The series returns after a short hiatus with an as yet unnamed project consisting of SSTN's Conor "Kachanski" Hinfey, Ed Devane, Dara "Dubreak" Grehan and a rotating cast of machinists including Ronan Dunne and Rory St. John. While all members have been known to make beats , the lads were in noise mode the day this was recorded.
Apologies for the interviewer and one of the interviewees being the same person but it couldn't be avoided...
What are your reasons / motives for making music, and how you arrived at this style?
Ed: Personal satisfaction mainly. Making music is like solving a big puzzle, at times frustrating but more often than not highly rewarding. I love making individual sounds as much as I do combining them into a new structure. When it goes well, playing live gigs or improvising with others is another reason for making music, and at the moment I'm favouring improvisation over computer music. I've been making drones and noise longer than I have beats, so techniques and tricks have built up over the years.
Conor and myself recently set up a studio in a building we're renting, so have been jamming with various people until stupid o'clock several nights a week. Everything is made up on the spot pretty much and the music flows from intense distorted noise grooves to the furthest reaches of mongspace. Great craic not to have to worry about how it would sound in a club, while still having sections that would get people dancing.
Starting as solo project and briefly a four piece, Over is currently made up of founder Jamie Grimes, who also makes dark forms of hardcore metal and ambient in Drainland and Cavemouth. Previous members of Over included Luxury Mollusc, Brian Conniffe, Vicky Langan and Al Doyle.
Our featured artist this week is Amanda Feery , a composer rising fast in new music circles. She was recently chosen for a residency at the Bang on a Can Summer Music Festival from an international cast of young composers, and among other things was previously a member of Attention Bebe.
What are your reasons / motives for making music, and how you arrived at this style?
AF: This piece was written for a play called 'The Insanity of Mary Girard', by Lanie Robertson. Mary Girard is condemned to a lunatic asylum by her husband without proper pyschiatric evaluation, which hubbies could do lawfully in 18th century America. The director wanted to explore the theme of water and it's tension between containment and compulsion to overflow, which ties in nicely with being trapped in a madhouse and wanting to escape..
I read an interesting line in the script which got me working. Mary compares the entrapment in the tranquilizing chair to being "drowned without being dead". I wanted to try create the sound of being submerged deep underwater, falling through the wreckage of a ship.
Gland& Conduit are a duo made up of 2 producers: Herv and Meljoann, who normally make ravey breakcore and R & B respectively when not working on this project. The two have also recently worked together on a much different album project which can be found here on The Centrifuge website. The track included in this weeks Noise Series is taken from their forthcoming album on SSTN (about which more information will be jettisoned soon).
This piece was written as a soundtrack to a film by director Anne Marie Barry called "Crag Hill". One element of the narrative that stood out to me was the inability of the protagonist to decipher the water and wind surrounding her, i.e.: the rain. The film expresses the confused state of the character so this drove me to place her in an aural backdrop of water droplet configurations. I recorded 128 drips into various sized containers and then set about arranging them into different mathematical patterns. The drips could be cycled through consecutively at a varying range of rate up to note frequencies so that tonal timbres could be achieved and manipulated. These experiments were then convolved with a variety of recordings (impulse responses) which contained volatile but harmonic qualities. All of this was intended to echo the character trying to perceive the phenomenon of rain over the time it took to make the journey "home".
What sort of environment it is intended for (home listening, really loud in a meat lorry, or whatever!) / intended effect on listener?
The film is intended as a gallery piece but I played the soundtrack on my headphones while I was at mass last Sunday eating stacks of communion down the back of the church and it really worked.
What sort of equipment you use (e.g. computer, hardware, home made gear, circuit bent stuff etc.) do you use to make your sounds?
I used a pair of large diaphragm microphones to record the drips and the PotPourri Max/Msp object "el.player~" by Eric Lyon to control them. A Yamaha CS30 and Rat guitar pedal to create the impulse responses.
Any memorable noise-related incidents/ interesting gig anecdotes?
I once played a live gig in the Croft in Bristol on top of a brand spanking new pinewood coffin complete with crucifixes. It's affect on the sound quality was negligible.
Info on upcoming gigs, preferred web address, releases etc.
