Introduction  

  This paper aims to explore experimental music production techniques. It looks at how musicians  are integrating the role of producer into the creative process, at how recording and production  equipment is used as a set of instruments, a palette of sounds for composers of electronic music.  It investigates this by looking at my own work composing experimental electronic music within  the group Chillage People.  
  It begins by explaining the context and origins of the group, and the backgrounds and influences  of those involved. It looks briefly at the range of equipment used. It focuses principally on the  techniques and approaches used within the music, covering the use of art music techniques  within this popular music format, as well as describing production techniques more commonly  found in pop and electronic dance music production.  
  It looks at improvisation and the performance practices of the group; live electronics;  arrangement and voicings; use of found sounds and recordings made in natural environments;  influence of jazz; influence of musicological knowledge on composition; influence of early  elecronic music pioneers, including Schaeffer, Stockhausen and the radiophonic workshop; use  of found sounds and music concrete; influence of electro-acoustic composers and the Composers  Desktop Project; influences from minimalism, including the Experimental Music Catalogue  composers, Scratch Ensemble and Portsmouth Sinfonia; influence of ethnomusicology including  throat singing, gamelan and Indian Classical Music; the exploration of spirituality and meditation  through music; and the postmodern agenda of the group. It goes on to explore the issues raised  by exploring the boundaries between art music and popular music and the conclusions that can  be drawn from this work.  

  Origins and Context of Chillage People  

  I became interested in music that used technology when performing as a keyboard player in  various pop bands in the 1980s. I became more and more interested in the way synthesisers could  be used in music. I was influenced by Tangerine Dream, Kraftwerk, Rick Wakeman, the Human League, Japan, electronic body music, New Order and the many other pop bands that used  synthesizers extensively. I have since worked as a freelance composer, writing music for picture  and for contemporary dance company Whoopee Stomp, being commissioned by the arts council  to write for them. I have worked as a live sound engineer, running my own PA company, and  also working as an in house sound engineer at Sheffield venue ‘The Leadmill’. I have written  club music (also known as Electronic Dance Music or EDM) in most styles. I am a DJ (disc  jockey) and have promoted my own EDM events in nightclubs. I discovered EDM in 1991, and  was immediately attracted by its music technology focus, as popular music that was focusing on  keyboard players rather than guitarists. I have had extensive experience of performing in indie,  rock, pop, jazz, funk and soul bands as a keyboard, guitar and bass player, and also sing and play  percussion.  synthesizers extensively. I have since worked as a freelance composer, writing music for picture  and for contemporary dance company Whoopee Stomp, being commissioned by the arts council  to write for them. I have worked as a live sound engineer, running my own PA company, and  also working as an in house sound engineer at Sheffield venue ‘The Leadmill’. I have written  club music (also known as Electronic Dance Music or EDM) in most styles. I am a DJ (disc  jockey) and have promoted my own EDM events in nightclubs. I discovered EDM in 1991, and  was immediately attracted by its music technology focus, as popular music that was focusing on  keyboard players rather than guitarists. I have had extensive experience of performing in indie,  rock, pop, jazz, funk and soul bands as a keyboard, guitar and bass player, and also sing and play  percussion.  
  As well as having an extensive knowledge of popular music, I had a traditional art music  training. I studied undergraduate composition in Leicester with minimalist composers Gavin  Bryars and Christopher Hobbs, and took a master’s degree in music technology in York with  composers Richard Orton and Tony Myatt. I later took a PhD in composition in Sheffield with  composer Katharine Norman. I developed a career as an academic, teaching composition,  popular music, music technology and studio production. I have written music that used the  format and style of low tempo EDM, using the techniques and influences that I had picked up  through academic study. I became more and more interested in the fusing of pop and art musics.  
  I founded the electronic music group Chillage People with Andrew Brooks. He had been  performing for a number of years as Vonal KSZ. He was influenced by synthesizer music  pioneers from the 1970s and 1980s including Tangerine Dream, Kraftwerk and Front 242 as well  as by early Techno acts. There was a long history of techno (as it is known in the UK)1 in  Sheffield, and Andrew had lived in Sheffield far longer than me, spending much of his youth in  the city, influenced by Sheffield’s many electronic pop music pioneers, such as Cabaret Voltaire,  the Human League, Heaven Seventeen, the British Electronic Foundation, LFO, Tricky Disco,  Autechre and the other Warp artists. He used a variety of equipment live and had his own  recording studio at home. Andy had a record released on a Sheffield label on 12” vinyl, a techno  
  1 As opposed to Detroit Techno, which is much closer to US house music, and is not as extremely electronic in  nature as European techno, retaining a groove influenced by disco and funk. The grooves in European techno are  taken from European electronic pop music such as Kraftwerk and Giorgio Moroder, and are in a European tradition  that includes Karlheinz Stockhausen and Pierre Shaeffer. Electronic pop pioneers Kraftwerk, Tangerine Dream and  Can all attended Stockhausen’s classes on electronic music. version of the theme from the BBC science fiction series ‘Doctor Who’. He had played this  number live and it had become very popular in underground clubsnumber live and it had become very popular in underground clubs [1.]  
   We formed Chillage People in 1998 to improvise ambient electronica live in night clubs. We met  through two mutual friends, Jamie who was promoter of underground club night Headcharge that  ran at the Arches nightclub in Sheffield, and Flo who worked in the club as a DJ and sound and  lighting engineer, and who had also promoted his own events there. The Arches was the focus of  underground EDM culture in the city, and a number of events began at the Arches and then took  its subcultural capital [2] into larger venues to expand, the best-known example being the Sheffield  superclub Gatecrasher.  
  As I had got to know Flo and Jamie and told them about the music I was writing, they suggested  that I should meet Andrew as we had a lot in common musically. The four of us met in my studio  and discussed music. Flo asked about music played in club chillout rooms and whether with the  equipment we had we could improvise ambient electronica live. Myself and Andrew said that we  could, and in a flash Flo had booked us to play a music set at one of his club nights in the  chillout room in a month’s time. Our ‘band’ was formed in that moment. I had been writing  music in this genre for six or seven years and was glad to find a new focus for the development  of my ideas.  

  The name  

  The name Chillage People is a good illustration of some of the dynamics within and concepts  behind the group. On the surface it is a simple pun. In the 1970s there was a disco group called  the Village People who had hits such as ‘YMCA’, ‘In The Navy’ and ‘Go West’, and it was easy  to change the first letter of their band name. There is however a little more to this story. There  were other pop groups who had used the word people in their name, including Yarbrough and  People, M People, the Happy Mondays’ ’24 hour Party People’ and science fiction television  series ‘The Tomorrow People’. The word brings many meanings, a vaguely socialist perspective  and associations with African American culture.  
  EDM clubs, festivals and events often had chillout rooms, where dancers could go to listen to  soothing, lower tempo music, to rest from the stresses of the dance floor. At rather more small- scale events that I promoted and organised myself, I had put up signs that ironically referenced  larger outdoor rave events, including ‘techno arena’ and ‘chillage village’ for the room with the  main dancefloor and the chillout room. It was a small step from chillage village to Chillage  People.  soothing, lower tempo music, to rest from the stresses of the dance floor. At rather more small- scale events that I promoted and organised myself, I had put up signs that ironically referenced  larger outdoor rave events, including ‘techno arena’ and ‘chillage village’ for the room with the  main dancefloor and the chillout room. It was a small step from chillage village to Chillage  People.  
  This punning use of the word Chillage also had a history within EDM culture. DJ Mixmaster  Morris had released a compilation CD of music called Global Chillage [3] that featured samples  and influences from all over the world. This title was a pun based on Marshall McCluhan’s  concept of the global village [4], referring to the way in postmodern culture that digital  communications were effectively shrinking the world, and taking a culturally optimistic [5] view of  the increased links, commonalities and synergies between different cultures.   The UK acid house explosion had begun in Ibiza where the hippie trail [6] had brought the drug  ecstasy or MDMA into the paths and to the notice of holidaying London House music DJs. EDM  culture had begun to develop scenes [7] in Thailand, Goa, Israel and many other parts of the world,  and the term Global Chillage actively celebrated the breakdown of conventional perceptions of  time and space that are part of postmodernity [8]. It also reflected the influences of music from  many cultures that can be heard in much low-tempo EDM. Shakuhachis, sitars, samples of  singers from different countries, berimbaus, koras, tablas, djembes and numerous other ‘ethnic’  instruments are very common in this style, and many of the tracks on Mixmaster Morris’s album  featured musical instruments or textures taken from around the world.  
    Our adoption of the name Chillage People was based on the name of the 1970s disco band  Village People. It also referenced Marshall Mcluhan and Mixmaster Morris. It was a conscious  statement that declared us as within postmodern culture, and was intended as an indicator that we  were actively adopting a postmodern agenda. It used humour in a way typical of postmodernity,  a trait often read by modernist theorists as facile and an example of lack of depth, of surface  culture. I regard this use of humour rather as a way of making complex concepts and issues  interesting and accessible. It is a way of disguising content as style, and of distancing oneself  from the intense seriousness of much of both the art music world and the music business.  Therefore this humour is political.  Village People. It also referenced Marshall Mcluhan and Mixmaster Morris. It was a conscious  statement that declared us as within postmodern culture, and was intended as an indicator that we  were actively adopting a postmodern agenda. It used humour in a way typical of postmodernity,  a trait often read by modernist theorists as facile and an example of lack of depth, of surface  culture. I regard this use of humour rather as a way of making complex concepts and issues  interesting and accessible. It is a way of disguising content as style, and of distancing oneself  from the intense seriousness of much of both the art music world and the music business.  Therefore this humour is political.  
  I regard postmodernism as the final stages of the taking of control over society and culture by the  masses from the few, a gentle and culturally integrated approach to revolutionary thinking.  Modernist intellectual society developed through the academia of the 20th Century, and has been  dominated by public school educated University graduates, and I see it as a vestige of the era  when the dominance and superiority of the educated few over the many was unquestioned.  Modernists in positions of power have much to lose by the increasing importance of popular  culture, and continue to instinctively oppose, or refuse to embrace, postmodernity. The elite, the  rich, the historically powerful in the UK [9] stand in a postmodern world to lose the power and  control to decide what is of value, intellectually, culturally and theoretically, if the masses begin  to have control of key agencies. Modernists have formed a last defence against postmodernism,  by defining it in their own terms as a negative and reductionist force. As a composer immersed in  popular culture I wished to adopt a specifically postmodern agenda in opposition to the stance of  modernist theorists such as Roger Scruton [10] whose thinly disguised elitism tries to control what is  thought of as important art, making absolutist statements about quality which are often rooted in  the historical personal preferences of high society.  
  I am one of a growing body of artists who regard themselves as overtly postmodern, and are  actively seeking the end of the modern and the development of postmodernity. I am disenchanted  with the deconstructionist, culturally pessimistic ideas often described by postmodern theorists,  with a reductionist approach to cultural theory, seeing nothing good in popular culture and no  good side to postmodernity. I was seeking to become part of the reconstruction of the world of art, into one where particular art forms and agendas are not privileged. My influences in adopting  this agenda include the teaching of theologian Graham Cray on postmodernity and post- enlightenment thinking where particular art forms and agendas are not privileged. My influences in adopting  this agenda include the teaching of theologian Graham Cray on postmodernity and post- enlightenment thinking [11], (who having been chair of Ridley Hall theological college in  Cambridge is currently Bishop of Maidstone); ‘The Re-enchantment of Art’ by postmodern  theorist Suzi Gablik [12], in which she lays down a manifesto for reconstructionist art; and Zygmunt  Bauman [13] who discusses personal responsibility within an individualistic worldview, and how  ethics are constructed within postmodernity.  

