Published by Alessandro Violante on January 21, 2018
Recently, Welsh duo Somatic Responses have released a new “double” album, Pattern Seeking / Pattern finding, with Stefan Alt’ Hymen Records, Ant-Zen sublabel, after the very good Folding space, reviewed here, and have played during the last Maschinenfest edition. That’s why we’ve decided to talk with them.
Hi John, hi Paul! It’s a pleasure to interview you on these pages. I’ve listened to your last album and I’ve seen you performing live during the last Maschinenfest some days ago! It’s been one of the best live performances of the whole festival, according to my tastes.
Thanks for the feedback, it was a great event.
Somatic Responses live @ Maschinenfest 2k17
Folding space was released approximately one year ago, and it was a rather different album from Pattern seeking, both of them being kaleidoscopic and various. Where do you find this huge creativity?
It all stems from sound exploration, learning how to use equipment and pure experimentation. Eventually you have to try and pull it all together into a completed track, so the desire to finish something in order to move onto the next thing is a real driver for a large amount of output. Each time we write something we are trying something (whether its heard or not) it might by a way of using an effect or synth etc.
Let’s talk more in depth about Pattern seeking, released by Hymen. What can you tell me about it and how have you put yourself in contact with the label a lot of years ago?
So, many of our tracks come about from experimentation and a kind of care free attitude to genres, Pattern Seeking/Finding wasn’t really conceived as an album originally it was a collection of diverse tracks from a period of time where we are using a lot on modular and analogue gear alongside computer based DAW’s and plugin effects. A combination of sound sources if you like. There was a large body of work developed very quickly, a lot of which we felt should be released sooner rather than later.
Originally it was intended for our bandcamp page as we have released quite a lot with Hymen and other labels recently and trying to contact new labels is very difficult as they don’t respond to demos a lot of the time. We had a lot of tracks prepared when I asked Philipp Munch of Synapscape to help with some mastering, which he generously agreed to. At the same time I sent Stefan Alt the tracks and he was keen straight away to do another release. Stefan is always open to listening to new music and quickly latches onto a concept for an album based around a flow which helps us channel a coherent release, he is like quality controller 
The idea of the 2 albums came along immediately due to the number of tracks we had stock-piled. Pattern Seeking/Finding was born. The Hymen label/family is such a great group of people, it’s a natural selection for us when they have the capacity to release our music.
I think we originally met Stefan Alt when we played the same venue as Imminent Starvation in Strasbourg many years ago, it was a great fun party and we instantly made a connection with Stefan due to his creative outlook and fun loving approach (and several beers).
Your early releases on vynil had a strong hardcore sound, and during your last live performance in Oberhausen this component of your sound come out strongly, a component not particularly emphasized in your albums. What’s been your music evolution throughout your career?
I think we played a lot of music that had dance floor presence and strong aggressive sounds during MF2K17, we knew that the line-up was diverse and wanted to add to that by playing something that represented the SR sound, old and new but without repeating the past too much. And that’s where we are today, we have tools up our sleeve for ambient, techno, breakcore, IDM etc etc but we don’t want to be too much part of any one scene, we like to cover the spectrum in our own way with our own sounds. I don’t know if we are evolving or regressing sometimes, we dip back and forth into sounds. I think there is a danger with evolving into one specific thing that some of your older more interesting genes die.
I personally feel at the moment that a lot of artists are creating music for DJ’s or Living rooms and there is very little in between. Our tracks are for experiencing as a piece, loud and for people who can think and absorb what they are listening to. How a DJ does or doesn’t play them has no interest to me. A live set is a perfect chance to see if the track evolution works on its on without a DJ mixing it in and out of something else.
SR having funny moments at the airport
Why did you choose the name Somatic Responses?
Back in the very early 90s we were heavily into the sounds of Aphex, Industrial Strength, PCP, (the more heavy industrial techno / experimental techno of the time) and we were also really into Chemistry, Biology & Physics. The name Somatic Responses comes from study on the nervous system, and basically a Somatic Response is a voluntary action. The idea being that our sound was wilful, direct and with purpose, essentially the opposite of an Autonomic Response, which you could say is literally a knee jerk reaction without any thought.
How your geographical area influenced your sound?
We grew up near a small mine that was in constant use, one of our fondest memories is the constant drone of the conveyer belts, brining the coal to the surface from the deep pits. However, the influence was rather subtle and not something we realised and appreciated some year later when the mine was finally closed down. The love of ambient / neo classical can be directly linked to these sounds.. the serenity of the surrounding beautiful mountains, rivers, coasts had little impact on our sound in the early years, if anything it pushed us into more industrial and experimental sounds. However, these days we feed off the beauty of our countryside a great deal more.
Besides your albums released by Hymen, you produce self released albums. Do you use different song writing approaches?
Yes we’ve just released Pattern Seeking (physical) and Pattern Finding (digital) on Hymen and have self released on Photon Emission https://somaticresponses.bandcamp.com/ and Welsh Modular Alliance https://welshmodularalliance.bandcamp.com/ . The 2 do differ as Photon Emissions is generally used for our usual production techniques where as on the Welsh Modular Alliance label we use more live / hardware based approaches, a lot of which improvised ideas and techniques and as the man suggests this is generally Modular Synths.. and not all of the release are SR.
Wires
What John and Paul do in their lives, besides music? Do you work in the music field or not?
No, I work within the Automotive industry in the Quality dept of a Japanese component manufacturer, it involves frequent and meeting different people from many cultures.
J- I work in a call centre as a Manager which is in Swansea and has none of the above :-), however, I’m also a qualified teacher and have previously taught Music Technology for 2 years which I loved.
It seemed to me that during your live performance at Maschinenfest you had a lot of fun, and the audience, rather numerous, gave you a very good feedback, dancing and jumping (me too!). What will you remember of this performance?
Yes we had a great time, it was a real fun weekend for us, meeting with friends we haven’t seen for a long time and meeting new people also. MF is a superb environment free from bad attitude where it seems everyone really likes each other’s company. That feeling came out in our performance, helped quite a lot with German beer. It was great to play to a large crowd and great sound system. It appeared that the diversity of sound throughout the weekend was well planned, by the time we played I think people were ready for some broken sounds!
You’re going to play soon in Berlin, at the end of November. Where the live performance will take place? Will it be a different context from that of Maschinenfest? Do you will make a different live or not?
Berlin was a very different setting, small intimate setting but a good crowd. We played some of the same tracks but also some new/harder stuff also.
If you want, greet our readers. We hope you’ll keep on doing this amazing music for a long time!
Thanks for the questions, reviewing and supporting our music!
Somatic Responses @ Maschinenfest 2k17