Despite being electronic sounds and music born from
computers, there is a very organic impression given by your work. What do you
feel is the reason for this?
At the end of the day, the music is handmade. There are lots of
squiggly movements of my wrist on tape, or programmed micro delays between notes
to create a lag of interference. The sounds are quintessentially my own,
because my hand is on the instrument or because I have programmed my computer
in a botched personal way.
Through your building your career as a musician, what has changed the most
by the experience and wisdom you have gained?
Something I am still working on is creating immense layers of sound, like 12 to
24 waveforms stacked on top of each other. Too often, I focus on one
sound at a time and some wisdom I have gathered is that in layering sounds, you
are not at risk of damaging the system or clipping the waveform.
Do you have any attitude or philosophies as a musician that have remained
unchanged from the start of your activities?
I do enjoy pauses or the state of near nothingness. Silence. Some kind of
micro-activity that requires the audience to adjust their perception. Too
often, especially in noise and non-music settings, the default mode is maxing
out the dB limit. I prefer having moments of emptiness. To allow a small sound
to exist on a large stage has always been intriguing to me.
I feel that there is a power in your sound that stokes the imagination of
rich scenes in the listeners’ mind. Do you have a clear image or concept in mind
when you start working on your compositions?
I think the images come later on, once some of the material is formed and I
need to fill in the gaps between separate points. Images are important in
creating a story, no matter how vague it is. Sometimes with my computer music,
I imagine hovering around a volcanic site and discovering different levels of
activities: lava bubbling out of deep craters and thick layers of heat as you
get closer to the source.
In the collection of covers Standards, I was a little surprised that it was composed of
pop music covers. What angle did you take when approaching the selection of
songs for this project?
Standards are all songs that I love listening to privately.
These cover songs resulted from lockdown and the desire to connect with friends
who were far away. It was a great way to check in on people and keep the mood
light during the peak of isolation. I wanted to work on electronic music
production and these pop songs were a great way to focus on the sound
techniques with standardized material. I didn’t intend to release the tracks as
an album, but the response from friends was good. So the album really exists to
bring people joy and make them feel special rather than showcase a finalized
work.