Name: David Edwards aka Minotaur Shock
Nationality: British
Occupation: Producer
Recent release: Minotaur Shock's It All Levels Out is out via Bytes.

If you enjoyed this Minotaur Shock interview and would like to stay up to date with his music, visit him on Instagram, Facebook, and twitter.  
 


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?

I tend to focus in on specific elements of music, and sometimes struggle to take a step back and hear things as a whole. Like I’ll get obsessed with a clap sound and then really concentrate on that, almost tuning out whatever else is going on. Then I’ll focus on something else and follow that for a while. Or maybe that’s what everyone does?

I think I also focus on the technical aspects, and have to disassociate myself from that in order to enjoy a piece of music. I guess that must be like when a camera operator watches a film or something - it can take you out of the experience. I’m terrible at remembering lyrics too, even to really famous songs, probably because I’ve been listening to the bass guitar for 3 mins or something.

If I’m properly paying attention to some music I won’t really be looking at stuff even if my eyes are open. Although I admit its rare these days to do that. Normally I’ve got music on when driving or walking or working on non-music stuff, so it’s in the background. And I have to have my eyes open when driving, and to a certain extent when working, I guess.

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

I listen on headphones a lot when I’m out and about, and I guess that means the environment is changing. I walk my dog Bruce and listen to music then. So sometimes it’s dark and pouring with rain and sometimes its sunny. And I guess that impacts what I want to listen to.

At home, listening to music is a much more active thing - the process of choosing a record, putting it on, sitting there and listening, flipping it over etc. I can vividly remember sitting on the floor in front of my turntable and listening to R Plus Seven by Oneohtrix Point Never for the first time, but I struggle to remember anything I’ve listened to while walking Bruce.



I also remember hearing Steve Reich’s Music for 18 Musicians while having a bath as a teen - trailing a wire into the bathroom of my parents’ house and playing the CD on my little stereo. I think that bath really changed how I understood music.



My new album was mostly made and mixed on headphones, and I found it quite tricky because of the lack of bass - I overcompensated loads, and it was only when I listened to rough mixes in the car or at a mates’ house that I realised.

The bass on “Recognise You Anywhere” was ridiculous, nearly shook the car windows out - but on headphones I could barely hear it.



Not sure what that says actually, probably how shit an engineer I am and how I should get more familiar with the sound of my headphones before attempting to mix stuff.

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

D’Angelo’s Voodoo is the first record that jumped into my head.



I love the sound world of that record so much. It’s perfect - a smoky, layered, treat.

Artist wise, I love Stereolab, Jim O’Rourke and Steely Dan for the precision of their sound. The Sea and Cake’s Oui just sounds like a sunny day.



I also really love the sound of PJ Harvey’s Rid of Me and The Wedding Present’s Seamonsters - two great Albini productions that live rent-free in my head.



Broadcast are a another band that carved out a unique sound space.

To Rococo Rot had an amazing restraint that SND took as an influence and built on - I really love the simplicity of that music, just a couple of elements.

I tried to exercise a bit of restraint for my album, cos I tend to throw a lot of things into my music - tracks like “Deflecting” and “Memory Crates” were influenced by people like Hiroshi Yoshimura, who can convey a lot with relatively minimal sounds.



Of course MBV and Cocteau Twins are the best in terms of sound. I read this interview with Anjali Martin the other day and she was talking about engineering Loveless and how everyone thinks it’s multitracked with tons of effects pedals, but really it’s mostly single tracks of well-recorded, nice guitar to avoid phasing.

She also mentions the claustrophobia that Kevin Shields was going for, and I never really thought Loveless was claustrophobic, but I guess it is.

There’s loads really - I realise that most of these artists/albums are years old, but I think they’ve all made a massive impression on me.

[Read our Jim O’Rourke interview]
[Read our ex-Stereolab's Sean O'Hagan interview]
[Read our SND's Mark Fell interview]

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?

Bruce’s very loud barking drives me mad - I definitely respond angrily to that. I’ve never liked loud surprising noises to be honest, things like doors slamming. So it’s combination of that and my over-sensitivity to what the neighbours think about it. I think that’s the only sound I’m irritated by (apart from stupid things like alarms going off for too long or something).

