What is Babylon Rising?
If it’s instrumental, dark, dub, based on elements of live improv, then I release it as Babylon Rising. What makes this different from my Bitter Harvest material is that Bitter Harvest is more about avoiding set elements of popular musical styles, while Babylon Rising draws on traditional elements of dub. I use loops of me playing an acoustic drum kit on Babylon Rising songs. I would never use a drum kit on a Bitter Harvest release. I do use hand drumming on both though!
Babylon Rising is my version of minimal dub, although whenever I try to be minimal, I am only ever just “more minimal” that usual, and never as “Basic Channel minimal” as I would like to be. I’m going to try and work on that though.
Usually a band records a bunch of songs and then try to recreate those songs live. Babylon Rising is a live project – not an attempt to re-create pre-recorded songs. All the songs are created live on the spot, and are different every time. I have set elements that I want to work with, but the songs are composed through improvisation.
Scott.