Spending Time: James Holden and Waclaw Zimpel in conversation

“We just clicked immediately, understood each other’s impulses, and made space for each other,” Holden reflects on their partnership. That immediate connection has yielded six transcendent odysseys of psychedelic electronic freeform goodness; from the skittering pulsations of opener “You Are Gods” to the monumental, ethereal finale of the title track.

What emerges is a shared obsession with trance – that hypnotic quality that runs through traditional folk forms worldwide, twentieth-century minimalism, Krautrock experiments, electronic dance music, and improvised jazz. Both musicians discovered this transcendental state early: Zimpel through witnessing Polish blues pianist Jan Kyks Skrzek’s mesmerising ostinato performances, Holden through the endless possibilities of bar blues improvisation on piano.

Their collaboration has pushed both artists beyond their comfort zones. Holden supplements his bespoke computer and modular synth systems with long-neglected violin and hand percussion, while Zimpel trades his alto clarinet for electric piano, organ, lap steel guitar, and Indian algoza flute. “Held safe in his supportive arms I felt liberated to try things I’d never tried before,” Holden admits, describing the trust that has allowed this partnership to flourish and flow.

As they prepare for the album’s release, Holden and Zimpel sat down to interview each other about their creative process, the challenge of making machines sound alive, and why their different musical backgrounds led them to the exact same place – that magical convergence point where all excellent music collides.

Let’s dive in shall we…

JH: So, here’s one: you’re a seasoned collaborator, you’ve played with some amazing people (I love the Hera record with hamid drake, for example), and a lot more people than I have so i’m curious, what am I like to collaborate with, compared to everyone else?

WZ: It feels unique. As I remember we haven’t had any argument regarding the direction of music. It seems like we are looking for similar things in music with the trance aspect above everything. It feels a lot like going for a journey and we are more like observers of the amazing process than creators. It’s a lot like playing with a jazz musician. And the way you are programming the sequencers gives me a feeling of actually playing in a trio. Your software Benny is like a third person in our band or sort of crazy animal doing a lot of weird things which I love. But you probably know all that… I think that I have expressed my awe so many times at the studio that it is pretty obvious what I think about our collaboration. To be frank I quite love it!

Also I was always playing in bands. I discovered playing solo for myself very late. So being at the studio together is much more natural for me than being there alone. And how about you?

JH: This is always wonderful to hear! I tried to form bands when I was at school but I didn’t know anyone with good taste so I gave up on that (one friend wanted to play ‘Wonderwall’, another wanted to play U2. OMG). All the stuff I did with the computer and the modular to try and make it alive was to fill that hole. It works, but I’m still alone in a room with all my neuroses.. So I love having found a friend I can make music with instead! I find it opens up different possibilities – I definitely couldn’t have made this record alone – a pair of friends believing in something is more sustaining? It’s interesting that we literally never argued despite our different backgrounds, I think you’re right that the pursuit of trance is a part of why. I was quite old before I realised that jazz also contains trance, do you remember where you first found that feeling in the things you were playing or studying?

WZ: I remember a concert of the Polish blues piano player and singer from Silesia (mining area in Poland) Jan Kyks Skrzek. I heard his concert when I was 15 and he played one instrumental piece playing ostinato in left hand – quarter notes C G and he was improvising with his right hand in pentatonic scale. Very strong experience of weird hypnotic music. At that time I was also playing boogie woogie on piano. Also very trance oriented tradition.

But I wanted to ask you about what you said regarding making your synths sound alive. What do you think is the most important factor in this?

JH: That sounds wonderful! but now you mention it, I remember when I discovered playing 12 bar blues on the piano, the moment of realisation that I could just make stuff up and keep playing it for hours. Underrated form of trance (in this country the genre’s most famous advocate is Jools Holland, who plays music made of pure mayonnaise, which is why I forgot how cool it can be). I’m watching him on Youtube now and Jan Kyks Skrzek was a lot cooler!

Putting life in synths is hard! because life in instruments isn’t something you put in, it’s something intrinsic to the process of getting a noise out of a piece of wood and gut and string and metal – the player in many different continuous subconscious feedback loops of evaluation and adjustment – tone and timing and expression and the notes themselves all determined by this in inter-relation. So in synths I try to do something the same – I build feedback systems, make relationships between things – if it gets brighter it gets shorter too, for example, or if it gets long it starts missing notes, or if I turn it up fast it overshoots and overcorrects. My role in it gets augmented by its own reactions, which is honestly how I found playing the violin – you push it and it gets less stable and the sound of you riding that is exciting and most importantly, real.

The other thing is the timing, which is funny to discuss with you here since we talk about it so often on tour! I think the human timing in my software is a big part of the sound of my music – your brain can tell it’s not robotic, that it’s moving in relation to itself and the other parts – but also it just means although the music is repeating it’s never exactly repeating. I think that makes it trancier?

Since we’re onto talking about timing and trance, you’re on tour with your band Saagara at the moment – how’s it going so far? say hi to Camilo for me :). It’s incredibly trancy music, and I love the way that you fit into the flow of it, both performing acoustic instruments and with your synths. Do you find yourself specifically or consciously adapting to playing with Carnatic musicians? I think I’m interested in how the music seems very intellectual – when I’ve tried to learn about it it quickly starts feeling like learning maths, lots of very deliberate structural things about time divisions happening – but when I listen to it it feels like a river going over me, totally carries me along but I understand almost nothing – just a sense of the overall tala (cycle). Do you learn the songs on the intellectual, structural sort of level first or do you just let yourself feel it?

WZ: Carnatic music is extremely complex and for me it was impossible to play with these musicians without doing my homework. I had to study the basics of konnakol – the rhythmic solfeggio to be able to follow these rhythm structures. So I guess it started from intellectual process, but the beauty of konnakol is based on putting very complex rhythmic calculations into sens of your body, because you always keep the tala (rhythm cycle) with clapping in a certain way so you know in which part of the cycle you are, and you recite the rhythm with syllables which imitate the sound of Indian percussions. It is the way to understand rhythm on an intuitive level. It works the way that suddenly you understand the structures and to repeat them you just need to ask your body to bring back structure which you already have in your muscle memory. These are probably the best rhythmic exercises you can imagine.

The tour is going great! Thanks! The music is stronger and stronger from concert to concert. I love to play with Saagara! Unfortunately one of us – Thavil Raja didn’t get the visa this time (no idea why) and we are playing in quartet. And sure I will say hello to Camilo! We reunite in Barcelona on Primavera the day after tomorrow. He missed one of the concerts because all flights to Porto were canceled because of weather.

I am really happy that I could get a lot of knowledge from you regarding working on human timing with the machines. I think this is the reason our third album with Saagara sounds quite organic (I hope). I guess it is part of the sound of this album. It is very interesting how timing is related with sound. I found it out when I was still playing a lot of classical music and simply musicians who had really good sense of rhythm and good articulation sounded better. I guess it is also the case with electronic music.

Buy / Stream / share ‘You Are Gods’ via Bandcamp / Spotify, Apple Music, YouTube and Soundcloud

Live dates:

31st July – Dekmantel, Amsterdam, NL
20th August – MUTEK, Montreal, CA
21st September – Hidden Notes, Stroud, UK
22nd October – Alphabet, Brighton, UK
23rd October – ICA, London, UK
29th October – Wintercircus, Ghent, BE
31st October – EKKO, Bergen, NO
29th November – Elbphilharmonie, Hamburg, DE
30th November – Gretchen, Berlin, DE