MDC Interview#59 " Terminal 11 "

Experimental electronic producer and visual artist with releases on Satellite Era, Opal Tapes/Black Opal, Love Love Records, Schematic, Hymen, Phthalo & Cock Rock Disco. Founder of the Sunwarped label/event in Phoenix.

Q. Please tell us where you are from and what kind of environment you grew up in.

I have lived in Arizona my whole life and at different points living in Tucson, Mesa, Tempe, and Phoenix. I grew up in both apartments and houses in residential areas. Though it’s been in a suburban landscape, desert nature is never far away, though I was indifferent to it for most of my life. It wasn’t until I started hiking that I gained an appreciation for the desert. 

Q. How did you first become interested in music? 

I have always enjoyed music, but my interests didn't solidify until I was 12 or 13 years old. Video game soundtracks and sound design cemented my interest in electronic music. From more of a pop standpoint, I was always attracted to synths and songs with strong effects or vocoding. Electric Light Orchestra “Strange Magic”, Steve Miller Band “Abracadabra”, The Cars “Shake It Up”, Gary Numan “Cars”, Herbie Hancock “Rockit” and so on. 

Q. What music communities were there in your home town?

There is a record store that has existed in the Phoenix metro area since 1987 called Stinkweeds that I first learned about in 1998 when I was still in school. It became a favorite spot for my friends and I to shop for records and special order all the music we couldn’t find anywhere else. In 2003, Kimber Lanning, the owner of the store, asked if I wanted to host an electronic night at a venue/gallery she owned called Modified Arts which I immediately agreed to. From 2003-2009 my friend Adam and I booked shows under the name “Thru the Wires” which was my first experience of there being anything close to a sense of community for experimental/electronic/IDM music in Arizona. Sometimes it featured all local performers and other times we would host people from out of town that were on tour or we would specifically fly people out to perform. It also became a bridge between Phoenix and the friends/artists I knew from Los Angeles and Tucson, Arizona. I can imagine there were more communities happening around that time I was not aware of, but this was our way of creating community due to the perception that one did not exist. 

Q. What artists have performed at Thru the Wires? What was a particularly memorable event?

There are far too many to list so I'll include a picture of the back of a shirt that was made for our 4th anniversary with all the artists we booked up to that point. Any time Daedelus or Dat Politics came through was an incredible time and got the most response from people watching them, but it was a particularly surreal experience being able to see Richard Devine and Cylob on the same show being a huge fan of both for years. Another favorite memory is Kevin Blechdom doing a cover of Whitney Houston's "I Will Always Love You" but with a screaming breakdown that progressively gets louder over the span of four minutes. Performing alongside Xanopticon, Abelcain, and Duran Duran Duran was another highlight for reasons you understand and again, very surreal that any of this actually happened in Arizona.

Q. You are influenced by electronica and IDM. When did you first become aware of those music?

My introduction to electronic music was initially through video games, a vhs video art/mix series called X-Mix, a late-night show on MTV called AMP, and the PS1 Wipeout XL soundtrack. In 1998 I bought an issue of XLR8R magazine that came with a free compilation from Nothing Records called “Nothing Changes” that had Autechre, Squarepusher, Plaid, and Plug on it which very much set the tone for my future. 

Q. When did you start making your own music? What style of music were you making at first?

After hearing Boredoms for the first time in 1998 and gaining a better understanding of noise in general, I realized I didn’t need to have a studio or expensive equipment to create music. Electronic music seemed inaccessible since all I had was a Casio keyboard and didn’t have a computer at the time, so my first experiments were with a partially broken karaoke machine, a microphone, microcassette recordings, and a turntable. The karaoke machine was used to multitrack elements onto cassette tape where I overdubbed screaming, cycling through radio stations, recordings of broken glass, and ruining the needle on my turntable by throwing it across the record and scratching with disregard. The first experiments were noise. 

Q. Do you remember the first time you played in public?

Yes. The first time I performed was opening for Cex, Stars As Eyes, and Numbers at Modified Arts around 2002. It was a hybrid performance with a laptop playing tracker files in Modplug and a cd player to crossfade into transitions so I could have buffer time to open the next file on the laptop. I had a vintage slide projector that ran off cartridges that contained corporate training videos for bartending and introduced the show with that audio being mangled before going into the tracks. There was also a toaster on the stage that looked like it was plugged into the mixer, but it did not generate any sounds, it just made toast. A friend of mine ate the toast during the performance. It was a good night.  

