It strikes me that in the noise and experimental music that you make, there is space to investigate the void and silence. I think that in your participation in the "Noise Day IV" that took place on October 29th, in the Espacio Manzano in Valparaíso, you had some moments of void and silence. Could you please explain this void and silence?
“The void is the absence of matter in sculpture, just as black is the absence of light in painting.
In a concert, silence is a reference, since the environment does not stop sounding. Thus, a dialogue can be established with the sounds of the place and the people, since they appear as a surprise in each block of silence. Internally I’m in tension of measuring the times of silence in relation to the last sentence that was sounded and according to its size and shape, I can go to the next one.
Light leaves a mark on our retina, something similar happens with the perception of sound and memory. That happens because we perceive things by their changes and differences. Working with silence is letting the space become part of a sound work.”
In the description of your album ‘Tercer Vértice’, published in October 2019, on Pueblo Nuevo Netlabel, you note: ‘... more volume calls for more volume. You can savor the timbres, feel the texture between your teeth.’ Could it be said that this state of high volume and intensity is the most lucid?
“The quote you mentioned corresponds to the review made by the Argentine musician Sam Nacht, which I consider to be quite accurate both positively and critically. It has a lot to do with the conception of that work.
It was recorded mostly using feedback produced by a mixer, pedals effects, speakers, microphones, and a soundbox. The use of computer synthesis was minimal. This was done at a very high volume, so that playing and listening had a more physical component. That is the state of lucidity you are talking about, and since it is composed of intense stimuli in a wide dynamic range, it appears as a reference to the perception of sound. ‘Tercer Vértice’ is made to be heard with the volume turned up.”
I'm impressed how the bass mbira can sound when you play it. It can sound as a double bass or a distorted guitar riff. What can you tell us about the sound possibilities offered by analog elements and the digital processes you use?
“I took the bass mbira from an idea that Derek Holzer gave me in a workshop he dictated called ‘soundboxes.’ This was a few years ago at the Hospedería del Errante, in ‘La Ciudad Abierta’ (Ritoque, Valparaíso, Chile). I remember that it took a long and thin piece made of stainless steel, he put a contact microphone on it and played it like it was part of a calimba. The sound was very deep and powerful, so some time later I found similar pieces and mounted them on a wooden stand, using a contact microphone to control the frequency the metal emits as it vibrates. The pedal effect that I use the most is distortion and when the signal passes through a series of them the result is amazing, since it has a lot of weight and a lot of harmonic loads.
Analog and digital tools from the purely timbral aspect have different possibilities. They are two ways of generating sounds, whose signals are modulated and articulated simultaneously.
In the specific case of how I face music, I am in a moment in which I have limited the tools to the sound material that I want to work on. So, there is a precise balance between analog and digital tools in which I can take this relationship as a single instrument.”
You are sculptor and painter, as well as a noise musician. Do these artistic disciplines have any connection with your music, or do they develop in separate ways?
“Sculpture and painting are formally more related since in both I start from drawing, which is where the basic and germinal ideas that can be embodied in a work. Seeing the connection between visual and musical work has been an issue which I've been asked a lot, more than I've wondered. I'm in a period of work and I don't have the head to theorize about what I do. That can be a problem now, since most people need an explanation about what they see and hear and on the other hand, there is an excessive need to base everything that is done.
In recent times, and seeing things from a distance, I have realized that there is a relationship at the level of concepts and in the way of dealing with the matter, more than in explicit formal matters.
Now the paths of sculpture, painting and music are beginning to be more closely related. This does not mean that I am considering mixed works as my main line of work. After a long period of activity I can already work three different spatial fields independently.”
You have several albums released on Pueblo Nuevo, Amencoma, Biodata, Horribleregistro, among other imprints, in addition to participating in compilations and collaborative projects. In fact, you have the split album “Generadores Simultáneos” with the Argentine noise maker Pablo Reche. What would you highlight about this album released on the Chilean label 001records?
“First, it is a collaborative work between several musicians, which as a process, goes beyond the release of music.
The conversations with Claudio Pérez (owner 001records and musician of Usted No) and Pablo Reche started before the recording (of the split). ‘Generadores Simultáneos’ is a proposal with a different sound from what had been previously released on the label, which gives the catalog a more wide spectrum.
For my part I wrote the pieces for the album taking as reference of Pablo’s work that I knew up to that moment.
I started listening to his work in 2004, since in February of that year we met at the Patagonia Festival, organized by Rodrigo Planella and his team in Coyhaique (Chile), an event in which Claudio also played. Pablo couldn't play in this festival due to technical reasons, so later, out of curiosity, I began to search the networks for what was available at that time.
Already in 2017 I was lucky to share the bill with Mika Martini, Luis Marte, Johannes Haase and Pablo. There I was able to get to know better what he was doing. The first of those concerts came out on the live record called ‘Exploradores del Sonido’ which was published by the Greek Plus Timbre label in 2021.
I made my contribution to ‘Generadores Simultáneos’ thinking about what kind of dialogue could take place between the sound conceptions of each one. Once we delivered the material, Claudio Pérez defined the order of the tracks, combining the stillness of Pablo's music with the stridency that I put on. Along with this, he designed the graphics for the album and Luis Marte made the videos that are part of this production.”
What is your opinion about free improvisation and more structured composition? What elements come into play in either case?
“I move in both fields. I don't start improvising from scratch at concerts or when I record a song. There are ideas and structures that are generated in rehearsals, which take on a life of their own and become elements or parts that are combined in different sound structures. Something similar to the relationship between drawings and paintings and sculptures happens with this process. With the particularity that I generally do not make a record of the rehearsals. Here memory plays a very important role.”
Tell us about the noise/experimental scene in Quinta Región. What collectives or groups participate? What projections do you see in this scene?
“Right now, the Gran Valparaíso is the most important area for the generation of experimental music in Chile and probably in South America. This corresponds to an avant-garde tradition that comes from the port city since the early 20th Century, and that in a chaotic times like the one we are living in, is crystallizing in various forms.
There are many people making music, organizing concerts and festivals, as well as releasing new productions. Among them I can mention:
Ratasordarec, Chercán Radio, Homeles-LoFi, Modular Label, Eunk, Acéfalo Festival, Tsonami, Sonec, Isabel Rosas’s Gallery, Taller de Teknología Libre workshop, Laboratorio de Arte Sonoro and many groups that are probably not on my list. I guess there must be other projects running underground, supported by younger people.
To all this we must add the broadcasting by Radio Valentín Letelier (based in Valparaíso, Chile), which has been a meeting point for local creators in the last two decades”.
What are your next steps in your music?
“The first thing is to continue studying the synthesis of sound and hopefully, play as much as possible and with the greatest variety of people.
There is a Pandemic recording that we made with Ignacio Morales (Chilean noise maker, aka Leonardo Ahumada and member of El Banco Mundial, Ensamble Majamama, Guorl Miusic, Midiset, Nawito Dúo), which is in the process of being saved and matured. It will probably come out soon.
In the mid 2023 I am going to start recording a new work, as calmly as possible and without worrying about where, when or how I am going to publish it.
What I just told you has to do with concrete and limited action plans.
If we talk about the steps in particular, we would have to go back to the issues of drawing and rehearsals, which are the moments of greatest chaos and unsettling times, where the new stuff really comes out.”
Guillermo Escudero
December 2022