The Mix 059: Rainy Miller

For Rainy Miller, everything boils down to place. While his erratic, experimental sonics can manoeuvre from wispy ambient to intense, searing drone and his to-the-bone songwriting can evoke multifarious emotions within his audiences, for him there is always a common thread running through it all: the small Lancashire towns he has spent much of his life existing in orbit of.

Born and raised in Longridge, Rainy Miller - AKA Jack Bowes - was introduced to dance music at an early age by his rave-loving mum, with The Prodigy's 'Firestarter' being the first track he was "mad on." He recalls being "around three" when his mum took him to see the electronic outfit. "I remember it, being on this mad hill at the back with my mum," he says. "She said there were a load of hippies who were twisted on acid and they tried taking me for a dance because I used to have this mad, long curly hair." In his teen years, Miller spent much of his time in the nearby town of Preston, first becoming interesting in being a musician from the wave of grime in the Lancashire town in the early '10s, creating grime bars alongside a friend. "Everyone kinda follows the path of what their brother was doing, because his brother was the producer, so he was the producer using his kit, then we were writing grime bars," he says. "We did it for a few years, but then I kinda sacked it off. Music became kinda lame if you were rapping back then."

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Fast forward to the eve of the COVID-19 pandemic and Rainy Miller had just wrapped up studying music in Manchester, with plans to move back to Preston due to feeling a disconnect within the Northern metropolis. "I didn't want to make music about anything that had ever happened when I was there," he says. "I was just running round drinking and going to parties and shit." In the throes of lockdown he was introduced to music by a slew of Manchester-based experimental musicians such as Blackhaine, Space Afrika, Iceboy Violet, and more. "I got introduced to so many sounds that I've never heard before, all this mad ambient stuff and noise, world music, and modern classical. I was like 'fucking hell, this is my thing'," he says. A myriad of collaborations and work on his imprint Fixed Abode, alongside the release of his acclaimed EP 'Desquamation' on HEAD II, the in-house imprint of Salford's The White Hotel nightclub, positioned Miller a key figure in the newfangled "experimental Northern" scene — though as an artist, this served as only a launch pad for his artistic vision.

Around the same time, he was introduced to the 2003 documentary Searching for the Wrong-Eyed Jesus, which follows country musician Jim White across the American Deep South — providing a look at the evangelical Christian communities in Louisiana, Mississippi, Louisiana and Kentucky. Inspiration from the parallels between those communities and the satellite towns of the North of England forms much of the basis around his new album 'Joseph, What Have You Done?' and his artistic vision of "Northern Gothic" — retelling the folklore and connection to place found in the areas his grew up in.

We sat down with Rainy Miller to talk about growing up with a raver mum, wanting to move away from being regarded as a "Manchester artist", and finding peace within the non-transience of his hometown. His accompanying mix threads together "different sonic landscapes and artists that I think fit perfectly into my ideology of what Northern Gothic could be".

Can you tell us a bit about the process of creating 'Joseph, What Have You Done?'?

There's a track on there, 'Mary Magdalene', which is essentially an ode to my mum, and it's five years old — the oldest on the record. I knew it wouldn't work for 'Desquamation', which I had been working on at the time, so it kind of got shelved for a long time. Not long after, Christ B Ryan [poet in residence at Manchester's White Hotel] sent me Searching for the Wrong-Eyed Jesus; I was really inspired by it, it put a focus on what I wanted for my next record. As far as the five years since then have gone, it's been about working away at things and every time I created something that felt like it belonged to this new theme, I put it to one side.

You've called that theme “Northern Gothic”, right? Can you explain this concept?

I was so inspired by the folklore and folktales of the American South detailed in the documentary, this connection to a specific place — Northern Gothic puts a mirror up to that, and shows the parallels between that Christian evangelical society in the middle belt of the US. To me, they feel like siblings in a sense; obviously, Britain is the understated sibling in comparison, but there are threads of that in there. Even with the scenery, while those communities are shaped by the Mississippi River, we have the Peaks.