  Studio Equipment  

  The music was recorded at my digital studio. This is based around an Apple Macintosh computer  (currently a dual 2.7gig G5) with a MOTU 2408 soundcard. Previously 2 Macs were used, one  for midi and one for audio. The mixing desk is currently a Yamaha DM2000 digital desk fully  loaded with waves plug-in and other ADAT cards and interfaced via 4 Focusrite octopre AD  units. Outboard includes Lexicon Vortex and MPX1, Liquid Channel modelling  compressor/channel strip, 3 Echocord tape delays, Aphex 104 and various other multi-effects,  gates, delays and compressors. The main studio mic is a Neumann U87. Monitoring is through a  pair of Richard Allan RA8Ms with 2 matching subs. Main DAW is Cubase SX, although Logic  is also present. Other software used includes Reason, Rebirth and Recycle. There are numerous  plug-ins including Reaktor, Pluggo and Mode. Midi equipment includes Roland JD800, JV1080,  2 SC88s, 2 Roland R8Ms with (808 and 909 cards), Emu Emax, Xtreme Lead and Virtuoso,  Novation Bass Station, Sine MB22 II, Cheetah MS6, Quasimidi Rave-o-loution 309, MFB synth  II and Kult, Moog Prodigy, Sequential Circuits Pro1 and Oberheim OB12.  
  The DM2000 integrates well with the DAW, allowing one to control and automate everything  centrally, with completely flexible routing. More and more frequently composition is completely  contained within the computer in software, with the outboard equipment occasionally used for  individual effects. For example standard delays are provided by software plug-ins, but unusual  individual effects are produced by using old analogue tape delay units. Similarly plug-in digital  software instruments can simulate Roland 303s, but do not have the individual character of  analogue equipment like the MFB, Moog or Pro1, so these are sometimes used to give character  and individuality to the music.  

    Improvisation  

  We intended from the start to use improvisation in our performances. Within popular music,  improvisation is a basic, standard technique, and both Andrew and myself were very comfortable  improvising. We were both influenced by German electronic pop band Tangerine Dream. They  became well known for their pioneering use of synthesizers. They would base concerts on  structured improvisations using music technology, and two of their concerts were rarely the  same. They would regularly release albums that were recordings of concerts from their tours, and  would effectively take their studios on the road with them to allow this to happen. Members of  this German band had been to lectures by Stockhausen (as had Kraftwerk), and they were  influenced by popular music and high art ideas. I was also influenced by Pink Floyd (who had  included improvisation in their early work), Frank Zappa, The Grateful Dead and other 1960s  improvising pop groups.  
  I also had a background in other forms of improvisation. I had participated in workshops in  Cunningham influenced dance improvisation, had studied jazz with author of ‘The New Guide to  Harmony with Lego Bricks’ Conrad Cork [14], and had studied improvisation with Gavin Bryars.  Bryars had been an undergraduate at Sheffield University, and had begun some of the earliest  British free improvisation with Derek Bailey at a pub called the Grapes in Sheffield (a venue at  which Chillage People have also performed). Bryars later formed the Portsmouth Sinfonia and  became an important figure in free improvisation, leaving all performance behind eventually to  focus on composition. He had studied with John Cage. In turn I had studied under his  composition tutelage and taken part in a free improvisation course run by him. I had also studied  with Chrisopher Hobbs, who had been a member of improvising group the Scratch Ensemble. I  had been influenced by many of Bryars’ colleagues including Evan Parker and his multiphonic  saxophone improvisations, Steve Lacy’s jazz style, and John Tilbury and John White’s Piano  work. I was very influenced by jazz composer Carla Bley and by the cool period of Miles Davis,  and had performed and composed jazz pieces, including two residencies at the Edinburgh festival  performing original music.  
  Chillage People were immediately mixing popular and high art ideas and concepts in an overtly  and deliberately postmodern fashion. We were fusing together ideas that had come from popular music, Stockhausen, Cage and Bryars, mixing separate musical forms that were either from high  art and popular culture, taking influences from both culture and society. art and popular culture, taking influences from both culture and society.  

  Performance  

  I was aware that there were few groups that performed chillout music live, and was keen to begin  to explore this avenue. Our first performance was due a month after our first meeting. We met up  to practice and prepare and structure our improvisations. We decided that we would have a  mixture of free-form sections and periods when some parts of the music would be pre-recorded.  This is a format that had worked well for The Orb, a group who pioneered performance of  ambient EDM. In electro-acoustic music concerts, elements that cannot be performed live are  often played from tape, whether at the International Computer Music Conference or at a Spice  Girls (pop group) concert. It was important to us that we kept an element of live performance and  did not act as DJs, but we were not worried about using backing music to some extent.  
  Andrew was to use analogue synthesizers (a Sequential Circuits Pro One and Roland SH101)  live as well as a sampler and a tape recorder. The synthesizers have knobs and sliders that allow  one to control all of the synthesis parameters in real time, shaping the sounds along with the  choice of notes. Andrew had a library of sounds already recorded for the sampler. It was an old  (Roland W30) keyboard model that worked at a 12 bit resolution, giving a crunchy, textural  sound and the ability to trigger the samples live from the keyboard. These electronic instruments  were mostly not used to replicate acoustic instruments but as individual instruments in their own  right. In EDM circles, these older synthesizers are known for the character of their filters and  other features, and have become sought after instruments.  
  The Pro One has a particularly powerful bass response, a filter that will drive into a screaming  self-oscillation when the resonance is high, and a complex set of modulation options that allow  for cross-modulation. Like a form of analogue FM synthesis one modulator can be used to  modulate a second signal, and feedback can be sent through the modulation matrix to allow  complex flows and distortion of modulated signals. The SH101 has a thinner sound, but also has  a filter that is full of character, that interacts well with the built-in noise generator. Both have  simple step sequencers that allow for loops of notes to be programmed in on the fly. Andrew has  an amazing knowledge of analogue synthesis, and knew exactly how the most minute of  adjustments of any of the controls would change the sound. He would use this knowledge to manipulate sound design live. His tape recorder allowed him to prerecord unusual material and  play it in as a background. Andrew also had effects units to add reverb and delay to these sounds. play it in as a background. Andrew also had effects units to add reverb and delay to these sounds.  
  I also had a Pro One synthesizer that I used, giving a consistency to our sounds. I also used  digital midi sounds, from a Roland JV1080. I would programme sounds for this, as well as using  it to generate accurate acoustic sampled simulations of instruments such as pianos, electric  pianos and string ensembles. I used a DAT player to play backing materials that we had recorded  in the studio. I would also take with me a Technics 1210 turntable and Technics scratch mixer,  which I would use to play records and sections of records, scratching or cutting in and out the  source materials. I sometimes would use a record as backing material, often a battle tools [15]  record.  
  I had developed over a number of years a large collection of recordings suitable for this very  purpose, which I had used previously in studio based compositions. I had world music recordings  of Coptic prayers and Bulgarian Orthodox chant; speech records from comedians and science  fiction stories; records of speeches including Martin Luther King and Ronald Reagan; test  records for hi-fi systems; relaxation and yoga records; and sound effects recordings. I could use  these to repeat short phrases, add background underscore textures, or to create dynamic textures  by manipulating the vinyl using scratch DJ techniques such as cutting, scratching and beat  building. Most of these records came from hunting through second hand record stores for  suitable material. I tend to agree with Rietveld’s [16] approach, of the record as text and DJ as  curator, although I am also influenced by Poshardt’s [17] approach to the DJ as a performer, more  relevant when hip hop style scratch techniques are used.  
  The backing DAT tapes Chillage People performed to contained sparse material that we  generated in the recording studio. Much of this would provide rhythmic material, electronic  drum beats and loops, over which we could create strange and experimental soundscapes. We  had often added bass lines, so that a foundation of bass and drums was present to create the  backbone of sections of music. Each piece lasted between 4 and 8 minutes and would have  spaces and more and less busy sections for variety. We also used some existing pieces of music  that we had written, which were sparse enough that we could add extra textures without making them too cluttered. Some of these were pieces that were not complete, where the basic skeleton  of the piece was present but not all the detail was completed. We interspersed these pieces with  live sections where we would improvise with no backing material, creating washes of sound that  moved and shifted.  of the piece was present but not all the detail was completed. We interspersed these pieces with  live sections where we would improvise with no backing material, creating washes of sound that  moved and shifted.  
  The music was not all based on electronic soundscapes. Andrew would put riffs into the music  and I would create minimalist repeating patterns that drifted across bar lines. The music mixed  elements of pop, jazz, electronica, EDM, electro-acoustic composition, free improvisation and  minimalism.  
  Our first performances were in the same underground Sheffield nightclub, the Arches. This club  had an upstairs bar at the time, in which people escaped from the intensity of experience of the  main dancefloor [18]. The venue was fairly full and a number of those present had taken drugs  common in EDM culture such as ecstasy, speed, LSD or ketamine. They needed in particular to  find a space where they could rest their bodies, minds and psyches, and made for an interesting  audience. We would set up in one corner of the room. The rest of the room was largely  dominated by a number of sofas spread all around the bar. By the time we performed, the room  was full of people, some sitting on the floor, others piled on the sofas, others standing, at the bar  or around the walls. The reactions we got from the audience were interesting, from what we  could see and from discussing our set afterwards with some of them.  
  Some were oblivious to the fact that there was a ‘band’ playing, one person coming up to me as I  was playing a keyboard in the middle of the performance and persistently asking me at what time  the band came on. We took this as a compliment. I was influenced by Satie’s furniture music,  music designed to be largely ignored, to be played in the interval of a concert. I also knew Eno’s  essay on ambient music [19] and the reaction of the audience fitted in well with what we were  hoping for. Some of the audience listened carefully and attentively, others listened for a while  and then continued to talk. Some sat and watched the whole performance, others drifted in,  stared and watched for a while, and then retuned to the main dance floor. This was very different  from normal pop performances, or concerts of electro-acoustic music I had attended where the  audience would listen in respectful silence to a tape recorder playing music from an empty stage. It was important for me that our music was contextualised, and I was pleased with how the  concerts went, very happy with the feedback we received.  ant for me that our music was contextualised, and I was pleased with how the  concerts went, very happy with the feedback we received.  
  We went on to perform a number of times in this venue. We soon realised we would need  someone to balance the sound for us, but we didn’t want a conventional sound engineer. We  asked a series of sound engineers to come and guest with the band. They would bring their own  effects and add their own sounds and treatments. As a sound engineer myself, I was familiar with  the way Lee Scratch Perry [20] and others had used studio effects to manipulate and distort sounds,  and we knew a number of sound engineers who would add this kind of other dimension to our  music. I was also aware of the live electronics work of a number of performers and sound  diffusers, including Birmingham’s Beast sound system, and performers Eberhard Weber (cello),  Kaffee Matthews (violin) and Yos Zwannenberg (flute), who use electronic effects along with  their acoustic instruments. We wanted sound engineers who would become part of the band,  adding to the overall sound as much as ourselves, and therefore we almost always placed the  sound engineer on stage with us. We worked with sound engineers who also produced their own  music, including Robin Keech [21], Robert Gordon [22] and Paul Bower [23]. They would balance the  music and add delays that would feedback on themselves, catching elements of the music and  sustaining them, turning single elements into repeating textural sound, turning notes into  rhythms, rhythms into textures and textures into moving, shifting walls of sound. Eventually we  needed someone who was more able to commit time to the group. Tom Howat [24] eventually joined  the group as a permanent member.  

