David Gamson - Scritti Politti

Hello and welcome to the Sound On Sound podcast channel about electronic music and all things synth. I'm Rob Pericelli and in this episode I talk with David Gamson, a musician, songwriter and producer whose career spans four Hitfield decades. As one third of the second incarnation of Skritti Politti, David Gamson was the man behind the polished, groove laden sound of the band's second long player, Cupid Psyche 85, and their third album, Provision. His writing and production skills were picked up on by Rough Trade founder Jeff Travis, who put David and Skritti founder Green Gartside in touch. With drummer Fred Marr, Skritti Politti moved on from their early efforts of politically tinged pop that flirted with rock, soul and reggae to the precise, glossy R& B sound under initial guidance from the great Nareef Mardeen. After Provision, Gampson went on to write and produce for the likes of Shaka Khan, Michelle and Debbie Ocello, George Benson and Luther Vandross, and more recently with the likes of Kesha, Charlie XCX, Jesse Jay and Kelly Clarkson. I started off by asking David how his journey with synthesizers and music technology began. Uh, my father, who was a musician. Okay. Um, he was a conductor, and then he got very interested in electronic music, and he used to take an electronic music course at Queens College in New York. And on weekends, they had a music lab with a Full Buchla, and a modular Moog, and a lot of egg crates on the walls, which is what you used to use for soundproofing in those days. And he'd spend the weekends down there. And anyway, he um, he also started, it was like the advent of computer music, so he'd do punch cards. So he'd do like a, he'd have a whole stack of punch cards that you'd stick into the computer and it would have like 20 seconds of bleeps. But that was sort of like the beginning of computer music programming. And anyway, he, at a certain point, he bought a 2600. And so we had a 2600 at home. And then, I don't know if you're aware of PAIA. They were, um, kits. Synthesizer kits. Modular synthesizer kits. And we built all of these modular synthesizers. It was like a project that he and I did. Almost none of them worked. Because of our soldering technique. Uh, but anyway, um, that was, that, so we always had that stuff around, and he had a four track Tiak, um, and a two track Tiak, and you'd bounce back and forth, so by the time I was in my early teens, that was home, yep. So around 1982, and correct me if I'm wrong, that was kind of when Jeff Travis from Rough Trade kind of hooked you up with Green. How did that, you know, how did that come about? And what was that, what were those early meetings and discussions like? Well, I met Jeff totally by chance because I was doing some demos for Michael Zilka who ran Z Records. And Jeff happened to be in the office. And Zilka said, give him that demo, you played me. And Jeff ended, it was like this cover version of Sugar Sugar. And um, Jeff put this out on Rough Trade. And then, Jeff kind of hooked up a meeting with Green and I, when I happened to be, actually, um, in college I had a girlfriend who was Italian, and I had spent the summer in Italy, and then I went to England. And, so, Jeff, um, put a meeting together with Green and I. And, I think the original intention was that we would collaborate on something that might be a single for me. And then it just developed into my working with Green and that becoming Skritti stuff. So the first thing we ever did was, I think I played him Smalltalk on the piano. Uh, I was staying in London at, uh A childhood friend of my mother's house in, uh, North London. And so that's where we met at their house and they had a piano and I played them that song. And that was like the first thing I think we worked on. This was post Songs to Remember. I think it was kind of just around that period. Might have been just, just post. So, you know, it's a, it's so odd to like, just, in terms of like fate. They, I don't know if he accidentally or he accidentally on purpose. But they, when I was waiting for the test pressing. Of that Sugar Sugar Decay, they accidentally sent me, um, Sweetest Girl Test Pressing. That was the first time I ever knew Skritti, and I put it on to hear the test pressing, and I heard the Sweetest Girl, and I actually hit the mic and was like, This is the wrong thing, but this is amazing, who is this? Listening to, to, to that early Skritti stuff, certainly the, you know, the Songs to Remember album, it wasn't deeply electronic in, in many ways, it had electronic elements, but it didn't seem that, you know, Scritti were in any way an electronic band and then you guys get together and you know over the period of a couple of years you produce this album Cupid and Psyche 85 which is Is often cited as, you know, hugely influential, um, electronic album in, in the pop realm. So, I'm wondering how, did you have to persuade Green to adopt these technologies, these techniques? Was he, was he already into them? Was it just a natural occurrence? It definitely was a natural occurrence. I think what we were both into was, there was a sort of, uh, In American R& B music at the time, there was a lot of programming and synthesizers, so. It was kind of this weird fusion of pop music and that stuff that we were all really into. So, it was, we were all, we were just, we were just, we're kind of fans of the same kind of music at that time. So, it was, it was definitely nothing we ever discussed. Like, the amount of electronics or not electronics. So, it was never a discussion that we ever had. From what, again, yeah, this is, from, from my knowledge, um, you then proceed to do some demos. And I