four questions # 13: Andreas Bick

JrF: when & why did you become interested in field recording ?


AB: In my early 20's I was playing guitar in a rock band but I started feeling uncomfortable with performing live and recording in studios. My musical interest turned to the outside world, partly because of the urban sonic soundscape, which was new to me at that time as I grew up in the countryside, and partly because of reminiscence of childhood sound experiences that I had in nature. Going to the sounds, I thought , instead of bringing the sound sources into the recording studio is just as good. The fascination with field recording lays here: you can't script it, the unintentional is the conductor of the outside world and you have to wait until something interesting happens, you have to give away control over the process of sound creation.


JrF: how do you use your field recordings in your own artistic output ?


AB: Well, I usually mix various sound sources in my pieces, there can be a straight forward field recording with no processing at all, followed by a texture of little sound snippets compiled of hundreds of single recordings made in the studio and the difference is not that obvious. My concept is to study 'natural' behaviour (be it nature or urban live) through the means of field recording and then later recompose the textures I gathered. Sometimes the original recording is good as it is, sometimes I want to extend the original soundscape, make it hyperreal, as one would say. The more single layers I have the more possibilities I have later for spatial mixing and complex rhythmic patterns. I dream of, let's say, a field recording of a frog pond that consists of contact microphones attached to each frog in the pond. What interests me is the spatial distribution and the interlocking patterns in the interaction of the frogs. Since this is not possible, I rely on many single recordings that I can put together in a way that I perceive natural processes to be. Mostly my works are mixed in 5-channel-surround as the final step and those mixes turned out to be perfect for public performances because the audience can be placed in the middle of a soundscape composed of many different sound sources and that feels like actually being in the imagined place.


JrF: do you regard 'natural' sounds as a musical element (bearing in mind that the conventional definition of 'music' is rapidly becoming obsolete) or as sound ? is this definition important ? does it matter ?



AB: If 'natural' sounds are the utterances of organisms (bird calls, insect chirps etc.) and the unintentional sounds of non-living phenomena (water, wind, eruptions etc.), they become a musical element in the hands of the composer who organizes those sounds with a purpose in mind, as an attempt to communicate. Lets take an expample: when Bernie Krause assembles his natural recordings, he wants to give an aural picture of a certain place and its sound properties over a certain time period. His approach is more documentary than artistic I would say. Compare it to the recordings of Francisco Lopez in his tryptich of American environmental recordings (La Seva, Buildings and Wind) one might hear the same sort of untreated natural soundscape, but the editing of the original recordings refers to ideas about the perception of sounds in general, to Lopez' concept of pure intergral listening. For me this is roughly where the line between documentary and composition, thus music runs. It's the purpose to order sound and to make a point. Does this definition bother me? Well, everybody draws his own line between music and noise ("you don't have to call it music if the term shocks you" - John Cage), for my own practice the only important notion is that every sound is a potential musical element, I only drop a lot of them because they do not really affect me and in doing so define my personal universe of musical elements.

JrF: has the act of making field recording had an effect (positive or negative) on the way you listen to your everyday surroundings and how has it affected the way you listen to other music and sound (if at all) ?



AB: The amplification of the environment through the headphones of mobile recording devices is one of the most revealing experiences and has definitely changed my perception of everyday surroundings. When playing back field recordings of places that we are familiar with, we hear the environment in a different way, deeper, with more detail, with an integral perspective. The type and position of the microphone or the time window we choose of a certain sound recording etc. are already artistic or subjective decisions made during the process of recording, but for the perception the difference in volume compared to the 'real' experience is the most powerful. Therefore I usally scan acoustic surroundings unconsciously for useful "sound matter", I try to stay aware of my sonic sensibility towards interesting sounds and atmospheres. I would suppose that this leads to more openmindedness towards other musical and sounding events as well, at least I hope so...



to listen to Andreas' recording of ice sheets click here