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J K: When I was looking through the lyrics for both albums, the emphasis on time took on this idea, not so much alternate histories... rather, that past times and future times are present as well.

W C H: That is exactly what I believe, honestly.

J K: With "Yesterday's World," you talk about taking the present time into the past. Whereas some people, if they hear that song, they might think, "There's the neo-Psychdelic band talking about yesterday's world and how nice it was."

W C H: Oh God, really? Like the Sixties or something? Oh wow, no.

J K: People working with stereotypes of Elephant Six.

W C H: I never would've thought of that. I'm not trying to say anything in any way about Woodstock. Altamont, sure.

J K: Maybe it's because of my own experiences, listening to more and more, being just as likely to listen to something from 1971 as something from 2009.

W C H: Same with me, the year I was born until now.

J K: Or 1979, the year I was born. A good year.

W C H: Not as good, but still... just saying.

J K: There was a lot that was in '71.

W C H: '71 wasn't that great, but still, Neu! Can I just say Neu! got started in '71?

J K: Faust. Cluster. Tago Mago.

W C H: O K, all the German, what was sadly dubbed Kraut Rock.

J K: Zeit came out that year.

W C H: Double album! Great Space Rock!

J K: Both Circulatory System albums also have the imagery of going around in circles. Time is cyclical. A non-teleological perspective, a non-Christian perspective. Everything's repeating.

W C H: I think so. It's just that, "Do you ever learn from your mistakes?" Like Royal Trux, "Back to School," you climb to the top of the hill, you know you're going to fall. It's cyclical in that way. I fell in love. It fell apart. Big surprise! It's fine. In that way, Circulatory System is all about failure. I'm kidding! I hope it's hopeful, really.

J K: I guess it is done in light of past projects, splitting apart... The Olivia Tremor Control.

W C H: Yeah, sigh. The time thing... I really don't have a definite theory. Religions, stuff like that. I can... O K, sure, Jesus walked the earth, that kind of thing. But it's not really filling me up with much of anything. Tao te Ching is kind of my religion really. But I don't consider that a religion, it's observation of how things are. That George Harrison song ["Inner Light"], "Without looking out of my window, I could know the ways of heaven. The farther one travels, the less one really knows."

J K: That's a theme in the lyrics. Everything's available, in your mind, in your own space.

W C H: I'm putting that out there.

J K: You could place yourself in different contexts in the past. One way of looking at it: you imagine the past. Even though it did exist, it doesn't exist anymore, so it's fictional. So thinking about the past is the same as thinking about the future.

W C H: I agree. It's all free rein of the imagination, except I do stop myself, within certain realms.

J K: Where do you stop yourself?

W C H: Surrealist cut-ups.

J K: You avoid it - applying the cut-up method to lyrics, as compared to the recording process?

W C H: Not to leave it at that. That's a method of coming up with things.

J K: Yeah.

W C H: I didn't realize I did it, but I do.

J K: If you have such a huge library of recordings you're coming back to, that introduces a certain randomness. You could be listening to one tape, where you don't know what you're going to come across. It'll end up being mixed together with something that you were thinking about earlier.

W C H: Good call, yeah, I played it back that day, and suddenly I come up with lyrics for the first song, "Woodpecker Greeting Worker Ant."

J K: The words for that song were something you wrote recently?

W C H: 2001 maybe.

J K: 2001, based upon the original track from 1993...

W C H: I have maybe 5 or 6 more that are on that same tape. In case I'm in the mood, if I feel like making up lyrics.

J K: Has the way you write lyrics changed over the years? Has the subject matter changed?

W C H: Yeah, I guess it has. (joking) Where are the candied-castle Cubist boys? Whatever that was. I'm kidding. I love that. It really hasn't changed, except that it was different for the first Circulatory System album especially. I was going through different times.

J K: It was more of a somber record.

W C H: But it's hopeful, I think, even though... Some people say it's a dark record. Cool, it kind of is. Hopefully it's positive in the end. "We can live forever."

J K: Maybe there's more nature imagery, and references to materials. "Grains and sauces," bark. But that's probably been the case since when you first started.

W C H: That was the stuff I was writing for what would've been the next Olivia. We played some of the songs.

