You have been producing music for well over a decade now. How has your sound evolved over the years?
I think my music has always been a mixture of numerous influences, styles. I love electronic music, space and trance, but too, world music, classical, even pop rock. I guess that, since 1996, when Asura was created, the evolution was natural, cause it's not commercial music, so it has no boundaries, no limits. I too tried many synths and gears, and for something like 5 or 6 years, many virtual ones. So my sound changed with my various experiments.
360 is an album in two parts. What do the chapters "Before" and "After" signify?
It's a very personal reason in fact. This album is a tribute to my father who passed away in 2009. He taught me love of music, and I share what I know in part thank to him with my listeners. You are born, you live, and you die. But you give a message. It's like a loop. A circle. Life in 360. "Before" is when he was there, and "after" is... you guess what!
And what about the name itself - are you referring to a full cycle, return to the origin, as well as the unity of beginning and an end?
I don't want to keep my music enclosed in a formatted style. "Code Eternity", for example, belongs to the past, with its almost exclusive 4/4 beats, acid and loud basslines. We are in 2010 now, no more in the 2000's. I changed and my music with me. I will keep making this kind of music of course, cause I love it, but essentially for compilations, live acts, for the dance floor too. So now I want to go deeper in a mix of World Music, Trance Ambient, Trip Hop, Classical, Glitch, everything that I think can fit with my soul. I would like it to be a panoramic vision of music, at 360 degrees. That's why my 2011 album will be very different too, a spacey one. I will come back to a rhythmic album, as it's the case in "360", in 2013.
Talk a little about your collaboration with Ayten on El-Hai.
It was a virtual meeting at first, cause we met via Myspace. I send here some drones and she sang (divinely) on it. So we decided to make a track together, and it gave "El Hai", which means "Living God" in hebrew. And it won't be the last time. She has a heavenly voice, polymorphic I would say, and i am eager to collaborate on several other tracks, and maybe to released an album with her in the future.
[ - s n i p - ]
Read the entire interview on Headphone Commute
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Be sure to read Headphone Commute review of Asura's 360
asura-music.com
Saturday, April 30, 2011
Two and a Half Questions with Asura
Interview with Boy Is Fiction
What have been the greatest musical influences on your music?
For as long as I can remember I've been really easily distracted. My attention span is average at the best of times but music was always different. When I was growing up my folks had a huge collection of vinyl and discs that I'd disappear into and I guess because of that I've developed a fairly eclectic taste. I've never really given a shit who wrote the music or where it came from as long as it made me feel something. As a kid I remember listening to tracks over and over in an old pair of headphones for that reason alone.
I think the biggest shift for me was in my teens when I started to listen to bands like ministry. I was a die-hard metal fan so when I heard the mix of samples, synths and textures I was gone. I'd started playing guitar a few years earlier but from that point on I wanted to be able to do it all. My drumming sucked so I bought a drum machine / sampler and over time taught myself to play piano. As a guitarist I've gone downhill but spreading myself thinly over multiple instruments was the only way I could do what I wanted to do. These days I listen to everything from Godspeed to Leonard Cohen. There's so much good stuff out there, it's just a matter of filtering your way through it.
You seem to be a one man shop, doing all the writing, playing, and production yourself. Did anyone join you on Broadcasts in Colour? I hear a cello on "In" and a different voice on "Until Morning Comes." Is that all you? How many different instruments were employed to create the cinematic sweep of Broadcasts in Colour?
Boy is Fiction is just me. I've toyed with the idea of bringing in other musicians but it's such a personal project and so much of it comes from what I've seen and done. There are definitely people I'd love to work with and I wouldn't rule it out - but it's hard to do when you're in your own little world. In saying that I've spent some pretty late and messy nights with the people close to me picking their brains. It's a great way to sound out ideas but ultimately I'm stubborn and I tend to run with my heart.
To date the strings have been digital but that's definitely something I'd look at given the chance. Having started as a guitarist I still get a lot of textures from electrics, my keys are synth based and percussion is a mix of digital and acoustic. Over the years I've recorded a few kits and I still use them a lot when I'm after an open or live kit sound. The glitchy and broken beats come from a special place after a lot of hard liquor and shit talking.
Is your work drawn from your own life, or are they externally influenced?
Absolutely my own life, but music is a funny thing. I'm never really sure how a track will make someone feel so I just lay it all down emotionally. Why not? Once a piece is out there, people will interpret differently and I guess that's the beauty of music. Obviously adding vocals makes it easier to tell a story or whatever but I think if they're minimal enough the focus remains on the track as a whole. Everyone has moments and experiences they'll never forget. I have memories that I wish I could relive over and over, just as I have memories I wish I could outrun.
[ - s n i p - ]
Read the entire interview on Headphone Commute
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Interview prepared by Elizabeth Klisiewicz for Headphone Commute.
Check out Headphone Commute's review of Broadcasts In Colour
boyisfiction.com
Sound Bytes : Asura, Boxharp, Arc of Doves and Boy Is Fiction
Here, at Headphone Commute offices, our bins are overflowing with promos, our mailboxes are screaming with "listen to meeee!" subjects, and our hard-drives are constantly churning, fragmenting and archiving. We have given up a long time ago on listening to _ALL_ of the music out there, and complaining about its abundance is also a sin... Thankfully, Elizabeth Klisiewicz comes to the rescue once more, dusting off a few of the albums that truly deserve recognition among these pages. With this first Sound Bytes entry of the year, we tip our hats off to our favorites by Asura, Boxharp, Arc of Doves and Boy Is Fiction.
