Addictive TV - Orchestra of Samples

Once so eloquently described as ‘next level shit’ by Grandmaster Flash, British electronic duo Addictive TV create music with a difference; it’s music you can see. They’ve been travelling round the world for five years, meeting and recording samples from over 200 musicians, and have worked their technological wizardry on them to create a live show that mixes them all together to make pieces. It’s marvellous, and its coming to Norwich Arts Centre this month. I spoke to Graham and Mark about where the idea came from, who their influences have been and what piece of technological kit they most wish existed.

You’ve been working together for 10 years. What did you do before that as individuals, and how did you meet and start working together?

GRAHAM:  More than 10 years yes! Well, prior to what we’re doing now, I was a VJ in clubland and was also producing television at the same time, making music shows like the DJ mix series Mixmasters on ITV1 and in the late 90’s I produced a series for Channel 4 called Transambient.  Me and Mark first joined forces back in 2006 when EMI approached me to create the video for his mashup single release of Blondie vs The Doors, from his album MASHED.

MARK:  Prior to hooking up with Graham I was working under my Go Home Productions name, achieving a fair bit of worldwide notoriety by creating bootlegs, mashups and remixes from the early 2000’s, mashing the likes of Madonna with the Sex Pistols, Blondie with The Doors and often with the blessings of the artists involved which lead to official and semi-official releases.  And after I’d caused a bit of a stir with these, I was asked to produce a single for David Bowie, at his request, which was Rebel Never Gets Old in 2004, and that was quickly followed by remixes I did for Bob Dylan, Alicia Keys, Gang of Four, Ruts DC and Kasabian amongst others. 

Basically what you do as a duo is to blend images and music together using samples. Who has inspired you in terms of musicians, videographers and musical innovators?

Mark: Musically speaking, although not directly influencing our work as Addictive TV, I’ve personally been inspired by all genres of music but primarily late 60's psychedelia, late 70's pop with bands like XTC but also soundtracks from 60's/70's science-fiction and exploitation movies.

Graham: I’ve always been influenced by science fiction and the earliest of electronic musicians since I was a kid like Vangelis and Kraftwerk. In the early days I’d say Emergency Broadcast Network from New York were influential and also Canadian DJ and producer Akufen.

Where did the idea for Orchestra of Samples come from? I’ve seen something similar before, but nothing quite like this.

Mark:  There have been similar projects that may contain a basic element of what we've done with Orchestra of Samples but in no way have they even scratched the surface of how far we've taken things.  Our creative approach is simply seeing which samples work together. The whole idea is an exploration into musical probability, about bringing together really different musicians who wouldn't normally play together, and more to the point their instruments which wouldn’t normally be heard together!  It’s far more than just different people in different countries playing together and I’ve found working in this way fascinating, especially as I’m also a guitarist, and working outside of normal musical conventions has really opened my eyes, finding really unexpected combinations of instruments we didn’t know about.

Graham:  The idea came partly from travelling so much but also about wanting to create something much bigger than just a project, more than just a show or an album, a kind of entity that brought people together regardless of musical or cultural background, who they are or where they’re from - something that illustrated how we’re all connected.  We also wanted to utilise our particular skillset and take things somewhere else to another level of creativity entirely.

You filmed over 200 musicians around the world who never met but are sampled and play together on screen. It took five years. That’s a long time to working on a project whilst not seeing any money coming in from it! What kept your belief in the project going through those times?

GRAHAM:  Yes, it’s been a massive undertaking, which is why I guess very few artists have ever attempted to create something like this. We really wanted to collaborate with loads of different musicians internationally and that’s pretty impractical in the real world, unless you’re Bono or Sting, but obviously in the digital world of sampling, it’s very practical! So we cleverly integrated recording sessions into our travelling schedule that was already happening, making it work in tandem with gigging, which kept costs to a minimum.  We took a camera and recording kit with us around the planet year after year, spending time with local musicians everywhere we performed.  And over time that’s been everywhere from Brazil, Colombia and Mexico to countries in North and West Africa, the Middle East and even Egypt during the Arab Spring, then to Asia and countries like Kazakhstan, China and even Bhutan up in the Himalayas, plus of course all over Europe!  I’d say definitely the musicians themselves have helped us keep faith in the project, they all thought it was a great idea and wanted to be a part of it.

How did you find all the people to contribute, and did they have to audition?

MARK: The whole process has been very organic, it’s via a mixture of friends in different countries introducing us to musicians, who in turn suggest their musician friends, plus many of the festivals we played at suggest artists they know and then a few venues in France where we’ve been artists-in-residence have also organised recording sessions with musicians they regularly work with.  Orchestra of Samples has slowly built a huge network of musicians all over the planet, all brought together in a very unique way!

How did you go about translating the online project into a live show?

MARK: Because we always envisaged live musicians performing on the shows, including myself on guitar, we created the tracks in specific ways that could incorporate their involvement and that’s been everything from beatboxers, rappers, keyboard players and violinists to guitarists, trumpet players and many percussionists!  The album mixes vary slightly in that they are much more produced and mixed for audio only, but whether you’re listening to the album at home or seeing the live show, both experiences are pretty unique!

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What do you two do on stage when you play live? Are you playing with the sounds, and how does that affect the video footage that plays alongside it?