Click the title to go to Perpetual Loops web-site.
Perpetual Loop a.k.a. Charles Massey from Manchester. Charles is an artist who fuses ethnic, balearic, ambient, breakz and soundscapes which have appeared on compiliations and has just completed his second album. You can also catch Perpetual loop live p.a.'s and d.j. sets at various festivals and club chillout areas.
1. You used to run a promotion in Liverpool playing house, progressive & trance. Which artistsinfluenced you to work in the ambient genre?
I've always loved ambient / chill out music, I'm a huge fan of Vangelis. Voices is one of my all time favourite albums. Other people include Simon Posford, his production style is amazing. Shpongle, Celtic Cross, Younger Brother, you can always recognise his work. I love cinematic music as well, Cliff Martinez and Clint Mansell to name a few. I actually stumbled into the ambient genre when sending of 4 track demo to record labels (three upbeat and one slow). It was the slow track that caught the eye of Organic Records.
2. In 2004 along with veterans Michael Dog (Megadog/Pushmipulyu) and Joie Hinton (Ozrics/Eat Static) you appeared on the Rumour Records release “Gateway to the Sun”. What did you learn from this experience?
To be honest I was not involved in compiling the actual release, that was more down to Chris Organic and Om Records. I was just lucky enough to be included in the release with the slow track mentioned above.
3. Where can people hear your music?
Well there's Myspace and SoundSauce. There's links to these sites on my own website http://www.perpetualloop.co.uk/ . I've recently put up on my site some DJ sets I've done, as well as few recent live performances. I'm a resident DJ at Fluid radio so mixes are sometimes played there, as well as Last FM. Of course there is also sunisshiningdubnchill.blogspot.com now. :-) I've had tracks released on Compilations such as Gateway to the Sun, Psymeditation I and Psymeditation II, as well as my own album called "Universal Flow". I've also recently started to play live PA sets and are always on the look out for more places to play. I love playing live! It's a real buzz. I've play downbeat as well as upbeat chilled sets depending on the venue. To date I've played a few festivals (Offworld and waveform) as well as Inspiral Lounge (Camden) and a few times at Tribe of Frog (Bristol). My music is pitched as "psy-chill" but I think it's much wider than that and therefore I'm trying to play at a wider range of venues. I'd love to get out to Ibiza and do a few gigs there, but then again I'm sure alot of people are thinking exactly the same thing.
4. You’re currently working on a new album. Is there any new hardware or software you’re using on the project which excites you?
Well the album (Catching Zinc) is now finished, and should be getting released later this year. I actually made the decision to remove most of the my hardware from my set up. I use to have a 48 track desk, with several effect units, and a Super Bass Station, Emu Orbit and a Supernova (which I loved). Anyway most things these days can be done in Plug-in form like the Novation v-station being a softsynth of the supernova, so I sold it all. That way I have studio at home with a hefty computer, but also I can replicate the same set up on my Laptop and take that with me. What excited me the most was probably the Thor inclusion into Reason. An amazing peace of equipment. Cakewalk's Rapture is also pretty impressive. The first album was very much sample based from Reason, where this one was much more instrument driven and loads and loads of plugins over everything. I got to grip more with the production side things with this release as well and Wavelab has to be my choice for that.
5. You’re classically trained on both the cello and piano and havewritten film soundtracks. Which do you find more challenging playingas part of an orchestra or creating someone’s vision employing thecomputer as your orchestra?
That's a really cool question. Definitely the latter,as you are responsible for all the instruments and how they sit with each other, and not just one. I played the cello when I was younger and one thing that frustrated me at the time about it was that generally to play any peace of music you would need the rest of the orchestra with you. You were part of it which was great, but practicing was a bit isolated. Then I moved to the piano, basically because you can play the whole peace of music on your own with out the dependency being there. Now with computers you have the best of both words. You create the entire peace of music on your own but with the backing of 30 - 40 virtual players. Technology has really opened up the possibilities.
