Name: Michael Peter Olsen
Nationality: American
Occupation: Composer, multi-instrumentalist, producer, engineer
Current Release: Michael Peter Olsen 's Narrative Of A Nervous System is out via Hand Drawn Dracula.
Recommendations: Have a listen to the Either Side EP by Merival and read The Master and His Emissary by IaIn McGilChrist.

If you enjoyed this Michael Peter Olsen interview, his website is a great point of departure for finding out more about his work. He is also on Instagram, and Facebook.
 


Where does the impulse to create something come from for you? What role do often-quoted sources of inspiration like dreams, other forms of art, personal relationships, politics etc play?

I think my sound is definitely inspired and informed by the huge amount of music I have absorbed in my life. But the thematic material that can give it additional layers of meaning really comes out of my own life experience and how I perceive it philosophically and intellectually.

The thing that truly inspires me to finish any kind of work is the realization of a link between the underlying themes and the music. This can take many different forms, but when I find those connections, it’s usually the most inspiring moment because what I have to do next becomes obvious very quickly.

For you to get started, do there need to be concrete ideas – or what some have called a 'visualisation' of the finished work? What does the balance between planning and chance look like for you?

I can start with anything that interests me. In the case of my solo cello project, being instrumental, it's usually a sound I’ve stumbled across while improvising in one way or another. Just something random. Once something piques my interest I start looking for ways to develop it, or other sounds or ideas to combine it with. Sometimes I just think of some way a sound might be created away from any instruments and then put it together later as an experiment to see what it gets me sonically.

The visualization of the final piece of music / film / image is always a part of it, but sometimes it’s not totally apparent until it’s half way or almost completed. I almost always start with no particular stylistic criteria; I leave it to the self-editing later on in the process to determine whether something is suitable or useful to the end.

I do occasionally like to impose limitations at certain times to help things have connected threads. For instance, the grand majority of the sounds for my solo project are all made by me on the electric cello with very little deviation. (A good example of that would be my song “Pronoia”).



It would be perhaps easier to get certain sounds by other means but I feel like pushing up against self-imposed limitations can help generate more creative solutions. 

Is there a preparation phase for your process? Do you require your tools to be laid out in a particular way, for example, do you need to do 'research' or create 'early versions'?

I don't really do early versions on purpose. If an idea is created in a good moment, it can stick around for years until it is eventually used to complete something.

Sometimes things need to be scrapped and started over due to a natural trial and error process, but it’s not something I do consistently.

Do you have certain rituals to get you into the right mindset for creating? What role do certain foods or stimulants like coffee, lighting, scents, exercise or reading poetry play?

I do like an organized work environment because I find it difficult to work with external chaos - there’s enough of that to go around inside my brain. I also like good lighting.

What do you start with? And, to quote a question by the great Bruce Duffie: When you come up with a musical idea, have you created the idea or have you discovered the idea?

Who knows where creative ideas come from! I tend to think of them as a result of a complex interaction in one’s subconscious mind that one is unaware of, making it seem like they have magically appeared. But actually they are all inside your brain just waiting to come together.

Once the idea is out there I am pretty into just seeing where it goes. But it is still a constant process of analyzing what is the most effective way to express the idea, and then eventually guiding it down the correct path.

I don't change the idea as much as find the right slot for it to exist in.

Often, while writing, new ideas and alternative roads will open themselves up, pulling and pushing the creator in a different direction. Does this happen to you, too, and how do you deal with it? What do you do with these ideas?

I tend to go with any idea I think is creatively interesting, and I have consistently stuck to this throughout my production and writing. There are a lot of styles and variety in the music I have created and been a part of, at times making it difficult to have any career focus.

This is not the path to surefire commercial success generally. But it does have the benefit of allowing you to create something at least reasonably unique from time to time because you are constantly in search of something different from what you’re hearing, and in the long term that has served me well.

My personal style has evolved out of trying everything first and then realizing what is best suited to me personally. As a result, I have a focused idea of my style now, but it was a very long process.

There are many descriptions of the creative state. How would you describe it for you personally? Is there an element of spirituality to what you do?

For me the creative state is one of concentration, to the exclusion of most other concerns. I have to remind myself to sleep and eat.

For me it is the point when my intellectual and emotional states are working in tandem. There’s a harmony between them that allows me to think and feel in equal measures.

I don't particularly think of it as spiritual, more looking inward with clarity.

Once a piece is finished, how important is it for you to let it lie and evaluate it later on? How much improvement and refinement do you personally allow until you're satisfied with a piece? What does this process look like in practise?

I generally feel like I need to let things lie for a while after the main bulk of the initial creation. Usually depending on the scope of the piece it will require a few intense bursts of creativity to bring it to near conclusion.

Occasionally with more complex works there will be a technical engineering process or a harmonic puzzle that needs solving, and that might be a separate time spent in more of an intellectual mindset. But once I think it’s almost done, I leave it for a period of time: could be days, could be months. Then later I can come back to it with some level of freshness. At that point I usually do very little to complete it, but sometimes it requires a few changes or even a whole new burst of fundamental alteration.

