Interview #445: Tyondai Braxton - Battles

Scored entirely by Battles' multi-instrumentalist Tyondai Braxton and recorded with the Wordless Music Orchestra in New York, Braxton's second solo album Central Market has left critics, fans and musicians alike, crumbling in awe at the rich complexity, delicate beauty and forward thinking magic combined within the record. With Björk describing the release as a mashup of 20th century music that has bravely taken an extra step, and Fourtet praising Braxton for his creation of a total mind bender. Epic cinematic music that is packed with amazing sounds and ideas, Central Market has had a profound impact upon all who have heard it.

Though widespread commercial success and recognition came through Battles and their critically acclaimed 2007 debut Mirrored, Tyondai Braxton has been actively producing and performing music since the mid 90's. I Like Music caught up with Tyondai to chat about the development of his style and ideas, his approach to Central Market, meeting Brian Eno and music he's recently been obsessing over.

"I Like Music because… It is exciting. That pretty much sums it all up.” Tyondai Braxton, Battles

ILM: Central Market, what a project! You’re known for your incredibly detailed music and compositions, how did you arrive at this idea?

Tyondai: My earlier music was, in a sense, a simulation of a lot of the ideas I wanted to do but didn’t have the resources to do. Through loops and different voices I would try and simulate different textures that would symbolise different instruments. I was always trying to create a grand scale thing, but in the end it was always just a layered loop. A monophonic thing. All it could be was a simulation. I still like that way of working and I used those methods even on this record. It was inspiring to take that to the next realm.

ILM: Had you been working/seeding Central Market during your time with Battles?

Tyondai: Being in Battles had a big impact upon me. When we were writing Mirrored, by the end of it I had started that main piece from Central Market, Platinum Rows. The solo thing is very insular. With Battles I was bouncing ideas off everyone. Throughout Mirrored I realised that I had a real love for orchestra music. Though I had been simulating it previously, I wasn’t fully committed just yet to jumping into that pool. After Mirrored I began to flesh out those ideas and take a look at my own music, it just felt like the next step. It was really exciting to take the plunge, you know?

ILM: How do you approach your solo work? What’s the process?

Tyondai: I still use the format that I’ve always been comfortable with. The solo format, using a bunch of guitar peddles and a bunch of loopers and stuff. The reason I like to do that is because firstly, over the years I have grown to love the sounds I create. I understand the process well now and I have a lot of control over how I want things to sound. I didn’t want to completely abandon that process, so I tried to blow it out a little bit and incorporate ideas within it. So I would create these little, what I would call modular, orchestrated loops, and work with them.

ILM: How did they work?

Tyondai: Ok, so I would have a loop that was say, thirty seconds long right? I want percussion parts, so I’ll beatbox percussion parts, that way it’ll sound very human. Then I’ll have another line of something, that could be a clarinet line or something from my guitar. The process, long story short, was creating these modular loops with vocals, guitar, found objects, effects pedals and then orchestrating the different layers of the loops for different instruments when I thought it called for it, and when I felt the instrumentation of the piece needed to be fleshed out.

ILM: Did you have to overcome any major hurdles or approach things in a completely unexpected way?

Tyondai: There wasn’t a major hurdle per-say, maybe besides writers block! You know, having a hard time connecting point A and point B, there were those moments of course. But generally speaking, the thing that put me out of my comfort zone was working in such a fate based way. You’re writing, you have these ideas, there’s a vision for what this thing could be, but only at the last minute can you get the orchestra in and get the things happening. I really had to be prepared and I had to assume a lot before I had the opportunity to hear how the orchestrations were going to come out. After a year and a half of working I was just hoping the orchestrations were actually right!

ILM: What was that transitional process like? Bringing your music to the Wordless Orchestra?

Tyondai: It was so exciting! The excitement completely dwarfed the fear I was having of wanting it to go well! The Wordless Orchestra, I mean, these guys are so unbelievably talented! They were just a perfect match for what I was doing. It was an incredible opportunity being able to work with them. The great thing was, if I was in the studio and I heard something that didn’t totally work, I would re-orchestrate something on the fly, then they would read what I had written on a computer, on a programme called Sibelius. So I could instantly re-notate in the studio. They would read it and just kill it first time. It really allowed me to just see what worked and what didn’t. Overall it really was an incredible experience.

