Margen Interview: Robert Scott Thompson

Feb. 28, 1999

Q: Your personal data: place and date of birth, musical studies, etc...

I am a native of Southern California - Hollywood in fact, I was born and went to school in California. During my youth I had a lot of exposure to music. My parents were big fans of all kinds of music but especially classical. They often took me to hear the L.A. Philharmonic with Zubin Metha as conductor. These were very formative experiences. I have two brothers both of whom are quite a bit older than me. They also provided important experiences, in fact, from my birth by playing records and leaving them behind for me to discover on my own. The range - from Elvis, to Hendrix and Dylan. Quite an education, when combined with my parent's record collection and experiences seeing music live. Also, there were instruments in the house, trumpet, clarinet, guitars and so on - but most important the piano, which I discovered at an early age. This was a fascinating instrument to me because it could make such large sounds and had resonance. You could hold the pedal down and have the sound sustain in a reverberant environment. In fact I would often sit under the piano to experience this most directly. Also, you could play clusters and I loved this...chords were a big fascination in the early days. There was also a tape recorder in the house which I would discover later on.

My father was a composer himself, though not a professional. He mainly wrote songs of the swing and big band styles, WWII-era stuff, and I found his manuscripts. These were fascinating to me, I wanted to know how to write my own musical ideas - very different from his - but, I sensed that I could write them in a similar form - on paper in ink. This was a beginning for me. I knew at that time (about age 8 or so) that I would learn to do this. During the seventies the synthesizer was introduced and took hold. At 15 I knew I was going to do computer music, although I had only a vague idea of what this was in actual fact. As it turns out this was the guiding concept for the next 15 years of my life.

During my school years I learned how to read music, studied voice, played classical, jazz and rock guitar, learned the cello and classical piano together with harmony, counterpoint and some orchestration. I was always reaching for new ideas, new techniques, new skills. Eventually, I went to college to a music conservatory as a composition student and subsequently to graduate school for the Masters and Doctorate degrees. My idea was always mastery of some skill or technique, I was not interested in the degree per se, but rather what the degree conferred in terms of skill and knowledge. I was very fortunate to study first at the University of Oregon and then later at the University of California at San Diego, a very well known university for contemporary avant-garde music and especially computer music. I graduated with the doctorate in 1990. I have been a professor of music since this time at Georgia State University in the School of Music where I am director of the Center for Audio Recording Arts. This is a complex of recording studios and also a program of study in audio engineering and computer music applications. Quite a nice program in fact. These days my work is literally all over the map, I am writing chamber music, orchestral music, computer music and recording and publishing ambient music, contemporary instrumental music and pop music.

Q. Tell us about your work as a director of the "Center for Audio Recordings Arts" (CARA)

At CARA my main effort is as director and as the lead professor. I supervise the studios (2 - 24-track, 1-16-track and one computer music studio) and also teach courses ranging from audio engineering to computer music applications and digital signal processing. I also teach music composition in the traditional sense, though my students are anything but traditional! I tend to focus on contemporary music trends and practices - largely avant-garde and post-modern. This is very fulfilling work. It has been a struggle to develop the center and the courses, but it has been very gratifying personally. We have a degree program in the School of Music at Georgia State University in audio engineering and music technology as well as composition. It is a great program and our students are doing incredible things after graduation. I am very pleased with the results. The program is loosely based on my own experiences at the Center for Music Experiment Computer Audio Research Laboratory where I worked from about 1981 to 1989. I tend to emphasize the experimental and scientific aspects of audio technology and it is really bearing fruit.

Q. Tell us about your modus operandi.

For a composer the question of method (modus operandi) can be a very complex one. It certainly is for me. My training, stemming from Joji Yuasa and Roger Reynolds, has produced a general technique which is becoming ever more methodical as time passes. Yet, it is not possible to describe a single method or technique or even a manner of approaching musical art. In fact, these all change from one piece to the next. This might be considered in keeping with the Zeitgeist of post-modern music composition, where there is no common practice at all, but rather a multitude of approaches and concerns which are outworked idiosyncratically by the individual composer.

