Recently BRAINS was interviewed by Tokafi.com! In addition to reviewing the newest album 'Unloaded' Tokafi asked us some serious questions about our influences and the general state of the improvised music. Big thanks to Tobias Fischer for taking the time to listen to our music.
here's a link to the
interview
or a transcript below
15 Questions to Brains
March 14th 2012, by
Tobias Fischer
When we were still going to school, my brother once told me
about a duo project of his saxophone teacher with a drummer. The idea
seemed outlandish to me at first, but my brother had what seemed like a
perfectly logical explanation for the combination: No longer tied up by
any "vertical“ accompaniment, the sax was now free to roam a horizon
freed from the constraints of harmony. There were, as he put it, no
longer any "wrong" notes anymore. Fast forward to 2012 and I wonder
whether Drew Ceccato and Chris Golinski, the – ahem – brains behind
Brains, would agree with his estimation. Needless to say, freedom and
discovery are still vital elements to their performances. Sometimes,
their voices will coalesce and complement each other so congenially that
the music sounds as though it were being produced by a single
instrument, as though Ceccato's saxophone were producing gnarling,
gnawing and grating percussive noises and Golinski's drums whispering
heavenly melodies. And yet, just a few seconds later, the two will be
off in their very own galaxies, contrasting or even outright
contradicting the emanations of the other. As much as it may seem to
suggest a constant state of disagreement, the latter strategy has proven
highly fruitful, as Brains constitutes the musical meeting between two
distinctive characters: Readsman Ceccato, a multifaceted live performer
and studio buff, equally at home blowing his horn and with complex
computer operations; and inventive percussionist Golinski, an
eclectically interested producer and improviser, whose explorations of
the timbral possibilities of his drum set reveal a both tender and
passionate affection with his toms, snares and hihats, as though he were
stroking and caressing them in one instant, only to slap and spank them
in the next. On previous full-length, Gristle and Skins, released on
Rent Romus's Edgetone label, this resulted in a spatial, yet
hypnotically to-the-point sonic incantation, described by tokafi-editor
Hannis Brown as illustrating "the best attributes of free jazz —
telepathic interplay and attention to textural detail outside the
constraints of traditional song form and harmony" and as displaying a
"punkish quality". On the recently published follow-up, Unloaded,
meanwhile, the duo have again put a spin on the premises of Gristle and
Skins, now working with pre-prepared performance instructions
emphasising the compositional aspect of their approach and creating a
more focused and seamless improvisational flow. Especially on a long
journey like the album's opener "Rictus", this yields a music that is
both momentary and forever converging towards a precisely defined goal,
that always "is" and is yet forever "becoming". And in doing so, they
are never just picking out the right notes, but also avoiding the wrong
ones, too - carefully navigating through an ocean of possibilities with
the certainty that comes through hours and hours of playing together.
Hi! How are you? Where are you?We’re in California, Drew is in San Diego and Chris is in Oakland.
What’s on your schedule right now?Our
new album, Unloaded, is going to be released this month and we have a
CD release show on October 16th. We’re also working on another album as a
trio with computer musician Alex Christie. In further news, Chris and
his wife just had a baby girl and he plans to start a PhD program this
fall.
How would you describe and rate the music scene of the city you are currently living in?The
scene in the Bay Area is very diverse and there is an inclusive
atmosphere of cooperation amongst musicians. In terms of aesthetics,
however, our influences come more from the music scenes in New York and
Chicago as well as the European free improvisers.
When did you start playing your instrument, and what or who were your early passions or influences?Our
backgrounds are quite different: Chris began playing drums at age ten
and was into jazz for many years, listening to lots of Miles Davis and
John Coltrane. Drew started playing woodwinds at ten and was influenced
heavily by Roscoe Mitchell and Iannis Xenakis.
What do you personally consider to be the incisive moments in your artistic work and/or career?For
us as a group, a key moment was when we approached Roscoe Mitchell of
the Art Ensemble of Chicago about coaching us as a duo. During those
sessions Roscoe showed us the ways in which we can rehearse as a duo,
identifying concrete elements in our music and demonstrating how we can
apply a compositional framework to what we do. He also worked us pretty
hard and didn’t pull any punches about things in our music that weren’t
happening at the time.
Keith Rowe once asserted that it
is often certain people that “give one permission to do things”. How was
that for you – in which way did the work of particular artists before
you “allow” you to take decisions which were vital for your creative
development?Peter Brötzmann is a huge influence on both us in
the type of uncompromising approach he has to his music. We certainly
encountered many detractors who didn’t like what we played because it
was fast, loud, and often technically demanding. At times like that it’s
good to look to musicians who came before us who faced similar
obstacles and stayed true to the music they wanted to play.
