Lost And Sound

more eaze

• Paul Hanford • Episode 156

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Emo ambient? That’s just one way to describe the ever-evolving work of boundary-pushing artist Mari Maurice, better known as more eaze. Her prolific output defies the norms of the music world, blending ambient, noise, autotune, and pedal steel with a deeply personal, human touch. In this episode, Mari shares her unique approach to making music that dissolves the lines between pop and what’s considered, in inverted commas, „serious“ music. Her collaboration with claire rousay on Never Stop Texting Me beautifully exemplifies this artistic ethos.

We talk about the challenges Mari faced in Austin’s experimental scene and the creative freedom she‘s discovered since relocating to New York. Immersed in the city‘s rich musical landscape, she’s embraced collaboration and opened up new dimensions in her sound, drawing from both minimalist and maximalist influences to reshape her approach to composition.

Mari also reflects on the joy of making experimental music more accessible, sharing how a live performance sparked her own musical journey and shaped her ethos as an artist. Along the way, we explore the serendipitous nature of sound creation and the growing acceptance of pop elements in avant-garde music.

If you’re enjoying the show, please consider subscribing and leaving a rating or review on Apple, Spotify, Amazon, or wherever you listen. It really helps to spread the word and support Lost and Sound.

Kinda Tropical by more eaze and claire rousay is out now on Thrill Jockey, pre-order the album No Floor here

Follow me on Instagram at Paulhanford

Lost and Sound is sponsored by Audio-Technica

My BBC World Service radio documentary “The man who smuggled punk rock across the Berlin Wall” is available now on BBC Sounds. Click here to listen.

My book, Coming To Berlin: Global Journeys Into An Electronic Music And Club Culturet Capital is out now on Velocity Press. Click here to find out more. 

Lost and Sound title music by Thomas Giddins

Speaker 1:

Maurice has been making waves in recent years as one of the most exciting new voices in underground music, blurring the lines between genres and healthfully, I'd say disregarding gatekeeping notions of what experimental music is supposed to be. And she's my guest today on Lost in Sound, the podcast that ventures into the minds of artists that work out of the box. But first a shout to my sponsor, audio-technica, a global but family-run company that make the headphones that I'm wearing right now and whose mic you hear me do every interview through. They make studio-quality yet affordable products because they believe that high-quality audio should be accessible to all. So, wherever you are in the world, head on over to audiotechnicacom to check out all of their range of stuff. Okay, so, from autotune to john cage, via austin texas and the downtown new york scene, this is lost and sound mount. Thank you, Hello, and welcome to episode 156 of Lost in Sound.

Speaker 1:

I'm Paul Hanford, I'm your host, I'm an author, a broadcaster and a lecturer, and Lost and Sound is the weekly podcast where I chat with an artist who works outside the box, from global icons to trailblazing outsiders and emerging innovators. We talk music, creativity and perhaps that most daunting part of being an artist the praxis of life. Previous guests on the show have included Peaches, suzanne Chiani, jim O'Rourke, cosy Funny 2T, mickey Blanco and Thurston Moore. And thanks for your messages regarding the Leah Saldi episode last week. That one seemed to really resonate and I thought there'd be a bit more of a negative backlash, I guess I imagine, in some quarters, from the takedown that we did over what has become known as the industrial cave complex. And yeah, I mean, I guess that sort of self-canonizing nature of certain artists at a certain point in their career is something ripe for taking down. But you know, we weren't, we weren't meaning to be vicious and I was expecting a little bit more of a fallout from that. But no, just got a lot of love. So thank you for all of those uh messages and and listens for that, and what you're about to hear is a really, really good one.

Speaker 1:

I think, too, you're about to hear a conversation I had with marie maurice, professionally known as more ease, who's been quietly pushing boundaries in experimental music over the past few years, blending pop, ambient noise, composition, music, concrets, and doing it in a totally unique way. This is an artist who feels as at home with a steel pedal guitar as she does with autotune, and one of the things that marks her work out as unique is the humanity in it, and I've heard the term emo ambient associated with her work. And another big returning aspect of her work is her collaborations and friendship with fellow ambient composer, claire Rousset. And one of the touch points in the conversation you're about to hear is to do with an album that the pair made together, an incredible piece of work called never stop texting me if you haven't heard it already. Give it a check out. And I don't want to give the game away of where the conversation you're about to hear goes, but it involves blurring the boundaries between what is pop music and what is, in inverted commas, serious music and the difference between being an advocate for something and gatekeeping. She's incredibly prolific. I know that some of you listening will be hugely into her and being fans of her and that's why you're listening to the show and I know that some of you probably be like curious to check out her work and there's a lot there and if I was going to give you a personal recommendation, there's just there's such so much. But one thing I've been really loving of hers recently is the album lacuna and parlor, which came out in 2024 which has such a beautiful mixture of things like steel pedal, guitar strings, sonic manipulation, and it's just really, really, really emotional and resonant.

Speaker 1:

Um, but, before we get going, if you haven't already, please do give the show a subscribe. Uh, my aim is to put out a show every week this year. Um, I will do my best to do that. And and and. Having like subscribes and like ratings and reviews on spotify and amazon and apple and all of these places really, really, really does help. It helps with the ratings of the show and it also helps with you know, it's like motivates me to do it, to make more of these shows for you. Okay, so back to the conversation. We had this conversation on Saturday evening, saturday the 25th of January. This is what happened when I met Maurice. You know you grew up in Texas and now you're in New York. How do you see these places geographically and culturally playing into the music that you make?

Speaker 2:

Yeah, that's a great question. It's really been quite different. I think that, like in Texas, it was always really a struggle to sort of make what I wanted to do happen. Um, because I I think that more ease kind of wound up becoming more of a solo project, just for sheer logistical reasons, because I initially started it and actually claire was in like a very early version of it playing drums. Um, a couple of like the very, very early recordings like 2014, 2015 um, you can hear her playing drums, and so initially I was just kind of like looking for like-minded people.

Speaker 2:

But austin's culture is very like rock band centric, um, and a big part of that, I think, is because most of the venues there are are bars. They're all kind of like tied to having this revenue and a lot of them are downtown in this very touristy area, and so it's interesting because it's like it kind of weeds out a lot of more experimental music or like quieter music. That doesn't necessarily fit that. So I found myself in kind of a difficult music or like quieter music. That doesn't necessarily fit that.

