Name: Matthew Rösner
Occupation: Composer, sound artist
Nationality: Austrlian
Current release: Matt Rösner's Empty, Expanding, Collapsing is out via room40.

If you enjoyed this interview with Matt Rösner and would like to know more about his work, visit his official homepage.



When did you first start getting interested in musical improvisation?

Early on I was in a band that used live instruments with electronics, primitive gear considering how music technology has moved on it the last 20 years. We started out writing and playing very structured live shows, but then moved on to explore moving around within the structure of the song and to push into other directions depending on the audience, but more importantly the acoustic performance space itself. Most of the time it was a naïve chaotic mess but when it worked it was ecstatic.

Then around 2002 I was asked to play in an improvised soundtrack to the film Metropolis alongside a small group of local electronic artists as part of a festival. We didn’t rehearse but instead setup a huge array of electronic gear in front of the large cinema screen taking cues from the film but also each other. The interaction between the film and each musician was liberating and set me off on the improvisation path.

Which artists, approaches, albums or performances involving prominent use of improvisation captured your imagination in the beginning?

Definitely, The Necks. I would see them on tour each summer in Australia. I love the way their early works evolved from simple motives and then build up gradually to a crescendo. The Necks' live album, Athenaeum, Homebush, Quay & Raab is a recording I come back to regularly.



[Read our Tony Buck of the Necks interview]

Fennesz’s Live in Japan was an important record, it revealed a completely new path of using a laptop to create wall of sound on the fly. I remember buying that record off Mark Harwood at his Synaesthesia record shop in Melbourne when I was on my first tour in 2005.

Focusing on improvisation can be an incisive transition. Aside from musical considerations, there can also be personal motivations for looking for alternatives. Was this the case for you, and if so, in which way?

Over the course of my life I’ve always want to explore boundaries and to find new ways of creating art, design and sound. The feeling of creating something new, being in the moment and letting ideas happen, is very addictive and powerful.

For some people standing in front of the unknown can be a scary proposition, however for me I find the challenge exciting and invigorating.

What, would you say, are the key ideas behind your approach to improvisation? Do you see yourself as part of a tradition or historic lineage?

I am most definitely not part of any lineage, I’ve never taken a music lesson in my life and don’t see myself as playing any instrument particularly well. Many people may associate virtuosity with improv, that’s certainly not me.  

I play music to try to make sense of complexity, to decipher emotion and escape for just a fleeting moment. My approach revolves around small fragments of sound, be it from instruments, electronics or field recordings that resonate at that particular moment, in space and time. It’s a minimal approach that is as much rooted in technology as it is physically playing an instrument.

The electronics are tools that assist in building beds of improvised sound.

What was your own learning curve / creative development like when it comes to improvisation - what were challenges and breakthroughs?

Because my playing is understated, I had to find other players and collaborators that were sympathetic to this approach.

Initially this was hard, maybe because when you are young many musicians want to play loud and over the top to be noticed. But I met people like Adam Trainer and started the Gilded project and Cameron Webb (Seaworthy) who I have been lucky to perform live with and release two records on 12k.




[Read our 12k's Taylor Deupree interview]

Both Adam and Cam play and record in a way that closely intertwines with my approach. In each case it more about texture and space than it is about complexity.

Tell me about your instrument and/or tools, please. How would you describe the relationship with it? What are its most important qualities and how do they influence the musical results and your own performance?

Over the years I’ve been able to assemble a small collection of instruments and devices. Central to Empty, Expanding, Collapsing was an upright piano built in 1898 that was given to me by a close friend. My wife and I restored the keys and strings, but since then its been moved around a lot and not tuned as well as it could be. But I like the imperfections as they add texture and open up possibilities.

With guitars I play an acoustic guitar and a Fender Jazzmaster that I’ve had for ages. The acoustic is beaten up and the action is terrible, I can’t remember changing the strings for 20 years, but again this adds to its signature tone.

Over the past 3 years I’ve experimented with an 80’s Roland SH101 that has some damage to the circuit board, keys and sliders, but it puts out a lo-fi sound that is nice to work with. Everything gets recorded using a single microphone running into an ancient Macbook running some basic DAW software.

My approach is to use the gear I have to its fullest potential and try to capture the essence of the take including the acoustics of the room and any bleed that might come from outside the studio.

