Your 2008 release Humus was an ambient masterpiece sprinkled with elements of electronica and IDM. In addition to synth soundscapes, your latest album features a lot more acoustic instruments. Tell us a bit about that progression.
In my works I have always tried to find the right balance between acoustic sounds and electronic sounds. The tracks of my previous album, "Migrations " and "Humus", consist of different themes played with acoustic instruments (piano, guitar, harmonica, flute, strings, sometimes even my voice), but each sound has been processed and loaded with effects. In "Time Elapsing Handheld" I choose to make my compositional approach clearer, by leaving the acoustic sounds mostly unchanged. Electronics give no limits to the creativity of a musician, but I think warmth and vibes of acoustic instruments are unique. That's why mine is a constant research for compromises between acoustic and electronic.
Where are some of the field recordings from? Is that windshield wipers I hear on "Later, Earlier"?
Most of the field recordings have been captured in rural contexts, in Central and Southern Italy. I'm glad you asked me this question about "Later, Earlier". I was in a little town near Terracina, at a friend's house on a hill. We were outside at night. Suddenly I hear a sound that repeats regularly, like a crafted loop. I asked my friend where that sound came from and he replied that it was a bug! I could not believe my ears. That sound had an incredible rhythm. I took my MicroTrack recorder and I captured it. I still do not know what kind of bug it is, but the sound you hear in "Later, Earlier " was not manipulated at all, it is exactly as is.
Tell us how you came upon collaborating with Simon Scott on "Made to Give".
With Simon we were in contact to explore the possibilities of live performances to propose together. The collaboration came about spontaneously. We started working on a draft that slowly took shape and became "Made to Give".
Let's talk about "time". First of all, what does the name behind the album "Time Elapsing Handheld" represent?
The concept behind it comes from a dream I had. In my dream I had a little time handheld that allowed me to make short time-jumps (10-15 minutes). When I woke up I thought that such an handheld would be precious for the human beings. Imagine you're stuck in the traffic: you just press a button and you're back home relaxing on your sopha. Imagine you're attending a very boring meeting: just press the button and you're suddenly in the bar drinking an after-work beer with your friends. Maybe people would be a little bit happier... And I thought that, after all, music is a sort of time elapsing handheld because while listening to it you get completely lost for the whole length of the album and when you "wake up" you realize that music gave you the capability to "freeze" a certain moment of your life and to "wake up" in a different situation, with a different mood and with different feelings.
What are your thoughts on passing time, and what are the proper tools for altering its perceived rate?
We all would like to stop time, but in certain situations we would pay to make it go faster. Both factors are obviously impossible to get so we use little tricks to cheat time and altering its rate according to our needs. I don't think it's the case to afford deep physical and philosophical concepts and their resulting paradox here but I can tell you that music is absolutely my "time machine", my main mean to cancel time. The hardest thing to talk about is the effect that canceling time might produce, because if I freeze a certain moment of my life by any means, when I get the clock to start running again my perception is that the clock hands run faster than before...
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Read the entire interview on Headphone Commute
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Interview with Emanuele Errante by HC. Photography by Silvano Caiazzo.
maisound.com/errante | myspace.com/eerrante
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