One thing I do have faith in generally is knowing when something is done and leaving it alone. I credit that to many years of producing other artists and seeing that point when some of them should have left it alone and also when they taught me it wasn’t done yet, even when I thought it was. 

When you're in the studio to record a piece, how important is the actual performance and the moment of performing the song still in an age where so much can be “done and fixed in post?“

Often something in the moment can contain a kind of magic that is impossible to reproduce. Sometimes it’s magical but imperfect, and nowadays it’s more a question of how much you’re willing to alter something before you feel it loses that quality.

It’s still essentially the same question as it always was in pre computer recording times - how much imperfection are you willing to endure so that you can get those magic moments? The difference is now we have a much wider range of imperfection that is tolerable because we can fix so much undetectably.

Not changing it all is always the goal though, it usually feels the most satisfying.

Even recording a solo song is usually a collaborative process. Tell me about the importance of trust between the participants, personal relationships between musicians and engineers and the freedom to perform and try things – rather than gear, technique or “chops” - for creating a great song.

When I collaborate with other artists, and so far that has been musicians, visual artists, actors, filmmakers and dancers, I always leave a space for them to do what comes naturally to them. It’s my attitude that if I overly restrict someone into a narrow path artistically, they’re not going to be very inspired to do it well.

I dislike micro-managing, but I do feel like I am good at steering the ship in a big picture way, to keep things on theme and consistent to the overall vision even though that vision can be multifaceted and shared. So clear communication of ideas back and forth becomes very key.

I have even worked with a dramaturgist (Melmun Barcharju) to properly communicate ideas across different disciplines. This came in particularly handy when I needed to exchange thematic ideas with choreographer Mateo Galindo Torres for my “Cloud Parade” video. It was thrilling to see how deeply connected the dance and music became in the final product.



I feel like I have a pretty discerning sense of talent in others and how different talents and personalities might work together. As a result, I usually find collaborations of all kinds to be very rewarding. 

What's your take on the role and importance of production, including mixing and mastering for you personally? In terms of what they contribute to a song, what is the balance between the composition and the arrangement (performance)?

Production, mixing, and mastering are extremely important to me. One of the main creative foundations of my music is very particular sounds, and I am very exacting when it comes to deciding on those details.

Production and mixing are a big part of my creative process in my solo material and the mix of a song can sometimes determine a great deal of its emotional scope. In some cases the music doesn't really reach its true form until I “mix it into existence” - for instance “IHKIWYWMTS” off my first record.



The mood and texture of sounds have always been a huge part of what I enjoy about music too. I don’t feel like I’m too tied up in achieving these by some sort of arcane process, or obsessed with some sort of perceived audio “perfection”. But I know when a sound is the right one for me and when it’s not. It doesn't really matter how it was made, just that it is the way it is.

After finishing a piece or album and releasing something into the world, there can be a sense of emptiness. Can you relate to this – and how do you return to the state of creativity after experiencing it?

I can easily see how this could be the case for some people, but I don't really relate to this feeling. When I finish something I’m happy that there is something else out there and that I can start working on the next thing.

I’ve generally already started at least thinking about what the next project is going to be before I finish the last one anyway. So sometimes maybe it’s just a matter of not really ever stopping.

Music is a language, but like any language, it can lead to misunderstandings. In which way has your own work – or perhaps the work of artists you like or admire - been misunderstood? How do you deal with this?

I don't think I’ve been particularly misunderstood, but it can be the case that when you’re doing something that’s a bit hard to define stylistically, people will make assumptions about it in order to categorize it. Sometimes you need to make a category to sell it, and I understand that, but I honestly don’t know how to classify what I do at times. I’m always the person who’s searching for the perfect “for fans of…..” and I’ve yet to find a really satisfactory answer.

I do think that people read the word cello and assume I am making music in the neoclassical genre. I can see that some of my music would be adjacent to it (“Falling Forward” for example) but most of it doesn't really fit into that mold.



Throughout my career though, I have been generally sort of fighting against the notion that because I play a traditionally classical instrument my music must be somewhat classical in nature. It’s hard to convince someone that you really aren’t playing by those rules when there aren’t a lot of focused examples or traditions to point to.

Creativity can reach many different corners of our lives. Do you personally feel as though writing a piece of music is inherently different from something like making a great cup of coffee? What do you express through music that you couldn't or wouldn't in more 'mundane' tasks?

Music is the main obsession that gives my life meaning, so it's the way I feel like I can best express myself to the wider world. But people who are creative and have something to say can find ways to say it through the pure desire to do so. I reject the idea that there can’t be incredible beauty in the most mundane of things; it’s all about the person making it.

For me, that is the most beautiful thing about art: its ability to communicate ideas and feelings amongst all humans, regardless of method or medium.