Speaker 2:

So I found myself in kind of a difficult position of like you know, a lot of what I do sometimes is still writing songs, but it's not necessarily like songs that serve themselves for like a rock band format or for being, you know, happening in a bar and, I think, also kind of the rock band format in Austin. It's like that happens because you have to be loud enough to sort of like hear yourself over people just hanging out a lot of the time. And there's a great experimental music community in Austin. It's just very small and as a result of that, most of the people who are involved in it are very busy, and so it was often hard for me to find people who it like I could write pieces for, kind of like. Think about that a little bit more directly. I was doing a lot of collaboration when I lived there, but it was all very remote.

Speaker 2:

It was all very kind of distant and, I think, a little bit more focused on like production and kind of thinking about things a little bit more electronically a lot of the time. Since moving to New York, just because of this the sheer vastness and like history of experimental music and culture here it's been a lot easier to make the kind of music that I've always sort of been striving for and present that live. It's also become a thing where it's like I can actually compose pieces for people to perform with me live. I still play solo quite a bit, but it's nice to know I have the option to basically be like here's a piece for you know, like string trio or something, and they can just do it and we can perform it kind of anywhere. Because you know, like a lot of bars and venues here are designed more with the intention of like listening or presenting kind of all types of music as opposed to just sort of like the music being kind of ancillary to what's happening in the actual uh, space, um, and so that's been a huge difference. Also, it's become a lot easier to collaborate with people in person, like at the same time doing Press for no Floor I'm also doing.

Speaker 2:

I have a record coming out with my friend, lynn Avery, as Pink Must, which is a collaborative project between the two of us. Lynn and I had started some of that work remotely, but I feel, like the second that we were actually able to be in person. It allowed us to finish it and like a lot faster, obviously, but also it opened us up to a lot of creative possibilities and conversations about like instrumental arrangement and stuff that like wouldn't have been as easy to like do over, you know like text or like like you know zoom or something, and so it's like there wound up being a lot of decisions on that record that I feel like we kind of like had the shells of everything from from working remotely and then when I moved here, uh, and her and I were able to just like meet up and kind of treat it more like an actual band, it was like, oh well, now this actually feels very different from from where it began. So I think that there's like a lot more facilitation with like collaboration in new york, um, and it's also just easier to have access to spaces where you can present music. It's made me think a lot differently about what I'm writing, because a lot of times in Texas and with touring out of there too, it was always kind of thinking like okay, like have a pretty small setup most of the time, and then also considering like okay, what is going to like kind of work best in these environments.

Speaker 2:

And I think that, like moving here, one of the ways it's really changed my practice is it's like I found myself listening to a lot of music that was pretty formative to me when I was like in college and grad school. A lot of like more kind of minimalist like work for lack of a better term of a lot of stuff that was happening in like the seventies and eighties and, like you know, kind of like early Gavin Breyers stuff on like editions Vondelweiser. One of my favorite albums of all time, jukebox by Franco Bacciato came back into my life very massively when I moved to New York and I think that that really informed a lot of like how I started approaching writing music and thinking about arrangement a little bit more, being able to also kind of consider like using acoustic instruments and in a bit more, which is like kind of interesting, because you would think that would be something that'd be a little easier in Texas.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, space and everything, and aesthetically as well, with yeah it, but I have found myself gravitating towards that more since living in new york, um, and also like, not necessarily feeling, um, like things have to kind of like go in this direction of being more of like a song, I honestly just feel like, in in general being here, I, I think a lot of what I'm doing is becoming a little bit more, uh, kind of uncompromising in a way, because, like, I'm like, oh yeah, I can just like there's nothing stopping me from really being able to present a set that's, like you know, largely like like austere chamber music or or more kind of like like glitchy um electronic, more kind of like glitchy electronic, like kind of music, concrete compositions again, which was stuff that I, that was all very formative to like how I began making music and that was still like a pretty big crux of like a lot of what like more uses about.

Speaker 2:

But I think that I was always trying to kind of manipulate that in a way, when I lived in texas, to something that would be, you know, presentable in like a live context there and that would be able to like kind of like, like, kind of like cut through the noise.

Speaker 2:

And then here it's sort of like interesting because I feel like it's actually like a lot of the work I'm doing is a little bit more restrained in some ways, which is, I think, kind of what I wanted. And definitely like working on no Floor with Claire, I think, was sort of the beginning of that in a way, because we started a lot of those tracks in Texas too and worked on a couple of them in person when she came there to visit one summer, like right before I moved, and then we finished it remotely. But the way that we wound up working on it remotely I feel like kind of lent itself to, I think, both of us being in places where we were a bit more comfortable with like kind of being able to just sort of do what we want and be a little bit more sort of restrained in this way.

Speaker 1:

It's interesting that you mentioned being able to have the freedom to do what you want to do and, out of that, finding restraints, because sometimes we'd presume that you know being able to do what you want to do would would amplify things rather than, like, maybe, reduce things yeah, it's a very interesting thing because it's like um, I like I also enjoy like a lot of music that sort of is tied in with kind of like maximalism in a way of um.

Speaker 2:

I mean certainly in like kind of the realm of like computer music and I just like talked about this for a video for Pitchfork. But, like one of my favorite composers is Mikael Rouse, who who does this thing that's kind of like feel like really perfectly between minimalism and maximalism, where it's like these very grand ideas that are often very frenetic and busy but it's like very repetitive at the same time. But it's like very repetitive at the same time, um, and it's like. I think that that was always something in my work before and I was kind of figuring out how to do this in this way. That was sort of constantly evolving and kind of hitting you with new things all the time, even though it maybe was just based off of like a three note melody or motif, um, but I do think a lot of it when I kind of unpack, like how place affects these things.

Speaker 2:

Um, I think that to a degree, some of that came from trying to like cut through. You know a lot of like what was happening in austin, which it's like was, was either sort of like rock music or, um, like experimental music. That is interesting, but kind of like very much. What do you think of when you think of the term experimental music? And then also like a very kind of self-serious, uh, gothy, like rave, techno, aesthetic, and I was like I don't really like or identify with a ton of this um, even though there are. There are plenty of artists and friends I have there that I think do great work outside of those worlds.

Speaker 2:

I feel like that's just like how a lot of music and shows are presented in in Texas.

