An interview with Klive and Nigel Humberstone, by Ned Raggett, host of Scatter the Darkness in Light (Sundays 4 to 6 pm)

With nearly twenty albums to their credit, Sheffield, England's In the Nursery has a reputation not merely for prolificness but a truly unique approach to music. Consisting of the core duo of twin brothers Klive and Nigel Humberstone, along with long time associates including singer Dolores Marguerite C. and drummer Q, among others, In the Nursery grew out of an initial post-punk/industrial start in the early eighties to embrace a sweeping musical style drawing from classical compositions, film scores and dancefloor beats, among many other sources, to create their distinct art.

While the band have still yet to play in America, their increasing reputation, newly fueled here by the use of a number of their songs in various soundtracks and radio and TV spots, looks to be growing steadily. Indeed, with the composition of soundtracks for early silent films opening up new audiences to their work, the future for this already well-established band looks steadily brighter.

I had the good fortune to arrange a live in studio interview with Klive and Nigel at KUCI; the brothers were visiting the LA area for a variety of reasons involving upcoming film work and possible live commitments, and graciously took some time to come to the station and participate in what turned out to be one heck of a great interview, lasting the full two hours of my show, discussing everything from their working methods and future plans to their latest album, Lingua. Please read and enjoy!

NR: Thanks very much for coming down, guys! I think the best place to start is for listeners out there who perhaps have been hearing the music but might not be as familiar with the band's general background. Could you give a brief basic biography of the band, as detailed or not as you wish?

NH: It's difficult to be brief!

NR: Well, if not that, then...

NH: The band dates back to 1981, the first record came out in 1983. Since then, we've had over two hundred recorded works -- lost count of the number of albums! We just carry on doing new projects and recording new albums. We have our side project Les Jumeaux, we do the silent film scores in the Optical Music series. We tour around Europe quite a lot; we keep trying to tour in America. That's going to happen soon, but it's been difficult to organize.

NR: We'll get into each of those areas in a bit, but with that as initial background, let's talk about the newest album, Lingua. I understand from various interviews, and as the title itself gives away, that indeed the focus of the album was language. There was one particular quote from you that I want to take as a launching point for further discussion -- "the album examines language, its development and phonetic styles, along with our own understanding and use of words." There was a further note that the spoken performances "were married to the musical pieces as much for their renditions as for their overall meaning." Is there anything you want to elaborate further on those points, or can anything further be said, or...?

NH: I suppose that's the basis of it -- each track was different in the basis of how it was formulated for the album. In some cases we'd written the music and we looked around for suitable text to go with it, in other cases we had the text already and we wrote the music to go with it. That was the case with an Italian track, with an Italian language.

NR: Can you say more about that language, Friulan I believe is the name?

NH: It's an ancient Italian dialect which isn't spoken much or very little at all now, except for, as far as we know, a little radio station in Italy. The guy there still speaks it, to try and keep it alive. He contacted us and, for some reason or other, sent us this ancient poem, an ancient script, really, from that period, spoken in that dialect. We asked him to redo it so we could then just incorporate it with our music; we did the piece around his words.

NR: You mention that the tape was sent to you -- had you put out a call for various pieces, or it just showed up in the mail or...?

NH: It just showed up, and happened to coincide with the Lingua project.

NR: You had made mention elsewhere that the project had been on the boil for a while. Had it been something that was there for a number of years or was it something that came up more recently?

NH: In the Nursery has always used spoken word and narrations, so we've always been interested in that side of vocals going with the music -- I suppose it's always been at the back of my mind to do something like that, yes. It all came together at the right time.

NR: I note in looking at the various performances on the album that your longtime vocal collaborator Dolores Marguerite does a couple of pieces, while in other cases you have recordings from other artists and other performers. You mention the one fellow from Italy -- was the tape redone and sent in, or did he and other performers come to your studios and record with you directly, or...?

KH: He actually sent in a cassette, and I told him to redo it, take a bit more time, because I felt it was a bit rushed. He actually did it again on DAT tape, but he didn't have the feeling in it. I asked him to do it again, and he went into a proper studio this time and he realized that he wasn't giving it his best performance. The poem has a part for female voice, so we got Dolores to recite that part. She speaks many languages, so it was a chance for her to try and get this one!

NR: A two part question -- was there anything recorded for the album that was not used, in other languages, and was there any specific reason to choose the languages that were in fact featured there?

KH: A lot of people have asked us why we chose these languages, and there was no special reason. They were the ones that came to us and that we were aware of, and we wanted to work on those. It could be a part two, we could do another one, but that wasn't the reason for it. The Japanese piece was purely for the sound of the voice, for the texture of it, before we actually used it. Some of the other ones, for instance the Yugoslavian one, that one was just our collaboration with a friend in Mexico who speaks it. We sent our music over there and she worked from that.

NR: You mentioned the Japanese piece -- one of the more interesting things about the album as presented with the CD booklet is that it is one of the ones which not translated. Is there a specific reason?

NH: The reason for that is that at the time of going to press with the album, we didn't have a good enough English translation of the piece. The actual vocalist had done it himself, and his control of the English language wasn't that good -- we didn't want to put down an inferior translation. It's interesting, because a lot of people hear it and you don't have to know what is being said, you get your emotion from the sound of the words.

NR: It's a very striking recording, how the vocal quality seems 'distanced'...

NH: It's quite a harsh sound, but that's what we intended!

NR: We'll be playing tracks from Lingua throughout the show, but we'll start off with the first one here, 'Poema.' The piece is from Chile?

KH: It's a Chilean poet -- I forget her name now...

NR: Raquel Jodorowsky, it says in the booklet. The translation is very striking, since it speaks of how a poem, art, will survive its time. That seemed a very bold way to start off the album!

