JrF interviewed by John Grzinich

John asked me some questions & posted the interview on his blog - do take a look here.

Goh Lee Kwang exclusive mix

gohleekwang mix.mp3

four questions # 14: Goh Lee Kwang

Goh Lee Kwang (Malaysia) is perhaps best known in the UK for his work with the no-input mixing desk, acoustic laptop and for the label he runs, Herbal records (including releases by GLK himself, Eric Cordier, Tetuzi Akiyama, Tim Blechmann, Lucio Capece, Jean-Luc Guionnet & more). However his work as a sound artist is wide ranging and involves elements of installation, performance and intervention. Hopefully he will visit the UK in September to play a few concerts and to join me on a field recording trip.

The track submitted to accompany the interview is exclusive to this blog and both the mp3 and his answers to these four questions show that, thankfully, here is one artist whose interest remains with the sounds and not always with the technology.

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

GLK: Around 6 - 7 years ago, when i got into recording. What I was interested in at the time was to record something (sound source), and play around with it with digital software (plug-in), I manipulated any sound source I could get, guitar, drums etc. Rain was the first natural event which captured my attention then. During the rain season,sometimes the rain can go on for a week. When that happens no recording is possible unless you have a fancy sound proof recording studio, or do direct line-in). Instead of sitting there and waiting for who know whens, I began to record the raindrops on the window, the thunderstorm...

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

GLK: in the early years I used the field recordings as a sound source, playing around with them, adding auto-wah, delay and whatever effect to make it sound like sound from another planet. Then it came to a certain stage where I began to reduce the effect, listen more carefully to the sound. But i'm still doing a lot of multi tracks to create a piece of work. One of the reason was (still my main problem now) I did not have good recording equipment, most parts of my recorded sound was wasted. However this experience of doing the manipulation on the natural sound led me to think about what can I do with these sound files ? Some of them are good but most of them sound very poor (in term ofquality). Since I cannot use the natural sound in the "natural" way, I use the sound source to experiment with different concepts, ideas andpresentations. I used the sound sources as part of my sound installation (on "Vibrate Weather" , the inaudible low humming vibrating the surface of the big mirror ) and I also dj the natural radio broadcast with multi-channel speakers...

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

GLK: As with most of my works, i'm more about sound than music. The gesture of sound is where my focus is. I mean the multichannel field recording / live DJ set can be an interesting musical event, but it is based on sound appreciation. During the presentation/ concert, I DJ the natural sounds on an improvised basis, I play back the cds but I did not label those cds, no track list and such, I just play the cd then another cd going though different channels... it is just a matter of sound (and space).

JrF: has the act of making field recording had an effect (positive ornegative) on the way you listen to your everyday surroundings and howhas it affected the way you listen to other music and sound (if atall) ?

GLK: The "unstructuredness" of natural sound opens up a lot of new possibility for composition. It has shown that somehow it is no just a mess or chaotic noise rumbling around. The natural sound event HAPPENS, as it is. Thewind, the waving of grass and the bird singing in the forest. I don't have a musical background, I cannot study a composition via reading the notation or analysis of a piece of composition though the understanding of musical languages, so I learn from the natural.

April 2008

recording diary - July 2008: Oxford & Cambridge

just back from seven days spent in Oxford & Cambridge:

Oxford: recording the JdP

Part of St. Hilda's college, the Jacqueline Du Pre building is a purpose built concert hall named of course after the cellist. Jacqueline's playing was an early inspiration for me - catching me in the midst of new wave I found the experience of hearing her ability to communicate emotion within the construct of composed music a total revelation. So, when I was selecting building to record as part of the 'in place' project & composition it seemed obvious to include the JdP. It should also be pointed out that the opportunity to have unrestricted access to the building via the extremely helpful JdP administrator, Clare, made this trip very productive.

Both this building & Kettle's yard in Cambridge were ones that I expected to produce the quietest recordings. Partly because they are quiet spaces & partly because I think of them as places of stillness in some form. However this very fact meant that even the smallest sound was made more obvious & so the most interesting recordings from both buildings have been the sounds of surfaces and vibrations.

The internal spaces of the JdP itself has a smooth, almost liquid 'silence' to it & whilst I came away with several hours of material, I think perhaps only an hour or so actually captures the memory of the place.

Gaining access to the roof space revealed an impressive array of acoustic constructions designed to baffle the sound of the ventilation and air conditioning systems. So out came the contact microphones !

I also met up with two fellow recordists: Peter Maynard (who has a new cd available via Sound 323 I believe - it features some found sounds, along with guitar & other objects) & Pablo Jones

We spent a friendly and informal day wandering around & getting to know each other a bit & I think by & large limiting the number of folks to two results in a more personal and creative time for all.