I find the sound of a little stream near my house endlessly fascinating. I could sit by that and listen to it for ages - just trying and failing to pick out individual sounds. However, I don’t like the idea of recording it and listening back to that recording - not the same. I love pretty much all birdsong, and enjoy listening to blackbirds and trying to work out what they are on about. The sound of rain on a caravan roof when you’re inside and cosy.

The gutter at the top of my house is broken. So when it rains heavily it drips sporadically onto the plastic roof which is just outside my bedroom window. That sound really chaps my ass. I have to muffle it with a towel. I’ll get it repaired someday - the last time I paid someone to try and fix it they ended up falling off the roof into my back garden and it was very traumatic.

No massive injuries but the guy did strip down to his pants and make me inspect his knee.

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

Cabot Circus shopping centre in Bristol. It has a weird curved glass half-roof and the acoustics in there are crazy - it’s like you’re wearing special earplugs that muffle certain frequencies. I love it.

Don’t go there often, but when I do I make sure I sit and listen to the deadened hubbub and ambient throb outside JD Sports.


Cabot Circus Bristol Image by Rwendland

If I leave my fridge open for too long, it plays a little alarm noise that is two notes. The interval between the notes is exactly the same as the guitar at the very start of “Black Cow” by Steely Dan.



So now I’m conditioned so that whenever I go in the kitchen, the song gets stuck in my head. It took me a while to work out why, but I’ve grown used to it. Could be worse songs to be honest.

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

I feel like Cabot Circus shopping centre is the most acoustically extreme place I’ve been.

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

My favourite studio is Sawmills in Cornwall, but I’ve only been there once. Lovely place by a lake and some woods and you can walk along the train tracks to Fowey.

But mostly I record at home - sometimes I sit in the garden, but I guess once I get into the process and am concentrating, it doesn’t matter where I am. I miss being in a band though, it’s different when its more communal.

In terms of playing music, if it’s listening back then I like to do that in the car, very loud. Or maybe up on Hanham Hills as the sun goes down, listening on headphones with no one about as I bend over to pick up a fresh dog shit.

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

Yes! There is a song “Molding Physical Air” on my album which is exactly about this.



The album was heavily inspired by a chance encounter with an old friend who I had not seen for 20+ years. He now makes pots (one of which is on the cover). I was interested in the parallels of making music and making pots - creating something that wasn’t there before, incorporating and building on experiences we’ve had.

Pots are a lot more useful than quasi-ambient music, but I found it really interesting that we’d both pursued these separate but similar paths. I guess it’s about leaving something behind - creating an audit trail.

There are tons of physically-modelled synth instruments across the album. I find that fascinating too - the software emulation of something being struck and resonating in a virtual space. The percussion on “Launching the Kids” for example is all physically modelled.



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?

I’d be very interested in knowing how much Bruce understands and chooses to ignore. I think it is possible - based on those videos of dogs and pigs using soundboards it seems like there is two-way communication going on. But I don’t know how much of that stuff is faked.



There was a recent study where they concluded that dogs can respond to the soundboard words without other contextual cues though so maybe we’ll be having polite conversation over dinner soon.

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?

I have found that I’m more sensitive to volume as I get older yes - and I feel like I’m skirting the edges of tinnitus. I have friends who suffer much more than I do, but its always lurking. I think being a drummer probably didn’t help.

I have recently started wearing earplugs when attending live gigs and am quite enjoying it - they put me into the same sort of state as the Cabot Circus shopping centre. Like a dulled detachment from what’s going on.

Which probably isn’t what the performer intends, but its nice to come out of a loud show without ringing ears.

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 do tend to have music on most of the time - whether I’m in the house or out and about. However, sometimes I’ll either forget headphones or consciously decide not to wear them and really enjoy the experience. Kinda the opposite to Glenn Gould - walking in the woods and just listening to the sounds is delightful.

But I guess that’s not silence - not sure if I’ve ever experienced silence though.

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?

I think this is particularly pertinent if you’re making music on a computer. It's really easy to be distracted by pretty animations and visual meters, and they can lull you into a false sense of security. I find it much more useful to close my eyes or turn off the screen when making small adjustments.

I don’t know if hearing is faster or more precise - seems a bit counter-intuitive to me, but I do trust my ears more than my eyes.