  Mill  

  During a gap between two pieces of music at a performance at Destination Venus club night in  Sheffield Hallam University Students’ Union, we improvised a short piece of music. Because we  recorded all our concerts, we heard it again when we listened back to it. We liked it and decided  to record a studio version. We had decided to record an album together and had two months in  the summer in which to work. We wanted to use sounds from nature, and as a concept had decided to include elements of earth, air, fire and water. When first working on ‘Mill’ a large  rainstorm developed overhead. We decided to record it and include it in the piece. As the sky  turned black, we put two condenser mics in open windows to create a spaced A-B stereo pair to  record the sound of the storm, and turned off as much equipment as possible to try to avoid being  hit by lightning in our attic studio. We could not turn off one computer as it was being used for  recording, so we waited nervously as the lightning flashed around us.  rainstorm developed overhead. We decided to record it and include it in the piece. As the sky  turned black, we put two condenser mics in open windows to create a spaced A-B stereo pair to  record the sound of the storm, and turned off as much equipment as possible to try to avoid being  hit by lightning in our attic studio. We could not turn off one computer as it was being used for  recording, so we waited nervously as the lightning flashed around us.   We decided to place this recording in an artificial acoustic space using a large hall reverb. We  used a pre-delay time of over 24 milli-seconds to distance the reverb sound from its source, to  add clarity and avoid smearing the sound. This was a characteristic reverb technique in our  music, one of the features of Tom’s sound engineering. To place a natural sound like a rainstorm  inside a large hall made it obvious that this was an artificial, electronic recording, but the storm  still gave a natural, organic sound to the track. We wanted to create a similar blend of the  artificial and natural in the rest of the piece.  
  I created an orchestra of synthesized sounds playing the main harmonic material of the piece. I  layered 36 separate midi instruments together. Orchestras get their rich textures from the tiny  differences in tuning, timing and timbre in each of the many players in the ensemble. I duplicated  this by choosing different string-like sounds for each midi part, each on a different midi channel,  to get depth of timbre. I detuned each part and played each individually, not using a chordal  piano style, but playing each part one note at a time to try to simulate the approach of a string  player, and produce slightly different timings. I added in midi wind instrument simulations that  respond well to sampled waveforms, such as oboe and flute, ones with few transients. Oboe and  flutes have sounds (like strings) that have a complex initial attack portion of the sound, followed  by a simple waveform that does not change too much. Thus by sampling the attack portion and  looping a synthesized sustain part of the sound, and adding a little vibrato, one can create a  simulation that does not immediately jump out of the mix as sounding artificial. We avoided  synthesized brass. Brass sounds have more complex spectra, even in the sustained portions of  their sound, which are full of transients. Each note tends to sound different and individual,  therefore any synthesized brass-like parts tend to sound obviously artificial, cheap and ineffective, thus we avoided these [25]. Overall we managed to create the mix of different individual  sounds we wanted, an electronic orchestra.  
  We added the sound of a dramatic howling wind, a natural sound that was actually produced by  sweeping the cut off frequency of a resonant filter over a noise generator. We never quite  managed to capture the original pathos of the first improvised performance of the piece, but the  recording manages to achieve our intention of a piece mixing natural and artificial elements,  weather, a hall sound and orchestral depth of texture in a deliberately confused, mixed up  fashion [26].  

  Funky Jay  

  ‘Funky Jay’ [27] is a blues piece that was inspired by ‘All Blues’ by Miles Davis [28] from his ‘Kind of  Blue’ Album. It is based around a simple eight bar blues chord sequence. Live it features a  looped drum sample taken from ‘Funky Drummer’ by James Brown. Brown’s ‘In the Jungle  Groove’ album [29] featured a version of the track with a long section where the drummer plays  solo. This has been sampled by numerous producers, and is perhaps the most regularly sampled  drum loop that has been used in popular music. Many people have been sued by Brown’s  representatives for un-cleared copyright, for using this and other samples without permission. To  avoid this, on our recording we decided to reproduce the drum part ourselves. We did this by  capturing the groove and feel of the original drum part as a groove quantise. This was done using  a feature of the computer music programme Steinberg’s Cubase SX. One can take a piece of  audio and get the programme to record exactly where each beat falls within the bar or beat, often  fractionally before or after the beat. This distance from the beat is what comprises the groove of  the drum part, its feel. Once the groove was captured we could use a sequencer to play a  sequence of drum samples in the same rhythm as the original audio (with no groove, all notes  exactly on the beat), and then apply our groove quantise so that the computer now had the groove  of Clive Stubblefield, James Brown’s drummer, the original ‘Funky Drummer’. Stubblefield was  particularly well known for playing with a flat rhythm, not swinging the beat as far towards a triplet feel as many of his predecessors, moving closer to equally spaced quavers, although not  all the way, in a New Orleans drumming traditionall the way, in a New Orleans drumming tradition [30].  
  ‘Funky Drummer’ features a paradiddle-influenced rhythm in which the drummer plays snare  drum off-beats in addition to and quieter than the strong beats that generally lie on the 2nd and 4th  beats of the bar. This is often done using different hands for the strong and weak beats [31]. I used  this technique to play a paradiddle-type keyboard rhythm that is influenced by the drum part, by  freight-train country blues rhythms and by minimalist patterns like Steve Reich’s ‘Piano Phase’,  where the left and right hand alternate. Tom added tempo-synchronised delays using a rhythmic  tap echo effect. This type of echo delay allows one to tap in an irregular rhythm on a button on  the front of the effect unit. An echo can then be added to any sound with the original sound  repeating according to the rhythm that has been tapped in (in this instance a mixture of crotchets  and quavers), rather than a simple series of equally spaced repeats.  
  Individual small elements of the music were grabbed using an auxiliary send on the mixing desk,  to be effected. Equalisation was added to the send or return to allow only part of the spectrum of  the sound to echo. This delayed signal (as well as others) was routed to a channel of its own on  the mixing desk. The sound from the echo could then be sent back to the effects unit again,  creating a feedback loop. Usually effects are sent to dedicated return channels to avoid this sort  of thing happening. By catching a bit of sound and feeding it into this feedback loop, complex  rhythms and textures could be created from a simple musical source, which would sustain and  develop in time to the music. Delay times were set to either fit in with the beat, or sometimes to  contrast, a triplet feel perhaps set against the beat. Manipulating equalisation within the feedback  loop of the echo unit allowed us to create moving, shifting sounds, boosting any particular midrange  frequency encouraged that point of the spectrum to feedback more than others, and as one  swept the frequency of an equaliser the feedback moved and shifted. A compressor was usually  inserted in series within the feedback loop so that the sound did not run away into uncontrolled  feedback that would drown out the rest of the musical elements. The compressor proportionally  reduced the volume automatically of the input sound if it rose above a set level, providing  dynamic control. This use of delays and this kind of feedback loop can be seen in much of the  work of reggae producer Lee ‘Scratch’ Perry, as well as those influenced by him, such as producers Adrian Sherwood and Jah Wobble and the On-U-Sound System, and is a core  technique within dub production. It adds further layers of rhythmic texture to an already  polyrhythmic, minimalist influenced texture in ‘Funky Jay’, and these delay techniques can be  heard in many Chillage People tracks.  ucers Adrian Sherwood and Jah Wobble and the On-U-Sound System, and is a core  technique within dub production. It adds further layers of rhythmic texture to an already  polyrhythmic, minimalist influenced texture in ‘Funky Jay’, and these delay techniques can be  heard in many Chillage People tracks.  
  In live performance the song featured improvised solos. In the recording it features a thin Roland  SH101 synthesizer sound playing the tune, one of Andrew’s signature sounds. There are further  delays put onto this sound, and onto the piano sound, the delays each having different timings  and timbres, adding together to create a rich texture. This use of multiple delays is also a feature  of the band, one that becomes more extreme on a track I will discuss later, ‘Space Voice’.  

