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.
Quality entertainment in Galway this week with a weekend of entertainment courtesy of Community Skratch Games. Opening night kicks off with SSTN favourites Ventolyn & Becotyde and Jimmy the Penguin, aswell as Square Waves host Fyodor, "showcasing the myriad applications of modern turntable composition and improvisation".
Full details of all the weekends events, including more gigs and workshops, here.
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)
