Having started as an artist and multi-instrumentalist, what led you to engineering and production?
One of the first jobs I had was working in a music store in Minneapolis, selling guitars and synths. I made some contacts there and I started engineering for the Fairlight Series III. The orchestral libraries we produced required me to hyper-focus on the recording and engineering aspects, which helped to discipline and develop my ears in a new way. I was then asked by some friends to design their recording studio, which was based around a Synclavier. I stayed on at that studio and ran the Synclavier for a few years, until I moved from Minneapolis to L.A. to work for Virgin Records as a house engineer/producer. I still love the Synclav — great sounds! After three years as Director of Audio for Virgin in L.A., I was ready to work on a wider variety of projects, incorporating music and sounds that aren't necessarily music in the usual sense. I started Sound Furnace, Inc. to do just that.
A lot of your more recent work seems to be in the form of avant-garde sound installations and museum pieces. What sparked your move into this arena?
It all started in college, really. I used a Simmons EPROM blower to make a mannequin respond by striking it with a drumstick. I think it said, "Please have a mint." Several years ago I was approached by my friend, well-known artist Doug Aitken, to create the sound for his three-screen epic installation entitled "Interiors" — which has just been added to the MOMA's permanent collection. It's a piece about chaos and harmony, and about how rhythms and musical time can come together and then separate, like the collision of sound from a passing car interacting with your own voice to create something new and larger — and, in some cases, quite interesting.
Describe this a bit more. I'm trying to imagine what kinds of sounds you are talking about.
This particular piece is comprised of four scenes cycling over three separate screens. Each scene follows individual actors (one of whom is Andre 3000 from the hip-hop duo Outkast) through different landscapes and spaces. I started with real sounds to match each scene, and slowly began to process and warp the sounds, to soften the edges and create something more tailored. The music was created by matching the tempos for each scene, and then sequencing the more organic parts of the instrumentation to fit with the sound. As time passes while the observer is watching the piece, the actors' worlds begin to intersect and sync up with each other, culminating in an intense piece of music composed of a tap dancer, an auctioneer, a handball player and a rapper. Three separate stereo music and sound mixes slowly fall in time with one another at certain key moments. It's like a wave breaking. The sound starts very simple, and then slowly develops into a wild crescendo — only to go silent and begin again. It's very hypnotic. It took me about two months to finish this particular piece.