NH: In this particular case, we'd written the music, and we wanted to choose an appropriate text to go with it, and we wanted to try out the Spanish language. We got a book of different female Hispanic writers and poets, and this one stood out as being very emotive, which is what we wanted with the track.

NR: Dolores Marguerite does the vocal work on the track; you mentioned that she has a command of many languages.

NH: Yes, her family is from -- they're living in Spain now, but Portuguese in background. She speaks Japanese, Italian, German...

NR: Good knowledge to have, especially for overseas performances! We'll take a brief break -- here's 'Poema.'

NR: In discussing that particular song, one of the most striking things about your music -- this is something I've heard from any number of people -- is the general initial surprise that your music can be so rich and full, even though it's just you two working with your computers. How long does it take from the initial idea of working on a song until it has reached a finished state, how complicated is the process? Do some things flow a lot easier than others?

NH: It can take a lot of different routes, really. It can start with a chord progression, a piano riff, and you develop it from there. Sometimes it can be quick, just over a day -- you've got the whole basis of the track. Other times it can be a very simple melody which you develop over a period of weeks, adding to it or incorporating it with something else that you're working on, blending two tracks together.

KH: And that piece, "Poema," I think it was Nigel who put together the string movement, that was the basis for it. From the beginning we thought, 'Oh, this has got such a cinematic feel to it.' You can just imagine it being so big. From that very beginning, the chord movements, you can think of what was going to happen to it. We got someone to come in and play some live flute on top. Little things like that build it up.

NH: Piccolo.

KH: That's right. We got the flutist to come in and he decided piccolo was perfect for it. Those live elements make it much more richer and convincing as people listen to it.

NR: I remember from one interview that the first time live instruments were added, you resisted it, or were surprised by the idea?

NH: That was for the soundtrack for An Ambush of Ghosts.

KH: We were in the studio and the clock was ticking by, and the music supervisor said, 'I want to try a real cellist and oboe player,' and we thought, 'We haven't got the time!' But we're glad we did it!

NR: And it's worked out since. It seems to help...how to put this...

NH: It tricks the ear into thinking that if you've got a real instrument on top of synthetic -- well, not synthetic! We use samples of real instruments. We've got a huge catalog of real strings from CD-ROMs and stuff. It tricks your ears into thinking that it's played by a real person.

NR: There was that mention that Klive made about the depth of the music, that sense of space. That seems to be a fairly strong element in most of the recordings. In other cases, there are much more intimate, focused pieces. Is it the nature of the song as it develops that determines the feel of it? Is it simply part and parcel as you go? Or is that a question that can be easily answered?

KH: It's instinctive, really. When you have a track, you realize, you know instinctively that it's going to be a big piece or, like you say, more intimate.

NH: They do progress. You don't know straightaway how it's going to turn out.

NR: What is your current set-up in terms of the actual instruments or equipment you use? I understand you're working off a Mac still?

KH: We used to have an Atari set-up with a really good software program called Hybrid Arts, but then we made the big step up to a Mac and Logic Audio about three years ago now. It's been very liberating for us; we've realized how much more we can do with it.

NR: How would you characterize the difference between the two? What are the options now?

KH: Everything's more instant. You can see visually what you're doing, and you can make really rearrangements of the tracks to try things out. It gives you a lot more scope to experiment with.

NR: With that thought in mind, let me step to another area I was going to bring up, which was the question of live performance. When you're preparing for them -- that is, the straight band performances as opposed to the Optical Music performances -- how much work goes into preparing up the arrangements, samples, what you have done in focusing it for a life audience. There is that distinction between working on things in studio and making it come across live.

KH: To start with, we choose tracks which we think will work in a live arena. Some of the album tracks just won't work with people standing -- a lot of venues we play are rock venues, with people standing up to watch us, not sitting down -- so you have to choose the right tracks. We use ADAT tapes, and play stuff live on top -- the percussion, drums and vocals are live.

NR: I seem to recall you have an especially elaborate set-up when it comes to the percussion -- I gather it's all part of the dynamic of a live show?

NH: It's something we've developed; we've never had a normal drum kit or drum set-up. We use three timpani drums, two orchestral bass drums on stands, snare drums...

NR: I see from the various live pictures on your site that everyone on stage is going at it with the drums, and can be at any one time.

NH: That's what everyone seems to love, yeah! Some of the older tracks we do totally live.

NR: Stepping back to some older tracks, and comparing the older music to now, your early works, the material collected on Prelude, along with Twins and Stormhorse, was, by your own admission, where you were at the time, working more with guitars and a live rock band set-up. What do you think was the key moment or moments in going from how you initially started off towards what you're doing right now? Or can that easily be measured; was it more just a gradual process, as new elements come and replace older ones?

NH: On the first album, we just used guitars and bass, and had marching drums, which was a little different from all the other types of bands that were playing then. We soon got bored with guitar -- you put it through effects and you can't do much more than that, and you run out of chords to remember! Someone lent us an old string machine, and we thought, 'Hey, we could do so much more with this.' There wasn't any sequencing or sampling; you had this little rack-mounted unit called a [beller?]. It was a sort of digital sampler.

KH: You could sample a fraction -- it was just seconds -- so you could sample that and play it back in.

NH: And then you had to clear the memory and put something else in! That was really liberating for us. What else was there? I think also an important stage was when the original third member, Ant Bennett, left. It was quite amicable, and he went on to do his own things. We were left to do our first real album together, Twins. We bought a four-track tape machine; that was quite important.

KH: At that point, since it wasn't the three of us, we weren't really jamming or rehearsing as a complete band. We experimented more, I suppose. We were ready to use the recording process, we could add layers, unlike with a band where it was three members and that's all you could do.

