Cari Lekebusch - full album stream

James Hutchins, - on 22/5/12

H-Productions Label boss, Cari Lekebusch has been making waves throughout the techno world for many years. Bearing many monikers the Swedish sound architecht has just brought his new album to light, providing Pulse with an exclusive stream of the whole release! Cari spills the beans on his productions with Pulse's James Hutchins, talking all things albums! Check it out!

Pulse: When did you start putting this project together? Can you tell us about any problems that you faced during the production process? Cari: All sounds are self generated, no use of any type of presets what so ever. Every element is either a fylly synthetic construct or a layered sample from several drum machines. Same with all sequences and effects. Part of the concept is to keep it simple but still have the same interesting story as with more complex structures. If an element is not needed to make the fire keep on burning, i just left it out. And rather than presenting a new sound element into the track i rather use what ever i have running allready and apply effects that bring variations. All tracks are knitted from 1 bar measures, 16 steps on general sequenzers (thats 4 bassdrums). I tried to avoid computer grid sections and complex arrangements and recorded live takes with maximum 2 hands without changing them or editing afterwards. A very DJ friendly result, with a touch of what i was doing back in 1995 :D Utilizing what i find best in the analog and digital realm of tools and techniques.

As the album is on coming on your label H-Productions was it easier having free reign on the production and not having anyone to answer to? Certainly thats one of the reasons I have my own label project. And it generally makes more fun when creating under that sort of freedom. I think more interesting results can be found when keeping it like this :) Some of them dawn on you much later after the release of any project lol.

With that being the case, did you feel you had to challenge yourself somewhat? It makes it easier in one way but yes more challenging to motivate yourself. To have a general idea and concept and to give yourself some frames to work within works usually, for me personally anyways - but I guess you have to find your own ways depending on what your aiming at.

How did you decide what tracks were right for the album? I had a frame setup and all tracks that I made during the period of 1 year that landed within this frame where made contenders for the album. The end work was mainly to choose the ones that fitted best next to each other. There where a few tracks also 100% designed for the album wich i started to create quite late in the process, when the whole picture was more clear to me. Like the intro for example called "You Are A Hybrid too".

Which track on the album do you have the most personal connection to? Every track I feel, but especially Ultraterrestrial, Out Of Nowhere, it's hard to choose. That changes from day to day [laughs]. But I like to harness out of the randomness that appears while experimenting with rhythms and tones. And Ultraterrestrial represents that fully with its random generated patterns and measures. Most of the decitions I left to various random low frequency oscillations, and randomizer effects.

Fill us in some more on the production process itself. Did you approach each song with a regime? I usually have a frame I try to keep within, to make it more coherent and solid. Its easy to just go crazy and splash paint all over the room but at the end you need to clean it up and streamline to get a good effect. A track could for example be based on an idea around a percussive bassline and that the track needs to be intensive, more like an intro or a transition track perhaps? Or maybe it could even start with a cool vocal sample that inspires you to make a certain bassline or drum pattern. Its fun to try and find new ways of getting someting started.

What’s your setup in the studio? I used a few analog synths and some digital to generate most sounds. Drums are mainly from my drum machines and some layered samples from Reason and my Roland XV-5080. I use some different outboard stuff in combo with some digital, and record everything in Cubase. So the Frost ACm audio computing machine my buddy Peter Benisch makes is a very important piece of the puzzle. I cant be bothered to mess around with analog reel to reel tapes no more lol. Not that I dont like, but i've done that for so long and using new tools boosts the motivation to get experimental.

Which piece of kit did you use the most throughout the album? Well at the end the computer and Cubase. But for generating sounds manily Roland Jupiter-8, and The Prophet-5 and Pro-One. Pro-53 (plugin synth), a few of Cubase intruments taht are VERY good, Reason drums and a few samples from my old Roland machines like TR626, TR-707, TR-808 etc.

You collaborated with Zighix on the track ‘Black Diamond’. What made you chose to only feature one other artist on the album? I wanted to focus on a solo album mainly, but Zighix aka Ziggy, who is responsible for the artwork around the album also makes music so we thought it would be kind of cool to connect the artwork and the album with making a track toghether. The other track with co-op credits is "Ghost Notes" with GraGee. That track I made out of a bassline type of loop that me and GraGee scetched up quite some time ago, so I felt it was nice to include him in the credits allthough only a small element was used at the end.

Was there a message that you intended to send with the release of the album? For me a clear message kind of spoiles the music and narrows the experience down a bit. So i try to avoid any type of political, religious messages and so forth. This album is especially kept in an as abstract as possible state, so it leaves as much to the audiences imagination. Dance music in general should be kept simple and with its natural messages that each individual experiences differently. Natural messages like - it feels good to blow of some steam now and then while travelling with sound, tones and rhythms.