In this video, Divkid Ben Wilson talks with synthesist Matthew Shaw about his Totemic Topologies project, which explores creating electronic ambient music, using ‘airborne detritus’ as sound sources.
Here’s what Wilson has to say about the video:
It was great to head over to Matthew Shaw’s studio and chat to him about his ‘Totemic Topologies’ series of releases. The music is spacious, distant yet absorbing and as engaging as you want it to be (like most good ambient music). It welcomes multiple listens, passive listening and engaged listening so I just had to make something with Matthew to get into his mindset, creative approach and look at the tools used to execute his ideas.
Each release is made up of samples and foley work captured from items that have blown into the garden … yes literally … airborne detritus. It was sampled through handheld recorders (digital of tape), manipulated in the Teenage Engineering OP-1 and then works through the Ciat Lonbarde Cocoquantus before an accompanying layer from the Plumbutter.
You can preview Totemic Topologies Vol 1 below:
Interesting. I do a lot of macro photography when not doing landscape so this gave me lots of ideas in terms of maybe a kind of macro sampling. Love the idea of using pliers or tweezers, whatever to further manipulate physical oblects when sampling, very cool.