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?
Rob: One that springs to mind is the last song on our upcoming EP, it’s called ‘Most Incredible UFO Case Ever’ and it’s a meandering 7 minute trip of a track.
We started it quite late at night, I was just messing around on the piano whilst in a slightly altered state of consciousness. We hit record and quite quickly had a messy but vibey thing to try to comprehend. WaiFung then jammed on his Erhu whilst Mat and I played drones on various instruments to create a dark and intense soundscape.
Half way through a very straight, major chord sequence came through and it was almost as if a bright light just beamed down upon us. We left it til the next day and when we listened back it was almost as if the track, at this point completely unmixed and unedited, was a vivid representation of a psychedelic trip; the calm, the confusion, the pain and then the pure relief.
Hopefully it’ll resonate with people.
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?
WaiFung: Can I love both equally? Ha, is that dodging the question?
I know there are many introverted superhumans out there hiding away writing masterpieces by their lonesome, but for me, solitude and community influences each other so much. If I spend more time by myself playing, it makes me such better musical company for others. Likewise spending more time with the band inspires my own time so much! It gives me something greater than myself to play for and connect to.
A good balance of both magic really happens for us I think. I had always been a sucker for a good jam session way before the collective too. Music has gotten me through some very lonely periods like heartbreaks, sad times, or during lockdown. But I actually missed jamming so much in isolation that I got myself a LoopStation to jam with myself, then UFC happened and filled such a huge hole in my life.
One thing we do as a band which I think reflects well the importance of self-other balance is that we have a tradition of doing deep critical listening sessions of music made, write thoughts down separately and independently, then come together and communicate feedback openly.
How do your work and your creativity relate to the world and what is the role of music in society?
Mat: We’re all in the ‘helping professions’: Rob is a teacher, tutors kids but also teaches yoga, WaiFung a clinical psychologist and I’m a psychiatrist. Trying to help others has been a pretty humbling journey, coming up against our own limitations, at times struggling to stay sane ourselves, and not to lose ourselves in fight, flight or freeze, in the face of the problems this world is facing, both ecologically, economically and in terms of mental health.
Music can be a powerful tool to escape this reality at times, or make us feel connected with other who we don’t know, or parts of ourselves that we had forgotten about. Making music together has definitely been a process which has helped us to cope with lockdown and feelings of burnout at work, and has brought us closer together, through having to overcome our conflicts and own our sensitivities in the studio.
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?
WaiFung: This area is something which has brought music to the dearest depths of my heart and connected it to all other areas of my life. When designed and utilised correctly, music’s sheer inherent power to entrain the listener to shift, uplift, contemplate, find comfort, connect, is simply like none other. I love it SO much!
I find a lot of inspiration here from my work as a psychologist researcher of shamanic traditions, learning of how indigenous peoples have developed musical technologies which form the foundation of guiding mystical experiences, to clinically, and surgically treat very specific mental and physical ailments. They do this with such effectiveness and put so much emphasis on intention, vibration, working with nature, spirit.
What I love about being in the studio with the collective is that we came together with a shared understanding of the ‘sacred’, a desire to make music that heals, music that accompanies the big topics in life. I mean, life happens and it’s crazy, but we keep checking back in with that, when it aligns, it becomes much more than just music.
How do you see the connection between music and science and what can these two fields reveal about each other?
Mat: There seem to be so many connections: People who are much better at music theory say it’s all math, and the Hindus believe the universe originated with the primordial sound of an Ohm, from which all other things originated, and so many scientists also make music or play instruments, famously Einstein played violin and Dan Snaith has a PhD about Siegel Modular Symbols..
Although science is often portrayed as being this progressive machine propelling humanity forward, often in a seemingly pretty doomed direction, my own journey through science brought me to a much more humble perspective, that science is merely a method to try to predict unknown outcomes, in the face of chaos and uncertainty, and to do that we try to understand reality.
Music to me is that reality that can never fully be understood by science, does not have to be understood to be experienced, but can be studied by science and aided by it, as when Dan Snaith programs synths.
A good scientist tries to understand the little we can know, knowing that there’s a lot we don’t know. That leaves space for the mystical, the unconscious, the ephemeral, a life force larger than ourselves, to which we can connect creatively. That connection is about vibrating together, being in harmony with our surroundings feels good and peaceful.
But good music brings in dissonance as well, the power of discord, destruction of the old to allow the new to grow, making space. Alive, like a forest.
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?
Rob; I like this question - it’s something I think about a lot. I think cooking is a really good comparison because when you eat a meal it’s so clear as to whether it’s been made with love and intention - it’s the same with music. The late Buddhist teacher Thich Nhat Hanh cites doing the washing up as the ultimate opportunity to practise mindfulness - being totally present and noticing the beauty in the mundane.
I guess it depends on your attitude - you can exercise creativity in every aspect of life, as you say. The beauty of music is that the process and the outcome can be equally as thrilling, even more so when it’s a shared experience.
I guess the same could be said for making a banging flat white with a drawing of a swan on top. But flat whites can’t endure over time like music can.
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?
Mat: I don’t have an explanation, but it makes sense that it’s deeply rooted in our brain, if you think about how long, as a species, we’ve used sounds to communicate before we developed words and language. As WaiFung says, it’s such a powerful non verbal, emotive language.
Being surrounded by others, listening to music, played by a band or DJ, the boundaries of our psyche become permeable, we feel connected, in sync, our brains even synchronise to the sound source, an effect called entrainment which can be measured by tracking the electrical activity in the brain through EEG.
The question brings a fascinating research project by Leor Roseman to mind. Leor is a psychedelic researcher in Imperial College London, who has done a research project in Israel where Israelis and Palestines were singing together during Ayahuasca ceremonies. He talks about the process of discord and harmony expressed through their songs, and the power of being together, in the same space.
