why is there a category "school, college, GREEK"?????? myspace is just bizarre sometimes.
ANYWAY... as i may have mentioned before, i was recently interviewed by a PhD student for his thesis on "Noise Musick as Activism", which has me excited - i'd so much rather be a part of academic study than the Top 40 pop charts! here's a link:
GRIST INTERVIEW FOR PHD...and here's the text verbatim, for those of you for whom clicking on a link is just too much bother.
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1. Do you see your art form as being radically different from other forms of art or music?
No. It has similarities with all sorts of genred musickal forms –
“dark ambient”, “noise”, “drone”, regular “ambient”, “psychedelic”,
“doom metal”, “black ambient”, etc. I think the only thing I am doing
that might be considered “radically different” is that I am happy to
combine those ‘genres’, and create pieces that are kinda black metal,
kinda folk, kinda free jazz, kinda noise, but (therefore) not really
any of them. I’ve used sources as diverse as Khanate, Missy Higgins,
flute-based Reiki ‘relaxation’ CDs, a ship’s horn from a sound effects
CD, Last Exit, Aphex Twin, Lucas Darklord – in fact, if I ever find
myself thinking “ooh, I can’t use THAT”, I immediately resolve myself
to use it SOMEHOW (see Missy Higgins).
2a. Do you consider that your works and practice are a form of activism?
I hadn’t… No more so than anyone who is trying to make musick they
haven’t heard yet. I mean, the very act of trying not to sound like
anyone else could be seen as a form of cultural activism. But it’s not
like I have any ‘issues’ I’m trying to make people ‘think’ about. I
just want to make the antithesis of bite-sized pop musick – long,
minimalist, noisy, slowly evolving, sculptural journeys into subjective
interpreatation. Actually, now I think of it in those terms, I guess
it’s actually very much a case of activism – deliberately making musick
that goes so against the grain of popularity. It’s even all in MONO
for fuck’s sake. If that’s not activism, what is?
2b. Are you making any activist or political statement with your work, or by making your work?
When I started writing this answer, I didn’t think so. But now
you’ve convinced me. YES. Yes I am. Just by making musick that is
GUARANTEED not to be ‘popular’, I’m ‘fighting back’ – which is a form
of activism. By entirely improvising, I’m protesting the
minutely-manufactured economic-pop that makes up 96% of the cultural
memespace. By improvising ritualistic soundscapes with other people’s
CDs run through a bunch of guitar pedals, I’m challenging the notions
of “artist” and “art”, of “creator” and “created”, and of ownership.
But beneath all that, I like to think that I might INSPIRE – and this
is the thing beneath all my musickal projects, ever since I was still
in high school – I might INSPIRE others to do the same. It’s that
‘DIY’ punk ethos thing. Because, really, I am as talentless as the
next person – EVERYONE who has the same equipment can do what I’m
doing. The musick I am making is EVERYONE’S – I just happen to be the
conduit. Am I making myself clear?
3. You produce music or sound art that can be confronting,
challenging or even disturbing. Why do you choose to communicate in
such a way? Are you intentionally communicating at all?
I don’t really think of it as any of those things! A review was
written up of one of my live rituals in the local musick streetpress,
and it referred to me as a ‘noise band’. This was the first I’d ever
thought of what I do as ‘noise’ – and now this interview. I still
don’t really think of it as difficult, or annoying, or confronting, or
any of those words. What I try to do with Grist is create drawn-out
immersive environments, slow, minimalist, something that changes
space/time. Like watching a sunset or the tides coming in, or
something – something where, at any given moment, not much is
necessarily happening, but over 20 -30 minutes, a lot has actually
happened. When I think of ‘noise’, I tend to think of abrasive,
jarring, sounds – suddenness and non-repeatability, I guess. Sure, I
use massive walls of distortion, but they rarely come out of nowhere –
they creep slowly. I use disturbing sound effects, but they’re in the
context of a dream, or a movie, or some sort of environment – I don’t
use them to shock or scare or confront, but to soothe, and lull, and
engage. I’m “intentionally communicating”, as you put it, but not
confrontation or disturbingness – I’m more interested in engagement,
transportation, immersement, hypnosis, a sense of ritual, otherness. I
want to open up people’s third ears.
