Featuring mixes by electronic luminaries like Mark Walk, Rhys Fulber, and Wade Alin, numerous tunes were freshened up with pop, ambient, techno, neo-classical, and even thrash elements. Collide’s music has been on Queer As Folk (Showtime) and the trailer for Resident Evil: Apocalypse, which features their off-the-wall rendering of Jefferson Airplane’s “White Rabbit.”
While many electronic-based groups tend to hide in the studio, kaRIN and Statik have been preparing for future tour dates with a six-piece band that includes two guitarists, a bassist, and a drummer. Ironically, in taking their multi-layered music to a new level, they are stripping away strata of sound.
“You can tell that 90 percent of everything is being played either from a computer or a backing tape,” says Statik of typical electronic-based groups. “There are people up there playing, but if they stop playing you aren’t going to notice. That makes for such a boring show. So we picked songs that lent themselves to ensemble playing, and made changes where required. ‘Wings of Steel’ had no guitar work, so new parts were written. We have six musicians, and all of us will be busy.”
In the studio, Statik’s workflow revolves around an Akai S6000 sampler and an Alesis Andromeda synth, alongside an Apple PowerBook with Digidesign 002 interface. He also uses a Studio Electronics SE-1 for many of his bass sounds. “Lately I’ve been mixing everything internal in Pro Tools,” the sound sculptor explains. “I’m just taking two outputs out of my Pro Tools interface and mixing inside the computer instead of running separate outs to a mixer.”
Despite the multi-layered sound that defines their music, Collide keeps their artistic philosophy simple. “We just try to make stuff that we like,” declares Statik. “We try to keep it fresh and make something we haven’t heard before.”