  Professor Toy  

  As a band we were aware of our position within a history of electronic music. We knew of the  German electronic music tradition of Stockhausen, Tangerine Dream, Can and Kraftwerk. The  latter three all studied with Stockhausen, and are primary sources for all electronic dance music.  We were also influenced by Pierre Schaeffer and his use of noise and non-musical sounds, as  well as by the use of radios as musical instruments by John Cage. Tom in particular has a  number of short-wave radios, and we recorded a variety of sounds from a German radio show to  use as the basis of a track called ‘Professor Toy’[32].  
  One particular section of garbled German speech was a particularly interesting mix of sounds,  and we separated it as a computer audio file. The beginning of the track features a single ‘boink’  sound cut out of the centre of this file. It has a rhythmic tap delay on it at the beginning that is a  particularly clear example of the technique described above. We cut individual noises out of the  audio file for their percussive or timbral nature. We sequenced these sound files using Cubase,  moving the audio files around on a number of audio tracks, rather than using a sampler. We built  the main sections around these audio files, using them as part of the rhythm tracks.  
  A sweeping section of noise is used at key structural points of the track, other sections are  percussive and integrated into the drum parts of the music. The whole piece of audio is stated at  one point, about 5 minutes into the composition, near the end. Individual samples from it are  used throughout the piece, as the short section of original audio is deconstructed and used as source material. It seemed important to state the source material at least once in its original  condition. To take a piece of sound and use it as source for much of the rest of the piece is a  standard compositional technique within electro-acoustic composition, one that I had come  across at York University when looking at music by composers such as Trevor Wishart condition. To take a piece of sound and use it as source for much of the rest of the piece is a  standard compositional technique within electro-acoustic composition, one that I had come  across at York University when looking at music by composers such as Trevor Wishart [33]. It also  has resonances within the systemic music of the Experimental Music Catalogue, such as Michael  Parsons’ two piano pieces in the Rhythmic Anthology [34]. The sequencing of the audio sections  was influenced by both these sources, and is just one area where art music influences the piece.  
  The track also uses a simple melodic theme and chord sequence that is intended to be a cross  between German orchestral and electronic pop music traditions, a marching triumphalism  halfway between the final movement of Beethoven’s ninth symphony and Kraftwerk’s ‘Trans- Europe Express’. Square waves are used to give a synthesised equivalent to the horn melodies of  Wagner or Richard Strauss.

Anna Log Sequence  

  Andrew and I were both fans of pre-digital analogue electronic music equipment. A number of  the synthesizers we owned had analogue step sequencers built in to them. They simply  repeatedly played the notes or spaces entered into them with the synthesizer’s sound. This  allowed us to programme a sequence of notes into each and run them independently of one  another, looping over and over again. Because we did not synchronise the sequencers, they  produced complex polyrhythms, drifting in and out of time.  
  In ‘Pendulum Music ‘, ‘Piano Phase’ and his other phasing pieces, Steve Reich explored music  made from patterns repeating at slightly different tempos, with multiple tempos or two  simultaneous time signatures. I was very influenced by these pieces, as well as by minimalist  pieces by Terry Riley, Morton Feldman, Philip Glass, Michael Nyman, John White and two of  my composition tutors Gavin Bryars and Christopher Hobbs. One can see in Chillage People  clear influences from the Scratch Orchestra and the Portsmouth Sinfonia. My first composition  tutors, Christopher Hobbs and Gavin Bryars, had been members of these groups. In their music,  as in mine, can be seen the use of found sounds, sounds from nature, and the influence of  Buddhism, as well as the use of repetition and improvisation. The Portsmouth Sinfonia also had  a sense of humour in their music, especially in their Scratch Classics, and the Scratch Orchestra itself often included Dadaesque performance artists working amongst the musicians, as well as a  sense of surreal comedy, a lightness of spirit also apparent in the Chillage People. sense of surreal comedy, a lightness of spirit also apparent in the Chillage People.  
  In ‘Anna Log Sequence’ I wanted to create an electronic improvised piece of minimalist music  in real time at performances. We would each set going a sequence on one or two synthesizers.  These would be at different tempos and often have a different number of notes in the repeating  sequence. Manipulation of these two simple mathematical parameters, tempo and length of  phrase, produced a varying pattern quite different to most electronic dance music, which  generally has all parts playing at the same tempo and in 4/4. We would chose a scale or mode in  which to play, to allow the parts to work harmoniously together, generally avoiding 3rds and  6ths in order to keep the harmony flexible and allow a number of chords to be implied by adding  extra parts live to the music. The sequencers would be programmed live, making up the choice of  notes and spaces to give a different result each time. Once the sequences were set going, we  would manipulate the other parameters of the synthesizer, filter and amplitude envelopes,  oscillator levels, cross modulation, LFO levels, filter cut off and resonance.  
  Old analogue synthesisers have a very organic sound. The circuitry is slightly unpredictable, and  the way the parameters interact with one another is very musical. We would slowly move  parameters so that each repeat of the sequence would see the tone of the sound slowly move and  shift. The Sequential Circuits Pro One in particular has a modulation matrix that allows one to  route modulation sources back into one another, to create feedback loops and multiplications  akin to a simple analogue version of FM. This produces complex distortions of the filter in  particular. I have always found creating sounds this way a tactile and instinctively musical  process.  
  Modern digital synthesisers adopted in the 1980s nested menus of parameters available via  button presses, as there were too many parameters to allow one to change everything with a knob  or slider on the instrument. More recent synthesizers have adopted the older design of having  many knobs and sliders, to allow one this kind of control once more, and we also had some of  these more recent digital keyboards to use. However they lack the character, individuality and  analogue acoustic warmth of the older synthesizers. My Pro One and Andrew’s sounded and  behaved differently, and each had its own acoustic character, affected by the quality of every  solder joint, the age of each component, much as every acoustic instrument is subtly different in  tone and timbre. I far prefer this kind of sonic manipulation to the abstract approach of programmes like CSound and some other programming based sound creation computer  languages, where one has more choice, a bigger sonic palette, but the separation of changing a  parameter from its result makes the process feel less musically natural. We were also happy with  a restricted sonic palette. We were comfortable with variety within our set restrictions, not  tempted to move to a programme like Max/MSP that would have given us more variety. We  focused instead on note choice, slowly generating timbres and on what we added to the  sequences.  languages, where one has more choice, a bigger sonic palette, but the separation of changing a  parameter from its result makes the process feel less musically natural. We were also happy with  a restricted sonic palette. We were comfortable with variety within our set restrictions, not  tempted to move to a programme like Max/MSP that would have given us more variety. We  focused instead on note choice, slowly generating timbres and on what we added to the  sequences.  
  We played other minimalist style parts live, using our own sense of timing to add rhythms that  complimented and linked the sequencers. Tom added delays to the parts, adding extra rhythms.  We added sounds from samplers and vinyl records to add different textures.  

