Its’ a world full of suprises, where the sounds seem to lead a life of their own, eagerly searching for their own little space within the composition. Nothing is what it seems: ghosts of melodies keep shimmering through layers of abstract noises, but they never seem to be quite there. Warm soundpads create a strong sense of melancholy, while there’s always something brooding under the surface: dark waves of distortion and strange voices appear when least expected, giving no rest. Twine have just released their third album on the French label Bip-Hop, Recorder, a masterpiece full of inventive soundstructures, challenging and fascinating all the way through, leaving you behind bewildered. This is some of the music that’s breaking new ground for electronic music. Sure, you can call it ‘glitch’ or 'idm', but the used sounds and evoked emotions are so diverse it surpasses all definitions. It’s just… beautiful.
Twine is Greg Malcolm, an audio engineer based in Cleveland, Ohio, and Chad Mossholder, a sound designer from Boulder, Colorado. They both have performed on their own in the past but started working together a few years ago, released their first album, Reference in 1999, followed two years later by the brilliant Circulation LP (on the Swedish label Komplott ). Since then they seem to increasingly leave their mark on the ‘electronic music’ scene, contributing music to exhibits like the prestigious Sonic Process and installments for Sonic Foundry. Later this year they will release some new material on Hefty and Falt.
They are constantly working on new music, but with a method that perfectly captures the realm of the digital age: creating sounds and patches each for themselves, but shaping their compositions via the wonders of the internet.
Greg: “We work together very intimately from great distances, the internet and related technologies have allowed us to transcend the limitations of location…I think this is echoed in a lot of modern electronic music in the sense that there is no “scene sound” anymore, i.e. there is no Pittsburgh sound, or Cleveland sound, because it is just as easy to trade sound files and mp3’s with people in Finland, or Japan as it is with people next door. So in some sense a truly post-modern universal/international sound is emerging. As far as Chad and I in particular, we are involved with each others works so much so that the label, 'Greg’s track' or 'Chad’s track' really have no meaning…there are pieces of both of us in every composition.”
Both are working as professional sound designers. They probably know all the music theory there is to know and the endless possibilities of electronic music-equipment. Kwowing this, Isn’t it hard to make music that sounds fresh, personal and emotional?Greg: “In regards to theory I look at it this way…you have to know the rules before you break them. This pretty much sums up my attitude in the sense that it’s very important to break new ground, but you should always have one foot firmly planted in the past, (after all I was a history major) rather than re-inventing the wheel every time out, I find it comforting to be able to stand on the shoulders, so to speak, of our musical forbearers, but also to expand that scope with new ideas related to new processes and technology.”
”I don’t find it hard at all to make an emotional connection within my music, I think it comes very naturally…although as with anything, it takes constant practice, re-evaluation and an intimate familiarity with whatever interface (programs) that you choose to use.”
”I think at first with a new composition, the palette is very wide open…as you bring more sounds and textures into focus it does narrow in the sense that after a point you are bringing in sounds to compliment and/or contrast the other sounds. In other words the composition starts to flesh itself out. I tend to find that each composition begins to take on a life of its own after awhile, and it will begin to lead me on as much as I am leading it."
Twine’s music is hugely inspired by the work of Cage, Stockhausen, Lucier and others, who came up with radical new musical approaches, rejecting compositional principles like logical consequence, vertical sensitivity and tonality, paving the way for various experiments with noise, sounds and structures. Since the advent of the digital age, with the wide availability of computers, music hard- and software, it has become so much easier to work with these ideas, pulling them out of the academic discours. Lots of young people started experimenting, deconstructing and decontextualising sounds, working with generative programs, integrating these aesthetics in other types of music like ‘post rock’ and ‘hip-hop’… . Maybe this evolution changes the general perception and definition of ‘music’ itself?
Chad: “Understanding the roots of a music leads to a better understanding of that music itself. Listening to Music of Changes for piano, 1951 by John cage, for instance, without knowledge of Cage's ideas of indeterminacy will result in much different listening experience from that of the person who is well versed in Cage's theory. And one could argue either way which is better. The listener who comes unequipped with the academic theory of indeterminacy may not be bogged down in over-analyses of the piece and may be more free to simply experience the music. Where as the Cage scholar may pick at the details of the piece in a very surgical way and not really experience the music. But then, that isn't always the case. I think the key, for me anyhow, is to be aware of the inner workings of the compositional method for the piece at hand and be able to let it go at the same time in order to truly experience the music.”
