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Randy Jones is the co-head of Orac recordings as well as one of the most eclectic DJ's you may ever hear and the amazingly talented producer known as Caro. He took some time out preparing for this weekend's CMKY festival in Boulder where he will perform a live p.a and give a Cycling '74 Jitter workshop.

NECODO: Randy, thanks for taking time to chat with us, we have enjoyed your last Orac release doP and wish we were going to be in Colorado with you this weekend. Can you tell us what you will be doing?

Randy: Tonight I should be working on my show for this weekend but I'll be dancing to the music of Phil Quenum, an artist we've released on Orac who's over now from Paris. Our doP release has been continuing to pick up steam. We are very pleased with the response to that one. On Saturday I am doing a workshop (at the Atlas Building) to showcase Jitter, a computer program I co-wrote for cycling '74. It's a graphics and matrix processing add-on to the popular Max/MSP software. Lots of people are using it to do live audiovisuals these days. It is easier to demonstrate than to talk about, so I recommend you check out www.cycling74.com for an intro. I will be performing a live p.a. with vocals as Caro on Sunday in Boulder City Park.

NECODO: That sounds amazing how did you pull those gigs off?

Randy: I met Kate Lesta through her dealings with the Decibel festival in Seattle...

Randy Jones is the co-head of Orac recordings as well as one of the most eclectic DJ's you may ever hear and the amazingly talented producer known as Caro. He took some time out preparing for this weekend's CMKY festival in Boulder where he will perform a live p.a and give a Cycling '74 Jitter workshop.

NECODO: Randy, thanks for taking time to chat with us, we have enjoyed your last Orac release doP and wish we were going to be in Colorado with you this weekend. Can you tell us what you will be doing?

Randy: Tonight I should be working on my show for this weekend but I'll be dancing to the music of Phil Quenum, an artist we've released on Orac who's over now from Paris. Our doP release has been continuing to pick up steam. We are very pleased with the response to that one. On Saturday I am doing a workshop (at the Atlas Building) to showcase Jitter, a computer program I co-wrote for cycling '74. It's a graphics and matrix processing add-on to the popular Max/MSP software. Lots of people are using it to do live audiovisuals these days. It is easier to demonstrate than to talk about, so I recommend you check out www.cycling74.com for an intro. I will be performing a live p.a. with vocals as Caro on Sunday in Boulder City Park.

NECODO: That sounds amazing how did you pull those gigs off?

Randy: I met Kate Lesta through her dealings with the Decibel festival in Seattle. She is a real sweet heart and has put together a very nice festival for Boulder.

NECODO: Tell me about the names Orac and your performing name Caro.

Randy: No one ever believes me when I tell them neither word has anything to do with the other. Orac was a highly sophisticated but insane super computer on the late 70's T.V. series Blake 7, which some of us were into a while back. Caro is my disco suave persona for vocal music. I was already performing and writing under the name Caro before Konstantin (Orac co-founder) pointed out that it was Orac backwards. I had no idea until then.

NECODO: What does the future hold for the world of Orac?

Randy: This conversation is very timely as we have two upcoming releases featuring 70 year old German music wizard Konrad "Con" Schnitzler. He worked with Eruption and was a founding member of Kluster and Tangerine Dream. I went to Berlin last year to meet him and put this together. It takes a while to get remixes out of people but the first release has Bruno Pronsato and Dandy Jack doing remixes. The second release has a wonderful remix from Thomas Fehlman. He was a true innovator in making music that reflects an environment. He has freed himself of sequencers and is inspired by the sheer quality of sounds in industrial environments. I have always been into music that is on the borderline between "Art Music" and "Dance Music". The label hopes to push the boundaries and create a mood so one can just sit and listen but not necessarily focus the mind so much that one won't dance.

NECODO: That sounds amazing I will keep my ears tuned a bit more and look out for that release. Who were your inspirations in getting you into and creating electronic music?

Randy: Initially my Parent's collection was large and they had some of that Wendy Carlos and Moog stuff but the one that I wore out was The Electronic Spirit Of Eric Satie. After that the record that I listened to every day was Aphex Twin "Selected Ambient Works 85-92" I would be driving in Wisconsin in the winter snow and the headlights hit the white lines and made these light tunnels that I would follow. That record was my soundtrack that year.

NECODO: That record made a huge impact in the world allowing electronic music to be even more readily accepted on it's own terms. Wisconsin is firmly rooted in the Mid-West how was that environment?

Randy: The parties were intense. Everyone in Chicago and Detroit had been to Europe in that time frame and the people from more rural areas like Madison (where I was) had all been to Chicago and Detroit so it was all very similar. It started with finding a cheap space, having a lot of sound and dancing, which we had to do to keep warm! So we went literally from barns to old abandoned warehouses. Wherever you could bring people together with pumping techno tunes to borderline hardcore it would happen.

NECODO: Man, we could talk about that for hours but let me keep it to one more question. How did you end up moving from Madison to here?

Randy: That was by accident really. I had planned to move to Austin to work for my friend's Graphic Design company after college. I decided to drive across country and see things before I went down there. I stopped into Vancouver and Seattle and decided to stay and enjoy the weather and the mountains. After a while I decided I didn't want to live somewhere flat and have stayed ever since.

NECODO:That is certainly to the gain of the North West. Thanks Randy, best wishes this weekend and on your future projects which we will keep posted here.