Marc Heal

Marc:  A couple of years back I went into the studio for the first time in a very long time, really just to help out Raymond (Watts), who hadn’t also made an album in over a decade. But I ended up singing on couple of tracks on our joint Compound Eye EP. Compound Eye was experimental, a demo really. It’s the sound of two old gunslingers taking their pistols out from under the bed to scrape off the rust and see if they can still shoot straight. But it had a good reaction and I got some confidence back. Raymond too, it seems.
Marc:  Not directly. Of course you learn from the past but I’d never made an album as a solo artist before. You do feel way more exposed and embarrassed putting your own name on it. But in any decent art, you have to reach down to the parts you DON’T want to talk about. To pain and awkwardness and what you really feel, not striking a pose. Trying to be cool and playing to the gallery is seductive but it doesn’t work. Not when you’re over the age of 20, anyway. So this time I tried a different feel. Much more immediate, looser, basic.


Marc:  Singapore is contradictory. Very JG Ballard. On one level it’s a high-rise, atomized, globalized, desensitized environment, full of expatriate bankers and money from all over the east. On another level – literally on the ground – it’s a humming beehive. William Gibson once said Singapore was “Disneyland with the death penalty.” Well I guess you might think that if you stayed in the Pan Pacific for the weekend, but the reality is hidden behind the doors of government built blocks, of warehouses and temples. It’s oily, sweaty. Very real. Very Chinese. Of all the things Singapore resembles, it isn’t Disneyland.
Marc:  Don’t worry, I won’t bore you with technicalities. I wrote the songs with a simple laptop set-up. Then I found this incredible old studio in Singapore, called Lion. It’s huge, built in 1980. The equipment dates back to the early 80’s as well, though a lot of it was broken. I could never have afforded to record in such a vast space but it’s fallen into disrepair, so it was cheap. 
Marc:  I had a writer’s block for a long time. I felt uncomfortable making Cubanate type music because when I wrote that stuff I was in my twenties. I was a different person then. Every time I went down that route it felt false. And I think that industrial music has become very clichéd in it’s imagery. Hellraiser, Terminator samples, same old blah, blah. Stock response. Boring. I gave up.
Marc:  I guess each one is a snapshot through my eyes. Or a mini-film. What’s the point of an artist unless you can step into their shoes for a few moments? To be shown a different life? Of course I edited out scenes and spliced characters together. But it’s true. This is it how it was for me. 
Marc:  Generally excellent, to my relief. There were a few people who were surprised that it was slower, not so club-oriented as Cubanate. I’ve had the Numan reference thrown at me a few times. Hard to deny, since I was using Polymoogs and Minimoogs and Eventides, like he used to. Even Bowie, very flatteringly. But my voice is a totally different thing. Rough as a bear’s arse. I look in the mirror and see an old geezer these days. A few people started to use the term “Adult Oriented Industrial” to describe the album. I grudgingly came to accept the accuracy of that. Not that it’s bland. But it is written by an adult, for adults. 
Marc:  Cubanate played live in Chicago at the Cold Waves festival. We surprised ourselves I think. We enjoyed it, we’re looking at European dates in 2017. We’re going to try to do a Cubanate retrospective. I’m writing sleeve notes for that at the moment. I’ve done some collaborations that might be released next year. I’m always open to working with other people. And I’m just starting to the about a follow up to The Hum.
Marc:  You’re welcome. I’ll take the good luck. We’re all going to need some. Stay safe.

Marc Heal's The Hum is available for purchase HERE via Armalyte Industries.