NR: Were you at the time always trying to aim towards your own self-production or when you first started off, did you just want to go into studio and think, 'Okay, so long as somebody can keep the tape rolling, we'll take it from there'? Was it around that time you mentioned with Twins that you thought, 'We want to control exactly what we want to hear?'

KH: With Twins, we had everything on tape, which we went to studio and transferred onto multitrack machines, and developed it in the studio. We were working with particular producers or sound engineers who were able to take that sound and improve on it. We definitely knew what we wanted because we had it there in the first place.

NR: With that in mind, stepping back to the present, what is a typical studio session like? Are you working there with a particularly trustworthy or sympathetic sound engineer, someone you've worked with for a while, or can it just depend on who's around at the time?

NH: Now we work entirely on our own, even at the mixing stage. For the last four albums we've been doing that.

KH: I don't think we'd be here now if it wasn't for a sound engineer called Steve Harris. We went up to a studio for L'esprit and he was the in-house engineer, and he got familiar with us and what we did, and we always used him.

NH: From L'esprit up until Deco.

NR: Speaking of L'esprit, that was the album I was going to play a track from right about now. Speaking personally, it's one of my favorite albums that you've done; definitely of that period that's the one that's stayed with me the most. Again speaking just for myself, it seems that of the earlier albums, it was the one, at that point, which was most of a piece, that could be an imaginary soundtrack, to use one of the common terms applied to your music over time. What are your thoughts on that -- was that the intended goal?

KH: It represents a period in our career, really. It was a great time -- we had a lot of material, and it was going to be a double album. We trimmed it down and had some tracks that we put onto single releases, which we collected on our rerelease of the CD, so that has all the tracks from that period. It was a time which we started getting into computers and using sound libraries of real orchestral sounds. At the time we didn't have them ourselves, we hired the equipment, emulators and stuff like that.

NR: The track I'm going to play is 'Scenes of Childhood,' which has always been my most favorite. 'To the Faithful' is the song on it which seems to have gotten the most attention, partially because it's featured on the Scatter compilation, and one of your own few recorded vocals, after the early albums.

NH: Somebody asked us why we don't sing anymore! I suppose we're concentrating too much on the music. You can't do everything, and that's one of the things that has just dropped off.

NR: With the note that on Lingua it was a different situation where people were bringing the material to you, when it comes to the material on Deco or before that, when it comes to lyrics, is it...if it's Dolores doing the singing for a track, does she bring lyrics to the band, or are they just generally agreed on, or...?

NH: With Dolores, it's normally at a recording session; we'll ask her to come around and listen to the tracks which we think would be great for her voice, perfect for. It's a working process, she comes around and we work for a couple of nights and keep writing bits and trying it, so she normally adds the lyrics on top of what we've done. It's not like she would come to us and say, 'I've got these perfect lyrics, write a song around them!'

NR: Before we play 'Scenes of Childhood,' do you have anything in particular to say about it?

KH: I've forgotten what it sounds like!

NH: Yeah, I'd love to say something about it after I've heard it!

NR: In that case, let's go! From the album L'esprit in 1989, the song 'Scenes of Childhood' -- enjoy!

NR: So, to ask the question again -- any particular thoughts or memories, or does it not particularly stand out or...?

KH: I think what it reminds me of now is working in the studio, because the track was written in the studio; I don't think it was written before we went in. With the starting and ending, we wanted it to sounds like a heartbeat.

NH: It reminds me of the equipment we were hiring at the time -- we were hiring an Emulator, which was very important. We wanted those particular sounds, orchestral sounds, but at the time they were very hard to get hold of, so we had to spend out the money to hire the equipment.

NR: If this song were written today, how would it be different, or in fact, could this song have been written by you today? Is it something that given the way you currently approach your music would not necessarily come out?

KH: Hearing the tremolo and the strings reminds me of a piece on the Caligari score, it's got some string chords -- I forget which track it is, I think it's 'Sanitarium' or a track like that. I think it could happen.

NH: But if we did write today, I think I would add more stuff to it, but that's probably a negative point, really. What's so nice about it is the openness of it, the simplicity.

KH: Which made me think that maybe we are starting to put too much in our music, which is something you've got to check, keep an eye on.

NR: I'd imagine it is just a matter of you deciding where you're going and what works best.

KH: Sometimes it's what you don't put in your music which makes it.

NR: That sense of space, at the beginning, especially, and at the end, how you mentioned it was intended to be a heartbeat. Talking a bit about this album and to move into another area, for those of us in America who discovered your music, this album was one of the ones released in your distribution deal then with Wax Trax, through Third Mind Records. This album, Koda and the Counterpoint album were the first things that came out over here. What is your sense of your American fandom, given that you've never gotten the level of attention you really should deserve (in my humble opinion!)? Do people here discover your music through the soundtrack appearances, randomly stumbling across it, other things?

KH: I think the great majority have been introduced to it via the Wax Trax period. Some have carried on listening and gotten hold of imports and stuff. We've also got a new generation of people listening, especially through the Deco album, through the use of tracks in the Femme Nikita series.

NR: I was going to ask about that -- is this part of the work that's come out of the film representation group that you have?

NH: Yes, we have a company in LA that dish our music out to various music supervisors, producers, directors. The series picked up on these tracks -- we're not great fans of the actual series! But I think the way they use the music in the film is really good; they don't just hide it in the background. They bring it up front and they don't care if it's got vocals on it. They emphasize that, use it to emphasize key pieces in the scene.

NR: So it's not disconcerting to see and hear a piece that, when it was recorded, you had one thought or vision of it in mind and is now used for something entirely different from the visuals on the screen? Is that ever a 'hmm, well, you know...'?

