Equilibrium
This interview with Mikkel Ploug, Sissel Vera Pettersen and Joachim Badenhorst was conducted by email January-February 2011.
Tony Reif: We’re calling this record jazz because all three of you probably have more of a connection to (avant) jazz in the other music you do than to any other single genre, but it’s more of a nominal convenience than a useful descriptor. Maybe in the music world of today genres are losing some of their usefulness. Certainly your music covers a lot of ground…at the least, avant garde-folk-world-ambient-chamber-jazz-improv-minimalism-classical-chant-art song. Your first CD Equilibrium got a lot of great reviews and I’m wondering if anything that the critics said, or feedback from audience members, friends and other musicians, has told you something new or interesting about how this music is heard and what kinds of associations people are making with it.
Mikkel Ploug: It is wonderful that so many people like the album, but I really have no idea how to categorize it, and yes the genres are losing their meaning I think. People say they get images in their head when they hear our music. I guess that’s understandable!
Joachim Badenhorst: I really enjoy listening to music that crosses between different genres and is hard to define in one category, music that is hard to catch or corner. Early Dave Douglas records, Tim Berne`s music, improvised groups like Dans les Arbres, Canadian bands like Godspeed You Black Emperor and Thee Silver Mount Zion, film music, John Zorn, Braxton, Threadgill, doom bands like Sunn O))), Earth, etc. To me it’s a compliment if the music we make in this trio is hard to categorize – I understand it could be hard in a promotional sense, but I think it can also be an advantage if it means we can reach a broad spectrum of listeners.
Sissel Vera Pettersen: To me, the music that moves in between different genres is the most interesting. Music that is not in need of an explanation. Like in visual arts I don’t want to be told too much, or to be given all the answers. That way my mind is most open to receiving and reflecting. I want our music to be like that too. Almost like a prism, where our music is white light that breaks into different colours in the meeting with its different listeners.
TR: How would each of you say your music (and the group’s music) has developed since the first record, technically, aesthetically, emotionally, in terms of process, or however?
MP: When we recorded our first album we were a very young trio, we recorded after having only rehearsed together for two days and we hadn’t even played a concert yet. After the release of the first album we played a lot of shows and did a lot of free improvisations live which has given us an idea of how broad the palette of the three of us can be. So we were trying to bring that into the studio for the Walking Voices session and get more of a live feel. Somehow the album turned out a little more direct and loud, which probably has to do with us having more live experience as a trio now. Some songs like “Running Through Fields Theme” and Eclasticity are written with a guitar fingerpicking technique that is new in our repertoire, it’s a very distinctive sound that didn’t appear on our first record.
SVP: Obviously we have a lot more experience as a trio, we know each other better both musically and personally now. But most of all I think the different sounds on the two albums reflect the atmosphere and state of mind we were in on those specific days. Since so much of our repertoire is free improvised, every gig and session is different, with a color or flavor from the emotions, thoughts and temperaments of each person – and the interaction between us – in that very moment…
JB: Having gone through the process of making our first record (rehearsing, recording, choosing the material, mixing, mastering), and having heard that recorded material so many times, made it somehow more difficult for me to record this follow-up album. When we recorded our first album we were a blank page so to speak, but this time I had our first album in the back of my mind when we entered the studio. This was somewhat stifling to me, especially in the open improvs: I would be worried if what we were playing reminded me of what we recorded on our first album, or I would be looking to come up with ‘different’ things to play. But after a while I loosened up, realizing there’s no point in ‘trying’ to do something different. We are who we are and when the three of us get together, we create a certain sound, which is a good thing rather than something to be stubborn about. I think we have been growing a lot both as a trio and personally since we recorded the first record.
TR: Sissel, could you describe what kinds of live vocal processing you do? For example, some listeners might not realize that those deep bass sounds on “Silverise” and a couple of other tracks are processed vocals. Or that all the vocal effects on “Eclasticity” are live, not overdubbed. Have you added any new electronics since the first record, or just done more with what you have?
SVP: I’ve had a dogma saying that even if I use electronics, everything must be created in the moment. So I never save any loops. If I did, I would very easily loose the spontaneity that is so important to me in making music. This also goes for making records – what you hear is what we played live in the studio. In that sense, our records give a clear idea of what kind of soundscapes you can expect to hear at our concerts. Since the first record I have added an octaver and another loop machine that can stretch the samples, giving those deep bass sounds I play with on “Silverise.” (By the way the opening vocal line of that piece is based on a Gregorian chant from around 1100, arranged by a Norwegian composer friend of mine, Terje Bjorklund.) Other than that, I have the same old stuff I’ve had for years, but I keep finding new ways to use it. The combination of extended vocal techniques and live electronic processing gives a pretty wide palette of sounds to play around with.
TR: Mikkel, you edited the improvs that are on the record from something like 3 hours of material, right? Did you do any construction by editing together parts of individual improvs, or was it just a matter or pruning the best of them to get to the most striking material?
MP: The latter, we didn’t edit any improvs together…simple cut in and out where we thought the strongest material was. There was so much material that we really had to kill some darlings, yes.
