The Many Faces of bEEdEEgEE: Talking Gear with Brian DeGraw of Gang Gang Dance

photos by Michael James Fox

Brian DeGraw’s role in Brooklyn psychedelic shapeshifters Gang Gang Dance has never been one of singular purpose. Seeing Gang Gang live, you are left with the impression not of four individuals playing separate instruments but of a multicolored mass of sound, swirling and bending the air around you. Gang Gang has been on a bit of a break as of late, and DeGraw took the opportunity to isolate himself in his Woodstock home studio, crafting his solo debut record under the playful nom de plume bEEdEEgEE.

Released by the always consistent 4AD, the nine tracks of SUM/ONE find DeGraw mixing tropical-inspired percussion, bright synth arpeggiations, and worldly club-sourced drum sounds into a tightly-woven tapestry that feels as personal as it does idiosyncratic. Always curious about how gear relates to the creative process, I chatted with a very forthcoming DeGraw about his love for Korg’s now overshadowed Electribe, his affinity for presets, the unexplored world of MIDI, and the unexpected zen he felt after the infamous Amsterdam fire that claimed the entirety of Gang Gang Dance’s gear.

Noisey: So is this the first album you've made outside of GGD? What was the impetus for releasing a solo record?
Brian DeGraw: Sort of. I made some other solo things in the past but nothing with an "official" release. I did a soundtrack for a film that was released on limited vinyl a while back. Other than that, this is kinda my first jam. I guess I mainly did it because GGD was taking a break for the past year and it’s something I always wanted to do.

How did the process of making it compare to working on GGD tracks? Did you feel a sense of freedom or was it more nerve-wracking? I think most people know you from that band, obviously, and are probably hearing it in relation to GGD, but it's a very different record, especially considering the range of vocalists.
It was way different. It was just me in my attic studio in Woodstock, completely by myself, tracking things one at a time. Very little live jamming, which is the main part of the process with GGD. It’s different in so many ways. I don’t really consider it a spiritual record. I wanted to intentionally come at it from a much different angle. With GGD, it’s all about reaching super deep inside and trusting instinct/auto-pilot. I think I was looking into myself so much in the past year because of life changes and stuff, so when I made this record I wanted to take a break from the heavy shit and just sort of entertain these other lighter, more untapped parts of my thoughts.

Were any of the songs written specifically for the vocalists you worked with? Or were the vocals usually added late in the process? I imagine that you worked remotely with everyone?
"Flowers,” which has Lovefoxxx on it, was written with her in mind. The tempo at least and the sort of straight ahead pop feel of it ‘cause that is her forte. So I tried to design that for her a bit. The others weren't designed for anyone in particular. And the the ones with Alexis and Lizzi were totally different processes. With Alexis, I asked him to deliver an accapella that he had lying around that already belonged to a song. But I asked him not send the complete track, just the accapella. Then I built the song around that.

The song with Lizzi was more of an improvised thing in the studio that I recorded here, just jamming to loops and stuff. Then I took a few bits and structured the song around it. That’s my favorite song on there.

Ah, cool. So let's talk about your process a bit. The album has a really wide range of sounds on it. What is your home studio like? I remember seeing GGD a few years ago up at Barnard and being amazed at the wealth of gear you had up there. First, what’s your go-to software?
Just Pro Tools, which at this point feels like a tape machine. I try to use it like that. I don’t really get into Ableton or any kind of quantized approach outside of my initial gear itself.

So do you try to record things the way you envision them sitting in the mix most of the time? Do you do any sonic sculpting inside the box with plugins?
I definitely end up using plugins and automation, but I guess what I mean is that I don’t really explore all the looping and time stretching and immediate things you can do with Ableton and a controller. I made the record mostly by just working track by track with my synths and creating short samples in a (Roland) SP-555. Nothing too tech-y. And I dont use MIDI or anything.

