If trance music hero BT (real name Brian Transeau) could sum up the experience of recording his new album, Movement in Still Life, in a single word, it would undoubtedly be "freedom." And it all started with his escape from the narrow cell allotted him by his major label.

"For five years I was in the Warner Bros. system with managers who did not understand me, with a label that did not understand me," he says. "They were like, 'You're the dance music guy. We want you to do this one thing specifically, just this one thing and that's all we want going on in your record.' So when I got out of my record label and management situations, it was a period of complete elation and liberation for me."

Once he found himself free of the major-label system (and comfortable with his new digs on the considerably smaller scale Nettwerk label), BT decided, "I should do whatever the hell I want."

The result of his freedom is the eclecticism of Movement in Still Life, an album that seamlessly moves from ambient to pop to the trance style that established his reputation in the electronic scene. Ironically, BT's vision, coupled with the mainstream exposure he received for his score to last year's indie fave Go (starring Katie Holmes and Sarah Polley), may lead him to the commercial success that Warner Bros. expected from him for all those years. Though Movement is rooted firmly in electronica, it is accessible enough to become this year's Play (Moby's hit album of last year).

"I'd be lying if I said that I didn't want people to hear this, because I love this music and I've gotten to make something I really believe in," he says. "But for me I'm already over the real hurdle in making this record, and that was getting to do it. Getting to say what I really wanted to say musically was the real thing."

To that end, he called in many of his longtime friends, including past collaborators like Sasha and Paul Van Dyk, as well as people he had wanted to work with for "ages" -- namely DJ Rap and M. Doughty of Soul Coughing fame. "It's just a bunch of friends getting together," BT says. "We had a lot of fun making this record."

The free-flowing nature of Movement can be found in the disc's first single, "Never Gonna Come Back Down," a track on which BT lays down a groove to two improvised rants spliced together from Doughty. "It's two takes," BT says. "One take, he's singing from the Book of Revelations. And the second take, he's singing about how hot he thinks DJ Rap is. And that's the whole thing."

The creative control BT exercised over Movement also found him entering into realms heretofore unknown to him, including utilizing breakbeats and guitars. However, he says that without question the most frightening prospect for him was singing on the album.

"I've sung on a bunch of my own demos and then I'll give them to singers I like," he says. "But to actually sing on something is putting yourself out there. You're not hiding behind an instrument. That was scary to me."

How he came to be the voice of the song "Satellite" was actually an accident. "On 'Satellite,' I did that as a guide vocal for someone else to sing and I played it for a bunch of friends and they said, 'You gotta leave this.' And I'm like, 'No, everybody's gonna be so confused. Everybody already thinks I'm a friggin' DJ.' They don't understand I'm a musician and not a DJ, and if I start singing on stuff, they're gonna be like, 'What the hell?' But my friends weren't hearing it. And in retrospect I'm really glad the people around me stood up to me and were like, 'You know what? It's cool, and so what if you feel self-conscious about it? Even if you're not Peter Gabriel, it's appropriate for the song.' So that was freaky, but exciting and fun too."

STEVE BALTIN
(July 13, 2000)