Speaker 2:

And so I was like, okay, I guess I have to sort of like figure out ways to kind of like slice through this with what I'm interested in, um, and kind of like, you know, fight against it in a way.

Speaker 2:

And it was, yeah, it's interesting because it's like kind of I think being here and realizing like, oh, I don't really have to do this in the way that I had been, like I can, kind of like I actually have the resources and the available space and like the collaborators here that will, that are willing to kind of go along with whatever vision this is going to be. That has made a really big difference, because also I think in Texas too, it's like I had some very good collaborators. But it's like you sort of learn people's strengths and you're like, well, these guys are like kind of great for being a rock band, so I guess like I'll have a project that's. That's sort of like playing towards that and like thinking about how I can tailor ideas I have into like that format, versus sort of being like, well, these guys are just sort of down for whatever.

Speaker 1:

So I can like I can have them, so I can have them do whatever they want. Yeah, I think that, because I think of New York history and I think of being able to kind of jump between different genres and different types of playing, and I wonder how much of that is connected to the city itself, something in the city, as opposed to it being like another city somewhere. And if there's something that you've picked, I mean I know it's like 40 years later and everything's hugely gentrified compared to what it was like for, like these artists all living in, uh, run-down apartments in, you know, in the late 70s. But I was wondering if there was like something in the attitude that you you pick up that that encourages this sense of collaboration and freedom oh, absolutely.

Speaker 2:

I mean I think that there's just I. That's something that I feel like kind of doesn't go away, like it changes, um, but a lot of the institutions are still there. Like, one of my favorite places to perform here is roulette, which is where clarinize one of the clarinize new york duo shows, uh, is at roulette in april, uh. But roulette has a huge history with this and I mean there's an incredible Arthur Russell live record that was recorded there, I think, in like probably late 80s or so. That's just great. But it's like the fact that you can you still have access to this place that is still very much run with kind of the same ethos of like bringing artists there to perform who are doing experimental work and kind of whatever their field is. So it's like sometimes you wind up having people who are doing songs and doing them very in this, very you know kind of new context that's like broken out like Arthur Russell, or sometimes it is chamber music or sometimes it's free improv. So there's definitely like a huge history with that.

Speaker 2:

But also I think that there's this sense of camaraderie in New York where you meet people who are so I've lived. I've lived in like Los Angeles too. Let me kind of backtrack a little bit. And I love Los Angeles a a lot, but there's like a bit more of a guardedness to how people approach each other and talk about things there. Um, because I think that it's like both both la and new york are cities that it's kind of a struggle to like live in, just like, unless you're a millionaire, which I am not. I am an adjunct faculty member at the new school.

Speaker 2:

I am not making a ton of money um and so I like, uh, living in la, it was able I was able to find a lot of great collaborators there, but a lot of it was through like the grad school program I was a part of. And then here I feel like there's more of this openness, where you just like are meeting people and you see someone at a show enough times and you start talking and you're like, oh, you're interested in these things, oh, you do this, like that's really cool, let's like hang out or let's do something. And I think that that's how a lot of like connections get made here and there's a bit of a sense of like support kind of within communities and scenes. I think, with this going on, and because there are so many different facets of what experimental music looks like in 2025, I think that it's really easy to sort of float between those worlds if you want to.

Speaker 2:

I've never one thing that I think was like difficult in Texas is like there's very much the sense of like the scene because it's just a smaller community, a smaller world, and so it's harder to feel like, you know, you can kind of escape from that, but in New York there's like a million different kind of like strains of this happening and for the most part, I feel like they're all pretty interested in what the other is doing. Um, I think that that's something that has sort of like been here for a while. I think, like you know, in the 70s and 80s there's like a little bit more of this sort of resistance against like kind of institutions and trying to bring in like more, you know, pop oriented ideas.

Speaker 1:

Yeah.

Speaker 2:

That whole kind of era of music is like maybe my favorite sometimes because of all the cross pollination and also this idea of almost this kind of antagonistic like butting against, like you know, these institutions that are like no, this is like what serious art has to look like, and then people like Arthur Russell and Robert Ashley and Blue Jean Tierney, all sort of be like no, it does not, like it can be this like there's, there's, there are things happening in the realms of like pop and rock music that are actually more challenging than what is happening in with you know, institutional, like academic avant-garde, which is honestly usually the case, and so I think it's really interesting that that there's that element there and I and seeing kind of how that's played out in the present day, with with kind of like having all of these different strains and different worlds interacting, is really interesting and it's been.

Speaker 2:

It's been interesting especially performing as more ease here, because while I've been here, I mean I've played shows with artists that are more on like kind of the folk spectrum of things because of like, some of the last records I've made have had a lot of like. You know, I I'm like a violinist and pedal steel player, mostly by trade and um I I have incorporated that a lot into like the last few records I've made and so it's like people understand it in that context. But then, like I'll do a set incorporating the same instruments. That's like a bit more electronic on a bill with like like more it's Von Oswald or something, and so it's really interesting to see how it's been. It's been really fascinating for me, like in terms of like booking stuff, to see how it's connected with different people here and also to see how people kind of like move throughout like those different communities as well.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, it's. It's really interesting what you're saying, how that relates to community. But with reference to your sounds and the music you put out, I feel like there's quite often there's assumptions we have about an artist that are tied to genre, that are based on what we perhaps first the first record or the first piece of music that we hear them do. And with you I feel like, although your music does sound like it's made by you and the people specifically who are collaborating idea of jumping from like never stop texting me to which you know, in the realms of experimental music is, as you were mentioning you were talking about, like these, these 70s forebearers that it does have this sort of real immersion in pop, in auto-tune in in certain tropes like emo pop that uh, like perhaps almost considered in the more stuffy realms of experimental music as all considered like no go zones. I guess.

Speaker 2:

I mean, I think.

Speaker 1:

I think those walls are definitely coming down now, but it's very, it's a very you know it's. It's breaking down gaps between what might've originally been like Ortega and Avril Lavigne in a way. Yeah, and I wanted to ask about that record actually, like you know, and your relationship with Claire Rousset and and, and how, how did you meet and how did that record form?

