ARTISTS INTERVIEWING ARTISTS.
#6: Nat Baldwin & Lea Bertucci
Bassist Nat Baldwin and reedist/composer/sound manipulator Lea Bertucci discuss their work, audience expectation, and the potential inherent politics of experimental music - in this the 7th iteration of Documented Dialogues - via G-Chat.
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LEA BERTUCCI:
So when you sent me your latest release, AUTONOMIA I: Body Without Organs, I found myself quite surprised. It seems to be a real departure from your previous work which was more singer-songwriter based. What made you move in a more abstract direction?
NAT BALDWIN:
i love surprising people. my first love has always been the abstract sonic world this new music occupies. before i made songs that's where i began. i have an album from 2003 called Solo Contrabass that Jess Pavone released on her old label Peacock. i was studying with Anthony Braxton and immersed in the Wesleyan experimental music scene at the time (snuck in as a non-student). i usually went to bed listening to Polwechsel or Kevin Drumm or Morton Feldman and woke up listening to the Cecil Taylor or Sun Ra or Stockhausen. when i transitioned into songwriting the love for that music didn't go away, and i experimented with textural improvisation between songs during live shows and sometimes on record. so there's some continuity, even though the thread may have been buried way below the surface for a long time. i felt the need, for a variety of reasons, some i could explain more in depth and some i'm still in the process of discovering, to bring the abstract back to center stage.
LB:
I hear a sort of torment in the record that I hadn't heard in your other work and I have to wonder if that quality is informed by the social/political turmoil of the past few years here in the US.
NB:
absolutely. we all know the world is on fire. the primary feature of capitalism is destruction and violence. shit is fucked. on the other hand, watching the explosive reaction of mass movements around the world has been inspiring - new horizons of possibility are opening up. so yes the torment expressed sonically certainly attempts to reflect these complexities. experimental music is inherently political - the ideas of breaking down conventional, hierarchal structures, etc. it also creates a community of misfits that don't align with the values of the "system". i think that's what drew me to that music in the first place, when i was younger, even though i don't think i had an analysis or the nuanced language to articulate the direct connections. music and the community i found early on became my form of articulation against the system, i suppose. so yes, in short, the way i feel about the world right now can't be comfortably articulated within a verse and chorus, i need to make noise, experiment and explore.
LB:
Yes! Its funny because I was recently talking to someone about this.. that abstract music isn't just a set of aesthetics, its really an ethos that is inherently social and political. Its not about "taste in music" it extends to a certain set of views of the world - views that do not accept the status quo.
NB:
exactly. i think some musicians may want to shy away from making those connections, as if music can just exist outside of "politics", but if we agree that everything we do is political, the cultural production we choose to consume, etc, then the choices we make as an artist are as well. i think the hesitation some might have to connecting aesthetics and politics might be because they don't want their art to be viewed as dogmatic in a political sense. but it doesn't have to be! i read a great interview with one of my first inspirations Joëlle Léandre recently and she was basically making the same argument that everything is political, but then went on to say music is NOT political, which essentially contradicted everything else she said. but it made me think about why she would say that, how political language connects to aesthetics, how we talk about our art, etc... it seems you've been making these connections for a long time, judging by some of your titles (and aesthetics). did your political perspective shape some of your earlier music, as i imagine it does now, or did music help you find those connections as you developed? i guess it doesn't have to be either/or...
LB:
There is an interview in which Nina Simone speaks about how it is an artist's duty to reflect the times. That is our job as artists. And yes, just because you aren't making a protest anthem, doesn't mean your work is devoid of political ideas. I feel like the very action of releasing and performing experimental music is a political act - that we are engaging in an anti-capitalist gesture.
Which is sort of a nice way of saying the commercial possibilities of experimental music are limited at best. But yes, I think my political ethos always finds a way into my work. I like the notion of changing the way someone might think of what music is, a sort of opening to ideas of otherness, of alternative forms of communication.
