We sit down with the multi talented musician, composer and professor of music to talk about his extensive and extremely prolific and colorful career to date 

Jono Podmore aka Kumo

is Professor of the Practice of Popular Music at the prestigious Hochschule für Musik in Cologne, Germany. He has been no slouch with his own musical projects, working under his Kumo alias across multiple releases, live performances and DJ sets worldwide; collaborating with artists as diverse as Can, The Shamen, Jamiroquai, Metamono and Swantje Lichtenstein. The lyrical strains of Podmore’s theremin, his work with writers, with visual artists and in the film industry, all continue to push boundaries.

He’s a regular contributor to music and culture magazines, and co-wrote and edited the book Jaki Liebezeit (2020) about the master drummer. 

Jono hails from Liverpool and lives with his synths in SE London where he teaches Tai Chi.

NSG: Hello Jono and how are you today? Finally, we get to talk! Reading about your careers, several of them, I’m thinking of a word to describe you? Prolific and multi talented springs to mind! Let’s start at the beginning. Where did you grow up and what was life like for a young Jono?

Jono: All good Billy! It’s a treat to hook up and thanks for inviting me for a chat. The young Jono was quite a happy little chappy in general I think, and not unlike the old Jono had his finger in every pie available. Playing guitar and violin in bands, running the school disco, playing in the Merseyside Youth Orchestra and all sorts of other extracurricular activities. I grew up in the Old Roan area of the city which meant going to one of the many dilapidated, underfunded and begrudging secondary schools in Maghull with the heady mix of bigotry, ignorance, violence and petty crime that defined much of the culture at the time. Music in the 70s and early 80s was the absolute social focus and identifier which also meant the quality and competition was high. Also making music was much more a social activity then: you had to work with other people to get anything done and that drew the best musicians and most interesting minds together. What I learned then formed the foundation of so much I practice as an artist and producer today.

NSG: So you left Liverpool to study electronic music at Middlesex University in 1983 and by 1986 you were composing music for theatre and TV, including Eugene Ionesco’s Journeys Among The Dead and Stanley’s Vision with Ben Kingsley for Channel 4 TV. 1980s Liverpool didn’t offer a lot of opportunities I’m guessing? What made you choose Electronic music as something to go and study as opposed to a regular job of the time, say like a bricklayer or something?

Jono: Liverpool then as now had a pretty vibrant music scene and I got through school with enough qualifications to avoid the building industry, but like it or not the UK music industry is based in London so I had my sights set on heading for the smoke. I’d already spent a summer in Manchester the year that the Hacienda opened and with that late teenage sense of adventure London was next on the list. Also, the range of degree courses available were greater so with my background in classical music I was able to get on a BA course in electronic music as a first study. I’d been recording in studios since I was 15 and the process of using the studio as an instrument rather than a facility fascinated me. The experimental electronic scene and dub reggae had guided me towards classical electronic music. Such profoundly weird and challenging music made by guys in suits and ties using anonymous banks of tech just seemed like the coolest thing to me at the time.

NSG: Your background is extremely diverse isn’t it? I mean you studied and have been very successful in a lot of different areas including Martial arts, writing, music and production to name but a few. In 1987 you joined The Corn Dollies as violinist and string arranger with international touring and studio commitments including 2 albums. Following the split of the band in 1990 you then went to Japan to study Karate-do. How did you find the time to do so much and what made you decide to go to study Karate-do after serval years of doing so well in the music industry?

Jono: Well I didn’t drop one to do the other. If there is a single metaphor that keeps cropping up in my life it’s “spinning plates”. So I would keep my martial arts plate spinning with regular training, then fit studio, gigs and other shenanigans around it, and vice versa. On one hand, I think I might have gone further in any one direction if I’d focussed more, but on the other, the breadth of experience and knowledge from diversity can be synergetic. There’s no way I’d be able to play the theremin and be as healthy as I am without the martial arts and that has a massive impact on my production and teaching. Similarly, teaching young producers at post-grad level means I get a constant kick up the arse to keep my knowledge and skills up to date, which of course supports my professional life.