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?

My last two records, No Lasting Form and Empty, Expanding, Collapsing mean a lot to me.

With No Lasting Form I’d been away from music for so long and suddenly found myself away from the city with time and space to make music again. There was self doubt at the start, but it dissolved when I dedicated time to listening to the pieces and letting them evolve organically.



Empty, Expanding, Collapsing feels like an extension of No Lasting Form but from a more assured place and a focussed attention to the process. It started as piano improvisations recorded in an old house overlooking the ocean. There as was lots of traffic noise so I had to record in the early mornings before the human world woke up. I’d record simple improvisations that were then rearranged using the computer. Once I had a bed of piano down then I went about writing parts for the other instruments and electronics.

This approach was the same as approach of the first Gilded record, Adam played a piano improvisation that we then cut into sections and recorded other parts over the top of. It was certainly not a conscience decision to write a solo record with the same approach, rather something that happened spontaneously.

Books have played a large role in my last two records, I read a lot of books and took some concepts that shaped the recordings in profound ways. At the start of recording No Lasting Form I read Sylvain Tesson’s The Consolations of the Forest which had a profound influence on me. The title of the record comes from Erling Kagge’s description of Polar sea ice, both books are about travelling to the edge of the world and confronting ones’s inner self.

On Empty, Expanding, Collapsing I read Into the Cool by Schnider and Sagan, which explores the idea of the purpose of life being to transmit information, our DNA, and to convert energy to do so. I was influenced by how this principle could apply at the smallest cellular level right through to galaxy or universe scale.

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?

Collaborations are great for learning new approaches and also to expand previous ideas that you may have that haven’t yet been fully realised. The best collaborations are the ones that allow each artist to add their identity or style whilst at the same time creating a work that stands alone.

Solo mode is more solitary, more inward looking. Over the years I’ve found to be productive in solo mode I have to start with a clearly defined theme or approach, otherwise its too easy to get lost and take forever to complete anything.

A collaboration tends to be more focused, it doesn’t necessarily need the over arching theme, and can be more spontaneous and responsive.

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 had not heard Derek Bailey’s definition before but can instantly identify with the concept of endlessly transformable materials.

For me small fragments of sound, be it from instruments, field recordings or electronics that can be reconfigured or played with different variations that add a texture I find stimulating and inspiring.

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?

It depends on the context. There are times when you use tried and tested patterns that get re-configured in some way, this might a chord progression or effects settings. But at other times it’s a blank canvas.

Recently I have been playing instruments more regularly and one focus has been to start with the blank canvas and not to go back to the old patterns. Maybe this is start of the next record?

To you, are there rules in improvisation? If so, what kind of rules are these?

In a group setting, my number one rule would be to not overplay and to leave space for my collaborators.

In solo mode, there would be no rules or boundaries in the studio. But when playing live the rules are generally set by the limitations of the equipment being used.

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?

It's very simple, be a good listener. To make something that truly works as a sum of different improvised parts, you need to listen very closely to your collaborators.

In a solo situation, there is definitely more freedom, but that can be bad thing if you don’t set some boundaries.

There are many descriptions of the ideal state of mind for being creative. What is it like for you? In which way is it different between your solo work and collaborations?

My ideal mindset for creativity in solo or collaboration mode is the same. I need to be in nature or be surrounded by open space to shut out the distractions of the outside world.

In some ways I am trying to achieve an empty state of mind for ideas to be born into and I’ve found being surrounded by nature is the best way for me to do this.

Routine is very important aspect for me. I find myself more creative when I block out hours of the day for creative pursuits.

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

For my works there is a super strong link between the space, sound and performance. I’ve always been interested in how the space can affect the performance and sound.

Things like, how does the reverb work in a large wooden room compared to small basement? These changes in physical space represent sonic possibilities that a interesting to explore.

When recording I’ve always been concerned about mic placement and where in the room to position instruments. All my gear can be shifted around easily in a deliberate attempt to enable different sonic possibilities.

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?

If you think about an improvised sound work being analogous to life, then maybe it starts off as low entropy, a simple pattern that then evolves, becoming more and more complex, a higher entropy state, until at some point it stops or falls apart.

Improvisation is transitory and so is life. It's constantly changing and hopefully we as creators and also listeners can learn to let music or sound just evolve and not try to fight it too much.