In basic terms, I write differently depending on the genre of work I am doing, and also depending on the forces I am writing for. Writing a long computer music work, full of complex sounds and innovative textures is different from writing in the same basic style for orchestra. So, naturally, the means and methods change depending on the type of work being composed.

I can say that for my ambient work, recordings such as The Silent Shore, Frontier and my recent Could Cover project, that my preferred method is to use a digital audio workstation and software synthesis. This is a very complicated subject as well, in that for years I was trying to keep full-blown computer music techniques out of my pop music. I consider my work in ambient music to be commercial and of a pop sensibility as compared to my serious computer music and my music for instruments, with or without tape. I am not sure this is important, but it is the case at present. Over the past several years there has been a trend toward the combining of these ideas and concepts so that the ambient and the serious computer music are not as different or distinct as they once were. The digital audio workstation and the acoustic compiler are the two tools which have caused this to occur.

My idea about music has always been one based in a concept of sonority and in the recognition that all sound is available as musical material. This opens the door to allowing sounds to exist as themselves in contexts that we describe. Perhaps this is the basic paradigm of musique concrete. In any case, it is usually the case that I compose ambient music directly on a computer using a large array of software applications ranging from sound editors to multitracking programs. It is rare these days that I use MIDI for these projects. I prefer to work directly with the sounds, in a manner analogous to that of a painter or sculptor.

Q: You admit having influences of Fripp, Eno, Roach, all of them second to none; how did they influence you and who else can have done too?

I have been influenced by a lot of different composers and musicians and also musical genres and musical groups. Growing up in Hollywood in the 70's it was difficult to avoid art rock and I am very glad for its legacy. King Crimson, Gentle Giant, Yes, ELP and especially Genesis. These groups had an enormous impact and following in Southern California. I was especially fond of early Genesis because they could so wonderfully combine rock with classical models. I was intrigued by Selling England by the Pound and The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway took this idea to another level. Unfortunately, when Gabriel left the group only the next two projects had an impact for me...but Wind and Wuthering remains one of my favorite projects.

I became interested in Eno when I found his CD Another Green World at a record shop on Hollywood Boulevard one day after school. I liked the title, the cover art and the overall design of the recording jacket. So, I took a chance and bought it. Looking back it was a pivotal moment. This recording changed my life and my focus as a musician. I was totally intrigued and it opened numerous other doors into music I had no idea existed from Varese to Satie, and of course Cage.

During my school years I became a huge Bowie fan due to Ziggy Stardust and specifically the song Starman. I was especially intrigued when they collaborated on what might be Bowie's finest works beginning with Low. These CDS helped shape my general approach to pop music - an area I am putting considerable effort into at this stage.

Undoubtably, Eno is a very great influence. It is obvious that he has influenced a whole genre and an entire generation of composers despite the fact that he himself is rather limited in what he can accomplish musically. For me, his recent recordings lack the spark of genius that inspired me originally.

As for Fripp, yes, I would say that he is a bit of an influence, but, perhaps Stockhausen, or Berio are more profound influences. It has been fortunate for me that my understanding of music and my exposure has taken me far afield from the realm of electronic pop music to the outer reaches of the avant-garde and into the world music traditions.

Some have suggested that my music is similar to Steve Roach's work. I have one or two Roach recordings but must admit that my familiarity with his material is quite limited. I have never studied his music. What I have heard I have enjoyed however. He seems to be a master marketer of his music and is widely played and has many CDS out. This can be both good and bad. Time will tell I suppose, but it is clear that Roach has opened a door for a lot of musicians who may not have found an audience at all. In the ambient genre he seems to be more consistent than Brian Eno in the quality of his output.

Q. Do you try to get a commercial result or just say: "That s my music, if they like it, then OK, else, who cares?" ?

Because I am a professor at a large university and also engaged in composing on commission for various groups, I do not need to be commercially successful with my recordings to put food on the table. This is really quite helpful to me artistically. I can take chances, I can innovate and explore and redefine my own approach to working with music and sound. I cannot imagine a more supportive situation for a real artist than this. The fact that some people find value in my efforts is extremely gratifying. However, I begin by trying to please myself, to interest my own ears and mind. If I am successful in this I am satisfied. Further, if others find my work interesting so much the better.