Speaker 2:

and I know, I know you've been friends for a long time- yeah, uh, I mean claire and I were uh had just know each other from like san antonio music scene, um, and I was just put in touch with her to uh find like uh, a drummer when I first had moved back to texas after uh living in los angeles and uh, it was kind of like an instant connection. So we had been making music for a while at the point that like Never Stop Texting Me came out and I mean, I think a lot of people kind of conceive it as sort of like a troll in a way, but it really was a sincere desire from both of us to make pop music. We were talking about and listening to a lot of pop music and we were just like we had done some stuff that you know kind of came close to that. That was more pop oriented. We did an EP that I think is also very pop that's just the heartbreak like emoji and that had come out about I think two years previous, but we had released that and wanted to start writing more songs and we basically started just recording and producing a bunch of that stuff, while we were also doing more kind of like intensive music, concrete work.

Speaker 2:

At that time I think both of us were pretty burnt out on a lot of more serious like avant-garde, like aesthetics, and there's also just this sort of like pressure, I feel, like optically to present and like look this certain way and sound a certain way. And it's very limiting when you get into like this serious kind of like avant-garde, experimental music role. Um, I feel like it's something that has kind of it. It was. It's been something that's been sort of difficult for me because I've always been interested in songs and I think that like a lot of times, people in that realm, unless you're like very successful and you decide to like do pop music of any kind, you're sort of written off and not taken very seriously. I don't think that that's particularly the case in a lot of other places, but like in certain like experimental music realms there's still a big attitude towards that and it can make you feel very excluded and sort of cast aside.

Speaker 2:

I think Claire had experienced that too, and so both of us were sort of wanting to kind of embrace that and and kind of fuck with it. But I think also we were trying to be like a little bit funny about it too, because it's like we know we're not like, you know, rock stars or anything like we've. We're both like mostly like experimental musicians, and so the idea of making this album and trying to make it as like kind of big pop production as we can was was like an experiment in and of itself. Um, and I think that we I I really love how that record sounds, because I think we got it to this place of of sounding very alien and kind of like really stripping away like a lot of the stuff, um, or like kind of carving out a lot of the stuff that we liked in um mainstream pop music and mainstream rap, and like sort of molding it into a sound world that we could fuck with a little bit more Um and but I mean all of it comes out of like a sound world that we could fuck with a little bit more, and but I mean all of it comes out of like it's not supposed to be, like this ironic distancing or anything.

Speaker 2:

It's like a very sincere, like kind of love letter to pop music and writing about, like you know, writing songs that are about like crushes and like kind of these very like universal statements, but trying to do it in a way that felt like pretty funny and personal and direct. And I think that like uh, it's been interesting because I feel like a lot of people in recent, in the last year, have done the exact same move, because I think people were not. I think we got kind of a mixed reaction with Never Stop Texting Me, because I don't think people knew quite what to make out of it. And you know the classic like is this like sort of a fuck? You Is this kind of a troll? And it's like no, no, not really. It's like. This was like literally just us having fun and wanting to write songs, like we've always. We've always had like some element of song on, I think, most of our records that we've done together, and this was sort of an idea of like let's go all in and make this and we recorded so much music. We have so many songs that were actually like abandoned for this, this project too, probably like at least an ep's worth of additional tracks that are done that like we left off of the final Never Stop Texting Me. So we were just, like you know, full in it and like messing around with all these ideas.

Speaker 2:

But it's been interesting because in recent years there have been a lot of other records that have come out that literally sound just like Never Stop Texting Me and that are made by artists coming from a more serious or experimental background, and I feel like seeing the response to them has been interesting because it's been generally a lot more positive. The big example I think of is the Alan Sparhawk record from last year. It literally sounds like Never Stop Texting Me. I don't necessarily think it's an entirely bad thing. I love Alan's music. I'm a huge fan of Lowe throughout their entire discography, but I heard it.

Speaker 2:

And then, but I heard that record and I remember seeing the like press behind it and I was like this is insane, because this is like it's effectively the same thing that happened that we did like a few years ago, and I feel like people are much more open to it now, um, in terms of that.

Speaker 2:

And then another record that I think is kind of like that is the callahan and witcher record, which I think that those guys got kind of like a similar response that we got, but I think that their record is really great and I think that their record is actually people, I think also think that they're trolling because they're even more kind of austere, uh, experimental musicians than we are that made like this kind of like ridiculous you know pop record that that often sounds like sugar ray, um, but I think that that I think that their record's really amazing because the whole album is about sort of wrestling with your love of experimental music, um, and I I think that like watching the response that they've gotten from that, especially from other experimental musicians, has been a lot more positive too, and it's been fascinating for me to see that kind of like coming out of making that record, because I mean, we made it and had a blast doing it, and then I think like just kind of we're like okay, well, like onto the next thing, and I think that, like some people have been, I've totally seen some like discourse out there of people really trying to like wrestle with like the meaning behind that record, and I'm just like truly.

Speaker 2:

It was just like we wanted to like see what it would be like to play with like this sound palette and like write songs in this kind of like medium.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, I think there's something about autotune as well which can be very triggering to people for various reasons, to people for various reasons. One reading of it I have is because maybe because the first real presence of auto-tuned that people talk about was perhaps Believe by Cher which is a fucking classic tune.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, it's a great song.

Speaker 1:

But it's something that was never claimed by the underground or experimental music. It landed straightforwardly and was popularized in mainstream realms that maybe people are very um that have some kind of like initial I don't know almost like shuddery reaction to I yeah, that's something that, to be quite frank, blows my mind that people are so resistant to it, because when did believe come out?

Speaker 2:

it's like like early to mid 90s yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 1:

I think maybe I for some reason I had, maybe like yeah, 1998 for some reason I'm going to google it, let's do it.

Speaker 2:

We need to know yeah, 98 sounds great, because I'm very curious about this. Yeah, 1998, wow, you're right on the money. Um, yeah, so so I mean this has been going on for, like you know, 30 years now. Like this should not be a shocking thing to anybody, like um.

Speaker 2:

I think the thing with autotune, too, is it's like I think people often have this attitude with it of using it as like a corrective measure of sorts, and the thing that claire and I were always interested in with it was using it as like um, as like an, as like an aesthetic choice, like an effect most of the time, and I, I mean, I've been using auto-tune in my music since like 2012 too, and so I think it was like very interesting that people really like latched onto that.