What synths did you find yourself turning to? Do you have any predilection for analog or digital sounds? I've always felt that GGD took a really creative approach to using digital synth sounds in interesting ways, whereas so many bands are simply trying to recreate analog synth tones.
Yeah, I've always tried to just embrace the digital sound. I do very much enjoy analog sounds but for some reason, I’ve just never had much of that type of gear at my disposal so I've just gotten used to working within the realm of digital synths. Usually just starting with presets and then tweaking them if need be, but often times, more than not ,I will just stick with the straight preset and figure out a way to make it work. I find a way to give those sounds a new voice through the ways in which they are used. GGD takes of lot of pride in using presets for sure!

That's interesting, as I think a lot of people look down on using presets, as if it's cheating—especially in electronic music, where sound design is something that producers can build their name off of.
Yeah for sure. But to me, that's sort of like looking down on a snare drum for being a snare drum. I try to think of a preset marimba sound as a marimba rather than a whole world of opportunity that is willing to be manipulated.

Right. What digital synths did you use? I’ve seen you with a Microkorg and a big Korg workstation in the past. Are those still in use?
Not so much the Microkorg, but I still use the Korg M3 a lot. That's usually my starting point. That or a broken Electribe that I use to get ideas for drum sequences and things. Lately, I have really been getting more into using the SP-555 as a place to start and making organic samples and percussion loops that I jam live with a mic or whatever. There’s not much of that on the record, but since I made the record I’ve been approaching things more in that way.

How long have you had the M3? Do you have a number of presets you usually recall and start with or do you randomly mess around on it when writing?
I think I've had the M3 for about three or four years now? I have some go-to presets on that thing for sure. A lot of the "vocal" presets—the really airy ethereal choir sounds. I like a lot of the bell presets as well. And the drum sounds are ok but those I usually end up tweaking and layering a lot.

Let’s talk about the Electribe. I think they are pretty underrated pieces of gear these days, even though they can do so much. How is yours broken exactly?
Yeah, I love the Electribe (EMX)! The drum sounds are so shitty but there’s something about it I like. I find the way it operates to be really sensible and immediate and I like the synth part of it. I use the motion sequencing a lot. I dont know exactly what's broken on mine but the screen will randomly starting flashing and twitching and then it will start randomly affecting the sequences in really insane ways that almost always are an improvement on my original. I’ve heard that Richard James is an Electribe head too. He talked about it in an interview once. He's all about the grain shifter, which I think you can really hear.

I always enjoy the random things that can happen with gear. Any piece of gear that has the ability to do things randomly I think is so valuable, especially when working by yourself. It almost makes it feel like you are interacting with the machine in a deeper way. So did any of the tracks start out with things from the Electribe?
Yeah, actually quite a few started out on the ‘tribe now that I think of it. Last New Years, I went to Miami by myself to just hang out on the beach and I brought the 'tribe and started making sequences and a lot of those became songs on the record. I have programmed whole tracks with it but I've never used them as is. I can always hear the fact that its all trapped in one machine. I can't ever get it to sound like it's breaking free of itself.

Right, especially since the EMX has a certain range of sounds. Have you messed with sequencing external synths with the Electribe?
No, never.

That can sort of open up some new avenues as it lets you then tweak the sounds outside of the EMX, but still use the very straight-forward sequencing.
I know there’s this whole other MIDI world that I haven’t explored but everytime I start to venture into it, I lose patience and end up just doing things the way I've always done them. I would like to try some of that though.

Interesting. I always find it cool to hear about how people interact with their gear. Despite the fact that you don’t use MIDI, a lot of your songs have very interlocking parts
I really, for better or for worse, still try to approach gear as a singular instrument that is played physically without all the options of communicating data with one another etc. It’s probably much more of a pain in the ass then it could be, but for some reason I like it that way. leaving room for things to slip out of sync, especially live.

Right. Do you think that was influenced by your role in GGD? Is that how you've always approached gear?
I prefer the danger of it, or maybe it’s just some bullshit pride thing. I don’t know. It’s just how I've always liked to do it.