I am not so concerned with a specific commercial result therefore, such as selling 100,000 CDS. But, I do hope that my music will find its way to the audience, via air play (which has been quite supportive) and hopefully by distribution of the CDS into the marketplace. With the advent of the WEB, my next project is to produce .mp3 recordings and place them online for free for people interested in my work. These recordings are all works-in-progress and some may find there way to CD after the finishing touches have been added. But, I am intrigued with the concept of letting people into my personal process of creation and allowing them to be involved in the evolution of some of my compositions.

The bottom line for me is that I need to find something interesting about my own work. If I am interested there is a completed piece, otherwise I have already rejected the idea and I am on to something else.

Q. Tell us your opinion about the pioneers: (Schulze, Tangerine...), differences with current guys like you, between electronic music from the US and Europe... what kind of music do you listen to?

Of course, this is a vast question. Electronic music in the US tends to be very innovative and less tied to a tradition, such as that of TD or Schulze. Yet, there are composers in the States who work in this style. In my opinion, there is more innovation in EM due to the intermingling of styles, from Techno to Classical Ambient and everything in between. There seem to be fewer artists in the States who work in the classical ambient styles - though this might be changing. As for Techno, Ambient House and other derivative styles, the US is one capital. That is not to suggest that the European scene is not influential here. More and more, due to the cybernetic evolution we are witnessing, the planet shrinks. Unfortunately, one aspect of this shrinkage is that it is more difficult to keep truly hybrid musical genres apart long enough to allow them to evolve independently. There is a tendency to repeat therefore, the musical gestures and thoughts that have been successful in the past. Clearly there is a danger in this is and it exacerbates the tendency for too much music to be released commercially.

One possibility for a difference between the classical electronic composers and currently publishing composers is in the degree to which the computer is seen as a musical instrument. At this point, the computer is integral to the electronic music studio and obviously this was not always the case - think of the situation before even MIDI. The tools a composer uses shape, to a significant degree, the kinds of musical gestures and materials he or she uses. The computer has an had audible impact on the music we are hearing created now. Obviously, to suggest that this music is superior merely because it uses the digital computer and digital signal processing techniques is ludicrous. In fact, such technologies can obfuscate the real musical merit of the music in the short term. Great music exists independent of the tools used and even, to a certain extent, of the composer. In any time frame there is a finite amount of really great music and a lot of music that aspires to be.

In my own background, because I have spent a great deal of time in Europe going to school during my formative years, my interest in the European scene is intense. That is not to say that I study or try to emulate this music however. I do have a great fondness for Bill Nelson's work - this fellow might be one of the finest ambient composers on the planet. I also appreciate Ian Boddy and people of this ilk. There is some really cool stuff coming out of England to be sure.

With the WEB we have more of an opportunity to discover what is going on in Italy, France, Germany and the Netherlands and this is really important to electronic composers in North America. It is simply impossible to find CDS - even at the obscure mail order houses - but the WEB provides another avenue to exchange ideas and listen to different music.

Q. With the new technologies, anyone could make music?

Yes, anyone can make music and the new technologies make this possible. Looping and appropriation are for many the name of the game. I was intrigued when I found out that people were sampling my CD The Strong Eye. This is a long form computer music work in 9 movements with all completely original sounds created by digital signal processing and software synthesis. Apparently, some composers have no problem stealing from this CD - and I find it quite amusing. You see, I can make another piece like The Strong Eye in six-months time from scratch and I know it will be just as interesting. Someone who appropriates materials cannot do that - they cannot be actually generative when it comes to musical materials.

Once you leave the looping concept behind, it is clear that making music is far more difficult than it may at first appear. To generate something new, to make a piece that speaks to someone else, to transcend time and space, these are not trivial concerns. Not all pieces accomplish this, yet it is possible. Training and experience are crucial and without them musical utterances will devolve into cliche or worse.

