Rain Machine: Time for a Kyp

Your debut solo album has appeared virtually out of nowhere, even to the most discerning TV on the Radio fan I’m sure. Was Rain Machine a spontaneous project?

Kyp Malone: “I’ve actually been playing a lot of these songs by myself for years and I just never got around to making a record of it, but I was approached by [folk producer] Ian Brennan after he saw me playing a show in LA and he asked me if I’d be interested in doing a record. After talking to him for a while I decided it was something I was down to do, so we went for it.”

One of the first things that struck me about the album was the sheer range of instrumentation at work, yet it’s never busy. Is this all you, or did the music demand you recruit other players along the way? I noticed you plugged in a number of axes and gadgets when I saw TV on the Radio a few months ago; presumably you were pretty adept in that department, going into this LP?

“One of the engineers played a hi-hat on Hold You Holy, plus my friends Heidi [Ferrell] and Carolyn [Penny Packer Riggs, of The Finches] sang back up on a song each, but besides that it’s all me. In whatever way I’m not adept there’ve been progressions made in recording technology where, if you're patient enough, you can play anything.”

How much do you credit those progressions for what you’ve been able to do on this album? Are you still very much reliant on your skill as a musician with traditional instruments?

“There are a lot of traditional instruments on there, but I don’t know if I’m playing them in the way that they’re supposed to be played. When I was referring to the studio technology I was referring to the fact that I’m not a skilled drummer, so I record things piecemeal [laughs] but I think it sounds like someone’s the drummer at the end of the day.”

This isn’t exactly Enya, but –from the naked ladies riding lions in celestial surroundings on the cover [designed by Kyp] to the gospel heart of Leave the Lights On – there’s definitely a sense of the spiritual about this album. Your voice is unmistakably your own, but what kind of space was your head in while you were putting it all together, in terms of musical inspiration?

“I can’t really pinpoint inspiration, I listen to a lot of different music...I’ve been listening to a lot of music from the Western Sahara over the past few years, but I don’t know if that comes through in the music on this record. I’ve been listening to a lot of friends’ music, like The Oh Sees from San Francisco. I worked a lot with my friend Miles Benjamin Anthony Robinson around the time I was working on this record and I’m sure that a lot of the things that are characteristic about his writing and his way of performing ended rubbing off.”

As a new recording experience where you were entirely in charge, did you feel a little pressure?

“Yeah, there’s pressure insofar as studio time isn’t free and you want to make the most of the time that you have, but it’s always the case – well, in the past few years – that whenever I’ve been in the process of making a record where there was any kind of expectation in terms of the way people or the label are going to think about it. To get past that it’s usually a case of weighing up how our circle of friends receive it, listening to the recording in their living room. ‘Can we get it past them?' That aspect wasn’t particularly new.”

Could this be the first of many records under the Rain Machine moniker, or do you consider this a one off, conceptual kind of thing?

“I have ideas for two or three more Rain Machine records, conceptually, and that’s not so much in a sense of being thematic conceptually... just things I want to do. I’ve been rehearsing a band for the past couple of weeks to tour this record because I’ve decided that a voice and guitar with a couple of effects pedals wasn’t really going to do some of the songs justice. It’s been really fun performing the material with a band. I would like to push it forward; I would like to do more for sure. I want [Rain Machine] to be its own entity, my first motivation to not call it Kyp Malone is because I don’t want to put my name on a tee shirt. It’d be too weird. I wore my Willie Nelson tee shirt yesterday and I’ve had a Bob Dylan tee shirt, but I don’t see myself in that light [laughs]! But then if I keep doing this and keep growing, then maybe I will!”

You made a tongue in cheek comment about the way people consume music recently, but you refer to Rain Machine as ‘conceptual’. Do you feel you had to compromise and cater to the diminishing attention span of the modern listener, or are you confident there are still enough people out there who’ll swallow the album whole?

“I don’t know where I’m at in considering the length of the majority of the tracks, but a lot of them are long for ‘these days’, however I don’t feel like I am personally more powerful than an onslaught of market and technological forces that dictate how people consume. For myself, personally, I still listen to albums...not strictly, I’ll skip around on my iTunes and whatnot like anybody else, but I buy records, and my friends who make records generally make albums. They’re not just making a single and some filler. It’s still part of how I hear music, but however people want to listen to this, I’m happy for that.”

Besides Rain Machine, I know Dave Sitek’s a fairly prolific producer and was excited to read that Tunde Adebimpe is working with Doseone and Mike Patton. TV on the Radio recently announced it’s taking a year’s break, was that a decision made to accommodate all of this?

“I think, regardless of what any of us are doing, it was time to take a break. I actually already...I can’t believe I’m going to say this... I already miss them, but I’m really happy and I feel like it’s healthy for us to take a break. It can only be a good thing for the music.”

Is TV on the Radio still proving to be a sufficient creative outlet?

“I feel like there’s not enough time in a day or in a lifetime to explore everything that could be explored creatively and the many different creative relationships that could be fostered in a lifetime. That’s what I’m looking towards, and at the same time I don’t think TV on the Radio has completely fulfilled its potential at all, so I look forward to growing more with those guys too.”

You’ve reached some admirable heights and earned a number of plaudits in the last few years [The Skinny still owes TV on the Radio a shield made of shortcake after Return to Cookie Mountain claimed album of the year in 2006], but what is success to you?

“Looking at it with my own personal ideals and ethos, weighing it against the actual world and society that I’m living in, I felt like it was a success to make a record with my friends the first time I ever made a record. I succeeded in making a record. Now that it’s a vocation, I feel that so long as I’m not hungry and my daughter’s not hungry and I’m providing for her, with my friends around me, if I can help them out while making something that I’m proud of, then that’s success.”