Asura - 360 (Ultimae)
Check out our Two and a Half Questions with Asura
Boxharp - The Green (Hidden Shoal Recordings)
Arc of Doves - Impressions (Quietus Recordings)
Boy Is Fiction - Broadcasts In Colour (Sun Sea Sky Productions)
Read also Elizabeth's Interview with Boy Is Fiction
Be sure to read this entry directly on Headphone Commute for audio track samples.
Cepia - Cepia (Cepia Music)
Read Two and a Half Questions with Cepia
cepiamusic.com
Two and a Half Questions with Cepia
What is the main theme behind the album, and why did you choose to go with a self-titled approach?
There isn't a main theme behind the album, but to me, it's an album in the classic sense where all the pieces are related and it's designed to be listened to all the way through. It's self-titled because it's very close to the core or essence of this music that I want to hear. Somewhere between the density of my first release and the minimalism of the last album.
Can you talk a bit about sound design? What software / hardware do you employ in your studio?
Everything is synthesized and sequenced in Max/MSP, bussed out to analog preamps, compressors and EQs, and then back in the computer for a more traditional mixing process with Logic. The album was not mastered for maximum level and because of that it retains a lot of punch, you want to turn it up when it comes on.
Describe your composition process. What are the inspirations? What is the approach at attacking a specific idea?
The harmonic stuff is written on a keyboard and the percussion in Max. Sometimes it's really hashing out a chord progression over a couple weeks, other times it's getting up in the middle of the night with something stuck in my head. The inspiration is all over the place from The Meters to Phillip Glass to The Band.
Besides Gin, what is your other choice of poison? :)
Whiskey.
[ - s n i p - ]
Read the entire interview on Headphone Commute
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Be sure to read Headphone Commute's review of Cepia.
cepiamusic.com
Saturday, April 23, 2011
Syndicated Posts
I just wanted to drop a quick line and apologize for not updating this mirror in a while. It's not exactly an automated process, so it takes a couple of hours to manually update individual posts. Since it fell off my radar, the reviews and interviews on here are lagging behind by about four months. I know many of you use this site to as your RSS source, so I'll do my best and attempt to catch up as soon as I can! Meanwhile, perhaps you'd consider adding our main site: reviews.headphonecommute.com to your portable RSS reader, so that you can stay up to date with the latest publications!
Tipper - Broken Soul Jamboree (Tippermusic)
Be sure to read our Two and a Half Questions with Tipper
tippermusic.net
Two and a Half Questions with Tipper
Last night I had a dream that I was checked into rehab for overdosing on music. I think you were there as well. What were you in for?
I'm the janitor there.
What would be a perfect musical performance for your funeral, and who should we book to perform?
I don't give a fuck 'cos i'll be dead, but for the purpose of your own entertainment, you may want to book this talent : manualist plays the bee gees
Seriously now, how Big is the Question, and how small is the head?
The question is about the size of a small wood pigeon and the head is about the size of a frustrated raisin.
On Broken Soul Jamboree I hear a few neat-sounding metallic percussion instruments. Who was your favorite Ninja Turtle and why?
Never watched it, but after some extensive research, probably Raphael, as he is purported to be both sullen and pissed off… these emotional traits stemming from an existential crisis that came about as a result of being one of only four anthropomorphic turtles in existence. Fair game.
[ - s n i p - ]
Read the entire interview with Headphone Commute
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Read Headphone Commute's review of Broken Soul Jamboree
tippermusic.net
Eskmo - Eskmo (Ninja Tune)
See also Headphone Commute's Interview with Eskmo.
eskmo.com | ninjatune.net
Interview with Eskmo
I noticed that you're using vocals on the album (your own voice, right?). How has the Eskmo sound evolved over the years?
Yep I'm singing. I've had tracks along the way since the beginning where I put my vocal in there as a hook, but this recent album was the first full on diving in to take it to another place. I know the sound right now in the electronic world (for the most part) is all on the r'n'b tip with vocals, but that's not what inspires me. The idea of 'characters' inspires me no matter what the sound, so I took that and ran with it. Ultimately the music has always stayed true to being a reflection and metaphor of an inner process that has been happening within me over 10 years. The ways in which it has changed would be, the most obvious, in terms of production levels / concepts. But more deep than that would be the way I approach the tracks. Whether from a place of 2005 or 2008 and trying to write something that sounded 'heavy' and could make the dance floor go wild, to the more recent material which explores some more emotional terrain. Lately I've really allowed the idea of storytelling and memes to come through no matter if that places the track into a gentle area or the opposite, an uncomfortable or challenging one. Either way, I feel more is being said than me still going down the route of dj oriented tracks. (Not like I would ever get that big in that world anyways cause my stuff was always a bit 'odd' for most of dj crowd).
The latest music video by Cyriak Harris for "We Got More" kicks Inception's butt... Tell us more about videos that are now featured with your album. How have these complimented your music?