Yes, I agree that the new technologies are empowering but what really matters is the idea for a musical work. Do you have ideas? Can you hear music in your head? Can you control time and structure in the development of a work, or an album? These are the questions which do not have easy answers and separate professional musicians from dilettantes.

Q. "Noise music" (footsteps, screeches, broken glasses, short wave, cars, etc.) Are you interested in it, what do you think about it?

This is the world of musique concrete. Where sounds from nature and the environment are used in a collage to form a musical work. Generally, this is an outmoded idea to my mind. It is difficult, increasingly so, to separate the sound of car screeches from the mind's eye representation of a car peeling out on the street. Who needs this? To reinterpret the world sconically I prefer to use musical sounds, or if using natural sounds, transform them using digital signal processing. All sound is clay, useful for shaping and sculpting with the tools we have become accustomed to using. But sound that is obvious and untreated, taken from sound effects records and so on is not as interesting to me - regardless of how cleverly it might be assembled into a collage.

I have just returned from Pairs where my serious computer music work was featured in a festival concert. A very compelling musique concrete piece was also presented - some 60 minutes - without depth, meaning or long lasting impression. The sounds were well recorded and artfully presented but that was all. It is difficult to reach deeper levels of meaning with every day sounds. We have already attributed meanings to them that are hard to disengage.

Q. The so-called "new stiles", such as Techno Trance, Deep House, Ragga, Hip-Hop, etc. Do you think they provide something of positive? Or is there much crap?

I am not as familiar with these various styles as some others are, but in my opinion this is music strictly for entertainment. In my opinion very little of this music will last as meaningful additions to the cultural matrix. Ultimately, this is the important factor. Does music speak beyond generational bounds? Can it exist outside of faddishness or fetish? There are a few things going on with a very few producers which are interesting. There is sometimes a freshness of approach and a commingling of musical concepts that is momentarily refreshing. But again, in my opinion, it is rare and short lived.

Another factor is that some individuals are clearly producers who do not have a musical sense which is developed. So, like in the case of musique concrete collage, they assemble disparate elements and often create an unbearable hodgepodge.

In the Techno field there is some interesting stuff going on which tends to blend the atmospheres of ambient music with a certain earthiness. In fact this is a direction the Fountainhead project is moving toward for my own work - though it tends to be a bit out there - there will be a new project called Neutopia. which will display my assimilation of techno trends. One artist I am very fond of in this regard is William Orbit and Madonna's Ray of Light is a fine exemplar of what I think is a very musical assimilation of techno trendiness. Bowie on the other hand, did a good CD with Earthling but failed to extend beyond the confines which are stylistic mandates - it was not as innovative therefore.

A lot of this music is momentarily interesting but it is also a genre which see the most independent publishing. Easy to put the music together and get some good sounding results - often very hard to listen to unless it is yours.

Q. Your music is not easy to assimilate, not a consumers product. For open minds, for minorities? The nowadays listener is not yet musically ready for it?

As I mentioned earlier, I am not as concerned about this as some artists are. I am concerned that the music I write appeal to me personally. There has to be some mystery about it after I have completed it that is retained. Then, if people like it, that is great. I believe that it is helpful for people to have an open mind when confronting any new art. Yet, we are all replete with preconceptions about nearly everything. One of my interests is to help people learn how to hear sounds as sounds. We often bring too much extra baggage to the process of listening to music. We need to learn how to listen without expectation and without preconceptions. In this regards, it is helpful that people learn to play an instrument and then have some fun improvising with others. Music needs to be freed from context.

My most recent CD Cloud Cover was played on a station in the U.S. in its entirety recently - nearly 70 minutes. The station was flooded with calls. Most people said that this is the kind of music they want to hear. It surprises me when these kinds of things happen. But, it indicates that at least some listeners are musically ready for some of my work. Once again, this project is an ambient work that I consider in the pop category. Perhaps my avant-garde music would be more difficult. But, then again, that aspect of my work has its own audience as well.

