Published in the March 2009 Issue of DJ Times Magazine
Volume 22 - Number 03
By Justin Hampton

Examine many dance-producer combos and you’ll often find unreformed rockers inside.

Similarly, the retro-horror soundtrack shenanigans of They Live! (Marine Parade) by nu-school breaks producers Evil Nine has its roots in what could have been a rock album. Group member Pat Pardy pins this stylistic shift on burnout suffered after touring heavily with partner Tom Beaufoy in support of their 2004 debut CD, You Can Be Special Too.

“When we first got back in the studio,” he says, “we had kinda fallen out of love with dance music and started writing this anti-social rock record. After a while, we decided it was the wrong direction and made a conscious effort to be more electronic, and I think that really came through with the new album.”

Certainly, what comes through is heavier distortion and emphasis on live instrumentation, particularly on tracks such as “Twist The Knife” and “All The Cash,” which are further heightened by an MC turn from Definitive Jux label head El-P.

During the album’s more rock-oriented phase, the Brighton, England-based duo jammed in a live room in their studio, later sampling and augmenting choice cuts in Logic Pro. As fans of early electronics from the ’70s and ’80s, Evil Nine stresses vibe over polish, as they record onto tape first before exporting into Logic, whether using outboard gear like Moog Voyager and Prodigy or a soft synth.

From there, they’ll often distort the samples, sending them through PSP’s Vintage Warmer digital simulation of analog compressor/limiter and then EQing them for additional warmth. (Other favorite plug-ins include URS’ Saturation, all Arturia’s offerings, GForce’s Virtual String Machine, plus IK Multimedia’s Sampletron, Amplitube Guitar and Samplemoog.) If necessary, they use Native Instruments’ Kontakt to add extra lines onto the samples or they’ll pitchshift in Ableton Live. They eschew MIDI as well.

“It helps give everything a less clinical edge,” believes Pardy. “It’s still hard to avoid quantizing sometimes, though, but you learn to ignore it after a while.”

Pardy and Beaufoy have also retooled their live set, taking a cue from a festival experience at Denmark’s Roskilde in 2005. “Once we had finished our set, we rushed over to see Sonic Youth,” Pardy recalls. “After their set, we turned to each other and said, ‘That’s how you do it!’”

So, for the “They Live!” tour, Pardy will use Ableton Live for backing tracks and his main synth bank alongside MIDI bass and keyboards. Beaufoy will play bass, and they’ll be accompanied by a live drummer.

On DJ dates in the past, Beaufoy would play solo off with Pioneer CDJ-1000s and an Allen & Heath mixer—“if the promoters read the rider,” adds Pardy. But this time around, Pardy will play the DJ gig with Beaufoy, triggering samples and playing synths with Ableton Live 7.

The live sets will also feature videos based on Dan Mumford’s ghoulish album artwork, but we’ll have to wait for VJing to fully develop within Evil Nine’s full-on spook show. “It’s a great area that we will be exploring in the future,” admits Pardy. “[But] at the moment, we’re trying to concentrate on playing and honing the musical side of things.”

– Justin Hampton