What does field recordings mean to you? And what was the criteria to select them for the making of 'Landscapes'?
"Its perhaps cliché, but I like to compare field recording with photography, as like a camera, its always good to carry a recorder with you, as you never know what interesting things you will encounter in your day to day.
Sometimes you may capture personal memories, things like conversations and jams with friends, other times you might capture specific things based more on their aesthetics – for instance, I recorded a broken elevator I came across last week, which was making some fantastic squeaky metallic rhythms.
There is also often be hidden elements in field recordings, things that perhaps only you as the record-est may be aware of. For example I have a recording of my mate accidentally falling in a bog whilst he was trying to capture some sludgy noises of a branch being squished into it.
It turned out to work as a great snare-like sound, one which I've since used in many tracks, and every time I hear the sound, it instantly takes me back to that moment it was captured and makes me laugh. My friend didn't hurt himself don't worry, and he sees the funny side to it now
Anyway obviously this a sentimental example of how a story can be hidden within a recording, but it's easy to imagine say political ideas hidden within recordings too.
Saying this, there were no particular criteria as such for my use of field recordings in 'Landscapes'."
I just used what felt right to me at the time creating the tracks, often the recordings were used as the initial beds for the tracks, which I then built my ideas open. The recordings are largely natural themed – sounds of weather, animals, and insects.
With my more recent work since 'Landscapes', I've started questioning my use of field recordings more, and at some point in the process I will start asking myself why I have a chosen to use a certain recording and what its purpose is? Does it need to be there? that sort of thing.
I do this, as often in the past I've just added recordings by habit or intuition, but I realized sometimes they just don't need to be there, especially if they are distracting too much from the tracks main ideas."
What were the sources of inspiration for the making of your new album?
"Musically I tried to draw influence from particular styles and sounds that have resonated with me the most over the years. The things which I instantly fell in love with and was mystified by when I first heard them, and that have stuck with me since.
Minimalist, Free Jazz and Fourth-World coined styles would be the most obvious references, artists like Terry Riley, John Hassell and then more contemporary artists like Battles and Sun Araw too."
It seems to me that the live drums of Matt Davies give an earthly and analog touch to "Landscapes"? What is your opinion?
"Yeah, I agree, I think they add a nice grounding feeling to the music, and help it to sound more organic and less processed as a whole.
The drums were the last parts we added to the album tracks, and I think they really helped to tie the album together, I initially imagined that they would be solely decorative elements to the tracks, but I know think they also really help add a new unexpected narrative to some of the tracks such as Trickle and Bathe Pt 3.."
I get the impression that your music offers subtle details to watch out for. However, the sounds are sometimes like miniatures, they do not have a reductionist effect but rather show a wide landscape. What do you think about this?
"Funny you should mention this, I was going to call the album 'Miniatures' originally or 'Landscapes and Miniatures'.
I like to compare listening to 'Landscapes' to sitting on a bench by a nice lake, and just taking in the sights and sounds and there subtle changes over time.
The music is meant to be more about being still and appreciating detail, rather than trying to reach a climax or going somewhere particularly I guess. This is why I decided to call it 'Landscapes'."
Do you combine your music with other art forms?
"A little, it's something id like to get into more seriously, I from time to time make my own video and visual work to accompany my music, mainly using midi information from my music to trigger video and animations.
It's something I'm keen to do a lot more off, be it by myself or via collaboration with other artists.
I've done a fair few solo commissioned based musical works in the past, which I really enjoyed, but I'd love to start doing sound installations or cross-media collaborative works for future commissioned projects."
Guillermo Escudero
March 2020
Interviews 
