FUXA Posted by claire on Friday, February 15, 2002 Füxa is the forward thinking musical creation of space disciple Randall Nieman. Formed in Detroit in 1995, Füxa has seen Nieman release material both in a solo and collective guise, as well as performing highly acclaimed remixes for the likes of Add (N) To X. He is currently on tour in the UK as part of the Rocket Girl label showcase along with Mazarin and Pluxus, and this month sees the release of not one but two Füxa albums, ‘Supercharged’ on Rocket Girl, and ‘The Modified Mechanics Of This Device’ on Midlands based label Antenna. Dom Gourlay caught up with Randall Nieman and one of his current collaborators Stephen Lawrie (of Telescopes and Unisex fame) and uncovered the mystery of the disappearing shag pile in the process… DOM GOURLAY: You’re releasing two albums this month. Could you tell me a bit more about them? STEPHEN LAWRIE: Yeah. There’s one coming out on the Rocket Girl label and one on my label Antenna. RANDALL NIEMAN: ‘Supercharged’ is more of a guitar-based album whereas the ‘Modified…’ album for Antenna is more electronic and experimental in the way that some of it consists entirely of outtakes. DOM GOURLAY: Are the same musicians involved with both collaborations? RANDALL NIEMAN: No. Stephen and Jo (Doran, Telescopes/Unisex) are on the ‘Supercharged’ album where they largely contribute to a song called ‘Hideaway’. Sonic Boom who was formerly in Spaceman 3 is on ‘Modified…’. He sings on a version of Suicide’s ‘Girl’. I think everyone else is pretty much involved on both records. STEPHEN LAWRIE: Me and Jo were on the ‘Füxa 2000’ LP. RANDALL NIEMAN: Yeah, that was the first time we had worked together. We are hoping to be working on another new one pretty soon, which should hopefully see everyone involved who’s become part of our live show, as I think we work well as a band project. DOM GOURLAY: You’ve worked with a number of highly acclaimed artists. How did the collaborations first materialise? RANDALL NIEMAN: I’m a big fan of their music. I’ve been listening to bands like the Telescopes and Spaceman 3 for a number of years now. The main reason I got into doing what I do was because of their music. It was really important to me to see what was going on with them because they have inspired me so much, and the more I listened to their music the more it grew on me, so I got to meet them and we’ve become really good friends ever since. It’s like living a dream, being able to create something with your musical heroes and yet at the same time remain great friends, and I think this is why we always have such a great time when we’re doing this. It’s all worked out brilliantly. I see this collaboration as just like being a band but without the pressures of being part of the industry. The main thing is that we all like getting together rather than feel we have to, which is what happens when you’re controlled by corporate forces. It’s also better than being alone! DOM GOURLAY: So would you say Füxa is a one-man project with various people helping out at different stages or has the dynamic progressed into more of a group mentality? RANDALL NIEMAN: No, it’s not a one-man project as such. Stephen and Jo have to take a lot of the credit for the way they’ve contributed to the recording of the new album… STEPHEN LAWRIE: I just remember the first time I heard one of Füxa’s early numbers, a song called ‘Rainy Day Dream Away’, and I stopped to listen to it on a rainy afternoon. I remember saying to Jo at the time just how gorgeous that song was. The lyrics just captured the mood of the day. Every time I’ve listened to that since it’s been raining, but it’s like a really nice rainy day! RANDALL NIEMAN: I just got a simple idea for that really. If it’s a miserable, rainy day you dream the rain will go away. I just love to write music that sums up my type of mood. I’m a pretty laid back kind of guy I think. It’s like ‘Hideaway’ on ‘Supercharged’. That’s about having some secret place that no one else knows about where you can just let your thoughts take you wherever you want to go. DOM GOURLAY: Do you prefer recording in the studio or playing live? RANDALL NIEMAN: I don’t know really. I definitely want to do more live shows than what I have in the past, play some Spacerock for the kids. DOM GOURLAY: You’ve certainly got an impressive line up together for these shows. RANDALL NIEMAN: Yeah. It’s just like a collection of my best friends though really. I mean there’s Stephen and Jo for a start, and then Sonic Boom, who played at our ICA show in London… DOM GOURLAY: Did you ever feel over awed working with people like Stephen or Sonic Boom? RANDALL NIEMAN: The first time I worked with Sonic Boom I was so in awe of his presence. I thought to myself “What am I doing