Simon Thomas – MosaicTapes

1. Favourite knob or fader or switch on a piece of gear and why?

Mannequins by Whimsical Raps

I have a bit of a love/hate relationship with gear and regularly purge almost everything, but there are a few bits that bring so much value to me that I think they are here to stay. The Mannequins modules by Whimsical Raps are such examples, and the ‘big’ knobs on them are so smooth and lovely. They’re really fun to play around with (especially the one on Silhouette).

2. Do you have an ‘almost’ perfect bit of kit? What would you change?

I don’t think I do have anything even approaching perfect, to be honest! There are some bits that provide unique value, like the Cocoquantus, and for me I think I prefer having a select number of pieces that make up a ’near perfect’ picture rather than having to rely on one thing.  

Cocoquantus

3. What setup do you bring on holiday or tour or commute etc.?

I rarely make music on the go – I like to create in a quite private way, so making music while commuting feels a bit distracting and uncomfortable. I have taken my laptop on holiday before; I’m a big fan of Max, and patches like ppooll and Leafcutter John’s Forester, have both been really important to me creatively. I also have a young son, so our holidays are really busy, so having my laptop allows me to get going on something very quickly with very little other dependencies. 

Max device Ppooll

4. What software do you wish was hardware and vice versa?

I absolutely would love to see a hardware version of Slate + Ash’s Cycles. That thing is amazing, and having a stand alone box would genuinely be the stuff of dreams.

Slate + Ash’s Cycles

5. Is there anything you regret selling… or regret buying?

As I said before, I often sell everything, and I don’t think I regret much, if any. The only thing that comes to mind is a lovely Telecaster which I think I may have had around 2008, and sold probably in 2012. 

Fender Telecaster

6. What gear has inspired you to produce the most music?

Without a doubt Max MSP (does that count?) I never make music with hardware – it’s a tool for performance for me, and all my music is made in on my laptop. 

I remember when my son was born, I had a 6U/104hp Eurorack case, and I would try to carve out time to make something using it, as I felt insanely guilty for having spent all this money on something which wasn’t being used. Looking back, it felt like a real struggle to get it all out, patch it up, find a spare surface to work on and then try and muster some creative energy. I think within a year I had maybe 2 or 3 half-baked ideas. 

Norns and Grid

There was this thread on Lines about non-traditional DAW like environments (or something like that), and Forester was listed on there. It cost £45 so I decided to give it a go, and within two or three days I had made my first album, The Children of Several Famous Geophysicists. On top of it being creatively freeing, I also felt like I had discovered my sound. I jumped into ppooll soon after that and that became totally indispensable for me (helps that my heroes Fennesz and Tim Hecker both use it). 

7. If you had to start over, what would you get first?

Definitely a laptop – there’s so many cool things to explore; not just Max, but things like Tidal Cycles – there are endless possibilities, and most of them are free! If not, I’d go for a Norns – you can pick up a Shield relatively cheaply and there are so many amazing scripts to explore… plus you can record to the hard drive.

Norns Shield and Grid

8. What’s the most annoying piece of gear you have, that you just can’t live without?

That’s an incredibly difficult question – I tend to get rid of things that I find annoying. With that in mind though, I’d probably say my guitar – I’d obviously never get rid of it as I dearly love it, but I think my annoyance comes from my poor technical ability. I also think that as a sound-making device, I find it hard to make it sound like anything other than a guitar, which I find frustrating. 

9. Most surprising tip or trick or technique that you’ve discovered about a bit of kit?

It’s not gear specific, but re-amping things I think is a really cool trick to transform sounds into something new, especially using ‘crappy’ recording devices – iPhones, cassette players, children’s toys (especially if broken). Magic.  


Artist or Band name?

I make music as Mosaic Tapes

Genre?

‘Ambient’ although I don’t really like that term. Soundscapism? I dunno, it’s all pretty reductive. 

Selfie?

MosiacTapes aka. Simon Thomas

Where are you from?

I live just outside of London

How did you get into music?

My dad was always into music – he had loads of CDs, and my Uncle was a pretty successful musician – he was the guitarist of a band called Charlie and produced the album Dangerous Age by Bad Company as well as working with 3 Colours Red and The Yo Yos. He taught me and my brother how to play guitar, and when I was 16 and my brother was 14 we started a band. We did a couple of UK tours and supported some pretty decent bands, but broke up in 2007. I still think the songs are great; my brother is a world-class song writer and it shows in everything he has done since. 

What still drives you to make music?

I have a compulsion; I have to be creative or I get frustrated and down. I’ve been playing live more this year than before, so I have been focusing on my live set and creating less, but it still scratches the itch for me. 

How do you most often start a new track?

Usually it will start with an interesting sample that I have made in Cycles, or have discovered, and then I will warp that out of all recognition and then start layering other bits on top of it. 

How do you know when a track is finished?

All of my tracks are done in a single take, so it’s done when I run out of steam and everything fades away. It’s a really useful way of not over engineering ideas.

Show us your current studio

Sadly, I don’t have the space for a studio, so I usually just commandeer the dining table. 

