As you may know, Apes & Androids were our favorite band in the entire universe. Even though they've disbanded, it's exciting that many of them continue to make music, and this weekend Morgan Z (the band's former keyboardist) will debut his new project: Chrome Canyon (listen here). He has already released an EP, entitled Body Music, with French label On The Fruit Records, and later this year he'll be releasing a full length, called Elemental Themes.
This week we asked Morgan a few questions about what he's been doing since he took off the blue velvet unitard, check it out below before seeing Chrome Canyon's first live show, this Saturday at Mercury Lounge (and yes, there will be a light show).
What have you been doing since Apes & Androids disbanded? It took a while to sort of find a comfortable identity and direction to go in—maybe playing in a band where I was dressed in velour unitards and wearing glitter makeup had something to do with that confusion. Around that time I had started a private studio in Greenpoint where I was working on random stuff and recording other people. Then one day Carl, the tech guru who helped me build the place (cool guy—grew up working with Les Paul and built a lot of studios), he found a Juno 60—which is a pretty swell analog synth Roland made in the '80s—in the dumpster outside his building. He replaced the battery inside and the thing worked perfectly—so he gave it to me for a pretty good price, and that got me on a synth kick. So now I have about a dozen, and it just keeps growing. I started working on electronics and stuff as well, and now when one of these ol' things breaks I can usually fix 'em, which is really satisfying for a nerd like me.
When did Chrome Canyon become your main focus? Chrome Canyon is fairly new, but I've been fiddling with this sort of groovy electronic film-score stuff for a while—there’s even elements of it in when I was going through my "beat making" hip hop phase in high school. But until a few years ago I was heavily into the digital stuff—virtual instruments and laptop recording, etc.
When I started working outside the box (meaning with the analog stuff and in my studio) a light definitely clicked on for me, I finally figured out how to achieve all the rich textures and tambours that come with the imperfections of "real world" electronics—they go out of tune, they change slightly take to take. I mean, people have been saying that stuff makes a difference for years, but I never really believed the hype… now I absolutely do. So as soon as I could stop fiddling with the software and concentrate on actual composition (I trained as a classical pianist, but I wasn't really using any of those skills) I found that I was creating all this material, and that became Chrome Canyon.
Do you record everything at your Greenpoint studio? What kind of process do you go through? Yes I record everything in my studio, and mostly just back in the control room where I can stack all my keyboards around me , although I do have a nice big live room where we tracked the drums. For a track like "Branches," which is on the full length album I’m planning on releasing later this year, I would basically record everything except the drums. That song probably has about 40 layers of synthesizers, stacked to get a really rich sound. I basically built everything to a temp drum track, then my friend Tyler Thacker (a genius of a musician and artist) would come in a track the drums for me. His performances were epic, and really took the music up a notch I think. And I was incredibly pleased at the type of sound we could get from the drums, that would really solidify the tracks and give me the inspiration for the final touches.
With something like "Suspended in Gaffa," how did you decide to work on that song? And how did you make it so... amazing? I love Kate Bush, and the original, but this version is just so insane, I consistently choose to listen to it over the original. "Suspended in Gaffa" was one of those things that just happened spontaneously. I've always loved Kate Bush (who doesn't?) but to try to cover her is somewhat dubious—she's just really one of a kind. But I have to give credit to Phoebe on that track—her voice is just unbelievable. The original song was one both Phoebe and I loved, so one day I just figured out the chords and tried to make something interesting sounding that Phoebe could sing over. Then in one afternoon Phoebe just came in and tracked all the vocals—so effortless. And I thought it sounded so great that we decided to just put it out for free as sort of an homage. I'm planning on recording a lot more stuff with Phoebe—original material, and some more covers—probably for the next record.
Will you be able to bring songs like that to the stage? Eventually yes! For right now though, the live show is mostly stuff from the full length record I will be releasing, and from the EP I've already put out—so no vocals. But I'm hoping that as soon as we have some more material, Phoebe will be up on stage singing it.
What can people expect from the upcoming album? Hmm, how do you describe your own album… I guess it's sorta a cross of a lot of the influences that I grew up with (somewhat of a "soundtrack" in terms of genre and narrative). Vangelis and Tangerine Dream are pillers, there's some Pink Floyd, some Kraftwerk, Wendy Carlos definitely is in there, and so is Georgio Moroder, and the more contemporary French geniuses—Air, Daft Punk, etc.
I'd say I owe a lot to John Carpenter whose music (and films) I'm a huge fan of. But I'm also hoping that amongst those things there's something of my own voice shining through. Most people who have heard it have told me it needs to be set to a film. I couldn't agree more—please someone if you're reading this set it to a film—and preferably a good one! But yeah—put it on, get stoned, you know… that kind of album.
And your live shows? Are these basically going to be instrumental? What kinds of instruments will be up there with you? The shows for now are instrumental—since all the tracks on this record are instrumental. I've actually went completely nerd on this and programmed an entire synchronized light show—so hopefully it will be something people can sorta get lost in. It's three of us playing, we all were actually in Ape & Androids, Eric played bass, and Pablo played percussion (he’s on drums with me). I'll be playing some analog synths, and a theremin. I had a professional thereminist actually record on a couple tracks which are on the record, but since I just started playing (and theremin, for those that don't know, is basically the hardest instrument in the fucking world to play) I might end up making a complete ass of myself.
