Name: Louise Rossiter
Nationality: Scottish
Occupation: Composer, producer
Current release: Louise Rossiter's Der Industriepalast – Part I is out via Oscillations.
Recommendations on the topic of sound: Definitely Barry Blesser’s book - Spaces speak, are you listening?
Pete Stollery’s output of work - both electro acoustic and soundscape.
Audioculture: readings in modern music.
In terms of resources, https://electrotheque.com has some great starting points.
Trevor Wishart’s ‘Red Bird’ is a great intro to vocal manipulations.
Simon Emmerson’s language of electroacoustic music is also a great starting point.
In terms of artists - some of my influences: Gilles Gobeil, Robert Normandeau, Hildegard Westerkamp, Aphex Twin, Francois Baylor, Francis Dhomont, Annette Vande Gorne, Adam Stanovic, Adrian Moore, Jonty Harrison, John Young and Norah Lorway are just some of many incredible artists.

If you enjoyed this Louise Rossiter interview and would like to know more about her music, visit her on twitter and Facebook.  



Can you talk a bit about your interest in or fascination for sound and what sparked it?

Unknowingly, my fascination with sound started when I studied music at school. We had to do “inventing” and even though I was focusing on piano, I found inventing or composing with piano boring. Composing with MIDI was far more interesting, and I could make my music tell a story (wave sounds for a piece about a storm, for example).

After I started studying at Aberdeen, I focused on Western Classical Music alongside Gamelan. This meant sound got pushed to one side. I did attend electroacoustic concerts but dreaded them as I didn’t understand what was going on so it was all jumbled noise without meaning to me.

That changed when I had to do an assignment comparing rural and urban soundscapes which meant I had no choice but to engage. So I took a trip out to Bennachie, in Aberdeenshire with the lure of a pub lunch. When I reached the top of Bennachie, I was hit by the sound of silence. The walk back to the train station was far more interesting. Everything had finally ‘clicked’ and I was hooked.

I was really lucky that the sound guru and tutor for that course Pete Stollery then introduced me more formally to electroacoustic music- everything continued from there, but pretty cool that it’s from that one event up in Bennachie.

What have been some of the most beautiful/intriguing sounds you've heard and some of the most beautifully/intriguingly sounding places you've been to?

I have been fortunate to travel to some incredible places over the years. I suppose the most beautiful sound / sounding place I have visited is Malaysian Borneo. I stayed in the rainforest and witnessed the dawn chorus every morning which was incredibly loud and invigorating- though it reminded me of white noise sometimes.

I have been to China in 2011 and 2013 and was able to write pieces based on both of those visits. Interestingly, the output and processing of sounds in both those pieces where very different- thanks to my own experience.

Culture Shock (2011) reflected the chaotic, scary yet hypnotic experience of my first visit - whilst Our Song (2013) was far more organised and represented a travelling through sound to Beijing, X’ian and Chengdu. X’ian also produced two of the most beautiful sounds in my collection- the first being a xūn player performing Auld Lang Syne- the second being the chant of Buddhist monks in a temple.



The most intriguing place I have travelled to was Montreal. Purely because of the number of unique sonic spaces in the city - from formula 1 race tracks, to spooky transit stations with buskers, to markets and underground shopping centres. This inspired the work Tout autour de la Montagne (2014).



The human voice is one of the first sounds we are exposed to, even before we understand the exact meaning of words. Are you, too, interested in voices and language, the rhythm of speech, the timbres of different voices – and do you think these qualities find their way into your sound work?

I honestly believe that I am still learning everyday. I only started using voice in the past year as a substantial part of my works but found it enjoyable if not challenging!!

I find both voice and conventional instruments more difficult to work with, perhaps because there are so many amazing composers who work solely with voice- or with voice as a significant element of their work. Trevor Wishart's music immediately springs to mind.

Anyway, I have composed two pieces recently which use voice in different ways. The first, The Annunciation, was written with a narrative in mind - the whole text is based on Luke I and is sung in Latin by the local vicar. The whole process was surreal as the material I ended up working with was very different. Timbre was very important in this piece as the vicar chanted in three different pitches to represent Mary, Angel Gabriel and the narrator.

The second piece created featured spoken narrative to tell a story. Old Original was written to tell a little bit of the history of Everards Brewery in Leicester.The task here was to use recorded interviews to guide the narrative of the work, and to bring the recorded sounds of the brewery to life.

Are there extremes in sound you are particularly interested in - and what response do they elicit in you?

I have a deep fascination with silence, and wrote to some depth on this in my doctoral thesis which was about the notion of expectation in Acousmatic Music. Silence can be very literal (pause in a piece) and quiet, or loud (walking through the countryside with a fierce wind blowing.

Alongside extremely delicate sounds, I am fascinated with drone material which slowly evolves through time.

Deep listening, audiowalks, meditation, listening with both eyes closed, and the like can sharpen our sense of hearing – which techniques or experiences have worked for you to create a greater awareness of the sound aspects of music and our environment?

In terms of my own practice, I find that simply finding space and time to immerse oneself in the surrounding environment. Not only to take in the sonic environments but also to realise the potential of those sounds.

Where do you find the sounds you're working with? How do you collect, and organise them?  

Well, it really depends on the piece I am working on. A lot of my work is inspired by processes, but also a very careful building or crafting of sound. I really love working with industrial sounds, so I record lots of machine sounds and gadgets - my Mum and I run a pub in Leicester and have a good relationship with the brewery, meaning that I have relatively easy access to these types of sounds.

I always have a portable recorder and notebook with me - to enable me to note interesting sounds and, most importantly, make a reference as to why that sound is attractive. I have an archive of raw sounds, and libraries I have created through processing these sounds.

Over the course of your development, what have been your most important instruments and tools?

I think for me, the most important tool I possess, are my ears. This is a tool that has developed and become more refined as my own practice has evolved.

In terms of 'physical’ tools and instruments, the tools I draw on the most is a book of 'recipes' I have created for developing particular sound types or styles, and the GRMtools suite which is fantastic for composing new soundworlds.

Could you describe your creative process on the basis of one of your sounds, pieces, or live performances that's particularly dear to you, please?

My current project (and subject of my first EP on the Oscillations label) is influenced by the work of infographics pioneer Fritz Kahn, whose illustrations presented the human anatomy as bodies of industry.

I am very much a visual thinker and learner. Kahn's work set off a 'spark’ which also contributed to a new way of composing pieces. Inspiration is taken from a chosen images and then from this l produce a ‘pre-composition’ score - essentially a graphic score with some preliminary ideas as to how the place might be structured, key ideas within the place, and so on.

The suite I have composed has really boosted my confidence and almost invited me to do things I wouldn’t have been ‘brave’ enough to do before - for example, using rhythm to a great extent in Synapse, and relying more on gesture in Neuronen.

In relation to sound, one often reads words like “material”, “sculpting”, and “design”. Do you feel these terms have a relationship to your own work of and approach towards sound? What are the “material” qualities of sound?

I think that sculpting is a central part of my work.

When I studied electro acoustic music with Pete Stollery, one thing I was always encouraged to do was to mine a recorded sound for all of its potential sound, and then to sculpt these sounds through editing and processing into the piece.

It has been described to me in the past as not unlike peeling back the layers of an onion to reveal new material - and that is an analogy I continue to use.

One of my earliest works that really got to grips with that idea is Black Velvet which was created from recording a Guinness can with a widget and experimenting with the sounds.