Maclean: persistence of Memorymoog.

Juan MacLean’s New Robotica

By Brian O’Connor
Published in the September 2005 issue of DJ Times Magazine
Volume 18 - Number 09

Calling it quits from left-field rock troupe Six Finger Satellite, John MacLean took his Moog and moved to New Hampshire. The idea was to escape the distractions of New York City and attempt more socially constructive endeavors. The soundman for his band, however, kept sending him music and bugging him about making recordings.

Initially, MacLean resisted. He was attending school and teaching English, and despite the critical acclaim his band had received as avatars of the New Robotica, he equated music with destruction—of himself, mostly.

But still, the soundman persisted, and MacLean eventually began constructing tracks, and The Juan MacLean was born. With Less Than Human (DFA/Astralwerks), MacLean treads where he’s most comfortable: in a world where there is no God, only electricity and robots, where we might as well get a groove on. MacLean’s quirky KraftFunk, perfect fodder for indie-dance DJs, is another prescient notch on the belt of that persistent soundman—DFA’s James Murphy. We contacted MacLean in New Hampshire, whose state motto is something akin to “Plug-In or Die.”

DJ Times: To you, the perfect recording moment is when you achieve a Dr. Who-style synth. Tell us, please.
John MacLean: The really thin high-pitched leads with lots of glide on them are the product of my Moog synthesizer, the MemoryMoog. It’s this enormous thing, like 5-feet by 4-feet, and it overheats all the time. I’m usually looking for something pretty specific when I go for a synth sound. I have been using analog synths for like 20 years, so at this point I’m pretty certain about what to do.

DJ Times: Spill some robot science for us, if you will. What’s the history of robots in music, and when and how did it first summon you?
MacLean: It started through reading Philip K. Dick books. His books are riddled with scenarios blurring the distinction between robots, or androids, and humans, and the attendant issues involved. I guess it just really clicked with me, ’cause I tend to act more robotic than human. It takes a lot for me to summon up much interest in involvement with other people. And those involvements tend to be problematic due to my inevitable disinterest. So since the beginning of my music career, I’ve integrated robot imagery with a lot of music stuff. On the all-electronic Six Finger Satellite album cover, there is a nice picture of the singer with his electronic circuits exposed.

DJ Times: Why are so many people intrigued by robots?
MacLean: I think the idea that some day there will be robots that look exactly like human beings is pretty intriguing to a lot of people. And I think the reality is, the honest truth about it, is the fantasy that there is like a female robot that can look like any human being you want, and that you can have sexual relations and then turn it off when you are done. Or that it will do whatever you tell it to do. See, even now I’m confusing my idealized romantic relationship with robot shit.

DJ Times: Tell us about your studio in New Hampshire. What gear do you rely on most and how do you generally work?
MacLean: I’ll tell you this right off the bat: I put a lot of fucking time into making music. Sometimes I’ll spend a couple of days just working on a rhythm track, then realize it’s not great and trash the whole thing. It is a pretty agonizing process. I’m really hard on myself and hypercritical of everything I do. I get really irritated reading about dudes that brag about never spending longer than like 10 hours on a track. My studio is basically all of my apartment. I have a lot of analog synths—MemoryMoog, EDP Wasp, Juno 106, 808, 909, ARP Odyssey, etc. and outboard gear, like my Futronics mixer, delays, compressors, etc. I generally don’t rely on software stuff. I use an Atari ST running Pro24, and I record onto an Akai 2-track reel-to-reel that I took from my parents’ basement. I record over all their old Neil Diamond tapes.

DJ Times: Please describe a problem that you encountered while recording and tell us how you solved it.
MacLean: About five years ago, I had the basic tracks for two new songs—“Less Than Human” and “I, Robot.” I made CDs of the tracks at home in order to take them to New York to finish mixing them and whatnot. It was going to be my next 12-inch, after “By the Time I Get to Venus.” So I get to New York, I’m in the studio, and the assistant is putting the CDs in the computer, loading in the tracks. There’s me, Tim [Goldsworthy], and James [Murphy]—we had like a week blocked out in the studio. When we called the tracks up they were all the wrong ones. I had burned the wrong tracks onto the CDs, and I had also deleted them from my hard drive at home. I had rough mixes of the songs though. In those days, I had dial-up internet connection, so I would make rough mixes and make really lo-res copies—8-bit AIFF’s turned into the lowest-quality MP3s possible, and I would send these mixes to James and Tim in New York. They had loads of distortion. They were really awful, and I would always mix on headphones plugged directly into my old Mac. So that ended up being the only documentation of those songs, they were the only versions in existence. The way we solved it is we fixed the files as best we could in mastering, then released the tracks on a 10-inch, hoping the vinyl noise would help mask the noise of the MP3s. Don’t tell anyone this, though, it’s a secret.

DJ Times: Why did you leave New York City? Is it easier to create with fewer distractions in New Hampshire?
MacLean: New Hampshire’s motto, it’s on the license plates, is “Live Free Or Die.” It is a haven for people who want to be left alone to do whatever they want. There are loads of bikers and biker gangs. It’s a culturally vacuous place. It’s easy for me to make music here without the distractions of “cool” that others have to live with in cities.

DJ Times: You describe yourself as morose. Who are some bona-fide members of the Morose Hall of Fame?
MacLean: Iggy Pop, Nick Cave, Florian Schneider, Damon Edge, Samuel Clemens, Abraham Lincoln, Schopenhauer, Neil Young, Leonard Cohen, Samuel Coleridge and Jesus.