understand that, It was Niall Rogers that was kind of heading up the production of those demo sessions that Never materialized. Yeah, I don't know where that one came from. That's not that's not true. Okay. Well, that's good We can clear that one up So we spent forever working on small talk and I think he came over to America a few times and We worked on that song and it went through a million incarnations while Green was still associated with Rough Trade. And then, at a certain point after doing a million versions of this song, Niall did a, like, a remix of that song. And so we went into the studio and he kind of For me, it was like a hugely, it was a big learning experience for me, which is I just basically sat in the back of the room and watched what he did and what he listened to and what he took out, which was a lot, and how he built the track. And, uh, so he basically did a remix of that song, which never saw the light of day, and that, so that was his involvement. So, you're now collaborating with Green, and, you know, you said you brought Small Talk, and I believe there were a couple of other tracks that were, were yours, and he brought some, and then you kind of worked on these together. What did each of you bring to the songwriting process at that point? Was it truly collaborative or was one person melody and one person lyrics? So, Smalltalk was one thing, because it kind of started as, Oh, maybe this will be a David record, whatever that means. Then, since we started collaborating and we liked working together, then I worked on He had three songs because he started to want to shop a deal as I'm this is how I'm remembering the chronology anyway, so It was like would be's Absolute and I think don't work that hard and those were his songs. So it was more like I came in I don't know, there's actually a, like a version of Woodbees floating around that's like, that was really like the original version and then so that's, that's pretty much what I heard. So everything on top of that was the arrangement I did. Um, so really it kept the melody and I guess a version of the changes. So that's what those three songs were and that was really like, okay this is gonna be Green's, this is Screedy's stuff and I'm sort of doing arrangements. And then it just, the working relationship just unfolded. So as. We did those things. Also, I'm jumping around a bit, but when Arif came in on the scene, It was basically like Arif was gonna be, was producing this, and I really was like, Well, I guess that's the end of my role in this. I did these, we did the demos, that's what we gave to Arif. And Arif was like, What an awesome dude. He, basically on the first, Green went down there for, um, Pre production, and I get a call from Arif, saying, Didn't you do these arrangements? Yeah, get down here. And you know, so I was part of the whole thing and he had me write out all the, he wanted charts on everything, so I wrote out all the parts. Arif didn't produce the whole album, is that right? No, so he did those first three songs, at which point we were like, we kind of had a pretty good idea about how we wanted to do things and we just thought, let's do this ourselves. I always kind of, I, you know, that's what I wanted to, I wanted to be a producer. Anyway, that's, like, that was my main thing. So, I don't think the label would have ever let us produce ourselves, initially. So, as soon as we could, we were like, let's just do this ourselves. Also, can I just jump back a bit, because you asked me about the collaborative process. When we continued to work together, then there were other songs, like Perfect Way, where that was a song that I had that Green wrote. Really, the lyric was written by Green, and I kinda, the melody and the track was kinda there. So, there were, as The album progressed, there were certain songs that were Green's start, or my start, and then later, we started to write songs actually in the same room, sitting in the same room. But that's not how initially it started. What do you remember about those recording sessions, and in particular the gear that you were using? Because, one of the things that I always used to, to talk to people about, when they said, you know, What's your favorite album and why I would always, you know, Cupid and Psyche is right up there. And I would say it's the most perfect example of, um, sequencing in terms of, you know, programming. Um, only to find out through reading, you know, interviews that you've done elsewhere that, There wasn't a huge amount of sequencing going on. It was, you know, playing over and over to get it, you know, get that kind of feeling because this was around the time of MIDI coming in. It's, you know, it wasn't great. So what I'm kind of really interested in was how those sessions operated, how you've got that really tight sound. Right. So the technology was changing a lot over the course. Also, that album took a long time to make. There was a lot of changes within technology even through the course of the making of that record So when we started like the first few things with the reef Um, I'm not even sure if MIDI it might have it wasn't there weren't a lot of MIDI keyboards There might have been none because I remember getting like a DX7 and midi ing things and that wasn't really till later So that initial three first things We'd lay a click and then do drums and the drums were played live and then we'd overdub So there was some sequencing there was quite a bit of playing too And the way I did records Kind of leading up to that was I would do stuff that I wanted to sound like sequenced I played and halftime an octave down But, then we had all these stellar musicians so they could