Interview: SlowPitchSound

Just a quick note to say that we are now broadcasting on n10.as radio each month. SlowPitchSound is our first guest, January 18th at noon ET.

SlowPitchSound is a unique voice in the experimental music scene of Toronto. I first met Cheldon when I saw his performance at Mutek, and I loved the unique way that he blended sampling, turntablism, and space in his own improvisational way. In the years since, I’ve admired how consistent and detailed his productions are. Very pleased to have him submit this month’s guest mix.

https://slowpitchsound.bandcamp.com/ https://www.instagram.com/slowpitchsound/ http://slowpitchsound.com

The mix has a lot of urban elements, the sound of the city. Toronto transit seems to feature as a thread through it. It’s part of creating a world for my listeners to really get immersed in. In this case I just wanted to share a little slice of home.

Your music has a strong sense of spontaneity that makes me think improvisation plays a part in your process. Improvisation and spontaneity do play a huge part, it’s pretty much at the root of the majority of my work. I’m all about taking what some might view as mistakes and flipping them around. I feel like I’ve actually eliminated the thought of a mistake in my head and just end up surfing sounds. Just going with the flow and see where the sounds end up taking me.

You recently did a piece called Alternate Forest that had an environmental theme. Are you an environmentalist? Nope, I’m not. I’m a scifi-turntablist who is concerned with the state of the planet I call home and I’m trying to bring awareness through my art.

That piece included a collaboration with a dancer. How do you like to approach collaboration? I enjoy collaborating very much. It definitely takes patience and openness but the results can be really amazing. I’ve been collaborating with Lybido for about 4 years now and it’s been really cool. Our work is heavily improv based and after performing together for a while now, we’ve build up great chemistry.

It seems more than ever that music-making today is something that people do alone. The trend is towards solo artists and away from bands. I like it all, they’ll all give different results in the end. I’ve done a wide variety of events, with people, solo, in a gallery, in a theatre, in a barn. The list goes on. Every gig is different and I love it that way. For me it’s just about being as prepared as possible for whatever artistic adventure lays ahead.

Your work incorporates field recording and also turntablism. How do you approach the various stages of creation? Do you do a lot of field recording? I do have a bit of a formula but like any good magician I don’t wanna giveaway too much lol. I will say that the number 333 is a big part of it. I like thinking about layers, dimensions and space. Scratching is definitely part of the secret ingredient. It’s the thread that brings my music to life and it’s a skill that has taken me over 20 years to develop. I do a lot of field recording and I love creating new places and scenes with sound designs.

How much sampling of records do you do? How much do you draw from the traditions of turntablism and also sampled production? I sample a lot and I really challenge myself to work the samples way beyond recognition. I feel like the way I sample is a evolution of the kind of sampling I was influenced by back in my golden era hip hop days. I decided to go deeper and found a way to really integrate turntablism and beat making in a non hiphop way if that makes any sense at all.

Are there pieces of gear that you find you wouldn't be able to work without. or that you find yourself recommending to others? (A type of turntable, plugin, smartphone app, or field recorder for instance) I can’t do without a turntable, field recorder, drum machine and effects machine. Having a turntable and being able to scratch really gives me an edge for sure, it’s the instrument that brings my sound to another level. It keeps things from not feeling flat and turns my songs into living creatures. I find that when making electronic music it’s a good thing to add some kind of tactile instrument to the mix, something a little more analog or acoustic maybe.

What inspires you while you work? I’m really a fan of scifi and fantasy films so I draw a lot from there. When I’m creating I like to imagine that I’m making a score.

The last track on this mix is one of your collaborations with Shikha Sehgal, who seems to be a go-to collaborator. I love working with Shikha we’ve been friends for many years, our collaborations have felt so effortless in a way, I would just play her some tracks, she would pick and write something before I wake up the next day. That’s how freak show and robotic rain cells happened. Myself and Shikha actually have a new collaborative project called "eastwood discovery". We're dropping an EP in the near future.

Do you have a hidden pop / r&b impulse within you? I definitely do. It’s all about soul for me and I think it’s very important when it comes to making experimental music… at least my style. I like to get as weird as noisy as possible but still want to move the mind body and soul together. The sounds of Hip Hop, Reggae, calypso, funk and r&b are a part of me because of my roots but I have a passion for transforming and exploring frequencies.

I always love the way your music is so detailed. How do you make sure that the details get heard? What's your favourite setting for a listener to listen to your work? The awesome thing about adding all the layers in a crafty and detailed way is that it allows my music to transform with every listen depending on what environment it’s being taken in. For the absolute best results I would say headphones or a setup that includes sub bass speakers.

Guest Mix: La Plimbare

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La Plimbare put out one of the most interesting debuts of the year with her collages of field recordings from her vacation at the beach in Romania. I'm very excited about this artist, she has a great ear for the beautiful and mysterious that we hear in the world around us. Once these field recordings have made it through her filters, they're beautiful, but they start to reflect the frantic and conflicted world around us.

I'm so happy to present La Plimbare as our second guest mix. It's a refreshing mix of moods that will surprise you and tug your heart strings.

Her album was recently reissued on the wonderful ACR.

