{"id":5988,"date":"2011-12-29T14:02:59","date_gmt":"2011-12-29T21:02:59","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/reviewermag.com\/press\/?p=5988"},"modified":"2011-12-29T14:06:49","modified_gmt":"2011-12-29T21:06:49","slug":"cool-beats-l-ron-butterfly","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/reviewermag.com\/press\/2011\/12\/29\/cool-beats-l-ron-butterfly\/","title":{"rendered":"cool beats: L. Ron Butterfly"},"content":{"rendered":"<h1>Exclusive Interview with L. Ron Butterfly!<\/h1>\n<p><a class=\"twitter-share-button\" href=\"http:\/\/twitter.com\/share\" data-count=\"none\" data-via=\"reviewermag\">Tweet<\/a><script type=\"text\/javascript\" src=\"http:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\"><\/script><\/p>\n<h5>By Tim Sheepy<\/h5>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/soundcloud.com\/l-ron-butterfly\/tracks\"><img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/heathenparade.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/12\/astro-tang1-150x150.jpg?resize=150%2C150\" alt=\"\" width=\"150\" height=\"150\" class=\"alignleft size-thumbnail wp-image-65\" \/><\/a><a href=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/heathenparade.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/12\/tieneblas1.jpg\"><img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/heathenparade.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/12\/tieneblas1-218x300.jpg?resize=218%2C300\" alt=\"\" width=\"218\" height=\"300\" class=\"alignright size-medium wp-image-67\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Sometimes I describe L. Ron Butterfly as &#8220;tongue-in-cheek new age,&#8221; but more specifically, my aim is to produce multi-dimensional music that can serve either as background noise or as a focus of intense concentration, even meditation, at the listener&#8217;s discretion. LRB is strongly influenced by the German electronic groups of the 1970s as well as other early, experimental electronic sounds.<\/p>\n<p>Also get yo ass on facebook and &#8220;like&#8221; the crap out of <a href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/pages\/L-Ron-Butterfly\/142968342381222\">L. Ron Butts<\/a>. Also check out his <a href=\"http:\/\/soundcloud.com\/l-ron-butterfly\/tracks\">Soundcloud<\/a>.<\/p>\n<h3><strong><i>Now for the Interview<\/i><\/strong><\/h3>\n<p><strong>Heathen Parade:<\/strong> Geetins, L. Ron. How did you come to choose this name?<\/p>\n<p><strong>L. Ron Butterfly:<\/strong> There\u2019s this episode of The Simpsons where Bart replaces the organist\u2019s sheet music with \u201cIn a Gadda da Vida\u201d and the preacher reads the name as \u201cI. Ron Butterfly.\u201d So I took that and gave it a sci-fi twist because I\u2019ve always been fascinated by mass psychology, brainwashing, cult leaders and stuff like that, particularly the way music relates to those subjects.<\/p>\n<p><strong>HP:<\/strong> Like subliminal messages? Backward masking, that kind of thing?<\/p>\n<p><strong>LRB:<\/strong> Heh, sometimes I describe this project as \u201ctongue-in-cheek new age,\u201d so I\u2019m playing more with people\u2019s moods and mindstates than I am transmitting or implanting suggestions or satanic messages. Not that such things don\u2019t interest me, but my aim is to produce multi-dimensional music that can serve either as background noise or as a focus of intense concentration at the listener\u2019s discretion.<\/p>\n<p><strong>HP:<\/strong> Music for meditation?<\/p>\n<p><strong>LB:<\/strong> Well, I don\u2019t foresee my stuff being played in yoga studios, but my creative process is certainly a kind of meditation, though I\u2019m not sure if it\u2019s meditation in the Western sense (of deep thought and intense concentration on a subject) or the Eastern sense (of clearing the mind of thought altogether). Maybe a different sort altogether, since both of those approaches seem to involve an inward retreat from the sensory world. Since I\u2019m focusing on sound, it\u2019s a very sensory practice by definition. If I travel inward, it\u2019s to the space between my ears.<\/p>\n<p><strong>HP:<\/strong> \u201cTurn off your mind, relax and float downstream,\u201d so to speak?