play it the way it should sound. So, and then as the project progressed, MIDI came out, and then the SPFJ came out, and then suddenly we were programming. Then it became more sequenced, and then there was this amazing box called the Friendship SRC, which allowed you to start anywhere on tape, hit a button, and your sequencer would start. on the next downbeat. I know it sounds so simple, but that changed so much. And it also allowed you to offset your start points in milliseconds. So you could now start to put feel into your sequences. So, and that was the whole thing was we wanted to do sequence music, but you also wanted to feel good and not like you just turned a machine on. So you were kind of giving the machines a bit of groove, a bit of humanity. Exactly. That was always the thing to me was like, I didn't want it to sound like just a machine. I wanted it to groove too. So what, what gear were you using throughout the, the production of that album? Because you know, you, you listened to it and it's almost a shining beacon of, you know, this kind of new digital sound of FM and sampling and stuff. So, so what were you using? Um, whatever we could get our hands on. So there was, I don't think I own very much at all at that point, but. I'm trying to remember what we had at the very beginning. I'm pretty sure we rented in a Super Jupiter, and we had a TR 808 that we probably borrowed from somebody. Um, I think there was a DMX drum machine. I did get a Minimoog somewhere along the line, which was always the bass, because I love David Frank's bass sound. And then I did get a, the first version of the DX7. At some point, which, cause I remember, I think Marcus Miller had a DX7 who was working in the same studio and I heard the DX7 and I, it just blew my mind. And that kind of bright, shiny FM sound. Definitely. I went on, I overused that for. The next, you know, three years, for sure. And, and, what about things like the Fairlight? Because that's mentioned on the sleeve notes. Right. How big a part did that play? Um, it was always kind of, as a color, after we'd had most of the meat of the whole track, we'd kind of do a few days of Fairlight for colors and stuff, but it wasn't like But we didn't own one. I really wanted one. So it wasn't part of the initial Arranging process or even the main recording process. It was always kind of like we use it as a session We we were using for a lot of Cuban psyche It was this guy Simon climbing who was a really great songwriter in his own, right? Who had wait who's she has somebody's fairly cuz it wasn't his but anyway We'd use him and he was he was a great guy, too Um, and so he, he did all the, a lot of the Fairlight programming on that, except on Absolute, which was JJ. The album kind of had a foot in both before MIDI and after MIDI. It evolved along with the technology. But the thing is, I can't hear that in the sound. So I couldn't tell you, I don't think, which tracks were pre and post MIDI. You know, because they all sound. Like, you know, it was really because to me it's very apparent. Oh, right. Okay. Well, I guess it would because you were there and You know you you experienced it But I mean, do you do you feel proud of the fact that you know? It sounds like this complete body of work that was supposed to be in that way and wasn't such a long protracted thing Or deep, you know, does it kind of bring back painful memories of how it was all put together that record, you know just recently There was like this Twitter listening party. Yeah, I was there. Oh, okay And it was sort of I think for both green and I was like the first time we'd sat down and had to listen to The record in a long time. I felt pretty good about it It was like I which I don't feel if I listen to provision. It's still painful, right? whereas this one I was like Actually some of it I thought oh, that's pretty good. There's still some of it that I can't listen to but There's some of it that I thought, oh, this sounds pretty good. Interestingly, the ones that No, I wouldn't say that. I was gonna say that some of the ones that I think have stood up well are the pre MIDI ones. So, I don't know with, in all cases, but Also, I guess I still have the memories of, um, those were the three that we did with Arif. And walking into the power station and all those amazing musicians, it was like the first time ever in a big studio. It was like, there's all of that involved, too, in the memory, so One of the things that always struck me, and I listened to Cupid and Psyche over and over again to the point that I stretched that cassette and had to go out and buy another copy of it, I just ruined it, um, was the arrangements and your use of counterpoint, um, and taking what, um, and I'm, you know, clearly I'm not, uh, I'm, that well educated in, in, in music theory, but you, the way you use different sounds together, breaking up chords, and so you have, you know, some notes are being played on one instrument, others on another, but it all seems to fit together like it's this, is that something that's always fascinated you, or it's always kind of peppered your work, or, or, tell me, tell me about how, how that kind of stuff comes about. Definitely, like, um, just even growing up in theory classes. Bach was my, you know, he's the, he's the guy. So, yeah, so Counterpoint was always super interesting to me. And it's definitely something I always thought about. And so, you know, having things that run horizontally and vertically, harmonically, and it all working, yeah, definitely still fascinating to me. And also, a lot of times, uh, stuff that's not harmonically very complex, If you're breaking it up and sort of doing sounds that poke here