Cambridge: Kettle's Yard.

One of my favourite places for sure here in the UK - see here for more background info.

Having access to this unique space outside public opening hours was a real treat - just to sit in the various rooms without anyone else walking around was fantastic.

Recording wise I spent most of the first of my 3 days there capturing the sound of each room & finding that, as with the JdP, the still atmosphere only made any other sound seem more intrusive. Here the traffic outside became tiring until I shifted focus to capturing the sound of the various surfaces around the building: wood, stone, glass, ceramics - all giving off a rich and diverse range of sounds.

Particularly with Kettle's Yard, it is the emotions I feel towards the building that affect what I take from making these recordings. Sometimes it is the sheer pleasure of being able to interact with these structures.

I feel excited by the sounds I found at Kettle's Yard - they are different to what I thought I would come away with & yet they have, I feel, captured that stillness, that reflective nature and the celebration of objects and light that are so important to ones experience of being in the various rooms.

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

four questions # 12: Zoe Irvine

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

ZI: My interest in sound began with voice recording and then editing for Audio Arts Magazine
I was taught to edit the artist interviews on reel to reel tape by audio artist Bill Furlong. At the time, 1994 I was focusing on visual art work – installations and photography. After a while I realised that the activity I enjoyed the most was editing sound. Soon after leaving college I got a minidisk recorder and suddenly the world of field recording opened up. It was amazing and immersive. I loved walking around almost anywhere with the small stereo microphone, discovering a whole level of acoustic environment I hadn’t really noticed before. The electrified, amplified hearing through the machine helped me to develop an ability to attend to sound without a microphone and headphones.

This new passion lead me to find a great variety of sound works which were permission giving and inspiring for my own work.

A small selection include:
Alexandra & Aeron’s releases and their Lucky Kitchen Label, - I loved that the sounds of microphone clunks were in there, it was so human and delicate and unpretentious.
Luc Ferrari – Presque Rien etc.
Walther Ruttman’s 1930 Weekend
Dominique Petitgand – not really so much field recording as domestic
Chris Watson – of course
Jean Luc Goddard’s Nouvelle Vague (CD version)
Chantal Dumas

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

ZI: Well I make a variety of different types of work from installations to participative projects, radiophonic works and sound design. I have used field recording in a broad sense in all types of work I do. When I am composing a radiophonic work or a sound design, field recording is central. However my approach generally is to treat sound sources equally, I do not think of voice as primary, or field recording as musical or music as incedental etc etc. I seem to favour a democracy of different elements but it is hard to say if that comes through in the listening.
In works like Travels Together and Illiers-Combray I use field recording in what I think of as a figurative and visual way, perhaps a filmic way.

In radio mixes and sound walks I have made as part of Magnetic Migration Music (found cassette tape fragments project) I use field recording primarily for it’s sense of place. The sounds of the environments where tapes are found and recorded conversations with people from the area, serve to geographically and physically lodge and reinforce the tactility of tape as a medium. Even in documenting the DIAL-A-DIVA project (documentation still in progress) I use recordings from the venue, the preparations and the atmosphere to provide a pivot for the geographically dispersed disembodied phone voices.

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

ZI: I regard music as an element of sound rather than field recording a musical element. I may work with field recordings in what could be considered an abstract musical way – focusing on rhythm, harmony, melody or other aesthetic effects and musical qualities, however, generally I do not abstract the sound. This means its figurative aspect remains evident and appreciable as part of the piece. I am using the word figurative to denote a sounds potential to be subjectively identified and understood semiologically (correctly or not does not matter). In this sense all recorded musical performance has a figurative element and like other sounds it also has a web of reference that can be drawn upon in a work.

For me, these definitions come into play more at the point my work meets an audience. That is not to say it is an afterthought, often the context in which a piece will be shown or engaged with by a public is the only thing I know at the beginning – a show in a gallery or a CD release or a radio programme etc. It becomes an issue of framing and that does change how the sound is received and what kind of effect and meanings it can generate.

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) ?

ZI: I think I began to answer this question in my response to the first question. Yes it has changed the way I listen to the soundscape around me. Likewise if I have just been working on a piece or a sound design and I’ve spent a day focusing on footsteps or door bangs or the acoustics of space or how a musical passage can carry a momentum forward then suddenly I hear my surroundings in those terms, every footfall sounds very purposeful and particular, the music from a 3rd floor window, the cars passing, the general city hum, birdcalls and so on.
Generally though making and working with field recordings gives me a feeling of agency in the domain of sound which spills into my whole perception and attraction to it, whether I have a recording device with me or not.

May 2008