Happy Music with Jean-Jacques Perrey and Dana Countryman

Jan 8, 2007 2:51 PM, By Gino Robair

Known primarily in the U.S. for his legendary collaboration with Gershon Kingsley, Jean-Jacques Perrey has contributed heavily to the subconscious adoption of electronic music in popular culture. Through numerous television and film appearances—as well as commercials, children's shows, and parades at Disneyland—his unique tape-splice rhythms and quirky melodies have influenced generations.

In 2006 the 77-year-old Perrey, and Everett, Washington-based Dana Countryman collaborated on a new CD project, The Happy Electropop Music Machine (Oglio, 2006), which gleefully returns to the kitschy electronic pop that typified the Moog-record craze in the late '60s and early '70s. Countryman is an aficionado of obscure and unusual recordings, making a name for himself publishing the Cool and Strange Music magazine—just the man you'd want to see collaborating with Perrey. Countryman is also Perrey's biographer, and a book is promised for 2007.

I recently spoke with both men by phone about their new release—Countryman in October, 2006, and Perrey in November, 2006. Perrey's daughter and business manager, Patricia, helped with the occasional French-to-English translation. The duo had recently finished their west coast tour—Perrey's first ever tour in the U.S.—that stopped in Seattle, San Francisco, and Hollywood.

Did you enjoy your U.S. tour?
Jean-Jacques Perrey: It was very, very nice. As Dana says, it was a blast. [Laughs.]

How did your collaboration with Dana begin?
Before we went into his studio, we talked about the work that needed to be done using Skype. He would sometimes send me CDs to listen to. And I would play along and tell him "In this place, we should put this harmony," etcetera, etcetera.

I sent him MiniDiscs of myself working, because I have an electronic piano here that records 10 tracks. Of course it's not the same sound that is on the final CD, because it copies only the tracks from the keyboard. So Dana changed the orchestration using the proper instruments. By the time I went to his studio, it was almost already done. That's how we did The Happy Electropop Music Machine record. We are planning to make another CD in 2008.

Did you send him MIDI files as well?
No, because I'm not an expert with the Internet. I don't know how to do it. He sent me links, and I can listen to them. But I cannot create the links myself.

You added the Ondioline parts when you visited Dana?
Yes. He had an Ondioline in his studio, and I played it on the "Troll's Story" tracks.

Do you still own an Ondioline?
Yes, I have one in France, but it is very fragile.

Do you travel will it?
If I have to travel with it, I take off all the tubes and all the fragile things in the amplifier, and I put them in a flight case. And I take the head of the Ondioline with me on the plane, because it cannot travel in the baggage compartment.

Are the rhythmic samples on the new record from the original library you created in the '60s?
Yes, some of them. After the '60s, I created new ones.

So you have a stock library of all those sounds on your computer?
Yes, and Dana has it too. So when I visit him in Seattle, I don't have to bring the CDs with me.

How many sounds are in the library?
About 4,000. In the '60s, I created about 1,500 sounds that I used backwards, or double-speed, or half-speed. That's how I did the bumble bee sounds [from "Flight of the Bumble Bee" on Moog Indigo]. I changed each note by slowing it down a little bit to get the half tone, and then slowing it down again to get the next half tone. So I had a complete keyboard of bee sounds.

You had a tiny piece of tape for every note?
Exactly. When I happened to use, for instance, the "Flight of the Bumble Bee" sounds, I put something on the ceiling to hang them, note for note. And when I needed a C, or a D, or a D-sharp, I had the tape hanging from the ceiling, and I cut them to the proper length, because they had to be cut into mathematically exact lengths. If you don't do that, the rhythms slow down or speed up. So I had to be careful when I was sampling each sound.

How did you keep track of the tiny pieces of tape?
I sometimes put numbers on the tapes so I could recognize what sound it was. It was with a special pencil so as not to damage the tape.

So you had hundreds of tape pieces hanging from the ceiling, each with a number on it.
Yes, that's right. [Laughs.] The number was written on the reel of the tape.

Do you plan to release your sounds as a sample collection?
No. For the moment, I keep them to use on my own records. But maybe when I disappear, my daughter will put the samples on a CD and sell it.

How would you begin splicing various individual sounds into a rhythm?
It was very easy, because I have a simple policy for building loops. For instance, for the beginning I use a high sound. Then it must be a low sound next. The third one must be a medium sound. Then go back and go to high. So it is diversified: it is not boring.

So you always alternate between a high, a low, and a medium sound?
That's right, yes.

When you created these rhythms, did you draw them out on paper ahead of time, or did you work intuitively?
I did it in my mind: we cannot write this kind of sound. I chose whatever sound works best after the previous one. For instance, a soft sound, and then an attacked sound, then another attacked sound, and then a soft sound, almost schematically. But I never prepared the scheme in advance.

I've read that you classified your sounds by the type of attack.
That's what I called a brutal attack or a soft attack. Such as "tu" or "zzzziii." So to differentiate, the first one is brutal and the second one, in my French jargon, is soft. [Laughs.]

You recorded all these sounds yourself?
Yes.

What equipment did you use?
I had a regular tape recorder, one that ran at 38 centimeters per second [15 inches per second (ips)], and another one that ran at 19 centimeters per second [7.5 ips]. So I could copy things at half-speed. But when you work with tape it's important that you respect the exact length of it in centimeters, or even millimeters. I preferred to use the speed of 38 centimeters per second.

What sort of sounds were you looking for as source material? I imagine you brought people in to play some of the sounds.
Yes. Harry Breuer did some of his sounds on tape. And I recorded outside—cars, the environment, cries of animals, and every kind of unexpected sound. And when I got back to the studio, I isolated them and made a master from them. Later, when I needed to, I re-recorded the sounds onto another tape. I did not use the master [for tapes splices], because if I used it, I wouldn't have any more master.

When you returned to France after your time in the U.S., you began creating music for animation. Were you inspired by earlier cartoon soundtracks?
No, I never copied or was inspired by anything else. I did what I thought was better. I work by instinct. I do everything by ear.