Nina Simone - An Artist’s Duty:
How can we hear differently? and what happens when we do? what information can we perceive that is perhaps different than what we can get from more conventional music?
I feel like experimental music can be a powerful way to express emotional states that are more complex, nuanced, contradictory. It leaves a latitude of independent thought for the listener. Which I think is one of the reasons many people don't like it. People don't want to be left alone with their thoughts. They want to be told what to feel.
I'd like to go back a bit to your process… The new work is based around preparation of your acoustic bass. Was there something specific you were looking for in terms of how you executed the preparations or was it a more free-form experiment? There is a certain violence in incorporating objects that could hurt your beautiful instrument.
NB:
first of all, hell yes to all of the above - could not agree more. i recently listened to an interview with Zoé Samudzi about Nina Simone. powerful stuff.
LB:
ooh nice I'm excited to listen to that
NB:
i initially thought i wanted to incorporate electronics, pedals, etc, to create a spectrum of sound beyond the capabilities of the bass. then i found this beautiful broken bow in my parents' basement. it hadn't occurred to me to prepare the instrument until then. it was great timing because i certainly didn't have any money to buy electronics. as i started incorporating the additional bow all these ideas started to pop. using extended techniques is one way to expand the sonic potential of the instrument, but the preparations added more layers. i realized i was executing essentially what i'd envisioned with electronics to the best of my ability with an acoustic instrument. a lot of it is pretty dangerous and harmful to the health of the bass for sure. i've got an old plywood Kay from 1950 and it's been very resilient so far. i did bust some strings recently though and i need to rehair my primary bow far too often (i guess that kinda offsets the saving money on electronics thing). walking on the edge of destruction works well with the music, though. i guess it sort of necessitates it
LB:
Oh totally, I can hear the element of danger in the music. I'm often of two minds about electronic processing: on one hand, it is possible to accomplish some very amazing things... but there is something interesting about the sheer physicality of preparation.
like electronics are almost too easy
maybe this is an instance where process and content align: you test the physical/tactile limits of your instrument, and the resulting sound similarly challenges the listener
NB:
i think i'll inevitably get into electronics at some point. i'm glad the spark of that idea has led to making this music. maybe tapes are cheap? is the processing you do on the Amirtha record (which is stunning btw) all done with tape machine? (i'm really ignorant about electronic processing so please excuse my limited vocabulary)
LB:
Thank you! Yes, so the project with Amirtha is actually a very simple process. I use a reel-to-reel tape deck and feed her live voice through it, while monitoring off the tape head. This alone produces a short delay effect, but the real fun is when I mess with the speed control. I do this two ways, with the built-in knob that controls the three motors of the tape machine, and by manually pinching the tape as it moves across the transport.
Part of what fascinates me with this method is that rather than filtering her voice, the tape extends it, so it moves in unnatural ways in wow and flutter, and pushes her range outside of what she is physically capable of.
I also use a sampler in the project, to build out layers of density and harmony.
I think there is an organic quality to the sound that emerges from these methods.
NB:
there's something really powerful about the contrast between the simplicity of human voice and live processing with the dense and dynamic layers emerging. i love the idea of maximalizing sonic output within confined space
LB:
Yeah and the sheer simplicity of the setup. All the sounds in that project are exclusively generated by her voice.
So here is a question for you:
My own musical path has been pretty much in a single direction: I've almost always been in the experimental realm. How has the reception been from fans that you have gained with your other solo work or work with Dirty Projectors? Are people freaked out or do they seem to have open ears?
NB:
we will find out soon! i kinda want it all. i want people to freak out and i want people to have open ears and i also don't care. i mean i do care, i suppose in making anything some validation feels good, but i'm prepared for plenty of people to not get it. and i get that! but people seem pretty open so far. i think even for those who like my songs but are resistant to the new music would be surprised at how compelling the music is live, even if it doesn't hit the ears in a pleasurable way. i'd like to think people are more open than we give them credit. especially exciting to me too is finding new communities, reestablishing old musical relationships and expanding on new ones.
