SIMON POSFORD: Raj will turn up, sometimes with a load of samples or recordings. One time he went to Brazil and recorded some stuff there. Otherwise, he’ll record stuff off of TV shows, some spoken words, or bamboo forests creaking in the wind…something like that. So that might spawn an idea for a track. Raj is a very visual person, and he’s a fabulous painter, so he might come up with a visual image that, in time, I’ll translate into music. Over the years he’s come up with some inspiring imagery, such as a lake shimmering in the sky. Our most recent one was about CERN, the Large Hadron Collider in Switzerland, and about the idea of particles colliding at high velocities, neutrinos, protons, and neutrons smashing into each other, creating black holes explosions and new universes. Stuff like that. So we’ll have a visual image. Then, when I can finally get him to shut up, Raj will sit on the sofa and do a thousand drawings into his notebook, while I’ll sit at the computer and get about translating our images into sound. I generally do the programming, playing, and production because Raj can’t work the computer or any of the equipment, but he’s the inspiration and the muse, and will play flute or jabber strange vocals into the mic. We start with just a blank canvas, an empty computer screen, and just add more and more sounds—either until it’s time to go home, I’m sick of having him in my house, or he’s sick of sitting on my sofa listening to me torture him with various obnoxious instruments. Then we stop, and later we mix it. Then we give it the acid test. He’ll take some LSD and put the headphones on when I’m ready to mix. Then I’ll play it to him at high volume, and—judging by the state of his eyeballs and his face afterwards—I’ll know whether we’ve got a good one or not. (laughter)

Full interview available here



This article was also included in the book Manifesting Minds: A Review of Psychedelics in Science, Medicine, Sex, and Spirituality