6. Which artists impress you at the moment?
I'm really loving the internet. It opens up your access to artists that the you would never encounter in the conventional music store. I use music-map.com allot of the time to find new artists that sound like artists I already know and like. Currently, I still love Shpongle and younger brother. Other artists are Phutureprimitive, Ted Madison, Ulrich Schnauss, Eat Static, Enoch Prusak , Chime, Snakestyle, OmniMotion and Lunar Sound, to name a view!
I've always loved ambient / chill out music, I'm a huge fan of Vangelis. Voices is one of my all time favourite albums. Other people include Simon Posford, his production style is amazing. Shpongle, Celtic Cross, Younger Brother, you can always recognise his work. I love cinematic music as well, Cliff Martinez and Clint Mansell to name a few. I actually stumbled into the ambient genre when sending of 4 track demo to record labels (three upbeat and one slow). It was the slow track that caught the eye of Organic Records.
2. In 2004 along with veterans Michael Dog (Megadog/Pushmipulyu) and Joie Hinton (Ozrics/Eat Static) you appeared on the Rumour Records release “Gateway to the Sun”. What did you learn from this experience?
To be honest I was not involved in compiling the actual release, that was more down to Chris Organic and Om Records. I was just lucky enough to be included in the release with the slow track mentioned above.
3. Where can people hear your music?
Well there's Myspace and SoundSauce. There's links to these sites on my own website http://www.perpetualloop.co.uk/ . I've recently put up on my site some DJ sets I've done, as well as few recent live performances. I'm a resident DJ at Fluid radio so mixes are sometimes played there, as well as Last FM. Of course there is also sunisshiningdubnchill.blogspot.com now. :-) I've had tracks released on Compilations such as Gateway to the Sun, Psymeditation I and Psymeditation II, as well as my own album called "Universal Flow". I've also recently started to play live PA sets and are always on the look out for more places to play. I love playing live! It's a real buzz. I've play downbeat as well as upbeat chilled sets depending on the venue. To date I've played a few festivals (Offworld and waveform) as well as Inspiral Lounge (Camden) and a few times at Tribe of Frog (Bristol). My music is pitched as "psy-chill" but I think it's much wider than that and therefore I'm trying to play at a wider range of venues. I'd love to get out to Ibiza and do a few gigs there, but then again I'm sure alot of people are thinking exactly the same thing.
4. You’re currently working on a new album. Is there any new hardware or software you’re using on the project which excites you?
Well the album (Catching Zinc) is now finished, and should be getting released later this year. I actually made the decision to remove most of the my hardware from my set up. I use to have a 48 track desk, with several effect units, and a Super Bass Station, Emu Orbit and a Supernova (which I loved). Anyway most things these days can be done in Plug-in form like the Novation v-station being a softsynth of the supernova, so I sold it all. That way I have studio at home with a hefty computer, but also I can replicate the same set up on my Laptop and take that with me. What excited me the most was probably the Thor inclusion into Reason. An amazing peace of equipment. Cakewalk's Rapture is also pretty impressive. The first album was very much sample based from Reason, where this one was much more instrument driven and loads and loads of plugins over everything. I got to grip more with the production side things with this release as well and Wavelab has to be my choice for that.
5. You’re classically trained on both the cello and piano and havewritten film soundtracks. Which do you find more challenging playingas part of an orchestra or creating someone’s vision employing thecomputer as your orchestra?
That's a really cool question. Definitely the latter,as you are responsible for all the instruments and how they sit with each other, and not just one. I played the cello when I was younger and one thing that frustrated me at the time about it was that generally to play any peace of music you would need the rest of the orchestra with you. You were part of it which was great, but practicing was a bit isolated. Then I moved to the piano, basically because you can play the whole peace of music on your own with out the dependency being there. Now with computers you have the best of both words. You create the entire peace of music on your own but with the backing of 30 - 40 virtual players. Technology has really opened up the possibilities.
6. Which artists impress you at the moment?
I'm really loving the internet. It opens up your access to artists that the you would never encounter in the conventional music store. I use music-map.com allot of the time to find new artists that sound like artists I already know and like. Currently, I still love Shpongle and younger brother. Other artists are Phutureprimitive, Ted Madison, Ulrich Schnauss, Eat Static, Enoch Prusak , Chime, Snakestyle, OmniMotion and Lunar Sound, to name a view!
