Before heading out to the west coast to spend the summer WOOFing SP Koeller and Toby Aronson sat down with AE for a morning coffee and talked about Inspiration, admiration, composition, discordance “Art Porno” and their favorite colors.
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AE: From where do you derive your inspiration?
Sara-Paule, I get my inspiration from the actual instruments I’m using – I wouldn’t use a double reed instrument for a plucking sound, or a guitar for a drone,
AE: But you can use guitars for drones, correct?
Sp: Toby does -
Toby: Yeah, well – I use a bow – I think what Sarapaule’s saying is that her inspiration is the natural sound of an instrument, like SP’s piece in the stairwell, is about the natural sound produced by shakers, bass drums, and cymbals.
SP: I think, how does this instrument sound best, what is the natural sound of this – and with shakers and bass drums, I wanted to create a piece where they could be allowed to completely resonate and surround you.
Toby: What I like about Sara’s piece [with shakers / bass drums] is that they’re usually a small part of an orchestra, but here they’re allowed to exist on their own, and be appreciated.
SP: Like with the piano piece, I could have written a more complicated piece – first of all, I wouldn’t be able to play it, because i’m a terrible piano player [laughs] – but it’s so simple, you listen to the piano, you never realize how much it resonates, how long the decay lasts -
Toby: You know your ears have thousands more neuro-connections than you eyes? There is way more complexity to how we hear than see – when you close your eyes, and listen – it’s not like a movie frame, or scene, it’s this completely three dimensional field, not that I prefer one to the other [laughs] but I think vision can be more direct where as sound is so much more abstract, subtle. That it has the ability to create such emotions, just by hearing a sound…
AE: What do you think about the sounds you hear, just when you walk out your door in the morning?
SP: There are a lot of times when I’m just at home with the windows open and listening. There was a long time when I wasn’t listening to much “music” and I was much more interested in just listening to the subtle sounds from outside – it was even nicer in the winter, because their was even less going on. I think that environmental soundscapes are facilitating, there is just so much detail -
AE: The level of detail in the sound is infinitely complex-
SP: exactly, and you can choose how closely or generally you want to listen. If you wanna pick something out, or listen to it as a whole… the world is infinitely complex, and i’m way into it.
[Bob Dylan comes on over the radio... Toby and SP talk a bit about how great the song is.]
SP: It’s kind of visual in a way – how you can direct your ears, like you direct your eyes – and focus on one little sound out of it all.
Toby: Hearing has such a dual quality to it – there’s sort of passive hearing and then directed hearing, if you’re not deaf than you have to hear all the time – and I think that exploring that voluntary part of listening is to sound, and composing for both aspects, could be considered kind of pretentious and elitist. But I’d like to make music that could be listened on both levels -
SP: I like the idea of making music that brings the parts of the sound that’s in the back to the foreground, that, that has multiple levels, and while it’s music for deep listening, you can also listen to it lightly and get the full experience…
[In the background Dylan sings “I was thinking bout diamonds...”]
AE: Good pop music has that quality – instantly enjoyable, but when you listen in headphones or over time…
SP: Yeah – I remember going back and listening to Aqualung after I got the 33 1/3 book on the album. And listening to it again I remember thinking, “oh my god this album is a fucking work of art….”
Toby: I have a lot of respect for people like that – There’s always the cats that go along with the times and then there’s the ones like Dylan and the Band living out in the woods dressing like their from the civil war, meanwhile everyone else is all “marshmallow sunshine”. [pause] I personally have my own aesthetic when I perform, with what I perform – and I try to have a more positive outlook, stay away from too much negativity you know – and I guess someone might call me a stupid piece of shit hippy but whatever man, we all create our worlds – I want mine to be more positive.
SP: That’s the total joy of living in the world we do – where we have so many options and chances to create our world – I mean, it’s all fantasy so can either choose one or make one or have one chosen for you. We can choose who we are, how we are, how we want to dress, we can find people that want to live in this fantasy world with us! [laughs]
Toby: Totally – and I want to create joyous music to bring people together, I want to put as much positivity out there as I can. I think there’s a lot of negativity out there in the music world, and not that anything wrong with that, or that their shouldn’t be that. There’s a whole spectrum of feelings, it’s a messed up world – I don’t deny it.– but for me, I want people to walk away and feel optimistic.
AE: WHO rather than what, inspires you – composers, writers, film makers etc?
SP: Akira Kurosawa – Charlemagne Palestine, James Tenney and Pauline Oliveros – Charlemagne Palestine, wow. He ws a really interesting figure he had this obsession with stuffed animals – he created these giant bear kings with seven heads and he played piano and sang and when he’d play he’d put all of his stuffed animals in the piano – I dedicated my first two piano peaces [in noon music] to him – he just let the piano vibrate on its own, and he would focus on the overtones, these constantly evolving changing, repetitious overtones. It would put him in a trance state and he’d do it for hours – I mean, I only did it for five minutes, but if I had the strength… [laughs] I wish I could do it longer. He would play until his hands bled.
Toby: He wrote a piece that actually said, “Bang on top of piano until hands bleed”
SP: He would get wasted before he performed that one. [laughs]
AE: I bet that helped.
SP: James Tenney was more of an academic composer / music theorist, he starred in this film called “Fuses” by, Carolee Schneeman, which was this “Art Porno” and you get to see his Schlong [laughs]
Toby: Yeah, if anyone wants to see James Tenney’s peenee…
[laughs]
Toby: he was great – he kind of went against the grain at the time and said music shouldn’t be about all this complicated chromatic bullshit, it should be about sound and working towards a new form of listening… he wrote this piece that was basically just a drum-roll going from quiet to loud, and that was basically away to hear and instrument, naturally, but like it’s never been heard before.
