Clive Henry
01 What
is your name / age / nationality ?
Clive Henry,
39, born in Southampton, England.
02 How
did you get into noise ?
I was into
thrash and death as a teen, before getting into indie and
"industrial" stuff. when i say industrial, I mean the whole
Wax Trax/Jourgensen projects thing; but this led me to "real"
industrial: TG's Heathen Earth, SPK's Leichenschrei and
I got Einsturzende Neubauten's Tabula Rasa when it came out.
However, I got nothing at all from any of these albums at the time...
In my
earliest twenties, I was lucky enough to be in a short-lived band
with Andrew Clare of I'm Being Good and after the band dissipated, we
kept in touch. I'd order tapes off his amazing Infinite Chug label,
and he'd stuff the packages full of flyers for zines and other
labels. I thus started exploring the UK tape/zine scene and
discovered labels like Matching Head, Kylie Productions, Fiend
Recordings, etc.
In the year
before I'd met andrew, I'd borrowed a 4-track for the first time and
proceeded to make very noisy recordings, but none that were "noise";
however, really excited by the things I was discovering via the
flyers, I started a zine with friends and saved up for a 4-track.
Since then, to the present day, I've done zines and recordings that
fit into my antiquated notion of what "noise" comprises.
However, ironically, its only really been in the last couple of years
that I've really got into "traditional" Noise (capital
"n"), but all things come to those who wait. (As a
footnote, I have a recording SOMEWHERE of feedback, drum machine and
hoover from maybe '92/'93 that I'd kill to find….)
03 How
did you choose the name of your project / What does it mean to you ?
I started
off many years back with a multitude of different projects, each with
a different name; before combining them all under the Littlecreature
moniker. As documented elsewhere (Musique [Machine] interview), I
went through a charming period of introspection and dissection a
couple of years ago and came out deciding to use the name that my
parents gave me at birth. Thus the name of my project is an
existential headfuck.
04 Which
one of your releases would make the best entry point into your work ?
No idea. ha.
My recorded work tends to occupy two areas at the moment: "hnw"
and more "electro-acoustic"/sound-y/collage-y stuff. To
that extent, maybe my Altar Of Waste release, XVIII - Der Siebente
Kontinent, is a fair point: It has tracks from both
areas/approaches.
05 How do
you record ? (live, sequencing, multi-tracking etc..)
Generally I
record material and then construct tracks on computer, with further
processing if necessary. So, it might be a simple one-take recording,
finished; but more often it'll be a more complicated piece
constructed out of multiple recordings, layers and events.
06 What
is your favorite piece of gear ?
Truth be
told, I don't really have a favourite and thats not a bad thing. I
used to have a modulating delay pedal, which ended up on practically
all of of my early recordings. It broke, then disappeared and after a
while I realised that it was all for the good - I depended on it too
heavily and it became a lazy short-cut to creating sounds I
liked/enjoyed. So my set-up now changes from recording to recording;
there are a few pedals which nearly always find their way into the
chain (Meatbox, Thrashmaster), but no one piece of gear dominates my
set-up.
I do have a
beautiful parlour-sized resonator guitar tho, which I plan to play
effortlessly when I'm an old man.
07 Do you
play live ? How is it different from your releases ?
I play live
now and then. there's very few opportunities to play locally, so it
tends to be further afield. Live, theres increasingly been a
"performance" angle to what I do. I'm obsessed with the
idea of sound as a physical act, an extension of the body and given
that hnw is/can be the antithesis of that, it sets up an interesting
divide for me to bridge.
08 Who
would you like to collab / make a split with ?
I've been
lucky enough to do splits/collabs with some of my favourite noise
folk (including the wonderful Skrobeks !), but since this question
encourages me to dream: Kevin Rowland, Hevi, Dave Phillips, Mark E
Smith, Shirley Collins, John Butcher, Witcyst, Omit, Diamanda Galas,
Caroliner Rainbow, mr Aphex Twin, Ian Mackaye, Nicola Roberts…
09 Do you
listen to other types of sound/music ? Which ones ?
I'll listen
to anything - theres only two types: "good" and "bad"
- but my interests have always gravitated to the more obscure corners
and side-roads of genres (for whatever reason). Historically, my
obsessions have included: early '90s death / thrash, early '90s
electronica (early Warp stuff) and trance (BEFORE it became a dirty
word), '90s us lo-fi, turn of the century hardcore / emo (again,
before it became shoot-me-in-the-face PISS) / powerviolence / doom /
etc… since that time i've really listened to anything that
resonates, which results in the dilemma of not being able to keep
abreast of "everything". so, whilst I listen to a pretty
wide range of stuff, I only really keep a close eye on HNW, to be
honest. increasingly I've been getting more and more re-issues
actually - mainly compilations of 78's from around the world, and
more academic, electroacoustic stuff.
10 What
is your favorite record at the moment ?
current joy:
Sleaford
Mods - Austerity Dogs
K.S.
Chithra with Ilaiyaraaja (Finders Keepers) - incredible songs
from soundtracks to 80's Tamil
films. The kind of album that suggests
novelty / exotica, but actually its just plain fucking amazing.
Henri
Chopin - Audiopoems
The
Drones - I See Seaweed
Nurse
Unit - Town Life
...and I've
finally had a PE epiphany. knocked flat by:
Grunt -
Seer Of Decay
V/A -
United Forces Of Industrial 2014 - Hatred Is Nothing Without
Action
Clive
Henry's website is HERE
THIS is Bang
The Bore's website
...and HERE
is House Of Violence, Clive's Distro (with amazing US titles made
available to people in Europe despite the crazy postage rates)