Any composer who is a front runner is going to have a smaller audience than someone clearly in the mainstream. If your interest is to make innovative music for yourself then you can accept this.

Q . How do you see your evolution from your first CDS to the current ones The silent shore, Frontier or the latest Fountainhead: Cloud cover?

I have been composing in this style (ambient, electronica, etc.) since 1976. So, for me it is difficult to talk about evolution. The Silent Shore was released in 1996 - twenty years after I began recording. Obviously, it is easier to talk about the evolution from an earlier recording to now. But, with this in mind, it is clear to me that The Silent Shore is a lighter more stratospheric recording than say Frontier, for example - which in my opinion is rather dark and brooding - though not in its entirety. Fountainhead: Cloud Cover is also rather dark in flavor, but to me is more successful as a recording than Frontier. Various reviews reveal that each of these discs has it audience. I see them more as a group of releases rather than an evolution of work. In fact, during the time from 1996 to today I have created quite a few other projects, some of album length. So, perhaps, it will take some more time to put into perspective these recordings. It will be helpful to have some new releases to consider in light of them.

Q. Let´s focus on the latter ones, really awesome. Each one of them is very different with a very personal style. With what mood did you make every one of them? And what about Rendezvous and Aether?

Cloud Cover was composed in the Fall and Winter months and has a very mysterious tone. In it, more than in any of my other works, I use a lot of computer music techniques which I normally reserve for more serious music. I was very much interested in developing a CD which has one constant tone to it - a sense of flow. In fact, I am very much interested in my work with the concept of the CD as an album not merely a collection of songs. So, the flow from one track to the next needs to be considered. This was a bit more complicated in the case of The Silent Shore where I created the original sequencing of tracks for the disc and proposed two alternate playback versions on the cover - these can be programmed into your CD player and provide a different point of departure for exploring the CD. Playing my discs on random will generally not yield the results I intended in creating them. On Frontier I used yet another tactic. Here, I segued each of the track together to form one continuous flow. This makes it much harder to play on the radio! But, I like the result and the concept. This idea was also used in my earlier CD The Strong Eye which has nine movements but is continuous in sound, generally speaking.

As far as mood goes, it is not so much a question of emotion but of what kinds of sounds I am working on at the time of writing. I am constantly making new sounds and in fact I am creating sampling libraries for people interested in using them. I have been programming sound very seriously since 1976 and have a vast library. However, for a new project, I tend to mine some new sounds which are distinct and unique and then try to use them to flavor a project. For example, in Cloud Cover, the sound of a female singer using granular synthesis is heard on several tracks providing one element of continuity over the large structure of the recording.

For The Silent Shore I was going for a light airy approach which was almost celestial and otherworldly. This came across quite well I think, and the CD is favored by its fans because of the simple beauty of the tracks. Frontier contrasts with a more nebulous context, as if stretching the boundaries of what music is, especially ambient music. Some ambient and space music lovers have suggested that this CD is quite active (lots of stuff going on) as far as ambient music is concerned. Regardless, the CD is apparently successful as several charts have listed it as one of the best releases of 1998. I think the disc is still relatively unknown. Just now, The Silent Shore is becoming more well known. Very few have heard Cloud Cover yet. I am very interested that people hear it. I think it is perhaps the best of the three.

This has been a concentrated period of work for releasing ambient music. But, I am very pleased with the result of these three discs, and I have more material in the works.

Q. Personally, I appreciate in the extraordinary Cloud Cover very important changes, as if this CD were the trip to different sonorities, other concepts. That is just my opinion or it is the beginning of new paths?

I conceived of the Fountainhead project as a means to accomplish some very real goals. I want to make a music that is more inclusive of styles from pop music and believe it or not this is going to occur with Fountainhead. Furthermore, I wanted to be able to create a music without editorial involvement of a publisher. I do want to try some new paths and bring into my music new and unique sound structures. This is a possible vehicle.

