► That is unsettling in the most effective way. We find ourselves looking for an impossible dialogue between innate human fragility and the concrete crudeness of productive slavery. We move in an aural landscape where beauty and despair coexist, perfectly capturing the existential ambiguity of a world on edge.
► This track reimagines the mechanical movement of an elevator as a vehicle for sonic exploration. Creaks, hums, chimes and shifting cables create a hypnotic rhythm, evoking a strangely meditative ascent through industrial space. The piece resists any musical notation, instead inviting to find music – whatever it may be – in the most hidden places.
■ The A. O.: The track from “Studies Made on a Typewriter” that we prefer is “Drawing 4’33””. Can you tell us how it came to light?
►Ryan Hooper: Inspired by a piece of typewriter art by Anni Albers, Studies Made on the Typewriter explores the typewriter as both a physical object and a conceptual tool – one that interacts with texts in varied ways and acts as a marker of place. It becomes a conduit for capturing diaristic traces, like etchings across different environments.
Drawing 4’33” draws directly from the ideas of Brian Eno and John Cage. Eno described ambient music as something that shapes the atmosphere of a room – like lighting or wallpaper – while Cage famously asserted that absolute silence doesn’t exist, inviting listeners to consider all sound as potential music. This piece plays with both concepts: an ambient cut-up blending Eno’s aesthetic with Cage’s conceptual challenge of 4’33”.
this is not music for airports still silent partially unsighted wallpapering the skull feedback loops between recorder and microphone never heard or felt a performance of 4’33″ like this
At the time of recording, I was listening to Indian Soundies by Moniek Darge & Graham Lambkin, and I think some of that influence seeped into the process. The track is structured in two halves: the first built around a processed field recording of local church bells – a specific, locational sound that situates the listener. The second half features the sound of someone drawing – a quiet, intimate gesture that hints at how experiences are stored and later expressed. In this case, the memory of place is reinterpreted through an invisible drawing.
► This is a clear example of a combination of sounds that goes beyond their simple sum. In other words, sonic interactions *really* generate emergent properties in this case. This approach leads you to a visceral experience—haunting, immersive, and unnervingly intimate—pulling your head into a spectral world shaped by decay.
► Abstract concreteness? Yes, please. Although its elements come from the so-called “real world” in its materiality, concrete music is one of the most abstract art forms ever. Where notes often resonate emotionally, the noises of a typewriter leave the listener with the need to find a key to meaning. But: does a key always exist? Do we always have to go through a door?
