Wax Tailor

That’s Wax Tailor now. But 15 years ago, he says, he had only basic musical training and barely knew anything about gear. “At the beginning, I had just discovered samplers,” he explains. “The first time I worked with one, I think it was an S950 from Akai.” Though just becoming familiar with the technology that would shape his music, Wax already knew what sounds and colors he wanted. Playing with his friend’s Akai led him to buy his own machine, an Ensoniq ASR-10. And from there, it seems, it was love. “I still work with [the Ensoniq],” says Wax. “I really love the sound. Most of the elements [I use], I get from the Ensoniq.” The ASR-10 and an Ensoniq DP4+ have been on every production since.

Upon first listen to both the previous album and Hope & Sorrow, Wax’s endless vocal samples from vintage films might seem overwhelming, but these clips are more than icing. For Wax, they form the kernels of many of the songs. “I’m like a lot of producers in that I want to be really organized,” he says. “‘I’m just dealing with the bass now, and I’ve got some folders [of files.]’ But at the end, you never work like that. You listen to some new records and dig through some vinyl, and you find the exact element you need because you’re excited by the sound, and you say, ‘Damn, I want to use that.’”

“For example, the main [vocal] sample on ‘The Tune’ — I remember watching the movie where this sentence came from. I couldn’t get it out of my head, because of the rhythmic aspects of it. Around this sample, I searched for a mood. And the whole track began with this simple element.”

It’s not all about the samples, though. Wax the fan of cinema and classical music looked for a way to bring such textures into his electronic music. On the new album, he uses expanded input from classically-trained collaborators who sometimes play arrangements written out by Wax, sometimes improvise, and often mingle the two approaches. Now that the album is done, says Wax, “Wax Tailor” the solo project will give way to “Wax Tailor” the band, as he focuses more on turntables and lets the instrumentalists come to the fore. He points to an expanded sense of emotion, as well, which he says reflects the highs and lows of the last two years, as he was swept up in the success of the first album.

And something in all of it is very French. “I don’t search for the melody, because I’m looking for the sound,” says Wax. Foremost are the textures, the sense of the music. One of his greatest influences, he says, is French poet, songwriter, actor, and director Serge Gainsbourg, though James Brown deserves even more credit. “Each day I realize the influence of his music, of his way of producing,” says Wax. “If we just talk about his drum, about the building of the drum, he is the single biggest influence on me.”

Classic James Brown meets vintage Serge Gainesbourg with an Akai and live classical instruments? Sign me up for the tour.