TAYLOR
DEUPREE:
INCURSION (CA)
Interview
with Taylor Deupree
by Richard di Santo, July 02, 2000
I
had the pleasure to sit down with Taylor Deupree while in Montreal
for the MUTEK: music sound and new technologies festival. He
was at the festival mainly due to his involvement with the Architettura
series on the Caipirinha label. He performed a great set (though
he wasn't pleased with the result): a piece full of sound slides
and dimensional shifts. Not at all like the minimal click music
he's producing for his own 12k label, or like his latest release
.N on Ritornell. It was more like a remix of material heard
on his Architettura CD The Tower of Winds, produced together
with Savvas Ystatis (aka Sound Track).
His
involvement in the Architettura series arose from his friendship
with Caipirinha founder Iara Lee, who already had a film company
and was ready to try something new. She came up with the idea
to somehow combine music with architecture, the latter of which
was one of her photographic passions. Taylor was eager to participate,
so she gave him the the job of producing the first CD. He did
so with stunning result: the music on this record is beautiful,
multi-faceted and full of rhythmic abstractions unlike anything
I had heard from either Taylor or Savvas.
When
I asked Taylor about the conception of the Tower of Winds CD,
he said that initially he didn't know so much about architecture,
though the idea of somehow combining architecture with music
was fascinating: "So, without knowing much about architecture,
Savvas and I would flip through Iara's books of photographs
until something struck us, and the Tower of Winds in Japan really
struck us as something that could easily be translated with
sound." The tower is a tall translucent structure with a computerised
facade. This facade is subject to random changes in light and
colour, depending on the random fluctuations in sound and wind
in its immediate environment.
The
Architettura series has had results of varying success, at least
from my point of view. Tetsu Inoue and David Toop produced some
impressive results, and using some very intriguing techniques.
But I feel that the theme of architecture seems to be only an
amusing pretence for some of the artists involved. Panacea's
Brasilia, for instance, has little architectural interest in
it at all, but I suspect that it was merely another way to present
some harsh audio abstractions that just long to morph into a
hardcore drum'n'bass rhythm. So my interest in how Taylor and
Savvas approached the architectural theme formed one of my first
questions to him that afternoon.
RDS:
How would you describe the relation between the Tower of Winds
the building and the Tower of Winds the composition?
TD:
The album is less about the building itself as a subject: Savvas
and I made ourselves the building. So the album is what the
building perceives around it; kind of like an environmental
album of what surrounds the building. The computerised facade
of the building is affected by wind and sound, so we made a
soundtrack for that wind and sound and street noise. We made
it a very random record, because environmental sound is random,
and all the sounds we used on the album were found sounds, all
processed samples, nothing original. So it's like you're on
the street and the music is... the street! We gathered literally
about 2000 sounds for the album. What we'd do is take a sample
and use a program on the Mac called Recycle to chop these sounds
up into little bits until we had a big archive of tiny sound
snippets. So we'd choose sounds one at a time and work them
into the piece. We entered everything into a grid in a sequencer
with the mouse. We didn't play anything live, we wanted as much
as possible to remove ourselves from it being a musical thing.
Savvas and I have done so many records together, we wanted to
challenge ourselves to do something entirely new and work in
an entirely new way.
And
so we have the Tower of Winds.
Taylor's
music has undergone some incredible shifts in recent years.
From his origins producing techno and techno-style ambient music,
he has redefined his musical programme and moved to making very
minimal recordings. Sometimes rhythmical and sometimes comprised
of only a few sparse clicks on a smooth sheet of silence, Taylor's
recent output is an impressive foray into what he calls the
use of "microscopic sounds", an accomplishment that led to my
next set of questions.
RDS:
I'd like to ask you about your interest in microscopic sounds
and your new minimal approach to making music. What's the appeal
of the minimal and microscopic?