Your album is built on field recordings. Tell us a little bit about your approach and why you choose to work this way? I’ve never created music. But then I got a recorder and it felt like getting your first camera and I started recording whatever sounded interesting, out of sheer fun, from crows and rain to the echo of the sea between the tetrapods or vendors on the beach. I thought I’d give these sounds a second life so I combined them and the result was impressive for me. It was something new, like a painting made of sounds. I think sound is so powerful, it goes directly to the heart, so this is why I choose to work with field recordings. I just have to be quiet and listen.

What is it about field recording that is interesting to you? That the environment somehow dictates the final result and the thing that finding new sounds means moving a lot. You’re never out of ideas.

How do you take a piece of sound and create a work from it? I fall in love with certain sounds, I throw them in the same project and I look out the window while I listen to them and I move them around trying to give them some meaning together. Sometimes I also play with a Volca or a sequencer and I make some accidental ambient haha.

What inspires you while you work? Looking out the window. I live in a neighborhood in Bucharest called Titan and it’s like a titan: big, tall block of flats, like matchboxes on matchboxes and during summer it’s really epic – green and sunny, during winter it’s depressing – the trees are leafless and I get to see in my neighbors’ apartments. In a weird way, this view is always inspiring. And I’m also inspired by explorers. I like explorers. Going to the North Pole or the Chimborazo by themselves. I think about that a lot.

This album was made very quickly. It feels like a snapshot of a time. Does the element of speed or improvisation play into it? I think I improvised a lot, yes. I was just discovering the wonders of sound editing and I spent a lot of time just trying out different things, exploring all you can do with a piece of reality to distort it. I mostly recorded the material in Constanta, my hometown at the Black Sea, at the end of summer, when the atmosphere starts to cool off and the city starts to feel like a ghost town.

We just had a guest mix from Those Who Walk Away, who in some ways is a noise musician, playing with field recordings and layering production techniques. But he works as a “composer”. One of the fun parts of noise music is that we have the freedom to work outside of musical norms. Is there a mode of musical artist that you relate to, whether it be producer, composer, fine artist, etc? I used to listen a lot to Chris Watson, then I discovered Felix Blume and the two artists inspired me. I think I like this “naturalistic” approach precisely because I don’t consider myself a musician, I just hear things, I like how they sound and I think “hey, something nice can come out of this, let’s see”.

What role does photography play in your artistic practice? I like the silence of the photos. I look at them and it’s so quiet. And when I listen to recordings a picture pops immediately into mind. They complement each other.

Your mix includes Romanian artists and you mentioned in our correspondence that that was important to you. What is the local music scene like where you live? I live in Bucharest which sometimes can be called a “vibrant city”, as they say in touristic descriptions of south eastern European capitals. The music scene is quite wide, everything for everyone, but unfortunately people don’t go so much to small concerts, there’s always the same bunch of people who attend the obscure gigs.

Tell us about Romanian music. There’s lots of great projects, from funny absurd rock-trap bands, to math rock, artsy techno or local ambient, modern classical musicians from the 70s and 80s, Ottoman music, sad lautareasca (the music made by fiddlers), drone... It’s quite vibrant and unexpected if you dig a little.

Why was it important to represent your country in the mix? Because there are many great projects that deserve attention and a concert in a crowded place and many dedicated musicians who love making music.

Tracklist

Joe Colley – Lonely microphone (Side A) Coil – Batwings Nicolae Brînduș- Phtora I (Duration) F E B R A – nei Roberto Musci – The ups and downs of chewing gum Environments – remix of a remix of a remix Psychic TV – Clouds without water

Guest Mix: Those Who Walk Away

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For the November broadcast we have our first guest mix, coming from Those Who Walk Away, the alias of Winnipeg-based composer Matthew Patton.

Patton's curatorial and compositional work have brought him into contact with a long list of prestigious names, many of which he has included in his mix.  

Constellation Records released Patton's "The Infected Mass" album last year. The record has a claustrophobic stillness, building a sprawl of sound from field recordings, strings, choir, "ghost strings" and "ghost choir", and real sampled recordings from the cockpit of a plane going down.

The record really stuck with me as something that pushed into beautiful but also unsettling territories, and I'm very pleased to have Matthew take us away into some songs that he has been listening to lately.

Some words from Matthew follow below. 

Tracklist

Brian Eno – Excerpt from Daniel Lanois’ movie "Here Is What Is” Otto Totland - Steps Maarja Nuut & Ruum - Kuud Kuulama Hildur Gudnadottir - People Get Faces Ian William Craig - The Last Wesbrook Lament Low - Poor Sucker Sigur Rós - Hrafntinna Jónsi & Alex - Boy 1904 Johann Johannsson - The Cause of Labour is the Hope of the World (The Miners Hymns) Angelo Badalamenti - Dark Space Low Knut Nystedt - Immortal Bach Johann Johannsson - Orphic Hymn Otto Totland - North Way

September 2018—The Glow (Radio Pure Episode 7)

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TRACKLIST

cicada rhythms

july 9, 2018

Happy Easter.

This one is an ambient show to blow off steam from Mercury retrograde. Some soothing sounds, some pillowy, and some other things a little more loud. Enjoy :)