and there, you can make it sound a lot more interesting than it is. Like a straight, major chord when you break it up in sort of different ways. So when, when you are writing this, this counterpoint and then, you know, coming around to recording it, how much of that is hard Manual labor of writing these parts and then playing them by hand? And did technology make your use of counterpoint easier? Was it easier to, to do that stuff by just dragging and dropping things on a, on a screen or moving things around on a sequencer? Couldn't do it without that. I've definitely, so I'm never writing stuff out. The node editor, that becomes your writing, you know, so I can, and then you can compare and look at different tracks and see what's going on. So yeah, I don't think I could have done it without, and now where we're at, it's a, you know, like we were trying to do stuff that's very easy to do now. Because you couldn't actually see it, even, uh, even a Mac based sequencer wasn't even around at that point. Let's move on to provision. I, I guess you've kind of answered the question. Was it really as bad a recording process or has. that been, you know, exacerbated and amplified over the years. And what changed in terms of the technology that you used in the creation of that album that you didn't have, say, for Cupid and Psyche? And did that help, or did it make it worse? You know, did it impact the experience overall? Okay, well the first maybe six or eight weeks of recording provision, Great. And then it just went on for another year. So, we had sort of moved over to a lot of the drums and stuff was done on a Synclavier by then. And programming on a Synclav was really, really slow and not intuitive. So we had a sync lab programmer just just even programming and all the beats just took forever And so anyway, the MIDI was kind of fully realized by that point So and not in my own little arsenal of keyboards has grown so like by provision It was I think I had a profit vs and a matrix 12 most of it was sequenced on a Yamaha QX1. It was like a one step up from an SBX80 probably. Uh, and then I had a TX rack by then, so lots of TX7s. And, you know, it just got more, the more the technology got better, the more you were able to Go nuts about precision and controlling every little aspect of it. Not to the extent that you can now, but it just slowed the process down incredibly. Because we wanted to try to exploit the um, control. So like I was doing, you know like, a good day would be to do like, three keyboard sounds. And I would do almost all the tracks in reverse. So like you would do all the colors, and all the stuff that sticks out and pokes out. I would kind of lay all of that first, and then you'd do the bed. So, so was it your, your use of the technology that really kind of, maybe you had too much to play with that then slowed the process down? Um, I just think. We got nuts about everything. And then that translated to doing vocals. And what happened, we were so nuts about the precision of the tracks. And then Green goes in and he's like the only ounce of humanity against this onslaught of precision. And I think that was very intimidating for him. And it basically, it like kind of psyched him out a lot because he was like the only human bit of it. So after cubing the psyche and provision, you know, you, You're known for this scritty sound that is very distinctive, you know, and it's, it's your signature sound, I guess. Did you ever feel constrained or pigeonholed by that label that was applied to, you know, people? I'm guessing, you know, producers, artists, management would contact you and say, we want you because we love what you did here. And then, this is all you've become known for, is that sound. Did that ever stand in your way? It was pretty immediate after Provision, I would say, because I think music shifted. Certainly by the early 90s. New Jack Swing came in, and it was like, at least for R& B music, that was like it for a few years. And Yeah, it was, it was, it became a liability and it wasn't until I did probably the Michelle and Deggie Ocello stuff Or was that that and a Chaka Khan record where I was able to like do something that didn't sound anything like Scrooge, but it took a few years plus I was I have to kind of get out of that myself, too And I the way I'd for me the way to do that was to produce somebody else who was most Really playing and I so it wasn't really my playing When they put out the absolute compilation, uh, you did a couple of tracks, uh, Day Late and The Dollar Short, um, and The Place We Both Belong, I think. I mean, for me, as a fan, it was just amazing to hear you and Green together. Clearly, there's still This thing there. Will you guys ever work again together on anything, whether it's under the Skritti label or something else? I hope so. Those were really super fun to do. We both, I think, really enjoyed doing them. Um, and I actually really like those tracks. You know, I am constantly bugging him to do stuff and you know, he's been working on this record for God knows how long And so I don't think I think also jeff travis is very scared to take any attention away from finishing that record So, you know, but I hope in the future we will do some more stuff That's one of the things I would love to do because he's definitely one of the people I really enjoy working with So yeah, and it is definitely when we get back together. It's like it's just so fun Music technology is obviously, you know, it's amazing what you can do nowadays with, with everything. How do you view music technology today? Is it going in the direction you thought it would go? Are things easier to do? Are they more difficult to do? What's