NH: I think it can, for some people, finalize it. That's the beauty of music; you can listen to it, lots of different people can listen to it and you can get your own ideas, and they've got their own imagination, picture their own thoughts. For a lot of people, when they make videos, the video might be great, but somehow you've finalized that imagery.

KH: It's always been a reason why we've not dabbled in videos too much. Working on a silent movie commission or working on a soundtrack to a film, you're creating from the images, and you're trying to create a certain atmosphere, so that's a different way of working. I don't mind doing it that way.

NR: I do want to address the soundtrack work more thoroughly, but stepping back a touch to talk about videos, I recall that in earlier interviews there was a mention of a video sequence to accompany your first release, When Cherished Dreams Come True. So there's not been much done since or you haven't done much since, or...?

NH: That came about because Klive was at art college at the time, and as part of his project he did a series of videos which were meant to accompany the tracks.

KH: After that we just concentrated on the music.

NR: I seem to recall -- and there are examples of this, the Scatter compilation shows this -- that there are some very striking photos that have been done, featuring sometimes you and sometimes appearing on the album covers, sometimes not. How much control or input do you have with those? Do you always try and help create the shots? Do you have an idea of how you'd like to appear in them, when necessary?

NH: Over the years, the majority of the photographs have been taken by one guy, Bill Stevenson. He started off with us...

KH: He took one when Ant Bennett was around, and that was 84, 85. So yes, we've had a very close connection to the images and what's been used. All the artwork has been, up until we were working with Roadrunner (after that we did the artwork ourselves), we always had a great influence in what was done, what was used.

NH: I think we were all spoilt as well, since we worked with Chris Bigg, who's worked with 23 Envelope, the 4AD design firm. The stuff that he does is brilliant, and he was able to work with the stuff that we put out on Sweatbox and Third Mind Records. We always loved the stuff that he was doing, and so when we started doing our own, we wanted to emulate a little bit of his style.

NR: Stepping now to visuals in another arena, getting back to the question of live performance, I understand that part of the set-up there is that you have screens to project images on -- is that still the case?

KH: It's a formula we've set up and worked on -- there's two big bass drums on trestle stands at the back, and there's two poles with white silk flags flying from each side. It's quite symmetrical, and images are projected onto the flags. Then there's a little row of three timpanis and a selection of snare drums and other drums as well.

NH: The slide images are not shown in any particular order. They're just random images of people's faces and eyes, to reflect emotion. More recently we've taken new slide images which have been computer generated, using images from the new album's artwork. We've redone them and photographed them. It's nothing too distracting for people, but it adds to the general atmosphere on stage.

NR: Since we're on the subject of live shows, how did the recent European tour a few months ago go? I heard there was initially a rough starting point, some festival in Sweden that didn't quite work as planned?

KH: Yeah, we love to go back and show the Swedish what a real ITN show is about, because we didn't have the chance! We were flying in and had to be diverted to a different airport due to weather conditions. We also had to stay with the equipment, since we weren't going to play without it. Finally we got to the venue and were rescheduled to play later that evening. In the end, we played after the headlining act! After getting onstage, we were told there was a curfew in ten minutes' time! I think we played for about 15 minutes, and even then it was the end of the night, so the sound wasn't too good...

NR: I gather the rest of the performances were better!

KH: The German tour was really good, did some great festival shows in Leipzig, and made a great show in Paris as well.

NR: Has your European fan base grown with time, or do you think you have a hardcore fan base that is continuing?

NH: I think we have a reputation and history in Europe; our music goes back quite a while, so it's sort of embedded in the music culture there. I think, of course, we've had the opportunity to play a lot in Germany, people have asked us to play and pay us to play, whereas in England it's a lot harder to get that sort of opportunity. We've been able to build on that fanbase.

NR: Is that situation in England similar to getting shows in America? Have you ever in fact done shows here?

NH: No, we haven't. We've performed in Mexico City quite a few times, but we've never got round to America, which is something we really want to do. It will happen!

NR: We'll get on to playing another song here, and this leads further into the question of fanbases. This is from the new album Lingua, and is the Japanese piece, 'Shonen No Hi.' Is there a particularly strong response from Japan and the Far East for your music?

NH: We get a handful of people, but no, that's something that's got to be developed. We are looking into getting the latest album licensed over there.

NR: And I notice there was the one compilation, Composite, specifically designed for Brazil. Was it just a case of strong demand?

NH: It was a label in Brazil who contacted us by e-mail and said that they wanted to bring out a compilation of our material --

KH: They wanted it to be an introduction to our music.

NH: -- and they also wanted to license the rest of our stuff in future, which luckily we didn't do, since the label is falling on hard grounds. They chose a track listing for the Brazilian market, but we decided to release it in Europe, and it's gone down quite well, as an introduction for people.

NR: It seems like it's an addendum to Scatter, which was both an introduction and a way to collect a lot of very rare tracks. More about that in a second! 'Shonen No Hi' from Lingua -- any particular thoughts or notes on this piece? We were talking about the vocal quality earlier, how it contributed there -- was there anything more to add to it?

KH: The translation is 'Memories of Childhood,' by quite a famous Japanese poet, Harou Satou. The origination of it -- the guy, Tomoyasu Hayakawa, sent us one of his albums, his works, and on that album was this particular track. I liked the vocal rendition, so I asked him to provide it on its own. We then built a new musical track around it.

NR: Very good -- 'Shonen No Hi.'

