Ambient Music Blog » Interviews

WSJ.com Interview w/ Fennesz

Tim Boyd — Fri, 30 Jan 2009 14:08:14 +0000

Mixing Melody With Noise
“The lines are too obvious and too much on a stage. I like things which are more hidden and not so easy to find.”

Read the full interview at WSJ.com

Christian Fennesz Interview

Tim Boyd — Wed, 31 Dec 2008 14:17:23 +0000

“I still find a wall of distorted guitar sounds extremely interesting, and that’s why I’m still using it.”

A really nice interview with Christian Fennesz just before the release of his recent Black Sea album.

eMusic Q&A: William Basinski

Tim Boyd — Tue, 30 Dec 2008 11:15:52 +0000

“And then I moved to San Francisco in 1978 and heard Brian Eno’s Music for Airports playing in my friend’s art studio, and that just totally blew my mind and took me to this melancholic place where I felt like, this is what I want to go after.”

eMusic Q&A: William Basinski

Grab 25 free downloads from eMusic if you don’t already have an account!

The Solaris Project Discusses Their Work

Tim Boyd — Wed, 24 Dec 2008 15:13:02 +0000

Interesting video of Igor Abuladze and Travis Metcalf talking about their The Solaris Project record. Passed along by the always helpful Andy (no relation) Boyd.

Fennesz Interview at Last.fm

Tim Boyd — Thu, 18 Dec 2008 12:00:39 +0000

Eno – The Studio As Compositional Tool

Tim Boyd — Thu, 30 Oct 2008 20:08:52 +0000

“Which puts me in mind of the first piece on Music For Airports (Editions EG). I had four musicians in the studio, and we were doing some improvising exercises that I’d suggested. I couldn’t hear the musicians very well at the time, and I’m sure they couldn’t hear each other, but listening back, later, I found this very short section of tape where two pianos, unbeknownst to each other, played melodic lines that interlocked in an interesting way. To make a piece of music out of it, I cut that part out, made a stereo loop on the 24-track, then I discovered I liked it best at half speed, so the instruments sounded very soft, and the whole movement was very slow. I didn’t want the bass and guitar – they weren’t necessary for the piece – but there was a bit of Fred Frith’s guitar breaking through the acoustic piano mic, a kind of scrape I couldn’t get rid of. Usually I like Fred’s scrapes a lot, but this wasn’t in keeping, so I had to find a way of dealing with that scrape, and I had the idea of putting in variable orchestration each time the loop repeated. You only hear Fred’s scrape the first time the loop goes around.”

from Downbeat, 1979

Interview with Drew Sullivan of Slow Dancing Society

Tim Boyd — Mon, 11 Aug 2008 19:00:59 +0000

I’ve always loved the idea of music that has a function or purpose.

Depending on what you mean by “purpose”, I can’t say I disagree. According to one of my favorite literary theory professors from undergrad, this places Mr. Sullivan firmly on the Augustine side of the great Kant vs. Augustine divide.

Me, I like to slide around depending on, oh, I don’t know. Never really figured it out.

This post courtesy of Ambient Music Blog’s number one, long time reader Dave P. Yo, Dave!