Speaker 2:

But it's also just like if you listen to any mainstream pop music, it's all drenched in auto tune. There's no, there's it's more rare to hear a clean vocal, I feel like these days, not something that's super processed, and so it is just sort of like really an aesthetic choice. And when Claire and I first started really recording together collaboratively after the point of sort of sort of just playing on each other's project and then being like let's actually try to make something where we're both writing in equal regards. The initial idea we had was it was going to be mostly percussion and found sounds with modular synthesizer and auto tune, and that was going to basically be it. And we did a few sets that were essentially that kind of setup. That were great, but we also really wanted to do something that was going to just be very heavily processed auto tune and percussion, which I think is like. I think autotune is something too that in the context of improvisation, can be very effective and very expressive and isn't taken advantage of a lot.

Speaker 1:

Yeah.

Speaker 2:

Right before everything really shut down in 2020. I did a set for this like free improv, like very kind of like EAI oriented festival in Austin called no Idea Fest, which I was so stoked because I was like I cannot believe these people are asking me to play with the kind of music I made. But I wound up doing a lot of stuff in collaboration with these other artists where I was like improvising using auto tune and then processing it through a synthesizer after that, and I feel like it was like it felt very exciting and I feel like in the context of that, it makes it something totally different too. But it also is just like an aesthetic tool and it's an aesthetic choice to make. And so I think that people having this gut reaction to it, I'm just kind of like man, where have you been? This has been happening for 30 years. It's in all music.

Speaker 2:

At this point, I think it's honestly like a very like not to be super harsh, but it's a very immature response to have that like reaction to it. Um, and also I mean there's plenty of like the more serious music that claire and I have made that. Like I mean serious in quotes, I should probably say Claire and I have made that like I mean serious in quotes. I should probably say her to us that that, like you know, has used auto tune as well and for some reason, you know, and the context of like a more ambient or like music, concrete, or in a track, it doesn't bother people. But the second, you're like singing in it, they're like whoa, hold on man, it's just like it's.

Speaker 2:

It's not in any way different and it's also like we're not trying to use it to hide anything. We're very it's. It's very much an aesthetic choice where it's like very blatantly out there, um, and also just the potential with it too. It does a lot of interesting things with the harmonics of a human voice too, and so you can almost get these like more pure sign, tony, like notes sometimes, but you can also tweak it to really play up the harmonics and the formats of it obviously too, so that you get these weird kind of like partials and like the overtones of the voice that wind up in you know really interesting and unusual layerings of the voice that wind up in you know really interesting and unusual larynx. And so I feel like anyone who's like writing anything off strictly because of autotune like just needs to grow the fuck up I, I, they remind me of that person that shouted judas at bob dylan uh for going, it's.

Speaker 1:

It's the same thing. I think maybe every 30 to 50 years there's a, you know, an advancement will happen and people get used to a certain way of doing things and they see that as being the entire. The rules are written basically.

Speaker 2:

I think that's an excellent analog. Yeah, that's very much. I kind of feel like how it's treated, because it's just like yeah, you, this is, this is a tool, it's been around for forever. Why not utilize it? You know, um, in in kind of any genre, it's not always going to be great, but you know like, yeah, it's like why not play the electric guitar in a folk song? Or play folk songs with a rock band? Makes perfect sense, great, sounds totally normal. Now.

Speaker 1:

And I think there was this whole idea that Simon Reynolds came up with about in I think it's, in Retromania, where he kind of reckoned that by the end of the 90s everything had kind of happened and since then we've been finding interesting combinations of previously existing things. So maybe there is something I don't know if I hold with that or not but maybe there is this sort of idea of, like you know, we have to keep combining things and finding new ways of sometimes using pre-existing ideas or pre-existing assumptions to and out of that you find totally, totally you create a third out of two separate things absolutely.

Speaker 2:

I yeah that's a great point, and so right now I'm actually reading um ocean of sound by david tube I love that book.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, great book, but I feel like he, he kind of gets at that a lot of how a lot of like developments in like ambient and electronic music largely come out as a result of like combining these different things. And it's like I think one of the first examples obviously is like Debussy and like having access, like seeing the gamelan at like the fringe exposition and kind of like that, mixed with his other interests, producing what would become like impressionism and then that sort of filtering into sati and then into ambient music. And I feel like it's like it kind of follows this really like fascinating line of thought of like how all of this stuff feeds into each other. But I think that it's I mean, in my opinion I think that that's kind of how anything sort of grows and develops is really because you're in this position of uh, of like kind of like chasing a couple of different strains and then eventually that like winds up with something that's like totally different definitely.

Speaker 1:

We see the same thing with food yes, exactly, yeah, totally. That's a great example too, yeah yeah, yeah, I always try to put a food analogy somewhere in the podcast.

Speaker 1:

I don't even try, it just seems to sort of somehow happen, really yeah I think one of the other things that I pick up um very to the front of your music is the different ways that field recordings are used oh yeah um, I, I was speaking to an artist a few years ago, florian Wong, who, oh, yeah, yeah, and she incorporates a lot of field recordings, and she was saying that for her it's a way of like keeping a diary or putting like aspects of a diary into your music, and I was wondering what your take on that is, or your relationship with field recordings is um, I definitely think that there is a diaristic aspect to it at times.

Speaker 2:

Um, I think that definitely, like a lot of the initial, like some of the earlier records that that I've made and claire has made and that we've made together, like, I think both, both solo and collaboratively we're we're treating field recordings a bit more like that. I think, kind of, as things have developed, it's become this interesting way of, I think kind of almost like breaking the fourth wall with, like, um, the studio in terms of, uh, in terms of space, because a lot of time for me it's just like you know, ultimately all of this stuff is like, is like a fabrication. It's like even recording acoustic sounds to a degree as a fabrication and you're going to get these weird results of like the room and like things that kind of happen with that, and so for me, I think like kind of how that, how that's transformed in the time, since is it's become more thinking about like how the recording is actually situated in the place, that it's happening a lot of the time, and using it more as this way of like kind of acknowledging like sort of the artificiality of it. Sort of the artificiality of it. I definitely think, with the record I put out last year, lacuna in Parlor.