J K: Do you catalog lyrical ideas? Words to use...

W C H: "Acrobat" is my new favorite one. I haven't used it.

J K: Bark shows up twice: "waves of bark and light, "the bark and below it." It stands out. When any vocalist in Rock music does anything somewhat "arty" with the words, it'll end up sounding what many call pretentious. Do you worry that it'll seem didactic if you state clearly what you think, how people could think?

W C H: Not really. My shit comes off like that. "What is this guy on about?" It does, it's fine. I can't do anything about it. It's just supposed to be fun. It's supposed to be real. I learn that kind of stuff from, for example, Zappa. We're here, we may as well create to the fullest. But, he's kind of ass-y. So I might come off like that.

J K: Not compared to Zappa, no. Does your painting affect the lyrics? There's imagery in the lyrics suggesting, or referring to, visual art.

W C H: The paintings are a lot more spontaneous, compared to the songs. Sometimes I'm not even starting with a goal. Whereas when I'm playing music, I have to section it off: "Is it going to be sound, or a riff, a song?"

J K: It makes sense then that there's references to the paintings in the music, or there's paintings that match the music.

W C H: I like it that way.

J K: With the paintings, do you find that music will affect the content?

W C H: Yeah. Usually it does just because... it's me. I can't...

J K: But you don't obsess over them like with the music.

W C H: No. If necessary... I haven't had a new period in a long time, a new phase. Since Black Foliage [the painting], that breakthrough. I've been into drawings.

J K: You've tried some collages. Also, around the time of Black Foliage, you were going toward abstraction, but you've returned to some representative work.

W C H: Definitely. I'm maybe going to do the cover for Pete's [Pipes You See, Pipes You Don't] new album, Lost in the Pancakes.

J K: When you say you haven't entered into a new phase of painting... With music, it's easier when you're finished with an album or some other project, it enables you to take a big chunk of recording and put them aside, say, "Now I'm done with those."

W C H: It's a period, it's done.

J K: Going back to the lyrics... "Bark" shows up on the last Olivia record, and the first Circulatory. Circles, going round, come up on both Circulatory records. And "blasting" too.

W C H: That's a favorite word. I was just trying to get through something. I was really trying, really hurting. Come out streaming, and happy.

J K: In addition to health problems and personal problems, there's the problem of finding the appropriate outlet, or venue... forum for the music. The Olivia Tremor Control not staying together... or, maybe they have...

W C H: We're back, we were always there. At least for me, my part of all that connects into these records. "Signal Morning" could've been on Black Foliage. There's a couple more from that period.

J K: You've reached a point where all these projects can co-exist. Circulatory System coming back, The Olivia Tremor Control existing again, maybe the Cranberry Life Cycle record coming out. When the first Circulatory System record came out, I remember Jeff telling me that you and he hadn't done as much as you should've in collaboration. Never got around to it.

W C H: I agree, we haven't yet.

J K: Looking back again.... When The Olivia Tremor Control started, you had a situation like you have now. There was a big back-log of stuff. You wanted to get it out there, you had the opportunity. Who came up with the idea of The Black Swan Network?

W C H: I did. To have another outlet, that wouldn't be judged as this band that made songs.

J K: A proactive response to the restraints people would try to place on the music.

W C H: Some people just can't get into that kind of music, sound art. It's boring, to some people.

J K: One time Black Swan Network opened for Olivia Tremor Control, which brings to mind the early Circulatory System tours, with The Instruments and Pipes You See, Pipes You Don't, all three bands having the same members.

W C H: It'll be a little different this time. Pete's new record is awesome. It's focused, heart-felt great songs.

J K: It's great that it's finally done. He was having problems with his 4-track.

W C H: Yeah, and his computer wasn't working. Things happen.

J K: You guys already had problems with recording devices during Black Foliage.

W C H: Peeling the magnetic tape off.

J K: Really?

W C H: It happened with Rumours. I wonder if it was the same tape. Possibly. They made some weird batches. If it gets hot in storage, and/or from going over and over and over.

J K: That reminds me... on the subject of the transition from working with tape to working with computers, on the surface it seems easier. For artists who want to make use of so many tracks, surely it is. But I know you had problems with being able to manipulate things so easily all at once.