NSG: I know you as Jono but a lot of people will know you as musician and composer ‘KUMO’. What’s the story of KUMO for readers who may not know? How did it all begin?

Jono: I was asked to create pseudonym when I started releasing material on Plink Plonk records back in ’93. The label was set up by Richard “Mr C” West who was the face of The Shamen at the time, and so to maintain a genuinely underground, suitably anonymous and equitable dancefloor vibe we all hid behind made up names. For example one of the first releases on the label was by Pluto, who was in fact Rolo, the lead singer of The Woodentops. A handful of the acts were actually Richard himself aligned with various other ne’er-do-wells, with the likes of myself mixing, programming and generally trying to keep the ball in play. Since then I’ve kept the name Kumo, and it’s nice to have a purely artistic avenue to explore. So my last album, Slave Dances (Seven Portraits) is a Kumo album, strangely enough, released on Sound-Space, a label set up by the legend that is Paul Rip who was the label manager at Plink Plonk back in the day. I worked with Irmin Schmidt from Can as Kumo to get some daylight between our artistic work together and the work I did for him as a producer on his film music etc. I occasionally release Kumo material on my own Bandcamp page: https://kumo.bandcamp.com The latest was the Three Tigers EP which pretty much points to where I am musically at the moment. By the way, Kumo is the Japanese word for “cloud”. A little cloud to hide behind maybe, but also a reference to a musical technique I love: a huge amount, a cloud, of tiny events sounding like a single static state. There was also that poem A Cloud In Trousers by Mayakovsky, but that’s another story…

(Jono Podmore aka Kumo)

NSG: You have worked with a lot of big names including composing and producing music for stage and screen, and worked as a sound engineer, producer, programmer and string arranger including international #1 album Emergency on Planet Earth by Jamiroquai; winning a MOBO award with Sunship; and working with artists as diverse as The Shamen, Jhelisa, Ian McCulloch, Robert Owens, D*Note, Republica, A.P.E amid countless other acts in the vibrant London dance music scene of the time. What were those years like and how did a kid from the tough streets of Liverpool end up working in an industry and with artists that most people can only dream of working in and with?

Jono: To be fair Old Roan wasn’t exactly “the tough streets” and I wasn’t the only one to get my ass educated and to move on. Many people I worked with in the 90s, including names on that list, came from similar suburban or much tougher backgrounds. I got there by doing the work and getting headhunted. I remember Robert Owens saying to me in a winsome moment, “a singer is only as good as his last song” but the flip side of that is that if you can show the skills and make them work people will come to you. For example with Jamiroquai they came to a studio I was working at because they needed to record some bass for their first single “When You Gonna Learn”. The studio manager put them in with me as a safe pair of hands. They brought with them samples of a string arrangement they wanted to use that was terrible and badly recorded, so I told them I could do a better job. A few months later I was conducting a string orchestra playing my arrangements for their first album. But following that path is pretty stressful. Turning down sessions is scary because you don’t know what else you will miss out on and so I was desperately overworked, very thin and smoking far too much weed. Which weirdly also meant I didn’t get out much – all that party music and hardly ever going to the party was very odd. Whenever I did go out I’d often just fall asleep!

NSG: You sound like a person who has to be extremely active? How did you get through lockdown not being able to do many of the things that you are passionate about?

Jono: Actually, I took to it like a duck to water. Being active means there are always things on the back burner that you never get round to. When I was forced to stay at home I managed to do a heap of research both technical and cultural, honed some skills and, with the help of Zoom, managed to actually enhance my Tai Chi practice and teaching. Some aspects had to take the back seat, but as an example, I was even able to play gigs from my living room, which was an absolute blast. I live alone so it was lonely at times but I look back at the lockdown as a creative and positive time. This is of course not taking into account the ravages of the disease itself, which claimed members of my family. Hats off to the brilliant minds that brought us those vaccines and the brilliant medical teams that treated the ill.

NSG: The lockdown has been very hard for the arts scene in general, personally, I don’t feel we are completely back to the level it was and I think it has had an effect on everyone who works in arts, media and entertainment. Do you think things are different now and how do you think the future looks for the industry? 