Coming from a remote village in Clare, this week's featured artist has a unique angle on noise exploration. When not making evocative dark ambient as From The Bogs of Aughiska, Conor also makes head-exploding gabba / speedcore as Drugzilla.
Toymonger are a duo made up of Deserted Village's Gavin Prior and Munitions Family's Andy Fogarty, both active in a wide variety of groups, including United Bible Studies and Boys of Summer . They have loads of releases between the various projects and labels they are collectively involved with, and the picture above shows a new Toymonger t-shirt that they will gladly merch you with. Here's what they have to say: What are your reasons / motives for making music, and how you arrived at this style?
AF: I started to play this type of music while living in Limerick in 2003. I was doing music technology course and was feeling pretty anti-computer, so I started to play a plank of wood with strings on it. Moved back to Dublin, met Gavin and started to focus more on Toymonger than solo gigs.
GP: I'd say my motives are the same as most peoples; blowing off steam, satisfaction in a job well done, Seeing what will happen.......As long as I can remember I've always been fascinated by sound, musical or otherwise. In the first half of the last decade I played in an improv group called Murmansk with people who I still play with in United Bible Studies. Murmansk leaned towards noise a lot, but seeing Andy play solo was one of the first times I'd ever seen noise played live - Ireland is much noisier now but there weren't many people doing it then. I'm not sure how we arrived at this style - we tend to go for it and talk about how it worked afterwards. These days we're both using loops less so our playing is more nimble and more dynamic. We're thinking on our feet more.
Turntable vandalism and more loop and delay pedals than you can shake a rain stick at this week from Square Waves radio show host Fionn Wallace, a.k.a. Fyodor. Here's what he has to say for himself:
What are your reasons / motives for making music, and how you arrived at this style?
FYO: My brother used to be the drummer in a grunge cover band when I was about 13 and I thought they were the shit. I started playing drums around the age of 14 with Killian Redmonk on guitar and we quickly realized that just jamming was way more fun than playing the music of other bands. Ten years later - with the addition of Niamh de Barra and Ed Devane - we were the JohnMaryTrilogy (and also on the brink of extinction). We were dedicated to improvisation at this stage and a noise element was steadily creeping into our music.
Reasons? Love of music. The act of creating music is pretty magical, especially with improvisation, even more so when playing with others. With JohnMaryTrilogy, we jammed a lot of shit music, but when it came together it was exciting and rewarding, jam sessions were something I really looked forward to.
The Noise Series this week features a good example of extreme noise by Dublin-based noisnikWhere is This, a.k.a. Mark Ward. Mark also makesmore subtle tracks that are well worth a listen on his Virb page.He has this to say for himself and his music:
What are your reasons / motives for making music, and how you arrived at this style?
WiT: For a long time, I was just someone who wrote, then I became a lyricist, and a singer. I’ve always been utterly obsessed with music, and it was during my time in my first band, that I decided to start making my own. It wasn’t very good for a long time, but it gave me something to noodle away to. It was after the bands ended, and I got Cubase that Where is This started to take off for me. For a long time, I was making mostly electronica (with vocals), but I was also making more “experimental” music. Over the course of a few years, the noise-based stuff started to take more of a hold until it eventually became the focus of the project last year. And of course, as my interest grew, so did my taste in noise, as well as my output.
As for style, that can be a tricky one, but basically, I ended up with the style I have, because of what equipment I have (read: not much), which I’m sure is the case of a lot of noise musicians (especially those starting out/new to the scene). I would say I have two styles that work well together, and occasionally overlap; digital noise, using AbletonLive and programs like it, and countless VST to mangle samples into tracks; and analogue noise using microphones, amps, pedals and lots and lots of feedback. This forms a huge part of my noise. I tend to do a lot of improv sessions, and then work with the results; editing, modifying and layering them. However, I have been doing a lot of digital based noise lately, which can be great for creating thick wall noise. And of course, each record (I tend to think/operate in records, as opposed to tracks) has its own style: industrial, experimental (a la Coil), noise, harsh noise, wall noise, ambient, electronic, percussive-based, etc. I find that my style changes quite a bit, sometimes almost like “ok, I’ve done that ‘sound’ – what’s next?”
