One half of Orbital, Paul Hartnoll takes some time out after his set at Electric Picnic to talk to Brendan McGuirk about making his latest solo album ‘The Ideal Condition’ and about how some things never change.

Paul: These things are brilliant, that’s a proper bandwidth recorder. I know you can do it on MP3 mode. I want one of those. Sometimes I walk around with a set of drumsticks and go to metal railings and hammer them. I found a fantastic metal staircase, a fire escape and I was just drumming it with my hands and I recorded it with a video camera, just put it on one of the steps and recorded the sound and got some fantastic drum-loops for a film score. So something like that in my pocket would be brilliant.

(He shakes his keys) And I had these on and I forgot, and they were kinda jingle-jangling as I was doing it and became sort of like tambourines.

Analogue: What was it like playing here at the Electric Picnic solo for the first time?

P: Brilliant. It was fantastic. On the one hand I knew we were opening the festival-which is sort of a double-edged sword. It could mean that no one was there or it could mean that everyone was so gagging for it that they loved it. I went out five minutes before we went on and there were two people waiting there, one of them was my sister-in-law, and I was like “Fine, it’s gonna be one of those gigs!” And by the time we came on there was about 50 or 60 people, and by the time the first track was finished there was a hundred and fifty. And as we were playing I just watched people pile in and by the third track there was over one thousand people! The crowd just built and built and the cheers and shouts got louder and louder, ‘til by the end, during any quiet passages I could barely hear the music.

A: So you got the reaction that you hoped for? Is there a difference between performing as part of Orbital and now performing as Paul Hartnoll?

Paul: Well that reaction was fantastic, I couldn’t have hoped for better. Generally, an Irish reaction is pretty strong anyway. Different countries respond differently but Irish audiences are pretty loud and that was a proper full-on banging Irish reaction! I couldn’t be happier.

A: Do you see a change in the audience from your rave days?

Paul: Not really, they seem the same to me. Just a whole bunch of young people having fun.

A: How do you find the challenge of taking such an orchestrated album as ‘Ideal Condition’ from the studio to the stage?

Paul: It was quite tricky, and I first I didn’t know how we were going to do it, because you’re trying to condense a hundred musicians down to this. As we got to thinking, “Well could you do it with 20 people or a small orchestra?” But then when you go to see an orchestra it’s not amplified, and that’s pretty dull…if you’ve got a drummer and everything you want it loud! And then it boiled down to representing each section of the orchestra with one person, one violin one cello, one woodwind person, synth brass. Then we can amplify everything and it becomes more like a rock and roll gig. It becomes a lot more fiesty. So it went down from being a full orchestra to a small ensemble where one violin covers for the whole violin section, so it sounds more gypsy or something if you know what I mean. And instead of some brass, we got an accordion and that just sounds mad and magic! It works really well…it’s more ballsy than the album which is all orchestrated and considered.

A: Did you get to handpick some of the people you performed with?

P: Oh yeah, I think some of these people that we’re playing with are some of the best classically trained musicians in London. Andy Findan, the woodwind player, he plays with Michael Nyman. Kieran’s just finished working with the Prodigy…they’re really a high standard of people. Chris Elliot, who helped me arrange the album, he’s always working, and he wanted to come on the road with us, he thought it might be fun, because he’s been doing all the Mark Ronson stuff, y’know with Amy Winehouse, and this was the chance for him to get away and have some fun, let his hair down.

A: Up there onstage do you feel like a conductor of sorts?

P: I do a lot of bass, and I’m looking at Kieran, so we’re covering the rock and roll aspect and the Chris Elliot, he’s sort of conducting the orchestral side, the classically trained types look to him because he’s the arranger. But everyone is pretty much on the ball.

A: It seems these days that a lot of musicians are looking to fusing and merging genres as a means of progression in music. Is that where you see the future of music heading? Classical with electronica, rock with dance?

P: It’s always been there hasn’t it? I’m not being funny, the older I get, it’s like stepping away from a painting and then you can see the whole thing. Things go in cycles all the time. Theme and styles come round and things always get blended in a slightly different way.But now it seems more obvious.

A: Do you think so? In what way?

P: Well take for example Electro-clash, where people are fusing dance elements into what is essentially a rock show.

A: Well what about Factory Records or New Order?