  Space Voice  

  Space voice is a piece of music created entirely in the studio. It began with a recording of my  voice, using overtone chanting or throat singing techniques to exaggerate the head tone  harmonics in the sound. I had been exposed to Tibetan overtone chanting through its use by  David Hykes and The Harmonic Choir1. Hykes was one of the first Westerners to explore throat  singing traditions from Tibet, Mongolia and Tuva. When one sings, the chest and throat cavities  provide resonant spaces and principle sources of pitch information and amplification. Throat  singing amplifies the pitch implied by the overtones produced by the size of the mouth and nasa [35]  cavity. The effect is simply that the main tone sung has a loud added higher harmonic with a  pitch determined by the size and shape of the mouth. The main recording of my voice on which  this piece is based, simply features long sustained single notes that feature a harmonic much  higher up than the fundamental tone, that becomes more prominent as the note continues.  
  I had become interested years earlier in the Phase Vocoder, a part of the Composers Desktop  Project [36], a suite of audio manipulation programmes created and used by electro-acoustic  composers. It was designed to time-stretch audio, to make a source longer without affecting its  pitch. It was often used in extreme ways because composers liked the audio artefacts (unwanted  distortions created by the operation of the programme) that were created when an audio sample  was stretched to an extreme degree. I decided to use artefacts in the same way. I pitch shifted my own voice downwards in octaves, until artefacts of the pitch shifting process (pitch shifting is a  process analogue to transposition) began to appear, like chirping crickets.  
  I added long cathedral reverbs to the sound. The Harmonic Choir like to perform in large  reverberant spaces in order to support, sustain and amplify the harmonics they sing. I decided to  use reverb for the same purpose. Having grown up in York, and having sung in York Minster,  which has a 24 second reverberation time (24 seconds of delay added by the acoustic space to the  voice singing), I appreciated the support a large reverb could give to a voice.  
  I layered on top of one another the original source recording and versions pitched down in  octaves. I took this piece into the studio with the rest of the group. We added a number of sounds  to the material I brought. This included an appeggiated synthesizer part created using the built in  appeggiator on the Roland SH101 synthesizer. This adds characteristic monophonic alternating  notes. We went to the Peak District National Park near Sheffield to record natural sounds, as we  wanted to include into recordings that were very electronic in style, sounds from our region and  from nature to balance their sound. We used the sound of stones falling against one another, and  also used ambient atmospheric recordings. We recorded a large wind chime and pitched its bell- like tones down an octave to give a gentle random series of notes. We added the sound of wind  created again by the noise generator and filter of the SH101.  
  I had the idea of creating a complex pyramid of delay units to process sounds, and wanted to use  this idea within this composition. We fed sound sources into a stereo delay unit. We fed the  outputs of this first unit into the inputs of a further two stereo delay units. The outputs of these  two units were fed into the inputs of four further delay units. With at least 4 taps on each delay,  the original source was multiplied to 1, 8, 16, then 32 echoes, adding cumulatively to 57 different  echoes of the original sound (in fact far more as there were often more than 4 taps). The delay  units were set so that each echo had a different level, tone and position in time. Delay times were  set so that they were not the same or multiples of each other, so that each delay fell in a different  place. The sound we were after was that of echoes of the original sound falling like raindrops.  Panning of each delay was set differently so that the echoes surrounded the stereo field. Because  we used different hardware delay units, each echo had a slightly different character, olouring the  sound individually, giving a complex result. The different sounds were fed into this delay matrix  (which we nicknamed the monster effects box) individually, and the results recorded digitally on  separate channels, so that we could mix them in carefully later. Channels of delay were carefully adjusted in gain to minimise the large amount of noise produced by the multiple delays, and  channels were gated so that noise was cut out when there was no source present to keep signal- to-noise ratios low.  channels were gated so that noise was cut out when there was no source present to keep signal- to-noise ratios low.  
  Overall the piece has the large, spacious feel we wanted. We had wanted to create the sound of a  voice in space. Of course in reality there is no sound in space, but the delay matrix gives a  waterfall of sound that seems to go on forever, giving a feeling of infinity, of distance and space,  as we intended.  

  Yellow  

  My PhD involved looking at the nature of collaboration and collaborative composition. Chillage  People continued this work. We wrote a piece called Yellow that we decided would suit having a  vocal added to it. We had created a piece of instrumental music and had a friend in London who  we thought had a voice that would suit it. We sent her the music, and she wrote the vocal part.  She came up and recorded the vocal in an afternoon. Each section was recorded separately,  reconstructed afterwards while mixing it down, as if it was a linear song being performed in one  take. I worked closely with the singer, asking her to imagine she was a goddess floating in  sunlight as she sang, floating in the yellow light of a summer’s morning, of which the song  speaks.  
  The music in the track features a drumbeat processed through GRM Tools’ comb filters. GRM  Tools is a suite of sound processing software tools developed at the Group de Research Musicale  in Paris. GRM Tools programmes were used by my PhD tutor, electro-acoustic composer  Katharine Norman, and I had used them in the Sheffield University electro-acoustic composition  studios. In ‘Yellow’ [37] they are used subtly to add interest to the rhythm parts of the music. They  add a harmonic element to the drum hits, a sustained tone akin to, but different from, a vocoder.  Comb filters are extremely narrow equalisation bands that amplify a specific centre frequency.  The filter frequencies were pitched to the key of the song, and the length of the sustain varied to  add different lengths of trail to the drum sounds.  
  The song discusses the feelings clubbers express the day after a night out clubbing. Psychedelic  drugs such as Ecstasy and LSD alter the visual perception of clubbers, colours seeming brighter or exaggerated, sunlight diffused and a glow sometimes surrounding objects. Visual trails can  follow moving lights and a warm satisfaction, left over from the powerful emotions and  memories of the drug-fuelled night before, fills the clubbers’ bodies. Ecstasy floods the brain  with serotonin, the chemical in the brain that causes sensations of happiness, and this feeling is  the remnant of that chemically induced flood of happiness. These are ideas that our singer had  discussed with us, and the GRM effects seemed to be the best sonic representation of those  feelings and ideas, adding a warm blur to the sound. Added to that is a sustained sound that  moves and shifts, that has a similar spectrum to a church organ, but with slow attack and release  amplitude envelope characteristics to soften the sound. This adds a religious sense to the tune, an  element of spirituality inferred by the church-like organ sound. Triplet delay cross-rhythms  provide a little rhythmic confusion, and the chorus has a gated chordal part. This was created  using one source sound which consisted of sweeping sustained chords, with an amplitude  envelope superimposed from a midi controller, in a style reminiscent of gating techniques  common in early electronic ‘rave’ music.  follow moving lights and a warm satisfaction, left over from the powerful emotions and  memories of the drug-fuelled night before, fills the clubbers’ bodies. Ecstasy floods the brain  with serotonin, the chemical in the brain that causes sensations of happiness, and this feeling is  the remnant of that chemically induced flood of happiness. These are ideas that our singer had  discussed with us, and the GRM effects seemed to be the best sonic representation of those  feelings and ideas, adding a warm blur to the sound. Added to that is a sustained sound that  moves and shifts, that has a similar spectrum to a church organ, but with slow attack and release  amplitude envelope characteristics to soften the sound. This adds a religious sense to the tune, an  element of spirituality inferred by the church-like organ sound. Triplet delay cross-rhythms  provide a little rhythmic confusion, and the chorus has a gated chordal part. This was created  using one source sound which consisted of sweeping sustained chords, with an amplitude  envelope superimposed from a midi controller, in a style reminiscent of gating techniques  common in early electronic ‘rave’ music.  
  I have been teaching songwriting and production for a number of years, and layering of vocal  parts has become something I have become interested in, especially since reading Eno’s  comments on backing vocals [38], thus there are number of layers of backing vocals, giving a rich  sound. The vocals are set back into the mix, treated as an instrumental texture, in the chorus in  particular they are long sustained parts which merge with the synthesizer parts.  

  Slow Motion  

  ‘Slow Motion’ [39] uses thick, slowly developing textures, built from many layers of midi  instruments stacked on top of each other. There are no drum parts and the sense of pulse drifts in  and out of the piece. Piano is present again, it is a signature sound that returns in many pieces  and links them together. Voice like sounds, and slow sweeping filters aim to produce a feeling of  time slowing down, of stillness. This piece again linked in to our live performances in club chill  out rooms. Clubbers would come to the chill out room where we were performing, having been  on the dance floor, sometimes worn out from dancing, sometimes needing a break from the  intensity of high tempo music, sometimes under the effect of drugs. ‘Slow Motion’ was a piece  that would aim to stop time for the audience, to provide a slow texture which would allow the  listener in any situation to slow their heartbeat and breathing, to take a break and slow down their thoughts. I had experienced my heartbeat synchronising exactly to the beat of the fast tempo  music while I was dancing on the dancefloor in clubs, and thought that our slower tempo music  could help others to slow their heartbeat, whether in a club or as an aid to meditation or  relaxation at home.  music while I was dancing on the dancefloor in clubs, and thought that our slower tempo music  could help others to slow their heartbeat, whether in a club or as an aid to meditation or  relaxation at home.  
  Chill out music was a phenomenon that had grown in popularity in the 1990s, as people bought  down-tempo electronic music to listen to at home. These people were often clubbers who  listened to high tempo music in clubs, but wanted less hectic music at home. People who bought  our music told us of the effect of listening to it at home. We received emails from people telling  how our music had helped them to relax from their stressful lives, of how they had spent  romantic evenings at home with their partners, blessed out listening to our music, of the success  of our intentions.  
  I was interested in sacred spaces, and the role of music in meditation and spirituality. I wanted  our music to be something that could help people to meditate at home, to create space in their  lives for stillness, influenced by Buddhism and Yoga. I wanted our music to allow people to find  spaces in time, rather than physical spaces, which could be sacred spaces for them, to use music  as I had seen it used in churches, as something to draw people to an inner peace, to still their  thoughts and lead them to self-discovery, to the transcendental and to stillness.  
  I was influenced in this by the writing of Rupert Sheldrake on morphic resonance [40]. His work  indicates that repeated actions create morphic fields, a way of explaining the sense of spirituality  experienced in ‘holy places’. I wanted to explore secular approaches to meditation and  spirituality, and to find musical routes to states of mind and experiences equivalent to those  found in places of worship. The repetition here would be in the music rather than in repeated  ritualistic activities, but I hoped the repetitive practice would lead to a stillness of the mind, and  hopefully an altered state, in the same way as a set of repeated actions in a religious practice. In  meditative practice, a simple repeating function is focused upon, the conscious mind being given  something simple to occupy it, so that the subconscious is free to rise to the surface, so that the  concerns of everyday life are moved to the background and the mind can drift to explore other  things than the concerns that preoccupy our daily lives. I aimed for our music to echo this  practice.  
    I had been involved in groups that explored postmodern approaches to ritual [41], that used elements  of club culture and multimedia in religious services, and had also done similar work in a secular  context. I was also interested in the way that EDM culture has elements of belief and spirituality  within it [42]. I wanted to continue exploring this process but in an individualised context, through  the music we were writing. ‘Slow Motion’ used a quote from a recording from an Ethiopian  Coptic church. It is a repeating chant of a prayer for those in times of trouble. It is used texturally  throughout the piece, disguised by filters and echoes, and in a couple of places is used clearly.  There are two different sections used, one a fast piece of chanting, the other a rising and falling  melodic line. The Coptic church still worships in ways that have not changed for 1800 years,  with groups still meeting in the same caves in which they met all those years ago. This ancient  tradition appealed to me, as did the possibility of harnessing its morphic field.  

