Phonomancers - people who aren’t musicians, but manage to get great records made

I'll let Andrew Hickey explain the idea:

There’s a comic called Phonogram, and in it there are people called “phonomancers”. These are people who aren’t musicians, but who can tap into the power of music other people have made, and use it to do magic.

I think “phonomancers” is actually a very useful concept for dealing with the real world as well. There are people in the music industry who don’t themselves play an instrument or sing or any of the normal musician things, but who manage to get great records made — records which are their creative work — by moulding and shaping the work of others. Sometimes they’re record producers, sometimes they’re managers, sometimes they’re DJs or journalists. But there are a lot of people out there who’ve shaped music enormously without being musicians in the normal sense. Brian Eno, Sam Phillips, Joe Meek, Phil Spector, Malcolm McLaren, Simon Napier-Bell… I’m sure you can add more to the list yourself.

well, let's get to adding and discussing!

Brian Eno is quite definitely a musician.

Ivo Watts-Russell (This Mortal Coil, Hope Blister, plus lots of inputs on key 80s 4AD albums)

feel like maybe David Holmes is a little in this category too?

- and what of people like Scott Walker or David Lynch who wrote lyrics etc but were not "musicians" in the sense of instrument players?

Scott Walker was absolutely a musician in being a singer and multi-instrumentalist (most visibly as a bass player in the Walker Brothers).

McLaren was my first thought upon seeing this thread.

#1 choice for me = King Tubby.

(Lee Perry disqualified as he was a singer).

Plus, Scott Walker wrote his songs on guitar

Hal Willner? Or was he an instrumentalist too?

Alex Paterson can’t play any instruments and probably doesn’t write melodies or rhythms / almost certainly doesn’t arrange music. But no matter who the other bloke in The Orb is at any time, and even though the style changes depending on who the other bloke is, the records always come out sounding distinctly like Orb records and not Other Bloke records.

Just remembering Thrash's long rant on his website about him, whole site seems to be down now.

Eno is also a singer and McLaren did very effective vocals on many of his records — but Hickey citing them points to a capacity for ineffability. Eno does play on lot of records, but can also shape and inspire musicians just by hanging around pontificating. McLaren was a motivating or curating force for records he didn’t detectably do anything on.

Yeah, I imagine Hickey is well aware that Eno is a musician, but probably also that Eno is a self-described non-musician

King Tubby is a great one!

So yeah, I'm thinking probably the term is not meant to be too restrictive - maybe you can be able to play an instrument but also your major musical accomplishments have more to do with curating, managing etc.

Andy Warhol on the first VU album.

Bez on vibes

Any musician can call themselves a non-musician, doesn't mean they actually are a non-musician.

Totally, maybe Eno is actually not a good fit for the phonomancer concept, I do totally get why Hickey would use him as an example though, and I also feel like some of his most instrumental contributions to records did perhaps not come from playing an instrument

Yeah the Eno mention is boggling as Eno's famous production often included Eno himself playing and singing as an additional band member by proxy...

I'm trying to think of an instance where Eno was just content enough to sit back and not insert himself into the band/record. Even as a strict documentarian like on No New York he was manipulating China's guitar sound live during the Mars recordings. And infamously on Q:Are We Not Men?, Devo fought very hard to keep his involvement to a minimum... Eno won out, he's not credited but the band says he's on at least 4 songs, they asked Bowie to remove his parts which DB was hesitant to do haha.

Does someone like Alan Lomax fit the criteria? Like... I could be wrong but I doubt he was involved in the creative process very much.

classical conductors? or is the orchestra = their instrument?

Paul Morley at ZTT seems to fit. Art of Noise became a lot less interesting once he moved on.

George Martin
Eddie Kramer
Tchad Blake

...

Andy Fletcher?

James Lavelle is totally in this gang.

Bob Stanley, maybe?

Although Giorgio Gomelsky was both a musician and a songwriter, those weren't the roles in which he had the greatest influence on music.

Stanley I think of as maybe less 'techy' than Wiggs but he's a musician, producing, writing and performing. I think of Felix Buxton of Basement Jaxx in that same category - a parallel category being bedroom producers like David Holmes and Goldie who may have involved themselves less on the engineering side of the production once their ideas got a lot bigger.

In terms of Factory, maybe Martin Hannett and/or Tony Wilson.

This is a tough category because most bandleaders, conductors, producers, arrangers, and engineers all have at least some credibility as musicians.

