TW #14 — Interview with Pinion (Flood)
Flood interviews pinion at 7 a.m. on a borrowed Mac keyboard. (The same issue's Trax Culture column that follows in the file is a flame at PeriSoft by Lord Pegasus and is not summarised.)
Key claims#
- Ryan Hunt, 21, student; groups ACiD, pHluid and Lucid; also a semi-professional rock climber.
- Got into tracking through SOmms, an ACiD ANSI artist; proposed an ACiD music division with a monthly disk to Radman and was "elected" to coordinate it — the origin of pHluid.
- Tracking for about a year and a half (since early 1994); first songs released on the disk Stigma (seven songs, made on SOmms's machine — he owned only a Mac).
- Influences: necros first ("I have a tape of his stuff that I listen to in my car"), basehead ("he writes really interesting things"), and "the olde skool guys like PM and Skaven cuz they were the first I heard on the 'puter"; outside the scene Sting, Sarah McLachlan, Jellyfish, Tori Amos, dramatic choral music.
- Drums since 8th grade, then acoustic guitar (quiet enough for the neighbours), a little piano; "I dont really have much theory to work off of … People preach about theory. It's not all that important. I have perfect pitch, so that helps."
- Workflow: load a bunch of samples and play until a bass line appears, then layer; writing is "like meditation" — Rage of Motion came out of one such session.
- Advice: "think big … I set impossible goals for myself and then usually surprise myself."
- Wants pHluid to become self-supporting with a larger talent base; "not too concerned about internet fame".
Practical takeaways#
- Bass line first, then layering — a sample-driven alternative to the melody-first or chord-first workflows of Zinc and Jugi.
Relevance#
Background for the author of the later "Impulse Tracker Tip of the Week" column and the founding of pHluid; the third TraxWeekly voice (after Maelcum and Mellow-D) to say theory is optional.
Pages touched#
pinion, necros, basehead, skaven, purple-motion, tracking-workflow.