NR: Since I have a copy of the Dr. Caligari soundtrack sitting out in front of me, we might as well talk about the Optical Music Series, but before that, a bit of background. As we mentioned earlier, to take this as an initial starting point, you've mentioned in earlier interviews and pieces about the classical influences that have been brought to your music and, for lack of a better word, the filmic influences. Noting that of course you are continuing to work on soundtracks, are those influences now as strong as they would be, or as strong as they used to be? Or do you now see them in a different light? This would be in a sense of creating music as if it could be a soundtrack, if that ever was a particular goal.

KH: We don't write music thinking it would be ideal for a film. In fact, we never write any music with any sort of ulterior motives; we just do music which moves us, and which we feel good about. I think it's just a lucky coincidence that people pick up on it for film-related projects. Obviously we do like film music, and it must be a subconscious influence in what we do.

NH: I think it has to do with the format in which we write songs; we don't write them in a verse-chorus-verse-chorus way. We do write songs as if they're quite symphonic, and they will take you through a journey. Sometimes we try and do that on the whole CD, so it's a total piece, which is very orchestral, like when you listen to a symphony.

NR: With that in mind, talking about your first full film commission, An Ambush of Ghosts, which was mentioned earlier, the film has now achieved a certain notoriety in that it is the film which has never been seen! Have you heard any word on that?

NH: Being here in LA gave us the chance to meet up with the guy who got us the job for doing the music for that film. He still doesn't know if there's anything happening with it. But it's ironic, since the film stars Stephen Dorff, who's gone on to do many things, and Anne Heche as well. We didn't realize that until he pointed it out to us! There's great incentive there to recut the film and release it.

NR: How close were in working with the actual filmmakers? Was it something that you saw their input or simply worked with a cut?

KH: They sent over a video for us to view in the UK. We came over to LA to meet them initially, then we got the video copy sent over. They had a very good idea of what they wanted, because it was a case of them wanting us to remix some of our tracks to fit in with key scenes, and also to write a portion of new material. It was a case of sending tapes back to each other saying, 'This is what we've done so far,' take note of a few changes. Instead of coming over to LA, they sent over a music supervisor to Sheffield to oversee the project, because it was the first time we'd done a score. I forgot how long it took; we went into a local studio and did it.

NR: I was going to ask about the remixing of the tracks, because I did notice a lot of music from the Sense and Duality albums, which were the ones which had just come out before that. They had heard those and that's what they wanted?

NH: Yes, the director wanted that, he edited some of the film to our original tracks.

KH: He'd been given Sense and Duality to listen to, keyed up some of the scenes and put the music to it. Things worked perfect, and he didn't want to change it, he just wanted us to rework the pieces.

NR: So in some respects the way the film was cut was already matching what the music was going to be in any event. Striking! Unfortunately the film now lingers in limbo, but the soundtrack...has been rereleased? Or is about to be?

KH: In future; we're just in the process of rereleasing Duality on our own label, with a couple of bonus tracks, which are alternative mixes from the period.

NR: With that said, moving on to what is the current film work, the Optical Music Series, and starting with the first in that series, the very noted early film classic The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari, as good a way to start as any! What was the genesis of that particular project?

KH: We'd always wanted to produce new music for an old silent film, and there was a pretty local cinema...we knew the people there, and they wanted to commission it for us to do as a one-off. We did it -- I don't know how long, it took us quite a few weeks -- and it was such a success that we decided to put the proposal to other cinemas around the UK.

NH: And also to bring it out as a CD; I don't think it was really intended that we were going to bring it out that way. It was just going to be a one-off performance.

NR: Because the work is so, presumably, intimately tied up with the action one is seeing on screen, how well do you think it does do as a stand-alone piece as one hears it? Have you had reactions from people listening to it and noting a difference between this and the straightforward studio work you do?

NH: The difference is that there's no vocals and very little percussion, because it doesn't suit the film, and a lot of times it just wasn't required for that sort of atmosphere.

KH: People have also said that when they listen to it on its own, it does work as a piece.

NR: The next commission after that was the film Asphalt, and I found it very interesting in the liner notes to the soundtrack -- this is from the writer Lotte Eisner, from a piece called The Haunted Screen, talking about the movie -- 'the self-styled daring is not an integral part of the action, which is a wholly conventional love story.' Is the film a conventional one, in your eyes?

NH: There is a love story element to it, but the main thing that struck me about the film is the great sets they built.

KH: In the art history books, it's termed as the last great Expressionist film. But I wouldn't term it as an Expressionist film if you compared it to something like Nosferatu or Caligari or anything like that. It does verge on the love drama way of film, but like Nigel said, there were these great sets built inside warehouses, a whole Berlin street scene inside, traffic and everything.

NH: There are some great performances there as well. At the time, when we choosing a film, we were considering Pandora's Box, but it being done quite a bit, and there wasn't an available print at the time, we were just lucky that the opportunity to do Asphalt came up. In a way, the actress, Betty Amann, is very similar...if she hadn't done the film, Louise Brooks would have been ideal for it. As it turns out, she's quite sensational in it.

NR: You mentioned earlier the performances that have been done with that, and I've read in other interviews how you've talked about how that is done and staged differently from a regular live performance. The focus of the audience is not on you; you just happen to be there performing along to the movie.

NH: It's just the two of us, not the other two who perform live and in studio with us.

NR: I take it you've found it satisfying to do?

KH: We really enjoy doing it, because people turn up to the screenings who are interested in the film and know nothing of our music, and also people who know our music and come along and get into the film. It's different audiences coming together, which is really good for us.

NR: Can you tell us more about the third film you're working on, The Man With the Movie Camera?

NH: It's a 1929 Russian film. Once again, we were looking for a suitable film to do and were considering things like Metropolis, but I think we made the right choice with a Russian film. We didn't want to get stuck in, 'Oh yeah, they're doing another German film again.'

