{"id":31373,"date":"2026-08-13T05:30:05","date_gmt":"2026-08-13T09:30:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/?p=31373"},"modified":"2026-04-16T10:08:38","modified_gmt":"2026-04-16T14:08:38","slug":"billy-fullers-kosmische-fragments-part-3-of-3","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/2026\/08\/13\/billy-fullers-kosmische-fragments-part-3-of-3\/","title":{"rendered":"Billy Fuller’s Kosmische ‘Fragments’ (Part 3 of 3)"},"content":{"rendered":"

Continued from Part Two<\/a>…<\/i><\/p>\n

\"\"What other synthesizers did you use on these tracks? <\/b><\/p>\n

The main one is the one that we\u2019ve always used in Beak> as well, which was one that I bought. I brought it to the first ever Beak> session. It\u2019s a Korg M-500 Micro-preset. I think Human League used it on the early hits, and Tubeway Army used one. It\u2019s a very basic synthesizer; back in the late \u201870s, you could get your mum to buy it for you on the catalog for Christmas, and she would just pay it back monthly, \u00a32.50 or whatever. It\u2019s been on every big record we\u2019ve ever made, and I used it a lot on Fragments<\/i> as well.<\/p>\n

So there\u2019s that one, and an old [Roland] Juno. And there\u2019s a MicroKorg 700. It\u2019s a pretty cranky synth, that. But it\u2019s really good for crazy bass stuff.<\/p>\n

I\u2019ve got a Korg Delta, which is from 1979; A Flock of Seagulls had one. It\u2019s a two-trick pony. It only does a couple things, but it does them <\/b>really<\/b><\/i> well. <\/b><\/p>\n

Exactly! I\u2019m really into instruments that don\u2019t do very much. When you get these [modern] keyboards out, it\u2019s just pages and pages of stuff; I just can\u2019t be dealing with that. I just want to know: \u201cWhat the voice is of this instrument? That\u2019s what we\u2019re going to work with.\u201d I\u2019m really into that.<\/p>\n

Broad-brush question: What creative itch does working in solitude scratch for you that working with others does not?<\/b><\/p>\n

Well, I work a lot faster working with others. I can get on the drum kit and play a drum beat, but I\u2019d much prefer to have a drummer here. Because you can just bounce it off a lot quicker; when you\u2019re layering and overdubbing on your own, it\u2019s a long process. Every time you have to go again, it\u2019s [about] trying to make it feel like it\u2019s moving organically.<\/p>\n

And I\u2019m not into cutting and pasting of audio. I even like to use computers as a tape machine; I go, \u201cRight, it\u2019s going to play this from beginning to end.\u201d There are a couple of things that are looped on my record, but apart from that, I feel like when you hear things chopped up and looped, you can tell. A human brain can hear something when it\u2019s repetitive patterns; we recognize patterns. And you start going, \u201cNow I\u2019m bored.\u201d You don\u2019t know why<\/i> you\u2019re bored, but that might be the reason.<\/p>\n

But then on the flip side, working alone [means] I haven\u2019t got any distractions. I\u2019m the only boss. I can do whatever, and nobody\u2019s telling me that it\u2019s shit or good, or \u201cDon\u2019t do that,\u201d or anything. So I can just get on with it.<\/p>\n

One of the things that I like about <\/b>Fragments<\/b><\/i> is that the tunes never overstay their welcome, if you will; they\u2019re concise. Was that by happenstance or design?<\/b><\/p>\n

No, they were just like that. There are a few tunes that run into four minutes. But yeah, it just kind of worked that way.<\/p>\n

I don\u2019t know whether it\u2019s [because] we\u2019ve all got phones now, everything\u2019s quick, and we just need that quick hit of serotonin. Maybe it\u2019s the result of smartphones that my record sounds like this; otherwise [maybe] I would have made full-length pieces of music.<\/p>\n

But yeah, it was by complete accident that it\u2019s like that. Maybe working on my own, I get to a certain point and go, \u201cYeah, I\u2019m out of ideas. That\u2019s what that is. Boom. Next.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