P: It’s the same thing! New Order were the biggest electro-clash band ever! And that was in the early 80s. So it’s not really new in that sense, but it is because it’s always done from a different angle because every young generation does it from their angle and they have the arrogance of youth that says “Fuck off! You’re shit, we’re doing it like this!” And that’s brilliant, because without that attitude, none of us would have got anywhere. I made my dance music out of a desire to show people “Look you’re making crap dance music, this is how it should be!” Its not how I feel now, I’m older and I’m different. I can look at it sagely and go “Ha ha, you’re doing that now. It’s your turn to do that,” and it’s good fun watching that going on. That’s what young people do, they are impassioned and look to break the mould and they think “I’m gonna put this with that and no-one else has done that before,” and even though they might have done, it doesn’t matter because they’re doing it in their own way.

A: You must feel fairly young at heart, as you’re still breaking the mould yourself. At times on this album it sounds like an epic soundtrack to a fantasy film. Is that something you hoped for or was it just a direct result of the creative process?

P; It’s what I love. I listen to Danny Elfman (composer for many Tim Burton soundtracks) and Enio Morricone, they’re the biggest fantasy musicians that I know, and I love what they do and that gets into my music. I love film music and I love dance music so the two things come together.

A: Was it trial and error coming to decide on the overall final sound of the album, or did you always have an idea of how it was going to be?

P: I didn’t really think about it, I just started writing tracks and I started trying to think of each track like a chapter in a book or a phrase in a story. And I started trying to piece it together like a novel. But I didn’t have a narrative, thinking- “what’s the start of the book and what is the big action sequence before the end? What’s the bit in the middle where the hero has to make a choice?” I started trying to slot track into that, but I did write more than I needed and I had about two or three more “rock” tracks, and that was throwing it off balance. And as soon as I realised that and lost the rock tracks, everything fell into place. And then it was fine.

A: I see what you mean about the novel format, because closer to the end you’re taking a step back from the journey that has happened and given some kind of resolution.

P: Yeah, the album is almost like a palindrome. It starts and ends with the biggest orchestral tracks that are arranged almost the same, they start quiet and just build. The right in the middle you have that small moment with The Unsteady Waltz.

A: You’ve already mentioned some of your influences, but what were your main influences for this album?

P: The biggest influences on this album were my mum dying, Nine Inch Nails, reading books about how to write a novel! I went through a phase of wanting to write a novel one day, but I’m too busy with music to get round to it! But because I was a frustrated novelist, I incorporated that into this album. But yeah, my Mum dying and Nine Inch Nails. Funnily enough, the Nine Inch Nails stuff all fell off the edge though, that was the rock stuff that had to go. And the musicians I worked with, I know it sounds corny, but working with Chris Elliot the arranger was fantastic - what a learning curve! I learnt so much from his about putting stuff together for an orchestra, and I had good fun doing it.

A: Was there a lot of score work beforehand, or did you sometimes think “Let’s just dip in and try this.”

P: No there was months of preparation. I was very meticulous about how I wrote the music, and he (Chris Eliot) was very meticulous about making sure he got what I wanted, but then he would say -”Do you know that oboes can’t play that? They can play those notes, but not in that style. So how about we try it like this,” and I learnt a lot like that. I thought I was being clever by only programming stuff that would work in the range of certain instruments, but I didn’t consider the practicalities.

A: On ‘An Ideal Condition’ you collaborate with Robert Smith and Leanne Hall amongst others. How did that come about? Did you approach them?

P: I approached Robert Smith because I met him once at a festival and he was really nice, and I also thought “Oh, maybe I’ll ask him to sing on something one day.” And that was yeas ago. And this was the first time when I thought- “Actually, Robert Smith would be a good singer for that track.” So I approached him. Leanne Hall is just someone I know from Brighton. We’ve worked on lots of stuff together now, stuff that is unreleased, and hopefully we’ll work together in the future because I like her, she’s really good.

A: There are certain themes that run throughout the album, both melancholic and hopeful - you said one of the influences on the album was your mother dying. Is there a certain message you hoped to get across through your music?

What I like music to do is inspire and to change you and your state. If it doesn’t change you then it was pointless. This is what I know when I listen to music, if everyone’s ranting and raving about a band and I put the record on and it doesn’t change me then I know that this is pointless to me. To me, not to anyone else. I know that music is subjective, it affects everybody differently. I just hope to inspire and have people think about their life in a different way. The melancholy part is humbling, I’m not trying to depress people. I revel in melancholy. I love seaside towns in the winter in the rain! You get some of your best thought at those times - hope comes from melancholy. I think the beginning of Dust Motes is quite depressing, but it becomes so hopeful and triumphant at the end.

Brendan McGuirk is the editor of Analogue, and former Chair of Trinity FM.
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