Name: Lara Jones
Nationality: British
Occupation: Saxophonist, composer, improviser, sound artist, DJ
Recent release: Lara Jones's Divided EP is out September 13th 2024 via Sound Vinyl.

If you enjoyed this Lara Jones interview and would like to stay up to date with her music, visit her official website. She is also on Instagram, twitter, and Soundcloud.

For a deeper dive, read our earlier Lara Jones interview.
 


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?

It depends where I'm listening, if I'm at a live gig I tend to close my eyes and the movement comes in my body - similar to when I'm playing live I really feel sound in my body and I love thinking about how my body changes as I'm listening.

When I'm at home, mostly I listen on headphones when I'm out for a walk so I tend to reflect on the shapes and colours around me in relation to what I'm listening to ... that or completely zone out and forget where I'm going …

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

I think when you’re listening on headphones it becomes a more insular experience. I always try to listen to albums both on a stereo system and on headphones as it’s definitely a completely different experience.

Headphone listening definitely gives you that close and personal feel but I must admit that there is something special about listening to music around other people. How powerful is it when you're in a room full of people and everyone moves or sings together to the same tune, that’s a community coming together in a truly magical way.

It’s so magical, the power of a chant, a rhythm, a lyric, that moment when everyone knows the drop is coming ... oof it’s special!

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

SOPHIE is my biggest inspiration regarding sound. She was sooo ahead of her time and my biggest regret is that I never got the chance to see her perform live. She had such a distinctive sound and everything she ever made was everything I'd ever want to hear.



Loraine James is also a truly incredible artist whose sound I loved since forever. But what’s special is how her sound changes and flows between records and yet I feel like somehow you could always know something that she’s touched ... a bit like SOPHIE actually, like there is this distinctiveness but you can’t really put your finger on it..



I really feel like that she is so free in what she makes, she’s not afraid to be vulnerable in her music or shift things up, doing something unexpected or different from before.

These two artists are always the sounds I come back to when I need inspiration.

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?

I cannot stand the sound of people eating, it drives me mad. I don’t know why I find it so annoying, no other sound gets to me like it ... my family used to always take the piss out of me for it when I was a kid. So I worked really hard at getting used to being around it and now I think I'm pretty good at switching off from it - but it took like genuine practice and work to do haha!

A sound I could never get bored of is the sea. Kinda cliche I suppose but I really love water. I think I was a fish in another life, the sound of water and under water brings me a lot of peace.

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

You know how buses make that humming sound when they slow down, it’s like a little whine, I think it’s really cute ... not the tsss sound, the humming one ... listen when a bus next turns a corner, it’s really cute.

I actually love recording sounds from spaces and using them in my work … I could talk for a while about this so it depends how deep we wanna go. But let’s just say there is an EP called enso all based on train travel sounds …



... and there is also an EP called fig all based on queer love … including a tune that samples my wife’s orgasm. It’s called “scissors” and it’s about the celebration of queer sex …



Anyway I guess sounds from trains, beds and showers have intrigued me!

Have you ever been in spaces with extreme sonic characteristics, such as anechoic chambers or caves? What was the experience like?

mmm no I haven’t. But I did jump out a plane for a charity skydive and the sound during free fall is so super intense. It was so loud but also everything was silent at the same time … super interesting!

I have been in a cave before but I don't really remember the sound from it. It would be interesting to play some saxophone in a cave I reckon.

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

I love to play in queer spaces. I prefer spaces where people can move to the music as opposed to a more formal seated space. I think it’s quite amazing how much a space can shape the feel of a performance.

I’ve recently been working at a couple of clubs and theatres doing live lights. Often my job is to improvise the lights to the music and it’s been a fully fun experience learning how much you can shape the feel for those listening. I love responding to what the DJs are doing - I think it’s made me a better musician thinking about the whole experience of a gig.

