Part 2
There are many descriptions of the ideal state of mind for being creative. What is it like for you? What supports this ideal state of mind for your improvisations and what are distractions? Are there strategies to enter into this state more easily?
A very difficult set of questions that, for me, could be summed up as: ‘what is playing?’ What are we doing when we play!? Perhaps play is activity that is simultaneously ends and means, but this only side-steps how playing can differ in its means (e.g. from toys to instruments), as well as in its ends, because even within a set grouping (or with solo playing), the outcome and consequences of the playing can differ widely from occasion to occasion.
On the other hand, perhaps this is a question of inspiration. Generally, I am not an inspired person but, rather, an obsessed one. I am not usually struck by inspiration, but a situation, a problem, a potential can seize me and I cannot avoid it. Trying to avoid it only makes me agitated! This can be an instrument, an effect, a person, a book, etc., etc. Perhaps there is no ideal situation of creativity; again, it is a matter of style, of a life. I am not creating but living.
Can you talk about how your decision process works in a live setting?
Decide on a set-up: which guitar, which effects. Then see what this set-up can do in the performance: how does it relate (or not) to what is happening? When should adjustments occur? Should a change be made that is subtle or drastic?; and so on.
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 me, sound is the important term.
My favourite space to play in is at Iklectik in South London. This has a beautiful acoustic and is set in a lovely environment, and is run by lovely people. Playing an amplified instrument means you have to be careful because this can let you, potentially, dominate the acoustic of the space, erase it and drown it out. This is something I have learnt from Eddie, who is always attentive to the sound of a space (this is apparent on the recording I mentioned, ‘Industria’) and who refuses the use of a PA or sound system whenever possible. For him, it is not a case of reproducing sounds you have already decided upon. Rather, the space must be allowed its voice.
I appreciate that some want the ecstatic oblivion of overpowering volume, but this is not my approach as a musician. Maybe in the future!
How to work with sound? I would say that, somehow, sound presents itself. Even if I am causing it, I am not causing it in its totality and there is always something in it that therefore resists me. Musicians are probably those who release sounds in this sense. Then it is a problem of making sure that they do not run amok! Or, perhaps more seriously, it is the job of the musician to construct a sensual logic from these sounds.
How is playing live in front of an audience and in the studio connected? What do you achieve and draw from each experience personally?
I have less experience in the studio. From that limited experience, it is a more relaxed environment, and this can sometimes undermine a sense of direction. This is not necessarily a bad thing, but it does bring its own flavour to playing, and its own problems to tackle. I am happy to say that I think I have been involved in some good music making in the studio. Being in the studio with Henry Kaiser was a happy challenge.
I am also very interested in the studio as a tool, but this is not featured so much in improvised music, where documenting a performance is more of a priority. I would be interested to apply post-production techniques – from dub, for example – to improvised music. Currently, (apart from Black Top) it seems the chasm between these worlds is too great, so I will have to get around to doing it myself. Production wise, in my own amateurish way, I think I have picked up a lot from the work of people like Adrian Sherwood, Dennis Bovell, Scientist, Bill Laswell, Teo Macero, etc. Now, it is just an issue of putting it into practice.
[Read our Bill Laswell interview]
Live playing is more tense because the obligations are more immediate. In the studio, your only real obligation is to the time and the money. Live, it is the place that takes priority, along with the people gathered there. This is, I think, a greater responsibility. It is unavoidable that a group of people creates an atmosphere, and this atmosphere impacts on the music. It is a difficult thing to describe because no-one person is responsible for this atmosphere, and it has not been decided upon by the group collectively. It is more physical or sensual than that or, at least, more unconscious. I cannot give a definitive description: it hopefully involves trust, openness, curiosity. Maybe the word is ‘seduction’!
In either situation, playing is, for me, exhausting. Whether it goes well or not, I have to recover from it. That is not a problem, it is just the way it is.
Can you talk about a breakthrough work, event or performance in your career? 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?
I started playing when I was 12. About a year later, I realised that I had the instrument tuned wrong. I never had a teacher. My background is single parent and working class, so a teacher was not on the cards, but I had missed that the interval between the third and second strings was meant to be a major third, not a fourth like the other strings. So the top two strings were a semitone sharp. I had learnt chord shapes from a book but, with the guitar correctly in tune, I thought the chords sounded horrible – too major and too minor! In short, the chords sounded manipulative: feel happy or feel sad.
At the same time, I thought I should try to learn it properly, so I stuck with the authorised tuning. That might have been a mistake, except I carried on with dissonance and ugly intervals. Naturally, when I heard Derek Bailey, I thought: there is someone who knows what they are doing.
Beyond that, the weekly improvisation workshop started by Eddie Prévost changed my life, both musically and socially. I first went about 7 or 8 years ago, and have been attending ever since. As a consequence of that, when I think of some of the people I have performed with recently – for example, Eddie, John Butcher, Rachel Musson – these people are masters, and I always learn something from them.
[Read our Rachel Musson interview]
With records and CDs, I never felt the need for a teacher but, at a certain point, I needed masters. A teacher can show you techniques, but a master shows you a way.
In a way, improvisations remind us of the transitory nature of life. What, do you feel, can music express about life and death which words alone may not?
I think everything of aesthetic value has some aspect of this transitoriness – of a memento mori! Because death is unknowable, language does not suffice if, by language, we mean something like an information exchange. There is no information about death.
Poetry and prose are a different matter, and the arts generally. What I cannot abide is anything wilfully miserable – but too, things that attempt to be positive in a superficial way are depressing! Perhaps the nature of the subject means that I cannot say too much about it. The philosopher Gilles Deleuze offered this definition: art is that which, for as long as it lasts, resists death.
This is an account I quite like: we know that we will not live forever and, too, that the art we love will not last forever but, while we are here together, in this time, we can transcend this limitation through art. And, I would add, through love or obsession as well.
