TC:
Over the last two years, you have been releasing your back-catalogue on CD, was it strange for you
to go through the whole procedure of releasing this music again, several years later ?

IB:
Not really strange rather interesting to listen again to music that I hadn't really listened to for quite some time.
The music brought back lots of good memories and it was intriguing to try and think back to how I felt at those times,
after all a lot of water has gone under the bridge since then and I have certainly changed musically since these albums
were released. Also it was good to remaster them as I felt the vinyl releases had never done full justice to the sound.
The CD releases sound much better to me especially in the bass end.

TC:
Didn't you sometimes have the urge to change something ?

IB:
No, I would never change things. I may do some of the tracks differently now but that's not the point.
The music is very much a product of how I felt or what I was interested in at a certain point in my life
and to fiddle with it to me seems sacrilege.

TC:
Every re-release also has some added bonus tracks, which you approached in different ways.
Could you tell us some more about that ?

IB:
Well I wanted to try different things with the bonus tracks. To me all to often bonus tracks seem to be substandard
pieces that weren't put on the original album because they were rubbish.
With Jade "Mantis" was intended to go on the original CD release but as this didn't come off and it was only ever
released on cassette and hence "Mantis" left off to try and make the two sides of equal length it seemed natural to
include this. On The Climb I was intrigued to see if I could compose a new piece which had the same feel as the
original album material and I think with Deja Vu Part 3 I succeeded. On spirits I wanted to extend the gothic feel
of the original album and so composed Lamalode which again I am very pleased with. With Phoenix the bonus
track is from a concert performed in the same year that Phoenix was released so whilst it may sound slightly
different ( probably because it's live rather than in the studio ) I felt it was a good record of my live performances
of this time.

TC:
These bonusses also made me wonder how many of those tracks you still have locked away in your vaults.
And if you would ever release them on some sort of compilation album.

IB:
I have lots of unreleased stuff but they will stay that way as I feel they are just not good enough to put out - so there!

TC:
Back to the beginning. After some cassette-releases, 'The Climb' was your first real album.
What were your expectations for the album -and indeed your career- at that time ?

IB:
The three early tapes were a good start for me. It gave me time to learn my craft but also to get some positive feedback
from listeners. The Climb was a quantum leap for me in terms of both musical composition but also in terms of distribution
( the tapes sold about 200 copies each whereas the album had 1500 copies sold ).
Even then though I was realistic to know that electronic music is definitely not a mainstream commercial product and so
I didn't have any grand illusions about "making it big". I was more interested in seeing what I could do musically next.

TC:
Both technically and stylistically there's a giant leap between Phoenix and Jade.
Was this a conscious decision to make something else, or was it a normal development in your style ?

IB:
With Jade I was just getting into sampling and for some reason ( which escapes me at the moment ) I wanted to NOT
sound synthetic so I came up with all this ethnic sounding stuff. This album still amazes me because it is right out on a limb
compared with a lot of my material and I've been asked by many people who really like it why I don't do another Jade
but I just can't get back into that frame of mind. Also it was a bad experience for me in terms of record labels because
I actually signed a deal to get it released on CD in the States but despite getting a good advance it just never happened.
The whole thing dragged out over two years and I just seemed to have lost a couple of years of my life to it.
Having said that I don't want to sound as if I don't like the music because I think it includes some of my most original ideas
especially the Gamelan influenced Sumatra.

TC:
Your first albums were released on your own label (SER), but your first two CD releases on Surreal To Real, later CDs
back on SER. What's the reason why you signed on to Surreal ? IB: After the debacle surronding the non-release of Jade
I was desperate to get a CD out. Finacially I couldn't do this myself so when I was approached by Surreal it seemed like
a very good opportunity. They did a very good job with Odyssey and Drive but later I wanted to have total freedom and
having become somewhat more financially secure decided it would be best to ressurrect my own label and I've not looked
back at all since then. TC: Recently you also released Andy Pickford's new album Xenomorph. Do you plan to expand
SER to encompass other artists? IB: Xenomorph was released as a favour to help out Andy who's a good friend.
I think it'll be a one-off. I just don't have the time to fairly promote another artists music ( I hardly get time to promote mine! ).

TC:
Recently you also worked with Andy on the successfull Symbiont album, an album which is quite different from your respective
solo-outputs. Can we expect to see you on a collaboration album again soon ? IB: Symbiont was a very enjoyable experience.
We had worked on some of the pieces in advance but recorded and mixed the whole album in a crazy 4 days at my home studio.
We literally locked ourselves in over a long weekend and I think came up with some very fresh original sounding material.
We tried to inject some fun into the sound as we both have a simialar sense of humour ( huh-huh, huh-huh ).

It's always good from time to time to work with other people as you just come up with ideas that you would never have dreamed
of on your own. I would repeat the procedure and probably the next collaborator will be Ron Boots although that's going to be in
a concert situation.

TC:
The present EM-scene in England is going through a very productive period at the moment.
You have known lesser succesful periods yourself, how do you look upon the present situation ?