TR: In terms of compositions, you all have at least one composition on this record. Could each of you talk a bit about one of your pieces – let’s take “Walking Voices,” “A Word” and “Wolkenregen” – how it came to be, what if anything specific inspired it, what you think it expresses, how the group worked on it to come up with the version on the record, or whatever. Sissel, “A Word” has original lyrics by your boyfriend, right? Maybe you or he would like to say something about the song’s concept?
MP: “Walking Voices” is all about voiceleading and voices that are walking around the place. The song starts with the voice and clarinet moving in counter motion from deep register up higher and higher and strong clashes occur on the way. If one follows one separate voice you will see that it ‘walks’ through the whole piece with almost no repetition, which gives a feeling of something slowly unfolding. The singer-songwritery rhythm that carries the piece gives some lightness and bounce to the feel. The solo section is an uneven amount of bars and we set it up with a live loop that we then play over, all three of us. The song ends with a harmonic sequence of chords that are inspired by Wayne Shorter’s way of writing harmonies.
SVP: “A Word” was originally written for our trio, even though it was first recorded on my duo album with pianist Nikolaj Hess. I wanted to have 3 voices that in simple movements would suggest wider harmonics. The melody is based on one motion or cell: an interval of a 5th going upwards. When I was sitting at my piano making this piece, my boyfriend was listening next door. He was immediately inspired, and wrote the lyrics in the same moment, without me knowing it. And there we had the song. As with the melody, his text is also based on one simple phrase.
Carl Martin Faurby: When I heard the melody I immediately pictured two people dancing – mentally searching for each other. Sometimes you saw the dancers, sometimes you only saw the movement that they made together as one. Like a single tone in a melody, a word can’t stand by itself, but only makes sense as part of something. Not necessarily as part of a sentence, the way we usually use words, but also like in a film that’s made of still images juxtaposed with each other (rather than moving images).
JB: I wrote “Wolkenregen” for Sissel and Mikkel. I thought about specific qualities in their playing and built the structure of the song around that, or rather to give them space (or order them!) to do these specific things. The song begins and ends with a repeated bass line that Sissel sings. I thought of starting the song with a solo intro for Sissel where she would loop different layers of little sounds, and then at some point start singing (and looping) the bass line on top of that, which would be a musical cue for me and Mikkel to come in with our lines. Then Sissel adds a layer of her bass line with an octaver. Getting all of these different layers played live took us some time to figure out. I have no knowledge of how loop stations work, so I had to guess what could be possible. Sissel was pretty amazing in actually being able to loop all the different parts on top of each other in real time, and with the octaved bass she really blew me away….wow!
After that I left an open solo part for Mikkel, where Sissel (on soprano sax) and I join in after a while with background voices for him to solo over. Mikkel is a great improviser; in our trio without any other chordal or rhythmic instrument he is often obliged to play a supporting part, so I wanted to give him this spot where he could play anything he wanted, where we reversed the roles: Sissel and me accompanying him. This guitar solo blends into a middle part with more harmonic movement which is basically a transition leading up to the end – the same as the beginning but differently orchestrated: I play the bass line this time on bas clarinet while Sissel first improvises and then goes into to her melody line, all on saxophone this time around.
Getting all the different parts to blend into each other, and getting all the loops, the written parts, as well as different tempi right, took us quite a while in the studio. We did a whole bunch of different takes of this song.
About the title: not long after we recorded I was travelling in China with my girlfriend and I was completely struck by the majestic clouds that I saw rolling over the mountains in Sichuan, a province in Western China. These clouds were so immense, and beautiful, that I wanted to dedicate my song to them. It took me a long time to find a title that suited with the clouds, the mountains and the song I’d written. Finally I came up with wolkenregen which is Dutch (my main language) for ‘cloud rain’ – it’s still not completely related to those majestic clouds I saw, but it sounds good I’d say…
TR: “Sires” is another of my favourite tracks and it’s an improv – it’s also an interesting way to end the record. It’s somehow peaceful and yet disturbing at the same time – a sort of lullaby that could also be a lament. And it’s a good example I think of how the three of you can blend your separate creative personalities or selves into a larger whole while making distinctive individual statements. Why was this your choice to end, and do you feel its complexity of tone (if it does have that for you) is a direction you’re moving in?
MP: I think “Sires” is a very typical improvisation for us as one of the things that always inspires us is to see if we can blend our sounds so much we can’t tell who is doing what. In fact it has become a standing joke that after a take or a live performance we mistakenly give credit to the wrong person for their great sound! When we heard this piece back we agreed that it would be a great way to leave the record. Like a light dessert to end a (hopefully) good meal.
SVP: It was actually a question for some time, if we should use this one or not, because it is almost more of a little pop tune. But then we found out that this was exactly what we needed. I really like the wavy feel of it, and I love Joachim?s singing through his clarinet, and Mikkel’s airy loop towards the end. I think it’s a perfect way to end the album, to just lean back and breathe with it.