By Keith Walsh
One approach to do-it-yourself music creation (DIY.) is to use whatever tools happen to be at hand. In the music of Thom Lucero, in Painter and his self named solo work, this approach results in extraordinary ambient music, recorded ad hoc with lo-fi gear or whatever else is available.
Lucero is the bassist for Media Jeweler, though bass is only sparsely represented in his solo catalogue. Instead, we have a variety of sounds, ranging from Teenage Engineering sequencers, with Fender guitars, bottles of water, skipping records, Casio devices and various percussion. Often a Tascam Four Track Portastudio, which uses a cassette tape, is involved, lending credence to the lo-fi, DIY aesthetic.
Lucero demonstrates that you don’t need a lot of expensive gear to create something with tonal and atmospheric weight. On collections like the retro-ambient, minimalistic Handful Of Water, or the trippy Valley Of Fear, which samples from a live recording of the Bill Evans Trio, sound manipulation is the name of the game, where a simple echoing pulse or an ambient wash can become the foundation upon which layers of melody and tone can be played.
Synthbeat: Where did you acquire your compositional skills? Did you gain them along the way? Do you make charts, or plot these out in any way?
Thom Lucero: I’m a sort of self-taught auto-didact when it comes to composition, so it’s mostly just ideas and approaches I’ve picked up along the way. These recordings aren’t plotted out and there aren’t any charts used- I think a common compositional tool I use is the limitation of the gear I have, pushing up against the boundaries of what’s possible with the humble tools I have. For instance, with Handful of Water, I recorded to a cassette tape with a set length. The length of the piece was determined by the length of the tape I recorded it to. Simple! Valley of Fear was also recorded this way.
Synthbeat: It seems like a lot of these compositions are in the moment? Improvisational?
Thom Lucero: Improvisation is a huge aspect of my work, especially with Painter. I also play in a band called Slow Rose that’s very much based in improvisation, where rehearsals are made up of lengthy improv sessions, all of which are recorded & embellished later. Being in that project pushed me towards exploring solo improvisation, which is what’s going on on a lot of Painter tracks- I’ll just hit record and start playing something until it goes somewhere, and then pick up another instrument and do the same thing on top of that, and so on. “Two Birds” and “Novus Homo” from Derring-Do! are examples of that approach (you can actually hear me tuning my bass & guitar to each other at the beginning of “Novus Homo”).
Synthbeat: Sometimes the mistakes become part of the composition?
Thom Lucero: Absolutely! Mistakes are hugely inspiring to me. You mention Brian Eno, and he’s a big influence on me in that regard. My favorite of his Oblique Strategies is “Honor thy error as hidden intention.” It’s definitely something I live by, and a beacon I always look to when I’m making art or music. It wraps up real nicely with my improvisational approach, because “mistakes” are common in improvisation, especially if you’re not trained. But I love leaning into those “wrong” notes. I know Miles Davis apparently always told his band members ‘If you hit a wrong note, hit it again,’ and I live by that sentiment too.
Synthbeat: What are the aesthetics of staying in one key as you do in some songs?
Thom Lucero: I see this as a weakness in my compositional style, actually! I’m working on it. I’m currently trying to get into making music for video games, and it’s forcing me to hone my composition chops and actually think about movement and harmony and key changes etc. But yeah, I tend to lean into single-key, droning compositions. Another huge influence is that group of German kosmische bands in the 60s and 70s: Neu!, Can, Harmonia, Cluster, etc. I love the repetitive nature of that music, and how you can really zoom in on the details of a composition when you’re hearing the same notes over and over. If you repeat a single note ad nauseum, you begin to feel how each instance of that note differs from every other time you’ve hit it. I love that!
Synthbeat: Seldom do you play bass guitar on these? Why is that?
Thom Lucero: It’s not a conscious choice! But I’m generally always playing bass in a band, and I guess I tend to want to explore other things with my solo work.
Synthbeat: Parts one and two of Handful Of Water are just one second in length difference. Was this an accident of creation, or a sly implication of meaning?