  Other Music  

  Fall Deeper was a piece of music that used another drum loop that has a long tradition within  EDM. It uses a sample from a piece of music called ‘Apache’ by Michael Viner’s The Incredible  Bongo Band. It is a cover of the instrumental track of the same name by The Shadows. Hip hop  DJ Kool DJ Herc used the record as his theme record, the record that was his calling card. He  brought Jamaican sound system culture to the Bronx in New York, and triggered the beginning  of hip hop culture. He used two copies of this recording to extend the instrumental drum break,  the first New York disc jockey to do so, and in doing so he invented break building, the  technique developed later by the use of the sampler into the looped breakbeat. Grandmaster  Flash famously recorded a version of ‘Apache’, and the instrumental drum section of ‘Apache’  has been sampled by numerous dance music producers. Fall deeper uses this drum break,  drawing consciously on all those cultural references. It also uses a recording from a relaxation  record processed by a vocoder.  
  We recorded an arrangement of ‘Woodstock’ [43], the Joni Mitchell song about the 1969 music  festival. I see the development of club culture or EDM, as a continuation of, or equivalent to, the  hippie movement of the 1960s and 1970s. Both movements had a ‘summer of love’, both mixed  psychedelic experiences and new musical developments in an underground subculture. We performed at a number of music festivals, and our version is melodically fairly true to the  Mitchell original, adding synthesized textures and samples from stage announcements made at  the festival. It was sung by a Sheffield singer, Michael Eden.  
  ‘Burn’ [44] is a song written as a sequel to ‘Woodstock’. I had created a backing track, using  sampled guitar and electric piano to give consistency with ‘Woodstock’. I had also taken a  sampled drum loop and boosted its bass frequencies, making the bass drum sound like a pitched  note, especially after the sample was extremely compressed. I asked singer Michael Eden to  write a set of lyrics and melody based on a set concept. In ‘Woodstock’ Mitchell describes the  story of a young man who is on his way to the Woodstock festival in 1969. I wanted to imagine  this man is now much older and rather disillusioned with life, the idealism of the 1960s having  faded. He meets a young woman in a contemporary nightclub, who he sees has some of the same  spirit of the 1960s that he remembers. Michael wrote most of the lyrics, working with me, and  the song came together quickly.  
  ‘Astronauts’ [45] used samples from a speech by Adlai Stevenson, speaking to the United Nations’  Economic and Security Council in 1965, shortly before he died. The speech reflects what we  might now consider a green perspective, Stevenson was one of few official voices of the time  who spoke out about the danger of nuclear war.

  “We travel together, passengers on a little space ship, dependent upon its vulnerable   reserves of air and soil. Committed for our safety to its security and peace, preserved   from annihilation only by the care, the work, and, I will say, the love we give our fragile craft.”   

Stevenson, A. 1965  

  It also featured typical hip hop scratches featuring an air raid siren. Layered at the end of the  track are multiple takes of a Pro One synthesizer appeggio, each one panning in complicated  patterns.  
  Nine songs were put together as an album and a number of promotional copies were pressed and  circulated. The album was released via the I-Tunes internet music distribution company with ‘Woodstock’ added as an extra ‘bonus’ track. The order of the tracks came from a concept. We  were uncomfortable about the pretentiousness of releasing a concept album, but were quite sure  that few if any people would become aware of the concept, and found it useful for our own  purposes, as we could not otherwise decide on the order of the tracks for the album. The album  was to tell the story of a night out in a nightclub. It starts with this person meeting ‘Professor  Toy’.  
  The Professor was based on an older clubber from Sheffield who had a long beard, and who  would always have marvellous gadgets with him when he was out clubbing, whether a flashing  T-Shirt, diffraction grating glasses or a kaleidoscope. He also was known for occasionally having  strong LSD that he would give away to friends and those he met. ‘Funky Jay’ was to be a clubber  who liked James Brown and jazz, perhaps based loosely on myself. The name was actually a  shortening of funky jazz piano, a purely descriptive term for the piece. ‘Mill’ is a reference to a  clubber who had become quite upset about meeting his ex-girlfriend who was at the club with  someone else, he was “going through the mill” as the phrase goes. ‘Burn’ tells the story of a  young girl meeting the child of God from Joni Mitchell’s song Woodstock.  
  ‘Astronauts’ is the peak moment of the club night when the clubber is lost within him or herself  dancing on the dancefloor, and acts as a pivot for the album between its first and second halves.  ‘Yellow’ talks of the colour of the sun as the clubber leaves the club in the early morning light,  ‘Fall Deeper’ evokes coming home and relaxing from the night’s activities. ‘Slow Motion’  describes that process developing and the mind slowing further, and ‘Space Voice’ describes the  point when everything seems to have stopped. We had all spent time in nightclubs, and knew  others who had, and the intention of the album was to connect, gently, with a clubber who had  been out, with music that echoed the experiences of the night, and to then ease them into a state  of peace, of relaxation, to take them to a place of beauty and stillness. We also wanted a  collection of music that would summarise a night out clubbing in one album, provide a journey  much like a night out, and we thought that the shape and attitude of the album would remind  people of their own experiences, if only subconsciously.  
  We also wanted the concept to give a direction and structure to the album for anyone who  listened to it from any background. ‘Solid Water’, (the album’s title) was to be a night out  clubbing that could be had from the comfort of one’s sofa, especially useful to those clubbers  who, like us, were no longer of the age where we wanted to go out to party all night. The individual tracks were generally faded into one another, with breaks at key points, but the music  mostly moving on as one long composition with many movements, rather than a collection of  disparate pieces. This is obviously a high art concept.  mostly moving on as one long composition with many movements, rather than a collection of  disparate pieces. This is obviously a high art concept.  
  Individual pieces explored different structural approaches. Some (such as ‘Burn’) used a  standard pop song structure of introduction verse chorus verse chorus middle-eight verse chorus  chorus-to-fade. My research into popular composition had taught me that this was the most  common pop song structure. ‘Funky Jay’ has a jazz structure of head, solos, break, head;  basically a theme and variations approach. Theme and variation is also a structural approach  used in EDM, and this is explored in other pieces such as ‘Fall Deeper’. A symphonic or  progressive structure, where the material develops throughout the piece is seen in ‘Slow Motion’.  A minimalist, systemic or linear approach to structure can be seen in other pieces such as ‘Space  Voice’ and ‘Anna Log Sequence’.  
  We produced a variety of different pieces of music outside of Solid Water. We produced a piece  of music based on the theme tune for BBC television’s ‘Dr. Who’ science fiction series, recorded  live and called ‘Dr. Whooo’[46]. The original theme music was an early piece of experimental  electronic composition created by the BBC’s radiophonic workshop. Andrew had produced an  uptempo techno trance version of this music, and this had been remixed by Paul Bower, a sound  engineer who had worked with us early in the band’s existence. We remixed his remix, taking it  further still from the original. This continuing self-reflexology [47] was self-consciously  postmodern. We produced and sold two albums of live tracks that we thought worthy of  circulating, with wildly differing versions of the same pieces in some cases.  
  As both Andrew and Tom left the group, I worked on new material by myself and with  individual collaborators on particular tracks. I had looked at the nature of collaboration and  purpose in my PhD and wanted to continue to explore these areas. I worked with flautist and  musician Anne Garner on a track called ‘Beauty’ [48]. It layered multi-track recorded flute parts  with tabla parts and a tambura drone influenced by South Asian music. I also added wind  samples processed to sound like the sea, an unnatural natural sound. Thus I continued to develop the natural theme and that of the global village evident in other work. One of the highlights of  my performing with the group was playing ‘Beauty’ at the Boom music festival in the  Portuguese countryside. We were performing as the sun was rising over the lake and the  mountains, surrounded by more than 2000 people, performing in the round. Outdoor EDM music  festivals seemed a natural performance location for the band, and we have always been very well  received at all the festivals at which we have performed.  my performing with the group was playing ‘Beauty’ at the Boom music festival in the  Portuguese countryside. We were performing as the sun was rising over the lake and the  mountains, surrounded by more than 2000 people, performing in the round. Outdoor EDM music  festivals seemed a natural performance location for the band, and we have always been very well  received at all the festivals at which we have performed.  
  ‘Bleep and Booster’ [49] evokes the early electronic music history of Sheffield, reflecting my  interest in the area in which I live. Sheffield has often been at the forefront of pioneering  developments in electronic popular music, with artists like Cabaret Voltaire, The Human League,  BEF, and the artists associated with the Warp Label being particularly influential. I regard this  electronic dance music as urban folk music, as part of Sheffield’s living music tradition. I  consider my interest in popular music as ethnomusicology, and consider popular music in  Sheffield as part of its traditional music, reflecting its industrial background as a principal  producer of Steel, challenging perceptions of English ethnomusicology as relating mainly to  acoustic traditional music of the past. ‘Bleep and Booster’ is named after an obscure science  fiction comic, a piece of popular culture, and after the nickname given to electronic music in  Sheffield in the late 1980s, ‘bleep music’. It aims to continue a tradition of working in that style.  
  ‘Gone’ [50] is a song I wrote with input from local Sheffield folk singer Tegwen Roberts. Her pure  vocal style reflects her musical roots, but the song features other live instruments, such as bass  guitar. I had asked bass player Graham McElearney to join the group some time earlier, and the  piece was written with this in mind. Graham was soon to be joined by guitarist Mickey Dixon  and singer Lisa Palmer. I had decided to make the band a more traditional ‘pop’ line up,  including a permanent singer, guitarist and bass player. This reflected the regular use of guitar,  which I had usually played, which can be heard in songs like ‘Burn’, ‘Gone’ and ‘Funky Jay’. I  wanted the group to be able to play these parts live, and to allow myself to focus more on  keyboard playing.  