Q. When did Terminal 11 start? What is the origin of this name?

Around 1999 I was fixated on photography class and used every available moment in high school to utilize their darkroom to develop prints and collage work. I just got my first computer and started moving the noise experiments into more musique concrete compositions using Sound Forge as an audio editor. The photo prints were becoming hybrid collages with several negatives stacked on top of each other and burned into one image which felt like what I was doing with audio in Sound Forge. I decided to combine my photography, music, and line drawing into a single project called Terminal 11 that would also contain a written story about the 11th terminal of an airport. At that time, you were allowed to go anywhere in the local airport without the excessive amount of security that exists these days, so I used to spend time hanging out there to record sounds, take photos, and watch people. Everything about that project happened except the story so I just kept the name Terminal 11 and started releasing more music. My first album “Speed Modified” on Phthalo has the music, photography, and drawing between the booklet, contents of the cd, and the artwork printed on the cd.  

Q. You released the album "Speed Modified" in 2001. Please tell us about this album and your activities before and after this album.

I remember picking up an issue of XLR8R that had an interview with Dimitri / Phthalocyanine about his music and the label Phthalo he ran. It had a photo of him in a shirt and tie with a giant grin standing in front of a massive canvas he painted. He had a glove on and with one hand was holding a sign that had the words "BURNING SHRAPNEL MESS BLAST CANONS GONNA MESS YOU UP HARD!" written on it. After reading the interview and hearing his thoughts on mixing, production, and expressing a familiar passion for music, I felt like I had to send him a demo. I created several tracks with Modplug and sent a CD to the label address in Pasadena, California. A week later I got a package from Dimitri with several Phthalo releases (Jason Potratz, Spleen, Dntel, and Phthalocyanine) as well as a book (Jonathan Livingston Seagull) and a note requesting that I make a full album and send it to him. That would be the start of Speed Modified and an incredible friendship that’s lasted to this day. After that album came out, I immediately started working on Don Maximo / Postmod Premax which would contain a full album (Don Maximo) in addition to a body of work that came after Speed Modified but before Don Maximo (Postmod Premax). This would become the second release on Phthalo in 2003. 

Q. I believe Terminal11 is also recognized as a Breakcore artist. How do you feel about that? When did you first hear about Breakcore?

I am recognized as a Breakcore artist, but I never intended on making anything with Breakcore in mind except for compilation tracks on Mirex and Mutant Sniper. I have no problem with the association and think it fits in terms of velocity/tempo, but it was not something I had set out to do intentionally. I was first familiar with the phrase through the Breakcore Gives Me Wood parties, Cock Rock Disco, and playing the Wasted festival in Berlin around 2005.  

Q. Around 2001-2004, US Breakcore grew rapidly and a lot of talent was born. Labels such as ZOD, Broklyn Beats, Sonic Terror, and artists such as Jason Forrest, Duran Duran Duran, END., Enduser, Dev/Null, Xanopticon, Drop The Lime were active.  How long have you been involved with them and the US Breakcore scene?

I had the most connection and contact with Jason Forrest and Duran Duran Duran from going on a Cock Rock Disco tour with them in 2005 for a series of 7 shows. Berlin, Linz, Innsbruck, Vienna, Ljubljana, Zagreb, and Budapest. A very great and surreal experience although my memories of everything that happened are very hazy. Dev/Null and Xanopticon were very inspiring to me during that time and I’m happy to say I’ve performed shows with them on more than a few occasions. Great people. Zod is a label I hold in high regard for their curation. I have a track on their Dura Matters compilation and had plans to release more music with them afterwards, but they had stopped doing releases by that point. I did a remix for Enduser that was released by Ad Noiseam and got to meet him once by complete chance in Amsterdam. Always had respect for Sonic Terror but was not too familiar with Broklyn Beats. Looking through their discography now, I should have been into them! 

Q. You released the album "Illegal Nervous Habits" in 2005 on Cock Rock Disco. This album is still a classic. How long did you work on the album and what was the theme? 

Thank you for thinking it is a classic! I have a tough time listening to it these days, but I am glad people are still enjoying it. Around that time, I wasn’t sleeping much and spent most of my waking hours outside of work focused on music, so it didn’t take long to finish. There was never a specific theme for that album and most of the tracks selected were chosen out of a larger selection of work. The outtakes ended up becoming most of the next album “Additions to Arsenal.” Jason Forrest seemed to gravitate towards the ones with more sample-based manipulations or tracks that had vocals. All my older music was created out of high anxiety and dissociation. That is the closest theme for that album. Anxiety, dissociation, and frantically trying to make as much music as possible before I died. 

