Saturday Night Fraîcheur – Nuit 9 – Jared Sagar

Tripez, Tripez sinon nous sommes perdus.

Les Pingouins ont décidés de parcourir le monde en quête de rassembler les meilleurs chauffeurs de foule. Pour cette émission spéciale, nous avons décidé de diffuser l’expérimentation, de bouger les frontières de votre capital son, trop saturé par les Hits Music Only.

Au Menu :

Cette émission se passe avec Jared Sagar, compositeur de musique minimaliste et expérimentale.

Jared est Anglais et pratique la poésie ainsi que la musique. Il considère que tout a déjà été fait dans la musique alors il expérimente. Il nous a fait une petite sélection de ses travaux que les pingouins se sont chargés de mixer. Afin de découvrir le personnage, une interview a aussi été réalisé par le biais de mail. Jared ne pouvant se déplacer dans les studios, les pingouins se sont chargés de traduire et d’enregistrer ses réponses.

soundcloud

Sinon, la Révolution est toujours en marche ici :  <(*)    (*)>

TRACKLIST :

• Vcio
• Lethl
• Disxx
• Kyss_excerpt1
• Mim
• Inepsis
• I
• Siw
• Atte

L’intégral de l’interview en original :

Who are you?

My name is Jared Sagar, I was born in 1977 in the United Kingdom where I continue to live today.

Is the music your only work? Do you have another job?

At the moment I don’t work in the sense of a nine-to-five job, but I work continually in regards to my music and my writing ( I’m also a poet ). I would like to work in these two fields for a career.

Did you have some music/theory lessons?

Not as such no, I have no academic background at all. I only went to college to study a national diploma in popular music, which tended to concentrate on the traditional band element, a little bit of theory was involved but that went over my head a little, couldn’t understand it. Back then I was into different kinds of music and still very much a beginner.

What music do you listen to? Who inspires you?

With the genres I work in I tend not to listen to too many sound artists out there, reason being I don’t want to be too influenced by them. I tend to listen to abstract/experimental electronic artists such as Autechre, Richard Devine, Aphex Twin, Squarepusher, Venetian Snares, especially in terms of sound design, that’s pretty much what influences me when I come to work on my stuff, although you might not hear their influence in my music.

Are you inspired by other things?

I go by my feelings most of the time.

How would you describe your music?

I would describe it as minimal, other-worldly perhaps, alien, strange. Nothing is new in music anymore so I just want it to sound as weird as possible. My earlier work is quite harsh in places, chaotic sometimes, but recently I have calmed things down. At the end of the day it’s just dealing with and listening to sound, an exploration of this.

When we listen to your music, it mixes very well with the noise of a city, have you noticed this?

I have never noticed this. But I will re-listen at some point and hear for myself. I feel it’s probably the harsh thing I talked about before, a city in full swing just sounds like white noise most of the time, the senses are all over the place, especially when I go into a city, it gives me a sensory overload.

Do you use samples? Or do you create sounds with software/synths?

I predominately use samples within types of software. The samples are mostly anything, found sounds, old sounds on my database which I will reuse and rehash again and again to create something new. The set-up is quite simple, headphones and laptop, that’s about it. Everything is done inside. To arrange my tracks I’ll use Albeton Live or Renoise, mostly Live as it’s more visual.

You seem to often work with voices and distortion, why? Is that a way to share hidden messages?

No hidden messages. With voices I love to manipulate them in different ways. That brings in the sound design aspect again. When I work on more ‘experimental’ pieces, which I prefer, it gives me more creative freedom, so occasionally I’ll put voices in there. I’m a samplist at heart, that’s where I started out, sampling all kinds of things, in one piece I’ve used a Richard Dawkins vocal, another came from some news journalist, I even record my own voice every now and then. 

You often use some noise textures which changes the rhythm. Do you use this like a drum kit?

There are times in some of my tracks where I will take a certain sound and put it through some algorithmic software to see what would happen, you’d get interesting results. Mainly though, it’s just experimentation, trying different things out, different combinations, letting your mind go wild, not worrying if a sound works or not, but just seeing how far you can push things.

How do you choose your samples?

I get them from everywhere. As I say I rehash a lot of sounds. It’s what you do to them I guess. I love to timestretch samples, bend them, twist them, shape them. I also love to use granular techniques, which then opens a whole new world.

We notice in different parts of your music that they are cut very fast and dry. Why make such quick cuts? Is that a way for sharing different atmospheres?

In some of my work, yes they are cut fast. I like to call them little jump-cuts as you would get in films. I wanted a sound to begin and slowly unfold then jump to a totally different type of sound, a sort of juxtaposition. So it plays, feels like playing with time and place. It’s an old technique but I really like using it, makes it feel very dream-like.

Do you work on your music in the same to your poems?

My poetry is very juxtaposed, disjointed and plays with time and place. I guess you could say my music plays with the idea of time and place also. Although yes they are very different forms of creation.

You said that in your work you ‘calmed things down,’ so how would you describe your newer stuff?

My recent works are indeed less chaotic, slightly more minimal in nature. There is more stillness in the tracks than before, the older ones were full on, kind of restless, a lot happening in them. Now they’re more about the sound, and also my tracks from a few years back were maybe 5-6 mins long, now I tend to do much longer pieces, anything over 15 minutes, some albums will be 40 plus minutes and longer still. Why? Well I feel if the sounds are more ‘still’ then you can lengthen them out a bit more, spread the sound out, rather than trying to cram everything in within say 4-5 minutes, although I still like to do short tracks.

Do you know other artists in the minimal experimental scene in the UK?

Afraid not. I speak regularly to an artist friend who runs the Sonospace label, Harry, he did reside in the UK but has recently moved to Portugal, his work is cool. Daniel, who has released two of my works on his Unfathomless label, I regard highly also. Funnily enough I find it hard to reach anybody who does similar things to me in the UK, I’m sure there are artists somewhere in the UK, for me it seems more open overseas, especially when it comes to finding labels, there’s not too many out there in the UK. Apart from exchanges when it comes to releases I don’t have too many connections with other artists, sadly. I would like to. But maybe that’s something that will come in time, I’ve recently talked to Kim Cascone in America, as I’m releasing something on his label later this year, hopefully that will blossom, as I really like his stuff, and he knows much about sound design.

Would you describe yourself more like a scientist doing experiments than a musician?

Well, it is a bit like mixing this that and the other in a way. I see it as sculpting. Shaping and reshaping sound till you get the desired end result. My writing goes the same way, continually reworking, reshaping the words.
My pieces don’t really have anything to say. I just build the sounds up till I like what I hear. If I like the sound of something then it goes down into the arrangement. Other works inspire me though, from other artists, although I limit myself to what I listen to (so I’m not too influenced by them) I will be inspired enough to think, ‘ok, I fancy working on something now,’ then once I get going, it starts coming together. Once I have the samples I arrange them quite quickly, I don’t hurry them in any way of course but once you’ve done arranging for quite a while it comes easily to you.

Best,
Jared.