Part 2

Take us through a day in your life, from a possible morning routine through to your work, please.

A typical day starts with coffee and reading, waking the kids up and getting them all ready for the school bus, then going downstairs to the studio bedroom and writing music for a couple hours.

Then late morning I’ll jump into emails, internet things, admin stuff, etc. Lunch, then a walk usually, and writing some more or working on whatever needs to get done.

Of course, some days I’ll meet up with a friend / musician / creative partner, or go write at someone’s studio or have them over to my place. Sometimes I’ll go work at a coffeeshop or the library for a different environment. But in general, that’s what a work day looks like for me now.

Could you describe your creative process on the basis of a piece, live performance or album that's particularly dear to you, please?

Though it’s been awhile since I actually wrote it, I’ll do my best to explore the process of creating the song “Blossom and the Void,” the second single from my Origins LP.

I think I was sitting at the Rhodes electric piano, just hitting various notes - very simple, slow progressions and melodic ideas, which led to the initial melodic structure. Then came layering various sounds - not just drum sounds, but various field recording bits and pieces as well - and samples together to create the beat - which was very much not a traditional beat, at least from my normal creative vantage point. It was more sporadic hits and sounds at various points that, after continual editing and tweaking, led to an eventual percussive map and layout.

Then the vocal experiments came one afternoon - it started with layering improvisational oohs and ahhs, but not simply recording and layering - but reversing, chopping, sampling and resampling my voice, sending through amps, and whatever other experiments I thought of. In the midst of this, the melodic and lyrical ideas came as well. I then took layers and printed them on to my 1968 analog tape machine. I’d then print them, from tape, back into Logic, but would change the speeds of the tape - double, half speed - and print several instances of them.

It ended up being such a massive creative exploration - just the vocals - that I created a whole new session for the vocal layers alone, eventually processing full groups of several tracks all together. For me, it was a new and fresh creative take on my vocals, opening wide a door for the relationship between my vocals and this new album. To that point, Elskavon songs in the past had contained plenty of my vocals, but mostly just reverb-soaked oohs and ahhs.

I sent this song off to my friend Cody to mix it after adding all the layers. I wanted him to lend a fresh creative flavor to it, and to bring a step up in energy overall.

Listening can be both a solitary and a communal activity. Likewise, creating music can be private or collaborative. Can you talk about your preferences in this regard and how these constellations influence creative results?

I definitely need both. I’m introverted and work well alone, and most of my creative hours have been spent alone. But too much alone time definitely has me craving in-person collaboration. There’s an unexplainable magic that happens when you’re in studio together, writing, experimenting, producing. I really enjoy that, and am making it a point this year to do it more often, and be more intentional in creating those times.

It’s also something that is easy to take for granted - living close to other people that you work well with, and enjoy each other’s presence, not to mention their creative input on things. Collaboration can lead to interesting, new ideas that you might not find on your own.

How do your work and your creativity relate to the world and what is the role of music in society?

This is a deep question. A good one, but deep. Probably a bit deeper than I usually think, at least in regards to my specific relation or role.

To over-simplify things, I really just love to write and create and try things, and hope that people enjoy it, and that some may be inspired by it in their own creative way.

If it leads to bigger societal questions, that’s cool as well - but I don’t typically go into creative endeavors with big picture thoughts quite like this.

Art can be a way of dealing with the big topics in life: Life, loss, death, love, pain, and many more. In which way and on which occasions has music – both your own or that of others - contributed to your understanding of these questions?

I would say that music, for me, is intertwined with, at least to some degree, nearly every facet of life. In each memory or moment, there’s often a musical connection - the happy, sad, fun, nostalgic memories.

I think back to films I’ve watched, and sometimes I remember the song being played in that memorable scene or moment nearly as much as the story itself.

I can’t quite imagine the ups and downs of life without music.

How do you see the connection between music and science and what can these two fields reveal about each other?  

I don’t think of this connection often, but when I step back, I realize there’s often a consistent one - when it comes to technology I use while writing or producing music, there’s lots of it, from software to gear. Even on a basic level, sonic waveforms and how we as humans interact with these waves - this is science. So in that sense, music is science.

And, going back to the magic of music, it’s also its own completely separate world. In that, there’s an emotional connection we as humans have with music - each in our own way - that I believe is entirely unexplainable with science. At that point, it’s feel - it’s heart.

But it’s fun to think of that marriage between the magic and the science - they’re not competing - they’re teammates.

Creativity can reach many different corners of our lives. Do you feel as though writing or performing a piece of music is inherently different from something like making a great cup of coffee? What do you express through music that you couldn't or wouldn't in more 'mundane' tasks?

Another great question. The past few years I’ve started to cook for my family a lot more, and it’s a new hobby that I really enjoy. I think there’s definitely creativity involved with things like cooking. So in that sense, yes, I think there’s creative potential with many more ‘mundane’ tasks of life.

There’s something with creating music that is in its own league, however - at least for me. Maybe it’s the fact that I can share this creativity with so many more people, given that there is a record - a recording, literally - with this creativity.

Or maybe it’s just how I’m wired - I feel like I come alive when writing music to a level that is unachievable in any other creative outlet.

Music is vibration in the air, captured by our ear drums. From your perspective as a creator and listener, do you have an explanation how it able to transmit such diverse and potentially deep messages?

I don’t have an explanation for this, no. And I’m not sure I would like to have one. That’s the magic, the timelessness, of music, for me.

Going back to the science and music question, if we’re thinking literally, on surface level, music is simply noise - it’s simply sound waves - vibrations - hitting our ears. And yet, I think every human that has ever walked the earth could agree on this: music is also so much more.

That’s the unexplainable beauty of music, and it’s what keeps me coming back every day, chasing that magic.