  Electronic Art vs. Popular Music  

  These changes in line up mark the end of Chillage People, as I had decided I wanted to move the  group on in different ways. I had decided to put my more experimental compositions into solo work that I could develop overtly as research, allowing Chillage People to change its name and  find its own path.
  Chillage People was intended to provide opportunities to challenge preconceptions about  boundaries between popular and art music. It was supposed to challenge the definitions and  assumptions made in framing the rules and methods of musical assessment, to challenge attitudes  of what is art and what is commerce, to challenge the canon of music and the dominance of art  music in music institutions such as university departments, funding organisations and industry  bodies. As such it was overtly political activity, as well as being part of a postmodernist agenda.  I had created a body of music that will have to be assessed in the upcoming university research  assessment. This alone makes some small statement about the status of popular music  composition and will be somewhat problematic as it does not fit simply alongside electronic art  music such as electro-acoustic compositions. It is performed in different venues, distributed,  published and heard in different ways. The process of making this music has also allowed me to  explore through composition the boundaries between popular music and high art, and to seek  ways to mix electronic composition traditions.  
  Bauman describes how the renaissance (or perhaps the enlightenment) saw the beginning of the  modern experiment, as the unquestioned authority of God began to be replaced by God. The  authority over decisions about what is right and good of the few educated elite similarly began to  be replaced by the preferences and opinions of the general populace [51], and that this leads to there  being no absolute answers about what is good in contemporary society [52]. He discusses this in  terms of morality, but I find this to be equally true in terms of what is good and bad music, what  is of value and what is not.  
  Knowing that to be the truth (or just intuiting it, or going on as if one knew it) is to be   postmodern. Postmodernity one may say, is modernity without illusions…..   Postmodernity, one may say as well, brings ‘re-enchantment’ of the world after the   protracted and earnest, though in the end inconclusive, modern struggle to dis-enchant   it….. Dignity has been returned to emotions; legitimacy to the ‘inexplicable’, nay irrational, sympathies and loyalties which cannot ‘explain themselves’ in terms of , sympathies and loyalties which cannot ‘explain themselves’ in terms of   their usefulness and purpose [53].   By uniting popular and art musics I have attempted to make the point that simple distinctions  between types of music cannot be made. It has allowed me to bring the exploration of emotion  and spirituality into the centre of the meaning of music, and to combine it with reason and  process. The use of popular music in my work has authenticated and legitimised for me the use  and mix of metric rhythm, tonal harmony, acoustic tones and simple textures alongside  experimental and avant-garde techniques without drawing into question in my mind whether this  can still be considered serious music. It has also allowed me to consider how my audience might  respond to the music without feeling I am in some way ‘selling out’ either academic  compositional credibility or musical decisions to the interests of commercialism or consumerism.  

  Conclusions  

  Record production has changed dramatically in the last 15 years. The development of digital  audio workstations like Cubase, Logic and Protools has allowed individuals access in their  homes to equipment that was only previously available in expensive major recording studios.  This has deregulated production, and seen a resultant explosion of development of new,  innovative techniques and approaches. Not having to pay for expensive studio time means that  the studio can be used creatively, as an instrument, by musicians like myself without the  financial support of, and resultant responsibilities to, a major record label. There is no longer a  separation between pre-production and recording studio work.  
  There is also no longer a layer of separation or distinction between musician, producer and the  final recording. There have been many producers in the past who have been the driving force  behind the recordings they worked on, where the sound has been as much defined by them rather  than the other musicians whose names are used to market the final recording. Phil Spector and  Joe Meek are early examples of this type of producer, more recently William Orbit, Brian Eno,  Martin Hannett, Nile Rogers and numerous others have added an individual character to all the  music they worked on. More recently studio producers in dance music styles like Norman  ‘Fatboy Slim’ Cook, Richard Kirk and Richard ‘Aphex Twin’ James act as composer, producer  and musician.  
  Robert Pirsig wrote in his ‘Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance’ [54] as early as 1974 about  the need for artists who understand technology, and my studio techniques and musical techniques  are integrated, and treated as part of the same skillset. As a studio based composer I have been  influenced by the work of popular and art music artists, especially Gavin Bryars, Christopher  Hobbs, John Cage, Pierre Schaeffer, Karlheinz Stockhausen, Erik Satie, Brian Eno, Tangerine  Dream, Kraftwerk, Lee ‘Scratch’ Perry, The Orb, Miles Davis, Carla Bley, James Brown and by  a number of ethnomusicological traditions. I have also used integrated studio techniques and  software from art music studio composition traditions with studio production techniques from  popular music traditions.  
  The music of Chillage People integrates traditions of jazz, free and popular improvisation; live  electronics; the use of analogue technology; the use of the record player as a musical instrument  and the vinyl record as a text; minimalist techniques; natural and man made sounds; music  concrete; dub techniques; and systemic approaches. It places itself within the electronic dance  music (EDM) or club cultures [55] tradition, within which electronic music is welcomed in almost  any form. My knowledge of popular musicology and music history has informed the music and  allowed it to be filled with musical references. It works as ambient music on a surface level, but  has a number of layers of depth that the listener can explore if they wish, layers that act  subconsciously to give the music a broad and deep appeal for all listeners. The group has  involved a number of people and has gained from their individual input and knowledge, each of  them contributing different skills and bringing to the project their own experiences and interests.  The music is consciously set within the tradition of electronic and experimental artists in  Sheffield, and it is aware of the city’s industrial and cultural history and heritage. It aims to be an  urban folk music of the 21st century.  
  Influenced by postmodern theorists, I regard myself as a postmodern artist. Not as an artist who  displays elements of postmodernity in his work as a result of being immersed in popular culture,  or as one whose work is deconstructed by postmodern theorists, but as one who actively and  consciously adopts and creates a postmodern agenda. I have drawn on the ideas of Suzi Gablik,  Zygmunt Bauman, Graham Cray, Marshall McLuhan, Rupert Sheldrake and others to focus my  approach, rather than on writings specifically about music.  
    My agenda includes attempting to explore and attack boundaries, barriers and distinctions  between art music and popular music. It involves working in collaboration with other artists  including musicians, film makers, dancers and artists and regards the sharing of human beings’  ideas and emotions through the creation of music and artworks as vital to its work, rejecting a  wholly individualistic approach. It is a reconstructionist perspective which requires a  consideration of purpose and meaning, of individual responsibility, mutual respect and context.  The music aims to create morphic fields, virtual spaces for the listener to explore their own  thoughts or their interactions with others, a rejection of the idea of absolute music between art music and popular music. It involves working in collaboration with other artists  including musicians, film makers, dancers and artists and regards the sharing of human beings’  ideas and emotions through the creation of music and artworks as vital to its work, rejecting a  wholly individualistic approach. It is a reconstructionist perspective which requires a  consideration of purpose and meaning, of individual responsibility, mutual respect and context.  The music aims to create morphic fields, virtual spaces for the listener to explore their own  thoughts or their interactions with others, a rejection of the idea of absolute music [56], music  without meaning. It is aware of the power music has to create a suitable environment for  meditiation and for the exploration of spirituality, and of the role that musical culture has taken  in contemporary western society, often replacing or duplicating roles filled and functions carried  out in the past by organised religions. It is perhaps a sacred music designed to be appropriate for  a secular world.  

  Notes 

1 The club scene in the north of England is divided between underground and mainstream clubs. The mainstream  clubs play a greater percentage of chart and commercial music tracks or retro music from older musical styles. The  music in underground clubs is often only available through independent specialist record shops, is harder EDM, and  rarely features any vocals. These clubs are often characterised by a more open and common use of illegal drugs,  including poly-drug use of LSD, nitrous oxide, cannabis and cocaine, and most commonly ecstasy, and to a lesser  extent ketamine and amphetamines. The main drugs in commercial clubs are alcohol, nicotine and cocaine.

