Music, Style & Culture

Memory Tapes: Reaching For Something Epic

El Hunt catches up with Dayve Hawk, the man behind Memory Tapes.

Memory Tapes became a 'blog sensation' when he released chillwave-tinged debut album ‘Seek Magic’ in 2009. After lots of hard work on the follow up ‘Player Piano’, which came out in July, the producer had some downtime to have a chat to DIY. El Hunt catches up with Dayve Hawk, the man behind Memory Tapes, to find out more about the recording of the album, the ins and outs of cyberspace, and which new producers we should look out for.

‘Seek Magic’ was extremely well received - did you feel any pressure to live up to it when recording ‘Player Piano’?
The bulk of 'Player Piano' was actually recorded before 'Seek Magic' was even released so I really didn't have anything to react to. If anything I was just trying to make a different sort of record.

Was writing ‘Player Piano’ a very different experience from the last album?
It was different in that I was coming at it from another angle. There was more focus on songwriting and less of a dance music sort of thinking. I was interested in making a simpler, more scaled back record after doing 'Seek Magic', which felt like it was always reaching for something epic.

On ‘Seek Magic’ you sampled a bicycle pump for ‘Bicycle’. Did you use any unusual sounds on the new record?
The percussion on 'Yes I Know' is a footstep in snow, but generally there's less found-sound stuff on this one. 'Player Piano' features lots of pre-synthesizer keyboards; organs, mellotron, clavioline, things like that.

After fronting band Hail Social, how does it feel to be doing your own thing as a producer?
It suits me much better... I never really fronted Hail Social. It was more that I had the skill-set to perform a certain function in the band but the vision was really never mine. I wouldn't say I was the driving force in the group despite being the singer/songwriter. Memory Tapes is much more like what I was doing before Hail Social... things like Memory Cassette and Weird Tapes.

You seem put a lot of work into production, how easily does your music translate from the studio to live shows?
It's tough to translate live because I play everything on the records, and the tracks are pretty heavily layered with parts and details. Obviously it's impossible to recreate that live by myself. I have a band so I try to strip the songs back to a more basic version of themselves. It's an interesting process because you have to re-interpret yourself but it can be frustrating as well.

Do you have any personal favourite tracks from the new album?
I like 'Yes I Know' because it's the simplest song I've done so far... but I also like 'Today Is Our Life' for the opposite reason, I like how all over the place it is.

What other artists influence your music?
The Beatles and David Bowie are probably the biggest influences. I like artists that are up for anything. So much music now seems to be about refining a style. People don't seem to get that I'm not constantly trying to get bigger and better. I'm experimenting, trying different things and just following my interests. It's not about realising some moment of potential.

Have you got any inside tips for DIY, any new bands or producers that we should be watching?
I like a lot of the stuff that's coming out of the Night Slugz / Fade to Mind camp lately... the Jam City and Nguzungzu stuff in particular.

When you released ‘Bicycle’ you got 1 million hits on Google within the next day. Do you think the Internet can ever be a healthy thing for the music industry?
For sure, but like anything, it creates as many problems as it solves. I think artists that would never have been heard before are getting heard, but I also think a lot of artists who might have interesting careers are getting written off before the hype dries. The Internet is a little too impatient for art.

Some people think the Internet is going to cause the death of the album format – with people only being interested in tracks. What do you think?
Seems pretty likely. On the one hand I think it's good for these arbitrary formats to get broken down but again we're talking about people really not having the attention span for a body of work. It's just a new set of limitations.

So with a new album out, what are your plans for the next year?
Lots of recording and then probably get back out to do more shows in early 2012.

Memory Tapes' new album 'Player Piano' is out now via Something In Construction.