Words by David C. Obenour
The fact that music is “played” often gets lost within that context. The same way it gets lost in how we say that sports are “played”. We examine and elevate talent until suddenly “play” sounds and is understood more like “perform”. Which loses something magic about how talented musicians do, in fact, play with one another. Recorded from live improvised collaboration, Swiss keyboardist Oli Kuster, UK saxophonist Dee Byrne, and for this recording, Berlin’s Xavier Kaeser played together for Drowned Circuitss. Here the trio take the rules of jazz, and bend and break them with wherever their influences lead. Wherever they decide they want to play next.
Off Shelf: You’ve now worked together on a number of releases and different projects. How is playing together comforting or reliable and what excites you still about what the other brings?
Oli Kuster: Playing with Dee feels very natural and familiar to me, there is not much we need to talk about beforehand. We basically just start to play, like starting a conversation which can go one of many ways.
Dee Byrne: I always find whatever Oli plays is fresh, musical, creative and unexpected. He is really improvising and I’ve always appreciated that about his playing. I know that we’ll be able to dive straight into the creative process without having to talk about it beforehand.
OS: For Drowned Circuits, you brought in Swiss drummer, Xavier Kaeser. Why did you work with them for this recording? Can you think of anything they played here that maybe wasn’t as expected at first?
DB: I had been thinking that it would be fun to get a drummer involved to compliment the electronically generated beats. Oli played with Xavier previously and suggested him. I really like his musicality, he really listened during the session and could contribute delicate brushwork and nuanced percussion sounds – in Frozen Tides for example, as well as locking in with heavy beats – again for example, in Drowned Circuits.
OK: Xavier is a young drummer, we haven’t played with him that many times before. It was more kind of a try-out, really, which just happened to work out beautifully. It’s always good to have live drums complementing the drum parts from the modular synth, as there is a more natural response and interplay with human played drums than from electronic drums.
OS: How improvised were the compositions for Drowned Circuits? What did you go into the studio with prepared?
OK: It was just a matter of pressing the record button and playing along some pre-recorded modular synth tracks of mine. The music is very improvised, no instructions, no beforehand listening to the tracks, we also didn’t do any second takes on any of them, just realtime playing with the pre-recorded tracks acting as a fourth passive element. I did some editing and mixing afterwards, mostly shortening the tracks, cutting out some material.
OS: Did you go into the studio with any sort of thoughts or parameters on Drowned Circuits as a whole? Things you wanted to explore or convey?
OK: There was not much thought put into it before the recording, it was really just a recorded jam session, of course building on the work Dee and I have done before.
DB: I will say that I wasn’t afraid of developing a line or hook, if it felt appropriate. I didn’t shy away from melody in some tracks – such as Frozen Tides or New Horizons, but really wanted to visit more atonal and avant-garde textures, like on Unruly Passenger, Synapse Shindig.
OS: The album has a seamless and incredibly natural sounding mix of analog and digital sounds. What excites you about this fusion? How do they play off each other in different ways from a more singularly focused approach?
OK: For me, acoustic improvised music is often limiting, going to similar places. The electronic soundscapes and beats make me go to other places.
DB: There are so many more possibilities with this mix of analog and digital, both in the context of my instrument and the whole group. I’m inspired to play new ideas using the different sounds I can get from my effects pedals. As an ensemble we can go to so many more places: a more hard industrial noise-based sound world, completely free avant-garde improv, or more melodic dance music with rich harmonies and anthems. It’s all available for us!
OS: A lot has been said of your innovative sounds but are there parts you consider rooted in more traditional playing or composition? What do you value drawing from?
DB: We are definitely drawing from our training as musicians. My playing in other ensembles – ranging from contemporary jazz to free improvisation – informs how I play with this project. I like that we can drop into a more jazz sound if we want to or take it into a more abstract place! Certainly creating melody is a form of composition. I like developing simple melodies or rhythmic ideas to provide tension and release with more ‘jarring’ edgy elements. These are all things that we’re drawing from our experience in other musical settings.
OS: I love “Frozen Tides” transition between saxophone and keyboard soloing, both flowing so smoothly between one another. Can you highlight moments from this recording that particularly resonate with you listening back?
DB: Yes, that is a really nice transition that just naturally happened! New Horizons at 3.21, I like how the melody comes in and the piece kind of lifts off. Unruly Passenger at 2.26, the Rhodes comes in with a repetitive crunchy, distorted chord sequence that sounds so dark! Underneath the heavy drums and scrambling saxophone it just creates gravity to the second half of the track. Nebula, I love the intro. So atmospheric and moving!
OS: Now that you’ve recorded these songs, does that solidify their arrangements more for you when playing them again? What remains and evolves?
OK: We’ve only so far played one gig in this formation, so it’s hard to say where things will be going, but there are many possibilities we can draw from. I’m sure we’ll also play those tracks, which have became tunes somehow.
DB: The DNA of the tracks is there as a guide that we’ll refer to. I think the spirit of each track will definitely remain as well as the melodic / harmonic ideas. The arrangements will be more fluid. As we’ll be improvising, it will always take the music to unexpected places.
OS: Can you think of how your previous improvising has informed your approach to the songwriting on Drowned Circuits? Either through ongoing rehearsal or live performance.
OK: For me, my work on Drowned Circuits was actually kind of two-part. One part was making tracks with my modular synth and with electronics, which is creating music which is done without even using a keyboard. It’s mainly machine music, working with oscillators and filters and sequencers and looped random elements. It’s about sounds and rhythms. The second part was playing over those tracks together with Dee and Xavier on an electric piano, which is a completely different approach where I deal with scales and harmony – more of an interaction and improvising approach where I can draw from my many years of piano playing.
DB: Playing together with Oli in various other projects means that we have developed a common language. Either of us can take an idea and run with it and know that we’ll be supported by the other. The history of improvising together meant that recording the album was a fun creative experiment of spontaneously composition!
Website | Oli Kuster: Website | Instagram | Dee Byrne: Website | Facebook | Instagram | X