voices #39
◦ “voices” is the place where we ask, artists reply and you read.
here we got:
Swoop and Cross
answering some questions. We have already observed his ambient / drone / electroacoustic work here.
[1. IDEA]
■ The A. O.: The track from “On the Grounds of Indecency” that we prefer is “This river”. Can you tell us how it came to light?
► Swoop and Cross: There is this quote in Ishiguro’s Never let me go: “I keep thinking about this river somewhere, with the water moving really fast. And these two people in the water, trying to hold onto each other, holding on as hard as they can, but in the end it’s just too much. The current’s too strong. They’ve got to let go, drift apart.”
The track is largely inspired in this idea of trying to hold on to each other in a turbulent world, hence the feathering in and out of sounds that try to overtake the looping motif that extends throughout the piece and that symbolises the attempt for stability, which keeps being disrupted by the flow in “this river”. From the starting idea, the track was then just a technical exercise of musical composition and layering. Like most pieces, it wrote itself.
[2. CREATION]
■ The A. O.: How do you usually approach composition? Do you start with a concept, a sound, a state of mind or what else? How do you generally proceed from the initial seed to the complete work?
► Swoop and Cross: I have two types journeys. The first, my favourite, are the tracks that just occur to me. They come to my head out of the blue complete and I “just” record/produce them exactly like I heard them in my head. In this album ‘Norfolk’ and ‘Complete’ were done like this. Then the remainder tracks are more technical; usually I start with a musical motif and develop it… Most of my music production is mixing and fine tuning loops and slight variations of melodic motifs.
These days my greatest catalyser for getting in the right state of mind for thinking music and making music are books and the imagery they produce inside my head. Also, just life in general, when I have time to breath, gives me all I need to work with.
[3. FEEDBACK]
■ The A. O.: What do you hope listeners feel or experience when engaging with your music?
► Swoop and Cross: I do not hope listeners find the same meaning I had in mind when writing the track. Which is why my titles are often abstract, and I don’t really like to talk too much about the meaning behind each piece. Each one tells a story of my life even if inspired by an external source like a movie or a book. And I know exactly which episode of my life each song depicts. But that applies only to me. So, in the end, I just hope my music means something personal to somebody; that it resonates with something inside them, whatever that is.
[4. IDENTITY]
■ The A. O.: In a world saturated with digital music content, how do you try to keep your sound distinct and personally meaningful?
► Swoop and Cross: I can only make the music that is about me and my experience. Which is unique, like everyone’s is. Music is not my job so it’s a privilege for me that I can just make the music I like and not try to make a business out of it. I would rather ten people bond with it than 10000 listen to it here and there. So, in the end, I tell my story with these sounds and hope a couple people find this a good soundtrack to their story, even if different from my own.
[5. INFLUENCES]
■ The A. O.: Mention 3 albums that you consider relevant to your musical path and why.
► Swoop and Cross: ○ Eleni Karaindrou –The weeping meadow
Close to impossible to choose a specific album from Karaindrou. Her work, particularly for Angelopoulos movies is in my opinion the best music for film ever made. The blend of folk and ambient is perfect and her melodies are so beautiful in their simplicity.
○ Tim Hecker – Ravedeath 1972
This album has been so important for me. It opened a whole array of possibilities in music, and it’s still my favourite Hecker album.
○ William Basinski – The Disintegration Loops
A masterclass on quasi-repetition and the perfect showcase for the magic of restraint. Probably the album I have listened the most times in my life.
[6. REGARDS]
■ The A. O.: Leave us with a quote you love.
► Swoop and Cross: Since my album was so much inspired by Never let me go I will leave you with one from the book: “Even at the time, I realised this couldn’t be right, that this interpretation didn’t fit with the rest of the lyrics. But that wasn’t an issue with me. The song was about what I said, and I used to listen to it again and again, on my own, whenever I got the chance.”