Q. I heard that during that period you were also writing songs on the bus during the Tour with Jason Forrest and others. If that was due to anxiety, how did you resolve it? Do you currently have no urge to make music out of anxiety?

Wasted in Berlin was the first show on the tour and as I'd mentioned earlier, it reconfigured my view of live performance. During long stretches of travel on the train, I would work on creating new loops for the performance so each subsequent show had new elements to use, and the set continued to grow. Our second to last show was in Ljubljana, Slovenia, which I released a recording of at the end of "Additions to Arsenal" in 2007. That's the accumulation of all the bus and train work I added while we were on tour, and it was a great way to express the influences the experiences were having on me. I don't remember being anxious while doing that work, although the performance itself could not exist without anxiety. I was using Audio Mulch at the time, and had created a patch that would trigger 8 file players with different loops in them. I remember having several hundred loops that were created for it that I would have to cycle through during the show to ensure it progressed. The problem was that each time a loop repeated, it would drift slowly away from synchronization so it was a very delicate balance of remembering what the loops sounded like, what order they should be introduced, how long they'd been playing, and when they'd need to be swapped out for new elements. I guess in that situation I was just creating the anxiety to walk into, and then getting anxious. I resolved that problem by moving onto Ableton Live shortly after. As for the resolution of anxiety in general, it's been years of therapy, introspection, reconfiguration, and learning how to process experiences in life without hiding from them. Music was a way of hiding what I didn't know how to process. These days, even if I am writing to express an emotion I'm experiencing, it's a therapeutic process, but not one I rely on. More often than not, I'm now making music because I enjoy it and want to share it with others. It feels much better this way.

Q. During this period you created a unique fast cut-up technique. What is the meaning or background behind the act of cutting up samples and beats?

At the time I was a fan of maximalism, overload, excess, noise, and the bombardment of ideas and sounds. It is why I enjoy buffets. Too many options in front of you and you choose whatever you want to fixate on or make it as chaotic as it needs to be. The cut-up techniques first started with early experiments using cassette pause edits. Rapidly pausing and unpausing to record small clips of music on the radio that merge into a giant blob of noise when played back. I enjoyed doing this before I ever thought of making music. Once I got a computer and was able to be more deliberate with the placement of sounds, I just developed my own style over time that happened to be a higher tempo/velocity and what felt good to my brain when hearing it. 

Q. Where was the first non-US country you played in? Which country left a particularly strong impression on you?

The first non-US country I played in was Berlin at the Wasted Festival, part of CTM Festival in 2005. This opened my eyes to the drastic differences in crowd reaction and enthusiasm for experimental music. I was very used to people standing still at my shows and not moving at all, so being able to see people physically react to music that might not be considered danceable was an amazing experience and completely changed my view of live performances from that point on. Even the idea that there was a festival for Breakcore, and that the room was full of people was completely unheard of and exciting for me to experience.

Q. I think the 2000s were a special time: the birth of new services and communications tools such as YouTube and Myspace, and the birth of genres such as Dubstep. What was the 2000s like for you?

Myspace was a particularly useful tool to connect with different artists in Arizona and find out who was making electronic music at the time. Most of the people I booked for our Thru the Wires show were found through searching tags for Phoenix, electronic, IDM, etc. Being able to post music and promote events helped with creating the community we were trying to build and allowed us to get word out about the shows directly to people who were interested. Since Myspace was abandoned, it has been a battle of feeling like social media is necessary while also being repulsed by the obligation to continue feeding it. I try not to look back with fondness about any kind of social media since it is all just a manipulative tool to keep you hooked and using it, but it was good for what I used it for and important for communication. 

Q. What music equipment are you currently using?

Currently I'm using Live and Renoise on the computer, a mix of digital/analog/hybrid synths, and a modular system I've built slowly over the last six years. All the equipment you might see me post on social media for fun, or to show work in progress. I still source a lot of material from Zoom field recordings, use an archive of old minidiscs, and have KRK monitors that sound like there are bees living inside them.

Q. You have released albums and EPs on labels such as Schematic, Black Opal, Hymen, and Love Love Records. What do you particularly like about them?