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

Most of the time yes, I love to finish at tune and then come back the next day and remix it and tear it apart and resculpt. I love to keep building and shaping the sounds until I know it’s been all the places I can imagine and find a sweet spot for how it should be.

I suppose the mixing and production definitely feels like sculpting but honestly sometimes the writing process is fairly linear, less physical and sometimes feels very 2D. I think perhaps because I get an idea and then I have to get it into my DAW super quick before I lose it - but then, once it’s all in there, that’s when the sculpting begins.

And definitely whenever I'm recording saxophone, I'm always imagining the sound of a sphere coming out of the horn. The saxophone sound is so rich in harmonics and depth, you have to consider the whole sound beyond the note or tone. I suppose it’s similar to your voice but I'm not so good at visualising the voice sound just yet.

How important is sound for our overall well-being and in how far do you feel the "acoustic health" of a society or environment is reflective of its overall health?

I really believe that we are living through a time of excessive noise pollution. The way we consume sound has changed dramatically, not just through the obvious streaming and social media rise but there is also a rise of general mass consumption as well ... everything ...

It’s very hard to fully reject consumption because we are exposed to it everywhere we go. I’ve lived in cities for the majority of my life now and so it’s hard to imagine anything other than a lot of noise … travel *stress*, construction *unaffordable*, people *distracted*, animals *unhealthy* ... I suppose I'm portraying a negative view here but I do think our general acoustic health is pretty poor. It’s why so many of us try to escape through music and through nature.

It’s very important we are in tune with the sounds we are consuming and how it impacts our overall wellbeing. I think it’s something that can get overlooked. Embracing some quiet and/or at least embracing engaging with the sounds that pass us by and not just allowing them to enter our brain without proper consideration for what it is - it’s a real must in keeping healthy.

Sound, song, and rhythm are all around us, from animal noises to the waves of the ocean. What, if any, are some of the most moving experiences you've had with these non-human-made sounds?

I’ve not really explored much animal sound … I got a wee bit into birdsong for a while but never deep enough to really have a moving experience.

I definitely love under water sounds as a said but currently there is no one stand-out moving experience for me. I’ll be sure to pay more attention in future …

Tinnitus and developing hyperacusis are very real risks for anyone working with sound. Do you take precautions in this regard and if you're suffering from these or similar issues – how do you cope with them?

Ear plugs, ear plugs, ear plugs! I always wear them at gigs and I really think people should wear them when they travel. The underground for example is SO loud.

 I occasionally experience tinnitus and it scares me. The idea of loosing hearing is a real nightmare for me so I really work hard to protect my ears to do what I can to minimise the risk.

We can surround us with sound every second of the day. The great pianist Glenn Gould even considered this the ultimate delight. How do you see that yourself and what importance does silence hold?

I think it depends on my mood. There are times where I want to hear everything all at once and other times this is super distressing for me. I think ultimately it depends on our inner sound world. If we are experiencing peace and/or silence in our minds then we can manage easier the sounds around us.

The ultimate goal for me is reaching a place where I can choose what I let in and what I let go, not emotionally but in sound. I used to be much closer in this journey when I practiced in zen meditation but right now I feel a little consumed and busy in my mind and so it is harder to be selective in what I allow in.

But no, I disagree that being surrounded by sound is the ultimate delight, I think the ultimate delight is being surrounded by sound and being able to choose whether you allow it into your psyche or choose to let it go but for the process to happen almost unconsciously … I’ll let you know if I ever get there!!

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?

I think we’d understand ourselves, each other and our relationship to ourselves and each other better if we listened more instead of the focus being on looks. I think it would be harder to kid ourselves of happiness though, I think focusing on the look of everything and less on listening means we can hide behind masks instead of focusing on the truth …

Although that’s only specific to focusing on the look of ourselves - I think photographers and visuals artists probably have a different idea to me on this and would say outwardly looking is probably a very fast way of tuning into the world.

I'm not too sure, I think probably we all need less of our senses engaged all at once and collectively would benefit from slowing down …