The Opposite of a Concert
After a Lifetime of Living
Mark Rushton’s Interpolation in the Arts is a weekly email on Substack where I talk about my ongoing work as a recording artist and visual artist.
This email is brought to you by the Mark Rushton Gallery, for printed and original artworks. License my music, sound fx, and illustrations at Pond 5 for your creative project. I’m on Bandcamp and all the usual streaming services.
This week’s topics:
The Opposite of a Concert
David Sylvian - “Weathered Wall”
The Opposite of a Concert
Why do I make ambient music? I don’t know if I have a good answer for that question. It’s not like I listen to a lot of ambient music. As you know from my weekly posts, I listen to nearly everything. Perhaps it’s because I consider myself a “non-musician” and, as a composer, I rarely venture into the word of notes, chords, time signatures, clefs, and verse/chorus/verse.
Why did I start making music again in my early 30s? I’ve said this from the beginning, but it was to give myself something to listen to and focus on while testing software at my day job. It wasn’t to be popular or make money. It wasn’t to play somebody else’s songs. Or to play live.
One thing I’ve always wanted to do was to have some kind of “happening” or a live event. I suppose it’s like being a DJ, although what I do is a little more than pressing a button and waving my arms in the air like EDM DJs do. I’d like to have an event where it’s dark, there’s visuals, and people can lie down and take a nap. Kind of like being in a flotation tank but without the salt water and ear plugs and $70 charge. And I don’t want the music to be too loud.
Is “chilling out” too alternative of a lifestyle? I do wonder. Every place you go has loud music. Even most of the grocery stores. I don’t get it. Most sound design in public places is thoughtless and careless. I have no control over it, except to wear earbuds and play something else. Plus, too many people are walking around and staring down into their phones 24/7, like a zombie. That’s a problem, but it’s not my problem.
If the live gig happens, what I’d like to have is it be in a little room where people can sit down, talk to each other, look at their phones if they want, have a drink if they want, and just chill out. It wouldn’t be offensive to me to have ”people noise” amongst the music. Actually, I’d be in favor of it. I don’t want to be the center of attention. Nor the music. If you need that level of intimacy to the music, buy a cassette or CD on the merch table, or find me on the streamers or Bandcamp.
David Sylvian - “Weathered Wall”
This never sounded like it was recorded in 1983-1984. It’s completely out of time.
I bought the album Brilliant Trees when it came out in 1984 and played it on my radio show . I was a fan of Sylvian’s previous band, Japan.
At the time, I felt the whole album was exceptionally sophisticated. Side one is jazzy art pop. Side two is a little further out. Sylvian was 25 years old at the time.
It had most of the Japan band members on it. Richard Barbieri plays synthesizer here, but just as blocks of sound. Steve Jansen on the steady drums.
Ryuichi Sakamoto guests on either synth or piano.
Jon Hassell on processed trumpet.
In the middle is Holger Czukay messing with radio samples played through a dictaphone. Although I once read Czukay refer to it as a "dictatorphone” because he had a great sense of humor.
Sylvian and Czukay later released some long form ambient collage records. “Plight & Premonition”, their release in 1988, is something I’ve probably listened to nearly 1000 times. I had a cassette dub of my vinyl record and I would play it often while working in the evenings at the mutual fund company in the early 90s.
For me, the amazing part of Weathered Wall is the “processed radio sample” starting about 2:53, and eventually it moves back to Hassell’s trumpet solo. The whole thing sounds like a dream.