I have a profound respect for each of these labels and their ability to curate a large/distinct body of releases that all vary in genre while also sounding like they belong as a collective. That is the mark of a great label, and I am proud to say I have worked with each of them. I had been listening to Schematic releases since about 2002 so I was particularly excited to work with Rom from Schematic on “With My Mind” which is the same story with Stefan Alt at Hymen. I had been listening to releases on Hymen since 2001 and it had a large influence on my work. Being able to release on labels that were foundational to my progression and growth is important to me. The Opal Tapes / Black Opal catalogue is so dynamic/dense and played a significant role in inspiring me to explore with darker space and ambience. I was drawn into Love Love Records with their Qebrus release and was hooked on everything they released from that point on. RIP Qebrus. 

Q. I think your Beat is complex and random, is this improvisation? Or do you have some sort of pattern that you are creating? Why does your music need a Beat? Does it mean that you are creating dance music?

Up until 2020, all prior work was completely deliberate in the placement of sounds since it was entirely tracker based using Modplug Tracker / Open MPT but recently I’ve adopted a level of comfort with probability and structured randomization when it comes to live performance. Ultimately, when I’m recording hardware sessions or field recording, there is a great deal of improvisation. Those recordings always end up used as material in the deliberate placement of sounds but now using Ableton instead of Modplug. Regarding your question about music needing a beat or if I’m making dance music, I do have a hard time creating music without beats or some kind of driving rhythm which is strange because some of my favorite music is on the ambient, beat-less, sound design driven side. I don't create dance music but if a person finds a way to dance to the music, whether that was the original intention or not, then it must be considered dance music regardless. 

Q. What do you think about AI entering music? For example, how would you feel if an AI created the crazy cut-ups and sound designs you put so much time and passion into in a matter of minutes?

AI can replicate the surface level aesthetics but never the intent or passion, so it doesn’t bother me. I think the integration of AI into existing production tools to create ease in some of the more mundane and irritating processes is helpful, but I am also not interested in focusing too much energy on it. If I create a piece of music over the course of a year that is a cathartic and therapeutic expression of a personal tragedy I have experienced, and AI then replicates it exactly in a matter of seconds, only one will be hollow and pointless. The purpose of creating music for me is to leave a bookmark in certain spans of time and expressions of feelings during parts of my life. Music is mostly an audible way for me to remember what has happened in the past and I am happy that other people enjoy it or even find it obnoxious.  

Q. How do you feel about streaming services? How do you feel the current consumption speed and cycles are affecting musicians?

I have conflicting feelings when it comes to streaming services. On one hand I do appreciate the immediate accessibility of absorbing large amounts of music but there are too many aspects of its existence that cause harm or play too much of a hand in influencing people to cater to the algorithm. I think it creates an unhealthy environment for creativity where the expectation is for a person to produce as much music as possible to stay on the radar. Personally, if someone has too much output I can be completely turned off by it, which I have experienced recently. I also feel like there should be a shift away from having so much focus on metrics and numbers that put everyone in a manipulative game against each other to see how well a person is doing in comparison to another. Streaming payouts are laughable across the board and though I don't rely on music for income in any way, the compensation should be much better than it is. I do use the algorithm for broad recommendations based on my listening habits, which has brought me to learn about a great deal of artists I wouldn't have known otherwise, but there always lies the question of why and how I'm being fed what I receive. It can be fun to play a more active role in seeking out the kind of music you want to discover, and I would suggest that whenever possible. Check out Nina Protocol as an alternative: https://www.ninaprotocol.com/about - I'll be doing an exclusive release there in the near future.

Q. You have been making music for over 20 years. What keeps you making music?

At my core I love sound. I love designing sounds, organizing them, and exploring new ways to extract what is in my head as my interests inevitably fluctuate. The sense of community that comes from being in a room of people that share the same enthusiasm towards experimentation drives me to continue organizing shows. For these reasons I will never stop making music.

Q. What is your schedule for the future? Any final message to our readers?

I have a new album coming out on Opal Tapes called “Suffocating Repetition” which is an expression of the heightened tension that came with existing in a room that operated as a work office, creative space, and bedroom between 2021 and 2023, mostly during the more confined days of the pandemic. Following that will be an extremely limited lathe vinyl release on Gilgongo Records containing an A side with a James Fella remix of all the material in my 1999 release on Bandcamp and a B side of my remix of his remix. Final message: Be kind to each other and never be afraid to express how much you care about the people you keep close in your life. Life is too short.