Emmerald: What part of New Zealand are you from?
MDCL: From Auckland in the North Island.

Emmerald: That's a nice town.
I had a lay-over in Auckland a few years ago when I went to Australia. I was there three days and it rained the whole time. (laughs) It was nice though.
MDCL: What time of year was that?

Emmerald: It was in October, so it was spring there. .
MDCL: It's pretty amazing down there if you get the chance to go in the summertime, like December or January.

Emmerald: Oh yes, I can imagine. So you've moved to London now. How long have you been there?
MDCL: I came over here for the first time in 1998, and then I moved over in 2000.

Emmerald: Do you think you might go back home?
MDCL: Oh yes, that's definitely on the cards. It's too special down there to pass it up.

Emmerald: What's the jazz music scene like in New Zealand?
MDCL: I think now it's influenced by soul and hip-hop, but when I was growing up, there were more old boys playing straight-ahead jazz. Those of us who were younger were doing our own thing, but the grown-ups were in that straight-ahead mode. We were also into what was big in New York in the late 80s, early dance and stuff like that. There was also a big cross-over scene with funk and hip-hop. And there were a lot of rap musicians down there. So we had all that going on as well.

Emmerald: The indigenous people in New Zealand, the Maori people, what kind of music do they make?
MDCL: It's not as deep as what you get from Africa or the Caribbean or the Americas, but in the Pacific Islands, there are some places that have some great rhythms and a more traditional indigenous sound with the percussion and the harmony. But in New Zealand itself, I don't think there is so much of that; it is a lot simpler style.



Emmerald: Have you seen any efforts to use or collaborate with Maori musicians?
MDCL: There're some world music acts that are touring around Europe a lot which bring the Maori cultural element into their music. There's also a new generation of hip-hop and soul kids who are bringing in the percussion and the Maori language as well, so it's definitely happening, yes.

Emmerald: Are there artists in New Zealand who are making music that would probably be termed "nu jazz" or "broken beat?"
MDCL: Definitely. There's a production crew called This Information who are doing that kind of broken soul and house stuff. There's definitely a growing scene for that whole sound. I think the kids who grew up on jazz and hip-hop and house want to make that same kind of music, and they want to branch out and do it creatively.

Emmerald: As a musician, you have the best of both worlds. You're trained as a live musician and clearly accomplished in the studio as an electronic music maker. How do you think having that balance has helped you develop musically or influenced your style?
MDCL: I grew up playing jazz and that was my serious thing. For fun I'd play afro funk jams with the DJs. When I came to London for the first time, it was after I'd been to Cuba. I spent a few months there and had my head just blown off by the music down there. Then got to London and hooked up with Phil Asher, IG and Dego and the Bugz and I heard something I'd never heard before. The way they made music, they brought fundamental styles together with the history of music, of black music, in a cohesive way which was not purely nostalgic, you know.

It was progressive and creative. For me, that brought back the hip-hop, jazz and the soul that I loved growing up and I saw what I could bring to that musically. On the same token, I remember when Asher and I were putting together a remix for Fini Dolo, and I remember I had this very simple key part and Asher heard it and said, "Yes, that's it." I said, "What do you mean that's it?" (laughs) Their mentality was just that we're good musicians and if we find the right musicians to work with then we can find a balance. We're not just throwing together beats because that's not what it's about. It's about a marriage and the balance with the musicality and rhythm.

Emmerald: Do you think that artists who are not necessarily trained as musicians are at any kind of disadvantage?
MDCL: No, not at all. They're at a complete advantage. That was the thing that blew me away. Seeing someone like IG, people who weren't trained in music creating brilliant musical and progressive things through drum kits and samples and stuff, it was amazing. They weren't restricted to the rules at all. There's no education in their view that says no, you can't do that. I spent four years kind of de-programming myself from that kind of view.

Emmerald: (laughs) Not listening to the little voice telling you, "You're wrong. You can't do that".
MDCL: Yes, it's anything goes. That's the great thing with someone like Herbie Hancock. When he's playing any note no matter how technically wrong it is, he's got the conviction and passion behind what he's saying or he's playing to make it right. You know, anything can work; it's just how you put it together.

Emmerald: Right. Let's talk about your upcoming album, "Tides Arising." You know, I was doing a little research and I discovered your first album, I think, "First Thoughts." I found it on the Amplified site.
MDCL: (laughs) You're deep on the internet aren't you?

