Name: Andrey Guryanov
Nationality: Russian
Occupation: Composer, sound designer, sound artist, producer
Current release: Andrey Guryanov's Anthems is out via Abstand.

If you enjoyed this Andrey Guryanov interview and would like to hear more of his music, visit him on bandcamp. We also recommend our previous, more expansive 15 Questions interview with Andrey Guryanov.



Can you talk a bit about your interest in or fascination for sound and what sparked it?

I can’t recall any particular moment, but I remember being attracted to the technological aspect of sound from my early childhood. I was fascinated with a cassette player, first as an object of ultimate mechanics - the eject mechanism was almost a piece of a spaceship-technology. Then I liked the faders - they gave me the ability to control the sound.

Then I got double lucky because my parents had a vinyl collection, and while I was more fascinated by the game of putting them, I listened to some interesting things, such as West meets East, an album by Yehudi Menuhin and Ravi Shankar. I guess, I was around 8-10 when I heard it first, and I loved it a lot.



And from then on it’s always a more or less steady line when I was into sound and music, and it slowly outran and overtook other matters in my life.

What have been some of the most beautiful/intriguing sounds you've heard and some of the most beautifully/intriguingly sounding places you've been to?

I’ve been to a remote village in Emilia-Romagna, there were three electric wind generators on the hill and a herd of cows down the hill. The generators changed the speed of the rotors, as well as turning around to catch the wind, and the herd also changed its movement within its own strategy.

You add cicadas, and that’s it, the first thing I can recall. It was like the piece is actually written, and I’m just witnessing the ultimate performance.

The human voice is one of the first sounds we are exposed to, even before we understand the exact meaning of words. Are you, too, interested in voices and language, the rhythm of speech, the timbres of different voices – and do you think these qualities find their way into your sound work?

I’m quite interested in languages and how they shape our emotional communication, how they adapt to the environment, climate, and technology.

I love the sound of languages which are unknown to me, but I like the exercise of trying to forget the language you know even more, to see it as just sound. The issue is that among other things I do in my life a big place is taken by working on sound for films, and I’m very happy to be a re-recording mixer for a film in a language I don’t know at all.

But when it goes away from the film direction, I’m on the side of the spectrum, where I want to push language as much back as possible all the time and reduce its amount in the work. I’m probably pushing it so far, that by avoiding language I’m dealing with it more, than if I would just incorporate it.

At least it feels like language leaves traces or even scars on what I do, but is not present there itself.

There can be very deep/high/loud/quiet/grating/delicate sounds and many more. Are there extremes in sound you are particularly interested in - and what response do they elicit in you?

I like high-frequency pitches since their presence in non-human-created sound is very limited. Or sine waves for the same reason.

On the other hand, my favorite territories are those where I don’t even need to plug in my reduced listening. Territories, where I can’t tell the nature of the sound, or imagine the object that produces it.

I like the feeling of synesthesia that accompanies that perception.

Deep listening, audiowalks, meditation, listening with both eyes closed, and the like can sharpen our sense of hearing – which techniques or experiences have worked for you to create a greater awareness of the sound aspects of music and our environment?

I guess I’m always analyzing sound around me, as I constantly carry a recorder on me, for multiple variations of future usage. I also strongly believe in sonic documentation of reality and its various advantages as compared to video or photo documentation. I guess, a very logical part of it comes from my cinematic background and fascination with different sound libraries, starting from the tape recording era.

Another side of it is that one of my greatest pleasures is to lie on the bed with my eyes closed and listen to the world outside, focusing on every little detail without analyzing it, up to the point when I become a listening machine or solely a listening entity. Those are the most precious and rare moments for me.

Sound rather works here as a marker of my inner tranquility, so if I’m able to reach that state, I am probably really happy. And it’s important that it happens to the sound I listen to every day, the sound I got used to.

Where do you find the sounds you're working with? How do you collect, and organise them?

Well, I record everything I find worth recording from my early twenties, and the archive is a total mess. Sometimes when I feel that I don’t know what to do with my life at all, I’m trying to organize it. And I feel like the turtle and Achilles are unlikely to meet.

I’m very fascinated to work with old cinematic archives. I understand why and how those ambiances were recorded, I know the purpose. And very often it’s the purpose of grasping the idea and spirit of the place.

If I have a personal connection to these recordings or can go to the place where they were taken years ago, I can see the deepness and informational fullness of these documents, and their unlimited potential to work with.

Over the course of your development, what have been your most important instruments and tools?

Oh, that’s simple. Guitar when I was 12 and Max/Msp when I was around 25.

In relation to sound, one often reads words like “material”, “sculpting”, and “design”. Do you feel these terms have a relationship to your own work of and approach towards sound? What are the “material” qualities of sound?

I guess I can surely relate to the terms and I can work with them. But ideally, I would use something less corporal, such as structure, connections, image.

The material qualities for me are more of a technical detail, I immediately think of reproduction and acoustics rather than qualities of sound itself.

Harmonic progressions and melodic development has often been described as a play with tension and release, with repetition and variation. When working with sound, what guides your decisions?

The basic struggle is always how to make a system of relations or a set of rules that won’t need anything else to be alive. Then I try to imagine my work as a reciprocal and self-relying model and reach that state of balance where I don’t need and don’t want to touch anything.

A lot of intuition or hunch is as present in the process as plain logic and causal relations. And it’s always more complicated early in the process since each action will determine a lot, and it’s easy to decide in the end, even if it changes everything.

Acoustic ecology, the biophony, and even the acoustics of public places have drawn a lot of attention. How important is sound for our overall well-being and in how far do you feel the "acoustic health" of a society or environment is reflective of its overall health?

I believe that sound not only contains a lot of information about our surroundings but that there’s often a certain level of neglect towards sound. What we’re often trying to cover with a carpet of comfort visually, stays present in sound and is never even properly addressed. That’s one of many reasons that sound as a documentary medium is quite priceless.

I also believe that there’s a certain connection between sound awareness and social matter. There is a lot of information in that connection and a lot to learn about ourselves in the pattern of social-sonic.

Tinnitus and developing hyperacusis are very real risks for anyone working with sound. Do you take precautions in this regard and if you're suffering from these or similar issues – how do you cope with them?

Well, when I am reminded about its existence, I instantly get scared. But then I also think about that as the only way to make me do something else with my life. I’m also very fond of quietness in general, and quite happy about it in this regard.

Very specific sounds can be considered as pleasant – as in ASRM – or extremely disagreeable – as in Misophonia. Do you have any experience with this and ideas on the relation between certain sounds and strong emotional responses?

I think it works on biological and personal levels, as something hard-wired as a hiss, attracting a lot of mental attention by default, and something that is an imprint of a sort.

A socially significant point of connection appears when there are statistically enough similar imprints within the life of many, that you can relate to. I’m always looking for both of those matters when I work with sound.

We can surround us with sound every second of the day. The great pianist Glenn Gould even considered this the ultimate delight. How do you see that yourself and what importance does silence hold from your point of view?

I like to be in a place where I am, not to contaminate it with the sounds I produce without necessity. I feel that our reality is already fulfilled enough, and there’s a special pleasure in just listening to it. And definitely the hunger for the music is something, that is on the other side of the scale.

As for silence, I don’t think I experience it that often. But I like to spend some significant time in a silent environment when I have that possibility.

We can listen to a pop song or open our window and simply take in the noises of the environment. In which way are these experiences different and / or connected, do you feel?

I guess it’s just a balance of pseudo-chaos and organization that we need to have.

I don’t see that much difference between them. In a way, it is like a difference between eating and drinking. It’s very different but equally vital.