Ishmael Ensemble – The River ft. Yazz Ahmed
Producer Pete Cunningham on the field recordings, tape machines and travels that inspired The River
Originally a solo electronic artist, Bristol-based saxophonist and producer Pete Cunningham formed the Ishmael Ensemble a few years ago to flesh out his live performances. The outfit have come on a long way since then, growing to encompass a cut-andpaste form of composition that melds live recordings, modular synths and tape manipulation, alongside their semiimprovisational live shows.
This month sees the Ensemble release their debut album, A State Of Flow, created by an assortment of musicians and collaborators, filtered through the lens of Cunningham’s deft production. FM caught up with him in his Bristol studio to find out about the creation of album centrepiece The River, which combines live horns and field recordings with cut-up drums and delayed synths.
How did the Ensemble project first get started?
“I was producing and releasing music on my own as Ishmael for a few years from 2012 onwards. I started incorporating live instrumentation. I’ve always played in bands aside from producing, so I started playing saxophone and a lot of keys and dabbled with recording percussion and drums in the solo stuff. I started to play live shows too, on my own, and I basically ended up spread thin in terms of what I could do.
“It got to a point where I felt like I was just playing karaoke versions of tracks I’d produced, because playing sax takes two hands so you’ve got to use a backing track really. I mainly felt like I was compromising in the performance space and just didn’t feel like I was translating the music how I wanted to. During this whole time I was playing in bands with friends anyway, so it just felt right to incorporate some of those into the live show.
“It coincided with the guys from the Banoffee Pies record label here in Bristol asking me to do an EP using that more live kind of stuff. They gave me total free rein for that. I think initially it was going to be called ‘Ishmael Live’ or something like that. I basically only wanted to use stuff I’d recorded myself – moving away from using any samples or records in a more traditional dance music
“I’ve seen electronic musicians play live where they’re just triggering sounds in Ableton with little else going on. It’s so safe and seethrough – nothing can possibly go wrong. We’re at a point where we’re inviting as much to go wrong as possible, and that’s what makes it exciting for us.”
way. It was more like creating a false band as part of the process. When that record came out, we decided to use it as a point to start this thing called Ishmael Ensemble, and we’ve not looked back.”
How do the other musicians feed into the recording process?
“I guess the simplest version of it is that I’m building my own sample pack from the people involved in the band. So, we’ll have a two-day session of just recording drums and trying to get a great sound out of that, and then I’ll start to chop those up as I would’ve done previously with samples. Then I’ll start to build tracks on my own and get the other guys to chip in. There are four core members to the band – myself, a drummer, Rory O’Gorman, a keys and synth player, Jake Spurgeon, and a guitarist, Stephen Mullins. Those guys are the live show and the core of all of the recordings, it’s just a case of throwing ideas around. We take it in turns, as we don’t have a studio space that allows us all to record and jam together, so we have this DIY ethos of building it out of blocks of recordings and sessions. There are bits of everyone’s personality on the record, but it’s all going through me as a filter.”
Where did you record most of those live instrument parts?
“Various parents’ houses mostly. We all grew up around Bristol, most of us from around the Midsomer Norton area. Rory’s parents kindly lent us a living room for the weekend, so we did some initial
recordings there, then another session of drum recording at Jake’s mum’s house. That’s the beauty of working with a laptop and soundcard; you can go anywhere. You don’t need a full studio all the time. There are pieces of gear in my studio that lock it all together, but mostly it’s a patchwork of ideas.”
What role does the electronic gear play in the show these days?
“We’ve moved away from it a little. In the beginning the easiest thing was to play a loop on a laptop, but we soon shifted away from that for our own enjoyment. As soon as you’re bound into an arrangement like that the music loses its edge. What makes a great live electronic performance is seeing the human side and that doesn’t always come across. I’ve seen electronic musicians play live where they’re just triggering sounds in Ableton with little else going on. It’s so safe and see-through, nothing that can possibly go wrong. We’re at a point where we’re inviting as much to go wrong as possible, and that’s what makes it exciting for us.
“The core electronic side onstage basically involves me running Ableton, sending a click to the drummer for three or four songs. Our keys player runs a modular synth, so we’re bound to a MIDI clock for a few moments there.
“But we always try and ensure that at least 75% of stuff happening isn’t synced. As soon as you have all your delays locked to perfect triplets or whatever, it’s just so numbing.”