4. For you, is there a purpose for making people feel
uncomfortable or disturbed in the context of a noise music performance,
if so, what is the purpose?
I don’t really think I am making people uncomfortable or disturbed.
I think the people who will actually stick around to hear what I do are
already people who like that kinda thing (distortion, loudness, unusual
experiences, exploration, psychedelics, etc) – the people that are
disturbed or uncomfortable tend to go buy a drink or leave the venue.
But I do try to PUSH things – because without real extremity, the kind
of musick I am making has no power. Medium volumes, for instance, are
for ‘entertainment’, not for ‘immersion’. Immersion happens when
something is so loud you can FEEL it better than you can HEAR it – or
when the volume gets so quiet you can hear people breathing. These
kinds of extremites are always places I try to visit. One recent
ritual I conducted featured about a minute and a half of nothing but a
goat bleating. I heard someone laugh in the audience around then – it
was just not what anyone was expecting to see at an inner-city pub on a
Monday night. Not so much “uncomfortable” or “disturbed”, as
“presented with the visceral experiences of extremity”. Like I said,
people who will be genuinely disturbed by this kind of sound will never
actually stick around to hear it.
5. Do you believe that any particular aspect of your practice
and performance makes your art more or less accessible to an audience?
I think I’ve touched on these kinds of issues in my answers to other
questions. Pop music is short, carefully-constructed, with several
recognisable sections, hooks, catchy choruses, heavily-processed
vocalisations, demographically-targeted lyrics, extravagant live-shows,
and enormous amounts of marketing. What I make is long, improvised,
flowing, generally minimalist soundscapes, with no lyrics or words or
explicit meaning, no thought for audiences, no advertising, barely any
gigs (and when I perform, it’s just me sitting there on the ground with
my pedals), and is generally given away for free. So it is
automatically inaccessible to a mainstream audience, as they will never
hear of me, and, if they somehow accidentally stumble upon my work,
odds are they will tune out pretty quickly. So, to answer the
question, pretty much ALL aspects of my practice and performance make
it inaccessible – to a MAINSTREAM audience. However, as mentioned
before, I don’t think any noise-artists are trying to appeal to a
mainstream audience (not saying I am a noise-artist, by the way). So
the question itself might be a misleading one – treating all audiences
as though it’s just one big homogenous ‘audience’. Not all audiences
are the same.
BUT – one of my more mainstream sisters-in-law heard some of my
stuff, and she said ‘you should make soundtracks for horror movies’ –
so she DID actually ‘get it’, and placed it in exactly the right
context (immersive, transportative soundscapes). So I wonder if I’m
actually writing off a whole lot of people as being ‘not able to get
it’, when actually they are more aware and able to “access” a lot more
than we think. After all, any horror movie, with the visuals taken
away, is very much an extended, immersive piece of noise-musick.
I think I’ve barely answered this one. Or have I?
6. Where do you expect an audience’s attention would be focused whilst engaged with your performance?
On the performance, ideally. On the slow ebb and flow of sounds.
Somewhere off in their own shamanic world. In the the subjective
realms of their own consciousnesses conjured up by the visually-empty
soundscapes around them.
7. Are you attempting to communicate specific ideas or feelings
to an audience via your performance? If so, do you have regular
underlying themes? (Please describe)
My main underlying themes are of the ritual, the unconscious, the
unseen. I want to create a sound-field in which they can explore their
own abysses. So much “music” distracts and engages people in a
flippant superficial way – the sonic equivalent of a spoonful of Wizz
Fizz. I try to create spaces where it’s a bit ‘deeper’ – where a lot
is not clear or immediately apparent, where someone can ‘journey’ into
the ‘sacred’. It’s hard to describe, because I don’t necessarily mean
‘sacred’ in the sense of spiritual or supernatural – more in the sense
of ‘dedicated’ or ‘focused’ ‘energies’ (all such weighted words).