Speaker 2:

That was definitely something that was going through my mind with it, because a lot of people have talked to me about the field recordings on it, which are not actually field recordings really. They're more just results of the space that I was recording in, which was off the first apartment I moved in in New York and really heavily amplifying the room and then occasionally getting these weird snippets of hearing like my neighbors upstairs or hearing like the radiator running or at one point, the last track I was just like overdubbing a series of like melodies and rhythms on pedal steel over and over again while micing the entire room, and so it was really interesting because you can hear all these little sounds that are sort of happening at a different time. That sort of it has the effect of being a field recording, but it's like very much just actually ingrained into the performance and like the track itself. So for me I think it's kind of transformed into that, but a lot of like my background and learning to to compose and like use, like music software.

Speaker 2:

It comes from like making music concrete when I was in like my teens and 20s and in college, and I think that there's always a part of me too where it's like just sort of finding found sound as like a source itself, like I think it kind of ultimately comes back to that. For me and it's been interesting because I've been writing some new work, that's, that's more kind of in the music concrete world and thinking about sort of like everyday sounds and um and and and motions and stuff as like a generative source uh has been like a very sort of different thing for me, as opposed to the other two ways of thinking too, like kind of like going back to square one with it in a way. Um.

Speaker 1:

So I think it's kind of all of those things really yeah, yeah, I mean it's um, there's a grain as well and I find the grain really how that has, yeah, has like an effect yeah, yeah, absolutely.

Speaker 2:

I think that that's like there's such a like distinctive, yeah, like this grain of silence and space that you hear in a different way, because it's like certainly like the grain of the apartment I live in now is very different from like where I lived in texas, um, and it's very different from other places I've lived. And I feel like it's like it is almost sort of like diaristic in this way of where I'm like you may not notice that necessarily as like a listener, but for me when I like hear these works, I'm like this clearly sounds like this space versus the other one, even though it's just in, you know, kind of fleeting moment of like kind of the ultimate, like kind of ambience of where something is being recorded.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, that's really interesting. I don't even know if I know how to word this, but like an idea formed from you saying that about how quite often when we hear music made by someone, we don't really know the mental processes and the journey that have gone into it, and sometimes we don't even know what the origins of the textures, and perhaps it's not even important, but the artist knows that.

Speaker 2:

Yes, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 1:

How important is that for you, these things that perhaps I know it's a very broad question in a way, because you could pick a million different sounds that you've used, but is there a sense that, like, you've got to be really happy with little secrets and little things and little, little, little kind of like origin sources that go?

Speaker 2:

into the music? That's such an interesting question, um, I mean, it's. It's, of course, important, but it's not necessarily always like a conscious choice. I don't think, um, because as I think about that, it kind of ultimately doesn't matter to me. It's like sometimes I can hear these things with with my own work, where I'm like that's like what this is and this, this is like representative of this particular like moment or space. But I also, even with things that I've composed, sometimes I'll just be like I do not know what that is like. That's.

Speaker 2:

That's something that is like a result of you know, maybe maybe a field recording that's being used, maybe something that just like happened to like be running by a mic or like like a breeze or just like a weird kind of like electrical anomaly, with like, with like a, with like a circuit or synthesizer.

Speaker 2:

And it's kind of even more exciting and mysterious in that way, because then I'm just like I like know what that is, but I don't know how it got there.

Speaker 2:

And I think another thing that can happen with that too is when you have like particular combinations of sounds, sometimes you get this resulting effect that you just really like don't understand. Uh, I was working on something the other day and there was some combination of like strings that I was doing and then electronics and it was having this extremely bizarre harmonic effect that sounded like there was another voice in the music that was happening, but it was not. It was just like. I'm not going to pretend like I fully understand how that occurred, but it's beautiful how that occurred, but like it's beautiful, um, and so it's like having those little sort of you know like secrets. Is is nice, but it's also for me, very much about getting to this this, this part of like I don't actually know how that's happening like getting to a thing. We've reached a point where I like I don't know exactly how like this combination of things interacted to produce this sound.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, and then having to reverse engineer that a little bit.

Speaker 1:

In a way, so you have your own little personal Easter eggs.

Speaker 2:

Oh yeah.

Speaker 1:

Yeah.

Speaker 2:

But I think that that happens, happens. I think that that happens for like a lot of artists too. Um, because it's like there's so much contingency with with any music that's like very heavily studio based, that's not just necessarily the result of like musicians playing live. I feel like there is always going to be sort of a bizarre contingency where you're like some combination of things happens that you just are like, well, that's great, how do I do it again? Or maybe I can't do it again. Um, and I I had this really great um composition teacher when I was in uh college named jack stamps and he was.

Speaker 2:

He was who I wrote a lot of like music concrete and studied electronic music with, and he was like the first person I think I had made something. I'm like I don't know how I did that, how do I get it back? And he's like that's just how it goes. He's like that's just kind of how a lot of uh, a lot, a lot of work gets created is by just trying these things out and then you wind up with something you would have never necessarily expected.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, I mean because you were classically trained, right, um, and so I'm not classically trained, so my interpretation might be completely wrong, but did you find the how much of your classical training was based around like a kind of very rigid sort of institutional approach?

Speaker 2:

Because what we're talking about here is something that I guess is more kind of connected with like how art has developed, rather than the traditions of, of how how the traditions of art are perceived well, yeah, it's interesting because there is definitely like this very old school attitude and like academic music and and composition in particular, where the composer is supposed to be seen as sort of like this kind of like ubermensch who's constantly in control of what they're doing. Or even if they're and I I think that they're for even when I was like in college, um back in you know, like 12 years ago or so um, even then there is this attitude of like sort of treating music that involved a lot of indeterminacy or openness, with like a lot less uh, seriousness. Uh, it was not taken as seriously by a lot of like these kind of like academic classical people. Um, it's very much like the, the people who are taken seriously, who, by the way, these are composers I love like.

Speaker 2:

I think one of the the people who was taken very seriously was like ligety, and I love ligety very much. Ligety definitely loves control, but ligety also wrote a lot of pieces that have openness. They he has his scores for, like his electronic pieces. They don't, they don't make any goddamn sense. You look at them, you're just like, you're like. You could interpret this so many ways, like, but I guess you you have to kind of figure this out. Um, and he was also really interested in a lot of like the ideas of john cage and other people too. But because a lot of his bigger works are, like very exacting in their notation, I think that people like are able to somehow like rally for that a little bit more. But it's very interesting because I think that there is like a lot of this sense of kind of like constantly knowing what you're doing and having that control.

