Published by Alessandro Violante on January 7, 2018
Simon Hayes, better known as Swarm Intelligence, released his first full length on Nicolas Chevreaux label Ad Noiseam in 2014, followed by another full length one year later and by other releases, also in collaboration with Monolog (Diasiva). Recently he’s released one release with Berlin-based Instruments Of Discipline and one, more techno-oriented, with Earwiggle. Swarm Intelligence wisely mixes industrial, field recordings, drum’n’bass, techno and noise, according to the project. Simon Hayes is one of the most interesting and eclectic “new” artists in the so called “scene”. That’s why we’ve decided to interview him on FLUX.
Swarm Intelligence live @ Urban Spree
Hi Simon, I’ve known you when I’ve listened to your Ad Noiseam albums, but before them and after them you’ve made a lot of other releases. Can you talk us about Swarm Intelligence? What it is about?
Thanks for the nice words! The name Swarm Intelligence comes from an artificial intelligence algorithm based on flocking behaviours in nature. I was really obsessed with that whole thing for a while!
As for the music, I’ve loved a lot Faction and Rust, two rough and heavy albums. How were they made?
Both pretty differently actually! Around the time of Faction, I was heavily into bass music and overdosing on distortion. It was made mainly using pedals, hardware synths and some scattered field recordings here and there. A lot of it just came from tinkering around – I jammed out Antenna in one take for example (then spent months mixing, refining and generally driving myself mad as per usual).
Rust is a different story – I had the idea of creating an album built entirely from samples of metal objects. I went around sampling as much as I could in all kinds of locations – scrapyards, an abandoned power station in East Germany, a metal sculpture park in Berlin – lot of climbing fences and getting dirty! Almost everything in that album – from the drum sounds to the synths came from these recordings (heavily processed of course!).
Along your career, you’ve crossed multiple genres. From the breakcore of Hamburg Harbour to the rhythmic noise of Faction, to techno in Home Recordings, and so on. Do you prefer one or more styles in spite of others? With what you feel comfortable the most with?
I make what I feel and I don’t believe in coming up with new aliases every time my sound changes. I guess this may leave some people confused – I’ve turned up to techno gigs to play fucked up noise sets and lashed out banging techno at arty industrial events, to me it’s all part of my sound and part of the music I love. I don’t want to ever be defined by a single genre.
Let’s talk about Home Recordings, released by IOD. What can you tell us about this release?
For Home Recordings, I built up a sample bank of weird clicks and beeps using different coil pick-up mics to record lots of household appliances (hence the title). Some of these are almost completely untouched, the source sounds were just too amazing to mess with! Others were heavily edited and processed. I layered in some synths and drums on top to fill it out.
Home Recordings and Field Recordings. Do you prefer to create the whole work in the studio or to register external sounds and to process them in the studio?
I generally refine stuff heavily in the studio, though sometimes I leave the field recordings untouched, it really depends on what I am trying to do with it!
You’ve also worked with Mads Lindgren (Monolog) with Diasiva, you’ve made a strong syncopated album, Doublefade. What have you done there and what has Monolog done? How have you worked together?
Yes, this collaboration has been running for a couple of years now. Mads and I are good friends and this is a nice excuse for us to meet regularly, catch up, get drunk and make some noise! I wouldn’t say we have a particular workflow where one person does one thing only, we both get pretty carried away with the project – the music often just comes pouring out and we both end up fighting for control of the computer. Generally we do a lot of live takes from hardware, edit them down and process them. We’ve honed our sound a bit since Doublefade, our last EP on Acroplane called “Station 1805” is a good example of the direction we’re headed.
You’ve played with Swarm Intelligence live at Maschinenfest a couple of years ago. Unfortunately, I wans’t there. What are your live performances like? Do you prefer to play your songs or to create a different experience, detached from that of the album listening?
I aim for my live set to be a combination of improvisation and recognisable tracks. Part of it is mashing up stems from existing releases, as well as unreleased tracks, but I like to leave things pretty open so that I can play other synth lines or drums live on top. I’ll usually bring some machines along too, it’s nice to have a few bits and pieces to build up noise on top – keeps things unpredictable. I’m toying with the idea of shifting towards a hardware-only setup.
Maschinenfest was a really memorable gig – my girlfriend came with me and did the visuals which were amazing on that massive screen. I think there is some lofi footage knocking around YouTube somewhere…
Swarm Intelligence live
What can you tell me about Flatlands? It seems to me that’s your last release until now.
Yeah that’s my last EP. It was released on Sunil Sharpe’s label Earwiggle. Sunil was always a big influence, such an amazing DJ! He is also a walking encyclopaedia when it comes to techno. It was a real honour to release something on his label. With this EP, I feel like I went a bit beyond my usual sound – Sunil pushed me hard to get the tracks right, I think I must have sent 15 tracks or something until we settled on these 4. He has a very strong vision when it comes to what he wants to release and I think he really helped shaped the EP. I’d been playing out some versions of these tracks in my live sets for a while now so I am happy to have pressed them to vinyl!
What are you currently working on? Will you keep on exploring the techno matter or are you working on something closer to the sound of your Ad Noiseam releases?
I have just finished my fourth album called Against the Dying Light which will be released sometime over the next few months on Voitax. It’s somehow a combination of the “techno matter” you mention, along with the more industrial and experimental sounds of my previous two albums. The album is based around fear – something we are constantly bombarded with by the media in the wake of Trump, Brexit, war, recession, racist violence, terrorism, etc etc… I wanted to somehow capture this constant feeling of anxiety and repression that’s in the air.
The album is built from field recordings, bits of old horror movies captured with a lofi granular sampler, hardware synths and pedals, big techno beats and distorted snares and percussion… It’s very noisy and in your face but also has some more melodic, deep and introverted moments. I hope people like it – having invested so much of myself into it I have to admit I am a bit nervous, but I am also really happy and excited that it will finally be out soon!
Thanks a lot for your time. If you want to, greet our readers and invite them to buy your works.
Thank you for having me! As I mentioned, my next album Against the Dying Light will be out very soon on Voitax. I will be performing some of the tracks in Berghain as part of the Voitax label night on January 19th, there are a few more international dates in the works too!