Maybe this concept isn't as grandiose, but when you traverse through the North, the North West/East and up to Scotland or whatever, you get little pockets of hamlets and post-industrial towns where you meet real characters that can only exist in those places. Musically, the Southern states have such an affinity for the guitar and very dry, vocal-led music, so I tried to incorporate some of that on this record. I've tried to do it in a way that till fits into the context of being an experimental, electronic record — but it's got an armoury of that, if that makes sense?

Is it that sense of feeling sometimes forgotten in terms of mainstream culture? I.e the North and South of the US and the North and South of the UK?

It's weird. When I was making stuff originally, I had this super strong urge to have this underdog mentality thing, especially with being in Preston, because it's not this metropolis like Manchester, etc. It's almost like I've chased that down a rabbit hole, and that's coincided with this newfound obsession with this documentary; because all these places are very underdog places, aren't they? They are forgotten places, full of memories that have been forgotten in time. It's almost like, ‘how do you put that perspective down in art?’, and create something for places that don't have that flag in the ground yet.

It's only ever going to be my snapshot, my version of that. If you go 10 minutes up the road from Longridge, where I'm from, and go towards like Darwen or whatever, they'd have a completely different tale to tell, and that's 10 minutes. It's somewhere where people don't get to tell their side. It always come from that need to put a flag in the ground from the perspective of smaller towns, and I think that's why I got so fed up sometimes of being so banded to the "Manchester thing". Cause as well as it served me, none of the tales I told were coming from there.

So it was frustrating to be regarded as a Manchester-based musician? Or synonymous with Manchester?

Both. Manchester is such a unique place in itself that, like, to band everyone who isn't from Manchester into a "Manchester thing" is almost discrediting the people who grew up there, cause they've got their tales to tell, you know what I mean? People like Chunky, who's been doing music for fucking yonks, his perspective and his experience of Manchester is probably the truest of it, amongst the cohort of artists that get mentioned all the time. So when it gets distilled down into four or five people who've just moved there for further education, you're not celebrating an honest viewpoint of Manchester, are you? It's almost like it gets used as a way to describe any Northern artist because it's the metropolis of the North; it's the easiest way to create a bit of a buzz, I guess.

Do you think that's down to critics/audiences from outside of the North not being aware of communities/places outside of Manchester?

It's frustrating because it is so much more nuanced. The details within what people are creating are so considered, their music should be understood within the context of where they come from. I'm not anti-Manchester, it did loads for us innit — being exposed to that sound palette, all experiencing all this incredible music and that. But again, what do you mean, and what does it represent when you say things like "this Manchester collective"? Do you want it to represent Manchester sonically? Because it can't represent it in terms of the tales being told unless it's the people who have been there since day one. If it's Space Afrika, for example, then fair enough, but for Iceboy Violet? Iceboy Violet's from Yorkshire, aya's from Yorkshire; we're all from different places. For me, it does feel like it needs to be considered when looking at what we're creating.

Is there a Catch 22 in creating music that is experimental and boundary-pushing, which inevitably invites critics/listeners from cultural centres such as London who might be less aware of these smaller towns such as Preston or Longridge?

Yeah [laughs]. I think also you probably shouldn't get too bogged down in it, 'cause who gives a fuck? I guess it's just never sat with me bang on, I can't get 100% behind it. I have to pay my dues to it, but it does feel like it reduces from the wider connection to Manchester. When me, Blackhaine, Space Afrika etc,, came out for the first time and people were writing about us at the very start, in the media it looked like we were redefining Manchester with this new "crazy" sonic thing or whatever — but in reality, Manchester's a party town innit? It's got the best queer nights in the country, it's got these incredible cutting-edge nights there like P13 and what Finn's doing with A Party Called etc... that's what people are going to Manchester for, they aren't turning out in their droves to watch us play drones for an hour.

Was your mum a bit of a raver?