Eno may have avoided traditional paths but yeah, he's a musician. Spike Jones? Unconventional in his execution but absolutely a musician. Kim Fowley? More known as a producer but certainly a competent lyricist and songwriter.

For me, a musician is someone who makes music, period. Training and intention and posturing are irrelevant.

The only people I can think of who made measurable contributions to music while definitely not being describable as musicians would be impresarios (Warhol? The Colonel?), or the occasional person who was pulled into a recording session almost against his or her will.

Mal Evans on anvil, ladies and gentlemen.

Maybe the randos whose spoken-word bits got included on Dark Side of the Moon?

Though the term "phonomancers" implies some sort of wizardry bringing about "records which are their creative work", not just a quidam who happened to be in the studio that day.

George Martin

Uh, certainly not!

In terms of Factory, maybe Martin Hannett and/or Tony Wilson.

Hannett was a musician.

i really think there needs to be a distinction between actual producers like George Martin and Hannett and bullshit artists like Malcolm McLaren

What about compilers?
Alan Lomax was mentioned... or anybody doing quality reissues/uncovering lost gems?
think I'm unclear on the concept... it's a cool word though... phonomancer...

a current example in African pop is Basketmouth (real name: Bright Okpocha), a famous Nigerian comedian who released two excellent self-curated albums under his own name. granted, he started out as a musician before he found fame as a comedian, but (one rap feature excepted) he didn't perform on these projects himself. the producer he worked with came up with beats, and he supplied those, with a storyline suggestion, to the artists of his choice, integrating the results into the project.

You can be the choirmaster. Create a theme, work your butt off to assemble your cast of artists and producers. Pay for everything. Split royalty points around the room and own the final product. (...) Who knew this comic had it in him? Who knew he could find a way to bring out the best of producer Duktor Sett? Who knew he could link stories with melody to build multiple potent songs that would make an attack on our playlists? (...) But Basketmouth did it, by deep A&Ring and curation.

more in this article:
https://afrobeatsintelligence.substack.com/p/basketmouths-aligning-stars?utm_source=%2Fsearch%2Fbasketmouth&utm_medium=reader2

the albums in question, Yabasi (2020) and Horoscopes (2022), are a treat for anyone with even a slight interest in afrobeats/afropop. highly recommended listening.

Isn't this true of any great record label head/curator, or do they need to be involved in the recording process to qualify?

Creed Taylor. He could play the trumpet, but he was 100% known for production, A&R, etc. and you can absolutely trace his aesthetic from the first year of Impulse! releases to Verve and then to CTI. He had a huge impact — maybe the biggest impact of a single individual — on the sound and marketing of jazz in the 1960s and 1970s.

I was just thinking of him, after listening to the Bob James interview on Questlove's podcast.

I hate to be the one to tap the sign but "people in the music industry who don’t themselves play an instrument or sing or any of the normal musician things, but who manage to get great records made".

But in the case of Creed Taylor, he didn't actually play or arrange on any record, just had concepts (musical, covers, titles, put bands and arrangers together, etc). I think it counts.

Bob James said he heard he had musical training, but never saw any direct evidence of it.

Maybe, I mean, the vast majority of producers don't play on the records they produce - but are there that many who "don’t themselves play an instrument or sing or any of the normal musician things"?

rick rubin, rate him or hate him

feels a lot like looking for conceptual artists with zero craft skills or experience - save the obv jokes - and it just seems extremely unlikely to me

being involved in the production of music makes you a de facto musician imo

Rick Rubin was in punk bands

Jimmy Iovine.

producers are a really weird thing

Feel like Jon Landau had a good deal of influence on the way Born to Run (the album) ended up sounding.

I feel like this is one of those topics where the best examples are probably already named in the OP (e.g., Phil Spector).

I think Shadow Morton was essentially a non-musician, although Wikipedia sez he was in a doo-wop group…

David Lynch* was mentioned upthread but what about Maharishi Mahesh Yogi?

*https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d_rbEthOdf0

The Maharishi had a svengali influence on The Beatles and The Beach Boys when they were the 2 most popular rock bands on the planet.

Even Peter Grant has a dedicated segment in The Song Remains The Same (film).

I'm pretty sure Lynch plays and otherwise "creates" music on his albums (beyond being a songwriter)...

Maybe, I mean, the vast majority of producers don't play on the records they produce - but are there that many who "don’t themselves play an instrument or sing or any of the normal musician things"?

