Belfast-based DJ/producer David Holmes has always exhibited a cinematic bent with his music. Whether playing one of his wildly eclectic DJ sets, producing a twisted quasi-soundtrack (1997’s Let’s Get Killed) or creating a proper film score (for 1998’s Out of Sight), Holmes and his brain-tickling collages of sounds rarely fail to intrigue listeners. The same holds true with his latest, Bow Down to the Exit Sign (1500 Records), but the motivation was different this time.

Inspired by a feature-film script (Living Room) and a soundtrack from the 1970 film Performance, which starred Mick Jagger and featured music from Ry Cooder, Merry Clayton and The Last Poets, Holmes’ third full-length may sound fully organic, but it’s really a mixture of approaches. Using vocalists for the first time, Holmes went to great measures to re-create the gritty Performance vibe. He tabs Carl Hancock Rux to fill in the spot of the Last Poets, Primal Scream’s Bobby Gillespie to do Mick Jagger’s Turner character and Martina Toppley-Bird (best known for smoky work with Tricky) to sing the parts of the Merry Clayton Singers. Holmes himself takes on the role of Jack Nitzche by providing the score, but traditional instruments couldn’t fully realize the album’s myriad of psychedelic soundscapes.

“I’d say it was 70-percent organic with live instruments and the other 30-percent is samples,” says Holmes. “But I use samples in a very different way. Rather than rigid, regimented loops and sounds darting in, I work a lot with layers of sound. I collect old ’60s abstract electronic noise albums. If we’ve got a track going and the guitar is done and the bass is done and the drums are done, we’re building a structure. I start spinning in, literally from a turntable, spinning stuff over the top, just experimenting. Some stuff works really well and some stuff doesn’t.”

In the studio, Holmes says he’s partial to Logic Audio and Pro Tools, but he uses each only as an editing system, as opposed to a means to create entire tracks. He’d rather not have his work sound like a digital collage of clean and pretty tracks. So what essence does Holmes seek in his music? “Filth,” he says simply. “I like my music to have a real dirty edge, really grimy and almost as if it were made in your bedroom and concentrate on the production as far as arrangements go. Every thing that you do requires something completely different – as far as I’m concerned, the older the gear the better. The only new bit of gear that we actually use is the computer – everything else is totally analog.

“It’s an old cliché now and [John] Lennon was the first person to say it: making music is like a painting, you start off with this blank canvas and you sort of draw your skeleton and then you’re adding colors and your detail. It’s a very similar way of making music. You have your skeleton and you work from the bottom end up, drum, bass, then start working on some melodies, getting into an arrangement, building it up, layering it, guitars and later on we start adding the sounds and layering three of four different sounds together. Layering it and chopping it up to make one sound effect because that in itself creates a certain texture.”

Working in New York with an initial group of musicians (Phil Mossman, Tim Goldsworthy, Darren Morris), Holmes finished the project with just Jagz Kooner (Sabres of Paradise, The Aloof) and Mossman. Zack Danziger joined in on a few numbers on live drums. Results like anthemic new single “69 Police,” which features a remix for DJs from Skylab, left Holmes pleased.

“New people, new inspiration, a new outlook with music,” says Holmes. “No matter where you are, it’s going to create a kind of different vibe. Last two albums I recorded in Belfast. I’d been working with these guys for a couple of years and we’ve been developing as a unit and it’s much more turned on by the whole different way of working, with a live band, making the whole thing more spontaneous and improvised, then taking that and sculpting it into a piece. I’m much more at ease. I’m just bored of that eight bars of this and then something else comes in. But I still wanted to keep that strong, electronic angle in there.”

– Lily Moayeri