2022 DMSA graduate Esme Wright joins us for this month’s feature to discuss sound ecology and audio forensics.
Three words that describe you as a creative person?
EW: Wistful, curious and weird
When did you start working with sound and music?
EW: I got curious when I was about 11 or 12, mostly about rhythm which kickstarted my drumming career, but in terms of the more experimental sounds, that became rooted when I was about 15 and gradually flowed throughout my life. When I began pursuing an interest in technology, that began pushing boundaries of what I could make with sound. Artistically, music has been a journal for me for a long time and a form of self soothing, and I feel lucky that working with sound has satisfied many facets of my mind.
In what ways has the DMSA course supported or helped you to develop into who you are today creatively and professionally?
EW: DMSA gave me a lot of freedom to create projects that would push me in new directions, while also retaining some realism about what I could achieve within limits. I found a good balance on the course and a new confidence as a result, I also treat my ideas with more attention now, and solve problems with creativity.
Can you tell us a few words about VivaSonar?
EW: I’m still imagining my final project, and ways to take it further or create sub-projects. As I found so much comfort in creating a safe reactive space, I feel that exploring sensory dimensions and sound ecology offers endless possibilities.
I’d like VivaSonar to be a more immersive living and breathing environment, which must be maintained, but in turn offers a peaceful meditative space for the participant. I can use the same functions for that while also developing it with additional code. This is to support the integration of technology to assist our living and our planet, and prevent an overcrowded soundscape.
What are your plans for the near future?
EW: As well as VivaSonar, I’d like to form a project around Audio Forensics. I work in CyberSecurity, and I feel there is an interesting crossover there. There are numerous threats existing under the surface or visual sphere. Audio Steganography and using soundwaves to alter accelerometer readings are viable ways to disrupt data, and deep fakes are becoming difficult to distinguish between. To follow on from VivaSonar in regards to how sound can help us appease or find balance in our environment, I’d like to explore ways that sound may corrupt our environment or understanding.
You can catch Esme with Gene Pool in Hastings on Saturday 22nd July for the ‘Burger Jam’ day festival at Half Man Half Burger – free entry.
DMSA Alumni Alex Lewis-Whitaker speaks to us this month about his current postgraduate research and projects. Alex graduated in 2021 and was awarded the Nagoya University of the Arts Award of Excellence for his project Wɔpo – a project which drew on his mixed English and Asante (Ghanaian) heritage to create work comprising both a live performance piece and a digital ‘mindmap’ to build bridges between his ancestral lineages.
Three words that describe you as a creative person?
ALW: Holistic, patient, inquisitive
When did you start working with sound and music?
ALW: I created a virtual rock band called Hippo Island when I was 16 (in 2016), for which I made two albums and an EP, all recorded and mixed on an iPad. I’ve since taken everything off the internet, but it was an important couple of years as it made me realise I could learn how to do everything myself, from the writing, to the recording, to the mixing. Brighton was the first time I’d really explored contemporary and experimental music in an academic setting, as I took Art, not Music, all the way through school.
In what ways has the DMSA course supported or helped you to develop into who you are today creatively and professionally?
ALW: The regular tutorials and conversations I had with my tutors, especially in third year, were priceless in terms of raising the standard of my work and making sure I kept challenging and expanding on my ideas. I was able to take crucial ideas from even the bits of the course that I don’t intend to make a career out of (e.g. sound art, sound for film), and apply them to my musical projects. I feel that I now have a broad understanding of the sound and music worlds, and I am also much closer to figuring out what kind of musician and artist I want to be. Being the DMSA nominee for the Nagoya University of the Arts prize, and winning it, has given me the confidence in my abilities to build a career out of being creative. I was also grateful to be given opportunities like performing at DMSA night and designing our degree show poster.
Can you tell us a few words about ‘La Création du Monde’?
ALW: This is my research project for the Audiovisual Cultures module on my current MA course, entitled ‘La Création du Monde: An Interdisciplinary Exploration of “Primitivism” in the Parisian Avant-Garde’. I used the same digital mindmap software that I used for my final project in Brighton to create what is essentially an online multimedia exhibition, centering on a ballet from 1923 by Ballets Suédois that gives insights into the obsession with primitivism and exoticism in Modernist arts in the 20th century. I explore the work from the perspectives of a variety of disciplines, including music, painting, dance, philosophy, psychology, ethnography and religion, history and art history, and politics.
The project in its current form can be accessed via the following link, although I am still intending to redo the audio narrations to be more engaging, rather than sound like I’m reading out an essay: https://app.milanote.com/1P6whl1DmPiifn?p=HZyFli6s3uU
What are your plans for the near future?
