When I first heard about composer Katherine Young’s Biomes project – this framework for collaboration through composition and improvisation – and its description as an ecosystem, the joy centers in my brain lit up. I mean, yes, scientifically, a biome is an ecosystem, but Young’s presentation of this as a set of rules for sonic exploration felt alive in a way that surprised me. Boundaries and rules are nothing new in this context, but an organic kind of ecstatic freedom emerges across these three pieces, each built from its own taxonomy of creatures, conditions, features, and temporalities. Each of these elements can bend and stretch depending on who is playing.
BIOMES, her new album on Chaikin Records, is the first release fully showcasing this work. Joined by Ben Lamar Gay (with Brian Chase), Olivia Block (with Tim Daisy), and Yarn/Wire, it’s like wandering through three distinct microclimates and letting the ear and the body acclimate and sink into each one. It’s life in countless timbres, endless textures. Throughout, it remains approachable. The listener doesn’t need to understand the full taxonomy before walking through BIOMES’ doors.
BIOMES will be released on September 18 via Chaikin Records. Young will play an album release show with Block, Gay, Chase, and Yarn/Wire on September 17 at Roulette.
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You came up as a bassoonist first, and that instrument, especially amplified and run through electronics, doesn’t have an obvious lineage of solo improvisers. What drew you to the instrument, and what did you have to invent for yourself along the way?
You know, I started playing the bassoon when I was 12, and I’ve just kind of stuck with it! I liked that it was unusual and had a dark, rich timbre. I think that I’ve been able to stick with it – and have found it such a rich instrument to improvise with – because of all the sounds it can make beyond the, say, 40 pitches in its 3+ octave range. I like all the in-between sounds. These are sounds that – at least when I play haha – the instrument is very happy to make, although they weren’t the ones I was taught.
And then, the process of using amplification and pedals came about gradually. At first I just wanted to be louder because I was playing in noisy bars and basements and with drummers, noise musicians, guitarists, saxophonists, etc. I stumbled upon the pickup I still use in 2005 or so, and it gets a very clean signal with very little feedback, but the tone is not natural. So, my foray into pedals began initially to mitigate the sound of the pickup, but eventually, pedals opened up this whole other world of sound.
You’re right. I didn’t have a lot of immediate role models for folks doing electroacoustic improvisation on the instrument when I started out. Just in terms of bassoon sounds, Sofia Gubaidulina was a huge early influence, and then over the years, of course, I learned about Karen Borca, as well as folks more my age like Dana Jessen and Sara Schoenbeck who are incredible improvisers. I also found inspiration from other electroacoustic improvisers playing unusual instruments – Zeena Parkins, for example. And I worked closely with violists Amy Cimini and Jessica Pavone over the years, and their work as improvisers with pedals definitely informed my approach.
You’ve said relationship building and collaboration are central to your practice, not just something that happens alongside the work. Where does that come from for you, and how far back does it go?
Really, I think this goes way back to why I even got more serious about music. It’s always for me been about the people, about the friendships and relationships I’ve made through the music. I became more cognizant of this and began to articulate this more clearly for myself in the last decade or so, particularly working with Linda Jankowska on our boundarymind project. We talked and thought a lot about the politics and ethics of collaboration.
What’s the earliest memory you have of really connecting with sound outdoors, something that maybe planted the seed for all this?
One of my strongest sound memories from childhood would definitely be the cicadas, frogs, and other nighttime critters that come out and sing during the summers in the South. I love the liveliness, intensity, and rhythmic energy these creatures create together. I also love love love the sound of wind moving through the leaves. It’s only perceptible when things are quite quiet, but that sound gives me goosebumps.
When did BIOMES turn from a single piece into this thing you knew you’d keep coming back to for years?
This was the idea from the beginning, actually. I thought of it kind of like an expanded graphic score, in which I offer up a whole bunch of materials and then a given group of collaborators can choose whichever materials spark their creativity. And, given the vastness of life on this planet, as well as speculations and fabulations possible about imagined scenarios – it became apparent immediately that it would always be incomplete, and thus, I could always keep developing and working on it.
You’re pulling together field recordings, drawings, fiction, science writing. What does a normal day of that actually look like for you?
Oh, I’m not very good at doing the same thing every day. But some activities that are involved include reading, taking walks, taking little videos and audio recordings when I’m out and about, listening to music, talking to people about the ideas I’m grappling with – I do a lot of that! I also really love notating music because it’s this special, super focused, and really hard practice of sitting down really imagining the music. I’ve usually got some specific sounds in mind and some concepts, but it’s a very strange thing to imagine the music moment by moment as it unfolds.
You moved to Atlanta in 2020 after being in New York and Chicago. What did exploring the urban woodlands there do to how you were already thinking about biomes, coming from cities you knew so much better?
Being able to very quickly and frequently immerse myself in the forest has been a wonderful thing about living in Atlanta, and it definitely immediately felt different from my day-to-day in Chicago and New York. Part of the reason that I have been able to do this, though, is not just the geography of these cities, but also due to changes that come with becoming a parent – and particularly a parent during the pandemic. Taking my then-three-year-old out for a walk in a forested park was an activity that felt safe, got us out of the house, and that we both enjoyed. That was a very challenging period, and I found that the time in the woods was something I looked forward to. It was the best part of the day. I started to explore the woods more out of parental desperation – haha – but then I realized how much I loved spending time there. And then this added new significance and palpability to concerns about environmental issues and interests about ecology I’d held for a long time, but that had, perhaps, been more intellectual or abstract.