<\/p>\n<p><strong>LRB:<\/strong> I like the relax part, but as a composer, I can hardly just float downstream, can I? Somebody has to steer the ship. The closest I get to \u201cfloating downstream\u201d is in a piece like \u201cOrganic Astrology,\u201d (http:\/\/soundcloud.com\/l-ron-butterfly\/organic-astrology) which is hardly melodic. It\u2019s more of a recording of an algorithm: I set up a network of devices, give them a push this way and a twist that way, and record what happens. I do a lot of experiments this way: hours and hours, applying my successes and occasionally capturing an accident that sounds appealing enough to be worth framing as a piece of music.<\/p>\n<p><strong>HP:<\/strong> What kind of tools do you use?<\/p>\n<p><strong>LRB:<\/strong> I\u2019ve owned a bunch of different synthesizers, grooveboxes and such, but these days I use software synths almost exclusively. It\u2019s amazing to have the equivalent of a modular synth and a huge studio all on my laptop. Propellerheads Reason is the software that allows me to experiment the way I like to. With combinators and routing paths, the only limit seems to be my imagination.<\/p>\n<p><strong>HP:<\/strong> Do you like dance music?<\/p>\n<p><strong>LRB:<\/strong> I like to dance, but I find the overwhelming majority of EDM to be pretty unimaginative when it comes to rhythm. I dance when music moves me, not when some DJ counts to four and says \u201cgo!\u201d So I\u2019m more likely to dance to live funk or even rock. Trance and techno tend to make me paranoid \u2013 I can\u2019t ignore the fact that that 4-on-the floor disco kickdrum is a march rhythm.<\/p>\n<p><strong>HP:<\/strong> Then where do rhythmic tracks like \u201cAstro-Tang\u201d (<a href=\"http:\/\/soundcloud.com\/l-ron-butterfly\/mars-needs-bitches-feat-l-1\">soundcloud.com\/l-ron-butterfly\/mars-needs-bitches-feat-l-1<\/a>) fit in?<\/p>\n<p><strong>LRB:<\/strong> Well, that piece has a deceptively simple rhythm. It\u2019s actually pretty sophisticated, and develops a lot over the three minutes, so there\u2019s something to listen to even if you\u2019re not dancing. The whole point of manipulating rhythm, to me, is to alter the listener\u2019s perception of time. We experience time as a linear, one-directional dimension because of the limits of our individual senses and consciousnesses. Rhythm helps us experience time in cycles and this gets us closer to experiencing its circularity; sometimes you can catch a glimpse of something intersecting with our timeline tangentially, an insight into the interconnected cosmic whole. Dancing can be part of this process \u2013 sometimes it\u2019s the only way people concentrate on listening.<\/p>\n<p><strong>HP:<\/strong> Do you have any musical influences?<\/p>\n<p><strong>LRB:<\/strong> Sure, I\u2019m a lifelong record collector and music freak. I love \u201coutside\u201d jazz, psychedelic rock, soul and funk, among other styles. As far as electronic music goes, my favorites are still largely German artists from the 1970s like Can, Popol Vuh, Klaus Schulze\u2026 and the list goes on. I like music from the early days of electronic instruments, the more experimental the better. So Edgar Varese, Louis and Bebe Barron\u2019s Forbidden Planet soundtrack, Raymond Scott, Bruce Haack, and many of their contemporaries are relevant points of reference, too.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Exclusive Interview with L. Ron Butterfly! Tweet By Tim Sheepy Sometimes I describe L. Ron Butterfly as &#8220;tongue-in-cheek new age,&#8221; but more specifically, my aim is to produce multi-dimensional music that can serve either as background noise or as a focus of intense concentration, even meditation, at the listener&#8217;s discretion. LRB is strongly influenced by the German electronic groups of [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5988","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-archive"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":2820,"url":"http:\/\/reviewermag.com\/press\/2010\/09\/14\/in-a-gadda-da-vida-honey\/","url_meta":{"origin":5988,"position":0},"title":"&#8220;In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida, honey.&#8221;","author":"admin","date":"September 14, 2010","format":false,"excerpt":"2010 San Diego Music AwardsRock Metal legends IRON BUTTERFLY accept their Lifetime Achievement Award at the 2010 San Diego Music Awards, 9\/12\/10, \"In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida, honey.\" One of them had said something about \"42 years ago...\" Was that the previous time they had been on the Humphry's stage? 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