Word The Cat

I just finished reading Pink Noises by Tara Rodgers, a collection of interviews with women who perform/improvise/produce/code electronic music and sound art. The book is out via a university press (Duke) and features amongst others… Kaffe Matthews, AGF, Mutamassik, Ikue Mori, Elaine Radigue and turntablist Maria Chavez…

…
“Records can be ruined intentionally; I’ve had some people ruin records for me, but I really don’t use them very often. I have a couple that I ruined myself that I use maybe once every few months. But the records that I actually use the most are the ones that have been naturally ruined on their own. Because I keep them all in my backpack without the sleeves, so they’re in and out, they move around, they touch each other. So there’s always new scratches. Sometimes I’ll leave them outside or leave them in the car, just so they can kind of mold into each other. Some will stay put, some will warp around it. And I prefer it that way, because it’s organic. Because my needles break during the performance, they break in their own ways. I would hate to have my records have to be manipulated in order for me to play them. I would much rather it be something that happened naturally, so that when I play them, I have a better understanding of what sound is going to happen when this broken needle touches this record warped this way.” (p. 98)

Maria Chavez was born in Lima and raised in Houston. She now lives in Brooklyn. There’s an interview with her here…

Needles are dropped and skimmed across spinning vinyl, broken and replaced they do their best to grip splinters of records. At the time of above interview (2006) the setup was one turntable and a mixer with a 3 band EQ…

“I knew [improvised music] was there, and I’d listened to it, but I always felt that there was some kind of inside story going on that I wasn’t understanding. But when I went to that show [Joe McPhee and Trio X], I understood that there wasn’t – it was just what it was. And I really appreciated it for that.” (p. 95)