Momu, SF, US

PROGRESSIVE BREAKBEAT FOUNDERS

Momu (JD Moyer & Mark Musselman), SF, USA Interview November
Interviewed by Somsay.

Momu Profile

Ages:
JD= 34
Mark= 33

Heights:
JD= 5'9''
Mark= 6'3"

Weights:
JD= 165
Mark= 220

Average heart beat per minute:
JD= 133.33
Mark= no idea, I like my breaks at 115 to 133 though.

Fingernail lengths:
JD= short
Mark= varying depending on the mood, some horribly short and shredded. Jen hates my shredded nails that fall off on the steering wheel column.

Bed times:
JD= that's a good idea to have a bed time actually
Mark= 11PM when I'm good

Colour of hair:
JD= variable
Mark= what hair

Favourite Pop Song:
JD= Barbie Girl by Aqua
Mark= The Cars "Let the Good Times Roll"

All-time Favourite Breakbeat Chune:
JD= impossible to answer but I really like Chris Dee's 'Ultrasound", also Adam Freeland's mix of "Pressure Drop"
Mark= Future Sound Of London "Papua New Guinea", original mix

Favourite Band:
JD= Autolux
Mark= U2 for quality output, longevity and still being together

Favourite Models:
JD= er... what? like model train?
Mark= Victoria's

Favourite Underwear:
JD= nothing really exciting I'm afraid, just underwear
Mark= CK


The Interview

How, and when did you guys first hook-up to start producing together?
JD= A couple years ago. We met at Qoöl which is a party Spesh and I throw ... Mark is now a resident there as well.
Mark= I tricked Jondi into taking me on as his production apprentice and thereby infiltrated the Castle of Looq and infected the system with a widely deployed breakbeat virus.  But seriously, it all happend at Qool, like many many things in this world.

Is Momu your own label, and is this your first business endeavour?
Mark= Together it is.  Our publishing company is Kung Fu Army and that is an umbrella for any projects we do together.  MOMU is not and will not be a label.  We got tired of writing Moyer and Musselman and just condensed it to MOMU.

Your guys are really busy playing and producing...how much do you guys
sleep?
JD= Between 2 and 14 hours a night.
Mark= between 4 and 9 hours… Not much with the day job in the mix too. Still working in High  Tech/Silicon Valley at the moment.  It makes for long days but keeps me out of trouble and in some ways more focused on the music when we have our studio and brainstorm sessions.

Any upcoming Breakbeat projects?
JD= we're producing all the time ... there are three scorchers in the pipeline though ... "See It Through," "Hydergine," and "Mavericks" ... in terms of remixes we're quite excited about the one we just turned in to 19box in Japan, and one we're working on right now "Apricot" by Blake Jarrell and Starkid coming out on 3BreakBeat.
Mark= We have done a track called "One" with Grayarea that is super tight. Live Indy kinda feel but something I think is totally new. Personally (outside of MOMU), Josh Gabriel from Gabriel and Dresden and I have been trying to squeeze in some studio time for a track that is on both of our minds.  Blackwatch and I are planning a breaks collaboration.  Jamie Thomas, Fex and I want to do something when I get down to Australia next year. Tom Mangan and I have also talked about getting some breaks down too.  Jondi has done some sicko breaks on his own and with Spesh too.  I get really bored working alone and rarely finish a solo track.  There are probably about 40 half finished bizarre electro tracks on my G4 at home.

Can you please explain your production style?
JD= Like the type of music we make? I guess you might call it progressive breaks. Some people say we originated that style actually, but maybe it just happens automatically when a prog house producer tries to make breakbeat. Most of the good stuff in the studio happens more or less accidentally really.
Mark= Boggling?

How long have you guys been djing for and how did you get interested
in it?
JD= I was DJ'ing a radio show in '90, but I've only been seriously beatmixing for a couple of years. Spesh insisted I learn to beatmix. It was incredibly difficult at first but got much easier with practice.
Mark= I can't quite remember but I think since 1997...just finally wanted to see what all the fuss was about after watching my friends getting down with it at college in Florida (FSU) and back in Virginia and Maryland. Started collecting records seriously when I moved to California since I didn't know anybody at first...have loads of good drum and bass and underground hip hop and bad trance from 1997-1999...then it got all Progressive for me.

With the amazing amount of digital software for production today, do you guys use any analogue synths? And What is your opinion on the difference of analogue and software sound quality?
JD= My favorite analogue synth is one I built from a kit from PAIA. It took me three weeks to solder the damn thing together ... nearly passed out from the toxic fumes. It only plays one sound though, but it's fully tweakable.
Mark= I am all for software but the Nord always comes through for us.  Jondi still has a soft spot for the synths....the software is amazing these days though.

