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The Third Eye Foundation Matt Elliot’s incarnation as The Third Eye Foundation has more in common with left-field jungle producers like Plug, Squarepusher (not the Aphex Twin derivations of either though) or Tricky & DJ Spooky, than his Bristol guitar-based compatriots Crescent, Amp, AMP, KS Kollective, Movietone, Flying Saucer Attack, Teenagers in Trouble or Hood (the latter two of which Matt is producing for). This premise should draw curiosity. As The Third Eye Foundation, Matt spends more time exploring frantic breakbeats as the foundation from which to build his fragile, skeletal frameworks than he does thinking about how a guitar should be used within (or consequently, absent from) a new piece. When queried about how The Third Eye Foundation rides atop a fence between two genres (jungle, post-rock) that couldn’t be more polarized, Matt quips “I’m just a lover of music...I really do just love music as long as it has some soul or emotion attached to it.” It is hard to draw a breath in to describe Matt’s explorations as music in its properly defined forms. Historically, Matt entered (or exited...) the sphere of atmospheric music by collaborating with early incarnations of Flying Saucer Attack (witnessed by Matt’s FSA remix on his album In Version). He worked with his then-girlfriend and partner Debbie Parsons on creating Semtex, In Version, and Ghost albums. Across these noisey, varied and texturally complex ventures Debbie added her Elizabeth Frazier-esque wordplay in a form simultaneously elegant & sultry as well as exhausting, confusing and disturbed. In the Spring of ‘98 we witness the Third Eye Foundation releasing its second title for US label Merge, Sound of Violence, while Matt leaves Bristol to tour England (with ‘mates Hood) and Belgium, leaving behind a new (as yet unreleased) album’s worth of material at the Domino headquarters to be realized in the coming months. Matt wants to talk about his new album, material from which he is showcasing on his current and future tours, leaving behind his past releases as if a chapter of The Third Eye Foundation saga is closed. This brings a close to an era he describes as disturbing and lo-fi. “I’ve finished off the lo-fi era. Sound of Violence is the jumping off point for what is very disturbing. With my new album I bought lots of new equipment that has changed what I can do and what The Third Eye Foundation can sound like” soapboxes Matt. It seems that the miniscule sales of his release have amassed enough cash from Domino to expand his collection of primary recording equipment that he professes will change his sound more than his ideas on change can determine on their own. But why he is changing his sound rattles with curiosity in my head. Why are you changing the sound? “After about six or eight months after the recordings are finished you find yourself in a state that you don’t want to hear it all over again, it’s what pushed me into a much more hi-fi way of making music,” he states. Matt wants to make more music to share with others, music that isn’t so difficult for him to listen to. Matt recently ditched the old Roland W30 sampler in favor of a newer Akai system loaded with RAM. He admits the birth of The Third Eye Foundation sound was due mainly to technology. While not setting out to create the revolutionary mixing of breakbeats and layers of white-noise six-string distortion, he found himself with primitive technology (W30 and a 4-track) drawing parameters around what he and partner Debbie could create. “A shortage of equipment led to the early merging of drum ‘n’ bass and loads of effects” Matt sputters as he stands on a cold street at a tollphone in wintry Manchester. Rarely does one admit the brilliance of the creations are byproducts of available resources not ingenuity and perserverence. Like myself
and many others, Matt has explored the boundaries of the six-string guitar
to make atmospheres not statements: Not terse punctuated rhythmic phrases.
The Third Eye Foundation released its 4-track VU limiter testing sounds
initially as the Semtex LP, which was later followed by the other worldly
dynamics of In Version which showcased his initial step up in technology
to an 8-track recorder. All the while, and through his Universal Cooler
single, The Third Eye Foundation was still toying with guitar treble.
