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Part 2

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

The process for my latest project, an album called “a journey…” is similar to what we touched on earlier - the idea of experimenting and recording, saving and then revisiting those recordings when the time feels right. During the Summer of 2020 my friend Oli (Jacobs, who is the head engineer at Real World Studios) very kindly invited me to take part in WOMAD Online, an immersive audio experience and virtual edition of WOMAD Festival. This inspired me to finish off the demos I’d been working on, which somehow all seemed to connect together and became a continuous ambient piece - I collated them together with field recordings from the surrounding areas of Bath that I recorded on my trip to Real World Studios, and we reamped some of the stems using a d&b Audiotechnik loudspeaker array system and a binaural head.
 
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?

Both creating or listening, solo or collaboratively have so many wonderful aspects, and can bring out different qualities of their own. I find listening to something by myself in a quiet space allows me to deeply connect with that piece of music, and conversely listening in a room with many others is also such a beautiful experience in that it is a shared magical connection with likeminded people - you can feel each other’s energy and joy.
The same goes with working solo and collaborating - for my own projects I tend to work by myself until the mixing or mastering stages, but I really enjoy the process of collaborating with others. The union of different minds can bring out a multitude of interesting ideas that might not have come about approached from a “solo” angle or perspective, and I always learn so much from working with other people and their unique approaches in creating.
 
How do your work and your creativity relate to the world and what is the role of music in society?

I think part of the role of music in society can be to share experiences with others - to help each other, to connect and to inspire. As to my personal work, I hope that whoever is kind enough to listen to it can find something in it that they can connect or relate to - that would mean the world to me.
 
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?

Music is such a powerful and therapeutic practice - as a listener and fan it’s definitely helped me heal through various moments in life, and also it’s been a cathartic release too in the way of creating and performing. From a listener’s perspective, I think when you resonate with someone’s creation it brings a sense of togetherness with the creator of the piece, and the knowing that we are all figuring out our way of navigating through this universe together.

There seems to be increasing interest in a functional, “rational” and scientific approach to music. How do you see the connection between music and science and what can these two fields reveal about each other?

Music and science are so beautifully and intrinsically intertwined, from the very fundamentals of a wave, its frequency and amplitude - when we break things down to the very core we’re all made of atoms > particles > energy, and we are are influenced by vibrations around us. I’m fascinated by sound therapy and healing, and in the way that certain frequencies can restore our bodies to their natural states.
 
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?

Creating anything is a wonderful and free form of expression by whomever the creator is, taking into consideration their attention, intention and feeling. Everyone is an artist - and creating a great cup of coffee is absolutely an art form too! - there’s also a sense of peace in a daily task, like a form of meditation.
I feel that performing music is like a meditation for me also - I feel that perhaps there’s no choice but to be fully present when performing, and I find I lose track of anything else in that moment other than connecting with the other performers on stage and channelling the music! It’s such a privilege to perform and share something that will hopefully connect with the audience in some way - plus, each performance is unique to that time and space, in that no one performance will ever be the same.
Sharing a space and collective experience with people that may not have necessarily ever met before too is a wonderful and exciting thing. I’ve been lucky enough to witness many shows of artists I love where I feel that everyone present in that room at that time has shared a similar joyous experience, our collective energies resonating with each other.
 
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?

That’s such an interesting question… I think additionally to the chords and harmony of a piece of music, perhaps different timbres of instruments can contribute to different feelings and emotions - for example, sounds with more even harmonics may be perceived as ‘warmer’, as compared to a ‘harsher’ sound of one with more odd harmonics present (of course this is all subject to our own perception!)…
The human ear is amazing - how we can process a complex sound from the moment the sound wave arrives to our ears, through the ear canal and the tympanic membrane that accurately transmits every single vibration, through to the middle and inner ear, to the tiny minuscule hair cells lining the cochlea which translate the sounds into electrical signals for our brain to interpret… also, how different areas of the brain translate different aspects of music, such as pitch, loudness and rhythm!
There might also be particular sounds that evoke emotions for some listeners by bringing back certain memories - apparently it’s the limbic system in our brains that plays a part in our emotional response to music. Alongside the physical process of sound entering our ears, it also becomes a psychological hearing exercise in terms of what we choose to ‘tune’ into or turn our attention towards out of all the sound waves that our brains are processing…

In terms of the messages in music, I guess it’s down to the perception of the listener and how they connect with the sounds and frequencies of the music. Music is so incredible and powerful, and I find it so interesting how everyone’s response to something can be so different. For me personally there’s something about the beautiful sounds of the Sequential Prophet synthesisers that I really connect with, and makes me well up!
 


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