The first was "Cloudlight" which was directed by my friend Dugan Oneal. The 2nd was the video you mention. I've been real blessed to have been able to work with these two directors. Each song definitely comes from its own little world and different intention was put into each. We (Ninja and I) wanted to show 2 very different sides to the Eskmo character. Cloudlight comes from a very personal subtle sorta place. There is lots of story behind that one. I knew before the album was even done Cloudlight needed a video, but Pete at Ninja convinced me to do one for We Got More. They knew Cyriak (I hadn't heard of him before), and I trusted his judgment that it would be a good fit. And luckily it definitely was. I feel he nailed the exact quirky vibe I was hoping to achieve in tune.
Your signing on to Ninja Tune has definitely brought more attention to your music. Talk about the new opportunities that have presented themselves since the signing.
Signing with them has been a great experience. Their presence is so well established already and the fact that they are putting in a whole new level of focus into the brand and label these past couple years is just exciting. Through this I've been able to travel to new spots in Europe and Japan as well as meet a whole new crew of musicians I may have not encountered otherwise. It has also has brought its own set of challenges, which I also try to see as opportunities to grow. Releasing the music to such a large audience and with this much force behind the release brings a lot of leering eyes. Your work just gets examined in a different way. Especially if you don't give critics what they were expecting. I look at all this as chances to expand my sound and view of what this all means to me and how I might grow from it.
Do you think we'll see more material from your other project, Welder? Also, how would you classify the separation of sound between Welder and Eskmo?
I'm currently diving into another full length Welder release right now. Welder is the gentle, inward, very organic sound in me. No attention paid (for the most part) to bass lines or anything that feels the need to make a track 'hit' on the dance floor, where sonically or to make people bug out. Once you enter than sort of territory, the whole game changes. Eskmo, is the more open, outward, big sound. He understands the dance world and intentionally messes with it, where as Welder doesn't even acknowledge a need for playing with the rules, cause there aren't any. At one point I thought to make them extreme opposites from each other, but I could never bring Eskmo to be an annoying dance anthem character and still be ok with myself. I'm curious to see the direction of this next Welder album.
[ - s n i p - ]
Read the entire interview on Headphone Commute
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See also Headphone Commute's review of Eskmo
eskmo.com | ninjatune.net
Hauschka - Foreign Landscapes (130701)
hauschka-net.de | myspace.com/hauschka
fat-cat.co.uk | myspace.com/fatcat130701
Interview with Hauschka
Hey Volker. We last spoke after your release of Ferndorf, where you introduced a few stringed instruments into your music. On Foreign Landscapes you took on an entire orchestra! Tell us how this collaboration has evolved.
Oh i think with twelve people it is a small orchestra, and i am really happy that i could work on my ability to compose something out of my head. I always had the idea after doing so many improvised concerts and recordings, to work more on the parts that i don't know so well and arranging and composing for a big ensemble was something i never experienced. it is also a matter of having trust in yourself that you can transfer ideas into a group where it is out of your control when it is played... but it isn't as soon as you work with them. i was fortunate to be able record with the wonderful Magik*Magik Orchestra from San Francisco who helped me to get the best result in a very relaxed atmosphere.
Talk a bit about the process of composing for this orchestra. How different is your approach from working on solo piano compositions? How long did it take to put together this ambitious score?
It is different, as you must have everything ready when you go into the studio and the composition must be already perfect, once you press the record button. with my solo pieces i trust my intuition, which i think is a wonderful strength but different. my solo piano pieces are mainly based on improvisation and spontaneous output. with a composition, you have to shape it beforehand. i started in the spring of 2009 with the first piece and when i had all the drafts together, it took me about 6 weeks to finish the arrangements. the recording was done in 5 days.
Foreign Landscapes is influenced by the places you have visited during your past extensive touring, and I see that you're on tour once again. Talk a little about this aspect of your life, and how it affects your direction as a composer (as opposed to a bedroom musician with little interaction with audience).
I think traveling in general makes you wider in terms of your perspective on people, culture and a variety of thoughts. it creates an atmosphere that is hard to achieve in your bedroom and gives you an enormous amount of input through impressions, which doesn't mean that the bedroom is a worse place, quality wise. in my home, i can really focus on the essence because everything is sorted and familiar. so in my case i can say the nicest thing is the mixture of both.
How have your live shows changed, now that you're performing with an orchestra?
I am playing mainly with a smaller group then i recorded with out of cost reasons but my concerts are more planned as the running order is clear beforehand. during my solo concerts i can always spontaneously decide what i want to play.
[ - s n i p - ]
Read the entire interview with Hauschka on Headphone Commute
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hauschka-net.de | myspace.com/hauschka
Also on Headphone Commute
bvdub - The Art Of Dying Alone (Glacial Movements)
Be sure to read Interview with bvdub
bvdub.org | glacialmovements.com
Interview with bvdub
That topic of death and passing away is something that you have admittedly been obsessed with. Is it a fascination, phobia, acceptance or something else? Can you please shed more light on this?
What was once a nearly crippling fear turned to acceptance, and then to fascination.
