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Paul D. Miller, a.k.a. DJ Spooky, wears many different hats, but what pulls everything together for him are the layers of fiction inherent in any art form. "Basically I'm a writer, artist, and musician, so a lot of things gel in that story-telling mode. I can't really think of anything that isn't a story in some way, shape, or form. Physics, science, you name it, they're all stories," states Miller. "When we learn more information, we put things together again. Break it down, break it up, flip it. That's what makes things flow. I guess my style is audio fiction. My favorite writers - Philip K. Dick, Ishmael Reed, Celine, Claude McKay, Edouard Glissant - all flip that kind of uncertainty. I just roll with the audio and the visual."
DJ Spooky performing "Rebirth of a Nation" 2004
By Michael Raz-Russo |
The way he's rolled in the past few years includes collaborations with Twilight Circus Dub Sound System, Lee "Scratch" Perry, jazz legends Matthew Shipp and William Parker, a revisioning of D.W. Griffith's infamous The Birth of a Nation, a brand new book called Rhythm Science about "the creation of art from the flow of patterns in sound and culture," and a dynamic new audio grenade manufactured with Slayer drummer Dave Lombardo titled Drums of Death. There's a simmering intelligence and subtly wicked inquisitiveness to his work that keeps the ground under your feet shifting even as you think you've gotten a handle on the landscape. He swings artfully from aggression to ambiance and back around to an ornate beauty that may come as a surprise to anyone who thinks turntables are just about the boom bap.
"Things should be fun, and that means always checking out new styles and situations. It keeps things flowing," Spooky tells us. "I get bored pretty quickly by a lot of stuff, and that's what makes me DJ. Just waking up in the morning and checking out new music is one of the best things going on in my life. There are so many new artists out there, and I love getting new music and records in the mail. Rock, hip-hop, dub, jazz, whatever. I listen to a lot of it. That's what DJs do. We filter it all down to mixes and remixes and give it out to friends."
In Robert Downey Sr.'s glorious cult film Putney Swope, the drum is used in an interesting way. Multiple times characters show up and know things that just happened and when asked how they found out they say, "The drum," in a very matter of fact way. Drums of Death also seems to have that kind of advance cognizance about things.
DJ Spooky at Bonnaroo 2003 |
"Yeah, I love Putney Swope, The Spooky Who Sat By the Door, and more current updates of Afro-dynamic scenarios like Saul Williams' Slam (DJ Spooky did the score for the film.) Yeah, there really aren't too many films that show a dynamic and non-cliché vision of African American culture, and that's a drag. I guess you could say my music and style of mixing are metaphors about that, plus a basic sense of "Why not?" People are so fucking conformist. It's stunning how many people use the exact same mixes and songs. There are so many times when I go out, and I basically know every song all of the DJs are playing. I want to hear and see different things. That's what I want to see. How do you get music to really flip things? How do we simply get people to look up?"
About frequent co-creator Saul Williams he says, "I really respect the way that Saul is able to be avant-garde and still have street cred. It's important to balance all of these things. I try in my own way to create a new space for Black and multi-cultural avant-garde culture, and it's always a pleasure to see other fellow progressives flow on the scene."
His coconspirators on the new album did their part to keep the audio conversation lively. In addition to Lombardo on drums, Jack Dangers (Meat Beat Manifesto), Vernon Reid (Living Colour), Chuck D (Public Enemy), and even New Music pioneer Meredith Monk all added their own layers. Miller states, "I just asked people to play riffs and elements. The basic vibe of the album was all about 'band as samples' - thinking about the project as if it was already a record and going backwards from there. It was fun to work that way."
"It was a conversation between me and everyone," continues Spooky. "I asked them all to give in elements, and then flipped it. We compiled everything at Jack's house, but we recorded the original sessions at Dave's house in L.A. My house is the world, so we just had to exchange a lot of files to make it happen."
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