ALW: I am currently in the second semester of a Music MA at Goldsmiths, University of London, so this will be my priority until September. I am continuing to delve into completely different areas of music and culture, with the aim of allowing it all to influence my future music. At the end of March, I will be giving a performance of the atenteben, a bamboo flute from Ghana, as part of my ethnomusicology module, for which I was able to take Whatsapp lessons from a tutor at the University of Ghana. Over April, I will be focusing on my Philosophies of Music essay, for which I am looking at the use of glossolalia in the vocals of Lisa Gerrard (Dead Can Dance). Lastly, I will have my major project, for which I am studying the oral traditions of West Africa from an audiovisual perspective; my ideas are not very far along as yet but much of my interest came from my time in Brighton, where I started to develop an abstract style of storytelling.
Joe Gilling graduated in 2021 with a Final Research Essay ‘Haunted by Glitch: Technological Malfunction – Critiquing the Media of Innovation‘ that was selected for publication as part of the ARTECH 2021, and a Final Project ‘Spectres of the New Realm‘ that explored the nostalgic relationship with analogue sound and image through digital glitch aesthetics, projected onto a large screen set inside a spatial 6.1 speaker array.
We talk to Joe this month about where his career took him since graduating.
Three words that describe you as a creative person?
JG: Indecisive, Abstract, Conceptual
When did you start working with sound and music?
JG: I learnt the guitar from an early age and in my teenage years began to explore the world of digital composition and sampling. I found this kind of creativity more fulfilling and intuitive – you don’t need to be a professional at any instrument to be able to produce interesting sounds on a digital interface. The endless opportunities of digital music creation were exciting to me over the restrictiveness of a single instrument. However, I do feel my early years of performing an instrument informed my musical theory knowledge and ear for tonality which helped me later on.
In what ways has the DMSA course supported or helped you to develop into who you are today creatively and professionally?
JG: The course opened up avenues for deep thinking and creative musical composition outside of any traditional sense. DMSA showed me the ways artists had used and continue to use sound in forms I could never have imagined. The course pushed me out of my comfort zone on numerous occasions to take my work in audio to the very edge, which isn’t always enjoyable at the time, but I am endlessly grateful for it, making me a more critical thinker and adventurous person creatively today. I learnt so much about different concepts and ways of thinking about sound arts which have assisted me within my career now.
What are your plans for the near future?
JG: Since graduating from the course, I acquired a role in the sound design industry and now manage over 90 independent labels producing sample packs for a music technology company. I love the work I do, getting hands-on with audio every day and working with some of the top producers and labels from around the world. In the coming months, I’m looking to launch my own sound design brand called Rewind Samples (@rewindsamples), representing some of the most talented producers from the underground UK bass music scene.
Can you tell us a few words about your experience of navigating life after university?
JG: Whilst it was extremely daunting to finish on the high of 3 years of inspiring learning and creativity, the reality that the time has come to venture out into exploring the market and finding a job which will be fulfilling and continue to support personal musical interests is a tough one (especially as the world is just recovering from a pandemic). I found that however bleak and difficult the industry may look from the outside to enter, if you show enough passion and excitement for it, even if you may be underqualified for certain roles, many will be willing to give you a shot to prove yourself.
This month, we catch up with Wolfgang Dubieniec who graduated from DMSA in 2022.
Three words that describe you as a creative person?
WD: Intuitive, ardent & inspired
When did you start working with sound and music?
WD: As a practitioner I don’t think I started until maybe the end of my teens, but I remember the point where I decided I wanted to make it. I had been jumping on tours taking photos, videos and selling the odd bit of merch when I was around 16 or 17 for bands on the ‘Raygun management’ roster and I definitely remember a turning point where I decided I wanted to be the one making the sound not listening to it night after night.
I think I was given a tiny interface shortly after that and it’s been pretty constant in my life since.
In what ways has the DMSA course supported or helped you to develop into who you are today creatively and professionally?
WD: This is an odd one because I definitely wasn’t expecting to study anything sound related until DMSA. I was always a bit more inclined to go the film route as I love the visual side of things too. I guess that’s where DMSA pushed me as a creative, in giving me the freedom to explore all my creative interests and make me realise I didn’t need to settle on the audio or the visual, I could do both.
Can you tell us a few words about your debut EP from last year ‘You Are Vulnerable In What You Love’?
WD: I think the EP was a real shell breaker for me in terms of getting over any anxieties about people’s expectations of what I make and put out into the world. It came together from having sent a few home demos to a good friend of mine Kristian Bell (‘The Wytches’) and he offered to release the EP for me on a DIY label he was starting up. I’m really thankful for that, it definitely started something up in me.