You\u2019ve got an arsenal of basses. Do you find that when you pick up one, fiddling around with it is more likely to give rise to music of a particular character different from what another bass would do?<\/b><\/p>\n

I can be playing on, say, my [Fender Precision] P-bass. That\u2019s going to make me do one thing. But if I pick up a hollow-body \u2013 say I pick up the [Hofner] violin bass \u2013 it\u2019s going to make me do something completely different. And this is the reason why musicians keep buying guitar pedals or a new effects rack: because it\u2019s going to give you inspiration. You turn on that pedal and all of a sudden your hand goes somewhere else and you start hearing things differently, because the instruments are reacting differently.<\/p>\n

I buy pedals for the bass all the time just to kind of get me another song! And it\u2019s a very expensive way of doing it.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s the curse of being a musician\u2026 <\/b><\/p>\n

Always buy pedals the same color, and then nobody recognizes that you\u2019re just buying new ones. I\u2019m sure my wife has got cupboards full of red shoes!<\/p>\n

What\u2019s the most valuable lesson that you\u2019ve learned about making music through working with other people?<\/b><\/p>\n

Wow. That\u2019s a big question.<\/p>\n

I would just say: Don\u2019t be scared of anything. Don\u2019t be scared of being you; be brave about what\u2019s inside of you to create musically. And don\u2019t ever try to please anyone else. I don\u2019t think Jimi Hendrix was trying to please anybody else. He was just being Jimi Hendrix, and then when he appeared, the whole world was like, \u201cOh, we need Jimi Hendrix.\u201d And that\u2019s part of nature in a way, in an organic sense: What a human being can do and the power that [they have] without any outside influence, without anything other than what\u2019s inside of them. Whether it being about selling records and the capitalist trap, it\u2019s just about being you. And if you be you, then you\u2019ll do your best work. And then you might get some gigs off the back of it!<\/p>\n

Speaking of gigs, when you recorded these tunes \u2013 or when you put them together as <\/b>Fragments<\/b><\/i> \u2013 did you give any thought to live performance?<\/b><\/p>\n

No, I wasn\u2019t gonna do anything like that. But I\u2019ve been forced to. I\u2019ve just started rehearsing with a band. Two other people: a drummer and another person playing guitar and keys. So we\u2019re doing it as a three-piece \u2013 very much like the Beak> lineup \u2013 and it\u2019s sounding really good. But it\u2019s been weird to correlate all this stuff that spans time and different brain spaces and go, \u201cRight, I\u2019m with two other people now, and we\u2019ve got to reinterpret this in a live situation.\u201d<\/p>\n

The other thing is that I\u2019ve got a 36 minute album and I\u2019m being booked to play 50 to 60 minute sets. But that\u2019s okay; I\u2019ve got plenty of [music].<\/p>\n

You could do the dance remix of the songs\u2026<\/b><\/p>\n

Yeah, exactly. I\u2019ll do some interpretive dance in between! What can go wrong?<\/p>\n

Are certain parts of your work more focused on paying the bills while other parts feed your soul?<\/b><\/p>\n

I wish I had the luxury of being able to choose my musical path sometimes. Next week I\u2019m in for a session over in Oxford; they\u2019re offering me some money to be there for two days. I\u2019m taking it, and I haven\u2019t even heard the music yet. I could get there and just be like\u2026 you know, but you don\u2019t know. I\u2019ve got a family and a mortgage and all that stuff. Being a musician in 2026 at the age of 50, it can get quite scary. So I\u2019m available for sessions, painting, decorating, gardening.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Continued from Part Two… What other synthesizers did you use on these tracks? The main one is the one that we\u2019ve always used in Beak> as well, which was one […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":31366,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,41,43,49],"tags":[5939,5938],"class_list":["post-31373","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-ambient","category-interview","category-krautrock","category-new-release","tag-beak","tag-billy-fuller","cat-5-id","cat-41-id","cat-43-id","cat-49-id","has_thumb"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31373","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=31373"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31373\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":31376,"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31373\/revisions\/31376"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/31366"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=31373"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=31373"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=31373"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}