Electronic music used to be very elite, even during the first experiments in what was called ‘glitch’ or ‘microsound’. Now this is all being turned upside down, while all sorts of musical barriers and ‘rules’ are being broken. The electronic music as we knew it isn’t just the same anymore and well, maybe that’s a good thing. A recent quote by veteran Kim Cascone: "The aesthetic problems of minimalism are well known and have proven to be a dead end. There's no clear aesthetic solution to minimalism and artists abandoned the movement in the
'70s for that very reason. The new austerity evident in microsound or glitch
music is an interesting approach to minimalism, but after a while it gets to
be a little tiresome. There's too much 'me-too' product emerging, and it
obscures the work of the more vital artists. Even without the glut of
knock-offs there remains the issue of what it is that minimalism is trying
to say in the year 2001. The mediascape today is overloaded and extremely
dense and that's much more exciting to me than the lack of information found
in minimalism." Greg: “I think there is much confusion over how to define the newer genre's of experimental electronic music in relation to the more 'classic' forms. There seems to be alot of arbitrary attachment and compare and contrast from the older more established people who have been working within the 'academic' music scene, if you can all it that, of so called 'microsound' or 'glitch' music. I have absorbed many lessons from the past, but I know that I do not attempt to make overt minimal or academic music per se', and if it does end up sounding minimal/academic then i think it is a general perception on the listeners end, well with some obvious sonic nudges in a direction or two from the producer. I think most of the producers I know, at least in the US, work this way as well...doing what they like to do, soaking up influence etc, not really following any vague templet or academic rule book, but if the end product ends up sounding like academic or minimal music to the listener/reviewer/public at large then so be it, and let the public sort it out, if they care too.”
“As far as there being a glut of middle of the road music in what used to be a very elite music...there might be, but like anything there is always good and bad. better get used to it though, as computer/digital music proliferates and more people tap the enormous potential of their computers, I see this trend if anything intensifying. I see it as a very positive thing though...that will lead to hybrids and through the hybridization process...to new digital music forms that we can't even comprehend today.”
On Twine’s website, alongside Stockhausen, Cage, Paul D. Miller (DJ Spooky) and Nietsche, author Jorge Luis Borges is being quoted as a 'component' for their music. Discussing Samuel Henley's translation of William Beckford's Vathek, he wrote "The original is unfaithful to the copy".
Chad: “We take sounds out of context and reinterpret them. And the copy becomes the new original. And the original isn't quite right anymore. We take quotes out of context and make them mean what we want them to mean. The copy is the new original. In the Aeon Flux ( A cult animated Science Fiction series, sd) episode, A Last Time for Everything , Trevor Goodchild comments after taking a DNA sample from Aeon Flux in order to clone her that, "Now I have you, in any way anyone could possibly imagine." And later to his henchmen after cloning Aeon that they may mark up the original (Aeon) as they like, as long as he (Trevor) has a good clean copy.”
This is an important evolution in the digital music world: the shifting definition of ‘originality’ and ‘authorship’. Designed sounds are not perceived as 'personal and creative properties', not the sounds themselves are most important but what you do with them. Twine have released two Cd-roms with loops and sounds for Sonic Foundry - sounds they’ve build and discovered and can be used freely in other compositions.
Chad: “ We create art out of everything we find and experience. We make sounds, we find sounds, we share sounds.”
One of the striking elements in the music of Twine is the use of vocal samples. In pieces like ‘player piano‘ f.i. distorted vocal snippets roam through the abstract soundstructure, making it strangly fascinating. Other compositions feature well-chosen pieces of conversation, lifted out of their original context and adding warmth and emotion to the music. A brilliant example is the use of a Twin Peak sample In ‘There is no one Else’ : "I know I should be sad, and I am, part of me is, but it's like ... it's like I'm having the most beautiful dream and the most terrible nightmare all at once" resounds between tense layers of noise, it’s the only thing that sounds familiar in a strange and dark world.
Chad: “It adds a human element that can help draw the listener into the piece. Also, I just love the sound of voice and the cadence of human speech.“