Motherboard

Above: Eclectic Method’s “Cultural Funkin Overload Pt. 1.”

We are not VJs. In 2005, Eclectic Method released a DVD video mixtape under just that title. It’s hard to define just what Ian Edgar, 31, Geoff Gamlen, 42, and Jonny Wilson, 29, do and are. To some, the audio-visual remix scene is an eye-roller, evocative of the endless drone of a house beat and a laser-light show that’s slightly less impressive than your iTunes visualizer, made for people who just need to be bombarded by something to look at while they’re twirling their glow sticks.

But as pioneers in the field since the beginning of the decade — before the technology and equipment really even existed to do what they do— what these Brooklynite Englishmen manage to create is nothing short of eye-blowing.

“We just throw ourselves at it and whatever we spit out, that’s our final piece,” Edgar says. “People seem to like it.”

Yes indeed. The trio has played hundreds of shows across the globe, worked with music icons like U2, Fatboy Slim, Phish, and Public Enemy, and jumped into the mainstream, creating content for Motown, Sony, MTV, Apple, and Adidas. Their audio and videos, which include the viral blockbusters Tarantino Mixtape and Obama New Puppy clip, have received millions of hits online and captured the attention of CNN and Stephen Colbert (they remixed an interview with the talk show host and copyleft advocate Larry Lessig). They’ve worked with companies like Mediatronica to create widgets and programs to help fans and colleagues copy them, and even potential copyright-complainers like Sony and Pioneer have asked them to develop cutting-edge audio-visual software and hardware.

“All of this stuff is just totally surreal,” Edgar says. “We operate in the most ridiculously high circle considering what we do. We’re video internet remixers and we get booked for genuine proper work with the biggest gaming companies, the biggest movie companies, the biggest bands, the biggest icons.”

What the trio does, exactly, is pull audio and video content from just about anywhere—movies, commercials, music videos, television, documentaries, video games, and popular culture in general—and cuts, mixes, layers, and mashes it up into new hybrids of synapse-sparking goodness. In performance, they do it totally live, and in a way that is complex, insistent, mesmerizing, and incredibly danceable.

There’s nothing stock about their footage either. Often using clips that are days, if not hours fresh for their videos and live shows, Eclectic Method forces its audience to participate in a fluid cultural dialogue that spans from the birth of film to the frenetic media culture of today.

“Coming from a sample culture of De La Soul and Public Enemy, and growing up with that sort of thing, sampling was just sort of naturally the obvious thing to play with,” says Edgar. “We were going to clubs in the UK and were really bored of DJs playing one type of music. Videos in clubs tended to be really abstract stuff. When you hear Prince, you should see Prince. When you hear a guitar, you should see a guitar.”

Keeping video carefully linked to the soundtrack might be a way to temper the mind-boggling abundance of material at their disposal, flowing from the unending stream of video consciousness that’s been merging with their brains even before the web. “What inspired me to start was being bombarded with video and television,” he continues. “A lot of images get stuck with you and in a way, what’s going on in your head is a bunch of samples and cultural references and melodies and rhythms. It’s just kind of natural.”

“Our content is varied—blues, hip hop, techno, pop, movies,” Wilson says. “We cut it all up and jam it; it’s closest to the hip hop style of having two turntables and jumping from one to the other and sampling everything. Hip hop, electronic music, new movies like District 9—everything is inspiring.”

Even their resumes are like mash-ups: scratch DJ-ing and journalism, a stint at the British Embassy in Moscow, working as Brian Eno’s sound engineer in post-war Bosnia. Now, two of the London natives have settled in Brooklyn (Gamlen remains in the UK), and have found a way to make a career in an industry that barely existed when they started out, notwithstanding the influences of earlier pioneers like Coldcut, Emergency Broadcasting Network, and Hexstatic. Though the scene is expanding, it’s hard to compete with their years of experience, and the thousands of hours they’ve spent archive-digging and video-cutting.

“Because of the way we prepare stuff, which is really time consuming, there’s very few people out in the world who can do a similar thing," says Edgar. “It doesn’t take hours, it takes years.”

Not that they’re worried about competition. The group happily responds to the barrage of emails asking about their process and equipment, giving gear advice, even providing tutorials on YouTube explaining how to pirate their style. (For those taking notes, they use DVJ-1000 DVD turntables and the Pioneer SVM-1000 AV Mixer, and for live shows, rely on Sony Vegas, with music production done with Sony Acid software — all on PCs.)

But their most crucial killer app may be YouTube. "The internet has made being global possible without a huge budget or support from a record label or distribution company,” Wilson says. “We are very lucky to be in an age in which what we do can spread itself whilst we are sleeping.”

It’s also an era of heated copyright debates across all industries. So far, however, the quality of Eclectic Method’s content has led artists and companies to seek them out, not sue them. It’s an arrangement they’re more than happy with, and one that everyone — from corporate suits to Youtube hackers — will need to get used to.

“The majority of the people out there who have anything to do with these absurd copyright laws are greedy lawyers who see there’s money to be made off of suing people,” Edgar says. “That has nothing to do with music and creativity and protecting the rights of the artists. If we really want to protect the rights of the artists, we need to shut down the music industry. We can create relationships with fans and people who are curious. We went out and tried a particular style of video performance and tested it out to see if the world is ready for it. It kind of is; it will be more ready in a few years. Copyright needs to catch up to that. When people innovate, you have to catch up.”

An earlier version of this article appeared in the Greenpoint Gazette.