Part 2

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? What balance is there between forgetting and remembering in your work?

To me, the lines between inventing and inventively re-arranging are blurry. I would say that a poet can invent something new even though the material (vocabulary, phrases, grammar, etc) is mostly all established.

I like the angle of forgetting and remembering. On the one hand the music can benefit greatly from having thematic throughlines (melodies, textures, sounds). On the other hand there certainly is such a thing as overthinking in an improvising context, where the idea of forgetting (willfully or not) can come in handy.

I think the answer to the question of balance between the two is going to be different for each piece of music. But awareness is always going to be good!

Are you acting out parts of your personality in your improvisations which you couldn't or wouldn't through other musical approaches? If so, which are these? What, would you say, are the key ideas behind your approach to improvisation?

I like to think that there isn’t much of a difference between the musician I am when improvising and the musician I am when performing written material. I find that if I stay within the bounds of my natural temperament in musical situations, that can limit the palette that I have at my disposal.

For me, this is equally applicable to improvised situations and contexts in which I am interpreting someone’s written material. I see it as my “job” to serve the music as best I can, and sometimes I need to go outside of my comfort zone in order to do so.

Incidentally, this is an incredibly apt metaphor for my life outside of music as well.

In terms of your personal expression and the experience of performance, how does playing solo compare to group improvisations?

More often than not there are only subtle differences between my experience of improvising solo and in a group.

Instead of reacting to the musical material of my fellow musicians, I react to the ambience of the room I am in, and the places my mind might go in between my own musical gestures. In both cases, I am considering the balance between space and activity – of sound and the absence thereof.

When performing solo, I experience a very direct connection to the audience, which is unique to the situation. On the release tour for Code Breaker, I have gotten in the habit of playing a longer, largely improvised version of the piece ‘Gladly, I Follow’. This has resulted in some special and very rewarding moments.



I have never played whole concerts/tours, but maybe this is a sign that I should. This is something I look forward to exploring in the future!

In your best improvisations, do you feel a strong sense of personal presence or do you (or your ego) “disappear”?  

Both! As someone who has a tendency to be a little “in my head” about the space I occupy and what I say, I find that music can provide a much needed respite from such largely unnecessary worry. I tend to feel most present in the space when I am the least aware of myself.

I consider it my/our main objective to search for what and how much to contribute to the music at any given point. Code Breaker is written with this philosophy in mind, where each musician is given relatively simple cells of material that (hopefully) become greater than the sum of their parts. This means that, if played with the right mindset, this is music that comes across without ego at its center.

It's interesting that you should mention ego, as this was a comment we got after one of our recent shows.

In a live situation, decisions between creatives often work without words. From your experience and current projects, what does this process feel like and how does it work?

I find that this can vary a lot from project to project and depend on the type of music in question. On Code Breaker I was very conscious of the amount of information given to the musicians.

The written material is generally like paintings in progress, hopefully allowing the musicians space to add their own brushstrokes to the canvases. Additionally, the only verbal instructions given (both in the studio and before concerts) is generally to think of the material as a possibility, rather than something that is set in stone. In other words, musical excursions away from what is written are always welcome. This is just one of the methods used to try and toy with the lines between composition and improvisation.

I generally think that the question of live decisions without words is a delicate one. You want to have said enough to imbue the music with meaning, but not so much that the music is encumbered with too much information. Sometimes this means saying quite a bit, sometimes it means saying nothing at all.

Stewart Copeland said: “Listening is where the cool stuff comes from. And that listening thing, magically, turns all of your chops into gold.” What do you listen for?

I think that listening is probably the principal way of imbuing the music with some sort of meaning, or essence. This is true in the studio and on the band stand, but I also want to emphasize the importance of listening outside of the musical sphere, whether it be to birds, cars, construction sites, or other people’s dialogue. I find that musical projects I am part of (my own or someone else’s) are at their best when they are the least removed from the world that surrounds us.

While on the subject of using real world sensory experiences in composition and improvisation, I want to mention the final piece of Code Breaker - ‘Ever’. A trio piece that features vocalists Theo Bleckmann and Mim Crellin.



The piece has a triptych structure of sorts, depicting a life split more or less evenly between three countries. The countries in question are Denmark, Australia and the US, and throughout the piece I reference colors that I associate with the respective places. The everdark winter nights in Denmark, the everlight skyline cityscapes of New York, the everred soil and the evergreen trees of Australia, and so on and so forth.

There can be surprising moments during improvisations – from one of the performers not playing a single note to another shaking up a quiet section with an outburst of noise. Have you been part of similar situations and how did they impact the performance from your point of view?

I certainly have been part of situations like that! Everything is fair in love and music.

When unexpected events occur in an improvisation I generally don’t have time to (and don’t want to) figure out what I think about them. The focus is on adding to the music. Sometimes that means joining in with the loud noise and sometimes it means complimenting the sound with silence or a quiet texture.

As a listener I tend to quite like radical responses and the sound of musicians playing with contrasts and extremes.

I have always been fascinated by the many facets of improvisation but sometimes found it hard to follow them as a listener. Do you have some recommendations for “how to listen” in this regard?

I think one good approach is to try and let go of musical listening conventions that you might bring to say a pop, rock, or classical concert. Focus more on interactions, reactions, textures and contrasts.

When reading poetry we know not to think of the language used like we would in say a newspaper article. Even though it's the same language. We can acknowledge that the building blocks may be the same and enjoy the pursuit of endless rearrangement.

In a way, improvisations remind us of the transitory nature of life. When an improvisation ends, is it really gone, just like a cup of coffee? Or does it live on in some form?

I think that it is very human of us to look for ways of seeing the world (and in this case music) that allow for less transitory interpretations. Like something is more meaningful if it gets to linger and stick around past its own lifetime (whether that be 5 minutes of music or a long human life).

I tend to think that a music moment is over when it's over. It may live on in some kind of version in the memory of those present, but even that eventually fades. I also don’t think that this is a bad thing.

For me, thinking of an improvisation or a piece of music this way emphasises a uniqueness and meaningfulness even before the first sound is sounded.