It’s been something I’ve been obsessed with for a long time, nearly as long as I can remember. As a result, I tend to see things in a very retrospective way, like trying to imagine how people I know would maybe remember me or something I did after I’m gone. I’ve never been able to live in the now, I’m always stuck in the past, which is maybe why I gravitate naturally toward thinking about the end – because at that point, there’s only the past.
It used to be a phobia, a really bad one. The obsession I now have with the concept of death was once a nearly uncontrollable phobia and fear – that was until one day, probably about 15 years ago now, one of my best friends handed me a copy of The Stranger by Albert Camus, which then started me down the road to the full-fledged Existentialist I am now (yes I know Camus labeled himself a Humanist, but we’ll save that discussion for another time). Many people mistakenly think that Existentialists are these suicidal, miserable people, mostly due to misrepresentation and erroneous information in popular media, when in actuality the fact that you’ve accepted that you’re going to die someday and that it could be any minute makes you appreciate the small and beautiful things in this life that so many overlook when they’re only thinking about the next one. Anyway, let’s save all that for another day…
Honestly I have no idea where my obsession with death comes from. When I was young I wasn’t exposed to some traumatic encounter with it or anything, it’s just always been something I gravitated toward (much to the distress of my parents when I was young haha). Even when I was young, I spent all of my time stuck in the past, thinking about things that had happened, regrets, and things that might have been – so even from a young age, I began to look all the way to the end, and think back from there, imagining how others may reminisce about their lives someday, and how my own existence would, if at all, intersect in their thoughts. Needless to say, I was a hit at parties.
The concept very recently and horribly came to life when I suddenly and without warning lost my father, who though he would freely admit couldn’t for the life of him understand what was going on in my head, supported every step I’ve ever taken, including all the times everyone else said I was throwing my life away on music. Without him, I would never have made a single note of music that you hear today. I owe everything I am to him, and to suddenly wake up and have him disappear without being able to say goodbye is something words can never describe, though I am by no means unique in the experience – people all over the world have to face it every day.
Though the emptiness I felt was and still is heavier than ten oceans, I think my lifelong obsession with the concept of loss, and my ability to accept and even be fascinated by it in the later half of my life to date helped me to deal with it in a drastically different way than I would have when I was younger. When I would have ran in the face of it at one point, I was now able to stare it straight in the eye, and accept it for what it was. I don’t believe in souls, spirits, afterlife, or anybody looking down on anybody, but he will forever be a part of everything I do, because he was always the reason I was able to do it in the first place. And so I guess this is the definition of my obsession with death. I think that’s the most you can ask of life, to have that effect on someone, and to become part of the very fabric that makes up their being. I don’t think I’ll ever accomplish that, because I’m simply too cold and distant and frankly fucked up to love as he did, but here’s to hoping.
Can talk about the quote on your album, "We all die alone, but some make it their last work of art". What is its source and effect on your inspiration for this album?
Its source is actually me. I would say it very much relates to this idea of how after you’re gone, others’ memory of you in their lives will intertwine with the story of their own lives, no matter to what extent. For me personally, the most beautiful way this can be achieved, at least in my ideal, is to somehow know the end is near, and to silently disappear to spend those last moments completely alone, thinking back on the life you lived, and then just vanish as easily and suddenly as you appeared.
This has always been an obsession of mine, but it had lay dormant for a while until one day about a year ago I asked someone what their ideal way to die was, and they answered very matter-of-factly, showing they had thought about it many times, that they wanted to die alone in a place no one had ever been. I thought that was such a beautiful answer (coupled with the fact it came from the mouth of someone around 19 years old, which was extremely unexpected) I honestly shed a tear, and every time I even think of it, including now, I do the same. Quite frankly, to me, even the thought of such a concept is truly a work of art.
No matter how many friends you make, how much your family loves you, or anything else that we arbitrarily attach to the meaning of life, we were intrinsically born into this world alone, and we will leave it alone. So to me, embracing that fact, and seeking to make that a time of beauty, makes much more sense than this absurd idea of being surrounded by loved ones etc. What possible good does that do? To me it’s just another attempt to distract ourselves from the inevitable, even when it’s weeks, days, or minutes away. I’d rather spend that time finishing the last few sentences of my own story on my own, rather than making others fumble through them on my behalf.
Basically the idea for the album, its title, and that quote all came about during an extremely low point for me, during a pretty much crippling depression I experienced when first moving back to China, when I was experiencing a loneliness that was really beyond all description. My mind being the tortuous Moebius that it is, I began to obsess on the thought of not only how truly alone I was, but the fact that I could easily disappear or meet my end and no one around me would truly care – it was the closest I had ever come to that point of being alone I had previously dreamed of as the perfect way for it all to end. And the lowness I felt, quite honestly, made me care less by the day as to whether the next day was the last. In fact, I reached one day where I literally didn’t care at all.
I don’t know what happened, but I all of a sudden decided to take that crushing weight and put it into music. I think quite honestly, it was a sort of last-ditch effort to see if I could feel something again. It wasn’t even depression anymore. I had gone numb. So thought the only thing I could do was attempt to put the experience to music, to see if I could come out of the tailspin by talking about it then only way I know how – with myself. It was the first time I had touched music since moving across the Pacific, but it seemed like the perfect time to start, to try to make something constructive happen from what I was fairly certain was a depression that might consume me.