What are your plans for the near future?
WD: God who knows what will happen! I’ve been writing new songs, some of which are collaborations, and making alot of music videos for projects that arent my own. I think the plans for the year ahead are to bring those two interests closer together with a short film. Though the plan is really just to keep creating. I’m also waiting on some soundtrack work from last year to come to fruition so we’ll see. I think it’s sensible to set an easily achievable goal, because then the rest is all bonus.
We catch up this month with VASCHA who is in the 3rd year of the DMSA programme to discuss with their work, influences and process.
Three words that describe you as a creative person?
AL: Resourceful, impulsive, perfectionistic
When did you start working with sound and music?
AL: In 2012 I got this Yamaha keyboard and by using the 3-track ‘record’ setting, I would recreate entire EDM tracks (drum kit, bassline, synth) by artists ranging from Swedish House Mafia to Lady Gaga. It wasn’t until 2015 when I found myself in the vortex of the micro-genre and internet movement ‘witch house’, when I released an original song on Soundcloud for the first time. This genre was based around occult imagery, wobbly bass, trap beats, sawtooth synths and seering, delayed vocals with unintelligible lyrics. Producers like S4LEM and Ritualz blew my entire perspective of music out of the window because so much emphasis was put on texture and atmosphere. I had no technical or academic knowledge about music production, which meant slowly teaching myself as I went along, dealing with musical ideas that were way too ambitious for my mixing and mastering skills. During this time, Soundcloud offered a more communal and democratic platform that allowed musicians to find and connect with each other through ‘groups’. Living in a lonely village outside of Colchester, various spaces like this on the internet became a safe space to kind of express my ideas and make connections with like-minded people. When I moved to Brighton 2 years later, I took a course in art foundation which is where I made my short film ‘Dead as Night’, whilst simultaneously creating the soundtrack which became my first EP. This was an exciting moment where my confidence in my craft was validated and solidified. However, my technical skills I mentioned before were still underdeveloped, leading to some messy first live shows. Learning some of these skills during the Sound Art course has been a joyous experience. Since then I have worked with some some of my favourite local and international artists such as Satvrnxx, Diana Starshine, Oscar Cheung, An Nguyen and Charlie + Jenny from ZLUTZ.
In what ways has the DMSA course supported or helped you to develop into who you are today creatively and professionally?
AL: The DMSA course has enriched my senses in the very fabric of electronic sound. This new perspective has given me a voice and a freedom to expand my artistic boundaries. It has introduced me to such an eclectic mix of artists and tutors. The facilities have allowed me to learn new skills (shoutout to Bob and Paul) and has opened my eyes to the ways in which this passion is of use to the world around me. Becoming friends with fellow course mates and performers (such as IAMFYA and CURRENTMOODGIRL) has been a wonderful experience. It shows me that although Brighton’s electronic scene often lacks space for queer live performance, something super special is happening in DMSA and change is upon us. This is so much more than just a music course.
Can you tell us a few words about VASCHA?
AL: VASCHA is an alias that landed with my the aforementioned EP ‘Dead as Night’. It is a an unintentional outlet to express my anger, pride and grief in which I have not found anywhere else in life. Some people claim to see her as a character, a mysterious pop star with an imprinted sonic identity. This identity is inspired by things like David Lynch films, euro-dance, outer space and the sounds of London Underground trains.
What are your plans for the near future?
AL: I’m currently expanding my sense of performance, and incorporating a more physical, live element into my work ready for my final DMSA project here in Brighton. I aim to learn fearlessly by embracing everything I still do not know yet as a challenge. My goal is to branch out to audiences in places like London and Bristol and to release my next musical project which embraces a much more personal presence than my previous music, with each track based on a different Hieronymus Bosch painting.
Hal graduated from the DMSA BA in 2022 and presented for their Final Project ‘Listen to your World’, an hour-long theatrical gig infused with mindfulness and ecstatic dance. We catch up to discuss what they have been doing since completing the course.
Three words that describe you as a creative person?
HK: Explorative. Intuitive. Strange
When did you start working with sound and music?
HK: I taught myself piano in my teens and also did Music GCSE. The first music I made for myself was in GarageBand using a free synth plugin I downloaded off the internet – quite interesting but terribly produced! Then, after I left school, a friend of mine showed me the joys of Ableton Live, and I began using it for theatre shows and to make the soft experimental electronic music that would form my first album, Like a Liquid.
In what ways has the DMSA course supported or helped you to develop into who you are today creatively and professionally?
