In an effort to give an about for a project that is still very much in the making, I’ve scraped from some recent emails about the project and edited them into something I hope makes a little sense.
So I started this project almost three years ago now, born from the inspiration of the possibilities in the then new open source controller the monome. The monome itself reminded me of the book Vehicles I had read over a decade ago now on the recommendation of who would become my technology partner. The monome is a digital box of clay. 0’s and 1’s from which you have the ability to create infinity, one step at a time.
In it I saw the possibility of realizing a recurring dream of mine to sit down with Roger Linn and design the sampling drum machine to beat all sampling drum machines. In fact the monome went beyond that dream and it was reality.
Around a year or so later, Wynton Marsalis released a new album, which of course meant it was time for him to take public pot shots at hip-hop with the famous quote:
“Listen, I don’t have to attack hip-hop. Hip-hop attacks itself. It has no merit, rhythmically, musically, lyrically. What is there to discuss?”
“And as for sampling, it just shows you that the drummer has been replaced by a loop. The drum – the central instrument in African-American music, the sound of freedom – has been replaced by a repetitive loop. What does that tell you about hip-hop’s respect for African-American tradition?”
I not only took offense to his words but I took them as a challenge, the final catalyst for The Heads Project. Could I create a body of music which embeded the human touch into technology based music (the human touch here characterized by the complex freedom of head based jazz). In so doing could I prove that hip-hop is indeed a natural progression of the musical lineage Marsalis claims it has no respect for. To catch phrase it, could I apply heads based jazz technique to hip-hop production?
So to start I began building instruments for the monome, the first of course being a sampler (inspired heavily by the first generation monome application mlr). Since I built the sampler around the Heads concept I also built a notation system for it. And in building the notation system for it I kind of stumbled upon the grounds for a legal argument that could change sample laws. So then the project started embodying ways to provide evidence for this legal argument. Heads built around the music theory colliding with technological/technical/legal definitions.
But I wasn’t just trying to make a legal brief I wanted to make music too, so I went back from the experimental phase to really putting together solid music ideas for an album. Going back in on this from the technological groundwork I had laid building the sampler, I built more instruments, six in total. More than 50% of the album is played using these instruments.
I made lots of notes during the process and kept most of the explorations used to get to the point where I could create what will be the album. Its a large and rather detailed body of work. And all of it together makes up plpheads – Primus Luta Presents: Heads. As of this writing in addition to completing the mixes of the album, I am in the process of negotiating the means by which the full project will be reaching the public.
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