KH: I don't know how you can describe it...as the title suggests, it's about a day in the life of a film director, filming people on the streets in Russia. It's a brilliant documentary/period piece of what it was like.

NH: There are some great camera tricks used in it.

KH: Every camera trick in the book is used, and obviously it was done at a time when you didn't expect it. There's wonderful editing and superimpositions...

NH: Split screens.

KH: Everything's there. For us, it's a work in progress at the moment, and it's great.

NH: There's some extremely fast editing in there as well, which is quite a challenge to work with.

NR: Since most of your pieces seem to flow with time; there isn't much of a call, at least for your ITN material, for something that's quick or choppy. Looking at the film pieces, I'll be playing one right here -- this is from the Asphalt soundtrack, 'Crime Passionel.' Talking about it, but also talking about creating a piece for a scene, on the soundtracks, is every song a specific section of the film? It seems like that, or can one piece of music encompass a variety of different things going on?

KH: Pretty much; we'll watch the film and break it down to what we saw in particular scenes. Going back to Caligari, there'd be certain locations where we'd use similar music throughout the film, certain sound effects and atmospheres for particular characters in the film, which were reintroduced; you can have that association, you can relate to the person. We'd break it down into sections and work out which music would suit that section, and portray what the film is trying to put over.

NR: Well then, 'Crime Passionel,' here on KUCI.

NR: Since we have been talking about the Optical Music Series and Caligari, would you mind talking about the possible upcoming performance?

NH: One of the reasons for coming over to Los Angeles is that we just met with the American Film Institute, who are very interested in presenting our performance for Caligari, along with the film, as part of their international film festival at the end of October. We're going to go ahead with that as long as we can get the right print and they can project at the right speed. Luckily, keeping our fingers crossed, we're going to be back at the end of October doing our first US performance -- not as a full band, but still! I really hope it goes ahead, because it would be a great opportunity.

NR: Will news of this be announced via the website?

NH: We definitely will do that; it's something that has to be confirmed within the next week to ten days, really.

NR: And for our listeners out there, the website is inthenursery.com -- we were talking about this a bit off the air, but the site was originally done by a fan that you stumbled across, or you had heard about the site and went looking, or you did some searching and it turned up, or...?

KH: We didn't even do any searching, because we weren't linked up to the Net at all at that time, I've forgotten how long ago it was. We used to receive, through our older brother, who was linked up, messages that were sent to the guy who had a web site. So they were all passed through and collected by our brother, who used to print them up for us.

NR: What do you see happening in the future; what plans do you have for it, if any?

KH: It's there now and being maintained by Louis van Dompselaar, who's based in Holland, as an information outlet. We will just keep giving him information to update and inform people what's happening.

NR: Turning back to Asphalt, I'm going to play a bit of devil's advocate here -- if you don't want to bother with this, don't worry! I read an amusing and, in my humble opinion, completely wrong review of Asphalt recently in Option magazine. The review seemed to castigate the piece for not being either an appropriate instrumental reconstruction of the period music on the one hand or wasn't subversive enough in trying to twist it around on the other. What would be your response to such a criticism.

NH: Yeah, I read that -- it was like he was saying, 'Why bother?' I got the impression that they just don't like new interpretations of old pieces of art or culture. They'd like something to be more period or more authentic.

KH: When you go back and look at Cabinet of Dr. Caligari or Asphalt, there was never a score. When it was screened at cinemas, there were certain pieces of music by Stravinsky or the like which were recommended to be played on an old wind-up gramaphone.

NH: Our whole intention of doing these scores was to introduce a new generation to those movies, and by doing that we use modern technology and our music. It's just a total difference in what you want to get out of it.

NR: On the subject of reviews and commentary, what do you think was the funniest and/or oddest question anyone's ever asked you about your music, if there was one. Also, was there ever a case where somebody in writing a review of your work missed the point entirely?

KH: God, I'm sure there are, but at this moment I can't think -- we're going to have to come back to that, I think!

NR: Then moving on -- there was one note from another interview where you used an interesting word to describe your work, where you described yourself in the studio as 'discerning.' I find that interesting for its sense of stepping back and thinking, 'Hmm, what is the most appropriate, the most right thing here?' Could you expand on that?

KH: I think we meant discerning in the fact that...we don't discuss, but if we're working on a piece, if we both agree that it sounds good or it works well, then it's left, it's included. If we don't agree, it's gone.

NH: In that sense, it's a very good quality control between the two of us -- it's been accepted by both of us and it's going to carry on being developed.

KH: When we first started recording in the studios, it was a process where we had to pay for the studio time, so you had a certain number of days and hours to record something, so you kept constantly looking at the clock thinking, 'If we have to stop, that's time and money we're wasting.' But when you've got your own studio, you can overindulge, and you can probably add too much, so you do have to step back sometimes and look at what you're doing.

NR: Can you talk a bit more about your current studio set-up -- it's a home studio?

KH: Yes -- any money we have gotten we normally put into equipment, so over the years it's built up, and like you said, it's Mac-based with LogicAudio running, and two ADAT machines, a small digital desk EMR...

NH: It's pretty well equipped. We have been doing all our final mixes for the last two, three years.

NR: And Sheffield's your home?

NH: That's right, yeah.

NR: Is there anything of the atmosphere of Sheffield that's crept into the music over the years?

KH: I think a lot of people -- probably people who don't live in Sheffield or the UK! -- think that Sheffield is a post-industrial, constantly gloomy or rainy place with people wandering around in long macs looking like someone out of Cabaret Voltaire! But it's not like that -- there's an industrial section which died, the steel industry, but now there's a huge cultural center, a whole quarter which is growing up -- studios, film centers, cinemas. We just see it as a base.

