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"Afraid of the Dark?""Does "darkness" figure into your sound? In what way, or why not?" |
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Darkness has always played a large role in my work but lately I've managed
to achieve a balance of dark and light in my current work... - Kim Cascone: ambient/electronic artist
Darkness DOES figure into my music, however, it figures into my music as a
matter of hindsight- rarely do I set out to create a "dark" piece, it's
only after listening back to it a few times that the various degrees of
dark and light make themselves apparent to me.
Darkness figures into my sound as just one element of many. I don't
focus on just one emotion or aspect of something I may be trying to
communicate, so darkness is there, a part of any experience, just like it
is in life.
In order to balance out a piece, I try to include a grounding backdrop
along with more "upper level" sounds. The sound is usually something
very low and dark in tone and very organic feeling. I have used some
synth sounds along with some samples that have been so distorted that
they no longer sound like the original source. I feel there always have been a edgy characteristic in my music, whether it's on purpose dark or not. I think the definition is quite often used without real meaning but more as an easy term to relate to more difficult and experimental music. The same philosophy, I experienced, with my black&white photography. Most people identify black&white as being cold, hard and confrontational while I feel the nuances you achieve with B&W photography, for instance, is much more colourful and emotional than with a regular color image. I recognized this kind of response with my more experimental-like works as well, while the music contains at least as much intimate, beautiful and uplifting value as my more 'brighter' albums.
Well,.. I named a CD Unit 25: Dark Red. I'm thinking of doing a "Dark Blue"!
Darkness suggests mystery to me. It's the search! It's why I prefer
science fiction to religion. Both ask: Who are we? Where did we come
from? Why are we here? Where are we going? The forms aren't as calcified in Science
Fiction as they are in organized religion.
Yes, darkness does figure into my sound. My work draws heavily on the
concept of cycles (or circles), life and death, day and night, the
seasons...darkness is a vital part of that perspective. To draw a
parallel in music, I feel consonance is only given meaning by
dissonance, and vice versa; you need both, to some degree, in order to
form a complete musical picture. I suppose I reside more often in the
darker realm, something to do with who I am, my experiences etc., but I
think that much of what lies deep inside us, and is often described as
dark, might better be described as intense.
Basically No. But emptyness or nothing is important part of music to insert
between tracks. In Japanese, music was translated as "ONGAKU" which
comprises of two chinese characters such as "sound"-ON and "joy"-GAKU.
Darkness and my sound? Darkness is often equated with stillness, I believe
my music would be best listened to in a darkened room, so as to focus the mind
on the inner detail of the sound.My inspiration is often as a result of this
focussed listening particularly to quite sounds. In the opening piece on
EMIT2297 I think there is a dark/mysterious quality, the listener's mind may
make all sorts of connections. With a track like "For Pierre" there is a chance
to create a picture of all sort s of weirdness, some even think that the
fireworks and children playing are in children being shot and screaming. Dark
minds find darkness in all sorts of situations.
We've done a lot of of "dark" stuff, especially on our Hair, Hair, Lock and
Lore album. After that I began looking for ways to transcend the
darkness musically, or at least balance it with elements of light--not
sunshine, exactly, but light. Externally this was because I felt the world
already had enough darkness in it and it didn't need any of mine. But
internally, I was turning 30, and I didn't feel like dwelling in the shadow
side anymore. It's a nice place to visit but...
Darkness, DARKNESS. The deep, cozy darkness of a safe space or the
mysterious, unknown darkness of the stars. Maybe both. It's always a
balance of forces, what is one without the other ? There needs to be a
tension of some sort to keep the interest.
I don't think of our sound as being really dark, not compared to some
things; there's a mystery and a sense of voyaging into the unknown in
some of it, but not really darkness. So much darkness in the world already,
do we really want to embody more of it in our sounds and send that out too?
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