 2 Hebdige, D., ‘Subculture: The Meaning of Style’, (1991) Routledge  
 3 The Irresistible Force, ‘Global Chillage’, (1994) Rising High Records  
 4 McLuhan, M, ‘Understanding Media: The Extensions of Man’, (1964) MIT Press  
 5 Cowen, T., ‘In Praise of Commercial Culture’ (1998), Harvard University Press  
 6 Since the 1960s travellers had gone to warm southern hemisphere destinations such as Goa, India and Thailand to  seek sunshine and spiritual enlightenment, the Beatles and other pop stars taking a lead. To make a living many  would buy clothing at cheap prices and bring or ship them back to Europe where they would sell them at markets  and festivals. Ibiza was discovered by the hippies as a friendly holiday island which had beaches that reminded them  of Goa, a lax attitude to drug enforcement that suited their recreational activities, and a large number of tourists that  would buy their wares. A hippie market has existed for a long time on Ibiza and is advertised as a tourist outing to  package holiday visitors. Ecstacy was a drug brought to Ibiza by the hippies along with Cannabis and LSD.  
 7 Scenes are discussed in Bennett, A., ‘Popular Music and Youth Culture: Music, Identity and Place, (2000)  Macmillan  
 8 Strinati, D., ‘An Introduction to Studying Popular Culture’, (2000) Routledge  
 9 Although I think much of this paper may be relevant in other cultures, especially European ones, I do not presume  to understand in depth cultures outside of my own, and therefore in this paper am referring generally to UK cultures  and society.  
 10 Scruton, R., ‘Modern Culture’, (2005) Continuum International Publishing Group  
 11 Cray, G., Savage, S., Collins-Mayo, S., Mayo, B., ‘Making Sense of Generation Y: The World View of 15-to 25year  olds’, (2006) Church House Publishing  
 12 Gablik, S., The Reenchanttment of Art, (1994) Thames and Hudson  
 13 Bauman, Z., ‘Postmodern Ethics’, (1993) Blackwell Publishers  
 14 Cork, C., ‘‘The New Guide to Harmony with Lego Bricks’, (1996) Tadley Ewing Publishing  
 15 Battle Tools records are designed for use by hip hop scratch DJs and have a mixture of loops of backing music and  small sections of audio designed to be scratched over the loops.  
 16 Rietveld, H., ‘This Is Our House: House Music, Cultural Spaces and Technologies’, (1998) Ashgate  
 17 Poshardt, U., ‘DJ Culture’, (1998) Quartet Books  
 18 I have discussed the nature of the dancefloor in clubs in ‘Clubbing -a new performance tradition’, book chapter, in  Changing Sounds, Ed. Tony Mitchell, (2001) University of Technology, Sydney  
 19 Eno, B., ‘A Year With Swollen Appendices: Brian Eno’s Diary (1996) Faber and Faber.  
 20 Katz, D., ‘People Funny Boy: The Genius of Lee ‘Scratch’ Perry’, (2006) Omnibus Press  
 21 Manager of Disobediance internet radio station  
 22 Robert founded influential record label Warp Records. He was a member of LFO, and produced many notable  records for Warp and others. He is one of the best known engineer/producers in Sheffield  
 23 Paul Bower manages the AWAL record label, and was studio manager of Axis studios in Sheffield for many years.  He also performs and records with Psychoacoustic Soundclash.  
 24 Tom is principally a live sound engineer, having worked with Kula Shaker, Spiritualised and Robert Plant, as well  as many others.  
 25 Brass instruments have waveforms similar to square waves, which have a more complex spectrum with more  harmonics than the spectra of flutes and strings which are similar to sine and sawtooth waves.  
 26 ‘Mill’ can be downloaded from www.i-tunes.com by searching for Chillage People.  
 27 Available at www.i-tunes.com  
 28 Davis, M., ‘Kind of Blue’, (1959) Columbia Records  
 29 Brown, J., ‘In The Jungle Groove’, (2003) Universal Records  
 30 Stewart, A., ' ‘Funky Drummer’: New Orleans, James Brown and the Rhythmic Transformation of American  Popular Music’ in ‘Popular Music Journal’, (2000), 19:293-318, Cambridge University Press  
 31 This rhythm has become particularly important in EDM, and can be seen in the music of the ‘Madchester’ scene,  for example The Stone Roses, ‘Fools Gold’, (1989) Sony BMG records  
 32 Available at www.i-tunes.com  
 33 Wishart, T., ‘Audible Design: A Plain and Easy Introduction to Sound Composition’, (1994) Waterstones  
 34 Parsons, M., Hobbs, C., White, J., et al. ‘Rhythmic Anthology’, (1971) Experimental Music Catalogue  
 35 ‘Hearing Solar Winds’ The Harmonic Choir, (2003) Signature  
 36 www.composersdesktop.com  
 37 Available at www.i-tunes.com  
 38 Eno, B. ‘A year with Swollen Appendices’, (1996) Faber and Faber.  
 39 Available at www.i-tunes.com  
 40 Sheldrake, R. ‘The Presence of the Past: Morphic Resonance and the Habits of Nature’, (1995) Park Street Press  
 41 Till, R., ‘The Nine O’clock Service: Mixing Club Culture And Postmodern Christianity’ in Culture and Religion  Journal, (2006) 7/1:93-110, Routledge  
 42 St. John, G., ‘Rave Culture and Religion’, (2003) Routledge  
 43 available at www.i-tunes.com  
 44 available at www.i-tunes.com  
 45 available at www.i-tunes.com  
 46 ‘Dr. Whoo’ by Chillage People on ‘Unity Dub’s Voyage into Paradise’ CD (2001), published by Liquid Sound  Design Records, London.  
 47 The sampler as postmodern instrument is described in Beadle, J., ‘Will Pop Eat Itself’, (1993) Faber and Faber  
 48 ‘Beauty’ on ‘Ambient Planet Volume 1’ (2001) published by Vagalume Records, Brasil, Distributed in Europe by  Ultimae Records, France  
 49 Available at www.myspace.com/chillagepeople  
 50 Available at www.myspace.com/chillagepeople  
 51 Bauman, Z., ‘Postmodern Ethics’, (1993) Blackwell Publishers p.25-6  
 52 ibid p.31  
 53 ibid p.32-3  
 54 Pirsig, R., ‘Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance’, (1974) William Morrow and Company  
 55 Thornton, S., ‘Club Cultures: Music, Media and Subcultural Capital’, (1996) Wesleyan University Press  
 56 Absolute Music is described in Babbit, M., ‘Who cares if you listen?’ in High Fidelity Magazine, (1958) VIII/2:3840,  126-7  

    References  

  Books and Journals  

  Babbit M., ‘Who cares if you listen?’, High Fidelity Magazine, (1958) VIII/2: 38-40, 126-7  
 Bauman, Z., ‘Postmodern Ethics’, (1993) Blackwell Publishers  
 Beadle, J., ‘Will Pop Eat Itself’, (1993) Faber and Faber  
 Bennett, A., ‘Popular Music and Youth Culture: Music, Identity and Place, (2000) Macmillan  
 Cork, C., ‘The New Guide to Harmony with Lego Bricks’ (1996) Tadley Ewing Publishing  
 Cowen, T., ‘In Praise of Commercial Culture’, (1998) Harvard University Press  
 Cray, G., Savage, S., Collins-Mayo, S., Mayo, B., ‘Making Sense of Generation Y: The World  View of 15-to 25-year olds’, (2006) Church House Publishing  
 Eno, B., ‘A Year With Swollen Appendices: Brian Eno’s Diary’, (1996) Faber and Faber.  
 Gablik, S., ‘The Reenchanttment of Art’, (1994) Thames and Hudson  
 Hebdige, D., ‘Subculture: The Meaning of Style’, (1991) Routledge  
 Katz, D., ‘People Funny Boy: The Genius of Lee ‘Scratch’ Perry’, (2006) Omnibus Press  
 McLuhan, M, ‘Understanding Media: The Extensions of Man’, (1964) MIT Press   Parsons, M., Hobbs, C., White, J., et al., in ‘Rhythmic Anthology’, (1971) Experimental Music  Catalogue  Music  Catalogue  
  Pirsig, R., ‘Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance’, (1974) William Morrow and  Company  
  Poshardt, U., ‘DJ Culture’, (1998) Quartet Books  
  Rietveld, H., ‘This Is Our House: House Music, Cultural Spaces and Technologies’, (1998)  Ashgate  
  Scruton, R., ‘Modern Culture’, (2005) Continuum International Publishing Group  
  Sheldrake, R. ‘The Presence of the Past: Morphic Resonance and the Habits of Nature’, (1995)   Park Street Press  
  St. John, G., ‘Rave Culture and Religion’, (2003) Routledge  
  Stewart, A., ‘‘Funky Drummer’: New Orleans, James Brown and the Rhythmic  Transformation of American Popular Music’ in Popular Music Journal, (2000)  19:293-318, Cambridge University Press  
  Strinati, D., ‘An Introduction to Studying Popular Culture’, (2000) Routledge  
  Thornton, S., ‘Club Cultures: Music, Media and Subcultural Capital’, (1996) Wesleyan  University Press  
  Till, R., ‘Clubbing -a new performance tradition’ book chapter in Changing Sounds, Ed. Tony  Mitchell, (2001) University of Technology, Sydney  
  Till, R., ‘The Nine O’clock Service: Mixing Club Culture And Postmodern Christianity’ in  Culture and Religion Journal, (2006) 7/1:93-110, Routledge  
  Wishart, T., ‘Audible Design: A Plain and Easy Introduction to Sound Composition’, (1994)  Waterstones  

  Recordings  

  Brown, J., ‘In The Jungle Groove’, (2003) Universal Records  
  Chillage People, ‘Dr. Whoo’ on ‘Unity Dub’s Voyage into Paradise’ (2001), Liquid Sound  Design Records  
  Chillage People, ‘Solid Water’, (2002) I-Tunes  
  Chillage People and Anne Garner, ‘Beauty’, on ‘Ambient Planet Volume 1’, (2001)  Vagalume Records, Brasil, Distributed in Europe by Ultimae Records, France  
  Davis, M., ‘Kind of Blue’, (1959) Columbia Records  
  The Harmonic Choir, ‘Hearing Solar Winds’, (2003), Signature Records  
 The Irresistible Force, ‘Global Chillage’, (1994) Rising High Records  
 The Stone Roses, ‘Fools Gold’, (1989) Sony BMG records  
 Chillage’, (1994) Rising High Records  
 The Stone Roses, ‘Fools Gold’, (1989) Sony BMG records  

  Websites  

  www.awal.co.uk Managed by ex-Chillage People collaborator Paul Bower  
 www.chillagepeople.co.uk Chillage People band website  
 www.composersdesktop.com, accessed 23rd October 2006  
 www.disobey.me.uk Internet radio station run by ex-Chillage People sound engineer Robin   Keech  
 www.i-tunes.com Chillage People album ‘Solid Water’ is available here  
 www.myspace.com/chillagepeople Chillage People Myspace site  
 www.boomfestival.org Chillage People performed at this festival in 2002 & 2004