Mapping Out The Past : Interview with James Chapman

Bedroom producer come Mute Records pioneering electronic artist James Chapman, has come a significantly long way since the days of his 4-track recorder and shoegazing former offerings.  Well, a Mercury Music nomination and critically successful debut album can do that for a person.  Two years later and with a sophomore album release signaling a return to his escapist electronic roots evoking his past, Chapman’s recording and performing incarnation Maps is back.  

Turning The Mind lyrically is Chapman’s exorcism of personal demons; an exploration of themes related to the human mind and the way certain stimuli, particularly chemical, can affect the mind in different ways.  Ten years of substance abuse and Chapman’s mental journey has led him to write this 12-track opus which in many senses is an autobiographical narcotic induced history, bringing him bang up to what he believes is a true manifesto of Maps’ music at this precise moment.

The live facets have been stripped back to form a tight stage presence, simple enough to convey the darker, angrier style of electronica that has now become his staple.  Touring with just techno DJ August to accompany him, his autumn UK tour kicks off soon, permeating the progression of Turning The Mind into audiences' consciousness in a rush of complex soundscapes and visual stimuli.   It’s wholly engulfing, whimsical at times and optimistic; the perfect follow up providing both an intriguing glimpse at Chapman’s state of mind leading him to sobriety.  Don’t take drugs kids.

The album Turning The Mind is out now and while the plaudits continue to come his way and preparations for the tour are happening in earnest, we caught 30 minutes out of Chapman’s day to find out more about his musical journeying.  Mapping out the past if you like.

4or The Record: James, you have been making music for the last few years under the recording name Maps.  How did it all begin leading you to where you are today?

James Chapman: Well I’ve really been making music since I was very young but only properly started creating my own stuff when I was about 18 on my 4-track cassette recorder in my bedroom.  I just used to do it then for my own enjoyment because I loved music so much, but then started to take it more seriously.  It has taken about 10 years to get to where I am now so it’s been a slow process, which has been hard at times, but I got there in the end.  My first idea was to make lo-fi acoustic stuff but then I moved on to electronic music and have really developed my own kind of sound with the equipment I use and that became the Maps sound after a while.

4TR: Why record under the moniker Maps?

JC: [Laughing] I actually started out calling myself Short Break Operator until I realised that was probably the worst name ever.  I got it out of a holiday brochure and even released an EP under that name on Radiate, which is a subsidiary of Virgin in 2003.  But as I gradually realised how shit the name was and because I wanted the music to be about escapism and journeying away from stuff, I changed it to Maps because I thought it was a cooler name.  [Laughing] If anyone used to Google Short Break Operator they would get loads of holiday brochures and now you get loads of ordinance survey maps, I’m not sure which is worse.  

4TR: You released your debut album We Can Create in 2007 and spent an intense period after that touring and promoting it.  Soundwise though, the follow up Turning The Mind has evolved from the guitar sounds of the former into dark electronica – was that intentional and if so why?

JC: It was kind of intentional because I think whatever you're listening to yourself is bound to come across in whatever you are writing or recording.  I hardly listen to any guitar bands now, preferring to listen to a lot of techno and house stuff and just got totally into purely electronic music, so when I was writing the songs that came across.  I wanted to go back to my roots which was purely electronic because I was a bit wary of where it was going with the first album especially with the live aspect; it was a great band but I felt we were getting too perceived as an indie guitar band which is not what I wanted at all; so I had to be a bit brutal and get rid of loads of people and start from scratch on my own.  Now live it’s just me and another guy called August who is a techno DJ and it’s purely electronic again.  So yeah it was a conscious decision to progress the sound, but it came about through what I was influenced by at the time.

4TR: We Can Create was seen as a critical success culminating in a nomination for the 2007 Mercury Music Prize. Was it hard to move on from that in terms of writing and recording?

JC: To be honest we had been touring for about a year constantly, so when we finally got off tour I was gagging to start writing as that‘s what I love doing.  I love staying up all night creating stuff, but when I’m on the road I don’t write except for coming up with little melodies and singing into my Dictaphone or maybe typing lyrics into my phone, so I was constantly thinking of it.  When I started writing I had a lot to get out of my system and so this album is a lot more personal; I decided it was time to be a little less abstract with the lyrics and just be a bit more to the point.  Then the songs just seemed to come one after the other, I was in my zone and totally up for it and it’s the sound of Maps at this moment in time I would say. 

4TR: By making your debut album indie-esque and then your sophomore album electronica, does that signal a likelihood that album number 3 will again be a complete transition in sound?