Coming from a band backround this week's Noise Series features zombie movie and high volume level aficionado Gary Morrison, a.k.a. Papercut, who gives us this interview:
What are your reasons / motives for making music, and how you arrived at this style?
I'm not entirely sure what my motives are other than trying to recreate the noises I constantly hear in my head. I've been playing in bands since I was a teenager, starting off in a band that was kind of punky and Pavement-style stuff. Somewhere along the line we discovered Sonic Youth and early Mercury Rev albums. The musical ideas mixed with dissonance and noise was really inspiring to me and totally changed what I considered to be "music". The noise bits soon became my favourite parts and it wasn't long before we started incorporating extended noise jams into our music. Me and the bass player in that band used to always play around with his 4-track recorder. One night we were messing around and ended up recording a noise track by running a heater fan through microphone and a load of guitar pedals. We didn't record anything like that again but the idea of recording just pure sound without melody was something that stuck with me.
Eventually that band fell apart and I ended up playing in a band that is far more quiet but still use noises and stuff in the background. After wanting to do it for ages, one week I set up a load of equipment in my room and just started recording electronic improvisations on to my minidisc recorder. I then mixed and layered these improvs into one long track on my computer. I played it to my good friend Steve Fanagan who runs Slow Loris records and he wanted to put it out. That was the first Papercut release, although bits were a bit more mellow then the stuff I do now. I had intended for the Papercut thing to be a one off but a gig soon followed and since I hadn't thought of a new name I stuck with Papercut. From that, I ended up getting a few more gigs in fairly quick succession at the Lazybird night. By this stage the name had truly stuck, despite my efforts to come up with something else. The more gigs I played the more noisier they got.
Some processed and modified guitar music for you this week courtesy of Null/Void,who also records as Wereju. Here's what he had to say in response to the now standard questions:
What are your reasons / motives for making music, and how you arrived at this style?
NV:The only answer I can give is that I have some unexplained urge/need to make music.. I often wonder if it’s a passion or an obsession.. As for how I arrived at this style, I guess it can be traced back to the late 90’s. After years of listening to just metal, I began to have this urge to hear a particular style/sound that I had in my head. At this point I knew nothing about the drone or noise scenes. So I’d read reviews of stuff and some of the descriptions would sound like what I was looking for, so I started listening to jazz, classical and some electronic music. Whilst enjoying all the new music, it still wasn’t that sound I was hearing in my head. At the same time I spent my time at home with my pedals and 4-track just trying to capture a piece of what I was hearing in my mind’s ear. It wasn’t until 2006 that I had finally got close to what I was looking for, eventually I recorded my first Wereju cd. It was only after sending these to different places for review that I started hearing all these names that were new to me, which eventually led me to discover the whole noise and drone scene’s.. Null/Void kinda evolved from the Wereju stuff, where there was still a big drone element, but mixed with samples and found sounds...
What sort of environment it is intended for , and what is the intended effect on listener (if any)?
NV:I don’t really create the stuff for any particular environment. I would have to say that I probably much prefer the home listening experience to the live one though. I have a love/hate relationship with playing live. I do enjoy it, but for me noise/drone is a very personal thing, which comes from somewhere deep inside and also strikes a chord somewhere deep inside. We can try using words and concepts to describe what it is and how it affects us, but I think these can only be abstractions. So holding this view, it doesn’t really sit too well with me when noise artists ‘put on a show’ or to see the audience head banging. At the same time I’m not talking about some sort of new-age ‘state of zen’ bullshit, that we should be meditating or something.. but as I’ve said, for me it’s much more of an internal thing, with different people getting/hearing/feeling different things.. so I much prefer home listening.. As for the intended effect on the listener, that’s not really something I really think about. I create music for myself first and foremost, and probably the most important element for me is a sense of atmosphere.. So if afterwards other people enjoy what I’ve created then that’s always a bonus, but it doesn’t figure in the actual creation of my stuff.
What sort of equipment you use (e.g. computer, hardware, home made gear, circuit bent stuff etc.) do you use to make your sounds?
