It was good news back in the fall, when I heard that MiNdToUcH had released his first album, ToNight aT NoON (you can download it for free at Bandcamp I’ve been keeping an ear out for his music during the past few years, tracking his admirably steady flow of new tracks, in years past on Myspace, and more recently on Soundcloud. I first met him in my Seoul apartment back in 2006 when he came by my place to have a look at some gear I was selling. No transaction took place, but our conversation started.

I appreciate how he’s built and evolved his recording set-up. In a day and age when people (myself being one of them) get carried away with desire for the latest recording gear and functions, MiNdToUcH has so far taken quite a stripped down approach. Much of his music gets made on samplers, like the Akai MPC 3000, which would have cost a fortune in their early 90s heyday and are now affordable collector’s items to be found on eBay and used shops. But, far from being dated by the 90s gear, I find something very sustainable in MiNdToUcH’s approach to making music – it’s refreshing to see somebody recording machine-based music without being dependent on evolutions of Mac or Windows operating systems and the resulting upgrade-itis. He seems to have this love for his hardware, which makes him want to try different stuff out, but he doesn’t seem to stockpile stuff. All gear he has is used and part of his workflow, or else it’s quickly gone. There’s nothing flashy about his approach, no unnecessary gestures – watching him at his equipment you can’t help but admire the certainty of his hand movements, the lack of hesitation.

Seeing MiNdToUcH’s stacks of floppy discs, each disc containing one set of beats, makes me think of a poet and his or her stack of notebooks. Each disc holds 10s of seconds of sounds, not even a minute. He seems to begin with a process of disassembly – then, when all the suitable bits and pieces are treated and gathered, the assembly begins anew, but it is a different work that has been created. After getting everything ready in the sequencer and the right sound on the right pad, he records the output to an external device – he seems to be access most of the tracks from his album right on his Roland SP-4-4. Then, on another day, he can rearrange, refocus, and reconstitute the same fragments into another flow. What exists on these discs is not finished songs, but a set of sounds ready to breathe again once inserted into the sampler, possibilities waiting to be conjured.

It would do an injustice to MiNdToUcH to dwell too long on his gear or his workflow. His music is above its process. He happens to be a photographer par excellence, and, bearing this in mind, I can’t help thinking of him as a photographer of music, circling around the sounds that he samples, shining a light on what was previously dark, overexposing something, playing with the contrasts – some techniques employed later in the dark room and others at the time of shooting. Clicking, adjusting, rotating, freezing, tapping, releasing …

MiNdToUcH’s music does what the name promises – the music becomes part of a thought process – ideas looping, new ones joining, something remembered then forgotten, an idea modified over time, a new notion. This could be a soundtrack to finding keys and then looking for doors.

Having met him in Seoul, having lived in Seoul myself, I can’t help associating his sound with Seoul. When I hear it, I feel the stop-start rhythms of the bus that carries me through central Seoul, the random announcements – I see the little slices of everyday life and occasional drama that catch my eye through the bus window … the minor intrigue of someone getting in or out of a taxi, a couple side by side both on the phone, a kid restlessly waiting … being out too late, needing to get up too early.

On the day, I filmed the brief scenes in this video, I arrived at his place late afternoon. As soon as I got there, he said we’d go out for a drink, as he’d already spent ample time in his home studio that day. But I pried a bit, asking him about this or that, and in the process of demoing something, he stumbled onto some sounds he liked, and a new session started. Finally, one more disc was added to the stack.

This is a music video for the song “Visions Creeping” by the Kamloops band Sleeps With Matches (myspace.com/sleepswithmatches) … note that the video is unfinished, as it kind of peters out about a third of the way in. It’s the first thing I’ve ever tried to make using 3D software (well, 2D objects in a 3D space – using the software called Motion), and my idea certainly exceeded my abilities – but that’s part of the fun of the video, I think. A few of the animated elements, such as the rat, the lizard, the helicopter, and the radio, were downloaded from animationfactory.com, where I had a membership at the time. The plan for the rest of the video was to leave the house, then venture down a wasteland highway, passing by all sorts of weird characters and distant factories, then enter into a nuclear factory where there’s a spill, and finally to pass through a smokestack into the sky, and drift through stars, looking back at earth.
I’ve been working lately on two other videos for Sleeps With Matches. Check out Forgot Your Face and Inspiring Expiring.

This film presents autumn scenes filmed around Seoul in November 2007, particularly on the walking trails of Namsan Mountain in central Seoul. A lot of the footage comes from the day I spent hanging around with my friend Matt – he was shooting photos, and I was doing video. It seems like I’m less shy about shooting people if I’m with someone. This video also represents my first film with the HD camera (Canon HV-120) that I bought from my friend Billy just a day or two previous. I love being productive with new technology right after I get it.
The music is an old Korean song by Kim Min-Gi called “Kaeul Pyunji” (“Autumn Letter”) (in Korean: 김민기 – 가을 편지).

Heard about a video contest for this upcoming Modest Mouse single. The contest page provided several different shots of the band in the studio, and against a green screen, recording this song. So, with that resource available, it was up to the video creator to take it from there. So, I projected the video clips into the bathroom sink and bathtub, and then using my underwater camera, filmed the scenes and then edited it back together. It got to be quite a tricky mess, in terms of trying to match up the video clips with the audio and what-not. Happy with the result, but never did hear any feedback from anyone on this video.

Footage of Jeju Island, its waterfalls, waves, and diving woman set to the music of Jet Echo’s “Nizium.” (myspace.com/jetecho)
Most of the footage was recorded in June 2001 on a rainy day with my old Digital-8 camera. I just didn’t have any idea what to do with the footage, until I somehow thought it would go nice with this song.

Strobing photos from the Bangkok night set to a dub beat. Seafran had taken these photos in Bangkok and thought they’d be good for a visual remix. He provided the looping music track for this, too. I mixed up the photos in the Arkaos VJ software and did some after-work in Motion.

A video for Jet Echo’s song “Auralgraphx: Hurling”
The song fits itself to sports so well.
Check Jet Echo out at: myspace.com/jetecho

I’m working on a collection of videos for MakBak, a Seoul band of 2 ex-pats (sometimes 3). I hung out with them in the studio and recorded different vignettes. This video is for the first 45 seconds of MaK Bak’s “Run/Stop/Restore.” An experiment with blue screens – or rather, blue yoga mats! Check their site at myspace.com/makbak/

This is a 10 minute documentary made on the occasion of MaK BaK’s debut CD launch party, which was also their last show. MaK BaK was a band of two Canadian ex-pats living in Seoul, Korea. The film shows footage from their various live shows in Seoul, before going into the studio with them as they record the CD. And finally the final live show.

Band page: myspace.com/makbak