‘Sacred’ in sense that I’m trying to create an atmosphere that
shouldn’t be interrupted – an atmosphere that should be ‘left alone’,
that should be ‘respected’ as a ‘place’ to ‘be’ ‘in’. I call my pieces
‘rituals’. That’s an indication of what I’m trying to communicate.
And, like all shamanic practices, there needs to be an element of
unpredictability, or discomfort, or extremity – otherwise, it’s just a
bit of frivolous “music” (note the lack of ‘k’).
8. When performing for an audience, do you feel that your
physical performance is as important in communicating with the audience
as the music you are performing?
Not really. I’m just some guy sitting on the floor twiddling knobs
and fiddling with CDs. I had dreams of performing Grist in a black
hooded cape the size of the entire stage, covered in ravens’ feathers,
with antlers on. But that would kind of turn the focus onto the dude
on stage in feathers and antlers, and not on the SOUNDS MADE. So I
scrapped that idea. Now, I’m just a boring middle-aged dad playing
with noises onstage – which, hopefully, helps the audience turn
inward. Ideally, people shut their eyes while I’m playing.
9. Does the audience’s reception have an affect on your creative process?
In some ways, totally. One of my recent live rituals ended with me
just fading the entire output down, down, down, until it was barely
perceptible – and I could hear the audience LISTENING, ABSORBED, RAPT.
That touched me ENORMOUSLY. When I feel someone else is ‘getting it’,
it inspires me to make more, I get swept up with the enthusiasm.
Although the reverse doesn’t seem to be true – when people hate it, or
are ambivalent, or whatever, I just don’t care. Because I make the
musick primarily for myself, when others don’t get it or whatever, it
doesn’t seem to make much difference – the musick’s already made, so
there’s no noticable change – but when people are positive, I feel that
positivity really deeply. But in a live environment, I really can’t
tell whether people are enjoying it or not – I’m immersed in the sounds
and process, and generally the volume is too loud to tell if they’re
listening or not. And I have no idea if my internet releases are
enjoyed or not, unless someone specifically tells me – so the audience
really doesn’t have much of a role in my creative process, other than
occasional inspiration.
10. Is the audience even a consideration for you when you create or perform an audio work?
Right, well, answered that one ahead of time didn’t I. No, not a consideration.
11. How successfully do you think your activist works communicate your message to an audience?
Hmmm. I think it’d be a pretty good average, but for skewed reasons
I explained earlier. That is: I think my rituals CAN and DO create a
‘sacred space’ for people to ‘explore their personal abysses’ within,
but that audience is already the kind of people who probably do that
kinda shit anyway. I don’t think I’m communicating my message to
anyone who isn’t already in that kind of mindset anyway – so, as
activism, I think it’s pretty ineffective. But I’m not really making
my musick for others, so activism isn’t my primary GOAL. As for the
‘inspiration’ angle of what I do – I like to think that I might inspire
SOME people to get up there with a buncha non-instruments and DIY, but
I have no real evidence for this actually happening. But I like to
think it is.
12. Is there a specific context in which your compositions are best listened to?
In darkness, undisturbed, at a decent volume, with eyes closed, with
a head full of entheogens. Oh, at midnight. In a graveyard. Um,
dressed as Bela Lugosi.
13. Which aspects of your music or performance do you think best carry your intentions to an audience?
Hmmm. I think it’s a package deal. The length, breadth, and volume
of what I do, as well as the sounds used therein – the whole thing
creates a field. If it’s too short, it won’t have the same effect. If
it’s too quiet or too loud, it fails. If it’s too predictable, it
fails. If it’s something you’ve already heard before, it fails. It’s
got to be a combination of all the right kinda things done in the right
kinda way – if I HAVEN’T created the right kind of shamanic
dream-field, then I haven’t carried my intentions to an audience at
all. Then again, a live performance is a tango – and it takes two to
carry that off. So if a show fails, it’s not necessarily that I’ve
failed – it could be that the audience has failed. And really, I’m
more surprised when everyone is carried along with my self-indulgent
ramblings than when I look up and everyone’s gone. Really, my kind of
musick isn’t very popular at pubs!
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