NV: My first few recordings were made using feedback loops, pedals and a 4-track plugged back into each other. Then I was offered a chance to play live and wanted to have something a little more ‘hands on’. So after some experimenting and a bit of thinking I ended up modifying an old guitar I had, taking out two of the pick-up’s and replacing them with audio inputs. So now I can play note’s as on a normal guitar, but also I can hook up a circuit bent radio (or whatever I wish) and I also have the option to feed the guitar signal back into itself creating feedback loops. The pick-up selector now acts as a little mixer and the tone knobs do funny things that I still haven’t figured out yet. All this is sent from the guitar through a bunch of pedals, some of which I’ve bent, some I haven’t.
If I’m recording I’ll use that set-up but I’ll also add in other stuff (found sounds, field recordings…)
Any memorable noise-related incidents/ interesting gig anecdotes?
NV: I guess the one that springs to mind is a gig I played as Wereju in Enniskillen in 2008. Also on the bill was Bipolar Joe and Gen 26.. It was the first gig we’d played up there (at Oaks Studios, which is very much in the middle of nowhere). Most of the people there had no previous experience of drone or noise, they were mainly just friends of friends who came out to see what was going on. I remember people being intrigued with Gen 26 and his use of kitchen utensils, and Bipolar Joe’s use of circuit bent toys and a contact mic taped over his heart. Some people really enjoyed it (even though it was quite harsh) I think mainly because the sounds were been made using everyday items. But when it came to my set, they seemed to be baffled because although I was using a guitar, it didn’t really sound like a guitar (or what they expect a guitar to sound like).. so it kinda threw them a little I guess. It really showed me how the visual aspect, and people’s preconceptions, can really colour what it is they are hearing.
Info on upcoming gigs, preferred web address, releases etc.
NV: My next Null/Void gig is May 29th at Defibralator Festival in Antonin Poland. It’s on over two days with one of the days being a kinda Irish special.. Also playing will be Bipolar Joe, Luxury Mollusc, Phorsey and Gen 26 (although Matjas isn’t technically Irish, but we’ve kinda adopted him although we don’t have any official paperwork for him). Should be a great weekend..
Releases:
‘the light gleams an instant, then it's night once more’ cdr (Static Acts 2010) split with Nils Helstrom
‘the deep dark nothing’ cdr (Static Acts 2010) split with Luxury Mollusc
‘of prayer and pain’ cdr (2009)
‘all that trouble just to end up dead’ cdr (Static Acts 2009) split with Rj Myato
‘threnody’ cdr (2009)
‘fear is not what you owe me’ cdr (Idrone Park 2009) split with Shores of Darkness
‘the eye of god’ cdr (Idrone Park 2009) split with Animal Machine
‘untitled’ cdr (2008)
‘zero’ cdr (Electric Requiems 2007)
This week we have seagull sample destroyer Luxury Mollusc in the virtual interview chair: take it away Stu!
What are your reasons / motives for making music, and how did you arrive at this style?
LM: For Luxury Mollusc (as apposed to other projects) a desire to announce my 'self' was the only reason/motive. I think that the only REASON for any SOLO project; whether that's a flaccid singer/songwriters' croonings on a stool or a Shakespearean soliloquy performed on a lonely stage, they're the expression of a lone individual. For me, there is no difference between these fore-mentioned actions and the wail of a baby crying, the message is different but the reason the same. In terms of the reason and significance of solo performances (in my case) the message (ambivalent) isn't as significant as the alone-ness. The fact that someone might hear (and it thus becomes a message) is secondary to the 'noise' itself. I make noises for my benefit primarily, it's cathartic, it's my Scream (as in Munch), I neither hope nor expect anyone else to 'get it'. I began releasing material to others when I realised if someone liked it and put me on the bill at a gig I could see the gig for free. Awesome! I've had the good fortune to play at some of my favourite gigs.
As to how I arrived at this style; it has been an organic voyage I assure you.
Feedback can be a mystical experience, and natural reverb gives me a semi. I'm also obsessed with Moby-Dick, doubt as a lifestyle choice, and Freud.
What sort of environment it is intended for/what are the intended effects on the listener?