Emmerald: (laughs) Got to be. But "First Thoughts" was like straight-ahead jazz, which surprised me a little, pleasantly surprised, though. Do you have any pieces like that on your upcoming album, any straight-ahead piano jazz?
MDCL: No, to me this album is about how I hear beats and musical structures and the vocal element. I'm focusing on that as a project. There is another project coming in the pipeline which is much more of a jazz project. And for people who were onto the first album, it may be what some of them would think I would be doing next.

Emmerald: Your other project that's more jazz-based, is that going to be a full-length project?
MDCL: Yes, definitely, when it comes. (laughs) This album was over two years in the making and it was going to be finished a few times before it was finished, but it got finished when it got finished.

Emmerald: Was there anything that delayed you, or were you just kind of taking your time with it?
MDCL: I went through a few different writing processes where I'd start to build some tunes and then I'd end up just keeping two of them. That kind of thing went on for a while. And then we had our first child about a year and a half ago. I said I was going to have the album done by the time he was born, but it just didn't happen. It was great though, because the whole album reflects that progression of time for me.
The earliest tunes were written around the time of "Relax Unwind," then there's the stuff in between, and the bulk of it came within the last six months to a year.

Emmerald: How would you say having a child has affected your music or your approach to the business end of things?
MDCL: It's just made me think about getting more disciplined and makes keep on it. It's an odd time in the industry and I'm glad that I've got to this point where the album's finished and the Japan release was confirmed straight off the bat pretty much. The paradigm has shifted a bit in the industry and it's created a more level playing field for a lot of people. It's at a point now where every man's tune is on whatever label and it's up against the next man's tune. I think the good music will get through.

Emmerald: Will this album be on your record label, Antipodean Records?
MDCL: I actually don't know at this point. The idea was to do the album sampler as a four-track promo on my label and then take it from there and work with strategic partners in different areas to make it work best. I want to retain a lot of control with it, with how it's represented, so it's either my label, or a label that has a parallel vision. In New Zealand it'll be on Antipodean.

Emmerald: Is there a projected release date?
MDCL: Well I'm looking for it to be out there early in the New Year. The Japan release is late September, and that's when we're kick it all off.

Read on ...

Emmerald: Early in the new year? That's too long to wait. (laughs) I'll have to get it for $50 from Japan.
MDCL: (laughs) Well that's the policy, you know.

Emmerald: I know, I know.
MDCL: I think there's a lot of talk about the Japan situation because a lot of albums have been released there. You know, for me the fact of the matter was I had a great A& R man there and a great label that heard it, wanted it, signed it, now they're releasing it.

Emmerald: What label will it be on?
MDCL: It's on Columbia in Japan. You know their A&R culture, I haven't found anything like that anywhere in the world. There're some labels that are like, yes we'll put it out, but then, you know, I might as well do it on my own label. It's interesting because the big jazz labels say, "we love it, but it's a bit too urban or too R&B". And then the urban labels are saying it's too jazz. And I'm like, well, that's the whole point.

Emmerald: You've got a couple of tunes on there with Bembe Segue from the UK.
MDCL: There's a bundle of Bembe Segue on there.

Emmerald: Good. The two of you together are like the quintessential vocalist/producer/musician collaboration in the broken/ nu jazz kind of thing. She's such an incredible singer. How did you all end up getting together?
MDCL: I first met her when I came over in '98 when I met IG for the first time. We did four really demented tracks in four days and Bembe sang on a couple of those. We're such a close-knit community anyway, it was inevitable that we'd cross-paths again. So there came a point where we were like let's do a tune together. And the whole writing and partnership just jelled from the start, and as it turned out there was more than one tune. And she's also singing in the live band which was a lot of fun.

Emmerald: Oh wow.
MDCL: I've just started a project call The FreeSoul Sessions, and it's similar to the live band in that there's MPC and the keys, but we've also got the live drums and musicians. But with the FreeSoul Sessions, it's all improvised. I program all the beats live and improvise tunes and that whole thing. Bembe's been doing that as well, which is pretty mental.

Emmerald: Are you going to do any kind of online marketing for the album, like where people can buy individual mp3s and all that?
MDCL: I'd like to. As far as doing it myself, I'd have to have an infrastructure and the time to do that. I would have to find the right partner to do that with. I'm really into that technology though.

