Interview with Nootka Sounds
Interview with Nootka Sounds
Wolf-Loup, Sierra Jannise, Pillager, Free Will, Venadito were all present; Wolf-Loup answered the key questions.
MD = Matt Douglas
WL = Wolf-Loup
WL = Wolf-Loup
MD: Why exactly did you decide to start the label/collective Nootka Sounds?
WL: There were a bunch of musicians in town who were doing separate projects and I thought it would be nice to get everyone in town who was musically inclined together and try to get a project rolling, so that everyone in Tahsis who had a musical bent had an opportunity to express themselves. It’s really a project based on contributing [to the collective] and producing and promoting events with a diverse group of people.
MD: When did the group start?
WL: Nootka Sounds proper started about two years ago, but it was about four years ago that some of us got together. It kind of started out of this funny event that I helped organize for local caving enthusiasts, and from that we were inspired to do events around town. After that, we began our work in town with a halloween concert. We put out an advertisement seeing if anyone wanted to contribute; Venadito and Free Will answered my call and have been very dedicated to the project from the off. I’d met Pillager and Sierra Jannise previously, and I went to their place and hit them up to see if they’d be willing to contribute. So I think it all started out of that halloween concert we put on four years ago.
MD: I heard you guys put on a music festival recently? Was that related to the halloween concerts?
WL: We’ve had halloween concerts every year, but usually they’re more of a fun opportunity for any musicians in town to perform and have a public concert. The festival we produced last summer was more of an effort to branch out and appeal to the island and the province, and potentially hit up a global audience. We did that as we kind of find that in British Columbia there are a lot of festivals, but there aren’t too many festivals that crisply blend acoustic live music with cutting edge artistic electronic music performances. So we’re trying to find ways to sort of bridge this apparent gap - electronic music and live music - and find ways to bring these musical styles together and find common ground, so we can all enjoy something that everyone is a part of.
MD: Do you guys collaborate on a regular basis too?
WL: One of the most productive regular things we’ve done over the last while is a weekly jazz night where we just work on experimenting and trying to create new sounds and doing it completely free form, generally with no idea of what we want to do going in, but it helps people to work on their own craft; working on calling and listening, and speaking up when the time is right and having a conversation together. Even though many of us come from very different backgrounds, it’s been such a fun experience finding ways to work all of our individual skills together to create something interesting.
MD: So you guys clearly have different musical skills and backgrounds, and your solo albums all have unique sounds, yet the collaborative album Anti achieves a very different, yet cohesive sound throughout. Can you explain the process behind the album and how you guys arrived at such a cohesive sound?
WL: The way that this album was produced, it actually entirely comes from those jam sessions that we’ve had over the years. The album is a collection of those times when we hit upon some really nice sounds together. I guess the cohesiveness that comes from the album is because the recordings on the album are from one-shot takes, just kind of live improvisational moments. Because of the nature of the sound, and the open microphones and the sound from the speakers coming back in, and the spaces themselves that we’re working in, that kind of gets reflected in the final product. You can hear the environment in a lot of our productions. I think because we leave it open in a lot of the recordings, I think that’s why there's a cohesiveness, because it comes from the same general environment, and the recordings themselves are basically us channeling the way the environment speaks to us, and the way that we can best work with the environment we are in and contribute something interesting. I’m glad you picked up on this album in particular, because this album for sure represents most closely what our project in Tahsis is trying to do. This first album for sure is pretty special for us, and it’s definitely the type of music we enjoy exploring.
MD: I’m intrigued by the track titles on Anti. They seem to form a poem, can you explain why you guys chose to do this, and what the titles mean?
WL: Yeah, I always title tracks in a way which try to reflect the emotion. When I was piecing together this album, I wrote a poem based on the titles that were already there. I basically found a way to incorporate the existing song titles from what we already had into something a little more cohesive. It was the same thing as constructing the album because we had all these fragments from different jams. Yeah, finding a way to piece them together into a cohesive package that represent a particular idea, emotion, movement, through experiences and feelings.
MD: What are you guys working on next?
WL: We’re working on getting a couple acoustic albums up through our distributor to make sure we push that… and I have a few electronic pieces that a bunch of us are working on together.
WL: There were a bunch of musicians in town who were doing separate projects and I thought it would be nice to get everyone in town who was musically inclined together and try to get a project rolling, so that everyone in Tahsis who had a musical bent had an opportunity to express themselves. It’s really a project based on contributing [to the collective] and producing and promoting events with a diverse group of people.