LM: I try to excrete noises that emphasise presence and absence (volume plays a role in this as much in mixing as in live, and as much in absence as in presence), and reflects something of the listeners own hollowness (the occupied skull as a persistently hollow bone). It is the perceived echo of the listeners own emptiness. An evoking and invoking of a dull, grueling and prolonged castration. Mine in particular. The only intended environment is that of the listeners awareness of their own mortality (you know you'll die, admit it), and alienation as a subjective witness to their perceived senses. An environment of lacking and lost things. Every 'one' knows the environment of loss all too well.
Transmission of this is probably best received in either (a) live environment that is of either sufficient volume or intimacy as to render conversation mute/void, or (b) on headphones which physically sever the witness from outside aural influence (to some extent at least).
Having said that if someone lashes something I made on a stereo and spends a few minutes staring at an ashtray before realizing the track has changed the intended environment has been achieved.
If the listener likes it or hates it doesn't matter to me, rather the act of forming an opinion as an exercise of ones' subjectivity is what's important.Listening is always a subjective experience: the particularities of vibrations upon the inner ear and their interpretation in the mind are always unique (Ever tried to explain why one noise track is awesome and another is shite?). Simply by hating it you have engaged with the material, assessed it and dismissed it, and that's enough for me.
With the emphasis of intent on a subject-to-subject engagement the act of listening itself becomes a solo project. I was alone making it and you are alone hearing it. That is the intended effect on the listener. Loving/Loathing is irrelevant.
What sort of equipment you use (e.g. computer, hardware, home made gear, circuit bent stuff etc.) do you use to make your sounds?
LM: I'm in lust with a borrowed Alesis Microverb right now (thanks Dave; respect to the delay-pimp), and as always my Kaosspad. The input is mostly contact mics and samples, distorted free-associations, and random scrap/instruments. I've got lots of respect for circuit-benders but I just suck at it, I can make mics and simple toys: which I enjoy, but when trying to render some circuits 'bent' I usually end up rendering fingers burnt. For the purposes of this project though I think it's important to explore the limits of the gear I possess rather than customizing them, it's all about accepting and despairing/rejoicing/testing limitations (death being the archetype) rather than attempting to manipulate and distort them (it). Reality is limiting, distorting and harsh, I can only get so much gain out of my Ubermetal, batteries will only last this long, I can only squeeze so much joy out of this life, I feel no need to reject this, rather I accept and reflect it.
Any interesting noise-related anecdotes?
LM: When upon opening the above mentioned donated Alesis Microverb - to investigate a noise-related-tech-fail, a horde of dust mites erupted, huge motherfuckers, they had shorted it out (flashbacks to the movie Pi).
When I was playing/attending (therefore free!) a gig in a meat truck and a drunk Pole turned the freezer on; Grim and Frostbitten noise!
When witnessing a performance by Bipolar Joe in a gaff-gig. While he climaxed he hurled a plate of 69 cocktail sausages, which he had been squatting on during his set as some sort of social commentary, at my (long suffering) girlfriend.
And of course getting to play support for Costes with Over, that guy blew my mind.
Oh and when the above mentioned gig in a gaff in a Galway was momentarily halted by an irate neighbour: letting himself in, pushing and posturing his way through the crowd, smoking in the house, and confronting Phoresy DURING his intense home-set. The ignorance. Short interval with the intervention of Polish-muscle and the Phoresying resumed. NOISE!
Info on upcoming gigs, preferred web address, releases etc.
LM: For gigs you should check www.myspace.com/luxurymollusc
As for releases;
Skafold ov Bone (Husk Records (!))(Irish version sold out, few American versions left)
No one ever drowned without first having their face washed (split 7" with The Salty Duke)(just got more in!)
D'eist the fiend part II; ceremonial skinning of celtic tigers (Idrone Park)(few left)
A Discourse with Decay (self released as necessary)
Wheeze (self released as necessary)
Scrimshaw and Castration (split with Null/Void)(static acts)(new)
The Noise Series this week features turntablist Eoin Smith (who also records as Taper Jinx) demonstrating his minimal ambient approach to deck manipulation. Eoin answered the following questions:
What are your reasons / motives for making music, and how you arrived at this style?