BIOMES 6.0 took years with Yarn/Wire, starting as shorthand for improvising and eventually becoming a full score. What happens in that jump from playing something loose to writing it down?
Specifically with BIOMES 6.0, the process began with using improvisation to explore the BIOMES concepts and develop a shared understanding and vocabulary. From there – again, thanks to the pandemic – we shifted to making an installation using recordings and an outdoor, mobile performance at Pioneer Works. Using recordings and the studio to edit and compose was significant to further refining the sound of each of the biomes we were working with. After those experiences, I felt like we had a ton of great material, but I was excited to really compose out specific transitions and layerings. This would be possible in a more improvisational practice, but notation is also very useful for this, and since Yarn/Wire is comfortable working with notated music, this tool seemed useful. But ultimately, there are improvisational moments interwoven through the notated BIOMES 6.0 score.
Tell me about the species improvisations. You pick an organism, and it becomes part of someone’s playing. How does that conversation even start with a musician?
Right. So this is a great example of one of the ways I incorporated improvisation into the score. In some ways, it’s like any other improvised solo within a song, tune, etc. Some of the band is playing something pretty predetermined or stable, and then one person gets to kind of go off and be more exploratory and free. So, these moments are sprinkled throughout the BIOMES 6.0 score. The idea is that the performer takes a few bars to freely improvise in the spirit of or inspired by a given species. For example, Russell has a really great cockroach (Periplaneta americana) solo at the end of the piece! The online BIOMES meta-score includes details about specific species, so this information can be used for inspiration.
It’s funny, but within the context of the piece, I think it makes a kind of sense, and since Yarn/Wire has been involved for so long, they mostly get the idea. I’d be excited to field questions from musicians who haven’t had such a long history with the project, though, when/if another group takes on the piece.
With Olivia Block, you started with lichen. How does something that small and strange end up steering decisions about tape and playback speed? And once you and Olivia had the tape ideas going, Tim Daisy came in on percussion. What did he change once he was in the room?
With Olivia, I started by asking her to collaborate on making a piece in the BIOMES series, and I shared some general information about the project and previous iterations. She had recently traveled in northern Finland and encountered some very inspiring lichen. I have been intrigued by these weird symbiotic organisms for years, too, and so once we wound up talking about lichen, things got exciting. Then, we each did some research and reported back on what about lichen we found most intriguing. We discussed their ability to survive in harsh conditions and their slow growth rate. At the same time, we also discussed musical ideas and techniques we were currently interested in. And we found this synergy between these life forms’ slow growth rate and manipulating the speed of sound recorded to tape. At a certain point, we followed the music, but lichen informed our initial direction and decisions.
One of my favorite things to do with collaborators is to begin by asking them what sounds or techniques they are most excited about right now. Tim had been playing around a lot with using ceramic bowls in his setup, so we used these sounds as a starting point to develop the percussion instrumentation. Before going in to record, the three of us experimented with some tape machines Olivia had and found some percussion and piano materials that we thought worked well to be manipulated by the tape speed. Tim brought his expertise, sensitivity, and musicality to bear on the development of the percussion materials. And a lot of the music came together in the recording studio, working with the 2” tape machine that they have at Electrical Audio.
The Ben LaMar Gay session started as improv before you shaped it into a track later. When you go back into something like that to edit it, what are you actually listening for?
It’s definitely a very intuitive process. The materials themselves really guide how things evolve. I’m listening for moments that sound particularly integrated, surprising, committed, evocative, or compelling. Moments that catch my ear for whatever reason. I’m also really hard on myself – there are very specific things I like when I hear my bassoon playing recorded and a lot that I don’t. So that weeds out a lot! Then it’s a trial-and-error process to connect those moments into something that holds together and unfolds in a musically satisfying way.
You’ve talked about editing as zooming into one organism and then pulling back out to something like a whole landscape. What does that back and forth feel like when you’re actually in it?
Yes, for this track with Ben, that’s the headspace I found myself in. I think that way of imagining came about because of the materials we recorded – and how we recorded them, with close and room mics, direct electronic signals, etc. – as well as because of the BIOMES backdrop for the project. For me, as I’m listening to the sounds, my imagination triggers kind of vague visual images and haptic sensations related to enclosed or open spaces, looking at something really close up or from very far off. Hearing small, quiet sounds in a lot of detail is one of my favorite things about microphonic listening and recording. And then, there are sounds and musical moments that feel expansive… So I guess I just follow those impulses and reactions.
There’s a chapbook that comes with the record. What’s in there that the music alone couldn’t say?
Well, I hope that the music can be meaningful for folks with or without the chapbook. But in my experience, some people find understanding why and how the music was created to be a helpful introduction to listening, especially to something new and unknown with unexpected twists and turns. So, I wanted to share some of my thoughts and reflections for those who are interested. Brian Chase, from Chaikin Records, really encouraged the chapbook. I trusted his instinct that this could be exciting, helpful, and curiosity-peaking for some listeners.
And lastly, to close as always… What are some of your favorite sounds in the world?
The sounds my kid makes when sleeping, laughter, my cats’ purrs; peepers, cicadas, and other summer evening critters; percolators and coffee makers; and a beautiful, soft concert bass drum POOF!
Foxy Digitalis depends on our awesome readers to keep things rolling. Pledge your support today via our Patreon or subscribe to The Jewel Garden. You can also make a one-time donation via Ko-fi.