Though from the title of the album to those of the tracks themselves, I think it’s fairly obvious how I was feeling at the time, but what I wasn’t expecting was the beauty that ended up coming through in the tracks (at least I feel it, I can only hope others do too). I think it’s the most overtly sad album I’ve ever made, but as I progressed through it, it began to take on more and more beauty along with the sadness, and before I knew it, it became as much a statement about the beauty of life as much as its futility. And really, I think it’s embracing both that futility and beauty, irrevocably intertwined, that can bring about that one last work of art – one’s ability to make that last stroke on the canvas of their life, alone, just as they were when they made the first.
[ - s n i p - ]
Read the entire interview in two parts, only on Headphone Commute:
Part One | Part Two
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Read also Headphone Commute's review of The Art Of Dying Alone
bvdub.org
Wednesday, February 23, 2011
20 Overlooked Albums of 2009
Editor's Note: Remember, the posts appearing on this Blogspot mirror are just a syndication of our original articles from headphonecommute.com, and may be lagging by a whole month! Be sure to stop by our main site, or subscribe to RSS Reviews Feed to keep up with the latest reviews and artist interviews!
Below is Headphone Commute's selection of 20 Overlooked Albums of 2009.
Check out Headphone Commute's Best of 2010!!!
(entries are listed in alphabetical order by artist. links point to album reviews on headphone commute)
Arc of Doves - Impressions (Quietus)
Asher - Miniatures (Sourdine) [ REVIEW ]
Cell - Hanging Masses (Ultimae) [ REVIEW ]
Christopher Hipgrave - Day (Home Normal)
Frank Riggio - Anamorphose (Spectraliquid) [ REVIEW ]
The Gaslamp Killer - My Troubled Mind (Brainfeeder)
Ian Hawgood - Snow Roads (Dragon's Eye)
Jamie Drouin - A Three Month Warm Up (Dragon's Eye)
Kelpe - Cambio Wechsel (D.C. Recordings) [ REVIEW ]
Max Richter - Henry May Long (OST) (Mute)
Onra - 1.0.8 (Favorite)
Paul Fiocco - Torsions And Drifts (Meupe)
Ruxpin - Where Do We Float From Here? (n5MD) [ REVIEW ]
The Seasons - Undone (City Centre Offices)
Sleeping Me - Lamenter (Phantom Channel) [ REVIEW ]
Svarte Greiner - Kappe (Type)
The Village Orchestra - I Can Hear The Sirens Singing Again (Highpoint Lowlife)
Wes Willenbring - Close, But Not Too Close (Hidden Shoal)
William Basinski - Vivian & Ondine (2062)
World's End Girlfriend - 空気人形 [Air Doll OST] (Human Highway)
Pleq – My Life Begins Today (U-Cover CDr Limited)
See also Two and a Half Questions with Pleq
myspace.com/pleq | u-cover.com/cdr
Two and a Half Questions with Pleq
Where does your alias, "Pleq" come from, and what does it mean?
“Pleq” means nothing in particular. In fact, it is just a collection of letters submitted and matched entirely by accident. Secondly, I didn't want to duplicate existing names. So the creative process took me almost a week, then I started looking on the Internet to see if something like that exists. I found different words with unknown meaning for me, and the only thing that stuck in my head was the name of bulbs (hehe).
Please talk a little about your latest record, My Life Begins Today, and specifically its dedication to people suffering from multiple sclerosis.
This is one of the most important records in my life. For me, it is a continuation of the previous one, issued a year ago, also by U-Cover - "The Metamorphosis”. You can recognize the same melancholic-glitch like atmosphere. I came up with the idea to dedicate my album to people suffering from multiple sclerosis, and it was just after the fashion show at which I was invited to make music. Ewa Amroziak's Fashion Show "SOS communication" was combined with the charity auction; then I learned a lot about multiple sclerosis, I thought that I could actually help by making music. Some of these records will be put up for charity auction, which is being prepared for 2011.
Your work has been released by a handful of labels. Is there one specific label that you wish it to be signed to?
Yes, it is true. I try not to be limited to any specific label that is why I don't establish permanent contracts. You know, it's quite a difficult question. I don't want to jinx it as I carry on preliminary talks with some labels. Once I dreamed about labels, now I hold discussions with them about releasing albums in 2011.
It seems to me that your work would be a perfect fit for Mille Plateaux's "Clicks & Cuts" series. Who are some of your current musical influences?
Yes, one of my tracks was on the Click & Cuts 5.1 Paradigm Shift (The Bonus Package). I am very pleased by that, but on the other hand, it is just the bonus package. There are no particular artists after which I pattern myself. I listen to all kinds of music, not only electronic music. Recently, I’ve been delving into drone.
[ - s n i p - ]
Read the entire interview on Headphone Commute
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See also Headphone Commute's review of My Life Begins Today
myspace.com/pleq
Podcast : Clem Leek - Cold Air
Well, it's that time of the year... The crowds gather in shopping malls across the globe to drop some cash on their beloved. The cold air strips the branches off their dead leaves. The minds reflect on all of their accomplishments through the year. And the snow slowly falls... To help you gather your being into contemplative state of mind, we present you with our last Podcast of 2010 from Clem Leek. On this exclusive mix for Headphone Commute, Clem selects his favorite ambient and modern classical pieces from some of our all time favorite artists. We really enjoyed this one, and we hope you do as well!
