by Brad Rose

Well, music in general has always been a real force in my life as far back as I can remember.… I didn’t personally get involved with making sounds myself much until college, but before then I was always digging live shows, making posters, just really into it all.… Then, things sorta blew up from there. Started doing all this psychedelic video/film/installation work in art school, and started making music/sound for them however I could. A good friend had left me his huge reel-to-reel 4-track before moving to California, and it was a serious revelation.… Of course I had no idea how to play anything at all... But the world of home recording blew my mind, and things have just evolved from there... You know, self-released some tapes, got my ears turned by the sweet sounds of the underground, etc. which all progressed till early 2000 when the concept of Time-Lag was born out of an especially zoned evening at home. The vision was essentially based on the idea of producing releases that acted as a whole, stimulating as many mind-nerves as possible. It was all about just lifting things a little higher, really putting some love into it... So then the first proper releases came out about a year later, August 2001 I think.

It’s definitely a full time job these days. There’s just so much energy that goes into a lot of these releases, it was becoming impossible to work a day job and stay true to the label at the same time. If my hands aren’t getting dirty it just doesn’t feel quite right...

Well, Ben Chasny initiated the whole thing when all three of us were at Terrastock 5... Quite awhile back now! Of course it took ages to pull it all together and sort everything out, but it moved along quite naturally.

Vinyl's the whole thing for me really. I’ve just never gotten into CDs, for so many reasons. As a kid the only way I could afford to check out different music was to buy used LPs & tapes. CDs were sort of a joke to me. It’s not that I hate them as a medium, they just don’t turn me on at all. The concept of a record, on the other hand, is something I find continuously fascinating and beautiful. There’s something very pure about a needle in a groove, that has no place in the world of ones & zeroes. For me, CDs can’t capture subtleties & emotions the way vinyl can, and that’s a big part of what I’m interested in doing with the label... And of course the packaging possibilities of LPs vs. CDs is a big factor as well... There is a time and place for CDs no doubt, and I dig being able to do both formats of a release when it seems appropriate, but the vinyl will always be the priority. CD-Rs, I’m much more drawn to then real CDs, because there is just so much potential for odd little bursts of expression popping up. Also, the impermanence of a CD-R release vs. a proper record adds a nice balance to what I do with Time-Lag. Helps keep me sane somehow.

Primarily, it’s just a matter of cosmic synchronicities... Tuning in with another individual on some sort of common frequency. Just about every release has come about through some sort of shared vibration. I’m not interested in seeking out anything in specific, its much more about just feeling things out as they go. I mean, on just about every level, that’s what Time-Lag is all about for me. It’s just a big improvisation, free-flowing...

Well, that’s a perfect example of what I was just talking about. I’d been a Tower Recordings fan for years, and had thought about trying to hook up with those guys since the very start of Time-Lag, but when MV and myself finally crossed paths, it was just one of those random harmonics that tuned in perfectly. I think from the start we both knew we were riding a similar wavelength, and it all flowed together quite sweetly from there...

Well, it depends. Generally I’m getting at least some art from the bands, and then I just sort of put it all together, figuring out how I’m physically going to make the covers, etc. I like it best when it’s like that, more of a collaboration between myself and the artist. There have been quite a few releases where it’s really all in minds, though. I used to do quite a bit of the printing myself as well, but these days I’m trying to find other local craftsmen to help out, whether its cutting and scoring paper for me, or letterpress printing the art, screen printing, etc. The physical labor of doing everything myself was getting to be too much. I do still keep it all very hands on, and I wouldn’t want it any other way... There is a lot of work that goes into most releases for sure. A lot of little steps to make it all come together, since I rarely use anything pre-made. Just dealing with the hundreds of pounds of art paper to put together the covers for one LP is a serious task, then I’ve got to get it cut to size, layout the art, print the art, score the folds, stamp them, number them, paste them, collate them, etc., etc., etc. But I’m learning to sort of alternate the really labor intensive stuff with more relaxing projects...

Heh. Well, yeah, I guess that's true. Certainly for any of the hand-rendered fonts I’ve drawn. Mainly I’m just so sick of them by the time I finish something, I never want to see them again! It’s pretty draining coming up with stuff like that. That’s why I prefer getting stuff from the bands to work with. When I’m on my own I get a bit too obsessed I think, and it can be not so healthy for my sanity... I have of course used my old typewriter text quite a bit, which I’ve always used for the label...

Yeah, I’ve always been called an artist I guess. I went to art school in Baltimore for a couple years, then dropped out... but I was mainly doing video/film/sound stuff when I was in school. I never studied graphic design or any of that stuff...

Cool, I definitely prefer to fly under the radar with my own stuff... Drona Parva started in 1996 I guess. Shortly after my friend left me his old 4-track. I got this old analog synth out of a music shop basement. I had been recording with the 4-track tons, but the Drona Parva concept wasn’t
born until I got the synth... I self released a couple tapes, then had a tape come out on the Bees Make Honey label, and a couple things on my friend's Temporary Residence Limited label, when he was just starting up in Baltimore... I’m not sure it’s really evolved much over time! I didn’t know how to play then, and I don’t know how to play now... I was interested in tapping into something very focused back then, conceptually at least, but I guess now I’m more open to the general flow of feelings and expression...

Well, I guess within the actual sounds I make, the tension between different tones and such is quite important... But I’m mainly interested in creating a state of relaxation, for the listener as well as myself. I really can’t think about music before I record, it’s totally outside of my personal being. I’m completely dependent on those rare moments where something flows through me and it no longer matters that I don’t know a single note, tuning, cord, etc... so in that way, it’s all about shedding tension, not creating it.

Man, I’ve heard a lot of records... Ok, well, the fact that both these LPs are upcoming Time-Lag releases doesn’t change the fact that I love them both dearly:

Best new record out this year : Wooden Wand & The Vanishing Voice “Buck Dharma”

Best old record I heard this year : Marconi Notaro “No Sub Reino dos Metazoarios”

Peace?