JC: [Laughing] Yeah well I’m kind of into bluegrass and stuff like that at the moment.  I’m not saying the next album is going to be me and a banjo, but I love loads of different types of music and don’t see the point in making the same album twice, so yeah I probably will go in a different direction again on future recordings.  

4TR: You have said Turning The Mind relates to your mental state, chemicals and the effect they had on your mind.  What made you decide to be so candid about such personal subjects? 

JC: [Laughing] Yeah well the last 10 years have been a bit of a psychiatric roller coaster for me, so the album is about what I have been through and obviously what others are going through.  I wouldn’t have written the lyrics if I wasn’t willing to talk about it but I thought people might connect with it or at least see where I am coming from.  Over the years I’ve done quite a bit of chemical research [laughs], which ended up in me being a bit of a mess, but then I stopped completely and I am now completely sober.  For example the last track on the album ‘Without You’ is actually about drink and drugs rather than a girl, and the whole record is just a journey of the last years of my life.

4TR: I suppose then you could say it was a therapeutic album for you – but were you ever worried about opening yourself up like that and putting it out in the public domain?

JC: No, well I’ve done it now [laughs] and I’m cool with it.  I think my first album is good but I have always thought it was a bit too dreamy and vague; you know there wasn’t much of me in there.  So I went to the extreme opposite with this, because I wanted to get myself in the lyrics and the music and portray how I was feeling, which I guess I was suppressing when I was writing the first album. I was treading more carefully then, but no I’m fine with talking about it because it’s just my life.

4TR: Mute Records has been involved with Maps since the early days, how is working with such a well-regarded label working out for you?

JC: Well Mute showed interest around early 2005 and I would speak to them and they would give me advice, but they were keen to let me develop.  Over time as my demos got better I continued speaking to Mute and so we had a connection before I signed and to be honest in the end it was a no brainer for me.  I think Mute is the greatest record label in the world so it was great when I discovered they wanted to put up with me for some number of years.  They are really supportive and Daniel Miller (label boss) is totally behind you, so always towards the end of each album he does with any of his artists he comes down to the last stages of mixing and will just walk in the room and say “ok bass drum down or high hat up”; he’s just a genius at what he does and you think shit he’s right.  For me it’s great to have that kind of passion there behind you.

4TR: Is it true that Turning The Mind was recorded with producer Tim Holmes (Death in Vegas) at a studio in London and also in your bedroom?

JC: Yeah a lot of it was done in my bedroom and then I took what I did there into the studios.  Some tunes we changed quite a lot and some we kept almost exactly like the demos.  We had a process where we went through all the songs I had and looked at each one separately and thought what can we do to that and trying to decide what to keep and what to put in the trash [laughs].  It was good though, Tim is a fantastic, talented guy and we have almost exactly the same taste in music so we clicked straight away and he was a dream to work with.

4TR: Now that you have returned to an electronic sound and stripped the live set-up back to just you and August on stage, has you found it is easier to bring to the live environment?

JC: Yeah well we have been rehearsing recently, we did a few shows over the summer and a few festivals and to be honest we didn’t really know what the hell we were doing, but we didn’t get booed off ha-ha but now its really come together in the last couple of months and I think the next tour is going to be great because it was for a while how are we going to do this, do we need more people but the chemistry between me and august is so good we just thought if it ain’t broke then don’t fix it, so we are keeping it as a twosome for the time being.  We will see how it develops in the future, like we might get a percussionist in or something but for this tour its just going to be the 2 of us with lots of equipment and things to hit on stage haha it should be cool.  

4TR: And you are just about to go on tour in the UK, where does it all kick off?

JC: The tour starts on the 26th October at Cargo in London then its right through October and finishes on the 7th November, but then next year is just going to be hardcore touring all the time.  We are going to Europe in February and then probably the US in March and then we will come back and do a long UK tour.  [Laughing] I guess it all depends on whether anyone buys the album though but we will see wont we.  

The Maps UK Tour Dates...

OCTOBER

23rd: Manchester : Eat Your Own Ears Warehouse Project 

24th: Southampton : Joiners 

25th:  Birmingham : Hare & Hounds

26th: London : Cargo

28th:  Bristol : Start The Bus 

29th: Cambridge : Portland 

30th: Brighton : Digital 

31st : Nottingham : Bodega Social 

NOVEMBER

1st: Norwich - Arts Centre 

4th: Sheffield - Fusion at the University 

5th: Newcastle - Other Rooms

6th: Glasgow - Nice & Sleazy’s

7th: Liverpool - Music Week at Masque (free show)

Words: Francesca Strange

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