ILM: Will the project translate into a live experience for audiences?

ILM: We’re definitely going to do some live shows, probably next year (2010). The thing is, right now I’ve been thrown back into writing the new Battles album. I knew that going in with this record the second it was done I would have to jump back in to that again. So I’m not able to do it immediately. But I’m talking to some people now, hopefully it’ll be a multi-media thing. We’ll see.

ILM: You’d mentioned Stravinsky’s Song of the Nightingale as one of your sources of inspiration for Central Market. What is it about that piece that captured you?

Tyondai: I regret honing in on Stravinsky. EVERYONE’s been like ‘Oh, It’s inspired by Stravinsky!’ He is a huge inspiration and I absolutely fed into a lot of ideas of his, but it didn’t stand alone. But, point being, he wrote Song of the Nightingale directly after The Rite of Spring, probably his most famous piece. It was a re-orchestration of this opera that he’d written before any of his ballets. It’s more concise than The Rite of Spring. It’s shorter and more agile, it’s simpler in a lot of ways. It’s absolutely brilliant. It’s vibrant. It’s always weird to talk about these things, I’m sitting here saying “It’s vibrant! It’s brilliant! Blah, blah, blah.” It sounds so cerebral and music history based. The real truth is, if you push play on that piece, it’s fucking incredible! It’s really visceral, the twists and turns in it are really exciting. That’s what I took from it the most. The energy in it and the quality of control. You have to be in awe of Stravinsky’s control in his compositions. The character of the piece, the control he had and the ‘press play’ factor.

ILM: What effect do you think your progression through Central Market will have on the next Battles record?

Tyondai: It took me a second to get my head out of my own solo world and collaborate again. But it’s great. Central Market was very elaborate with a very intense process. With Battles I’m looking to do something simpler. I really love Central Market. I think I’ll always use my solo vehicle as a chance to experiment with ideas that might be a little crazy, a little more complicated. I’m starting to view Battles as an opportunity to let the reigns down a little bit and have things a little easier. I don’t really know yet. We’re still in the very early stages of the record’s development.

ILM: When you look back across your career as a musician so far, what have been some of the main highlights for yourself as an artist?

Tyondai: The success of Battles was really surprising and exciting. My experience with Battles has been a life changing and eye opening experience. It allowed me to realise Central Market. We just played the Sydney Opera House. That was a really heavy thing. It was totally surreal, it was curated by Brian Eno! It was a good show for us, we played well, it felt good. We got off stage and Brian Eno came up to me and said “That was FUCKING incredible!” and then he bought me a beer! It was some of the most surreal shit...! There have been so many though, I’d have to sit down and make a list! That was the last moment though, I’ve been thinking about that a lot!

ILM: What would be your advice to any musicians wanting to make music for a living?

Tyondai: Do your work the way that you want to do it. You don’t have to compromise. Do your own thing. At the same time, I think that it’s very healthy and very good to have your own ideas challenged by working with people. Find people that are interesting to you and you feel bring out the best in your own methods. In a band four heads are better than one. At the same time, it’s very important to establish your own identity. You’ll have a better understanding of who you are artistically if you work by yourself. That way, you’ll equally have a stronger identity within your collaborations. So my advice is work by yourself and with other people.

ILM: What music have you been listening to recently?

Tyondai: I’ve been, unsurprisingly, really obsessing over large orchestra and classical pieces. One of my favourite pieces is by a Japanese composer called Toru Takemitsu. I keep going back to this piece and each time I listen to it, it’s like I’m hearing it for the first time. This guy is on some other shit man. Again, real sense of control in his pieces. If I could recommend a piece he did, it would be A Flock Descends Into The Pentagonal Garden. It’s this really huge and really haunting large scale orchestra work by him. I’ve also been really into a very modern, early twentieth century composer called Edgard Varèse. He has a large scale work called Amériques, he’s a French composer and it’s a very retardedly huge orchestra. Even now, nothing sounds anything like this piece.

ILM: Have you seen any inspiring live music recently?

Tyondai: I’ll tell you what I saw recently that totally spun my head around, here in New York there was a special show. My friend Dave Longstret from The Dirty Projectors just played a show that was a collaboration with Bjork! It was one of the most unbelievable shows I’ve seen in a long time. It was incredible!