Yeah, she was big into illegal raves and stuff back in the day, Haçienda and that. She used to go to illegal raves in Blackburn, go on bus convoys. It's funny because in my head it sounds like the greatest thing in the world, innit? But it's so romanticised. She says that half the time, you'd get there and half an hour later, the police would turn up and close it down [laughs].

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Had you listened to electronic music since the beginning then? Or did you pick it back up later?

Yeah, I mean my mum always had so much rave music, these mad Haçienda CDs. But I wasn't arsed about it when I was super young because it was what my mum listened to so I thought it was kinda shit [laughs]. I listened to old school rap when I was 15-16. I wore baggy Levi's and smoked loads of weed [laughs], old Jay-Z and Tupac, you get me? It was only when I moved to Manchester that I got back into electronic music, went to club nights and stuff — hearing the modern version of what my mum was listening to back in the day. I got this newfound appreciation, really, maybe my mum's music was decent [laughs]. My dad moved into our house when I was 6-7, and he was a massive fan of that Madchester stuff and Bowie, but also Mr Fingers and 808 State, and he has loads of records that he's had for years. So when he was digging them out when I'd come home from uni and...

Get excited because he got to talk to you about them?

Yeah, like "these are hard" [laughs]. It came full circle in a sense.

Had you moved to Manchester for uni? When did you start wanting to get back into making music?

I guess I started making instrumental stuff when I was 18. I did BTEC sport at college, I was gonna be a fucking PE teacher or something, but I wasn't really into it. Then I had to get a proper job, I went to work in a factory for a bit and I was just like, fuck this, I'm not doing this for a living. I did it for a year, then went back to college to do a music course and went to uni when I was about 21.

So you were pretty self-taught then?

Yeah, always DIY kinda thing. Fumbling through all the DAWs, I've put 10 years of making shite before I got to the point were I could put something out, you know? Making loads of mistakes and shit music for ages.

Was it strange to get to Manchester for uni and meet so many people from all over the country - who were classically trained etc - when you're self-taught?

It was weird, I was dead wide-eyed when I first got there because it was the first time I'd had the opportunity to be around other creatives. There was like no one at the time in Preston, or that I was connected to anyway — I almost had to connect with them by going to Manchester. It was dead excited about meeting graphic designers or film directors and that, I didn't even know what half that shit was. But I'd always done music on my own, I studied audio engineering at uni, so it was more learning how to mix and master your stuff, so I wasn't around "musicians" in a sense. Obviously, they exist there and RNCM and all these places, full of super talented technical people, but I kinda just kept myself to myself until I met Blackhaine and Space Afrika and all those boys — and by that time, I'd already left Manchester.

Did it help connect the dots more? Moving back to Preston?

Yeah, I moved back just before COVID. Everything I was making felt like it wasn't directed by Manchester in terms of storytelling, also the rent was getting crazy and I was like: "I don't have to be here", so I kinda just moved back. I know the focus of what I've always done has been guided around home, so I just thought, fuck it I'll just go back. It's funny, innit, that I had to leave Manchester to meet all the people I want to work with, who are all based in Manchester — that's when it all clicked.

Was it strange to start getting a lot of recognition during COVID?

Yeah, it also kind of felt like things slowed down, that's why Fixed Abode came about. I was finishing an EP just as COVID hit, and there were quite a few conversations with labels or whatever, and everything was a bit unsure. I didn't want to be sitting about waiting for people to say yes to putting a four-track EP out, so then I put the label out, then that became the catalyst for all the relationships I've got now: Blackhaine, Space Afrika, CHOIR, Iceboy Violet, etc. It shifted us in the right direction with what I needed in hindsight, creatively, by being in Preston during lockdown. It wasn't the best circumstances necessarily, but it gave me something to write about again — it was a bittersweet thing, I went through a pretty mental, traumatic time, but it was almost the spark to create this record in a sense.

Do you feel like 'Desquamation' sort of helped push things forward for you?

