3. Miles DavisBitches Brew
Even with these three records you start to see that it’s not about precision, it’s not about songwriting. It’s about getting into another realm of the way you can make music. I try to forget about writing songs sometimes, because it can be a trap. You think about it too much. A lot of times the greatest music comes from playing it, then organising it later, you know? You have to surrender sometimes and let music do its thing. Bitches Brew is one of those records.
You can record music any way you want, but you try to remember that you don’t want everything to be perfect. You don’t always want the microphone to be in front of the speaker. Sometimes you want the microphone to be in another room to the one you’re playing in. Dave Fridmann always has these secret ambient mics going on all the time; you don’t know where they are or what instruments they’re picking up. Which I want him to do – I want to be surprised. Sometimes you’re a bit frustrated or bored with what you’ve recorded, he’ll grab one of these little ambient mics and say ‘What about that one?’ and I’ll be like ‘Oh, fuck yeah’. There’s some other nuance, some other atmosphere that’s in there.
So I think Bitches Brew is most in line with that. Sometimes the best thing you can do with a song is just make it and then completely fuck with it later.
