Cykada’s Tim Doyle explores the origins of the project and his sound-triggering drum setup that ties his solo work to the sound of the ensemble
Drummer, percussionist and composer Tim Doyle anchors a number of boundary-pushing outfits: from the far-reaching roots music ensemble Don Kipper, to the electronically inclined fusion sextet, Cykada. He’s the kind of exploratory musician you’ll hear laying down Balkan rhythms one night, techno pulses the next, but its the cutting edge sound-triggering concept he’s realised in recent years, that is arguably the most intriguing aspect of his work.
The principle behind it isn’t too complex. Contact microphones on each drum or cymbal capture the energy of a stroke and allow it to be turned into a digital signal, triggering an assigned virtual instrument, synth or audio file to sound. The process happens instantaneously, synchronising the triggered sounds with each strike. The concept is a thread that runs through his mind-boggling solo project Chiminyo and his work with Cykada, the latter of whom play their first shows in the Midlands and North of England, next month.
Exploring the origins of this concept and how he discovered it, Tim explains, ‘It came about from jamming with a friend of mine who has a Prophet 6 synthesiser.’ The pair came across a mysterious input that wasn’t for a vocoder or pedal and set about experimenting with it. ‘We plugged it in and worked out that if you held down a chord when I hit a drum, it played one of the notes from the chord and then, kind of, cycled through the chord. You can hold down an arpeggio and then my kick drum can control when it will sequence through those notes.’
At first, their discovery went unexplored, but eventually Tim decided to see if he could harness the idea for a solo project. ‘I started to explore Ableton, Max/MSP/Jitter and really, the project grew from that. The concept can go so far; I’ve only just scratched the surface, it’s great! It’s quite laptop intensive – I spend a lot of time on my laptop when I’m programming this stuff, so I haven’t done it in other bands, but in Cykada we’ve explored it.’
As Tim recognises, the solo setup has its limitations, although he has developed systems and workarounds to maximise its potential. With Cykada’s electronics whizz Tilé Gigichi-Lipere however, another dimension can be brought to the concept. ‘With Tilé, it means that I don’t need to program complex things that modulate,’ he explains, ‘he controls it with his gear and knowledge – it creates a much more dynamic relationship.’
We hear the relationship working on Dimension Stepper, a track set to feature on Cykada’s forthcoming debut album. ‘You can hear that, with my kick drum, I’m triggering things that Tilé is controlling. He can manipulate those sounds further than I can when I do it by myself.’
The sound manipulation is one of many ideas that Cykada have developed over a period of gradual discovery. The group haven’t rushed into anything, settling on their sound and creative process over a number of years. ‘It started a couple of years ago’ Tim tells us, ‘and has been an organically-growing thing.’ After bassist Jamie Benzies and electronics/keys player Tilé Gigichi-Lipere had rounded off their project, Myriad Forest, the three began exploring new avenues.
‘Me, Jamie and Tilé started coming together with different musicians, trying to build up something,’ Tim states. “We decided to take our time and start very organically, just jamming with different musicians and seeing who we gelled with the most, gradually building up arrangements by spending a lot of time improvising and not really rushing into anything. In some bands I’ve been in — and am in — it’s like the musical idea has come first: like, ‘oh I want to do a free jazz/spiritual jazz thing and I’m gonna do it with these guys.’ You call them up, book the band, rehearse a couple of hours and start doing gigs. It was important to not have any preconception of stylistic identity, but to start jamming with musicians and start working out what it’s gonna be.”
The group tried a few line-ups, working with percussionists and keys players before settling on today’s line-up. ‘Eventually, we fixed on this line-up and continued the same process of regular rehearsals, writing as much as possible, improvising as much as possible and then yeh…the arrangements that we’ve got at the moment kind of came out of that. So then we got into the studio to record. It all bloomed from there.’
The band recorded their forthcoming album at Total Refreshment Centre, a multi-purpose space in North London that, at the time, also functioned as a live music venue. The space has been important to the group and wider clique of London-based musicians, whose chops developed through the study of jazz music but now benefit the creation of all-encompassing contemporary music.
‘I guess it’s just like a snapshot isn’t it,’ Tim says of their forthcoming record, ‘what we were doing at the time, when we were really inspired and energised by what we had created. We were quite keen to get in [to the studio] as soon as we could and make sure we captured it at the point when we were still very energised by the music.’ He describes the album as being self-produced, but credits the studio expertise of Kristian Craig Robinson, who recorded them in the space.
Before the arrival of their debut LP, the group are due to hit the road, playing their first shows in Manchester, Nottingham and Leeds. As well as playing original material, the group are bringing their Beats of L.A. show, which was initially assembled for a one-off show at the Jazz Café, with them. ‘We were originally gonna do Flying Lotus,’ Tim reveals, referring back to the Jazz Café set, ‘but then we thought we’d open it up and do some other things from the scene. It was great, it was a really good gig!’
In addition to tracks by Flying Lotus and Mndsgn, the group explored the music of Samiyam, Teebs and other L.A.-based beatmakers who helped to shape the sonic identity of the city. ‘We discussed Kamasi Washington a little,’ Tim also reveals, ‘but decided his music was a little too jazzy and thought it would be better to do things that required us to do some interpretation. We thought we would just end up playing a sax-led thing as he plays it, which isn’t particularly useful,’ he laughs. The group are contemplating introducing some new L.A. Beats to the set for the forthcoming shows, but are also excited to play the original material that has been brewing.
When the album drops, the group — which comprises members of Ezra Collective, Where Pathways Meet, Don Kipper and Mimika Orchestra — are certain to make a significant impression on the scene that, thanks to the likes of the aforementioned bands, has gained international renown during this historic year for music.
Interview by Joshua French