See full track listing, plus stream or download the mix on Headphone Commute
Be sure to check out our Two and a Half Questions with Clem Leek.
Read also Headphone Commute review of Holly Lane.
Also, check out Clem Leek’s Sound Postcard!
clemleek.bandcamp.com | myspace.com/clemleekofficial
Two and a Half Questions with riverrun
Interview with Daniel Land of riverrun, Engineers and Daniel Land & The Modern Painters
Can you provide us with some background on the locations referenced in song titles?
A lot of the track titles are names of places in the South West of England that I associate with my childhood or adolescence. I grew up on the edge of Exmoor national park, which is a really beautiful part of the country; very empty, and quite bleak and melancholy. That landscape really haunted me as a child, and had a profound effect on my imagination, I think. Some of the other tracks are named after nearby places in North Somerset where my mother’s family had a seaside holiday home – those are the "Doniford Beach" and "West Quantoxhead" pieces. I lived alone for a whole summer on Doniford Beach, and without sounding too corny, that time had a very strong affect on me in terms of my personal development, my ability to appreciate solitude, and to feel connected to the landscape and area. A good deal of the mood of that time went into this record, I think. I was really on a kind of nostalgia trip with this record, and so some of the tracks, like "Where We Walked" for example, are named after some pretty personal things; when I was making that track I was thinking back to a time when I was 17 years old, and a long morning walk I took on Doniford beach with a guy who shortly afterwards became my first boyfriend. That was pretty crucial day for us, but while we were walking, I remember him randomly suggesting that "Where We Walked" would be a good track title for my kind of music. For some reason that stuck in my head, and seeing as the memory of that walk was in my head when making the piece, it seemed right to finally use it as a track title.
Please describe your production workflow. What software and hardware did you use?
I hardly used any software or hardware, actually. It was mainly made on tape. The album was made out of a series of ambient recordings I’ve been making on tapes for many years now, nearly fifteen years actually, going right back to my school days. The compositional process mainly consisted of collaging these various sketches, layering them on top of each other, and finding out which ones fit together. To do that I had to transfer the original recordings from my old four track tapes into a digital format, but aside from converting them and importing them into Adobe Audition, I didn’t tamper with the tracks very much at all. The original recordings had a lovely lo-fi, tape-y quality that I wanted to retain, and there was very little processing involved other than what went down onto the tape at the time of recording.
What instruments were employed to create riverrun's dense atmosphere?
I normally just worked with my guitars and some really cruddy, broken down keyboards! Quite often they were detuned or transposed to extremes so that I could get some really interesting, bass-heavy sounds, and I re-pitched and slowed down a lot of things digitally. I used various old percussion instruments, like an old rainmaker and some bells, and I had some field recordings that I threw into the mix. But there weren't any really unusual instruments being used; it was mainly a case of using conventional instruments more as noise-generators than in their usual capacity. One of the things I’m most happy with was being able to use my voice in a really interesting and subtle way; there are some vocals on the record, but you’d never notice them as such, because they’ve been bent out of shape by various effects and treatments. In fact, some of the things which sound like animal noises are actually me, just slowed down or processed beyond recognition! I really enjoyed using my voice that way.
Can you tell us the meaning behind Pentimento? It seems to perfectly describe the music.
It's an art term and what it means, basically, is an artist painting on top of a previous painting. With some paintings it’s quite apparent that the artist has changed their mind halfway through the process, maybe because they changed the structure of the composition, or just because they thought the first version stank and needed to be painted over! Hahaha. I thought that the process of making this album was kinda similar to that, because I made the album like it was one big canvas, as one continuous audio file. Each time I added a new musical element, I did a complete mixdown of the whole thing, and deleted the component files... this meant that once I had added something, I was unable to remove it or change it, a bit like in painting where your only real choice is to paint over the things you don’t like. Now, I think most musicians would say that this is an absolutely suicidal way of working, and I’d certainly agree with that! But what was interesting for me was that it really, really worked for this style of music. I liked putting myself in the position of being unable to retract mistakes and of being unable to go back into the mix to "fix things up". I became very skilled at painting-over things - as it were - and if I did something I was not entirely happy with, I would just add more stuff on top of it, to ensure that the part I wasn't so happy with was pushed further back in the mix. What this means is that the whole history of the work is present at all times, even the mistakes - and "behind" the record is a whole level of subliminal detail, right at the fringes of perception, of stuff I wasn't so happy with. I really like that, actually. It gives the record depth. It’s a bit like that Brian Eno trick of mixing something almost "out of earshot"; I’ve totally stolen that idea from him.
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Read the entire interview on Headphone Commute
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Interview by Elizabeth Klisiewicz exclusively for Headphone Commute.
See also review of Pentimento in our Sound Bytes feature.
myspace.com/danielland | danielland.bigcartel.com
Sound Postcard : Rafael Anton Irisarri - Jerusalem
No no... our Sound Postcard series is not over yet! Far from it - we have many interesting submissions to share with you from all of your favorite artists!!! Today we have an entry from one of our all time favorites - Rafael Anton Irisarri. From his amazing debut, Daydreaming (Miasmah, 2007), to the latest releases, The North Bend (Room40, 2010) and Reverie (Immune, 2010), RAI continues to warm our hearts with his breathtaking modern classical compositions. And as if that wasn't enough, his side project, The Sight Below, also manages to clock in on our favorite rotations with his releases on Ghostly International - Glider (2008), No Place For Us (2008), and It All Falls Apart (2010)...