Yeah, I think everything that led up to that felt like it was building a foundation for me as an artist to do what I needed. They were practice runs in a sense, getting bones out of the closet and working through actual old habits in terms of the type of music I was making at the time. That's why it's called 'Desquamation' because that's shedding skin, it's about removing this outer layer so I can be what I need to be going forward. Also being put out by HEAD II when they were peaking, The White Hotel was its most intriguing, let's say. It was a real moment, a lot happening at the same time. I was working with Blackhaine at the time; he had a bit of a moment working with Kanye West, Space Afrika's 'Honest Labour' had just come out, so everything just kinda like combined into this massive conversation. It was just timing, to be honest — cause the music [sighs], for me, it was a practice run. It was a catapult moment, really, for Manchester and the North West, I think.

Was it strange to be regarded as part of this "big new Northern thing", despite the arts in general being somewhat ignorant of the realities of working-class artists?

Yeah, I guess our whole thing as a collective - not a collective in the immediate sense as we all work independently - but for this "experimental Northern sound" had been rebelling against the glamour that we found ourselves in at the time. It never felt like we were ever really reaping the benefits completely, as if what had happened had happened in London, maybe we'd have done a lot better. It's a weird conversation, because there's a lot more going on down there and you have room to breathe here, so maybe we would never have managed to do it in the first place — but in terms of people taking chances, pushing the music in a way, you have to fight way to make that happen. But if things had gone the way they had in London, we'd probs be signed to fucking XL now, or something mental like that. We've never really had any interest in that kinda thing. It might just be misplaced rage also, that kinda Northern thing...

Bit of a chip on your shoulder?

Yeah. It might be that. We always felt like we're owed more recognition, but also with that, it's a bit of poison chalice sometimes, innit, I don't know really. It was nice, I got a booking agent out of that, I've been able to play loads of shows in Europe, it's changed my life — so I can't be too mad about it. You don't want to be a hypocrite either.

Was there ever a point where you considered moving to London?

Never. I just know for me, financially, I couldn't do it, but also it would distil the entire thing I'm making music about. When you go there, London doesn't need us adding our conversation to it, we're very happy up here and doing that for ourselves... just like we don't think there's anything they need to come up and add up here. I don't even like the pace of the place. I'm so used to this. Even Manchester's fast for me. Even looking out the window now, I see the same fella walking to the same dog every day, and I love that, you know what I mean? It's community, it's not so transient. I've tried it so many times and then moved back to Preston, it's a bit of a sign on the wall to me, I'm meant to be here.

It's a bit of an antithesis to having a chip on your shoulder, right? Because you feel so tied to Preston?

Yeah, you can't be a hypocrite like that! But also doesn't mean that you shouldn't think that people up here should have equal access. My perspectives have changed on class over the years, but we do need to expose people from towns with things that they might fall in love with, that's all I ever wanted really. There's nothing to say a kid from Oswaldtwistle or Accrington, if they weren't in the same environment as a kid from London, regardless of class, exposed to things that they are culturally and musically — that they wouldn't be the next greatest thing in the world.

So, for you, it's more about ensuring people from these satellite towns, like Preston, can be exposed to culture?

All I'm trying to do is show something a bit different to people here so they can chase things down the rabbit hole and find out what they are really into, even if it's that they become a graphic designer or something, instead of thinking like I did: "Well I'll be a PE teacher 'cause I kinda like football". I didn't find my passion until I was 19, and only really after I'd had the opportunity to move. You just don't know, innit? What could unlock within people if they are exposed to culture? Even Manchester, when I was a kid, I couldn't go to Manchester, and it's 35 miles away. I couldn't pay for the train fare and my mum weren't driving me to Manchester. I think people forget sometimes, especially in London and Manchester, that these transport networks are running very thin as soon as you get out of there. It's not as easy as I'll just jump on a train. There needs to be more access for people to be able to go and see things, so the only way I can do that is be here and take all the things I've seen around the world or whatever and funnel it back out to kids who follow me on Instagram because I'm from round here, or see me on the street and wanna have a chat, you know? It's my contribution to that.