Derek
Bailey was also very important in terms of seeing someone radically
redefine the language of their instrument. This inspired us to look at
the ways we interact and get beyond the traditional roles of our
instruments to create a new vocabulary as a duo.
What are currently your main artistic challenges?Everything!
There is always so much to practice and improve upon and the more we
play together the more areas we find for exploration and development. We
feel good about the artistic direction we’ve taken but we never want to
get to a point where we’re being complacent. We feel that everything
you do as a musician can always be refined further.
What do improvisation and composition mean to you and what, to you, are their respective merits?Improvisation
and composition are two different ways of approaching the organization
and development of musical material. In both cases the same concerns are
relevant, such as the material you are working with, how you choose to
develop it, the use of dynamics, orchestration, etc. The difference is
that with improvisation those decisions have to be made in the moment
and with consideration given to the other musicians in the group.
Ultimately,
however, improvisation and composition should be viewed as two ends of a
spectrum rather than two opposing approaches. Improvisers utilize
compositional elements and draw upon ideas they have practiced and
refined, and composers often use improvisational processes when writing
music.
How important are practising and instrumental technique for achieving your musical goals?Very
important. You want to be able to play what you hear in your head, and
without technique it’s impossible to realize your musical ideas. With
Brains we often push the limits of our capabilities on our instruments
and our work requires us to develop and refine various technical aspects
of our playing. We believe not only in individually practicing but also
in practicing improvisation as a duo. Sometimes this means working on
specific pieces and at other times playing exercises to hone a
particular aspect of our playing.
How do you see the relationship between sound, space and performance?It’s
a constant feedback loop where all of the factors influence each other.
We pay a lot of attention to the space that we’re in and how it affects
our sound and the things we play. You have to alter your approach
constantly and respond to the venue and the atmosphere on a certain day,
and that’s what keeps the music exciting and fresh.
Derek
Bailey defined improvising as the search for material which is
endlessly transformable. Regardless of whether or not you agree with his
perspective, what kind of materials have turned to be particularly
transformable and stimulating for you?We like to work with
thematic material that is clear and compelling. Often we’ll start from a
very small fragment and build upon that slowly throughout an
improvisation. As long as we’re both clear on what musical elements
we’re working with, we have the freedom to transform those materials and
take risks with them. The idea of searching is a bit problematic, we
like to be sure of our material before we play a single note on our
instruments. If you think about improvising in a group as a
conversation, it’s not possible to communicate if you’re not sure about
the topic being discussed. If you’re searching in an improvisation,
you’re never going to be able to connect with other musicians in an
interesting way.
Purportedly, John Stevens of the
Spontaneous Music Ensemble had two basic rules to playing in his
ensemble: (1) If you can't hear another musician, you're playing too
loud, and (2) if the music you're producing doesn't regularly relate to
what you're hearing others create, why be in the group. What's your
perspective on this statement and how, more generally, does playing in a
group compare to a solo situation?Those are good rules to
start with, but you need a lot more than that to make good music. It’s
really critical in a group that you completely leave your ego behind and
ask the question “what does the music need?” rather than “what do I
want to play?” As the group size gets larger there is also less need to
play constantly, so being selective about one’s material is crucial and
making sure that what you play is needed in the music and not
self-serving.
Some people see recording improvised music as a problem. Do you?With
improvised music more than other music there is lot that is lost in the
recording process. It’s still necessary to record and document this
music, but recording cannot substitute for what happens in a live
performance in front of an audience and being part of a concert
experience.
Music-sharing sites and -blogs as well as a
flood of releases in general are presenting both listeners and artists
with challenging questions. What's your view on the value of music
today?The value of music today is as high as ever, if you look
at how much people are listening to music, how many albums they have in
their collections, and concert attendance. That people aren’t paying for
recorded music online shouldn’t surprise anyone as people will always
choose the cheapest and fastest way of obtaining something, but the fact
that they are downloading and listening shows that it has a value.
There
is no question that digital music has given the listener many more
choices than they had twenty years ago and made it easier to be exposed
to many new forms of music. While someone living in New York or another
big city would have always been exposed to many types of music, the kid
growing up in the middle of Nebraska now has the same access to music
from all over the world as anyone else, and that’s a very powerful
thing. What are needed now are sites such as yours that can guide the
listener through the vast amount of choices and increase the chances
that they find something of quality.
Please recommend two artists to our readers which you feel deserve their attention.Sophie Agnel
is really amazing in that she’s been able to depart so radically from
hundreds of years of tradition on the piano and make it sound like an
entirely new and otherworldly instrument.
The microtonal
improvisations of Joe Maneri are not to be missed under any
circumstances. His utilization of the 72 note pitch continuum is
hauntingly beautiful.
Brains Discography:Brains (Accurate) 2010
Gristle and Skins (Edgetone) 2011
Unloaded (Edgetone) 2011