your view of the current kind of music technology world? Well, I love it and I'm 100 percent in the box and it's just all the things that we hoped you could do back then, you can do. So, I, I, I'm, I'm, I love it. And you know, like, just in terms of precision, and just to me, I can, in terms of the things I can control, and to me, I, you can just, I can do all the things I always dreamed about. And there's still, like, so much more to learn and stuff, but I, I love it. You say you're totally in the box, you, you have any hardware, instrumentation, when you're doing stuff now? I still, so I have my 2600, I have my Minimoog, I've actually been selling off a few things lately, but, I don't really use, I, Hardly ever use them. I'm pretty much all in the box. And what are you replacing them with nowadays? Do you have any particular favorites that you go to? Things, do you, for example, do you, uh, buy into all of these recreations of old hardware and software? Do you have, or are you looking for something new? Both. Okay. Yeah. So, like, I have probably most of the emulations, um, I like the Yu Gi Di Va a lot, which kind of covers a lot of territory. I do have a bunch of emulations, but I use new stuff too. I think, didn't I read a review of you did Falcon? I like Falcon. Yeah, yeah. Um, you know, I still use Serum and Spire. I got a lot of plugins, so. It's funny because I don't, I'm more like looking for things, little sounds. Sounds I can make that I can manipulate. So a lot of it's more about the plugins than what's creating the sound. And then how you use it. Sure. And all your audio processing, again, in the box, or are you still? Yeah. Any favorites in that, you know, that department? Are you a Pro Tools guy, or Logic, or? Uh, Nuendo, so Cubase, Steinberg. Okay, yeah. Um, that was the other thing, is even just switching a few years ago from, I guess it's not a few years ago, it's probably over ten years ago, I switched to Cubase and Steinberg. Um, but, the fact that everything was phase accurate, you know, if you put it on the grid, it's on the grid. You know, uh, which was coming from, the original, now, of course, Pro Tools does that, but when I switched, Pro Tools was still like, the MIDI was all over the place. So, like, I just, I love it. So, your, your TV work, I mean, am I right, you, you worked with Hans Zimmer some years ago on, on the soundtrack? Yeah, I worked on the Mission Impossible 2 soundtrack, so we were kind of like down at his place. That was really fun. But I do like, I do, um, like a bunch of TV stuff where it's really like work for hire, not, not emotionally invested, but it's very much like, Hey, can you do X, Y, Z? Which I find fun, but not particularly artistically rewarding. So, um, the songwriting was really my love and producing is really my love, but I just, it's just been like the last few months. I just haven't even. Just kind of like sat back and gonna pick this up again next year. Yeah Do films interest you scoring for movies, you know, the full two hour blockbuster? I definitely interest me I just haven't really pursued that and It's like everything no matter where you go. It's super competitive and you're starting from scratch So you have to sort of find a way in so like at least in the songwriting production thing at least I have something And some connections that I, uh, you know, I can, it's a world that I know. So I kind of like, that was something I started when I was quite young and I've just kind of continued to do it. Anything else exciting coming up in your future, musically? I mean, you know, once we're through all this. Everything exciting is in my past. How sad. LAUGHS What do you miss the most? You know, being locked up in your own studio and not being able to go. What's the thing you miss the most? Oh, I love collaborating, you know, I've definitely missed that. And I've tried to do a few zoom sessions and working on stuff that kind of you've had already started and finishing it totally works. But starting something from scratch is really hard. I find I know people are doing it, but I find it pretty hard because a lot of my processes I'm listening in the room and there's like maybe three other people and somebody is on the couch and they're humming something and you're like, Oh, that's good. And you pick up on that. And then there's. You just, that's not there if you're on Zoom. So, I just find it hard to do. One last question, which I forgot to ask, and I'm going to go back to, to Skritti again. Um, Green, um, and the, you know, the current version of the band have announced they're touring Cupid and Psyche 85. Yeah, I saw that. Playing it as a whole thing, the, the, towards the end of this year. And, you know, Touch Wood, that's going to go ahead. I just wondered what your thoughts were about that. Oh, I, I, I was hoping to get over there to see the Shepard's Bush show. It could be fun. I can't believe they're doing it. It is quite a feat, I guess. Yeah, I'm surprised he's down to do it. Cause he was like, resisted to do A lot of the older stuff though. Yeah, I think it'll be a blast. David, thank you ever so much for talking to us today. Thank you, this was really fun. Great to speak to you and all the best for the future. Yep, you too. Thank you for listening and be sure to check out the show notes page for this episode where you'll find further information along with web links and details. Of all the other episodes before you go, make sure you visit the Sand on Sound podcastPage@sandonsound.com slash podcasts where you can explore all the other great content playing across the other channels. I'm Rob Perel, and this has been a failed Muso production for Sound on Sound.