Jono: Things ARE different now: this is the New Normal. In terms of activity, it will get back to where it was but the activity will be different. Even more of our lives will be conducted online, especially with Zoom now a standard. Brexit has had a parlous effect on the UK music industry and culture in general and this is compounded by people becoming more local in their thinking worldwide, or at least across Europe. I think this will have a greater impact than the fallout from the lockdowns, although there are still struggles and there is another winter coming at us down the line. The music industry is all about mutation, novelty, smoke and mirrors so it will always survive as music is a human necessity. There will be times with less money in the business as a whole but there will still be people turning a profit one way or another. If I am going to stick my neck out and make predictions I’d say: – Streaming is here to stay but will have to become fairer, as without better distribution of wealth the quality of the product will suffer. – It’ll be ironic at first and then catch on but  CDs will become cool for the first time. – Vinyl will become greener, more expensive and a total luxury. – Local scenes will flourish but big international monsters may begin to feel the pinch.

NSG: Interestingly I read that you are Professor of the Practice of Popular Music at the prestigious Hochschule für Musik in Cologne, Germany? What is a Professor of the Practice of Popular Music and what does it entail?

Jono: A professorship is a management position to a degree, so actually what the job entails, at least in terms of content, is pretty much up to me. So I’ve focussed on production, set up a lovely studio and since 2010 I’ve run a Master’s course in production, the first in Europe at the time. https://www.hfmt-koeln.de/studiengaenge/master-of-music/master-of-music-production/ I teach technical and cultural content on a one-to-one basis with my post-grad students and set up workshops with industry professionals and academics for bigger groups. As an example of the more bonkers stuff I do, I recently took a group of students and staff to Tuscany for a week for a songwriting camp with recording and a gig in a palazzo at the end of the week. Students loved it – I needed to see a therapist when I got home…

(Jono Podmore aka Kumo)

NSG: If you could sit down and have dinner with three people from history, who would they be and why?

Jono: This list would probably be different every day you asked, but today it’s: Yang Luchan, Norman Whitfield and whoever designed Stonehenge.

NSG: What are you working on at the moment?

Music wise I’m Producing a new album with Jhelisa Anderson. The first track Oxygen has just been released and got a 9/10 review in Blues and Soul. Listen here: https://lnk.to/oxygenartpeace2 And the second album I’m working on is by Blues Punk troublemakers Stage Door Guy. Putting together live shows with Metamono, Minny Pops, The Rhine in London and Cologne, DJing on West Norwood Broadcasting Company http://www.wnbc.london. On other fronts, I’m writing a new book on Perceptions and Judgement in music for both audience and creators called What Sounds Better. Teaching Tai Chi in person and taking part in competitions again after the pandemic. Developing fresh content for the MMus Production course in Cologne. Learning Japanese (again) on Duolingo…Last but by far not least, continuing with pre-production (and the podcast) for the international feature film The Giaour, based on Lord Byron’s epic poem. https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-giaour-podcast/id1568948217

NSG: What music are you listening to at the moment? Like what’s on your playlist?

Jono: That’s always changing and always reflects what I’m working on. I’m rediscovering Pentatonica by Yasuaki Shimizu which I wasn’t impressed with back when it was released but now I think I get it. I got a boxed set of Wagner’s opera Parsifal conducted by Boulez which I worked my way through the other week without invading anywhere. Elvin Jones and Richard Davis’s album Heavy Sounds seems to be in tune with the summer, as is Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan’s En Concert A Paris. Tape Works Vol.1 by Langham Research Centre has been keeping the neighbours guessing too.

NSG: How is the rest of 2022 looking for you?

Jono: Busy! Pressure is on in Cologne – we have to hire new staff, create posts and make sure the new crop of students get a better deal than the poor sausages who got dumped on by the pandemic. Album and film projects are lined up for the Autumn/Winter and the new book project mentioned earlier is gathering pace. I’m interviewing lots of interesting people and, as ever, learning by doing! Better crack on…

You can get all of Jono Podmore’s links via the link below

Links