IB:
I've been at the centre of the UK scene since it started in the late 70's early 80's.
The music at the moment definitely seems to be of the highest standard yet with many good new acts coming along.
However it has always remained a cult scene with only a couple of thousand fans at most. There has been high points
- the First UK Electronica in 1983 , the first EMMA festival etc but overall the size of the scene has stayed the same.
My sales have increased over the years but a lot of this is down to foreign sales especially in Germany, Holland and
the USA.

TC:
Do you think there's a bigger audience available for EM if it would get more promotion from the music media for example ?

IB:
Yeah I do think there is a bigger audience but it's all a case of does the end justify the means.
I mean it's relatively easy to sell say a couple of thousand CD's to the real fans via the normal mail order outlets or specialist
shops but after that you need to publicise the music a lot more to get the casual listener to buy the album which they will only
do if it's in the shops. To do this though you have to spend a lot more money on the promotion of the music for how many
extra sales??
Who knows. I think it's better not to worry about striving all the time for those extra sales but to try and continue to produce
the best music you can and let the mainstream EM fans enjoy the music.
If you pick up a few casual listeners along the way then that's great.

TC:
From several of your responses I gathered that you usually have a general idea around which you compose an album.
Could you reveal a bit more about your approach to composing?

IB:
It all depends. The Deep is probably the most conceptually precise album whereas Continuum of course is precisely the
opposite in being totally abstract. Most of the rest fall somewhere in the middle. It's very difficult to be specific about how
I approach each album as it all depends on how I feel at the time although often what I'm reading at any particular time can
have quite an influence i.e., Homers Odyssey & Iliad for Odyssey, stuff about Quantum Mechanics for The Uncertainty
Principle, Edgar Allan Poe for Spirits etc.
As for writers block I can't say I've ever experienced what I would call writers block ( or should that be composers block? ).
There may be times when I just seem to be playing a pile of old shit but you just keep playing and trying out new ideas and
trust your instincts and something good will eventually turn up.

TC:
How do you look upon the new electronic music scene (techno, ambient, ...? Your own music also seems to integrate
some of these influences, more precisely influences from the ambient scene (Symbiont, Continuum...).

IB:
I like a lot of the ambient music, especially a lot of the stuff coming out of Pete Namlook's Fax label.
I think there is a lot of common ground with the more traditional realms of EM with perhaps a slight change in emphasis,
most noticeable in the types of rhythm and sparser melodic content with textures being more important. Symbiont does
include some ambient type material whereas Continuum does ( quite purposefully ) stand astride the boundary between
traditional EM and Ambient music. I find this very interesting and something that should be explored further.

TC:
Your new album Continuum is a compilation of a seven hour long concert at an Art festival. First of all, how do you play
seven consecutive hours ?

IB:
OK I did take breaks for the toilet and also for lunch by allowing the gear to play itself at times , via sequencers and sample loops.
The whole event was quite relaxed as it wasn't a traditional concert with people sitting down and expecting me to perform.
People kind of wandered into the gallery and some would take a quick look and leave, others would stand around for a while
whilst others would look at the pictures and then sit and listen for a while. This gave me plenty of space to try out new ideas,
fiddle with the mixer to get it sounding right and then of course to play.

TC:
How did the idea for the concert take shape ?

IB:
The idea came about because I was asked by one of the organisers of the Newcastle Comic Art Festival ( whom I know )
to play in the gallery.
When he suggested an all day performance I knew I couldn't play a 'normal ' gig so approached it as specified above.

TC:
Although Continuum seems to be quite a free-form, improvised music album, I can imagine that in order to play seven hours, you have
to have several sequences, sounds, melodylines,.... ready in advance. How much of the music was preplanned, what was improvised ?

IB:
I preprogrammed a few simple sequence lines which I could drop in and out as I fancied. Then I assembled a bank of about
25 - 30 sounds on each synthesiser I was to use plus a bank of samples on my samplers hard disc drive that I could quickly grab.
I left my mother keyboards patches very open ended so I was able to grab various samples and sounds almost at will as the music
developed. I had a few basic ideas preplanned but quite a lot of the music just kind of happened on the day. Some things worked,
others didn't of which some I was able to change into something completely different. Also I used the radio through the Moog a
couple of times and of course this was totally random depending on when and where I tuned in. Furthermore i made extensive use
of my modular Roland System 100-M which is just great for this more organic approach.

TC:
Stylistically this album is quite different from say 'The Deep' or 'The uncertainty Principle'. If you wanted to describe it,
you would probably come upon something like a spaced-out modernized seventies improvised concert for the nineties,
with a good deal of ambient thrown in. Do you think you'll be going further along this style of music, or will the next album
be completely different ?

IB:
That's a good description. I've got no idea at the moment what the next album will be like. Wouldn't it be awful if I did.
That's almost all of the point in working in this field of music. It's like a continuing journey where you are constantly discovering
new area and redevloping ideas you've previously visited.

TC:
What can we expect from Ian Boddy in the near future ?

IB:
At the moment I am working on a library album for a large London publisher. A totally different discipline from working on one of
my own albums. Early next year I'm doing a concert with Ron Boots ( I assume you've got the details? ) which we hope to record
and maybe put out as an album. I 've then got a big concert at Derby Cathedral in April in which I want to combine some of my
classical influences with some of the spacy ambient ideas from Continuum. Again I may record this concert for CD release.
 

Tom Coppens

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