Flow
is a UK based artist.
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Interview:10 questions
> 1.
Question:
When did you start making music, what is/was your motivation to do it?
Answer:
hello Wilfried. It is good to be talking to you. i’ve been waiting to hear
from you, and it be exciting.
i first started making music when i was about 7 – when my mum bought me a
flute. that was not so much fun, though, all lessons and stuff. I tried a
bit of classical score writing, but never got too far with that.
i drifted into the psychedelic trance scene during university – it seemed a natural evolution from the industrial/goth music that i was playing in
student clubs. I guess that places my first real experiments with sound into those times at university, when I had decks and a mixer under my control.
i was inspired by the sheer complexity and beauty of the first hallucinogen
record I bought – ‘space pussy’. Pretty soon I was living in London,
spending as much as I could afford each week on new vinyl. I desperately
wanted to be able to make a real contribution, beyond just mixing other
people’s tunes.
i was very much a mathematical creature, seeing the world as fractals,
waves, etc, and i wanted to be able to use the beauty of mathematics in my
music. It also crossed over into a spiritual communication – i enjoyed
creating a space that let me feel such new things. That remains with me to
this day. I want to to create emotional and physical spaces with my tunes.
> 2.
Question:
Tell me something about your living environment and the musical education.
Answer:
I was brought up by an English teacher mum, and a dad who supported me well, trained from birth to be an academic success and always pushed to achieve. I was, and still am, socially inept. I have a younger Brother who plays the sax, after moving from the clarinet. My Dad plays the clarinet too.
I hated playing the flute, because I missed out on an acting part at the
school play – Joseph and his Technicoloured Dream coat, because I was made
to play the melodies. Mum put me into a couple of orchestras, and I
deliberately flunked the musical aptitude tests for choir. I had a go at the violin and piano, taking grade 4 with the violin. That all brings back
memories of basement lessons during school break.
Fast forward a fair few years, and i was living in a flat in London, having had a disastorous split with my long time girlfriend. I was working on a PhD not far up the road, and i had a great space for myself. i was alone, but
socialising, still raving, and practising yoga and meditation. Music was my
life by then. I was comfortable and safe, and extremely limited in budget.
It took me 3 or 4 months to afford to get a second hand sound card.
i’ve been educated with the english graded system for flute, and i’ve
studied wave physics, psychophysics and the jbl sound engineering manual.
> 3.
Question:
Is making music your profession? What is the context in which you practice music nowadays?
Answer:
No. I’m a multi/meta media artist, working on producing canvases at the
moment. Previously I’ve been a web designer, a network engineer, a DJ, a
neuroscientist, party crew, a food scientist and a sweet factory worker.
Working with music, or rather the energies in music is part of my skill set, and i certainly use it within my work.
i play, rather than practice, whenever, where ever. My friend has a
didgeredoo that i play on, i messa round on my computer, and i bang things. Currently, i’m learning the parameters of my voice.
> 4.
Question:
How do you compose or create music or sound? Have you certain principles, use certain styles etc?
Answer:
for my first album, i used very consciouly created random oscillators, mixed in with a lot of cubase controlled midi sinewaves (which i built using the outputs of generator), which played with the parameters of ring filters, flangers, delay and chorus. I mixed in direct tone generation with samples, made through wave addition, and modulation through Vaz, the ews effects and built ins in cooledit and soundforge. An alien race from just across the way popped by and helped.
the last track i made, i started with a recorded sample, then played with it in soundforge to find suitable loops, messed with it in the time dimension to shape them, then sequenced it up in ableton live and further mauled it. I was aiming for deep sacral and solar plexus relaxation.
my guiding measure is always feeling. i’m not much into beats, because i
can’t figure out how to make them work!
the track i’m currently working on is using ableton live again, plus samples of samples form previous work, plus vocals read by a friend. there’s a lot of chorus, flange, delay, repeats, noise gates etc. and i mess with time again. Its throwing up problems of it own, not least of which is the absence of a keyboard or sampler in my equipment.
> 5.
Question:
Tell me something about the instruments, technical equipment or tools you use?
Answer:
see above. whatever i’ve got… which is very basic.
Vital software has been NI’s generator, Soundforge, Steinberg’s Cubase,
Ableton Live, Vaz and that wave addition freeware that I’ve lost. The EWS
built-ins were special, too.
> 6.
Question:
What are the chances of New Media for the music production in general and you personally?
Answer:
i don’t understand the question.
> 7.
Question:
How about producing and financing your musical productions?
Answer:
again, i don’t understand.
> 8.
Question:
Do you work individually as a musician/soundartist or in a group or collaborative?
Answer:
on my own so far, with help from aliens and a couple of friends to provide
samples. I’m leaning more towards collaborative work these days.
> 9.
Question:
Is there any group, composer, style or movement which has a lasting influence on making music?
Answer:
i’d imagine that all the sounds that we are exposed to throughout life will influence us. certainly the stuff that we spend a lot of time with will form a base of some sorts. Peer group pressure must have a lot to answer for. For me, i fell in love not with a particular sound, but with the feelings it evoked, and that’s what i aim for in my production. i think that is independant of any particular style.
Certainly the 80’s soul, goth, industrial, techno, psychedelic, hardcore and hardhouse scenes influenced me a lot.
> 10.
Question:
What are your future plans or dreams as a soundartist or musician?
Answer:
a big multimedia exhibition with other artists, backed by the government,
taking over a major art gallery or three, presenting a holistic immerive
environment that can take visitors deep into a mysterious but beautiful new world. All linked in with ongoing lightworker efforts to transform the world prior to the 2012 event.
> List some links & resources
I’ve a blog at http://flow.special-solutions.net
I’ve artworks online at http://asteroth.tk
I’ve music online at http://flowinsounds.dmusic.com
Due to space limitations, the mp3 files are not very high quality, so I’d
recommend finding the lossless .wma versions on a torrent search.
There are also torrents about for the aving.it/records discography, free to download.