Speaker 2:

I think that one of the things that really drew me into music concrete and electronic music was that so much of the resulting sounds come from just experimentation, from just sort of like playing with raw materials. And then, once I started getting into a lot of like the the New York downtown music we were talking about earlier, when I discovered that that was like kind of the whole world broke open to me, was like. I was like, if you can do this like that's, that's what I want to do, that that is like my number one interest in terms of music and how to like compose this and and have this and and like basically be setting up. These parameters that are going to like result in something slightly different every time, because ultimately ultimately, I mean, I think even a very controlled score like Ligeti. It's like people aren't going to always be able to play these like specific rhythms he's writing and I would argue that he's fine with that. He just wants to do all of that. He wants the like the kind of like mass sense of movement going on with that.

Speaker 2:

But I think that it was interesting because, like, definitely in terms of like instrumental study, uh really butted heads with uh violin faculty, because a lot of my background in violin was more in playing fiddle music, um, sitting in with like singer songwriters and just like improvising with them, playing like more folk and kind of like bluegrass oriented stuff and a lot of that. There's, of course, a certain amount of carryover to like classical violin, but it's a very different thing and it was never, I think, becoming like a true classical violinist, was never anything that was particularly interesting to me. I wanted to play new music and and that was not a very popular like take at the place I did my undergrad at.

Speaker 1:

I could imagine.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, and so it was. There was a lot of like butting heads with that and a lot of conversations about like the right way to do things, which I mean. Now I myself am a music professor and teacher and I feel like very much there is kind of no right way to do things. There are things that are going to be more effective for yourself and for the people you're working with, and it's all about kind of finding those things that just like make the work that you're doing or how you're playing the instrument like really work for you, which I think is how music education and like classical training should be, uh, approached in like 2025. But there's still a lot of like desire for that, like real kind of intensive conservatory mindset about things. But for me personally, I think it's like the second you start to let go of that and you realize what your actual style of playing is or composing. Then it becomes really interesting, and I've been thinking about this a lot lately because my partner and I watched Cecil B DeMinted, the John Waters film.

Speaker 1:

I've not seen that one.

Speaker 2:

It's great.

Speaker 1:

I love John Waters, but I've not. It's one of his more later period ones, it is.

Speaker 2:

I think it's the last like uh major studio funded movie he made for a while um, and it's all about how much he hates contemporary cinema.

Speaker 2:

it's, it is, it is like the meanest movie.

Speaker 2:

It's amazing, it's very funny, but there's a line in it at one point where this like group of, like guerrilla, like art filmmakers, like yell, good technique is just failed style, and I was like holy shit, if someone had said this to me when I was like in music school, it would have changed everything, because I think that's very true, as it's like the people who focus on technique that much are completely missing out out on, like, what is actually like the interesting thing, like actually having an interesting voice or an interesting like tone or something, and uh, I think that's great.

Speaker 2:

I will say part of this like the very like conservative experience I had in my undergrad. Uh, I wound up going to grad school at CalArts and it could not have been more of a different experience, like very much all about sort of what I was just talking about, of like really kind of finding your like compositional voice, but then also being open to like a lot of things in terms of like indeterminacy and like contingency and how like basically all these outside effects like play into like the work that any composer or like musician does yeah, it's um.

Speaker 1:

I'm reading a book at the moment, a listen by michael faber and oh, I've been wanting to read this, yeah it's so good, it's so good and there's a line in it which is very kind of glib in a way, but it really made me laugh where he he's talking about the idea of passing on traditions and I guess that's perhaps one of the points, yes, of this precision to to to the old music is is to kind of pass it down, but he describes them as like the Berlin Philharmonic, as being a really good cover band.

Speaker 1:

And then I started thinking of the film, the Cate Blanchett film Tar, which also One of my favorite movies. Yeah, it's so good, isn't it? And I don't even know why it led me to thinking about it, but maybe just because that film is so open-ended.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, I mean the, the master class scene that she has, where she's kind of like railing against the student for uh, playing like a like experimental drone piece, um, and then comparing it with bach is I I saw it with a person I was dating at the time uh, in the theaters, and it is the most accurate representation of what music school is like.

Speaker 2:

Because you're like man like this, this like guest lecturer who I'm supposed to care about and be important, is just like being totally horrible and like completely missing the point and like ignoring like literally like a century of like musical, like development. And then you're like, all right, maybe my classmate will say or do something that's going to help this situation. You're like, oh man, you're just like you're making this worse for everybody because you're trying to bring like all of these other like political notions into it that, like I mean, mean just quite frankly, aren't relevant to Bach. You know Like it's like it's like it's really. You know it's like, of course, of course, the dude isn't a great guy. He was alive in, you know, like the 17th century.

Speaker 2:

Like I don't think there's a lot of like great shining examples of masculinity from that time probably.

Speaker 1:

Definitely not. I think the whole concept of, you know, you mentioned it a little bit before, but the kind of the romantic and the classical notion of the, I guess the Descartesian solo man who's sweating and every bead of perspiration is like a, is like a inspiration, you know, and it can only be gathered by him on his own and it lands on his desk and as a gift from the gods it is, you know, utterly counter to everything we've discussed, really, I guess. But you can still like that music.

Speaker 2:

What's that?

Speaker 1:

But I still find myself liking that music at the same time. Oh, I think I do too.

Speaker 2:

I mean but, but I still find myself liking that music at the same time. Oh, I think I do too. I mean, I think that, like, a lot of composers from that era wouldn't even necessarily like entirely relate to that idea, um, like I mean it's it's interesting reading like ocean of sound and thinking about that in the context of like wc and sati, because it's like they're they're pretty open about what they're drawing influence from even then, and the idea of like seeing like music from another culture in another world and being like that's amazing, like how, how does this translate to a string orchestra? Um, and I think that it's also like like Bach is a great example of that, because the dude is just a workhorse. He's just churning out these pieces like kind of non-stop um, and I don't think that he thinks that he's like particularly divine by god.

Speaker 2:

I think it's literally like he's approaching it from this like sense of uh, like I have to write this many pieces for church every week this is true so I can feed my like 35 children or whatever.

