Name: Mark Van Hoen

Nationality: British
Occupation: Producer, sound artist, composer
Current release: Mark Van Hoen's Multiplex EP is out April 11th via Dell'Orso.
Recommendations on the topic of sound:
Songs of Innocence & Experience - William Blake
Eurythmy as Visible Singing - Rudolf Steiner
The End Of Time - Julian Barbour
Sri Aurobindo: Addresses on His Life and Teachings - A.B. Purani
Stockhausen - A Theological Interpretation by Thomas Ulrich
https://www.jcf.org/
https://alanwatts.com/

If you enjoyed this Mark Van Hoen interview and would like to stay up to date with his work, visit him on Instagram, 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?

There are several modes that I can be in to listen to music … driving, or carrying out tasks, dancing, or pure listening. Each of these is a different experience.

The first two are self explanatory. With the pure listening, it is with eyes closed. The ideal is to ‘see’ nothing. The music (sound) becomes everything. Say, for example, a piece like ‘Cantus in Memoriam Benjamin Britten’ by Arvo Pärt.



This can bring me into a state where I see nothing and become no longer aware of my breathing and heartbeat.

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

Headphones can be great, if they are high quality and give a full range. But having a physical object over your ears is distracting.

A good stereo system is preferable, and closer to the true experience of hearing a performance in front of you.

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

For their sound - and I am taking this to mean for the sonic qualities of their music, rather than solely their song writing or even performance as musicians.

Claire M Singer - Her use of pipe organs is unique.



Can - At their peak, they created their own sonic world …. which is timeless.



MBV - Much copied, but still no-one has ever been able to match it. Karlheinz Stockhausen - Certain compositions were only about sound.

Cabaret Voltaire - During the time Chris Watson was in the group, it was all about the sound. This had a massive impact on me as a teenager, and was really the best expressed connection to the sounds I heard growing up in an industrial city - and how those sounds could be heard as music



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?

Irritating:

The sounds used in a lot of pop music for me are highly irritating. The ‘loudness’, or lack of dynamics. The relation to computer games, or audio made for small speakers (mobile phones). Singers that do not have their own voice, that mimic other singers … trained voices.

Worthy of attention:

Nature - anything occurring, the wind, rain ocean, insects, birds etc.

Factories or manufacture … construction - especially if there is a rhythmic
cycle or pattern.

Church organs. Music performed in religious ceremonies or rituals.

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

I listen to everything around me. I often like large public spaces like entrance halls. For example the main area at Union Station Los Angeles. The reverberation, the voices/footsteps etc.



I like the detail and density of the sounds. It’s full of life.

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

A big event that changed my outlook on sound was a concert I attended at Worcester Cathedral in 1982. Sir Simon Rattle was conducting, and the piece was Mahler’s Sixth Symphony.

I became very aware of the sound of the orchestra - each instrument in a different space - along with the reverberation of the Cathedral itself. This was profoundly different to hearing music over a PA system at other concerts I’d been to.

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

I very much enjoyed playing at a venue called ‘Iklectik’ in central London.

Unfortunately it’s gone now, although it’s owners continue to put on performances and events in other places.

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

Music and sound exist in a different dimension to visual art, sculptures or tangible objects. I believe that is what makes music and sound art more pervasive than the other arts. And why sound can make such a world of difference when accompanying films or art installations etc.

Sound is a more direct line to the human spirit than the visual arts.

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?

Vitally important. Very little attention is paid to this idea of ‘acoustic health’ The importance of silence.

It may seem trivial, but I am often surprised about the lack of attention paid to the acoustic design of, say, a bar or restaurant. You can often have a meticulously designed space, visually beautiful. But the acoustics have not been dealt with at all.

There have been places where I can hear the voices of people on the other side of the room louder than those in front of me! A resonance at the frequency of human voices that make the space very uncomfortable to occupy.

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?

The sound of the factories in Birmingham when I was a child.

Yes, the waves of the ocean … and the seas (being quite different to the ocean)

I stayed in a hut in Thailand once, near the jungle. The sounds at dawn from the wildlife were quite incredible.

Many animals communicate through sound. Based either on experience or intuition, do you feel as though interspecies communication is possible and important? Is there a creative element to it, would you say?

Yes it is both possible and important. It’s part of evolution.

And of course, if different species of animals can learn to communicate through sound, then it must be an act of creation.

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?

Yes I do suffer with it. No I didn’t take precautions (except for sometimes moving away from PA stacks). I ignore it as best I can.

I still have ringing in my ears from a My Bloody Valentine Concert in 1992!

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’s a great observation and if someone chooses that, then that is their prerogative.

Silence is vitally important to myself and I believe others. I am not sure that the majority of people (at least in the west) understand how important it is.

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?

Yes I’ve heard this before. And in fact I have life long friends who are also neuroscientists who have said similar.

I think it’s absolutely correct and the world would be a better place if we paid more attention to sound. There would be more empathy, understanding and peace.