by Fred
You have a headache and a sour stomach from the New Years Eve party. You wake up later than usual: right at dawn this time. You brew a searingly hot cup of coffee and stand outside for a time, watching the slow spill of maroon onto the horizon. It is cold, but you aren’t terribly uncomfortable. Straight out of a motion picture about nostalgia and soldiering on, you shed a single, unexpected tear. The postmodern joke about pollution and sunrises does not once occur to you. It is beautiful.
You decide to spend some time blogging after all, even though your instincts cannot stand the idea. The numbers game has been brutal lately: some 100 RSS feed headlines yield a single post. Some 10 posts come and go until you come across a real find. And most finds are yesterday’s news: tracks from two years ago, three, sometimes five.
And none of them ever shift the ground under your feet.
All this is to say that the music of Carlos Suárez shifted the ground under my feet. On New Years Day, no less, after one of the most beautiful sunrises I’ve ever seen. I contacted him in late February for an interview and we started communicating in earnest in early March. His English far exceeds my Spanish, but we nevertheless had a often-challenging, always-enlightening conversation over the next few weeks. Read more below the fold:
The Muse In Music: Electro-acoustic is a relatively obscure term here in the U.S., and the more we look into that art form, the more we are convinced that it does not describe your work very well. Please discuss what the term electro-acoustic means to you.
Carlos Suárez: It is simple, I use electronic sounds and execute acoustic instruments in concert. But I do not follow any academic style. Actually, my sonorous work might be called eclectic music. I listen to anything from Gregorian chants to Sunn o))). At Myspace you can see these varied influences.
TMIM: I’m listening to Sunn o))) right now. Frankly I thought it was a typo at first, but I found them right away. It is pretty slow, droning, and dark material. And I can’t imagine how AC/DC appeals to you in any way. Can you explain?
CS: From my perspective AC/DC has some sonorous aspects; I do not listen to all of their LPs. I like “Back in Black,” in this track the dialogs between the instruments are amazing. I’m not interested so much in the melody and harmony but in the sonorous blocks that they create by grouping several instruments together into a rhythm…. Also I am interested in the expressiveness of popular music. And though my music does not sound like Public Enemy, it probably contains something of this expressiveness.
TMIM: To what sort of music did your parents expose you when you were growing up?
CS: I was born in Spain but my parents emigrated to Venezuela, so the first music to which I listened was Afrocaribean music.
TMIM: What was your first musical instrument?
CS: Afrovenezuelan drums.
TMIM: How are these drums constructed? I mean physically: what materials, what methods, etc?
CS: The construction of the drums changes dramatically from one city to another because slaves brought them from different parts of Africa. Some drums are played with hand strikes while other are struck with sticks. With these drums they are able to create these complex and rhythmic musical structures.
TMIM: How did your current sound evolve?
CS: I travelled a great deal, recording soundscapes and ethnomusic; these are the principal influences of my music. But also I studied at the Simón Bolívar Conservatory of Music: composition and electro-acoustic.
TMIM: Where did you travel?
CS: I travelled extensively along the coasts of Venezuela, studying percussion rhythms, and through the Amazonian jungle, studying the music of the Indian cultures. Also I travelled to Cuba, Colombia, Brazil and Mexico.
TMIM: Let’s discuss some individual tracks. “Oraculo de la Guerra” sounds as much like an audio memoir as it does a composition. Is this one of your more personal works? What are some of your other more personal works, and why?
CS: The “Oráculo de la Guerra” is a pessimistic interpretation of the world. When I write songs they are personal at the time of writing but become less personal as time goes by. Circumstances around us are continually changing, so identification with a song changes as well.
For example now I am working with the voices of four poets: Artaud, Borges, Ferreiro and Bukowsky. This work is different from the previous ones.
But yes, some pieces are especially attractive for me, for example: “invocación”, “el gran engaño” or “memento homo”.
TMIM: By that we assume you mean that you are working with audio recordings of their readings, correct?
CS: Yes, they are pieces constructed from historical recordings of the voices of these poets.
TMIM: I always thought that Bukowski’s work was a bit boorish. Believe me, I understand — and agree — that there is beauty to be found in the profane, but in the case of Bukowski I just can’t get there from here. Again, can you explain the appeal?
CS: Bukowski’s work is very strong. I like his critical attitude with society and politics. Certainly he is coarse, but remember that it is in darkness where the colors of poetry shine.
TMIM: “Desarraigamento” has a muted carnival, even gypsy feel. This is unfamiliar terrain, so of course we love it. The listener hears a similar motif in “O discurso de diversidade,” “Revelacion,” and others. Please discuss the genesis for this sound.
CS: You are very perceptive. Yes “Desarraigamento” has a gypsy feel. It is the feeling of the emigrant who leaves his country. In this track the sound is bad, but what matters is the feeling, which the piece transmits. “Revelation” is similar, the sounds of saxophones are very bad, but I believe that they are pieces written to be played by acoustic musicians.
“O discurso de diversidade,” This is more sophisticated, done with sounds on the verge of extinction in Galicia: mills, basket-makers, blacksmiths, bell-founders, etc.
TMIM: Are you saying that the production quality for “Desarraigamento” and “Revelacion” are intentionally bad? Or that you are unhappy with it in retrospect?
CS: Not intentionally bad, but irrespective of the quality of certain sounds, since these are pieces that will sound better when they can be recorded with acoustic musicians.
TMIM: “Sic transit gloria mundi” sounds very industrial, in an almost literal sense. Do you draw inspiration from the industrial ensembles of the previous generation?