NH: People have asked us if we could make the music in a different location, and I think we could do it anywhere. But obviously the great musical influence of Sheffield has got some subconscious influence on what we do.

NR: I understand you're pretty near to the folks over at Warp Records?

KH: Yeah, they're just two blocks down the road!

NR: And that, perhaps rather obviously, leads me into some questions regarding the Les Jumeaux material, because there was the work done with Andy Weatherall. I seem to recall a recent note where you said it was a bit one-sided, where you've done this work for him but he hasn't remixed you guys in exchange...

KH: You've been reading all these reviews, haven't you?

NR: I just went to the website and checked all the links!

NH: We're not bitter about it -- it sounds like we are, but that's not it! The collaboration with Andy Weatherall at the very beginning, when we reworked one of his tracks, 'Smokebelch,' that was the first time that we thought to ourselves, 'Hmm, we're doing something here which is a little different from In the Nursery.' We had these musical styles that we were interested in which probably wouldn't fit with ITN, so we couldn't bring it out under that name, so that's what planted the seed.

KH: It's when we first used the name Les Jumeaux; the credit for 'Smokebelch' reads 'Preproduction work by Les Jumeaux.'

NR: Unfortunately, I've still not been able to get copies of the two collections, Feathercut and Cobalt, so if you could describe them further -- I understand the distinction that it's not on the In the Nursery wavelength, but is it any one particular style, or does Les Jumeaux encompass a variety of them?

NH: There are obviously certain themes and styles that people can pick up on that's In the Nursery, but it's just a chance to explore other music we're interested in, in the veins of stuff like Massive Attack, experiment more sonically with different types of beats, electronic/ambient styles. Because we've done that with Les Jumeaux, that's crept back in to In the Nursery in some places, I think.

NR: With the two collections out, is there an overriding plan for another one, or will it just simply happen as music is recorded?

KH: I think it's going to be a case of putting aside certain tracks and then deciding to put that out. We're not going to sit down and say that in four months' time we're going to bring out a Les Jumeaux track.

NR: And since Massive Attack was mentioned, what did you think of the new album, since I recall one of you, if not both, was looking forward to it, as said in a recent interview --

NH: You *do* read everything, don't you!

NR: I was just boning up! I figured, 'Hey, better learn what's up!'

NH: I like it a lot, but I also think there's a lot of other bands that are doing similar stuff but just don't get the recognition because they haven't got the hype or the marketing.

NR: Any particular favorites? I gather late Talk Talk is a fave; I love that as well.

NH: Spirit of Eden and Laughing Stock, yes -- I'm a great fan of Craig Armstrong's as well.

NR: The Space Between Us? A fine album indeed. Thinking on musical influences, stepping away a bit -- we've been talking about working with film, so to make this more general, what are your influences that are not musical, or are there any that go into what you do? Is there a sense of bringing some sort of art or style to your music? There's obviously the poetry that's had a key part in some of your albums, especially, naturally, Anatomy of a Poet, but is there anything else?

KH: I think if it is, it's much more general. You couldn't just pinpoint it; you can't just say, 'I went to the cinema, saw a film and that inspired me to write a song.' It's just the total cultural thing of going to cinemas, reading books, the whole cultural thing together, basic day to day living. In the past, people like Jean Genet and Jean Cocteau on both the type of music and some of the artwork as well. It is ongoing; you come across new writers and new artists, and you just explore their work.

NR: Stepping now aside to something I've always found very interesting, which you've mentioned earlier in this interview, is the sense that you're not in fact formally trained in music, that the music comes in just simply working with it. Was there ever a thought that you wanted to know more, or do you just feel that it would not be necessary or might even impact your music?

KH: We shared a guitar for our sixteenth birthday as a present, and I think we made initial steps to start learning chords and stuff, and punk came along! You realized you didn't need to learn chords, you just played from the heart -- you could learn the basic chords and get by. So that was the great incentive -- bands like Joy Division were inspirational, to express yourself through music. We've never looked back. Once you get a keyboard, you just play -- you may make a mistake, but you can play again and get it right, and with the advent of technology, it's allowed us to have great control over sounds, to create what we wanted to, what we had in our minds. We didn't need to follow any sort of musical tradition or theory.

NH: I think it would tarnish what we did as well, if we learnt those rules -- we'd play our music in a completely different way.

NR: Tying in with that, I find it very interesting and striking that you got the influence from punk and all that -- do you see yourself as continuing that initial aesthetic, that anyone can do it developing on their own? Is that something that is key to what you do?

KH: Yes, it's definitely our form of expression. I was brought up in going through art college and expressing my ideas through some sort of art form. I went through learning everything -- performance art, photography, video, graphic design -- but it was basically music that was the common one, the one that I decided was the way to take.

NR: Turning now and stepping back towards the Les Jumeaux material, in a way, is the next track I'll be playing, from the Scatter compilation, but also released on a Sabres of Paradise remix single called Versus, is the remix of the Sabres' 'Haunted Dancehall.' This is another one of those songs that if I play it at people, it really grabs their interest. What's your take on this remix -- had you done remixes for many artists, or any artists, before?

KH: It probably was the first one -- how it came about was that Andy was supposed to be sending up the samples for us to do the remix with, and we got so frustrated and thought, 'We can't wait that long,' so we just went out and bought the CD, sampled one little blippy sound, and worked from that. We rang him up and said, 'Don't bother sending the samples! We've done the mix!'

NH: He was DJing in the area, came up and listened to it and loved it. A guy from Rough Trade over in Germany, I think, got back in touch with the guy at Warp, because it was going through Warp Records, and said, 'Of all the remixes, the 'Haunted Dancehall' one is brilliant. When is the fifteen minute version coming out?' He wanted it to go on and on for ages!

