"The Puremagentik Micropaks really help me out... I can have them all with me regardless of where I am in the world. Whether I am writing or doing sound design for a commercial at MassiveMusic, my personal studio or on the road - it doesn't matter."

-Elijah B Torn
www.elijahbtorn.com

Hi there! I am Elijah B Torn (aka Charlie Foxtrot aka Thadeus Ignatius Torn) and I am a sonic-vigilante, bombastic, bass-blipping, live-looping, hand-wired light show-providing, and electronic sonic assault. Born with looping device in-hand, I have been creating and performing electronic music going on 9,901 hours. I try to bring an unquantized approach to live electronic performance while adding some much-needed grit to the sometimes sterile electronic music world. I have breached your secure airwaves on KCRW’s Morning Becomes Eclectic, WNYC’s New Sounds, Serbia's Cross Radio and I invade your television screens composing for MassiveMusic . I am frequently spotted riding the NYC public transportation with a midi-controlled dinosaur. I love your new haircut.

What are your main software and hardware tools for production? Do you feel that your process is missing anything?

For software, I primarily use Ableton Live, ProTools and a lil bit of Logic. My main hardware tools are an AKAI MPC3000, Synthesizers.com analog modular, a Novation controller, Roland Space Echo, random 70's spring reverbs, Behringer FCB1010 midi footpedal, tons of fx stomp box pedals , a Really Nice Compressor, Beyerdynamic DT770's, the mini-Genelecs and some circuit bent nonsense and my trusty Yamaha 4 track.

I would definitely say that my process is missing space. I would love to spread out and fill up an abandoned missile silo with modular synths so I can launch sine waves across the universe! The Puremagentik paks really help me out because I can have 20 different drum machines (Microdrum Micropak), a modular synth (Modular Patterns Micropak), Rhodes (PM Mark One Micropak) and circuit bent toys that don't take up any physical space. I can have them all with me regardless of where I am in the world. Whether I am writing or doing sound design for a commercial at MassiveMusic , my personal studio or on the road - it doesn't matter. Plus it doesn't matter which DAW I am using - If I need to use micropak and I am working in ProTools- I can just login to my account and download the Kontakt version. They all sound great and never sound like "stock" sounds...

Tell us about your production approach for your latest release You are Lucky I am Not a Vigilante? Where can we find it?

A great deal of "Vigilante" was created out of improvisations with the bass guitar and laptop recorded to 4-track cassette. I would write something on the bass or keys and then create a beat (or vice versa) and then control both with the midi foot controller to change sections, create fills, change bass fx. At that time my computer wasn't fast enough to "play the laptop" AND rerecord the output so I would record to tape. This way I could listen back to my performances tapes and hear what sounded good and what didn't work structurally - rather than just moving "bricks" of midi and audio or pushing numbers around in the computer machine. This was a less visual way of composing than sequencing in the computer. It was time consuming but ended up feeling more natural to me in the end. Often times I would end up resampling certain parts back off of the cassette tapes and into Ableton Live to create other elements of the songs. Sometimes even the whole beat was created out of those samples.

"You Are Lucky I am Not a Vigilante" is available for download on iTunes. It is also available as full quality aiffs on a USB harddrive inside a special Elijah B Torn rubber duckie at live shows. The drive also contains the "making of video", full quality artwork and interactive print-outs you can mail to your loved/hated ones.

Your live performances involve a lot of on-the-fly recording and sound manipulation. How was this realized?

Since so much of the album was created in a live environment it was a fairly easy transition to make. The writing and recording led to me streamlining my Live set to be more utilitarian. Two of the main things I incorporated into my set included a "dummy" master track and "dummy" clips. For the dummy master track, all tracks are sent to a send which functions as a master track but allows me send all of the tracks to an external effect and be rerouted into the same set without causing horrifying feedback. This allows me to process a whole song through external effects with the flip of a switch. Thankfully this is something that can created much more easily with grouped tracks in Live 8. I also created "dummy" clips in Ableton that can switch and modulate fx on the bass in sync with the rest of the song. I go into further depth about this in the Createdigitalmusic.com article.

Most of the on-the-fly recording was originally accomplished with an Electrix Repeater with a Lexicon Jamman on the fx loop. I abused and exploited glitches in both loopers to create more spontaneous and bizarre loops as opposed to just overdubbing and solo'ng on top of myself. When computers achieved faster processing capacity and I got tired of lugging a rack of gear to shows, I started to implement the Sooperlooper plugin (which does this crazy scratching audio scrubbing thing!). Now that Ableton Live 8 has a Looper plugin, all prayers to the software deities have been answered! The ability to instantly sync my song to the tempo of my first loop (instead of the other way around) is going to open a whole range of possibilities in terms of composing and performing live- it removes a level of static-ness. I can perform songs at whatever tempo I want to play. Plus, the Ableton stability and flexibility with having an fx loop on the Looper....I could go on and on and on with excitement...almost in a loop, almost in a loop, almost in a loop...

Oh Yeah?

Yeah - Twas brillig, and the slithy toves Did gyre and gimble in the wabe!

Not to get too James Lipton, but what inspires you?

I am currently producing Jeff Solomon’s sophomore album, so I have been listening to that quite a bit. Jeff is an extremely talented singer, songwriter and multi-instrumentalist and we have been adding a lot of electronic elements to this album. We are finding that the PM Paks are so freakin' inspiring right off the bat. We just load em up and the ideas start flowing... I also recently just finished a reinterpreatation/dub of a Hans Blix song on their new album so I’ve been listening to their album a lot. It rocks a great deal. I have also been listening to a lot of Torngat, Gojira, Raphael Saadig, Ursula Bogner, Jay Electronica, Nas, Flying Lotus, Kamoni, Overclock Orchestra, Moldover ... old children's books on tape with the "when you hears chime,...turn the page!" where a huge inspiration for the "Vigilante" album too.

I also tend to bury my nose in the books and the new Neal Stephenson ("Anathem") has just been a mind-bending inspiration. Naomi Klein's The Shock Doctrine is eye opening, Ray Kurzweil's writing has been a great boost of optimism. I also draw inspiration from artists like Leon Golub, Katsushika Hokusai, Joseph Bueys, the artists of the German Weimar Republic like Otto Dix, photographer Rachel Papo (her "Serial No 3817131 #2 photo adorned the front of my laptop for the past few years), Canadian Surrealist Photographer Hannah Maynard...Muttpop, Greg Simkins, David Cronenberg, Charlie Kaufman, The Fountain....The Man who Fell to Earth...just to name a few things....

If you could invent something, what would it be?

I would probably want to invent some sort of amplification device using HyperSonicSound so I can broadcast my music directly into people's minds. Maybe something that alters their visual cortex as well and creates visual hallucinations that are controlled by my music as well? Sort of like what the C.I.A. has been doing for years I guess. It shouldn't be too difficult - Human Brains are analog and those synapses are easily taken advantage of. (although the Blood-Brain Barrier could make this difficult).

What will you be doing on August 5th 2021?

There are (at least) two answers to this-

Option 1) I will be totally wet-wired and have digital brain parts creating music by just thinking about it. or...

Option 2) I will be living off the grid in a solar and wind powered yurt, living off the land, communicating through a truly Local LAN without government surveilance playing a resonator guitar into a cave or canyon for some super long reverb time!

Or maybe some combination of the two? Regardless of external forces - I plan on making music and playing through the Apocalypse. They won't stop me cause music is my only weapon!