HK: DMSA opened my eyes to the vast range of interesting and experimental music that’s been made over the course of the last century, but more importantly it gave me the creative freedom to explore my own practice, try out different styles and eventually produce a final project that I’m proud of. Without the support of the tutors and technicians I would not have been able to create a performance I’m so happy with.
Can you tell us a few words about your recent project ‘Listen to Your World’?
HK: Listen to Your World is the performance I developed for my final project. Somewhere between a gig and a piece of theatre, it is best described as a mindfulness experience through sound and music. In the show I portray an alien who has come to Earth from their home planet and is amazed by all the beauty they find here. Realising that the humans don’t always see things this way, they attempt to encourage the audience to pay more attention to the beautiful sights and sounds to be found on this planet, before ending with ecstatic dance.
What are your plans for the near future?
HK: I have just moved to Bristol and am planning to split my time between freelance music and theatre work, and climate activism. This year I developed a new musical called Armageddon Attenborough with my collaborator, poet Chris White. We will be performing it in the South West this September before developing it further and touring it next year. I also intend to pursue my solo music career, releasing my new album at some point next year.
On Wednesday 10th November, we took our DMSA Students to see the Universal Everything Lifeforms exhibition at 180 The Strand and The Horror Show at Somerset House
This month, we speak to Manchester-born Greta Carroll who goes by the artist name CURRENTMOODGIRL.
Three words that describe you as a creative person?
GC: Curious, theatrical, visual
When did you start working with sound and music?
GC: I was around 16 when I started playing on Garage Band, using loop pedals, and making weird music that I showed to no one; I thought what came naturally to me was strange and I was a little ashamed so I started to explore other avenues to fulfil my needs in a more expectable way.
I went into jazz singing in jazz clubs around Manchester from 17 to 20.
But I ended up back to making strange industrial sounds and songs after this when introduced to Ableton around 21 and haven’t looked back.
In what ways has the DMSA course supported or helped you to develop into who you are today creatively and professionally?
GC: I have learnt a lot about things I was always curious about and found a greater depth in knowledge in them this year.
I’m dyslexic so have never dared to think i was good enough to understand the history behind sound and the science but the course has invited me with no prejudice to learn what I desire.
I’ve been more open to new ideas and learnt new ways of how to record sounds of electricity which i have always been curious about.
Can you tell us a few words about CURRENTMOODGIRL?
GC: CURRENTMOODGIRL is my artist name, the project has been going for around 3 years now and the main ideas behind it is the many different moods and emotions I feel intensely. Music helps me to say how I feel.
Performance is one of the main and strongest parts of this project being on stage where I can really show people what my sounds are about.
The music is mainly industrial but can be floaty at points, it’s a bit of a pull and push of soft and hard. My vocals are quite dramatic as well, I would call it industrial melancholy pop.
What are your plans for the near future?
GC: I want to carry on learning more and capturing my ideas that are in my head, get better at mixing my strange sounds and recording, try out new software and learn more on the modular synth.
I want to built songs and soundtracks in different ways expand my knowledge on artists from the past and present.
I would like to build my performances up more theatrical with stage lighting visual ideas and interesting props, or instruments made by me that I can physically use on stage to captivate the audience more.
I want to record underwater pieces; there’s lots of things i want to do – the possibilities are endless and I’m open to everything.
We caught up with BA and MA DMSA alumnus Josh Bell who just released his MA Final Project: ‘End of Play EP’ under the name BUL_i.
Three words that describe you as a creative person?
JB: Noisey, Experimental, Visceral
When did you start working with sound and music?
JB: I started playing guitar when I was quite young, this usually involved strumming along to Van Morrison at family events. I probably learnt most of what I know about guitar chords from an Oasis (I know) song book owned by my Dad. Music was very much a communal thing in my family and usually involved some form of singalong.
In what ways has the DMSA course supported or helped you to develop into who you are today creatively and professionally?
JB: DMSA gave me the opportunity to explore sound both theoretically and practically in a more visceral and textural way. I moved away from a practice developed solely dedicated to harmony and rhythm to one that explored noise and textural objects to express ideas as a whole. My massive shift in practice is the use and manipulation of audio especially with samplers which has completely transformed the way I create music.
Can you tell us a few words about ‘END OF PLAY’?
JB: END OF PLAY EP is a Noisey and Passionate scream into the void combining themes of Socialism, Alienation and Desperation into a response of my life and circumstances over the last 2 years during and after the pandemic. It’s primarily an anti-authoritarian piece one that is fearful of the rise of fascism in the west and trying to make sense of our current political climate
What are your plans for the near future?