Do you get that a lot?

Yeah, defo [laughs]. It depends, it's weird. I've had people come up to me so much, but there's enough here to galvanise everyone's interests. You have Action Records here that have had so many crazy artists associated with them. When I was a kid, it never felt like it was like that..

But you don't even know it's there, right?

Literally! That's the thing, you don't even know you're interested in it. So that's what it's all about, hoping you can show someone this thing, and that's what you're interested in.

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You mentioned earlier that 'Joseph, What Have You Done?' had come from this five year process of honing in on this specific concept, how will you feel once it's been released?

I think I'm going to feel quite lost, to be honest. It feels like everything has been leading up to this moment; I'll probably end up working collaboratively for a bit until something else happens in life, you know? But for me to properly get my teeth into something, something has to happen to me, or for me. I need to go and live a little bit of life. Cause that's the thing, I'm not very good at writing in a fictional way — a little more fantastical. But maybe it'll be nice to do something a little self-indulgent.

Maybe create your own little Northern Gothic fictional universe?

Now, yeah, this is it. I'm trying to do that, something I can lose my head in.

How do you feel like this record speaks to Preston? Is there a base idea that runs through it?

There are subtleties in the names of the songs, everything comes from a specific moment — that's the way I write anyway. Even if they haven't, there's a track on there called 'Toddbrook Dam, 2019.' and it was a dam that burst towards Derbyshire; but the song is actually about a mental breakdown where it felt like something had burst in my head — but using geographical location to tie a bit of a wire around the context of what I'm writing about metaphorically, but it still has its hooks in a location. But there's so much that's abstract, at its heart, all the songs were written in Preston or Longridge or whatever, mixed in this flat, so by nature, all the music is of this place. Even the cover art and the visuals have been shot here.

How was it to collaborate on this record with people from outside, i.e High Vis frontman Graham Sayle who's from Liverpool, when this is so tied that specific location? Are you bringing them into this place etc?

Honestly, it depends on person to person. There are only two vocal features, which one of them is Graham, who's a Scouser and then Christ [B Ryan], who's from Chorley. I always wanted it to have locality — characters that could exist in this world I was creating. But in terms of other people on the record, it's more me not having the technical prowess to do it. It comes back to that Michael Jackson/David Bowie thing, if they couldn't do something, get someone else to and then take all the credit [laughs]. I knew exactly what I wanted for specific parts, but I couldn't do it, so I'd reach out to people who could. They are on there because they are amazing at what they do, and I know they'd be happy enough to do it. I don't want to be such a narcissist that I have to do everything myself, and it doesn't work. I'd rather just open it up and get it to go where it needs to go.

Can you tell us about your mix?

The mix is an hour of the different sonic landscapes and artists that I think fit perfectly into my ideology of what Northern Gothic could be, each one of those songs speaks to the ethos of it, whether it be through its geography, expression, or even nuanced technique. The transitions are made using noise generators and reverse loops as a way to stitch the music together, with some of those feedback loops becoming mantras in their own way.

Rainy Miller's 'Joseph, What Have You Done?' is out now, you can buy it here

Megan Townsend is Mixmag's Deputy Editor, follow her on Twitter

Tracklist:
Section 25 - New Horizon
Sonic Youth - I Love Her All The Time
DJ Yo-Yo Dieting - Severed Complexion 2
Consumer Electronics - Sex Offender Boyfriend
Rabit - Last Time (Rainy Apocalypse Mix)
Tim Hecker - In The Fog: I
Pavel Milyakov - gabba-17
The Stone Roses - I Wanna Be Adored (Rainy Slowcore Mix)
Rat Heart and The Peanuts - Pam's Plants Full Of Ants
Klein - 99
Honour - honour's lament
Space Afrika - judge
Ian Brown - F.E.A.R.
Playboi Carti - DIFFERENT DAY