SOGAR
LOOP.CL
SOGAR
by GUILLERMO ESCUDERO
In
the French Autres Directions in Music's 'Noise and the City'
MP3 compilation released, your track is based on sounds you
captured from a Paris's building site. In your opinion the building
itself is a found sound or it’s more like a concept in
order to develop it?
"The concept of this compilation was to record sounds from
the city where you live. And to use only these recorded sounds
to create a musical track. So of course at first the building
was a found sound. Later on (during the digital processing)
all these recorded sounds from the in and outside of the building
becomes inevitably a concept. Cause the subconscious take it
like a matter of course to tread the sounds taken from the building
site like the developing building itself. So it's both, found
sound and (to my surprise) concept as well. I never think about
concepts and I never had ones in my music. And maybe the concept
there is not a concept neither but more exactly an associative
audio blue print."
Your track ‘Bau2’ of this compilation mentioned
go little by little in crescendo specially with bass. The evolution
of the track is related with the physical aspect of this building
site?
“Yes exactly. Regarding the building site I take this
crescendo for the most logic way to describe the evolution of
the physical aspect as you said. It's this sounding blue print
of the construction I spoken about. But I have to say that I
always like these very long crescendos when I put them elsewhere
in my music. I've used them a lot.... maybe too much. Hopefully
this is my last crescendo which I put in the end of a track.
Otherwise I get tired of it :)"
How it was the transition of playing the guitar to using
audio software? I think it’s a natural step to be able
to do your own project.
"I came from a noisy experimental punk-rock background.
I always played guitar in different bands in Germany and France.
About seven years ago I had a project where we used guitars
and very basic electronics sounds for the first time together.
At that time I haven't got any computer yet. I've created all
this buzzing, scraping and crackling sounds with a mixing desk,
cables, and mini-disk players and so on.... It's been a quite
creative time and I have to confess that today I still use this
old sound material. Cause it would take me a long time to come
to the same results with today’s audio software. The
guitar was always an important part of my music. Even in times
when it was for the listeners hardly evident. I still compose
the melody parts on the guitar. Later on in the working process
I translate these melodies in something more digital. For the
most part my tools are simple sine wave. In the end after all
the digital processing I do the melodies becomes something very
different to the original idea. To have my own project today
is more the result of getting frustrated of playing with peoples
who doesn't share the same idea of music, life and friendship
than I do than a natural step when you make the transition from
playing guitar to using audio software. Which not means that
I refuse to make collaborations with other musicians. It's good
to get from time to time inspirations from others by working
with them. But it has to be clear that these musicians have
her own understanding of music in their own project. As much
as I like to find out the complementary part of a temporary
collaboration, I hate to find out where I have to make the compromise
of a creative process by working constantly with multiple ideas
in a band. This is of course my personal point of view regarding
the work in a band and does not mean that musicians are never
complementary and creative as a band. Anyway, so I don't think
that the band thing is my cup of tea anymore. Because therefore
I like to much the individual type of musician."
Melody lines are an essential part of your music. Even there
are playful tones within abstract textures. This combination
could be considered a complex process to be done. How could
you describe this juxtaposition of elements?
"Yes melody is important for me. After all I try to make
music :). Maybe something like a more contemporary music. Including
all the attributes of ‘popular’ music we know,
like harmonies, rhythmics, dynamics and so on. My work is based
a lot on ‘intentional accidents’. That means that
I provoke accidents by re- or misnaming an already existing
/ given name of a sound file. Or pushing the CPU capacity of
my computer to the limits which cause all kinds of software
crashes. Further in the processing I listen to all these accidents
and I take care if I can find something who fits together in
terms of harmonies / melodies. >From this moment on my work
becomes less anarchic, it becomes even scrupulously precise.
This is also the moment where I try to put all this ‘untamed’
sounds in frames and forms to arrange them to a musical track.
This is just one short example how I create a track. Sometimes
it can be more or less complicated. Also the actual working
process can be completely different to a previous in the same
project. The way to work depends on so many components.... Often
I pass a lot of time with details. Sometimes too long I guess.
In many cases I really would like to work a bit faster. Because
I think it's often better to keep a spontaneous idea of a found
tone combination than to getting sick of it by working too long
on its details or textures. But on the other hand that's where
the abstract textures in my melodies mostly come from. Another
reason for this abstract melodies / textures could be the fact
that I never used ‘formatted’ sounds as you get
them from usual hard or software synthesizer. All told you can
say the whole process to create music with random, accidental
or found sounds includes many difficulties where you have to
find perpetually solutions to not getting lost in a compromise
who destroys all the beauty of a complex composition."
Do you combine your musical work with other artistic activities?
"Not really. The only things I have done in this context
is that I made music for sound/art installations. Or I work
from time to time with a video artist. I've even worked with
a writer to set his poetry to music. I also combined my music
with my own simple photographs or likewise simple small video
sequences for several occasions. But I have to say that I don't
search for this kind of art media fusions. I just don't feel
that my music should be combined with another media. Because
my music is almost exclusively created as a whole, as something
who should stay for itself. It's different when I compose with
the intention that the music / sound is as a part of a whole
artwork. This fact should be pointed out in advance. I mean
that I don't like when different medias are just sticked together
for no apparent reasons.... just to make it ‘richer’
in a wrong way."
January 2005
