. It’s not our USP, but every now and then, it’s nice to just let go. To embrace the humour and madness that so often exists alongside the darkness.”
Despite the otherworldly sounds that are created in the Ivy Lab studio, it’s a fairly basic setup, as you’ll see from the video – just a small spare room with a bit of DIY acoustic treatment.
“We have talked about going down the hardware route,” says J. “I like the idea of analogue synths… that physical thing of adjusting the controls. But where would we put it? The answer would probably be renting something or going to one of those studios like Devon Analogue and spending a couple of days just harvesting sounds.”
“I was a bit more of a hardware producer when I first started,” explains Gove. “I had the Novation Supernova synth, the Roland JV-1080 sound module and an E-MU sampler that I had no idea how to use. But as soon as things started moving onboard, I jumped straight in there. It’s always fashionable to talk about the beauty of analogue, but I wasn’t a big fan. I found it a lot easier to get my head around
“It’s always fashionable to talk about the beauty of analogue, but I wasn’t a big fan”
digital gear and I then I actually became a lot more productive.
“Synth-wise, the main ones for us are a bit of Omnisphere, Trilian, a bit of Massive, FM8 and the Logic synth, Alchemy. I love the simplicity of Alchemy… well, what it does is quite complicated, but the way it does it is very simple, and the layout is pretty straightforward. Most of our soundsculpting comes from the EXS24. Taking a piece of sound that’s ‘this long’ and making it ‘this long’. Or using the EXS to give plugin synths a bit more of an old school feel.
“The EXS works like an Akai. As you go up the keyboard, your sampled sound speeds up. So, if you get a modern synth sound and play it from the EXS, you can give it different qualities. You can make it sound more MPC. More hip hop. More hardcore.”
“We did something the other day with a particular sound from Omnisphere,” says J. “When we played it from the synth, it immediately had synth qualities. The way a note or phrase bleeds over into the next one. Why not bounce it in to the EXS, chop off the release and the reverb, then find a few interesting notes up and down the keyboard. You immediately get that old Akai/E-MU sound. I’m not saying that we’re master sound-shapers on the EXS. In fact, we tend to keep things very basic. That’s why we like working in the EXS, because it’s got limited editing facilities.”
“These days, the average plugin sometimes feels a bit over the top,” reckons Gove. “You’ve got a thousand editing options, but where do you actually start. We seem to work better with limited sculpting/ editing power. Fewer knobs to tweak means that you can get on with the job of composing. What’s the point of having all these options if they’re just crowding out your headspace? Get what you’re after, make it sound good, find out where it fits and move on to the next job!”
“We are definitely not noodly producers,” laughs J.
Some people would probably disagree with that. There was plenty going on while we were filming. It’s not just kick, bassline, couple of hooks and away we go.
“How would we describe our production style?” asks Gove. “We’ve recently been working with Amon Tobin [aka Two Fingers] and we’ve been really happy with how things have turned out. You know Amon Tobin… stylistically, he’s got a lot going on in his music. It’s harmonically rich and complex. J has been going over to LA for these recording sessions and coming back with some incredible stems. I dread to think how much stuff is in there that doesn’t
“The average plugin feels over the top – a thousand options but where to start?”
actually make it onto the final track. But that’s the essence of what we do. We find the best four things and work with them. Don’t mourn the loss of something that didn’t make it to the finish line. If you’ve got the best bits, you’re working with maximum effectiveness.
“Start getting into slight variations and you’re going to lose the earworm. Take a bit more and a bit more, and you’re suddenly in the realms of super-complexity. We don’t go down that route.”
Simplicity may be the key to an Ivy Lab production, but that doesn’t mean that their music doesn’t catch you unawares. One word that came up constantly during the day we spent with Gove and J was ‘wonky’. Take a listen to a track like Zip It or Suburbia from last year’s
Space War EP and you’ll understand why. The off-centre swing seems to be in constant danger of falling over itself, but always manages to pull itself back into line. Just about!
“We tend to do most of the wonkiness by hand,” says J. “You could get a plugin to do it, but that just doesn’t feel right. I’ve always been a fan of Squarepusher and I kind of use him as a template. Yes, he goes right to the extreme when it comes to programming, but he always seems to keep that feeling of… this is human music, it’s not machine music. We’ve had lots of discussions about what works and what doesn’t work, but there are no hard and fast rules with going wonky. It’s all very subjective and tied up with what feels good.”
“At first, when we started to explore off-grid rhythms, it was more of an incidental part of the music,” says Gove. “But, as time went on, it became part of the core aesthetic. Yes, there are times when it can be distracting, but it’s become as much a part of the compositional process as a certain instrument or a particular melody.”
“I think that’s one of the benefits of working with someone else,” says J. “If you disappear too far down a personal way of working in the studio, you can end up alienating anyone who hasn’t gone through the exact same musical education as you. When there’s two, you’ve got that automatic safety valve. If you go too far with the wonkiness or the weird noises, there’s always somebody there to say, ‘What the fuck are you playing at?’”