ES: My motivations for making such music is purely because of my interest in sound and the processes which goes into making such sonic art. In one respect it comes from the numerous computer programs I have worked with and accumulated over the years, from more coding based systems to your typical DAW setup. I find it interesting how such systems interact with each-other and the sonorities which evolve from fusing such programs. At the minute my main interest is incorporating turntable technology into the realm of sonic art in both composition and performance. Incorporating a turntable into a computer based system, the turntable becomes accessible as a controller and interactive middle ground for the user
What sort of environment it is intended for/what are the intended effects on the listener?
ES: For this piece in particular, I wanted to immerse the listener in sound. The piece itself is similar to a storm as it is intense, relentless and heaving. In order to fully achieve this, I suppose, the preferred setting would be through good monitors, where every sound can be appreciated. However I think the interesting thing about sonic art is that different or “not ideal” settings can also impose there own characteristics and nuances on a piece. Listening to this piece while on a train at night could introduce an appropriate visual representation of the piece so deviating from ideal listening settings can give the piece a whole new direction and a different meaning to each listener, so although there is an ideal setting, it is not essential.
What sort of equipment you use (e.g. computer, hardware, home made gear, circuit bent stuff etc.) do you use to make your sounds?
ES: My main set-up is similar to what I use to make more sampled based, breakbeat stuff, which I like: having one system which can be moulded and adapted to the sound you want to make. It consists of a laptop, turntable, mixer and drum-machine/sampler/sequencer. For this particular piece I also used an old effects rack I got a few years ago for some reverb. Usually any sketches or pieces would start with the sample material, whether it be from vinyl or field recordings, if I like the sound of something I will put it through some self made instruments on the computer or bring it into my hardware sampler then decide which works best. I really like the sound from my hardware sampler, it is quite muffled and lo-fi which can really bring alot of warmth to a piece in comparison to some computer programs. This piece came together quite quickly, it started as an experiment with simple filtering and effects using a rack reverb, turntable and mixer. A simple enough set-up but one which can be used to create engaging and interesting sonorities as is evident from the work of turntablists such Janek Schaefer or Philip Jeck.
Info on upcoming gigs, preferred web address, releases etc.
ES: Currently looking for gigs so if anyone has any they can contact me through my myspace which is
In the second part of the SSTN Noise Series we have Magnetize, well known for his electro and techno productions for labels such as Mantrap, Trensmat, as well as the dronier material found here (found on Rimbauld Records ). The ferocity of Magnetize's live sound made many people leave the room when he played for us at an early Joy Gallery SSTN event, but those who stayed gained from their pain as delicious washes of distortion and modulating drones filled every nook and cranny of the space.
What are your reasons / motives for making music, and how you arrived at this style?
M: To be honest i never really thought about why i make music. i guess it has something to do with the full enjoyment of life depending upon creative activity. and as im hopeless at art / writing, music by default is my outlet. i started messing around with guitars in my teens but never really was bothered with learning zep solos, so through a combination of my own ineptitude and exposure and love of 'minimal' music - such as coil, suicide, stooges, la monte young, sonic youth, eno, monoton, etc.. - i grew a preference for texture/tone/dissonance/atonality.
What sort of environment it is intended for (home listening, really loud in a meat lorry, or whatever!) / intended effect on listener?
M: As loud as possible! groove...
What sort of equipment you use (e.g. computer, hardware, home made gear, circuit bent stuff etc.) do you use to make your sounds?
Typically sequences are created on the P3 to trigger the synths & everything is routed through four patchbays where the synths/fx/filters can be fed into each other in many different ways for maximum mangle potential. i usually just use the computer as a stereo recorder (through an apogee mini-me) and 'jam' for an amount of time on the sequence created (could be hours). this audio, if useable, is then edited down to make a track.
Any memorable noise-related incidents/ interesting gig anecdotes?
M: Noise is serious beardy-stroking business.
Info on upcoming gigs, preferred web address, releases etc.
M: At the moment im working on a remix for 'the last sound' which will be coming out on nute records (nuterecords.com). also working on new 'whirling hall of knives' material which hopefully should see the light of day sometime soon too.
You can hear a liveset Magnetize played for Second Square to None last year here.
Starting today, the SSTN Noise Series is going to be a weekly digest of the current "noise" scene in Ireland. While conceding that this definition is very broad (and perhaps in places inaccurate), we feel that there is an aesthetic link between the pieces of music and artists involved. As such the Noise Series will cover a wide range of approaches, from visceral harsh noise, electro-acoustic composition, ambient soundscapes and drone to musique concrete and hard-to-catagorise recordings (and that's just from the submissions we have received so far).