LB:
Its interesting because you have this funny position where people know you from worlds very much outside of the experimental context. So its like you have an opportunity to get people to come to the "dark side" haha
NB:
OMG yes! i love that. follow me to the dark side!
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NAT BALDWIN's new LP - AUTONOMIA I: BODY WITHOUT ORGANS - is out now on SHINKOYO.
Nat Baldwin is a musician and writer living in Portland, Maine. He began playing double bass in high school and studied jazz performance at the Hartt School of Music before dropping out to pursue his own musical interests outside the confines of academia. In 2001, he moved to Middletown, CT to immerse himself in the Wesleyan experimental music community, studying with Anthony Braxton and performing with such artists as Mary Halvorson, Charlie Looker, Nate Wooley, Tatsuya Nakatani, Daniel Carter, Jack Wright, and Jessica Pavone. His first solo album, Solo Contrabass, appeared in 2003 on Peacock Recordings, featuring studies in extended bowing techniques ranging from aggressive noise to lowercase minimalism. In 2005, Baldwin’s solo music took a turn toward linear melody and form, shaping a unique voice in the singer-songwriter tradition and releasing several critically acclaimed albums while touring extensively.
In addition to his solo work, Baldwin has been a core member of Dirty Projectors (’05-’06, ’09-’19), while also contributing to albums by Grizzly Bear, Department of Eagles, and others. His first book, The Red Barn, a collection of experimental short fiction, was released in 2017 on Calamari Archive, Inc, while concurrently finishing a BA in English at the University of Southern Maine. In 2019, Baldwin’s interest in non-linear musical forms and textural abstractions returned to the forefront of his creative output. AUTONOMIA I: Body Without Organs will be released on Shinkoyo in February 2020, marks the beginning of a series of new solo work.
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Lea Bertucci is a composer, performer and sound designer whose work describes relationships between acoustic phenomena and biological resonance. In addition to her instrumental practice with woodwind instruments, she incorporates multi-channel speaker arrays, electroacoustic feedback, extended instrumental technique and tape collage. In recent years, her projects have expanded toward site-responsive and site-specific sonic investigations of architecture. Deeply experimental, her work is unafraid to subvert musical expectation.
Her discography includes a number of solo and collaborative releases on independent labels and in 2018, she released the critically acclaimed Metal Aether on NNA tapes. Lea is co-editor of the multi-volume artists book The Tonebook, a survey of graphic scores by contemporary composers, published on Inpatient Press.
As a sound designer, Lea has collaborated with dance and theater companies including Big Dance Theater, Pig Iron Theater, Piehole!, and Mallory Catlett (Restless NYC). Her musical collaborations extend to other chamber-noise projects, notably a recently formed duo with vocalist Amirtha Kidambi, who will be releasing their debut album Phase Eclipse on Astral Spirits Records in the fall of 2019.
Info on LEA & links to her work can be can be found at lea-bertucci.com
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DOCUMENTED DIALOGUES is an alternative and auxiliary form of the artist interview.
We initiate conversation between two parties with an active concern in the arts -
and documents their dialogue as a fly on the wall, screen, or page. How might the
documentation of the interview serve its content rather than abstracting it into
an editorial form?
Here we provide the platform for discussion, conversation, dialogue, or sharing
that might enlighten and expose current issues, ideas, and topics among contemporary
artists, curators, makers, and thinkers - via the technologies and platforms we are
already using to communicate with each other.
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DOCUMENTED DIALOGUES IS A PROJECT BY MATT MEHLAN & DAVID HALL.
PRODUCED IN PARTNERSHIP WITH ARTIST POOL.
Matt Mehlan is an artist, musician, and producer living in Chicagoland.
David Hall writes in sentences and often works with materials already charged with significance.