Thom Lucero: A little bit of both! As I mentioned earlier, Handful of Water uses the length of the tape as a guiding framework. To explain the symmetrical length of the pieces, I’ll describe the recording process.
The elements of the two pieces are very simple. There are 4 layered tracks: 2 Casio improvisations (one played by myself, and one played by my partner Madelyn, who makes her own music under the name Slowfoam), and 2 recordings of seashells being moved around in the palm of a hand (again, one performed by me and one performed by Madelyn). Each of these was recorded without hearing the other elements of the piece, so they aren’t reacting to one another- they’re four independent improvisations layered on top of each other. The only rule we had was to play exclusively black keys on the casio, to keep a sense of harmonic unity.
One of the Casio improvisations and one of the seashell recordings was done with the tape running in reverse. So, in the finished pieces, half of the elements are always being played backwards. Part one is the whole thing with my improvisation being played forwards, with Madelyn’s being played in reverse; part two is the other way around. So, the two pieces are the same length because they are actually, in a sense, the same piece! Same sonic material, just arranged differently! The ideal form of this release is the cassette version, because the listener flips the physical tape and the music itself flips as well.
This was recorded at the beginning of our relationship, right after I moved from LA to Seattle to be with Madelyn- the seashells used in the recording are ones that we collected on the beach at Discovery Park the first day I arrived in Seattle. So the piece is a bit of a love story too!
Synthbeat: On Valley Of Fear, did the record (Bill Evans Trio, Live At The Vanguard) really skip? What role do random events or accidents play in your approach to electronic music?
Thom Lucero: So, the skipping record on Valley of Fear is actually a field recording I made with my phone beforehand, and it is actually a skipping record. I have a habit of collecting recordings of skipping records- I’ll just set my phone next to the speaker whenever it happens, and record the skip until it naturally resolves itself. This one took a while to resolve, so it provided a good background for this entire piece. Along with improvisation and failure, random chance is a huge aspect of my work. It’s my bread and butter! I’ll often create a recording scenario where accidents are likely to happen, just to see what kind of surprises I can provide for myself.
Synthbeat: On Tokyo Days, you used the Pocket Operator PO-33 Sequencer. What’s your experience with the product from Teenage Engineering?
Thom Lucero: I liked it! I didn’t know anything about samplers or sequencers when I started using it, and I just kinda taught myself in the process of making this album… I guess it served its purpose.
Synthbeat: It took a lot of patience to create Tokyo Days. What was it like getting it from 4 track to garage band?
Thom Lucero: It was a multi-step process- I bounced it from my 4-track to my friend Jonny’s reel-to-reel machine, the same one we used for Valley of Fear. And we did some more tracking on his machine, and then we ran it through some of his analog gear and live-mixed it while bouncing it to Garageband, and then I added some final touches there (like Shigeru Akakura’s vocals in “Dusk Cycle,” which he composed himself). And then I mixed it myself in garageband, knowing nothing about the mixing process. And then I had my friend David mix it.
It was very much a process of translation between lots of different devices and recording spaces, kind of a Frankenstein’s monster of recording processes. Which felt appropriate, because this album was musically all about being somewhere unfamiliar and interpreting that place, and inevitably missing some things in the translation process.
Synthbeat: Why do you use a Tascam Portastudio when digital options are available? Was this an aesthetic choice?
Thom Lucero: I like a tactile experience when I’m making something, and I like limitations. In a digital recording space, it feels like anything is possible, like you have an infinite amount of options to choose from. Which is obviously great! But I find it more creatively interesting to give myself walls to push up against. Admittedly, I do like the sound of tape, so there’s an aesthetic element too.
Synthbeat: It seems that these are one off productions. Will you attempt to duplicate them live?
Thom Lucero: In the right circumstances, I would. I think it’d be a fun challenge to choose some of these songs and relearn them in a band context, and play them- they’d inevitably change in the process! There are no plans to, but it’s definitely something I’m open to.
Thom Lucero On Bandcamp
Painter On Bandcamp
Slowfoam On Bandcamp
Slow Rose On Bandcamp
Thom Lucero dot com
finis