Listen to this Sound Postcard on Headphone Commute
myspace.com/rafaelantonirisarri | irisarri.org
The Green Kingdom - Prismatic (Home Assembly Music)
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Review prepared by Matt Leslie (Inaudible) for Headphone Commute.
See also Two and a Half Questions with The Green Kingdom
myspace.com/thegreenkingdom | thegreenkingdom.wordpress.com
Two and a Half Questions with The Green Kingdom
Prismatic and last year’s Twig and Twine both offer the listener warm, meditative soundscapes that seem to attempt to tap into the simplicity and wonder of nature. Your music seems to typify a night spent lying on the beach gazing up at the stars, or a quiet afternoon hike in the woods. Where exactly do you draw your influences from when composing your music?
I think you have a sense for what I’m trying to evoke. We do have a couple parks close by and even a small wetlands area in our neighborhood which I enjoy visiting - though not as often as I would like to. More than anything, I would just like my music to be an escape for the listener as much as it is for me—that feeling of having a little sound world to mentally explore. I also constantly listen to a lot of different types music, so the way those influences combine, filtered through my own musical “voice” also subliminally affects what I do somehow.
You live in the Motor City, and what I find interesting is that your music stands in stark contrast to many contemporary Detroit techno and electronic musicians. Some of the artists on Ghostly (like Kiln, Twine, The Sight Below) are working in a somewhat similar vein, and obviously there's always been an element of ambiance that's part and parcel of Detroit techno (the work of Neil Ollivierra's Detroit Escalator Company being some of my all time fave), yet you have stripped away most of the traditionally 'electronic' sounds from your own music for a much more natural and organic feel. So I guess what I'm wondering is how does the history and city of Detroit fit into your musical aesthetic?
I would like to balance and also blur the lines between the two ideally (electronic vs. organic influences). The past couple years, I’ve really been delving into Theo Parrish’s catalog. I really like the way he combines found sounds, samples and traditional instruments with a more organic feel. Moodymann as well. I don’t live downtown, but the city itself can definitely be an influence if you’ve spent some time there—there is beauty, decay, soul and history that people not from the area might not understand. I guess the aural equivalent might be the juxtaposition of random/noisy textures and more structured melodic content in some of my music. I like all of the more contemporary artists you mentioned a lot as well – particularly Kiln. The way they combine texture, melody and rhythm in their work is really amazing. I feel like they are really underrated to be honest. I correspond with Kirk from Kiln via email occasionally, I was quite blown away to find that he had been listening to my stuff—very humbling.
Besides recording music as The Green Kingdom you also do work as a graphic designer and sound artist. How do these varied artistic disciplines feed off each other?
I find that a lot of visual artists often also have some type of musical outlet as well. I think there are a lot of parallels—they both involve combining various elements into one cohesive whole: layering, positive vs. negative space, colors vs. tones or instruments, etc. I think I’m more of a minimalist when it comes to graphic design though. It always takes a little more effort for me to strip things back to the essential elements in the audio realm.
There seems to be an innate spirituality in your music. The closing track on Prismatic is called "A Prayer" and many of your tracks seem to be solemn and subtle invocations towards something more or something 'beyond' (for lack of a better term). Am I reading too much into it or is this something you are consciously trying to evoke?
No, you are spot on with that as well. I am a practicing Catholic which is maybe not as common in the experimental music world? I don’t know… I think there is a somewhat spiritual or reflective vibe present in my stuff, but I don‘t really think about anything too much while making it. The beauty of instrumental or abstract music is that it is open for interpretation, the listener can create their own meaning and associations.
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Read the entire interview on Headphone Commute
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Interview by Matt Leslie (Inaudible) for Headphone Commute.
See also review of Prismatic
myspace.com/thegreenkingdom | thegreenkingdom.wordpress.com
Tuesday, February 8, 2011
Event : In Between Time : Hecker, Frost and Ekoplekz
The tenth iteration of Bristol's In Between Time Festival of "Live Art and Intrigue" has just wrapped up. This year they made the very respectable programming decision to show international sonic heavyweights Ben Frost and Tim Hecker with native Bristolian, Ekoplekz (recently signed to Peverelist's Punch Drunk label.) The Arnolfini Auditorium was an ideal venue, neither too cozy nor too cavernous. The audience gathered around a satisfyingly bare-bones stage and the space filled up nicely without getting overly crowded.
Ekoplekz was a solid opener. His sound navigated a space between the mechanical and the organic, taking hulking, driving percussion reminiscent of heavy machinery and punctuating it with random quirky chirps and warbles that were just echo-y enough to stay on the artificial side of life. He flirted with rhythm without ever falling completely into it. He also incorporated very classic synth frequencies, particularly via voice modulation, which were fun but, for the most part, a bit heavy-handed - they didn't integrate particularly well with the rest of the sound and as a result were somewhat distracting. Some light, fluttlery snare textures here and there, on the other hand, were a really enjoyable nod to Peverelist. Overall, it was an engaging, well-executed sci-fi-esque performance, and it didn't hurt that you could tell he's completely in love with sounds and was generally having a blast.
