Face to Face with BT

An electronica wizard breaks out of trance -- and takes the spotlight -- with Movement in Still Life

by Steve Baltin
June 28, 2000

BT got his start as one of the innovators of trance music in the early '90s. But it wasn't until he provided the score for last year's indie sleeper film Go that the name BT started to creep into public consciousness as one of the hot young stars of electronica.

Movement in Still Life (Nettwerk), follows up on Go with a superb collection that flows between trance, ambient, and traditional pop structure. BT (whose real name is Brian Transeau) called in some top-name guest artists to appear on this new release, including Sasha, Paul Van Dyk, DJ Rap, and Soul Coughing's Michael Doughty. The results could very well land BT a place on the charts alongside such fellow electronic acts Moby and Fatboy Slim.

For BT, who was exiled to major label purgatory for five years while at Warner Bros., the opportunity to make the album he wanted has been his greatest pleasure thus far. However, he does admit he wants people to hear this disc, if only because, as he puts it, "I've done something I'm very proud of."

BT, who currently resides in L.A., is far from the usual electronic artist. Though he says he prefers to spend time in front of his computer making music, he brings a sense of joviality to his music often missing from the scene. A perfect example is the first single from Movement, "Never Gonna Come Back Down" [MP3 sample, 472 kb], a fast-paced track with rants from Doughty about the virtues of the very attractive DJ Rap and quotes from the Book of Revelations spliced together. He brings that same sense of humor to his interviews, where he can frequently be heard laughing after cracking himself up.

Songwriting

Are you a prolific writer?

Yeah, I write constantly. I've got this little recorder, only without a tape, and just today I'm going, "Okay, I got this idea and this." I just love it. I'm always getting ideas. But it's kind of hard when you have a thing ... that's why you have to pick on the movie front something that really moves you instantaneously.

After I did Go tons of stuff got offered. I was offered like eight, nine, or ten pictures, and I would go watch them and it would be like, "Wow that's a cool movie, but I don't hear anything when I'm watching it." And in the first watch of Under Suspicion I got up from it, sat down at the piano, and had the main theme for it instantly. All the other stuff, even a couple that I really loved, it was like, "It's a great movie, but I can't think of anything." It would be work; this was like, "Wow, I hear stuff."

So you gotta pick ones where you feel it. Otherwise, I don't think it matters how much you write, you won't be able to do something that's right for it. You have to dig the movie.

Where does your songwriting originate?

It usually starts with a melody. I'll have a melodic idea in my head -- sometimes I wake up with them, sometimes I'll walk around with them in my head for two weeks -- and then I'll sit down with a guitar or at a piano and write a song, even if it's an instrumental. Ninety-nine percent of the time that's how it happens. It's like one percent of the time where I'm experimenting with electronic stuff that I actually come up with something that becomes a track.

I had the melody for "Godspeed" in my head for two weeks. The only track on there that came from experimenting is "Movement in Still Life." I was looking through some old a cappellas and I found that sample, "Dance to the beat, shuffle my feet," and it was like, "Wow, I could do a really cool track around this." That was the only track on there that didn't come from a melody.

Scoring Films

What made you move out to L.A.?

I came out there specifically for the purpose of working on film stuff. I scored my first film, Go, and it was back and forth like 12 times in six weeks, so I just said, "I should be out there for a while. I definitely want to do more of this kind of stuff." So I went out there.

It's interesting to talk to musical artists about film because it's usually the first time they're working to fit someone else's vision rather than their own.

That's very true. And it's really challenging. The thing is, when you're writing for a record or for a club, or you're writing your own things, you can be very focused on whatever kind of creative energy it is you're trying to achieve on any given piece of music. Whereas when you're given the artistic vision of a filmmaker and actors and everyone involved in that process, your whole job changes: Your whole job is to juxtapose something musical to their vision that enhances it, as opposed to music for music's sake.

What makes it especially challenging?

I think the thing that's the most challenging and the guys that are the best at it -- your Alan Silevstris, your James Horners, your Carter Burwells, Erik Satie -- the thing that these guys have right is subtlety. Where something you could do on a record wouldn't sound over the top, you put it up against picture and it just seems completely, wildly over the top. The guys that are the best at it are able to say really powerful, emotional things, but using very minimal and sparse arrangements. It's very subtle, but it moves the viewer.

What has working on films taught you that you've been able to bring to your own music?

That's a great question 'cause it really has taught me something. It's going back to what we were talking about before, about subtlety. Because there was a period four or five years ago when it was like the bigger the build the better -- the bigger the drop the better. In the style of music that me and a couple of my friends started back in '91, '92, it got to the point where it just got ridiculous. Working movies has been a real head check for me 'cause it's made me realize there's a way to influence people much more powerfully on a subtle level; you can speak with much more volume by just saying the right words. Tracks like "Mercury and Solace" or "Dreaming" are not things I would've done three years ago. They speak much more strongly, but it's subtle.

Next Page: The New Album