Could Cover does use, as I mentioned, very advanced compositional techniques for timbre and sonority development. So, I think this is what you are referring to. How it will all work out is unknown. But, I am continuing with this concept in the current ambient CD I am writing at present. Shortly, some .mp3 files will be placed online for those who are interested to see what I am talking about.

Q. In your CDS there is a constant experimentation, maximized in my opinion in Cloud cover . Its sounds and textures, percussions and spooky voices this timeless ambiance, drive us restless, dark and lighting music... is this a personal point or would you define your music like this?

I would agree that I am an experimental composer. Basically, as I see it, there are two types of composers, perhaps two types of artists in general - makers and searchers. A maker is someone who is content to use already known materials - say 12 notes and an orchestra to make musical works in styles that are not what we would term innovative but rather largely inherited. A searcher, by contrast, is someone who is engaged in clearing a path through a jungle of unique and splendid possibilities to find a manner in which to be expressive. I see myself as the latter of these two types. For me, the joy of working comes in the discovery of something new. As for the aspects you suggest beyond this, I am not sure. I do not consider my music to be spooky and the concepts of dark and light are sometimes troubling as well. I consider my music to be most successful when it is evocative - of a place, a time or an inner landscape or dimension. What others bring to it and report in their responses confirms to me that the music is deeper than a surface entertainment. What a listener takes away from the experience is individual.

I imagine my music as textures, shapes, densities, architectures, geometries, colors and degrees of balance. In fact, extra musical ideas and concepts inform my work in very subtle ways. Rather than defining my work, I prefer to let my work define itself to me after I have some temporal distance from its creation. It is revealing to listen to a recording half a year after it is completed and try to understand it.

Q. With these music, are you settling the basis for future music as Satie, Stockhausen, Cage, Riley, Varese, Feldman did at their time? -Some other new music such as the R&R, blues, the jazz came here to stay. It will be the same with the electronic music?

I hope so, but of course, there is no way to know what will occur. Some forms are deeply embedded into the cultural matrix because they have a universal appeal. More advanced music requires more advanced listeners. In time, perhaps the way we use music will change. The popular forms you mention have a clear utility in culture whereas art music does not. Art music is purely intellectual. Popular music is used and consumed. Art music is briefly absorbed and return to the cultural matrix for another experience. According to Stockhausen, we are moving towards the development of a cosmic music, one which can transcend acculturation and nationalistic, ethnic, age, sex, boundaries. This is an intriguing idea. I would say that I am working toward this goal although not overtly. Cage and Satie are important influences on my thinking and Feldman was one of this century's more innovative composers.

Q As an illustrator, I create an image which I transfer from my mind to the paper. I am not quite sure if this process (of making it real) improves the idea. Do you sometimes feel like that in your creative process or you always succeed developing the primary idea? -Is your music a product of your mood or do you go for some specific results? Where does your inspiration come from?

As time progresses, I have fewer and fewer failed projects. The act of articulating my musical thoughts onto tape or paper often results in making them more vivid and compelling. It also has the effect of making fewer things possible. At each stage of committing to the evolution of an idea, fewer possibilities are afforded for changing direction and intention. This is an intellectual process. When I am developing new sounds and materials for a composition, I am seeking specific results and can articulate to myself what kinds of things I am seeking. In creating a new composition things are sometimes more amorphous and my intention is, at the outset at least, less specific. Musical creation is informed by mood and environment as well. However, I would not say that my work is completely intuitive and mood-driven.

Inspiration can sometimes be purely musical - a sound can inspire a musical gestures just as a film, painting or book can inspire a piece or an album. I tend to take inspiration from typical places, literature (both artistic and factual/scientific), nature, other art forms and other artists. I keep journals for composition which contains fragments of the things that interest me and pointers to inspirations of all types.

