Cepia

Written by Liz McLean Knight Tuesday, 07 September 2004 00:00

What is your background with music? What brought you to where you are now? My music background and how got where I am now is a long story, but I will do my best to condense it. I got an electric bass when I was 13 and taught myself to play. I played funk, rock, jazz, R&B, and all kinds of other stuff in bands from age 13-20. When I was 20 I went to a music college to study upright bass with Anthony Cox. I did that for a couple of years, my upright broke and I couldn't afford to fix it, so I started playing alot of electric again. I was playing in an indie rock band called tugboat. The guitar player had an insane custom made effects pedal board that he let me mess around with. I just fell in love with the sounds you could get out of it. I was really liberated because my bass didn't sound like bass anymore, it sounded like some alien violin shit. The drummer in the band played me some Autechre stuff and I was totally floored.

I co-founded a 5-piece band called Suki Takahashi. It was sort of like a downtempo, hip-hop, IDM, drum n' bass thing with 5 live musicians. We had a track on the Merck dosage compilation. Then, I started playing bass in a 3-piece band that was like Photek / Source Direct / Squarepusher with a live band. After that I started an all-electronic thing with one of the guys from Suki called Grid. Then I got a Powerbook and started working on my own just under a year ago. A couple of months later I started learning Max/MSP and I've used it for almost everything ever since.

So what's your latest project? What will you be playing at Dannys as? My latest project and what I'm touring as is Cepia. Cepia is my own music, all digital, composed and performed on my laptop.

What's your gear / software situation now? Just an iBook running Max/MSP, EMI 2|6, Doepfer pocket control, and I've recently picked up a couple of analog synths- a Roland MC202 and Juno 106. I have been doing everything with Max. I don't use samples, so I synthesize sounds, sequence, process, and arrange them all with my own programs.

Have you always lived in Minneapolis? How is the scene there conducive (or not) to what you do? I grew up in a Minneapolis suburb. After high school, I moved to Kansas City, then I moved back, then I lived on a sailboat in Florida for a year, then I moved back here to go to school.

I think there is a great scene here. I have been hosting weekly or bi-monthly electronic music events for well over a year and people always come out and support what you’re doing. My event that I do is called Parse. It’s 2 Fridays a month at the Kitty Cat Klub. The local artists are myself, Tiki Obmar (Merck), Eric Skogen (Surgery), Adam Johnson (Merck), Dave Olson (Parotic), Mr. Projectile (Toytronic), DJ Pat Morita, Dosh (Anticon). I've had Greg Davis play a couple of times, Miles Tilmann is playing this Friday, and I'm playing with the whole Schematic crew here in October.

Do you have a day job or does music support you? Yes, I have a day job. I do archive work at Minnesota public radio. I do transfers from DAT and analog tape into Pro Tools. It is a great job. I used to support myself playing and teaching bass, but I was pretty unhappy and just barely getting by.

What other musicians do you admire? I love Donny Hathaway, Curtis Mayfield, Steve Reich, Johnny Cash, Eric Satie, The Meters, Bjork. As far as electronic music- Autechre was the first artist who really grabbed me. Also, Phonecia, Fennesz, Arovane, Funckarma, Farben, Merck folks, Lexauncuplt.

What's the best technological invention (in your opinion) related to music creation / production / inspiration? Definitely Max/MSP. If you choose to learn the environment and have a concept or vision of what you’re after, you can do anything with it. It’s extremely powerful.

Cepia has releases scheduled with Ghostly International and Six Records and will play at Dannys on Monday, Oct 20 with Tiki Obmar and Kra[n]k. Check out Http://www.driver2165.com/cepia/ for more details.

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