We're thrilled to bring you this unique album, in digital and CD format, from First Third, aka Cardiff's Christian Gates.

We've previously released music by Christian under the name Marble Effect, and he has self-released as Valley Lines - both well worth checking out. As a single 40 minute long track, Salvage occupies a bit of a a different sonic space to those previous releases though. We caught up with Christian to discuss his work.

Machine: How would you describe 'Salvage'? I like to think about the "place" of music - what spaces does it evoke?

Christian: I'd describe Salvage as intentionally unstructured. I started it as an exercise in sound design and creating spaces, with no particular aim of creating a finished work. That was roughly 10 years ago. There was some upheaval going on in the background for me at that point. I was living a bit of a displaced life between Cardiff and London, fairly rudderless. Most of it was completed in transit between those two places on trains and coaches.

Everything was constructed fairly conventionally but some of the sound sources are recordings of Max patches I made in 2004/2005, which were very much algorithmic / rule-based. I like algorithms. I like the concept of giving the software/hardware a set of rules and parameters within which to act, and then seeing what it comes up with, so it’s a kind of collaboration between human and machine. Computers/machines are far more capable than I am of devising interesting patterns, structures, and harmonies.

I use that approach in my current production - I’m not that hot with Max any more, but there’s a ton of excellent Max For Live devices built by other, cleverer people, that deal with probability, chance, and randomness

Machine: How did you first get into making music?

Christian: Like a lot of people I know who produce music, I started out playing guitar as a teenager. Then I outgrew guitar music, or at least became bored with its limitations, when I was 16/17. And at 18/19 had picked up a first sequencer. I still wanted to make music somehow, even if I didn’t know how.

I used to do really finely detailed graphic illustration. I saw a parallel that appealed to me between obsessively finely detailed illustration and obsessively detailed music. Something about the intricacies inherent in electronic music that spoke to me, and I felt that I could transpose my skills as an artist to music. I was also into very abstract painting, and again I could see/hear a parallel with electronic music, this time with how utterly abstract it could be.

Machine: You mentioned that Salvage was originally started around 2012. You had some early airplay on Adam Walton in 2012 and 2014?

Christian: Yes, I did a few tracks going back to around 2009 I think. My first output was jams on my RM1X [Yamaha groovebox/ sequencer], recorded to minidisc and played to/given to the few friends I had at that time that were interested. That would have been 2002/2003. The minidisc dates it! I still have at least one minidisc of this stuff. It will never see the light of day.

I loved minidisc. Gescom did something interesting with it as a medium, if I remember correctly. Given the current nostalgia for the 00's maybe there’ll be a resurgence? Kind of like an extension of the cassette revival a few years ago…

I did the Soundcloud thing for many years, back when it was a community-spirited platform for getting your music heard, but quit when it turned into the spam-infested hellscape that it is now. I self-released a couple of bits and pieces on Bandcamp a year or two back.

In terms music I’ve released into the wild, very little has made it out. I tend to deliberate far too long over how I feel about it being made public.

Machine: What were the big artists/styles for you getting into electronic music?

Christian: The usual suspects - Plaid, Aphex Twin, Boards of Canada. I loved the energy of Venetian Snares and Squarepusher (Go Plastic is a bloody classic) and kid 606. So I guess mostly the frenetic 'IDM' (hate that term) stuff of the time.

I had a habit of going to Spillers Records in Cardiff most weeks and picking a CD or record more or less at random. I would get a pretty good success rate despite that not being a particularly reliable method of choosing music. This is how I got the Rephlex compilation ‘The Braindance Coincidence', which remains very important to me. The same with Susumu Yokota's ‘Grinning Cat’, which is a total beaut, and introduced me to the Leaf label/Murcof etc. It also sparked an interest in ambient, which was a welcome contrast to the cartoonish silliness of some the Planet Mu/Tigerbeat 6 stuff I was otherwise listening to.

One big issue I often have is that as soon as I identify similarities in something I’ve made with something else I struggle to justify keeping it, as I don’t know where the acceptable line between influence and (unintentional) plagiarism is drawn. Its’ the result of listening to a lot of music all the time, across a lot of genres. Inevitably you’re going to start to pick up influences, and notice similarities. I admire people who can keep themselves hermetically sealed.

Machine: I love that Rephlex compilation. I am also a big fan of that IDM/breakcore moment. Early 90s hardcore/rave was where I started so I don't feel it always has to be serious. You mention ambient. In the last couple of years it seems like all electronic music that's not dance is now basically ambient, the word has totally changed from the early 90s idea.

Christian: Yeah, to be honest I hate the term 'ambient’. Whatever it meant when Brian Eno did Music For Airports has shifted many times since. I guess if and when I use it I’m attaching it to music that pays particular focus to the textural qualities of its constituent parts, and an abstracted approach to form/rhythm.

I can see the logic with ambient intersecting with experimental noise. Similarly I think some drone metal stuff could easily fit as 'ambient'- Sunn 0))), the first couple of Earth albums etc. Focus on sound as texture, long track durations+extreme slowness and repetition as a way of experimenting with perception of time. That’s one fairly valid definition of 'ambient' to me.