With the newer releases, Ghost and Sound of Violence, we see less and
less amp noise and more sampler ideas. Matt is evolving. “I don’t think I would have done this new record if I hadn’t done the others or produced other recordings. I have picked up some cunning little tricks along the way, tricks I can continue to use. Tricks I have picked up while engineering some indie guitar bands like Hood, Navigator, and Teenagers in Trouble...no one has asked me to record any breakbeat stuff...yet” Matt confides. Not only has the technology he employs changing, his approach to the use of skittering programmed beats has begun its metamorphosis too. “I have always used drums as a frame, the noise or mood is always more important, but with the new stuff it’s more like hip-hop BPMs. Ya know, about 80 beats per minute is a magic BPM for me. 160 for most people is instant jungle - anything at that beat is jungle. I find it more fun to fade in a jungle beat into what I am already doing and the new stuff is a lot more subtle like that...and more laid back than before. Its not more commercial, just more listenable” The Third Eye Foundation speaks. While touring the US last year, Matt played a half-dozen shows to which he claims only 20 or 30 people showed up. Though joyfully he would later admit, he was floored that people had driven (in some cases) hundreds of miles to witness his digital drama unfold on a stateside stage. Matt lost money on that tour, not having tour support from either label. He lived on the cash from records he sold at gigs. Coming from England, where you can’t travel hundreds of miles, Matt’s ability to remain an enigma to his fans ended with each city he visited. He wishes to return to the states in the coming months and hopes to make it to the western shores of the continent to join a friend and filmmaker in Los Angeles who has employed Matt to create soundtrack for an upcoming project. Aside from an upcoming album, Matt could become an LA resident for a couple of months while he constructs (and de-constructs) his latest drum ‘n’ haste. Matt has an interesting outlook on music. He lives in a flat above a record store in which he trades work for rent so he can spend time secluded in an arena he draws close in around himself to create his sound. “I’ve been working there (at Revolver) seven years, mainly because the owner knows everything about every record ever released. It is really amazing how he has played me all this music over the years. If it wasn’t for him I would be making Enigma records” Matt admits. I ask him what he has been listening to lately, knowing a record shop allows for him to hear everything from the Carter Family to Ed Rush. He replies, “Leila on Reflex, Aphex Twin’s label, is really good stuff; somewhere between me and Tricky.” Matt doesn’t shy away from fun either, he DJs when given the opportunity around town at Bristol clubs and bars owned or run by his friends. “So do your records get any club or radio airplay” I ask. He replies,“Yeah, DJs in places like Belgium and Germany where Alec Empire stuff is DJd. I’m not really part of the jungle fraternity, and they are straying into stuff that is really dark and minimal and forgetting everything in the recent past. If it’s got jungle in it, then good - but now it seems to be more like a metronome.” I further
query with “What do you think of the whole Digital Hardcore thing?” So how can The Third Eye Foundation morph further? What about going completely digital? “I don’t much like computers - things that do too many things. I rather have just one thing that does that one thing really well...” Matt phobically utters. “I suppose one of these days I am gonna have to break down and get one just to make things a lot easier on myself.” Beyond The Third Eye Foundation, what is it about those of us who have transgressed our creations from guitar sonics to breakbeat manipulation? What is the difference between US indie junglists and droners and those living on a rock floating in the icy cold Atlantic? I had to find out. “Where
my new stuff isn’t much different than a more subtle, laid back
easier listening version of my older stuff, I had to move on. When I listen
to my older stuff, bits just don’t work...I wish I had paid more
attention to the stuff” Matt refuses to hide in wordplay. “I
think that record companies haven’t realized that the best records
are made by people spending a lot of time in their bedrooms recording.
And to that end not enough people are layering hip-hop atop jungle beats
- theirs actually a shortage of that stuff!” Matt has spoken. I have to wonder to myself how many others out there agree with the meshing of dissonant guitar drone damaged post-rock and breakbeats (whatever the BPM). However few, one must consider riding the fence separating the two an interesting premise, and a narrow ledge to reside atop as all other styles beg, borrow and steal from one another. The Third Eye Foundation is among an increasingly rare breed of folks trying things for the sake of creating: The spirit to derive something new from other “knowns” and to extend oneself beyond parameters readily constructed by music formulae, record companies’ budgets and what the guys at the pub are gonna say when they hear your demo. Cheers to those of you, like Matt, out there on the fringe. |