May 29, 2012, 10:57 Culture

“You can’t know what last Tuesday sounds like.”

Interview with Matthew Herbert

Composer and producer Matthew Herbert told Gazeta.Ru about the students with whom he will represent Russia at the Cultural Olympiad in London, about the sound museum and what documentary music is.

Composer and producer Matthew Herbert works at the intersection of electronics, pop music and avant-garde. It seems that the phrase “He builds a chord from what he sees around” from the BG song “My Friend the Musician” was written about him, and it should be taken literally: in some of his works, Herbert samples the surrounding reality, the sounds and noises that it produces , - the rustle of tires, the clink of a fork, street horns and the creaking of a chair leg. Herbert has just presented in Moscow at the opening of the summer program of the Strelka Institute his joint project with the British Council and students of the Academy. Gnesins and the Conservatory project, with which Herbert will represent Russia at the Cultural Olympiad in August. And next weekend there will be his DJ set at the Usadba Jazz festival. Between his two performances, Herbert spoke to Gazeta.Ru about the museum of sound, the reasons why the crying of Russian babies is in demand, and what documentary music is.

— How did you feel when you were offered to participate in a project with Russian musicians?

— To be honest, it’s fear. But the point here is not the musicians, but the fact that this is the official presentation of the country. And if only it were the state of Djibouti - maybe then I wouldn’t be so stressed. But this is Russia, the largest country in the world!

- But you agreed right away?

“I always immediately agree to such proposals, and then I begin to regret it. It was the same this time.

- So you now regret getting involved in this story?

- No, now I’m happy again. But for six months it was really scary: I couldn’t figure out in what form I wanted to make this performance. Because Russia is a country with an amazing culture and rich history. Take Prokofiev, for example. Or Tolstoy. And I’m not talking about the last ten years at all - these are wildly interesting years. In general, frankly speaking, I had plenty to choose from. And then, I’m a very politicized person. And in England I always speak out on current topics, criticize our government, because I often don’t like what it does. And with Russia, I don’t feel the right to do the same, because I don’t live here, I don’t pay taxes, I don’t understand how everything is organized here. So I still had to somehow decide this moment for myself.

- And how did you solve it?

- Well, we have a composition about torture. In another song we tear newspapers into small pieces. An excerpt from Pelevin’s “Generation P” is also read out. In general, this will also be a completely politicized performance - of course, not in the sense of Occupy Red Square or anything like that, but very politicized in its own way.

— In addition to the big band, you also have a project in which you use the crying of infants, and it seems like they are Russian babies.

— Yes, these are parts of the same project. You see, I ultimately asked myself a very simple question: who am I to represent Russia at the Olympics? It’s better to let the Russians themselves represent Russia, and I’ll just figure out exactly how this will happen. Therefore, firstly, we recruited musicians in Russia - a big thank you to the British Council for this, they really wanted me to do something with a big band, and in the end it occurred to us to invite young orchestral players from Gnesinka. And secondly, I asked to provide me with recordings, on the one hand, of Russian babies who cry, say “aha” and all that, and, on the other hand, on the contrary, of elderly people who would sing old Russian songs.

- Why do you need babies and all other sounds of non-musical origin? In order to make us, the listeners, more attentive to the sound reality that surrounds us?

- Yes, definitely. It seems to me that people are generally bad at perceiving sound, or rather, at interpreting it. We hear a huge number of sounds, but we practically do not pay attention to them and certainly do not know how to interpret them at all. Ask any of my hundreds of friends to climb the stairs in the next room now - I will analyze the sounds that will be heard from there, and I will unmistakably tell you who is now walking up the stairs. Or I recognize who is entering the room by the sound of the lock turning on the door. All this information is contained in the world around us, but we do not read it or read it very rarely. And on the other hand, I was here in Italy in one expensive dressing boutique: a huge bright space, things hang on hangers so that you won’t get it, all the employees are dressed from a needle ... At the same time, an air conditioner hangs in one corner, who does a very loud “Zhzhzhzhzhzhzhzhzhzhzhzhzhzhzh " And in the other corner there is another air conditioner, which makes a very loud “zzzzzzzz”. This is probably the loudest store I've ever been to! At the same time, everyone sits and walks around with protocol faces, as if this is how it should be. It’s kind of crazy - they are so used to this sound that they don’t seem to hear it! I think my responsibility as a musician is to present the sounds that surround us in an unfamiliar context - so that we pay attention to them and learn to interpret them.

- But how to interpret a sound that you don’t even understand what it is until you read the accompanying text? Okay, let’s say you can actually hear the babies. But here is your album about a pig - “One Pig” - it’s generally unclear where a pig is and where it’s not a pig.

- There are pigs everywhere. And, by the way, this is not clear to you, but for a person who, for example, has worked all his life on a pig farm, everything is simple: here the pig is happy, here it is scared, here it is still very small, but here it is already old. You see, this is, I would say, a very capitalist idea - that there can only be one reaction to a work of art. There can be only one reaction to Pepsi-Cola - you need to drink it. And all that its manufacturer is interested in is that we drink it and pay him money for it. And a person who is no stranger to pig farming and a person who has lived in the city all his life and has never even met a live pig will have a completely different attitude towards the album “One Pig”.