MosaicTapes desktop studio

Best creative advice that you’ve ever heard?

If you have creative block, don’t try and force it – it’ll only make you feel worse. Go for a walk and it’ll come back to you. 

Promote your latest thing… Go ahead, throw us a link.

I released a track with Jogging House recently: https://music.apple.com/gb/album/is-this-single/1793909231 

And my album Beloved Algorithms came out last December: https://lontanoseries.bandcamp.com/album/beloved-algorithms 


David Rothbaum – Cross Town Patching

1. Favourite knob or fader or switch on a piece of gear and why?

The octave levers on my Yamaha CS-50. They are very playable. There is also just something very satisfying about the aesthetic of them as well as the acoustic clicking sound.

Yamaha CS-50

2. Do you have an ‘almost’ perfect bit of kit? What would you change?

I would say the combination of the monome grid and ansible using kria. To me this set-up is a perfect combination of thoughtful composition mixed with performance and improvisation. Honestly, it has fundamentally changed the way I think of composition. My only issue is the grid is near impossible to see in daylight. I do a lot of outdoor performances and this is always an issue. I often bring a beach towel to throw over the grid and myself to be able to see it.

Modular Field Trip

3. What setup do you bring on holiday or tour or commute etc.?

I bring my modular with me a lot. I compose and record on the spot in various locations and occasionally that included what was my daily 1-5 hour commute (pre-Covid). Doing this while driving is clearly a bad idea, would not recommend at all. To be clear I only patched while at a dead stop, which in Los Angeles is most of the time.

[Editor: Ha!… Make art anywhere]

Patching in traffic

4. What software do you wish was hardware and vice versa?

Paulstretch in a module would be awesome. SketchCassette too. I honestly cannot think of any hardware I’d like to see as software.

5. Is there anything you regret selling… or regret buying?

I am generally not too precious about gear but I did have a Roland Jupiter 4 that I sold to fund more modular and I wish I still had my Tascam 388.  

Tascam 388

6. What gear has inspired you to produce the most music?

In the last few years I would have to say again the monome / Whimsical Raps eco-system. 

Monome and Whimsical Raps in a case

7. If you had to start over, what would you get first?

Good taste.

[Editor: Nah, good taste is overrated…. and anyway, it’s just a by product of the artistic process, that can happen to the best of us 😉 ]

8. What’s the most annoying piece of gear you have, that you just can’t live without?

The computer.

9. Most surprising tip or trick or technique that you’ve discovered about a bit of kit?

I think in recent years it would have to be manually manipulating the Marantz PMD-430 cassette deck while monitoring live on the tape. Being able to play the tape warbles is pretty great.

Marantz PMD-430

Artist or Band name?

David Rothbaum 

Genre?

Recently, I would say ambient-adjacent. I tend to write mostly melancholic ambient music but I often add more rhythmic elements (I have been obsessed with odd meters and tuplets since forever), which I think disqualifies me as really being ambient. That said, I have made music in a number of different genres. I had a solo project called Monsturo for quite a while. That was very minimalistic drone/noise music, I used to describe it as field recordings for imaginary spacecraft 🙂 I have also played a lot of metal, jazz, noise and free improvisation. I auditioned once for Donny Osmond when I was a teenager in the 80s. 

Selfie?

I don’t really do selfies without my kid so…

David Rothbaum +1

Where are you from?

Born in NY but have lived in Los Angeles for 30+ years and that is my home.

How did you get into music?

As a listener I became obsessed with music as a kid. At around 7 years old I got into The Beatles & Donna Summer. Then shortly after that it was The Eurythmics, AC/DC, Supertramp, Devo & horror film scores. I would make tape mixes from the radio (I had an entire tape with recordings of “Sweet Dreams”). I also made tapes from the TV, grabbing bits of music from horror movies and TV shows that I liked. I failed at saxophone in 5th grade (I did learn the “Pink Panther” theme, though), but when I was 14 I took up the electric bass and played heavy metal.

What still drives you to make music?

Cannot imagine a life worth living without it. 

How do you most often start a new track?

More often than not it will start as an exploration of a technical or aesthetic idea, be it teletype code; a rhythmic, timbral or harmonic thing; or a patch idea. 

How do you know when a track is finished?

When whatever it is I am working on transforms from the technical into something that carries some emotional weight. Or I have a deadline that has expired. 

Show us your current studio

David Rothbaum’s studio

The modular is not the only thing in my studio. I have guitars, hardware synths, an electric piano etc., but it is overwhelming the center of it.

Best creative advice that you’ve ever heard?

Not comparing your work with others.  This is exceedingly difficult but absolutely liberating if you can do it.

Promote your latest thing… Go ahead, throw us a link.

I will be releasing a collection of short pieces that I have recorded and posted to social media over the last 4 years. It is called “Miniatures 2016-2020” and will be released on cassette and digital by the awesome Mystery Circles label in early 2021.

[Editor: Check out David’s lovely instagram or his website for more info]


[Editor: Do you have a favorite tip, trick or way of working with any of the gear from this interview?
Then throw us a comment below…
]