Emmerald: Well with people being able to download whatever they want or trade it on CDRs, it's essential I think. Particularly in this style of music is where the community is so small, one person gets the CDR of something and it's gone; it spreads like wildfire. I think it's definitely something that artists have to look into and try and do to make sure that their music isn't just out there without them reaping any type of benefit from it.
So, Tell me about the "spirit of jazz".
MDCL: (laughs) It's just about the vibe, the vibe and the artistic ethic the music was approached with. It is quite a subjective thing when you hear it. I heard it in 60s Coltrane and Miles, and 50s Ahmad Jamal, and in the 70s with Herbie, the Mizell Brothers, and Weather Report. Then in the 80s and 90s it came through hip-hop for me, it really had that vibe and creative ethic about it. And then yes, I don't know where it went then but for me I fortunately crossed paths with the West London community.

Emmerald: Who do you think embodies that same spirit now? You would say the West London folks, but does anybody else that capture that spirit?
MDCL: Yeah, for sure, The Roots have done that. Sa Ra do that. When I listen to other stuff, music from around the world, I don't really want to hear broken music, you know. If it's a banging track I can appreciate it, but really for that style I've got that stuff in my head all day long. So that's why Sa Ra was so refreshing when I first heard their stuff. I can fully appreciate where they're coming from, the jazz history and the deep hip-hop history, and that whole creative ethos, I don't see it as being different at all from IG or Dego. It's just guys making music with a level of understanding about the history of music.
Not necessarily theoretically or technically, but just vibe-wise you know. Moody Man has that as well.

Emmerald: What kind of music have you been listening to lately? You've got Sa Ra, and you've said that you don't necessarily, at the end of the day, want to break out your all your Afronaught remixes, (laughs) because that's what's going through your head all day.
MDCL: I've been checking out Messiaen lately, that's nice. He's a French composer. Quite contemporary and very twisted harmony. There's a lot of albums that I'm still coming across from the 70s era. I've been checking some Michael White and Don Cherry albums that I haven't come across before and stuff like that. I'm listening to music that encourages you to want listen to it basically. It's funny, recently we did a, Bembe, myself, Seiji and Domu, did a soundtrack for a Dutch dance company. It was one of the most off-the-wall things I've heard in a long time. And so for about a month that was all I was listening to, it and I was quite happy with that.

Emmerald: Really? Tell me more about that.
MDCL: The show's called Legends of The Underground. We did a show in July at the Paradiso in Amsterdam. It's a trilogy and we did one part of the trilogy. They must have had about thirty dancers, European classical dancers, some breakers from Korea, jazz dancers from England, some Dutch kids and many other kinds. They had all the dancers and then a 3D animation which was going out at the same time, and then our ridiculous cinematic afro- cosmic broken soundtracks going on.



Emmerald: Wow!
MDCL: It was pretty mental.

Emmerald: Yes, it sounds like it. So is that something that's going to go on any kind of tour, or is it just a local thing?
MDCL: They're local at the moment. They have a pilot show and they're looking at how to take it further from there.

Emmerald: What were some of your first music playing experiences? You started playing piano pretty early on.
MDCL: Yes, at four, yes.

Emmerald: So how did your career evolve from preschool? Were you in bands when you were a teenager?
MDCL: (laughs) I did a lot of playing solo piano competitions at school, and that was pretty much all classical it until I got an interest in jazz, which was probably through my dad's big band collection and my big brother playing piano. When I got to high school was the first time I got into a band as such. I started playing with some guys jamming at lunchtime and just messing around. And then about sixteen I met a crew from the other side of Auckland which was like meeting a crew from the other side of town. (laughs) They were all hip-hop and new jack swing kids, and so that was where I found a lot of that music. At my school, most of the kids were into guitar music or indie brit-pop. But the black hip-hop and soul music, the first Guy album, Public Enemy, that music caught my ear. So I went with them for a while and they got some drum machines and keyboards and I got into that. And then I remember I woke up one day and thought no, that's not for me. I sold all my records and my gear and just got on the piano properly studying jazz. I got some different bands together and played with some local musicians. Nathan Haines and I played at a couple of places in New Zealand.

Emmerald: Were your parents musically inclined?
MDCL: My dad was strictly of the mind that all of his boys would learn jazz, so I was playing piano. My grandparents all had different musical inclinations, but my parents didn't really take that up.

Emmerald: What kind of advice would you give an up and coming musician/producer?
MDCL: Be adventurous. There's too much tired shit around, and for whatever reason, I guess because of lack of exposure to other music or other subcultures as music makers, I find there's young people who aspire to what I would conceive is lowest common denominator musical expression. If you're truly passionate about music as a creative form, then you have to challenge yourself and be surrounded by other people who challenge you constantly. Then yeah, be adventurous with it.