Speaker 2:

And then he's like and and I think that that's why there's such a sense of play and and experimentation with like harmony and counterpoint inbox music is because he's just like. He's literally like I got to do another one of these, these, like you know, like two part inventions for like the service. So I'm just going to like, I'm going to really go off and figure out how I can like do all of this without like fully breaking the rules yeah, yeah, and I I guess this sort of leads on and I know we've kind of covered this in a way.

Speaker 1:

But I mean, you're a big advocate for accessibility in experimental music and we have touched on that quite heavily throughout. But I was wondering if there are other ways, or perhaps more like overt ways, that that I guess accessibility in experimental music can be actioned by people yeah, I mean, I think a big thing is.

Speaker 2:

So when I was living in la, there was a experimental music series that was trying to do this by having it in, having concerts in like more like accessible spaces like where people could kind of just stumble into it and then, uh, sort of being open to like conversation, to like talking about it and thinking about like okay, like, like, how would you explain this to somebody who hasn't necessarily come across it before? And I think that it was. It was very interesting Because I think that, like it's very easy a lot of the time in this world, I think, to kind of to just it's inevitably sort of an inherently pretentious world Because, like you, you come into it with like all these notions of like kind of how you've gotten into it, how you understand it, how what you like and don't like about it. But I think a big thing for for getting people more engaged in it and having the accessibility is just really sort of dropping that in a big way, because it's like, at my core I'm like I remember a time where, like I didn't know anything about this and I was just, you know, a kid who mostly liked, you know, indie rock and and like folk and country, and I remember going.

Speaker 2:

A big pivotal moment for me was there is a concert in San Antonio where Alan Licht played, and this was in God, probably 2005 or six, um, and I was in high school and I just went because it was at a space that like hosted a lot of like DIY stuff, uh, and I was just like this sounds interesting and cool. And I went and it like was legitimately life-changing, uh, because I was just like I had never heard anything like that. And I met alan like that night and was like very awkward around him in the way that, like you know, a 15 year old usually is, and but he was, he was actually. He was like very kind and generous with me and like I wound up like following his blog and getting turned on to so much like incredible music. That's still like my favorite music nowadays, just through that. But I mean it's just like. It's really just.

Speaker 2:

I think people remembering to approach like a lot of things with like a bit of self-awareness that, like you know, this is a very hyper specific world. I was like talking to someone about this the other day and I was just like you know, this is a very hyper, specific world. I was like talking to someone about this the other day and I was just like you know, it's all very important to like us and thinking about it, but then, like the second you start to talk to someone who's like kind of outside of all of this about it, you just realize how little it matters. It's like I have this a lot Like when I when I go home and like talk to my brother or something, and my brother is just like wait, so like what?

Speaker 2:

did you do again like I don't. I don't understand this at all and he's just you know, but he's like content to just like listen to, you know whatever like rock music he likes, and I was like it's a very humbling experience. I think that is like kind of necessary sometimes and I think it's just a big part of it is is musicians remembering to kind of like approach like their work with that in mind, because it's just like of course, I take this seriously and like I think everyone who who like is in this and sticks with it, for you know, like for as long as they have been, for you know, like for as long as they have been.

Speaker 2:

Like you know, usually takes it very seriously and is very intensive about it. But I think it's easy to lose sight of the fact that, like you know, you could be getting more people into this just by by being a bit more open minded and kind about, like kind welcoming, welcoming them into this. And I think another thing too is it's just like, I think, just making sure that the music is actually able to be heard a lot of the time. I mean, it's like I am no fan of spotify, I'm extremely anti that whole service and, like I think you know, I would love to live in a world where we find a more sustainable alternative to like all streaming services but at the same time, after like kind of wrestling with that for a while, I decided to host like um.

Speaker 2:

Initially, lacuna and parlor wasn't going to be on spotify and I decided to put it on there because I was just like the chance of like somebody hearing this or like having access to be able to hear this is is unfortunately greatly increased and it's like it might be a thing that, like you know, there's always the potential. It's like you get some kid who's never heard this music into it because it's accessible and it's available in some way, and then that, like you know, gets them on this great path to get off of spotify. You like think of all these things and like like start getting into other music and like really engaging in it because I feel like it.

Speaker 2:

For me, it's like that whole sensation and going through that in san antonio, a place where, um, there wasn't a community really for that at all and it wasn't particularly accessible and it was just really a handful of cool older people who lived in the city that were into it, showing me the way and then me going to like record stores and finding something that, just because, like it happened to be there, it was like on a bigger label that was distributed, and then being able to kind of like chase the rabbit hole from that. And so I'm always just like, if that's like what can happen, like you know, we should all be trying to like make that happen so that people hopefully like kind of like have that light bulb go off that is such a lovely way of saying it.

Speaker 1:

That's like I guess that's the opposite of gatekeep. I mean it is gatekeeping but it is gate opening, I guess yes, yeah, yeah, yeah, obviously very anti, uh, gatekeeping yeah, that was the interview.

Speaker 1:

Thank you so much for chatting with me. Great, yeah, thanks so much. Okay, so that was me, paul hamford talking with maurice, and we had that conversation on the 25th of January 2025, uh, kind of tropical. A collaboration between Maurice and Claire Rousset is out as a single now through the label frill jockey. And yeah, thank you so much, uh, maurice, for that chat. I really really loved having that chat.

Speaker 1:

Um, quite often I have chats with people and I just feel super happy afterwards, and that was one of them as well where I just feel super happy afterwards, and that was one of them as well where I just go away thinking I really really, really like, learned something. I really, really, really felt there was like a really nice vibe, yay. Um. Anyway, you can listen to my radio documentary the man who smuggled punk rock across the Berlin wall by heading on over to the BBC sounds app or on the world service home page, and my book coming to Berlin is still available in all good bookshops or via the publisher's website, velocity press. If you enjoyed listening to the show, please do give it a like. Uh, give it a subscribe if you really fancy do. Please do give a rating and a review on your podcast platform of choice.

Speaker 1:

And audio technica are the sponsors of lost and sound, the global but still family-run company. They make headphones, turntables, cartridges, microphones. They make studio quality yet affordable products because they believe the high quality audio should be accessible to all. So, wherever you are in the world, head on over to audiotechnicacom to check out all of their range of stuff. And the music that you hear at the beginning, at the end of every episode of lost and sound is by Thomas Giddens. Hyperlink is always in the podcast description, and so, yeah, that's it for today, thank you, thank you.