event guide

GOOD VIBRATIONS
interview with peter maybury. questions : pat mcmellow, the event guide, 14-27 august 2002.

Can you tell me about your musical upbringing: self-influenced all the way?
I learnt piano when I was maybe 8-10, and there was always classical music at home. Later I studied drums
for a year or so with John Wadham. I'm always interested in and influenced by other people's ideas on music
and what they listen to. I think you absorb influences all the time, not just from music, but from every
experience, and when you come to making music these help direct you and hopefully something original
evolves.
Are you happy to go under the banner of 'electronica' or do you have your own term?
It's fine I guess, though while the majority of noises I use are from electronic sources, there are some 'live'
elements - drums/cymbals/piano/ambient - I find that these more mechanical or human noises help to
'activate' the music in some way.
What can you express in music that cannot be said through design, art, etc.?
I enjoy how music can be completely removed from 'intellectualised' meaning. Working with or looking at
text/images compels you to make meanings, to try and resolve or decipher what you're looking at. Of course
certain instruments/sounds carry particular associations and therefore meanings, but it can also create
other in-definite feelings of space or shapes, moods, energies, etc. while remaining malleable. Making a piece
of music feels to me like working with space (positive and negative) and moving it around to create shapes.
You can then define these shapes with textures, rhythms etc.
Are you as abstract in real-life as your music? Are you challenged by the world, by its various societies,
lifestyles and thought processes?
I think I'm more pratical than abstract, but I'm most interested in the abstract. I spend my time 'making things'
(and recorded music is already abstract), but I find the most interesting part is the intangible or indefinable
effects that they produce - I like in-between-ness. As a designer I see the typeface before the words! And
I probably look at most things that way – looking at the form to see how it influences the meaning, how the
message is carried as well as the message, or the effect of materials and environments etc.
Would you describe yourself as happy – within yourself and within this world?
I am happy! There are a lot of things in the world that no-one can be happy about, but in general I just keep
plugging away. There's a lot of richness and depth to discover, even if you only touch on it occasionally.
Place in order of importance to self and explain "why": Melody, timbre, silence, rhythm, accident,
premeditated. Are any of these suggestive words obsolete when it comes to dissecting your work?
They're all relevant, the order probably changes, but it might be like this : 1) Silence: music has a strong
spatial sense for me, and like positive and negative space in a picture, I usually start with noise and silence.
2) Rhythm, premeditated: rhythms break up and map out the space into manageable parts, and this is the
most mechanical and 'premeditated' aspect for me - devising a structure that you can then layer over more
freely. 3) Accident, timbre: most of what I do then is driven by accident - either by induced chance elements
or pure fluke! I have a sense of what sound to look for in terms of texture or dynamics - thin/thick, hard/soft,
bass, mid, high, but where I find it and what it finally becomes are really lead by accident. 4) Melody is
probably as important by its absence as its presence - I try to hint at melody without ever fully stating or
developing it.
Should we assume that music, the (sometimes melancholy?) mood of life, is derived from the sounds around
you, your studio and the street?
I usually start with any small sound, let that suggest a rhythm or shape and build out from there. I use any
available sounds - and since I learnt drums I include drums /cymbals, piano and anything that sounds good
through a microphone, from a DAT etc. I made graphics for a long time before I started recording my own
music, so I found when I started recording that my graphic approach really informed how I made music, but
this is always evolving.
Do you honour existence with your work or do you seek to kick against it?
I think that the process of making music as well as listening to it brings you vey intense and rich experiences,
and through that hopefully you can make something beautiful, and learn something about yourself and about living.
Why do so many electronic artists seek to "make music for imaginary films"and how does your work relate to
that cliché?
People used to say that to me at first - that it sounds like a soundtrack - but I guess that's because people are
more used to vocal music -it has a definite presence to focus on. And very often electronic music based music
works well with moving images. I'm making a video with Marie-Pierre (Richard) for the Thomas House gig
on the 26th, which is mostly moving texts and graphics, and, even though there is no 'designed' connection,
it works very well with the music - maybe it's partly to do with the fact that it's cut together in a similar way.
Are you progressing musically? Leaps and bounds or rather smaller steps?
Always progressing. At the moment it seems like leaps and bounds. My music has changed a lot over the past
year,although I don't feel particularly in control of its development. I tend to switch on the machines and
something happens or it doesn't, but it's seldom what I intended. I might decide to do something more 'hard' or
'soft' than previously, but then something happens by chance and it goes in another direction. Very often, I put
down some stuff - go as far as I can - and then leave it for several weeks. When I come back to it, and very fast,
I completely invert or transform it. When you just follow what happens rather than worrying about what you
intend, it usually works out well.
Your work is released under your own name? Are titles, non-de-plumes and psuedonyms irrelevant or are you
committed to spreading yourself over every branch of the arts?
The music is released as hard sleeper. and/or Peter Maybury. Graphic design is Peter Maybury Studio, and
Softsleeper is the website / self-publishing title. Music and graphics are my first love(s) but these inevitably
lead you into other areas...