The image of the electronic musician as a mad scientist and sound explorer is a cliché because it only exists as a styling option for fashion shoots. When it actually happens we ignore it or dismiss it as gimmickry. Therefore, when one enters Israeli born Adi Gelbart’s studio/lab in Mitte, the feeling is euphoric: the retro sci-fi vibe isn’t based on random cheap unusable gadgets bought on Ebay by a music video set decorator, but of stuff Gelbart bought in order to use and modify, or built himself. Our conversation is constantly interrupted by the weird and wonderful obscure Star Wars droid sounds that characterise his playfully ingenious albums, be it the epic analogue Care-Bears-meet-Rick Wakeman bleep journeys he takes under his own name, or his fictitious psychedelic kraut-bit cow guise The Lonesomes.

Did you have an interest in science or technology prior to being a musician?

Well, you know, as a kid I loved science fiction, Lego, Dinosaurs, planets, and computers.

When did you first create an instrument of your own invention and why?

I was a fan of Joe Zawinul’s ‘60s analogue sounds but I could neither afford nor get hold of any analogue instruments, so the option of building some on my own came out of necessity. I liked being able to determine how the instruments work and sound, as opposed to being dependent on what the manufacturers think is interesting.

People are usually afraid of technology or think it’s beyond their reach to find out how things work, let alone how to make them.

My father had an academic engineering and electronics background, so I had someone to turn to. I asked him whether building such things is complicated or not. The next step was buying one of those electronic kits for kids that included instructions for building an oscillator. I’m still using it live today by hooking it up to antennas, or potatoes.

Did you say potatoes?

Yes.

That’s very analogue. How does it work?

I connect two electrodes from the oscillator to the potatoes. The pitch of the oscillator is determined by the amount of electric resistance in the potatoes, so whenever I poke them they make a different sound depending on the size of the potato and where I poke it. I put a video of it here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YGT8UeJiKMU

I also connect the oscillator to a keyboard made out of phone keys. The keys connect to a series of resistors. Each horizontal or vertical line of the phone keys has its own button on the side that can determine the pitch. Each button is a potentiometer, and…

Hold your horses! What’s a resistor?

A resistor weakens an electrical current that goes through it. In the oscillator’s case, the more current it receives, the higher pitch it will play and vice versa. So the final result is a keyboard that is not divided to 12 tones like a piano, but to any strange way I want it divided. I added an individual tuning button to each key of a cheap synth I bought on Ebay, so I can play numerous combinations that go beyond the usual do-re-mi scale. And that influences the music I compose. I can play a familiar melody and it will come out bizarre.

Where do you get all the parts? In your local resistor shop?

Yes, electronic supply shops. Part of the fun is also that I can choose the design and aesthetic. There’s the scratch device where instead of a pitch control button I attached a 7“ vinyl. I can use any appliance whether it’s an old phone or a video player. They’re all built on similar principles and therefore easy to modify. A joystick can control the oscillator the same way the phone keyboard does. It’s all about contact points and circuit directions, that’s the easy part of electronics. I’m sure you are familiar with circuit bending…

Er…

It means taking an existing instrument, say, a toy organ, opening it up, and changing the contact points in the circuits inside it. Taking that organ’s inner organisation and messing it up. The result is sounds that weren’t supposed to come out of this organ. Its abilities are expanded. I modified an organ by adding buttons that make each sound repeat four times, or force small system crashes that result in almost random chaotic sounds. That’s classic circuit bending.

Isn’t all this interest based on your taste in music? I mean, if you aren’t into retro analogue sounds, then existing music software satisfies all your needs.

The main reason I prefer analogue over digital is that the means to control it are much more tangible. You push a button, it makes a sound, then a knob you twist changes it. It’s like the difference between painting on canvas and painting with Photoshop. And I think there’s a problem with the fact that contemporary software or instruments can do too many things. I like the simple building blocks of a primitive device, trying to find an interesting way to play it and create complexity. For example, combining the pre-programmed beats of three different vintage drum machines.

Aren’t you upset that you are surrounded by so many charlatan laptop musicians? They aren’t really musicians - their agenda is mainly scene-related. They exploit the nerd-as-chick-magnet trend but it’s a lie. You actually know how to play.

Oh, I’m very passionate about this issue. People recreate sounds, beats and whole tracks that were already done a thousand times, in the push of a button. This perpetuates a style instead of allowing it to evolve. It’s hard to find electronic music that is creative and imaginative today. Take the amazing Moog records by people like Dick Hyman, Piero Umiliani and Raymond Scott. It is a point in history I feel a need to return to. Where would electronic music have gone if it hadn’t taken the direction of techno and dance as result of certain technological changes?

You will be accused of prog snobbery and of being into soulless musical proficiency as opposed to some basic yet authentic emotional impetus made expressable thanks to punk’s ‘anyone can do it’ revolution. But is this division still relevant?

Even if you play punk, you need to know how to play. I don’t mean you need to be a virtuoso like Joe Satriani, but you have to develop a connection to the instrument and find your own language playing it. There is an initial commitment you invest in finding yourself in relation to an instrument. That’s why I listen to more guitar music. In electronic music, you can hop to some friend’s house and come out an hour later with a track. There is none of this process of discovery. So in that sense it is not equivalent to punk at all, it’s just charlatanism and laziness. Two years ago someone told me my music sounded proggy and I got depressed for a week. But I stopped being ashamed of it. I started listening to Genesis again and my albums become more complex. The new album is a ridiculous take on prog’s bombastic, mystical concept albums. My dream is to release a double gatefold album with alien gods in desert landscapes, and a back cover with all the instruments used on the album. I want more synths. And gongs.

Anyone can play a Ramones song but not anyone can write it! You need vision and individuality to come up with the three correct chords. Nowadays you have the combined disadvantages of prog and punk in the laptop scene: people who can’t play pretending to be conceptual. How come there’s so many? Where’s the kid who shouts that the emperor has no clothes on?

There’s a video showing John Cage performing ‘Water Walk’ in 1960 (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SSulycqZH-U). He plays an array of objects producing different abstract noises and effects. But, the time he invested playing around with those objects creates his individualistic musical world. What those laptop musicians don’t get is that just the fact they play a sound that is unrecognisable is not enough to label the music experimental or to signify an intellectual process. I guess certain musicians or those who go see them like to feel important. The problem is that this dynamic perpetuates itself.

Avi Pitchon

Mass Hypnosis By Proxy is out now on Defekt Records