SP: His big thing was like, up until now – with western music, with tone and pitch, what key your in, how they relate to other keys, what chord progression – that’s been the basis of all the music that’s been written, but what about writing about music that’s about changes in texture, changes in timbre, changes in pitch…
Toby: it’s hard to say where it all started – John Cage was a big one.
SP: There’s been a lot of baby steps along the way – lots of people through the years that helped build up to those big names, like [Eric] Satie.
Toby: Like when Debussy heard the Gamelan band.
SP: Not to mention the world wars themselves, helped to shatter the way people listened to music and sound, and their traditions. I think it inspired people to write really minimalist pieces, cause the world felt so desolate.
AE: could you say that much of our modern dissonant, atonal music, Noise, industrial, were born out of the 20th centuries mechanized wars, from the destruction, or say modern minimalism from the silence after the fact?
SP: Totally – serialism, 12 tone, atonal things like that – seemed to develop alot after WW2 – it was afterwords with the Germans; they started blossoming with atonal music.
Toby: It’s just amazing to think about how like – art and music really do reflect the times even if the people that are making it aren’t seemingly conscious of it.
AE: The power of the unconscious?
Toby: It’s amazing.
SP: For instance, experiential music – versus music that is dictated to you – music that you get inside of, music that you experience – is a movement that is going on now, modern environmentalism is helping people get into the the environment as music.
AE: Reminds me of an NPR story about a man that “tunes” household appliances, so that they produce tonally harmonic drones, instead of dissonance.
SP: Cool…
[friends approach the table, apparently they left a tomato at the radio bean the night previous]
Toby: that’s an interesting – there’s that balance, someone like cage, would say – all sound is equal, nothing is better or worse than anything else.
SP: Yeah, i disagree with John Cage – just because of the simple mathematics of it – you take a tone, well – say consonant tones, sound consonant because they’re mathematically simple, and that’s a specific sound. It’s easier for your ear to process.
AE: Like a prime number or math without a remainder?
SP: I always prefer mathematically consonant sounds over dissonance.
Toby: the thing about that is – i do enjoy alot of Noise music – its loud and “hard to listen to” – but i don’t see noise music as an invasion, when i listen i don’t feel particularly “assaulted” by sound – though i think some people feel that way, artists and listeners alike.
SP: I don’t associate dissonance with negativity – it’s just just more “difficult”
Toby: I agree.
AE: Interesting – I think something i like about being human is our ability to enjoy music on different levels, on a basic visceral level, on a emotional level, an academic, or aesthetic level – same applies to film or anything else… noise, or violence, say in a film i can appreciate murder and chaos on a visceral level, or maybe it’s an intellectual level, maybe it’s more animal – the same thing with noise, it may not be pretty but it resonates with something in me.
Toby: It’s an interesting world – and it’s interesting to wonder why people make “noise” or music that is discordant and dissonant – and how we’re supposed to or how we do, react to it – if we’re supposed to like it or not, if you do like it does it mean you “like” negativity or violence? I don’t know… But personally i don’t see noise as violent, i just think of it as some really cool sounds.
SP: But i think it is [violent] for alot of the people that make the music – there not doing it for just “sound” they’re doing it to invade your head-space with really loud music – they’re doing it to be aggressive and be offensive…
Toby: There is an aspect to that culture that bugs me a bit – i mean, we’ve played alot of shows with these folks and hung out and i love the fact that they’re doing something outside of the norm, but there’s definitely alot of misogyny, male dominated… just very kind of weird things that go on in that scene that trouble me… but at the same time, there’s some great things that come out of the scene, so it’s a double edged sword i guess.
AE: That’s a pretty complex issue right there.
Toby: yeah it is.
AE: That the violence in the music is cathartic and can be a safe outlet…
SP: It also can feel really good to be behind such a large powerhouse – it feels like you’re riding a giant chariot!
Toby: Me and SP talk about it alot – I don’t think we are that into alot of violent content in music, but i’m not gonna tell someone that they’re wrong to do that, but for me i have a hard time with it, in media in music, in everything, not that i deny it’s existence in the world.
AE: Ok, one more question, What are your favorite colors?
SP: Oh man, that’s a hard one… “Golden” well ok, red green and gold.
Toby: Dark brown, dark green, and like bright yellow.
AE: You both picked similar colors.
SP: Toby let me guess – you picked Brown for the earth, green, the most important color, for life? and gold for the sun – red for life?
Toby: Green is the color of life i guess –
SP: Even us with our “red” have “green” to thank;
Toby: What’s your favorite color man?
AE: Hunter green. burnt orange.
SP: You know – i have way more favorite colors now than i used too… i wonder what that means?
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SP’s latest release “Noon Music” can be downloaded for free from the Label Section.
Given the somewhat recent resuscitation of and obsession with krautrock music, it’s become easy to detect the inspiration this cosmic German movement has been for countless artists. It’s also interesting to observe the deconstruction of a particular genre that inevitably occurs with the passage of time. Whether it’s Art Brut’s update on the bratty punk aesthetic, or Nobukazu Takemura’s mind-bending reconstitution of minimalist composition, influences are constantly being folded into the mix in (we hope) new and surprising ways. 
This weeks AE is a special tribute to one of our all-time favorite music makers, Stereolab – whether they’re kraut-rocking, bossanova-ing, or french-popping they’ve always brought their A-games and a sense of playful experimentation and dedication.
K-Stars 9) Allures 10) Margerine Rock 11)Nihilist Assault Group [parts 1-3] 12) Escape Pod (from the world of men) 13) The Black Arts 14) …Sudden Stars 15) Steel drum march of the metal men [with Nurse with Wound] 16) Animal or Vegitable 17) Fench Disko 18) Simple Headphone Mind [with Nurse with Wound] 19) Les Bons Bons Des Raisons 20) Narco Martenot