Yeah. Well, if it works for you, that is what counts. It’s easy to get caught up in what other people are doing and then not actually get anything accomplished. I know you've mentioned the Eventide Harmonizer in the past as well. Is that something you're still using often or have you grown sick of it?
I absolutely love that thing but I barely used it on this record. That's totally an essential for GGD though. It broke during one of our tours and it was insane how different we sounded when trying to play without it.

It’s such an amazing piece of gear. Was it a conscious choice to leave it out of this record?
Not really. I think it had more to do with how I tracked the record. It was really instrument by instrument-style and the Eventide makes more sense to me in a live setup. With all my gear going at once and using it in a live chain to accentuate certain things that happen in a live setting, transitions, places where things need to explode and deconstruct. Plus it has a crazy loud buzz that isn't ideal for recording but live it doesn't matter as much.

So in general, what is your relationship to gear? Do you consider yourself a gear-hound at all or are you pretty content with what you have currently? I think a lot of people that make electronic music spend a lot of time just thinking about gear.
I would consider myself as being less concerned with attaining/trying out different gear and more concerned with taking whatever is around and finding a way to make it work, but I'm not by any means anti-gear. I aspire to gear nerd-dom, but I'm always more concerned with a different side of things. I guess I never get around to exploring the tech side of things so much.

Yeah. I think it’s hard to spend a lot of time on gear when you are really working on music intensely. So how long have you been up in Woodstock? How do you think living up there has influenced your music? You probably have way more room to spread out.
I’ve been here for two years now. It’s mainly about physical space. It’s a whole new world having a place where I can play 24 hours a day and then go jump in a river. I have designated rooms for music, visual art, chilling. It’s much different. I was becoming really affected by trying to create in shitty windowless basements with asbestos falling from the ceiling.

How often do you come back down to the city?
About once a week. Sometimes less if i'm working super intensely on something, but usually once a week. I kinda flipped the script. My weekend getaway is the city, rather than vice versa. I mainly come down to DJ.

How does DJing affect your creative process?
Immensely. So much of what I do musically is informed by DJing, in all sorts of ways.

Transitions are one of my favorite things about music. I love hearing things melt into other things, especially when they are drastically different sounds or genres. I've also become so much more aware of EQ and what sounds stand out and stick with people and things like that. So many levels to it.

One last question—I remember when that big fire destroyed a lot of the GGD gear, which I'm sure was a huge bummer. Did that event make you reset at all gear-wise and try getting some new things or did you mostly try to just recreate what you had? I was wondering what sort of consequence such a catastrophic event had on your music.
Yeah the fire [laughs]. I basically replaced what I had with the exception of an old Yamaha keyboard that I had been using since GGD first started. That's when I got the M3. But outside of that the biggest loss for me personally were flash cards that contained samples for a new batch of songs we had just made out on the desert. They weren't backed up, so they are gone. But the fire was amazing, actually. It was a huge bummer when it happened and the few weeks following, but ultimately it was empowering.

Interesting. I didn’t expect that reaction at all. How did it empower you?
It was empowering to experience the phoenix from the flame situation. To play our first show after that felt incredible, because we had lost the basis of a lot of the new songs we had had written and we had to quickly come up with a new set. We ended up doing a lot of nice improv stuff. It just felt very raw and joyous and was great to just rise to the occasion. The show was at MoMA—we got to play on stage with a Kippenberger sculpture. That was sweet.

And then that set eventually turned into a new album?
Yeah, then we made Eye Contact. But we had been writing for it in the desert before the fire and had made a bunch of other songs for it. I still have demos of those songs at least.

Do you think the new batch of songs was pretty different from the desert recordings? Did they have more anger to them, possibly, because of what you guys had gone through?
No, I don’t think so. If anything, it was the opposite. Coming to terms with it was ultimately a very zen feeling.

Leo Maymind didn't start the fire. Follow him on Twitter - @leomaymind