— But do you agree that in order to comprehend your author’s intention, you often need to read a lot of accompanying material, understand the concept of the record, etc.?

- Probably not. More precisely, this: it would not be superfluous, but it is not necessary. After all, it’s like, say, with an exhibition in a gallery: you can come there without knowing at all what it is, who the author of these paintings is and why it is, say, called “German Expressionism.” But if you like the exhibition, then you will probably decide to read something on this topic later. It’s the same with my recordings: I try to make them work as music first and foremost. If this can be achieved, listeners will certainly try to understand the concept.

- You perform alone - with live concerts and DJ sets. On the other hand, you are working with a large jazz ensemble. It feels like there is no creative environment in which you would feel uncomfortable. And in fact?

— Hmm... You know, it’s considered that the best time to perform is on Saturday evening - everyone is in a good mood, ready to party until the morning... For me, this is often the least convenient time. The fact is that I usually make rather intricate music - not that it is really difficult to listen to, but still. Now imagine: people want to hear “Kool & the Gang” or “Rock with You” by Michael Jackson , and I show them what 60 cans of Pepsi-Cola sound like, or a tearing newspaper, or crying Russian babies. Not the most comfortable situation!

— That is, your music is more for listening than for dancing, right? It’s a stereotype that there is electronics for dancing and electronics for listening. What do you choose?

- To be honest, I don’t get there or there. You see, I play with a big band, but I’m not considered a jazz musician. You won't find me on the list of the best DJs, although I have been DJing for 20 years. I'm not considered a techno artist, although I've worked a lot with techno in my life. In general, a black sheep! To tell the truth, I'm not so much interested in genres and not so much in stereotypes like the one you're talking about, but in the fact, for example, that music can now be documentary. For four million years in a row, music was pure impressionism - it expressed the author’s impressions of reality. And now it itself becomes reality: you can record a record using this room, for example. Or pigs. Or, I don’t know, Vladimir Putin . That's what's important!

- Why was this impossible before - because the technological level did not allow it or because we simply did not know how to do it?

— First of all, of course, the technology was not the same. John Cage , Stockhausen and other mid-20th century composers began to realize that music could be documentary, but they still inserted documentary sounds into their familiar context, such as orchestral music. And now it's time to reject it. For example, when we tour with a program about a pig, there are five musicians on stage. They play instruments, but all these instruments make pig sounds. Previously, this was absolutely impossible. So technology is a significant help for us here. But about “they couldn’t” - yes, there is such a moment. Consider the fact that Mozart had the same piano as, say, Thelonious Monk. That is, for that matter, Mozart could have written jazz three hundred years ago. But at the same time, it took humanity three hundred years to reach jazz! And maybe the same amount will be required to finally move on to documentary music.

— And you also have a sound museum - although the website says that it is not ready yet.

— Yes, we need about six more weeks to finish everything. But it's an amazing thing, I tell you. When I say that people are bad at listening and interpreting, it's really not their fault. The problem is that they really are deprived of the opportunity to hear much. For example, you cannot hear last Tuesday. Just be damned, you won’t hear last Tuesday anywhere on the Internet. The idea of a sound museum is precisely this: to give you the opportunity to hear what happened yesterday, to hear what happened in 1982, to hear 10 million doors slamming at the same time, or 500 crying Russian babies. This is a place where we can experience sounds, think about them, compare them with each other. Or, for example, hear the entire history of mankind - from today and back to the distant past.

— Since we are talking about documentary sounds again, are you recording anything during this visit to Russia?

- Honestly, no. In general, I almost stopped doing this just like that - only if I need a specific sound for a particular project. Although, upon arriving in Moscow, I could not resist and recorded what passport control sounds like at Sheremetyevo - listen (he finds the required file on his iPhone, presses play, and from there comes the roar of the queue and the clatter of footsteps). This sound will also be in my museum - I hope I don’t get arrested for this! This is also a wonderful feature of sound recording: you would never have been allowed to film something on a video camera at passport control at Sheremetyevo. And the sound - please! In general, I hope that in a year we will accumulate at least a million different sounds for the museum.

— I thought about what unique sound Moscow can offer to a person living in a European metropolis. As a result, he came up with a trolleybus - in England, it seems, you don’t have them.

— Yes, the sounds of the street, including trolleybuses, are very interesting. Especially if you think about it: how has the sound of the street outside your window changed in, say, ten years? When I was here in the 90s, almost every car in Moscow was a Lada and there were relatively few of them. And now there are so many cars, and completely different ones! And the sound of the street, of course, is completely different. This is the most exciting thing!

- Last question: in just a week you will come again - to the Usadba Jazz festival with a DJ set...

- You know, these days DJ sets are essentially a scam. I could take my laptop with me and that would mean I would have about 3,000 records instantly available to me. It was the same before, when I started doing this. Just imagine: you have 50 records. And you need to play, say, at a jazz festival and at a techno festival - either for ravers or for a respectable audience. That was exciting! “Hook” both of them with the same set of records. Now DJing is very easy. So I’ll probably decide on the spot what kind of material I’ll start with.