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Matt Davis on Field Recording

Tokafi has republished a great interview that Jez Riley French had some time ago with musician and recordist Matt Davis, talking about field recording.

When & why did you become interested in field recording?

At the time it felt necessary to use sounds that existed ‘out there in the world’, things that were not made by me. I think the feeling at the time was that my trumpet work was too introspective and the personal decisions I was making had become irrelevant and arbitrary. I’ve always made work which is very process orientated and field recordings gave me an opportunity to get back to working like that – i.e. going somewhere and recording the sound, being led by the sounds rather than the other way round. It also has a lot to do with space – I kind of see most of what I do relates to a perception or presentation of space(s), so playing field recordings was an obvious way of developing that – playing the sound of the space, creating a sense of space with recognisable or non-recognisable sounds. It’s something I developed a lot working with some forms of contemporary dance such as Butoh where the music/sound can provide a space without dominating or directing what’s happening, remaining very open, like that particular form of dance.

You can find more interviews here.

Miguel Isaza M

Listener, speaker.