Dark Ambient Interview:
Mindspawn
At the beginning
of the year, I posted my review of Daemon, a dark ambient
album from Mindspawn, a musician also known as Gene Williams. After
reading the album description and some of Gene’s postings on his
own website, I had more than a few questions that I was curious to
get the answers to. Gene was kind enough to agree to an interview,
the result of which you can see below. We talk about the role a
persona plays in his creativity, the perils of working with tools
that can be different each time you turn them on, and we get a
glimpse of Gene’s general philosophy towards life. I hope that you
find the interview as fascinating as I did.
***
Casey:
You originally created the Mindspawn persona to aid in the creation
of your solo musical projects. In a blog post in early 2020, you say
that, over time, the Mindspawn persona has tended to gravitate more
towards what might be termed dark ambient creations. With these
things in mind, in which ways does using a persona help you in your
musical endeavours, and why do you think that Mindspawn, over time,
has tended towards the dark ambient side of things?
Gene: Personas
create a loose framework on which to explore certain aspects of my
creativity. Think about David Bowie’s Ziggy Stardust, Hank
Williams,' Luke The Drifter, or Nicki Minaj’s, Roman Zolanski. All
were used in some fashion by the artists that created them to delve
into musical idioms that reflected the persona in some fashion, but
much of the time the music made under these persona’s were usually
outside the typical style, sound, or societal expectation of the
artist’s main audience. I make music across many genres from blues
to hip-hop, and while I do a lot of productions under the Mindspawn
name that aren’t dark ambient, the majority of my Mindspawn
releases are firmly in the dark ambient, drone, etc., vein. It’s
simply a sound or style I gravitate toward.
That said, having a
persona that I can play with creates a framework for sound
exploration, timbre choices, and arrangements that contributes to a
smoother workflow when creating new work. I don’t think of them as
inviolate, but more akin to wearing a performance costume, if you
will.
Casey: In
the same blog post, you also talk about how Mindspawn helps you in
the process of self-discovery, letting you explore questions about
who you are and the role that perception, both your own and others,
might play in who anyone “is”. Is there an example that you might
be able to give that illustrates something that you’ve learned
about yourself by way of your music creation?
Gene: My
Mindspawn persona is one that actively encourages my experimentation,
and as it is a persona I can look from the persona back to myself…
it’s really hard to learn about yourself without the input of
others, my Mindspawn persona is a little like someone else looking
back at me, informed by the musical explorations. Over many years of
this back and forth conversation between Mindspawn and myself I’ve
had revelations, big and small, that have caused me to question
“default settings” in my life, revisit old ideas with new eyes
(or ears), and shape how I interact with the world in a more balanced
(for me) manner. I’ve learned greater patience and discipline via
Mindspawn, and a willingness to try anything no matter where it takes
me. In that way, the Mindspawn persona is an amplifier of all my
creative endeavors. Would that be possible without the persona? Of
course, but the persona creates a ready made laboratory replete with
recipes, ingredients and best practices baked in… It is kind of
strange on some level that creating restrictions can be immensely
liberating, and at the same time no restriction is inviolate. I think
for me a lot of that stems from an interest Taoism that really got
stared with exposure to Bruce Lee’s philosophy and teachings, in
particular, “have no way as way."
Casey:
For Daemon, your most recent Mindspawn release, the album
description mentions the role that experimentation and exploration
played in its creation, and the possibility of losing those
discoveries if you were to risk turning off your modular synth. How
important is it for you to start a project with some kind of purpose
in mind, and do you have any particular techniques for branching out
into areas that, while related, might not be imagined until you
happen to stumble across them?
Gene: Sometimes
when I start a new work the purpose is clear and fully formed, at
least loosely so. At other times the only purpose is to sit down and
explore sound. Quite often I will start with a purpose but that might
alter marginally or significantly, even to the point of being utterly
unrecognizable in some cases… So the short answer is, purpose can
be valuable, but if the art asks you to violate that purpose, be
willing to try it on for size. You may find that new place is where
you were going all along….
My way of working with
my eurorack modular equipment is a perfect example of something that
swings both ways. On the surface, the power to create almost any
sound I can think of is right there, I have over 120 modules that
shape, twist, chop apart, granulate, and otherwise create interesting
sounds…. But the myriad ways I can realize a particular kind of
sound often will lead to unexpected tangents that can take you far
far from the original intent. Many of these tangents are far more
powerful and intriguing than the original concept. So, when I’m
creating a new soundscape, bass sound, drum hit, weird noise, or any
form of explorative sound design, there’s always this side of me
listening for the unexpected.
I most often start with
no pre-patching at all, preferring to literally create a new sound
design from scratch every time. By starting a sound design session
clean, it lets me think about new ways to arrive at the same place,
different modules that might shape the sound differently or emphasize
a particular aspect of timbre, etc. Most often this happens pretty
quick and I record my work and then clear all the cabling for the
next session. On occasion though, I’ll be onto something, and the
chase to find/realize that something can take days. Modular synths,
like any analog device, are subject to the whims of the world around
them and there is no ‘freeze state” where you can turn everything
off and come back to it later and hear the exact same thing.
