Style And The Family Tunes - 2006

Text > Renko Heuer Translation > Galina Green

THERE ARE FINISHED PEOPLE, PREFAB HOUSES, PRE-COOKED MEALS AND READY-MADE PRODUCTS OF ALL KINDS, AND IN ENGLAND THERE'S EVEN FERTILIZER. BUT AS A CONTRAST TO THIS INSTANT-CULTURE THAT BEGAN TO BLOSSOM IN THE 50S, THERE ARE PEOPLE WHO NEVER WANT TO BE FINISHED. HERMAN MELVILLE, OUR OLD MODEL NEW ENGLANDER, WAS A CASE IN POINT. AROUND 1850 HE WROTE "GOD KEEP ME FROM FINISHING ANYTHING" (IN QUITE A FINISHED STYLE, ONE MIGHT ADD).

And the erstwhile 808-State member, Graham Massey, who made a name for himself especially in his song writing partnership and production work with and for Björk, is another case in point. Even though he doesn't sound done in at all. A little bit out of breath possibly. Only the album that he made about eight years ago "by accident and as a statement against the boring DJ culture," with the Toolshed project/collective sounds finished, done. But then again, not quite: "When you work like that, you get to a certain point where you just don't know where to stop anymore. If you ever want to finally put a record out you just have to stop somewhere, even if all the ends are still untied. This record is like that. Or for people like me, who appreciate a kind of sketchbook art. Who like the sketchiness of it all." With seven permanent members (amongst them, bassist, Paddy Steer of Ninja Tunes Homelife and drummer, James Ford, of Simian) and up to 28(!)part-time session-musicians, Toolshed is and was never more or less than a massive live collective, a spontaneous sound organism with up to four drummers and "the masculine pressure that goes with it". Massey, who is 45 now, grew up with an elec tronic violin and ms own punk band called Danny and the Dressmakers (ca.1977), and he's definitely a sound-messy, who experiences his own personal ecstasy in a clang shredder somewhere between free jazz flickerings and rough and ready beats somewhere between polka, prog and barn dancing: I don't just want to make good music, sometimes bad music gives you much more. It can be really relaxing. If you're always sitting in front of a computer screen then at some point you just start missing the group experience, the chaotic interruption of others." When he says "others", that includes illustrious guests like Matthew Herbert, Autechre or Broadcast. The main thing is about being there, being connected, like in the old days, in the Manchester hey days. The most important thing is staying unfinished and (a)live.

The album, that reminds you of the electronic madness of John Peel (combined with the eclectic madness of DJ Spooky or Mike Ladd) by the Manchester collective ("I was always in Manchester"), consists to a great extent of live-cuts: "Some of the cuts are really old. The album could've come out five years ago. But that's irrelevant any-way." The fact that an album of such spontaneous madness exists may for a moment seem strange. "No, it's not. It's like a photograph of an object that's in the process of moving. And that looks great. " What it is exactly that is moving could be compared to a hefty sound-football game. Ur-British kick and rush included: "That's always how we work. And that's how the whole music business works in England. Someone kicks the ball in, through the radio or whatever, and then it arrives somewhere else and the balls are flying around the place and everything suddenly makes sense. That was what made the 90s so special. One thing kicked off the next, everything started moving and it had nothing at all to do with MTV. Of course that kind of thing tends to be more likely in a small place like Manchester - London is just too big. It's all too professional, to preconceived." Too finished. A logical thought when you think it through.

Toolshed "Toolshed" is out on Twisted Nerve