KH: We really enjoyed doing that mix, and we enjoyed doing the second one for him as well, for his Two Lone Swordsmen project, but I think the 'Haunted Dancehall' one has been the favorite remix for us -- we play it live. It also got a very interesting...well, it's quite a sad connection now. We're not royalists or anything, but when Princess Diana died, the radio stations in the UK put on a looped one-hour selection of music, and 'Haunted Dancehall' was one of them. It's quite sad -- every time that you hear it, it takes you back to that day.

NR: I'd imagine. So you just turned it on and realized it was happening?

NH: The radio stations weren't playing anything else; they were shut down for the day. There was no dialogue, just that...

NR: Very striking; I had not heard of that. With that in mind, from the Scatter compilation, here is the remix of Sabres of Paradise by In the Nursery, 'Haunted Dancehall.'

NR: That there was 'Biello Dumlo' from Lingua, and before that the remix of 'Haunted Dancehall.' We're now moving into the final part of the interview here -- let's see, just a few last things to cover. It's been mentioned on and off through the interview that you do indeed run your own record company now. Was there a straw that broke the camel's back which made you decide you wanted to be in charge of your own, or was it something you were working towards for a while?

NH: In a way we'd been working towards it, because when we were with Roadrunner, the situation with the previous company, Sweatbox, had been that they had gone bust, owing us a lot of money. That took a number of years to be sorted out, and eventually as a sort of peace offering they said, 'Well, you've got the rights to your back catalog, no problem.' We had that, so we decided to rerelease those titles. Eventually, titles from our time with Third Mind were starting to come back into our ownership. We'd already set up the ITN Corporation to rerelease our back catalog, and after doing Anatomy of a Poet, Roadrunner, who weren't marketing us as well as we thought they could -- they're more used to dealing with thrash-rock stuff like Sepultura! -- decided not to take up the option for our next album. It was the best thing that could have happened to us, really! We had all the connections, so we got a distributor for Europe and now the US, and just did it ourselves.

KH: We'd always managed ourselves when we played concerts in Europe or wherever, and we'd built up contacts in different countries, so we knew distributors we could work with, so it did seem the right choice to do.

NH: The logical step.

NR: I gather it takes some time and effort to keep everything working on that, to keep an eye on things that before then were not necessarily your responsibility?

KH: We'd done everything pretty much before having our own label, doing the artwork and so forth. There is a lot of work, obviously, all the production side of it, getting stuff pressed up -- we have to oversee all that, we don't have anybody else working for us -- but we just enjoy it, having the final say in what happens.

NR: There was a note in one interview that you might be doing a collaboration with a Sheffield dance company -- did that happen?

NH: Probably an old interview!

KH: It was on the cards at the time, but things overtook that. It's something that's been put to the side, and I don't know if it will happen. It's something I've always wanted to do, work with a dance company; I made the initial contacts in Sheffield, but both themselves and us were too busy to pursue it, really.

NR: And I understand, to turn the tables around, Nigel, you do interviewing and writing yourself.

NH: That's right, for technical and music magazines in the UK. I can't get the time to do it now; it was quite time-consuming, arranging interviews. But I've interviewed folks like Bill Nelson, Robert Smith, bands like 808 State -- music I'm interested in! I ring up a company, get an interview and write an article.

NR: Was there one particularly funny or strange interview, something that made you go, 'This is odd!'

NH: It's hard asking people, since we get interviewed quite a lot.

KH: He's quite aware of asking questions that he's been asked!

NH: The interview with David Sylvian was really good -- just a phone interview, but he was interesting. Robert Smith was really interesting -- I actually went down to the place he was recording at at the time. He's really clued up on what the Cure's all about, and he's got a lot of business sense about what's happened. He seemed really aware of what he was doing.

NR: In the final minutes before wrapping up -- and thanks again, this has all been quite grand! -- some final thoughts, and we'll play one last track from Lingua, 'I Ask For Grace.'

KH: That's just been licensed for a French compilation, actually!

NR: Any theme for the compilation?

KH: It's on Virgin France, and it's got a weird selection of other people! It's got Ennio Morricone on it, Lisa Gerrard, a Frank Sinatra track on it as well.

NH: It's part of a series, this is volume three -- or four?

KH: It's got some classic pieces on it, so we're quite privileged to be on there -- it has Samuel Barber's 'Adagio for Strings,' which is wonderful stuff.

NR: This will probably have to be the final question then -- a two-parter. One, how would you define, for yourself, what art is? Two, would you describe yourselves as satisfied artists? If so, why so? If not, why not?

NH: Art is...communication. Even language, just talking to one another, is art, because what we're doing is expressing ourselves in some way. The fact that you know what I'm talking about is some sort of training, because we understand this code we share. Art is for anyone, anyone can be artists. For me and for everyone, it should be so.

KH: At the same time I don't think that art should be placed up there as untouchable...

NH: Oh no! It's there for everyone. Are we satisfied artists? Definitely yes. It would satisfy myself just to release a CD, even if nobody listened to it, just to do a one-off, a cassette or something. The sheer fact that other people listen to it, get so much out of it, that we can go all over the world performing it and meet such great people -- it's just the icing on the cake, really, and makes it all worthwhile.

NR: Klive, any thoughts on that yourself?

KH: I was trying to formulate that at art college, the whole thing about communication. I tried to find the right art form to express myself, and it came to be music.

NR: Klive and Nigel Humberstone, thanks for coming down! Much appreciated again! Again, there's a strong chance they will be performing in LA for a screening of Caligari at the end of October; any information about that and what else In the Nursery will be doing can be found on inthenursery.com.