Digital tools, soft
synths, etc., are phenomenal for that ability to have perfect recall,
modular synths, not so much. For example, you might be connecting
several modules to create a sound... a slight variance in temperature
on the last module in the chain might be barely noticeable, while
that same variance at the beginning of a chain can make the end
result widely different. Thus, when you’ve got a great sound on
your modular, but it still needs more tweaking to get it where it
needs to be, if you turn it off things cool down/the electrical flow
alters and the sound can get altered in really significant ways.
“Losing a sound" doesn’t always happen when you turn a
modular off, but it can. When I don’t want to risk losing a
particular patch/sound I’m working on, it stays live for the entire
time, and sometimes that can take days.
So while it can be
limiting and even frustrating not having “total recall” on a
modular synth, it’s also a way of working that I enjoy. The sound
is in the moment, volatile the entire time, and when you turn it off,
that sound is gone. Again, a kind of restrictive liberation.
Casey:
While Daemon made considerable use of your modular synth, do
you enjoy using any particular equipment or software above others,
and have you encountered any that you really thought would be fun or
powerful, but that you sadly didn’t “click” with?
Gene: Yes and
yes…. My guitars, eurorack modular equipment, my small collection
of Moogs, my monitors (both my main monitors, Kii Threes, and my
headphones, Audeze), and my DACs and Amps (Schiit, Chord, and Apogee)
are my favorite hardware pieces. On the soft side, I create a lot of
custom patches and sound libraries in Kontakt, and a Kontakt engine I
use frequently is the Dark Matter and Dark Matter 2 instruments made
by String Audio. The Dark Matter stuff is great for creating specific
ideas as you have immense control over the sound shaping parameters….
Aaaaaand the Dark Matter engine has a “randomize” function which
is like playing a sound design slot machine. Huge fun and
surprisingly capable of creating usable and nearly usable patches out
of the blue.
On the other side of
things, I’ve purchased many sound tools that sadly didn’t live up
to my expectations… And that’s fine. You experiment, maybe
something works for awhile but you hate the workflow, or the plugin
might be a little too unstable, or you simply don’t jive with a
sound. I liken this to the hardware DX7 synth. When those came out
(like a thousand years ago), they were the hot ticket and everyone
into synths had one. I purchased one in the mid 1980s and as much as
I tried to like it, and I did use it a lot, I never cared for the
sound, how it interfaced, editing, etc. BUT that’s my experience,
obviously lots of people loved that synth…. Still a valuable
lesson, as I learned about things I didn’t like and that informed
future time investments and purchases.
Casey:
When creating Daemon, you embraced the various meanings of the
word, from the Greek mythological version, to a background process
running on a computer. More broadly, do you have a particular
philosophical, spiritual or general view of life, a view that you
feel best describes what is going on around us, or that guides you in
your interactions with the world? I know that you mentioned Taoism
and Bruce Lee in a previous answer...
Gene: I’m not
religious, nor particularly spiritual, although the latter would
depend on the definition one chooses to employ. Viewed from some
perspectives, all life might be called spiritual.
I have a fascination
with the occult and the supernatural, but I wouldn’t call myself a
practical believer. The world around us is full of so many marvels,
it usually seems the supernatural is superfluous, and the occult is
usually revealed with little more than patience and an open mind.
Taoist and Stoic
philosophies contribute immensely to my perspective of the world, and
by world I mean everything, the universe seen and unseen, and
myself.... My interest in Taoism originally came through the filter
of Bruce Lee’s writings and philosophy when I was wee, maybe seven
or eight years old. Stoicism was planted into my mind via reading
Seneca in my early twenties. I wouldn’t call myself a Taoist nor a
Stoic, but as Bruce Lee says, “absorb what is useful, discard what
is useless and add what is specifically your own.”
Aside from that, I have
a strong belief in science. It usually works, and more importantly,
as we get presented with better information, the “rules” of
science are mutable and can reflect that new information. Science is
fascinating, with myriad disciplines to explore and fuse, and
real-life wonders which are as mind boggling as any acid infused tea
party collaboration that Dali and Giger might conjure.
Casey:
What can your fans look forward to hearing from you next?
Gene: I haven’t a clue! Well, maybe
that’s not entirely true. I’m always working with a few different
people on their projects, and I am a full time mastering engineer, so
I’m always hearing a variety of new music. All that exposure to
other artist's music is such an incredibly cool experience from which
I draw a ton of inspiration. I might pick up on sound combinations or
maybe a novel mix approach, or any plethora of things you might hear
that makes you think, that makes you feel, that excites you…. All
these combinations I try to learn from, and then from that mix of
ideas, techniques and sounds new interpretations flow… that’s
what the next Mindspawn album will sound like.
That all said, I’ve been playing around with
thematic ideas from re-reading some of Karl Edward Wagner’s Kane
stories and Michael Moorcock’s, Elric/Stormbringer and Corum tales.
Trying something that is inspired by those sources might be an
exquisite challenge and rewarding no matter where it ends up. The
stories are rich with imagery that begs for a soundtrack, a haunting
melody, or an otherworldly sound. The worlds of Wagner and Moorcock
are very fertile environments that spawn myriad musical and sound
suggestions.... I could call the next album, Arellarti by Night, or
perhaps, Dreaming City Blues…
***
Thanks so
much to Gene for taking the time to answer my questions. You can
visit Gene on his website to learn more about his music and his
mastering services. And be sure to keep an eye out for his music on
your music stores of choice too!
