Part 2
Where do you find the sounds you're working with? How do you collect and organise them?
The process is really tailored to the work I am making.
Many of the sounds or instruments that I am working with are Max patches. I often play my patches live, these are synth patches, custom FX, I’ve built. I organize them by date, or name what is featured and do the same with any audio files I may be using such as field recordings, instruments singing or spoken word that wouldn’t be able to happen in real time for any given reason. I sometimes also just throw sounds into folders for use later, somewhat haphazardly and go back to sort through them when I am feeling a bit stuck - this often helps me find new meaning to the work that I might not have prioritized in the past.
When I am using field recordings they might be specifically from a site, or from a catalog I have gathered over the years, so in that sense the present work might be speaking to the meaning of an interaction experienced in the past, or present context. When I am gathering sounds, it could be in the city, on a trip, if I am working with natural space I always try to make an offering or provide some form of exchange.
Some years ago I became obsessed with cicadas as I had never heard them before, but now where I live these are part of our summer soundscape - looking back to this relationship I think a lot about how easy it can be to take things for granted when they blend into one’s daily life.
How would you describe the shift of moving towards music which places the focus foremost on sound, both from your perspective as a listener and a creator?
Personally I have always had a fascination with sound, and an obsession with music, so working with sound as a primary practice has felt quite natural.
I believe that music has always been about a focus on sound and subsequently theory built around how we organize it. I would suggest that there’s been a culture shift in how we are able to create and capture these sounds, the availability and qualities of these tools as well as what instruments are used. This is also coupled with a more open understanding of culturally different tuning systems and rhythm structures both within Western academic thought around composition as well as the continued cycle of the Avant Garde playing into the mainstream.
If we consider recordings of Free Jazz and other modes of Black experimentalism in the 60s which have fed into the mainstream and are still holding influence today, many of the preamps and compression contained tubes, and when you are recording with tubes you are only getting even harmonics, not odd. With the advent of digital recording devices and the move toward more production being done within the box, we have begun to hear more of these odd harmonics that would be smoothed or lost in translation before (not to presume that any of this was unintentional, but more to make a point about what archives we hear now that we might not have heard prior whether by default and/or design).
It seems that we are both making and hearing things in different ways than we have historically. If you add in “spatial audio earbuds” or so many records being remastered through Dolby Atmos, it might be that we have a whole new type of listening audience that is being created through the increase in options for consumer level multi-channel playback devices (even if I do not use Atmos myself).
As creative goals and technical abilities change, so does the need for different tools of expression, from instruments via software tools and recording equipment. Can you describe this path for you personally starting from your first studio/first instruments and equipment? What motivated some of the choices you made in terms of instruments/tools/equipment over the years?
I was interested in playing with synthesizers as a youth as well as making noise sets with pedals and contact microphones. I got into audio programming while taking classes in computer sciences as I had an interest in modular synthesis and what better way to learn a modular system without the financial commitment then to build your own.
I began collaborating with dancers in Portland, Oregon and working with spatial audio during our residencies which lead to learning more about VBAP and other modes of sound placement after running into the limits of what I could do with regular panning. This change to working with ambisonics eventually led to becoming interested in Wave Field Synthesis and working as an associate designer of Bobby McElver, who was the first person to hang a WFS array from the ceiling.
Recently I have been moving my sound design practice to more of a studio functionality and integrating more analog gear while working with other artists as well as with mediums such as VR and films. I work primarily with computers but am not interested in preserving the sound of computer music - my praxis is based on how sound interacts with a space as well as those in the room, not particularly how it is generated.
Working with field recordings and sound can be an incisive step / transition. Aside from musical considerations, there can also be personal motivations for looking for alternatives. Was this the case for you, and if so, in which way?
As a teenager I took sound walks with a recorder I used for interviews and headphones around different areas of Vancouver. I would use the gain control and mic placement to tune into different sounds around me. This curiosity was the beginning of nurturing a deeper listening practice in relation to the world around me, before I understood what that meant. Field recordings, or more-so appropriating a sound happening in real time or through a previous recording to be processed, have always found their way into my working process in some way.