What does your studio consisit of?
JD= G4 tower with Cubase. We use NI's Battery for most of our percussion, a Nord Lead 2, a BassStation, lots of guitar pedals, lots of other synths and softsynths, a few other secret toys.
Mark= My home studio is pretty simple, dual 500 G4, loads of software, some controllers. The Looq studio is Compact but worth its weight in Gold I tell you.  And yeah, Jondi has put some mad "all assembly required" boxes together that cannot be reproduced.

I noticed on your site in the picture gallery, that you guys were
playing live at a club in San Francisco, and you were using a controller with
an imac, and I was wandering if you were using the imac to process anything? I was wandering what program you were using, because I didn't know you
can make music with an imac?
We were running Ableton Live on that iMac ... a G3 400! It ran great too except when I bumped into the audio output cable and we instantly went to mono. Now we've got a brand new Powerbook and the old G3 is just a backup machine.

What do you guys think of PCs?
JD= They're cheap. Good for databases. Ugly.
Mark= getting better and better all the time...but I'm a mac guy at heart, my first job out of school was with a mac software company called InterCon that made the first mac to NFS clients and SLIP/PPP dial up software.

How did you guys hook up with Apple?
JD= We got a really talented director (Kia Simon, slsfilms.com) to make our music video for The Dive ... Apple was quick to pick it up and put it on the quicktime homepage.
Mark= the company I work for now (Akamai) does all the streaming and software and music downloads for Apple and iTunes, they saw the video for The Dive and loved it.  It moved really fast. Apple has asked us to do some "in store" performances in the Bay Area so that sounds fun. 

Do you guys use logic audio or cubase? And which sequencer is better in your
opinion?
JD= Cubase. I'm sure Logic is better because the grass is always greener on the other side.
Mark= Cubase.  For me its what I know...I've only used Logic once with Brian Stillwater so I can't really comment that much on the difference. 

Who is your amazing vocalist? Tell us about her.
JD= Alysoun Quinby ... she's got an incredible voice but is somewhat of a reluctant popstar even though she's got two videos on MTV. She's studying linguistics at Cal.
Mark= Alyson Quinby. She is amazing isn't she?

You guys are playing like everyday in San Francisco...Can you fellows please give us Canadians a description of how it is there?
JD= We love it! SF has a great scene. And all the promoters get along believe it or not, everyone is really friendly. Of course there is the occasional asshole like everywhere, but overall really good vibes. We try not to be that asshole.
Mark= But I'm half Canadian man! SF is great, I love it.  My mom grew up in Toronto so I've spent lots of time there.  As far as Canada, I've done some great snowboarding at Lake Louise Alberta and Island Lake Lodge in Fernie BC.  Maybe MOMU can get a canadian tour together and hit Montreal and  Toronto on the East Side and Vancouver on the West Side. All Canadians should visit SF and come to Qool on Wednesday. We should declare free admission at the door for all Canadians.

What ever happened to Hard Kiss?
JD= No longer living in SF I think ... I've enjoyed the most recent releases though
Mark= Which One?

Who were your early inspirations into electronic music?
JD= LFO, KLF, Front 242, Skinny Puppy, Eric B & Rakim, Paris.
Mark= I consider hip hop and breakdance electronic...so things like Planet Rock, Egyptian Lover, Jam On It, Run DMC, Eric B, Stetsasonic, etc.  Of course NIN, Front 242, DM, Skinny Puppy (Dig It still rulz), Nitzer Ebb, Plus 8 label, Ministry, Chem Bros, Prodigy, Orbital are godlike, the Brown Album is one of my favorites, FSOL, Jondi and I connected really early on the fact that we both  really loved the Artificial Intelligence compilation series....too many to keep listing!

What other forms of music are you guys influenced by?
JD= Heavy metal, pop, classical, all forms of electronic. Not really hip-hop anymore, it seems to have a hit a dead-end. But it could be that I just haven't kept up and I'm not finding the good stuff.
Mark= Drum and Bass, early DC Hardcore, DC Go-Go (a DC anomaly),Misfits, 70's and 80's punk and skate rock, AC/DC, early Metallica, early Hip Hop, late underground hip hop…mo'wax and ninja tune stuff, Good Progressive, all sorts of breaks, really from jazzy to techy, slow to fast.

How did you guys first hookup with Sasha and John Digweed?
JD= John Digweed played a Jondi & Spesh record from my first label Trip 'n Spin called "We Are Connected" and used it on the "Bedrock" compilation. Momu got hooked up with the Bedrock label via Jonathan Lisle.
Mark= timing, chance, luck and Jonathan Lisle

Goto page 2

Momu (JD Moyer & Mark Musselman)