TD:
It's a long story. I started my professional career in 1993,
and I was part of the techno scene, doing a number of techno-related
projects, and some ambient recordings. After about 3 or 4 years
of doing it, I didn't really know who I was, deep inside. Music
is the most important thing for me, and I've always liked electronic
music since the early 80s, so I finally got my recording contract,
finally on my way to having some kind of career. I loved techno,
so I wrote techno; I liked ambient music so I wrote ambient
music. But I always felt that I was just following in the footsteps
of Jeff Mills, or any of those big techno guys. At the same
time I was getting disinterested with the whole techno/rave
scene: the kids got younger, the drugs got harder, and I felt
like 'why the hell am I playing my music for these kids who
probably don't really care about the music?' I really came to
a point where I didn't know what I should be doing musically,
so I closed myself off and started really what felt natural
to me. And then I discovered quite by accident a Rastermusik
CD in a record bin that I bought just because of the cover.
It was a CD by Frank Bretschneider [aka Komet]. I listened
to it and it sounded exactly what I was doing. I emailed him
to tell him this, that I didn't know there was necessarily other
people doing this sort o thing. So, to make a long story short,
i began focussing my life. I finally found what I wanted to
be doing. My graphic design and my music were starting to merge.
Minimalism was my lifestyle choice, and I started my label [12k],
and once the label got its foot off the ground things really
took off. I began to really focus on sounds, and that's where
the microscopic thing comes in, a literal focussing microscope
into sound itself. Taking one sound and getting inside it, or
ripping one sound apart, as opposed to layering sounds on top
of each other. You really get inside something, and it's kind
of a mode of subtraction: you discard the parts that aren't
interesting.
RDS:
Hearing you describe your approach to sound in that way makes
me draw a parallel with a figure in alchemy. The alchemist begins
his procedure with base metal, the massa confusa, a dark mass
of confused and impure elements. He then sets to work and, through
various processes of sublimation, extraction, etc., he really
focusses in on the pure elements of the matter, discarding the
impure elements, those that "aren't interesting" to him and
his art, and proceeds to turn that material into gold, the purest
matter of all. The alchemist subjects his material to all sorts
of procedures of manipulation and modification, just as you
subject your sounds to a similar barrage of processing techniques,
discarding the uninteresting and focussing in on the "pure"
elements.
TD:
That makes a great metaphor...
RDS:
I'd like to ask you one more question, this time about the role
of listening. I was trained in literary studies, so I have a
particularly literary approach to listening and interpreting
music, as if I were "reading" the sounds. How would you rate
the role of listening with your music? Do you feel that your
music merits the close attention of a meticulous listener, or
is it something that can be put on for background ambience?
I ask this because here at MUTEK there's been this sort of mixed
bag of environments. One is a very formal listening space where
the audience keeps quiet and really focusses on the sounds.
The second is much more laid back, reaching a very loud noise
level with all the talking and motion. Since you've played in
both environments while you've been here, I wonder which one
you prefer for your music.
TD:
The role of listening is very important for me. When I got out
of the techno scene making dance music, I became more and more
interested in sound as art and listening music. So the role
of listening is vital to my music; I don't want my music to
be put on while you go to do the dishes or talk to a friend
- I really want it to be paid attention to. Because it's so
minimal, there might not be a whole lot happening, you really
have to pay attention to those subtle shifts, because that's
really what makes it, and what grabs you. People who listen
to this music have to come into it knowing that it's going to
require a little more from them. They are going to have to put
a little more effort into listening, which is nice because then
you get the people who really appreciate sound for what it is.
With the absence of mass marketing with my label, I want people
to work at getting to this music, and then work at listening
to it too, to come to it on their own, and get some kind of
meaning from it all. I don't charge my music with messages,
though; it's really just a sound appreciation sort of thing.
Talking
with Taylor was great. He was quite open and direct with me,
and his enthusiasm for his work is unmistakable in the way he
becomes so animated when he is describing what he does. His
music has definitely matured at a stunning rate in recent years.
His work carries a self-awareness and confidence that mirrors
the self-awareness in Taylor's personal development as a sound
artist. Listen to his music and focus the microscopic lens in
your ears: you'll be sure to find an infinity of possibility
in the silence beneath the surface of sparse clicks and shifting
sounds.
Taylor
Deupree's most recent work can be heard on his own 12k label,
Caipirinha and Ritornell.