W C H: That's a lot to throw at a new band, and for us even. Digital - 0's and 1's - takes a picture of sound, the way it is - flat - but the things that I like, like the 4-track cassette, color it. You overblow it. You can do that on digital, but it doesn't sound as cool. It kind of does actually, but harshly.

J K: When it's saturated, it doesn't sound as nice.

W C H: If for kids, their first recording machine is digital, they miss alot.

J K: It's unfortunate if people don't start with cassettes.

W C H: It does seem like people are getting into the old equipment, all the compressors. They're using all that great equipment, going into the computer, which sounds great.

J K: It's better to mix them together. Are there any kinds of manipulations of sound that you do in analog that you don't enjoy doing in digital, you don't like the way it sounds digitally, or you can't do at all digitally?

W C H: No, you can, but it's not as easy, and it's not as rewarding actually. It's a process... I can tell the difference somehow. It's a feel thing.

J K: The sonic result, as well as the process.

W C H: I have to do something else to make it what I feel.

J K: Does being a painter make you prefer having something tangible to work with?

W C H: Definitely... well-put. You can get these things for the computer...

J K: Fake analog synthesizers, digital recreations.

W C H: We use fake mellotrons, on "This Morning (We Remembered Everything)."

J K: We've both listened to a lot of the Japanese electronic music, the quiet, minimal stuff... Onkyo music.

W C H: Love it. Empty sampler [Sachiko M].

J K: And the no-input mixing board - Toshimaru Nakamura.

W C H: That shit's good. He's good.

J K: Did you see that music as a challenge? They're playing the no-input mixing board and the empty sampler, and you're here struggling to finish a record with all these tracks, and this huge library of music. But it's music you like. The contrast is striking.

W C H: Yeah. The one he made when he had a fever [Vehicle]... I used to leave it on constantly. Just repeat one. It's not like hearing the same song.

J K: You did the track on the Peel session disc [The Olivia Tremor Control, Those Sessions], the extra track, that was in the style of Onkyo music. And the Silver disc....

W C H: The Silver thing was more Fluxus. It's something you want to listen to in the background, and then play an album besides it. That was the idea.

J K: The experiments in quadrophonic sound were also not just for the sake of having something in quadrophonic sound. As you said with Silver, the idea that you could play two things at once, getting the idea from John Cage to some extent...

W C H: Exactly, he said if you're going to play one of my records, since it doesn't recreate the live experience, you should play two or three, to give you an experience.

J K: One could have more than one stereo set up all the time. With online streaming, you could have 24-hour albums... or perhaps a computer program, where you put in music and it manipulates it endlessly, or you could set it to last a certain amount of time. Why not release more stuff like that?

W C H: I have this in a notebook somewhere: 4 C D's, 99 tracks. Put each of them on random. But there's enough silence in between them - but sometimes not - to space them all out.

J K: Each C D would have 99 tracks, or there'd be a total of 99 tracks?

W C H: Each C D would have 99 tracks.

J K: There'd be differing lengths of silence on each track.

W C H: Or some would be full.

J K: The idea being that one's going to play all 4 discs at once.

W C H: Yes, and it's to be played on random, all of them, so it's always something different.

J K: So, putting them all on at the same time, not on random, wouldn't be the original composition. There'd be no original.

W C H: Exactly.

J K: In that case, there'd be no disc 1 or disc 2, just four discs, not in any order.

W C H: Maybe they should be color-coded. Each disc would draw upon the same source material... it has to be.

J K: How much recording have you done for this?

W C H: I didn't get to the point. I'd have to have help. I've got lots of minimalist things I'd use for it.

J K: Are there any other projects, similar to Toy Box that have been on hold?

W C H: I want to do more fun things, noise and Dada-speak. Not totally noise... Lumpy Gravy really - Futurist Onion.

J K: You want to do stuff that builds off of The Black Swan Network and Circuits and "The Bark and Below It."

W C H: Yeah, maybe the seven-inch by Black Swan Network, on Happy Happy Birthday to Me [an untitled E P released in 2000]. It's got songs... those could've been on the first Circulatory System record. They were done at the same time. They were just different.

J K: You need to start doing these.

W C H: I'm getting there. I'm getting back up there.

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