Part 2

Can you talk about a work, event or performance in your career that's particularly dear to you? Why does it feel special to you? When, why and how did you start working on it, what were some of the motivations and ideas behind it?

Something that really stands out to me is my work with guitarist Sandy Ewen and our duo, See Creatures.

When our first release, See Creatures on Astral Spirits, was recorded, I had just built my first sound object, the berimbauophone. My partner had brought in a wooden box that she found on the street, and she said, “What can you do with this?” It was a shelf that was made out of some hard resonant wood, and I decided to attach a bow from a berimbau, a South American instrument, on top of the box. I then could attach contact mics onto the bow, or the box, and run them through a mixer and get sounds through that.

I had been trying to organize sounds made through moving weighted objects across a mic surface. The bow on top added a resonant metal string to the mix—basically an amplified gutbucket bass. When Sandy and I recorded, my goal was to do the entire session using that instrument, and I did. It sounded so interesting that I began to use it frequently for live shows and did some touring only using that for about a year.

How do you feel your sense of identity influences your collaborations? Do you feel as though you are able to express yourself more fully in solo mode or, conversely, through the interaction with other musicians? Are you “gaining” or “sacrificing” something in a collaboration?

My solo work, under the name Venison Whirled, often involves long drones that shape themselves according to the resonant frequencies of the room that I'm playing in, and sometimes I can go into a trance as the sounds define themselves.



When I'm collaborating with others, it's more of a combination of listening and finding spaces to play in, or not to play in. An example of this is my current release with San Francisco guitarist Ernesto Diaz-Infante, Ghosts of the JA on Loma Editions from San Antonio. On this recording, our fourth, we are sonically describing a dream landscape, but nothing was discussed beforehand. Ernesto and I have an ability to give each other plenty of space to make conversations in.

Examples of improvisation in a free jazz trio setting are the releases I did with bassist Damon Smith and Alex Cunningham, Time Without Hours on Storm Cellar Records and Dawn Throws Its First Knife on Balance Point Acoustics.



Derek Bailey defined improvising as the search for material which is endlessly transformable. Regardless of whether or not you agree with his perspective, what kind of materials have turned to be particularly transformable and stimulating for you?

I do agree with his perspective, and also I try to consistently challenge myself when I'm performing.

Retaining the original sound of drums, symbols, and objects into the work is extremely important, such as resonating calfskin drum heads, metal, wood, glass, and even plastic.

When you're improvising, does it actually feel like you're inventing something on the spot – or are you inventively re-arranging patterns from preparations, practise or previous performances?

One of my favorite ways to improvise is to set a number of objects out and not even think about it until I'm actually playing them. I'm often trying to find a place where I'm just watching the objects move on their own or create their own sounds and just follow where that leads to.

In a way I feel like I'm facilitating a process that leads to its own conclusion.

In a live situation, decisions between creatives often work without words. How does this process work – and how does it change your performance compared to a solo performance?

I rarely make any sort of decision beforehand when improvising with others. This process seems to be somewhat universal with almost anyone that I'm playing with.

I do believe a sort of telepathy takes place, and deep listening often is the guide. Paying very close attention while at the same time trying to stay in the moment can be a daunting process, but having done it for 40 years, I feel it comes fairly naturally to me. It's definitely a process that crystallizes with experience.

When I am improvising solo, things change quite a bit. I often perform solo in a trance state and it is very much in the moment. In that case, I'm not listening so much as performing from intuition. It seems that, for me, trying to work things out ahead of time adds more confusion that gets in the way of the actual work. It is a lot like a ritual or scrying.

How do you see the relationship between sound, space and performance and what are some of your strategies and approaches of working with them?

All three of those are very important to me in my solo performances. Sound waves are created through the performance, and the way that they interact with the room's space, shape, and construction define the whole of the performance. I can then modify the frequencies and shapes of the sound waves accordingly to create dissonance, harmony, or combinations of them.



In a way, improvisations remind us of the transitory nature of life. What, do you feel, can music and improvisation express and reveal about life and death?

So much. Isn't that why improvisation exists? To deliver feelings that may be harder to communicate with words.

Once I had the opportunity to see the Chicago blues guitarist Buddy Guy play here in Austin, Texas, right before returning to Chicago for his daughter's memorial services. He played a slow blues dedicated to her that had the audience completely spellbound.

I will never forget the intensity of that moment.