Name: Gilles Aubry
Nationality: Swiss
Occupation: Sound artist, musician, researcher
Current release: Gilles Aubry's new album L’Makina, featuring Ali Faiq (vocals) and Idr Bazrou (lotar and rebab), is out via Corvo.
Recommendations on the topic of sound: Book: Sawt, Bodies, Species (2023, Adocs Press, free pdf)

If you enjoyed this Gilles Aubry interview and would like to keep up to date with his music, visit his official homepage. He is also on Instagram, Mastodon, and bandcamp. 



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 often see shapes and colors. If you listen to my new album L'Makina, you might experience green, ochre and rust-like retinal impressions. The piece is a haunting soundscape that combines AI-generated sound textures with modular synths.

Structured in two parts, L'Makina explores the spectral possibilities of a virtual sound model developed using a machine learning algorithm, in collaboration with Moroccan musicians Ali Faiq and Idr Basrou.

Early rwais music is know for its trance-inducing qualities, of which the album is a tentative translation into abstract electronic music.

How do listening with headphones and listening through a stereo system change your experience of sound and music?

My albums are primarily intended for headphone listening, because for me an album should above all be a daily companion, a soothing, stimulating and protective presence that I take with me wherever I go, a quasi-talisman in the best of cases.

Tell me about some of the albums or artists that you love specifically for their sound, please.

The album 'Ahir Bhairav' by Indian guitarist Brij Bushan Kabra is an example of talismanic sound. For me, his playing touches on the essence of tranquility.



Although dated, the albums 'Challenger' by post-metal band Knut …



... and 'Vexovoid' by the group Portal never fail to re-invigorate me with every listen, especially if I have to queue at the airport.



Do you experience strong emotional responses towards certain sounds? If so, what kind of sounds are these and do you have an explanation about the reasons for these responses?

Unsurprisingly, the human voice is the sound that moves me most.

On my previous album Rbia Harsha Cinta (2024, Antibody Records), Imane Zoubai's voice perfectly complements the dark, industrial textures generated with my modular synth.



Taken from my film Atlantic Ragagar (2022), her voice pronounces the names of seaweeds in Moroccan Arabic whose existence is threatened by anthropic pressure, described on BBC3 as “dark hymn for endangered seaweed species”.

There can be sounds which feel highly irritating to us and then there are others we could gladly listen to for hours. Do you have examples for either one or both of these?

The most annoying sound to me is the ridiculously loud fire trucks in Berlin.

You can hear them on my 2008 album Berlin Backyards (Cronica Electronica), though attenuated by the resonance of courtyards.



Are there everyday places, spaces, or devices which intrigue you by the way they sound? Which are these?

I've always been fascinated by the sound of abandoned places, such as the railway shack in East Berlin where I've made all the recordings for my album s6t8r (winds measures records).



What are among your favourite spaces to record and play your music?

The Taghia river gorge in the Moroccan Atlas has amazing resonances, which can be heard on my audio essay  "Taghia, Matriphonie de la Source."



I also spent a lot of time recording in the Salam Cinema in Agadir, a movie theater that had been abandoned for several years and in which I shot my film Salam Godzilla (2019).

Do music and sound feel “material” to you? Does working with sound feel like you're sculpting or shaping something?

Sound is material, semiotic, sacred, all at once, and more!

I learned a lot from sounds and asked them many questions. When I catch a noise there's a sensation. First you love something, then you hear it. Each sound is its own shape, texture and colour.

Ears go through different seasons, turn into strings, wings, and hammer. The body gets more air as it dances on more risks.

Seth S. Horowitz called hearing the “universal sense” and emphasised that it was more precise and faster than any of our other senses, including vision. How would our world be different if we paid less attention to looks and listened more instead?

Certainly, I haven't heard of any born blind dictators.

Though most interesting is perhaps the combination of senses, for example the idea of audiovision. It's also the name of the Teichmann brothers' magnificent concert series in Berlin, which will host my "album launch concert on May 15 2025 at the Zwingli Kirche.