POTATO SOUNDSWhile You Press the Buttons You're Given, Adi Gelbart Grows His Own
INTERVIEW BY AVI PITCHON
PHOTOS BY CHRISTOPH VOY
Adi Gelbart is an Israeli-born, Berlin-based musician who builds his own instruments out of vegetables, kitchen utensils, and, well, anything else he finds lying around his studio laboratory. The songs he makes with this assortment of musical crap-paratus sound like epic analogue Care Bears-meet-Rick Wakeman bleep journeys, punctuated by obscure Star Wars droid sounds, which sum up his ingeniously silly albums. Although he publishes under his own name, on most songs he’ll also enlist the help of his fictitious psychedelic teddy-bear backing band, The Lonesomes. Now, all this might well make him sound every inch the electronic musican cliché of mad scientist, sound explorer and complete wanker, but actually, Gelbart hates these people as much as we do. We met him one rainy afternoon and spoke about the mind-numbingly generic nature of modern electronic music and why what he does isn’t that.
Vice: When did you first create an instrument of your own invention and why?
Adi Gelbart: 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.
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 antennae, 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.
Aren’t you upset that you are surrounded by so many charlatan laptop musicians? They aren’t really musicians—their agenda is often 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 a result of certain technological changes?
Who knows. I guess you’ll be accused of prog snobbery, and of being opposed to some fundamental emotional impetus made expressable thanks to punk’s DIY 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.
Mass Hypnosis by Proxy is out now on Defekt Records
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| catbird, on Jul 6, 2009 wrote:
genius! | | Anonymous, on Jun 18, 2009 wrote:
illiterate idiot below me spells butt wrong.. keep envisioning green peppers with music-making diaphragms instead of potatoes. | | Anonymous, on May 27, 2009 wrote:
can you make sound from pork but ? | | Anonymous, on May 18, 2009 wrote:
You’re kidding me right? How much more shitty music are we supposed to like because it’s "live"? AND - It’s a fucking oscilator! This is real demise of electronic music; jerking yourself off because you re-invented the wheel after reading a Make article.
This guy has a few OK tracks, nothing special. Call me when this live/analouge/throwback experimental thing coughs up something of note. | | Anonymous, on May 17, 2009 wrote:
I don’t know what his stuff sounds like, but I have to agree about the formulaic paint-by-numbers crapola. D.J. Shadow- you know EXACTLY when everything’s going to kick in. Maybe good for dental work or as an innocuous soundtrack.
Read the book on the S.F. Tape Music Center- Sobotnik, Ramon Sender, Pauline Oliveros, Don Buchla. | | Anonymous, on May 13, 2009 wrote:
that ashtray is grody. dump that thing out why dont you? | | Anonymous, on May 13, 2009 wrote:
"’!@#4@$"@34234 | | Anonymous, on May 10, 2009 wrote:
furthermore, the history of techno is one of glorious abuse and creative missappropriation of technologies, and there are dance records coming out that are far more creative and interesting than fetishisations of old moog-prog. Raymond Scott gives me a headache and its crap to dance to. | | Anonymous, on May 10, 2009 wrote:
what nonsense this bloke talks. Just because people can make songs quickly on computers doesn’t make it cheating. He is an elitist fool in my books. | | Anonymous, on May 8, 2009 wrote:
i want to learn how to build a synth out of a potato.. and later enjoy it baked with some sour cream in my mouth. | | Anonymous, on May 8, 2009 wrote:
One keyboard, whatever. Several keyboards and I don’t care if you know how to play or not you are cool in my book. | |
| road_kill, on May 4, 2009 wrote:
he makes it sound like its no big deal, but building oscillators and what not from scratch is no easy task. he has to be pretty talented, not just on a musical level but on an engineering level too | | Anonymous, on May 4, 2009 wrote:
It’s hard to find electronic music that is creative and imaginative today.
thats the fucking truth. I cant stand all the reproduced bullshit that most electronic music has become | | Anonymous, on May 4, 2009 wrote:
he’s dead on when he talks about the differences between authentic instrumental music and electronic music. they are a totally different product | | Anonymous, on May 4, 2009 wrote:
potato poking music! awesome. Can it be done with other vegetables too? | | Anonymous, on May 2, 2009 wrote:
the photographs for this article look wonderful | | Anonymous, on May 1, 2009 wrote:
i bet this guy played a mean nose harp as a kiddo | | Anonymous, on Apr 27, 2009 wrote:
" analogue Care Bears-meet-Rick Wakeman bleep journeys, punctuated by obscure Star Wars droid sounds" AMAZING. why is there no link to his stuff. i must hear that | | Anonymous, on Apr 27, 2009 wrote:
his house looks like a keyboard bomb exploded in their. musicians always have so much weird junk lying around | | Anonymous, on Apr 27, 2009 wrote:
potatoes generating electricity is only shocking to someone who never made it to fifth grade. come on now, thats basic science fair knowledge | | Anonymous, on Apr 27, 2009 wrote:
i think use of the word charlatan twice in this article really drove home the point. CHARLATANS! awesome word. | |
| hooohaaa, on Apr 27, 2009 wrote:
this guy is fucking rocks, its so cool to see someone actually trying to do something different. instead of sitting down infront of ableton or traktor or whatever the hell you use to pretend you can dj when you probably cant actually beat mix two records. | | Anonymous, on Apr 27, 2009 wrote:
what the hell is the second picture? it looks like the steering wheel of a childs toy, or some mario kart steering wheel, i hope that the sound is affected by turning the wheel. that would be amazing, a band of people all shredding on steering wheels hilarious. | | Anonymous, on Apr 27, 2009 wrote:
the room with all the keyboards is fucking rad! i think i may need to go have a smoke and ponder making musical potatoes. genious | | |
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