here? I’m just a geek from Detroit for chrissakes!!” I mean I’d listened to his records, followed his career and always found his stuff mind blowing, so it was really surreal to actually be making music with him, but we hit it off so well that we really are good friends now, with a mutual feeling of respect for each other. STEPHEN LAWRIE: The thing is though, everyone who is contributing to Füxa are either all in or have been in really good bands. Some are even in two good bands! RANDALL NIEMAN: That’s true. I mean Jerry (Hope) is in Los Planetos Del Agua and The Dust Collectors… STEPHEN LAWRIE: And Willie B Carruthers is an absolute genius! RANDALL NIEMAN: Yeah, Willie used to play bass with Spaceman 3. He’s appearing with us tonight. Some of the creations he comes up with are truly awesome. You should listen out for his new project the Freelove Babies. STEPHEN LAWRIE: Actually there’s quite a funny story there. When we played the show at the ICA will decided to “borrow” their carpet after the gig, and then two days later when Vinita (head of Rocket Girl records) came to his house to pick him up she was staring at his floor and shouted “that’s my carpet you’ve got there!” STEPHEN LAWRIE: And then Randall’s got two projects going on. DOM GOURLAY: Really. What’s the other project called? RANDALL NIEMAN: …Unexplained Transmissions. STEPHEN LAWRIE: Don’t forget to type that with three dots at the front! RANDALL NIEMAN: Yeah the three dots represent an incoming transmission. It’s kind of a more electronic outlet for myself. I started that with a different band line up back in the States and the guys were really cool. I just wanted to use different sounds and make people try and understand why we’re doing this, and some people really don’t understand me and think it’s ridiculous what I do. I just thought it would be better to separate the Füxa stuff from the …Unexplained Transmissions. Füxa is my song-based project and …Unexplained Transmissions is my electronics based sound project, and so far they’ve both worked out pretty well. The whole idea of …Unexplained Transmissions is that the listener just can’t explain what it is they are listening to. STEPHEN LAWRIE: It’s two different things as well you know. It’s like what Randall was saying earlier about working with different people on different projects. It’s always a challenge, to try to get your head around something new. It can be like learning to play a new instrument, and that’s the feeling I get when I’m working with Randall. He inspires me. DOM GOURLAY: You were involved in a project entitled ‘Add (N) To Fü(x)a’. How did that come about? RANDALL NIEMAN: It was quite a weird thing. I’ve always been a big fan of Add (N) To X and I really like what they do. The label that I was on at the time (Ché) invited me to do some shows with Urusei Yatsura and they shared the same manager as Add (N) To X, so he put me in touch with Barry 7 and we decided to collaborate together. I remember meeting up with Barry and we had a cup of tea and talked about things and he gave me a demo of sounds that he had been working on and I listened to it for a couple of days and really liked it, so we got together for a day in a studio in London and cut two tracks. The release that came out for the single was exactly what we did that day, no overdubs or nothing. I guess the idea was to take the insanity that they had in their sound and slide in my mellowness to create this weird sort of fantasyland. STEPHEN LAWRIE: Randall’s just remixed some of our Unisex stuff and it will be coming out as an EP called ‘Reconstruktions’ next month. DOM GOURLAY: Do you see more people getting into Füxa over here than in the States? RANDALL NIEMAN: I definitely get a better response over here. Whenever I’ve tried to play shows in the States it’s been difficult. I’d love to do it but it’s getting somebody to pay for me to do it that’s the problem! I do a bit of painting when I’m not doing this and bits here and there to pay for what I do… STEPHEN LAWRIE: …Expect to see the next collaboration with the Fresh Prince of Bel Air in a stadium somewhere in the United States! (Randall then starts to sing the theme tune to “Fresh Prince…”) He is the Will Smith of Spacerock! You could actually play on top of the Kennedy Space Centre! RANDALL NIEMAN: I’ve always said that space is the place and the kids love it! DOM GOURLAY: Stephen, in the same way that Randall cites your work as an influence, would you say Füxa has influenced some of your more recent material, particularly with The Telescopes? STEPHEN LAWRIE: Yeah, definitely. You can hear it all the way through the new Telescopes album. It’s all about making psychedelic music without sticking to one format. I think people like us are five years ahead of our time.