Often this music is made by people who are involved in very different music scenes, from doom metal to contemporary classical to breakcore. The intention of the series is to connect the dots between these often disparate scenes, and highlight the different personalities involved. Each week an exclusive MP3 of a particular artist's work will be posted on this blog, along with an interview where the artist will be given a chance to discuss their work and motives.
If you make what could be described as noise music, we'd like to hear it: submissions can be sent directly to hello@secondsquaretonone.com or through the SoundCloud dropbox found on this page.
Kicking things of we have an epic sound collage from Dubliner Brian Conniffe, who is involved in a myriad of projects, including a collaboration with Suzanne Walsh and Female Orphan Asylum (with Vicky Langan), as well as collaborations with Gavin Prior and many others.
Brian rose to the challenge of answering the following questions:
What are your reasons / motives for making music, and how you arrived at this style?
BC: Have you ever seen something that you just know that you have to have? Something that you see and immediately know that it has to be yours. And you wont stop thinking about it until you have it? You know that feeling inside you get when it just penetrates you and says look at me. And you really want it. Well, that's how music is for me. I never have any audience in mind, my primary motivation is a drive to satisfy myself. My own pleasure and enjoyment. To create exactly the kind of music I personally want to hear.
I love the idea of a work that can evoke memories, exhilarate, sedate, arouse, burn images bright into the mind.
The music that really inspired me were the most unique and peculiar things I have experienced. The sort of thing whose very existence is often bewildering. Hearing Throbbing Gristle's "Second Annual Report" at the tender age of thirteen blew wide open my whole view of what music was, is and could be. i never looked back. i still adore that work, the counter-intuitive bloodymindedness of a lead guitarist who had no interest in learning how to play the guitar and especially the murky low fidelity of it all. The uncompromising freedom, it's what punk claimed but failed to be. I think the next album i got was by Coil. There wasn't anything about this stuff that wasn't completely inspiring in every way. it was an overwhelming realisation of possibilities.
Then I found Nurse With Wound, all of which seemed to be absolutely perfect to me, and I quickly became totally obsessed. NWW still remains my absolute favourite musical project. The most self-indulgent music in the world, inspiring in its diversity. Any kind of limitation is negated by the purity of his conviction and his endless inventiveness. Steve Stapleton was a great influence on me personally. He really has no ego about what he does, is absolutely and consistently honest, the reactions of others – be they positive or negative – do not sway him one jot. Arguing about aesthetics and preference need not be a personal issue. Musically, Coil is similarly inspiring in terms of diversity. On Coil and Nurse albums you can find laid-back jazz next to violent bursts of mechanical loops, alongside melancholic ambience or perfectly danceable songs. I also think that Coil’s incorporation of folk elements and acoustic instrumentation with electronic sequencing and digital manipulation remains utterly unique. I have come back to Robert Ashley’s “Automatic Writing” for inspiration on many an occasion. Sounds like drifting in the hypnagogic state between sleep and waking, occasionally engaging in post-coital pillow talk with the contents of the words slipping away into the endless eternity of dream, while a party is going in a nearby building. Whitehouse are very unfortunately misunderstood and unfairly maligned. Completely uncompromising, dedicated totally to an individual self-expression. I very much enjoy Whitehouse's records first thing in the morning. Wakes me right up and goes very well with a nice cup of tea.
Lautreamont wrote "Plagiarism is necessary. Progress implies it. It holds tight an author’s phrase, uses his expressions, eliminates a false idea, and replaces it with just the right idea." There may be no new words, but the permutations are endless. I think to not acknowledge that is to under-estimate the inventiveness and imagination of the human mind at its best. All sorts of influences filter in. Everything we experience gets filtered through our own vision and voice.
What sort of environment it is intended for / intended effect on the listener?
None in particular.
Without giving away too much about your techniques, what sort of equipment you use (e.g. computer, hardware, home made gear, circuit bent stuff etc.) do you use to make your sounds?