JB: I have submitted my work to a few small festivals and gigs and am attempting to get it promoted on the radio. I also am starting work as a technician at an audio rental warehouse.
Going by the moniker ‘I Am Fya’, Anthea who is about to start on her final year of the DMSA course, is a performer and experimental artist who uses field recordings layered with her voice and bold beats. We’re talking to her this month about her work including her recently ACE funded project ‘Heavy Flow’.
Three words that describe you as a creative person?
AC: Honest Badass Explorer
When did you start working with sound and music?
AC: Oh, it feels like a million years ago! I was always writing little poems and songs when I was a kid. I would listen to the radio and record stuff randomly on my cassette recorder. Bits of songs and talking, adverts etc. Then I would re-record bits onto another tape and make these weird little soundscapes. I was sampling but I had no idea what sampling was at that time, I wish I’d kept those tapes. I always knew I would end up singing, which I did for many years over other people’s beats before attempting to make my own beats around 15 years ago. I was gifted a little Zoom drum machine which gave me so much freedom to express, and I’ve been making music with machines ever since.
In what ways has the DMSA course supported or helped you to develop into who you are today creatively and professionally?
AC: The course has been everything I hoped it would be. I applied for uni during one of the early lockdowns. In the first few weeks, I was making the odd beat and singing a little but that eventually stopped. I was spending a lot of time on my own & my motivation to create art dwindled. I also had quite heavy personal problems and I was getting intoxicated daily. I had a moment of clarity where I thought “yo, you are not living up to your full potential”. I felt that although I had achieved lots of amazing things and had awesome opportunities in my life I was once again, stuck in a rut. Having all that time to think made me reassess everything, I did an online search and found this course. It sounded right up my street. I am self-taught and I had been producing my own music for quite some time, but I really wanted to up my game and try new things, get a bit weirder and more experimental. I figured I would be the oldest student on the course, which I am but it felt like a now or never situation. I had some anxiety about academia, so I always told myself that I wasn’t smart enough or, ‘too this’, or ‘not enough of that’ for university. The pandemic really made me realise that I was holding myself back, so I put my fears aside and it turns out I’m quite good at it! The course gave me the confidence to free myself up a bit. The structure, assignments and deadlines are also good for me because I’m ADHD gang and I can procrastinate and become overwhelmed at the thought of getting on with stuff. I have a lot of respect for the tutors who have been incredibly supportive. And the other students are bunch of legends, I have new friends who I would never have met otherwise, I’m grateful for the new connections and the support. It has been positive for me in many ways. This course saved me actually. It sounds dramatic but it’s true.
Can you tell us a few words about your recent project ‘Heavy Flow’?
AC: I sing professionally and I was on tour with another artist, we stayed in a brand new 5 star Hilton Hotel in Edinburgh. I was on my period and this huge ass building did not have any sanitary products. I was so upset, I cried at the reception. The staff (all women) didn’t help and acted like I was asking for some crazy thing they’d never heard of, it was weird. That night I announced to a band mate, “right, I’m gunna write a banger about periods because this ting is not a dirty secret” and started writing Heavy Flow that same night. I was angry, like…..can we normalise talking about this thing that half the population experience once a month? It’s not an angry song though, it celebrates what our bodies can do and speaks of our connection to ancestors, the earth and nature.
So that’s how the project started, there’s only one song about periods though lol but one song led to another, and I made a kind of epic (as yet unreleased) album. I recently received arts council funding to develop a Heavy flow live show, which I have made a start on. But I need more funding to make it a reality so keep everything crossed for me.
What are your plans for the near future?
AC: While I was in Barbados, caring for my parents during the various lockdowns I recorded a lot of sounds on my phone. I used household objects as instruments, secretly recorded my family or friends speaking or singing, documented tons of environmental sounds, nature, birds, noisey a&e waiting rooms and noisey car rides. The first songs that I made from these sounds were created for uni assignments while I was doing my first year of uni online. The songs are really special to me as they document the development of my new direction. The songs are so different to what I was doing before uni.
I am joining forces with Rosehill Records who will be releasing this project which is now called Homeland. I’ve never worked with a label before. I’ve been performing in their venue in Brighton for years, and they are all like family to me now so I’m really excited to see what we can achieve together.
I will also be releasing some merch, t-shirts and vinyl, and as I make clothing, and I’ll be designing and making some super special one-off pieces.
I’m itching to do some collaborations so I’m plotting this with a couple of talented souls. And just do lots more gigs, continue evolving as a human and as an artist and keep making cool shit basically. Oh, and smash the shit out my final year at uni.
Anthea will be releasing ‘Homelands’ on Rose Hill Records