CS: Yes, you are a fortune-teller. In Venezuela I formed an ensemble of industrial percussion. It was very strong, the instruments were tailing factories. Now I am going to recapture this idea for new performances.
TMIM: When was the industrial percussion group active? Are there any recordings of those sessions?
CS: Lamentably I do not have recordings of this ensemble, and we have not played together since 1991. But now I am going to recapture this idea, as if it were a trio. I will play one of the drum beats live, and record the other two.
TMIM: “A morte como fronteira” has passages that are both organic and electronic at the same time. Is this a strictly aesthetic statement? Why do we get the idea that you are making a larger philosophical point?
CS: It is a sonorous eclectic offering. For many years I was working with analog synthesizers (ARP 2600 and 2500) and I have many sounds of this type…. But now I work more with acoustic sounds that I record or download from the web.
TMIM: After listening to hours of pieces like “Memento Homo,” “Cuatro danzas macabras” is a bit of a surprise. Would you discuss the genesis of that piece?
CS: “Cuatro danzas macabras” and “reflexión extática” are old acoustic works for piano that I wanted to publish. I wrote for acoustic instruments for awhile, but I understood that with the samplers and computers that I could express myself better, and that I should leave behind the musical writing.
On the other hand, I am still interested in live concerts, and writing scores for others to perform.
TMIM: It must take you weeks to finish these tracks, even a demo version. What are some of the longer incubation periods for your compositions?
CS: This one is one of my big problems, how long it takes to finish a work. With some I have taken three months. It is a great deal of work: first I make a catalogue of 2,000 sounds, later I reject 1,000, and finally 500. During this time I familiarize myself with the sounds, later the processing (EQ, Compression, Distortion) and finally I compose the piece.
TMIM: What is it like to work on an LP for fifteen years? What kind of changes does it undergo during so much time?
CS: These LPs are not selections of tracks composed during those years. Back then I spent a lot of time composing and doing concerts. It was in 2007 when I began to publish my work.
TMIM: How does one of your compositions come into being? Meaning what specific method or methods do you employ, rendering a grouping of disparate field recordings into a single, cohesive musical piece?
CS: To give cohesion to different field recordings I frequently use the pitch. I give to every sound a precise final touch. For example, if I use the sound of an insect, since I touch it in the keyboard as if it was an instrument, not as an insect. Then I create a melody of an insect that is cohesive with the rest of sounds.
TMIM: We are drawn to the following passage on your Myspace: “the destruction of cultural and biological diversity.” The casual reader will be familiar with the challenges faced by biological diversity, but not necessarily with those faced by cultural diversity. What are some of your specific concerns on the subject of cultural diversity?
CS: Cultural diversity suffers a process of destruction accelerated by the globalization, politics, and the dogma of power. I verified this often in my investigative trips: Often when I returned to the Amazonas I did not find the music that I once had because the maestros had died, and the young men were not interested in learning. In other cases the music loses its force little by little, its sonorous impact having become impoverished. For example, in Afrovenezuelan music, the difficult rhythms are not played anymore, and all this rhythmic richness disappears.
On one occasion, travelling to the Amazonas, I asked an Indian musician, “And your flute?” He told me, “I burned it because now I have radio.”
TMIM: I’m almost too afraid to ask. What, pray tell, did you find Amazon musicians listening to on the radio?
CS: They were listening to Colombian music (cumbia, vallenato): junk food music.
TMIM: Are there any specific experiences in the field of ethnomusicology that you would like to recount here?
CS: They are a lot of experiences, you can find some in the link that I sent you. But it is difficult to express with words what I felt in these trips. I remember that when I tried the hallucinogens of the Indian culture Piaroa, I heard a few sounds in the jungle, exacto. I try to reconstruct these sonorous perceptions in my present work.
TMIM: Musically speaking, what are your plans for the immediate future?
CS: To finish the tracks with poets’ voices and to begin with the industrial percussion.
TMIM: And do you have any plans on playing live here in the U.S.?
CS: In the summer I am going to publish a CD with Experimedia in US. And I think that later I will try to perform some concerts. I would very much like to release the industrial percussion project in the U.S.
TMIM: Do you create your own cover art?
CS: Yes, some are old drawings. Others are Petroglyphs to which I added color.
TMIM: If you could give one piece of advice to an aspiring musician, what would it be?
CS: “Nosce te ipsum.” Know yourself. And after that comes the most difficult part, to ensure that the sound is a reflex of this knowledge and not of the orders of power.
TMIM: This question practically answers itself, but is that why you promote your music through netlabels?
CS: Yes, I think that the whole of human creation should be part of the creative commons….. Since I have been promoting my work through netlabels, I have performed in many concerts. On the other hand any person can unload my music from the web.
TMIM: So how exactly does music generate revenue for the creator and the performer, when they are giving it away for free? I only ask this because the entire industry — rock, pop, jazz, experimental, old recordings, new ones — are all headed in that direction.
CS: Free download means that great people are going to listen to your work; I also want to sell my CD, since I know that the collectors like the objects, but the one who could not buy them, always will be able to unload them from the web for free. This is my philosophy.
TMIM: Last: any theories on why people like you and I are drawn to dissonant music?
CS: I think that the current world is dissonant: some prefer living in ignorance and making cloying music, or junk food music, but not if you understand this. I try to express what I feel of reality. I try to say that I do not agree with what happens around me.
Remember that music is a reflex of what we are: when you listen to a track you listen to the spirit of the one who created it.