BC: Anything and everything that might work. A single particular piece of software, hardware or approach used in isolation and excessively is always going to have the problem of sounding very much like the technology itself; something done purely in ableton will tend to have an ableton sound, which is something I work hard to get away from. One of the problems about listening to music after having spent the last few years learning about production techniques, and in particular electronic equipment, is that one finds oneself inadvertently playing "spot the software / effect setting / synth / pre-set". I really think it's essential that music doesn't sound like completely like the technology used to create it, though this of course has less to do with acoustic elements and performance virtuousity and much more to do with purely electronic devices and methods.
So, there is a combination of all sorts of different techniques - anything from natural field recordings and modified tape recorders to granular sythesis and time stretching - and acoustic and electronic equipment together with a (hopefully!) keen sense of subtlety and inventiveness to make something that works as more than the sum of its parts.
King Tubby’s production and engineering is a massive influence on my own work. Spaceous. It's amazing how many bands these days use the most expensive studios, the most advanced equipment, and what they churn out is such bland junk. Inventiveness and imagination are more important than all the valve amps and pro tools.
Any memorable noise-related incidents/ interesting gig anecdotes?
BC: Playing live is always a pleasure. As with the recorded work, the approach varies with each occasion. Essentially I feel that any performance should be an attempt by the performer to enter an extra-ordinary state through expression, and success is generally a proportional value of how far the audience can be guided through a different state. Of course, responses may vary but even if the emotional experience for the spectator is different to that of the performer, then it can still be considered success. Being “onstage” is effectively entering an altered state, using ordinary methods to achieve extra-ordinary results, creating a “space” which the audience may be guided through.
Ritual – not in a dogmatic sense but rather the sequence of activities which informs behaviour with significance and meaning – is always integral. Preparation differs with every artist, and often its very difficult to explain. Certainly the cautionary adrenaline while builds up in anticipation of the moment of performance needs to be framed through idiosyncratic thought and behavioural processes. However, separating activities which may be altogether mundane outside of the greater context is not in itself revealing. What is of interest is that this highlights an invisible process. Consider an actor who has a short break during a play. They will stay in character during this off-stage interval, even though the audience is completely unaware of this, it however leads to a further creative efficiency. In a similar sense, the stage magician can seemingly make the impossible real, if they are good of course: no one wants to feel conned or to be made a fool of, but the sense of wonder and the spinning of thoughts is hugely exciting. The remarkable thing is that if the amazed spectator were to find out how the magic trick was actually achieved, they would most likely be deeply disappointed by how mundane the methods behind the extra-ordinary effect. When it comes to music and art, thankfully it is far more difficult to disillusion. Criticism comes close, however since it is a convention borne from the increasing attempted gentrification of creative expression, it can’t take away from the marvelous altered states one may experience at - or during - a particularly effective performance.
The principle aspect which attributes significance to any event is the “frame” in which it is placed, the context informs the content: a process taken to its logical conclusion in the more abstract forms of modern art. It stems from a universal cognitive phenomenon – “confirmation bias” – essentially we unconsciously select, distort, edit and organize our experience to support our own perception. While location and venue are fairly fixed things, I genuinely have faith in effective artists to transcend those boundaries. Have you ever had the experience of being so lost in a performance of music that you lost track of time, and the distractions around you just melted away? “Skill” is a misleading term. It’s what in linguistics is called a “nominalization”, which is where the designation of something that is actually a process is considered to be an object. Words like “happiness” and “motivation” are an example of this, as is “skill” or “ability”, people talk about them as if they are static objects, but they are in fact processes. Imagination and inventiveness are vital aspects of the skill process, and ones which can transform the most mundane elements into a genuinely transcendent experience.
Can you give us some info on upcoming gigs, web links, releases etc.
BC: At the moment, my primary live collaborator is the wonderful Suzanne Walsh, along with any of our talented friends who work with us at the time. I will be guesting with Martin Egan on the fifth of March.
The first releases to trickle out have been various collaborations. Currently available from http://www.robotrecords.com/ is the double cd reissue of Steven Stapleton and Tony Wakeford's "Revenge of the Selfish Shellfish" which features a reworking of the entire original album by myself. It's a fantastic album which I am extremely proud and honoured to be a part of.
