AV:  How was it that you and Ian Boddy hooked up and decided to work together? RR:  Ian and I met each other a few years ago at an industry trade show through our common friend Paul Haslinger. We became friends and liked each other's recent music. We started floating the idea of a collaboration and it seemed like fun. AV:  What was it that you liked about Ian's approach to music that made you consider this joint effort? RR:  His recent work is quite deep, with interesting sound design and beautiful spaces. His approach is different from mine, a bit more overtly electronic, which makes a collaboration much more interesting than if we sounded similar. AV:  And you Ian, what was it that attracted you to Robert's work and made you want to spend time working with him? IB:  I really liked the dark atmospherics that Robert was coming out with recently - such as Humidity. They had a wonderful organic quality about them.  I've also always loved that beautiful gliss guitar solo voice he uses and felt our two current approaches could fuse really well. AV:  Tell me about what each of you brought to the table when it came to the blending of your styles in this joint effort? RR:  We made a point of doing most of the work together in the same room, rather than through the mail. Ian first came out here to California for a week, then a month later I joined him in Northern England. We each had some ideas and sounds that we prepared in advance. I had several rhythms I had recorded with the modular synth, and Ian had some beautiful textural material he created with Metasynth. We decided together which of these elements we each liked, then started filling in a structure. A "concept" started forming, and we basically encouraged each other to contribute the elements that we liked best about each other's style. We enjoyed reversing our standard roles a bit. For example, before Ian arrived at my studio, I set up my piano for a "prepared piano" recording by inserting rubber erasers between all the strings. Ian loved the idea of having an acoustic piano available, so he performed all the prepared piano parts on the album. In contrast, many synthetic sounding parts actually come from my modular synth, although most people would expect them to be Ian's contribution. The whole process was quite organic and very pleasant. AV:  Anything you would like to add to that Ian? IB:  Robert tells it pretty much how it happened. It's certainly a bit of a ( pleasant ) surprise that Robert did most of the rhythmic work on his new MOTM modular system and that I did a substantial part of the sound design and atmospherics.  This may come as a surprise to a lot of people - it did to us but that's one of the joys of collaborating - you never quite know how it's going to pan out ahead of time. The prepared piano Robert mentioned was also great fun to play and in many ways became the glue which we used to tie the various sections together - it's there at the start and end of the album and is reprised several times throughout. AV:  Was it difficult working long distance with Ian and how were most of the exchanges accomplished? RR:  We both wanted the pleasure of working together at the same time and place, so we spent time in each other's respective studios. The main problem involved international air travel in the wake of 9-11. I had actually purchased my airline tickets on the evening of September 10. You can imagine what was going through my mind the next day! IB:  We had done a lot of preparatory work.  Robert had come up with some nice sequenced modular sections and I had a whole load of textures and sound design ideas. Our first goal was to sift through all this and choose sections that we thought of mutual interest. This could really only be done in each others company hence Robert pointing out how essential we felt it to physically work together and not just via cyberspace. AV:  Will the followers of your work see an equal mix of your style and Ian's or will it be new directions for the project as a whole? RR:  I'm not really sure. I think it sounds quite different from either of our solo work, but obviously people will recognize our individual styles and sounds. IB:  Some people like to play guessing games but they often get it wrong.  Of course Robert's gliss guitar solo stands out but I don't think many people would recognise my ever so subtle prepared piano sections :-) AV:  Robert mentions in his announcement that the project had a science fiction kind of feel o theme to it, what is that all about? IB:  Well this wasn't entirely pre-planned.  As I mentioned above the prepared piano with that John Cage like sound gave these sections an almost 50's avant garde feel. On top of this I had some really nice samples of the Aurora Borealis as well as several really unusual digital manipulations of radio broadcasts that I had prepared for a concert that I was playing in the UK. Putting these ideas together started to create a nice atmosphere which really clicked in our minds when the two of us had gone out one day for a walk in the forests around where Robert lives to get some fresh air. We just sort of chatted about where the album was going and decided we could accentuate this initial impression and give it a real 50's B-movie sci-fi feel in places which was certainly fun to do. So it's not really got a set concept as such. It just turned out the way it did due to the two of us interacting musically. AV:  Who will be handling the distribution of Outpost in the U.S.? RR:  It will come out only on the DiN  label in the UK, and I think Hypnos will help spread it in this country. It will definitely be available for direct purchase through my own website http://www.amoeba.com IB:  Soleil Moon are the official distributors.  However Hypnos and probabaly Backroads will get it too.  As Robert mentions you can get it direct from his web site or if you prefer from http://www.DiN.org.uk AV:  Sounds great and I'm sure those who follow both of you as separate artists will be anxiously awaiting this collaborative effort in the next few months. AV will bring you more information as it becomes available so stay tuned. DiN Announces Outpost: The Joint Effort with Robert Rich Din 11 - provisionally titled "Outpost " is a collaborative effort between DiN boss Ian Boddy and US muscian Robert Rich. Boddy flew over to join Rich in his San Francisco studio at the beginning of October to begin work on the project. Rich was then in the UK performing a one-off London gig ( coincidentally on the same day, November 3rd as Boddy's Buddle Arts centre concert ) after which he travelled up to the DiN studio near Durham to complete the album. Rich will be mixing the final results back in his studio for a release in Febuary/March 2002.