The recordings of water featured in Nocturne Voice came from the Salish Sea near where I grew up. My partner and I were quarantined by the water, so I could walk down and visit the arbutus trees, make offerings to the water, and in turn record some sounds with it. Much of the record does not contain field recordings, and instead uses manipulated speech or instrumentation.
While I might not always integrate field recordings into my work, I am interested in when I hear a sound in the world which is similar to something I have made - or I might build a patch to mirror something that I heard out in the world … in some sense this is not proper field recording, but potentially inspiration in being with the field.
How do you see the relationship between sound, space and composition?
The relationship between space, sound and composition is what is of highest interest in my own practice. Plastic aside, every material that we interact with has a resonant frequency, spaces do as well. I am very interested in finding these points where the amplitude doubles, listening to how sound shifts and reflects based on space shape, material and size of a space, and weaving that into my work.
When thinking of spatial audio arrangement, there is so much to be said for the sounds that do not move, the ones that hold a work together as a sort of stabilizing column, a point of reference. The same can be said for those mono stems centered within the stereo field of a mix. There is an importance of stillness that opens space for the other sounds to travel around and be anchored to a point.
They Can Never Burn the Stars was recorded on a few different microphones including a binaural head from a 6.2 speaker array within the main hall of Pioneer Works. In this space some of the walls are brick, others are smooth and the ceiling is about 80ft high wooden and vaulted. Included in the recording are also footsteps of people interacting with the work, their bodies are blocking sound from reaching microphones and their presence and interaction is inherently a part of the work. The works were composed in a studio but altered specifically for the space that they were recorded in during my residency.
The idea of acoustic ecology has drawn a lot of attention to the question of how much we are affected by the sound surrounding us. What's your take on this and on acoustic ecology as a movement in general?
It is amazing that there is so much study happening around the different soundscapes we experience, which might be naturally occurring, or augmented by invasive species of wildlife or human made noises. The work happening around the ecological effects of human noise on animals feels important to me. Personally, growing up and spending time in both urban and rural areas, I am most interested in sitting with and experiencing the sound of my surroundings and trying to find some joy in that practice. I strive to considerately interact with and be inspired by sounds which I cannot control from natural and human-made sources.
In 2018 I made a piece in a large concrete warehouse space in Harlem called QuBit which had an immense reverb, whenever fire trucks would pass by with old sirens it would echo into the space in a really beautiful way - for this piece I tuned the composition to the sirens and played to them as I heard their approach. If I am playing in a venue, I like to play to the sound of people chatting or the bartender scraping ice. These sorts of sonic interruptions are pretty unavoidable in a city environment, and integration seems like the best way forward. In some ways it feels like an interesting challenge to integrate and honor the presence of the noise that is a consequence and byproduct of human-made machines into a listening practice while working toward a future where society can practice consideration for our other than human kin (animals, plants, etc) in terms of building “progress.”
From the concept of Nada Brahma to "In the Beginning was the Word", many spiritual traditions have regarded sound as the basis of the world. Regardless of whether you're taking a scientific or spiritual angle, what is your own take on the idea of a harmony of the spheres and sound as the foundational element of existence?
I am interested in the different priorities that are outlined in an oral tradition (which is inherently linked to sound), than those outlined in the Western visual understanding and the written word.
Anne Carson investigates this a lot in her work Eros the Bittersweet from a perspective of engagement with Ancient Greek Literature. There are a lot of notes which relate to this question and ultimately point towards a potential for a larger Western understanding of oral traditions. She speaks to how when knowledge is written down it becomes static, and that wisdom cannot exist in this form as it needs to remain fluid to the situation or moment. In considering the ramifications of that statement, in our present time where so much pain has been caused by people relying on something that was written and has not been able to engage with “the other” in a fluid manner. Considering this, it feels like there may be something destructive about prioritizing our limited observational / visual understandings.
Placing sound, an ephemeral force, as host and a praxis for all of creation, considering all that surrounds the note we are looking for, and the music that can come from the concopthany of being feels like a generative and hopeful space to reside. It also feels honest to the multiplicities of experience held on this earth. Sound cannot exist in a vacuum, we were clearly given our atmosphere and the privileges to engage in these ways for some reason. I don’t know the answer to the world's beginnings beyond my own personal and cultural understandings, but I believe that sound, and specifically listening are urgent and pertinent ways to connect more with the world around us.