Q. Have you ever collaborated with other musicians? if you did, what did this bring to you? or are you an individual?

I enjoy collaboration quite a bit. I have had some very important collaborations over the years with video artists, other composers and musicians, computer programmers, artists, dancers and so on. These days I tend to favor collaborations which are not too far ranging, mainly due to time constraints and my creative schedule. For example, on The Silent Shore, William Metz (actually one of my students) played a role in providing some MAX programming and some treatments and loops some of which worked into the final project. Another form of collaboration which is of interest to me these days is with virtuoso performers in the creation of new works. Generally speaking, I am a solo artist at this time. I am open to other musical collaborations in the future like those of my past but I am not actively seeking them.

Q. Do you ever play live? Is the motivation different to the one in the studio?

I have been in a number of situations in the past where live performance is important. However, these days, I am more interested in studio work simply because of time and opportunity. In the future, it may obtain that I return to live performance but in what context remains unclear. It is likely that it will be some form of pop music and not strictly electronic music.

Q. Your CDS The silent shore, and Frontier are just now been included in Margen´s catalogue. But your professional career is very long. Tell us about your work and relationship with Aucourant Records and your latest works with them: Rendezvous and Aether.

Aucourant Records is my label. It was started in 1989 and is actually the second label I have founded. The concept of Aucourant Records is to publish not only some of my own works but also build a catalog of other artists. At present it is becoming a very eclectic label indeed with recordings ranging from alternative classical music to computer music. I have roughly 10 CDS on Aucourant which are solo projects with more planned for the next few years. It is useful to have some control over your own publishing and the ability to put out a recording such as Cloud Cover without anyone's approval. I have relationships with other labels as well and am currently considering doing a double CD of computer music on yet another label. But, having a home base to come to for special projects is very important to me.

Aether is a recording of contemporary instrumental music, in the style of post-modern new age. As you can imagine it has some edge to it, knowing my other works. But, it is very interesting as a recording - somewhat similar to Patrick O'Hearn. It has already been given a very positive review in Wind and Wire and will be hitting the US airwaves soon. Rendezvous is a recording of pop music with vocals. This recording is only intended for air play and is available in very limited quantities. It is a bit like Peter Gabriel, Bowie, Eno and Bryan Ferry. It has hip-hop elements and some very experimental songs as well. People who are interested can find out about the discs at the Aucourant Records website.

Q. There is a very special CD in your work: Acoustic food for man. In memoriam: John Cage. Do you want to tell us about this record?

This is a work done in memory of John Cage, who I knew at the University of California at San Diego. It is made with his reading of some of his last texts and percussion sounds - sticks and rattles etc. It is available on the website only and is not on CD in fact. It may become a track on a CD due out this year, however. It is a very short work. Music - it is acoustic food for man.

Q. What are your current projects?

The current projects include a CD of chamber music in the avant-garde style with composer, Nick Demos called Another Sky which will be on Aucourant Records. I am working almost daily on a new ambient CD. For next Fall the Fountainhead CD Neutopia featuring some more techno styled material also on Aucourant. I am developing a CD of collected computer works for publication next year in a double CD set. Also working on the usual kinds of things, a new piece for orchestra, a piece for two violins, a chamber piece for viola, ensemble and computer generated tape. This is pretty normal for me. It is a lot of work and some things get done more quickly than others of course.

Q. Sorry for asking: how will you manage to do still better than your last CDS? It will be not easy and we are eager to know.

Ha ha! My hope is that the next CD projects will be worthy of the fine attention and critique that my recent projects have earned. I think my best work is yet to come, so I am very excited to continue to develop my ideas. But, you will have to tell me if I have succeeded!

Q. Want to add something more for Margen readers?

Sure, thank you for reading! I would love to hear form interested Margen readers via E-mail and please visit my website if you have time.

Q. About what more do I need, send please:

-CD issues, with year and label (reference would be good, too). -Fotos, whatever you can

-Bio (write some good stuff!)

These can be retrieved from my website:

biography: http://www.aucourantrecords.com/rst/rst/rst0.html

current press release: http://www.aucourantrecords.com/rst/rst/press.htm

CD catalog online: http://www.aucourantrecords.com/aurec/rstambi.htm

Aucourant Records: http://www.aucourantrecords.com/

This interview was published in Margen #17 in 1999