Part 1

Artist: Joe Acheson (AKA: Hidden Orchestra)
Nationality: British
Occupation: composer
Current release: ‘Little Buddy Move’ on Lone Figures
Recommendations: ‘Music for 18 Musicians’ by Steve Reich / N’Gou Bagayoko Radio on Spotify.

If you enjoyed this interview with Joe Acheson visit his website to listen to music, mixtapes and learn about installations. To learn more about Hidden Orchestra visit www.hiddenorchestra.com

When I listen to music, I see shapes, objects and colours. What happens in your body when you're listening? Do you listen with your eyes open or closed?

I don’t experience anything visual, I’m not aware of any mental images being stimulated - music simply affects the way I feel, physically and emotionally. I listen to music most of the time, so whether I have my eyes open or not mostly depends on what I’m doing - but I do often listen with my eyes closed when it’s possible. When I’m doing this I don’t even see blackness or nothingness, it’s more like I am just turning off sight to focus on hearing.
When performing on stage I’ll often close my eyes when playing an instrument (e.g. bass), but they are usually open when I’m controlling electronics.

What were your very first steps in music like - and how do you rate gains made through experience versus the naiveté of those first steps?

I’ve been involved in all kinds of music-making since an early age, but I am always learning new things about many different aspects of music - from new musical instruments to composition, orchestration, recording and production techniques. There are no hard and fast rules - experience can be crucial, and allows me to trust some of the things that I do, and it can also speed up the process of making and understanding new discoveries.
Sometimes the first recording takes are the best, but often it takes many takes to get something right.
Some instruments give me better and more interesting recordings when I am just figuring out how to play them than when I have actually learnt how to play them (then quickly understanding how bad I am at them which can lead to awful performances) - but the very best recordings I make are either of instruments I have played for a long time or of accomplished and experienced musicians who have mastered their art through many years of hard work and dedication. A bit like a Dunning-Kruger curve of instrumental technique.

According to scientific studies, we make our deepest and most incisive musical experiences between the ages of 13-16. What did music meant to you at that age and what’s changed since then?

I was making a lot of music at that age, in a lot of different styles, genres and settings - from orchestras, concert bands, ensembles and choirs to playing in all manner of bands, from jazz to heavy metal, and writing and producing music, from Classical to techno, hip hop and drum and bass.
I was also lucky to have some extremely visceral musical experiences prior to that ag, mostly in a choral setting, such as performing Verdi’s bombastic Dies Irae in a huge cathedral with a 150-voice choir and a full orchestra, or singing hauntingly beautiful sacred music in empty churches with massive reverberant acoustics.

One 13-16 age experience that stands out was when I bought three albums on the same day which had a profound effect on my listening habits - Aphex Twin’s ‘Richard D. James’, DJ Shadow’s ‘Endtroducing’, and Orbital’s ‘In Sides’.

That was the biggest single event since a couple of years before on a long late night car journey with my parents, when I randomly picked up a cassette of ‘Jungle Mania’ from a bargain bin in a petrol station, then sat in the back with cranked Walkman headphones being introduced to UK Jungle classics which I still listen to.

After those teenage years, came studying music composition and technology at University, whilst going to and putting on club nights and gigs, and continuing to write and produce music purely for my own entertainment. It was also just something that me and loads of my friends did for fun, we’d hang out together and write tunes, make beats, listen to music.

I think if you were to increase that age range to 7-21, then for me what has changed since then is that I rarely perform other people’s music any more. I experience a lot of other people’s music, but it is all from listening and going to shows, not actually being involved in the performance itself.

These days, I struggle to find time to engage with all the different kinds of creative projects I want to undertake, so performing other people’s work is something that very rarely occurs. Sometimes I really miss it, but then I also feel very privileged to be able to do all the things that I do.

Over the course of your development, what have been your most important instruments and tools and how have they shaped your perspective on music?

Pianos, computers, microphones and other musicians. A lot of my writing is done at the piano, even more is done on computers, and all of my sampling source material comes from field recordings and recordings of guided improvisations and pieces I write for other musicians, as well as solo recordings of myself - I play more than twenty instruments, to varying standards, from zithers and drums through to organ and bassoon - at the moment I am learning the Xaphoon.

DAW music software too - I got into computer composition and production with Cakewalk aged 10, then Buzz, Cubase, Logic, ProTools - and for some years now I do almost everything in Ableton Live, with a bit of ProTools (I worked for a lot of years in speech recording and editing). Ableton Live just suits my writing style and workflow really well, and it’s great for my live shows too.

All of these influences and experiences contribute to shaping my perspective on music, in many different ways.

What, would you say, are the key ideas behind your approach to music and what motivates you to create?

I use many different approaches and techniques, and I guess my motivation is a mixture of intrigue and enthusiasm - I enjoy making music, and I’m always curious to find new and different ways to do it. It’s also how I make my living.

Some things I try to stick by are always working with real musicians playing real instruments (I include analog synths here, so long as they are not trying to impersonate real instruments), making electronic music by acoustic means. I’m also interested in finding ways to combine strong contrasts (dark/light, fast/slow, natural/artificial) in ways that make them complement each other.