Maybe not in the old major label model, although I also have heard lots of stories about A&Rs and credited producers who were primarily business people and talent scouts.

But I can also think of a lot of examples in the electronic/dance world of people who have zero musical training and don't make music but have great ears, and have created a label or platform + have a specific aesthetic + DJ and run mix series + shape releases by deciding which tracks should go on a record etc.

Maybe it's more common in that world because DJing is already an act of curation and can naturally lead to the other stuff? I'm primarily thinking of some people I've worked with, but maybe Ben UFO is a good example of someone who doesn't make music but started a label. I'm sure there are lots of other examples.

Steve Lillywhite is another producer known for his ears and mixing board abilities; he doesn't play instruments or write music.

I thought that was what producers did…?

it’s like coaching, some players are good at it

apparently!

It can really be anything...from stories about John Cale, sometimes he would play instruments and arrange strings and horns, sometimes he would just encourage the band to get a live show energy going, sometimes he would just do heroin. Sometimes producers also engineer. In modern parlance, especially with rap music, the producer is the person who makes every note of the (aside from the vocal).

Steven Stapleton of Nurse With Wound def fits this bill

If I were producing, I'd suggest more orchestral fills on synths and drink Negronis.

the first place i read the word "phonomancer" was in an advertisement for "entheogenic strength and conditioning" to be held at the "first church of david bowie, phonomancer". so, like. just so you know, the stereotypes about portland aren't based on _nothing_.

Rolf-Ulrich Kaiser isn't a musician, iirc.

is frank farian the opposite of a phonomancer?

hold me closer
phonomanceeerrr

dj khaled

^^^^^^^good one

in fact you can probably plug any mixtape dj in here: dj drama, dj scream, dj holiday, trap-a-holics

yes dj khaled is the king of this

hold me closer
phonomanceeerrr

A+

Well I used to believe that I was a phonomancer
Then I came home to a woman that I did not recognize
Though I pressed her for a reason she refused to even answer
It was then that DJ Khaled kicked me right between the eyes

Phonomancer, my friend, is blowin' in the wind

I think Eno kinda works in one sense, and that's whenever he's doing guitar-based stuff. particularly on his collabs, like Wrong Way Up, High Life, and "Heaps of Sheep" with Robert Wyatt. the playing is so rudimentary but it sounds really cool. like if I'd just picked up guitar and was trying to write a catchy song I'd probably try something like that too.

I'm a dancer
I'm a prancer
I'm a pho-no-mancer
I sure don't want to hurt no one

wait how about Alex Patterson of The Orb? does that guy actually know how to play anything? he's not even a particularly skilled DJ. but he has impeccable taste and seems to always be able to wrangle something cool and "Orb-like" out of his collaborators

mentioned upthread!

Artist Russell Mills has released 2 albums as Undark, taking musical elements contributed by dozens of musicians and weaving them into ambient albums.

Such as: The Eno brothers, David Sylvian, Kevin Shields, Robin Guthrie, Harold Budd, Peter Gabriel, etc etc etc.

I think Hal Willner is a perfect one of these phono-thingies. Hector Zazou is an actual musician, but he has the same ability to gather a ridiculous parade of collaborators.

i have an Undark cd.
had no idea re Russell Mills being a phonomancer.

I think Hal Willner is a perfect one of these phono-thingies.

Willner was one of the kings of this. I interviewed Don Byron once, who played on some Willner albums, and he said all he did was hang out in the booth smoking weed, that his job was to come up with a concept and get a label to pay for it and then the musicians themselves did all the arranging, etc.

Bill Laswell dabbles in phonomancy...

what on earth did a major record label think they were doing giving Malcolm McLaren £100,000 to make a solo album in the early 80s?

good read, thanks!

I was trying to explain to him when he should come in but he didn’t know what a bar was. I told him it was four beats. He said: ‘I don’t know anything about that.’”

<3

At one point, he wanted to make a hip-hop track about ET, a sensation at US cinemas.

LOL interesting as Extra Ts 'E.T. Boogie' would sound pretty at home on 'Duck Rock', whether or not McLaren wanted to rip it off wholesale off the back of hearing it.

a family band from a remote location in rural Tennessee who, as McLaren’s biographer Paul Gorman put it, “appeared under-nourished and had pronounced strabismuses” (types of squint).
I’ve never seen the word strabismus used by anyone other than Anthony Burgess.