MD: When did the group start?
WL: Nootka Sounds proper started about two years ago, but it was about four years ago that some of us got together. It kind of started out of this funny event that I helped organize for local caving enthusiasts, and from that we were inspired to do events around town. After that, we began our work in town with a halloween concert. We put out an advertisement seeing if anyone wanted to contribute; Venadito and Free Will answered my call and have been very dedicated to the project from the off. I’d met Pillager and Sierra Jannise previously, and I went to their place and hit them up to see if they’d be willing to contribute. So I think it all started out of that halloween concert we put on four years ago.
MD: I heard you guys put on a music festival recently? Was that related to the halloween concerts?
WL: We’ve had halloween concerts every year, but usually they’re more of a fun opportunity for any musicians in town to perform and have a public concert. The festival we produced last summer was more of an effort to branch out and appeal to the island and the province, and potentially hit up a global audience. We did that as we kind of find that in British Columbia there are a lot of festivals, but there aren’t too many festivals that crisply blend acoustic live music with cutting edge artistic electronic music performances. So we’re trying to find ways to sort of bridge this apparent gap - electronic music and live music - and find ways to bring these musical styles together and find common ground, so we can all enjoy something that everyone is a part of.
MD: Do you guys collaborate on a regular basis too?
WL: One of the most productive regular things we’ve done over the last while is a weekly jazz night where we just work on experimenting and trying to create new sounds and doing it completely free form, generally with no idea of what we want to do going in, but it helps people to work on their own craft; working on calling and listening, and speaking up when the time is right and having a conversation together. Even though many of us come from very different backgrounds, it’s been such a fun experience finding ways to work all of our individual skills together to create something interesting.
MD: So you guys clearly have different musical skills and backgrounds, and your solo albums all have unique sounds, yet the collaborative album Anti achieves a very different, yet cohesive sound throughout. Can you explain the process behind the album and how you guys arrived at such a cohesive sound?
WL: The way that this album was produced, it actually entirely comes from those jam sessions that we’ve had over the years. The album is a collection of those times when we hit upon some really nice sounds together. I guess the cohesiveness that comes from the album is because the recordings on the album are from one-shot takes, just kind of live improvisational moments. Because of the nature of the sound, and the open microphones and the sound from the speakers coming back in, and the spaces themselves that we’re working in, that kind of gets reflected in the final product. You can hear the environment in a lot of our productions. I think because we leave it open in a lot of the recordings, I think that’s why there's a cohesiveness, because it comes from the same general environment, and the recordings themselves are basically us channeling the way the environment speaks to us, and the way that we can best work with the environment we are in and contribute something interesting. I’m glad you picked up on this album in particular, because this album for sure represents most closely what our project in Tahsis is trying to do. This first album for sure is pretty special for us, and it’s definitely the type of music we enjoy exploring.
MD: I’m intrigued by the track titles on Anti. They seem to form a poem, can you explain why you guys chose to do this, and what the titles mean?
WL: Yeah, I always title tracks in a way which try to reflect the emotion. When I was piecing together this album, I wrote a poem based on the titles that were already there. I basically found a way to incorporate the existing song titles from what we already had into something a little more cohesive. It was the same thing as constructing the album because we had all these fragments from different jams. Yeah, finding a way to piece them together into a cohesive package that represent a particular idea, emotion, movement, through experiences and feelings.
MD: What are you guys working on next?
WL: We’re working on getting a couple acoustic albums up through our distributor to make sure we push that… and I have a few electronic pieces that a bunch of us are working on together.
For more info visit: https://nootkasounds.com/
This is an official invitation to have Wolf / Loup attend the Grand opening of the new Hybrid radio: ZLF-Radio-ZLF 77,7 at Sunrise & Sunset on thursday december 20th, 2018 in La Prairie (30 min South of Montréal). You have to play morning & evening, 3 gigs-a-day (2 public & one private), particiapation as yourself in the Music Documentary ...IF YOU WANT TO KNOW MORE ABOUT ME JUST WAIT FOR THE MOVIE TO COME OUT !...It will be release in time for the Sundance Film Festival & should win a couple Oscars for Best soundtrack & worst Actor/Actress & will finish tied with Silvester Stalonne's New Rocky 777 VS Tron 777. Get in touch with me (Mr. Eisenberg) at: 438.989.1163 and together we will build & Destroy great things. Regards, Miike Murphy aka Zilof Zilofski aka Maaario Afunssso !
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