Hecker used absolutely minimal lighting - only what he needed to see what he was doing - which made it that much easier to pick up on the delicate micro-textures of his opening moments. He built up layers thick and fast, though, and quickly had us suspended in a dense, deeply spatial environment. Some endlessly stretched organ couldn't help but lend a degree of spirituality, a reference to something eternal, but there was definitely tension and evolution throughout. He played with the liminal a bit, pushing some of the frequencies beyond what the speakers could handle (or using frequencies reminiscent of this), evoking palpable opposition between the restrictions of the hardware and the unrealized potential of the sound. At other times everything was incredibly compact, a tight sonic canvas onto which he threw various intriguing elements. Periodically, the pressure of all those layers was completely released into airy, shimmering tones, with the contrast lifting us into a kind of sonic weightlessness. This was really the underlying structure of the performance - a rich and impossibly slow, irregular pulsation between heavy and light.
Ben Frost, as has been noted, throws you out into the wilderness. True to form, he tapped into a somewhat sadomasochistic dynamic in which he used sound, particularly percussive elements, almost as a kind of violence - and the audience loved it. (If the calls of 'louder' and 'more' were anything to go by. Hurt me, hurt me do it again?) The reason it was good pain is he didn't rely on brute force. His menacing landscape was complex, built in part out of howling, mutated electric guitar, and he moved us through it with an astute sense of timing that lent itself well to live performance. There was, overall, more of a theatric element to what Frost presented. He made use of intense lighting and he certainly had stage presence. He improvised a lot, which meant not everything came together all the time, but when it did, it was a very ecstatic darkness. Simple, repetitive piano loops appeared from time to time, almost as a refrain. They offered a stability, a gentleness and, eventually, a familiarity that made you feel as if you might have found your way home from the wild. But this sense of relief was always fleeting. The notes were inevitably consumed by yet another wave of dissonant chaos against which they proved themselves to be a totally ineffective shelter. So no happy endings, but a thoroughly enjoyable story nonetheless.
Hecker and Frost were in good form with performances that, as would be expected, were not for the faint of heart nor delicate of ear. Neither went easy on the Arnolfini, which was great because the sheer physicality - the vibrational pressure and potential for actual pain - is something that simply can't be experienced outside their live shows (unless you've got far more cash than most of us to spend on your personal sound system.) There were moments when the two artists worked with a very similar dynamic. Namely, when earbone-crushing low frequencies were laced with ethereal, hauntingly lovely fragments and there was an intense merging of pleasure and discomfort. As far as where they differed, it's probably fair to say that Hecker presented a more abstract, timeless quality while Frost's work was slightly more narrative.
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Text and photography by Kyra Kordoski for Headphone Commute.
Two and a Half Questions with Ben Frost
Two and a Half Questions with Tim Hecker
inbetweentime.co.uk
Brian McBride - The Effective Disconnect (Kranky)
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Review prepared by Caspar Menkman for Headphone Commute.
Read our Two and a Half Questions with Brian McBride
kranky.net/artists/mcbride | brainwashed.com/sotl
kranky.net | brainwashed.com/kranky
Two and a Half Questions with Brian McBride
How did you come in contact with the makers of the Vanishing of the Bees (George Langworthy and Maryam Henein)?
Maryam Henein & George Langworthy asked me to. George and I had crossed paths before in Austin during the early 90s. We both worked at the same radio station.
How do you feel your music fits in with the tone of the movie?
While writing and recording, I tried to adhere to two guiding principles: I knew that I wanted the music to convey a sense of fragility given the subject matter. And I also purposely tried to not overwhelm the film, wanting to provide them something that emphasized their ideas more so than creating some type of music video. George and Maryam asked me to concentrate on four different themes. Some themes I was better at than others. The ‘gloriousness of the bees’ was a tough one for me. Communicating beauty can’t really be forced. You don’t want it to become merely ornamental or trite. But the main concern was for the music to serve as a reminder as to how fragile this ecosystem is. We all need reminders how fragile the world is around us from time to time.
On this album you appear to work with themes that follow each other up a bit quicker. Talk a little about this shift in style and the transitions.
The main difference between this record and my previous work revolves around the tension between making a record and making music for a film. The two are not the same thing. Non-soundtrack work for me takes each side of a record as it’s own larger piece of music. There may be multiple pieces on each side of a record but inevitably, the roughly twenty minutes you have to work with often ends up informing the structure and flow of the music. Scoring a film is about conveying an idea within say three to five minutes or quite often, even less. It’s more about providing a change to facilitate transitions or mark moments with some significance. After scoring is done, turning it into a record feels a little bit like forcing your work into some sort of artificial collage. So when I listen to this record it seems way busier than what I’m used to primarily because of the demands of the film. Moods have a tendency to fluctuate a bit more than they would on a Lid record or even my previous record.
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Read the entire interview on Headphone Commute
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Interview by Caspar Menkman for Headphone Commute.
Read Headphone Commute's review of The Effective Disconnect
kranky.net/artists/mcbride | brainwashed.com/sotl
