All music genres suffer from stereotypes. From the Marshall amp drenched “ka-chunka-chunka” guitar riffs of Heavy Metal rock and roll to the twangy southern drawl of country music vocalists, we all tend to identify with certain clichéd sounds within a specific genre of music. Electronic music is no stranger to such misconceptions and therefore it is no surprise that much more can be revealed with closer inspection, or listening. The field of electronic music is in fact a vast and expansive musical landscape with a huge gamut of sonic possibilities. For many contemporary artisans this nearly limitless pallet of sound fosters innovation. More specifically, the genres of “Ambient” and “Electroacoustic” music appear positioned to be the new frontier of modern composition.

Playing at locations off the beaten path is often the case for artists like Canid and such was the case when I saw him at a house performance in the historic near-west-side neighborhoods of Bloomington. Within the first moments of hearing the “ambient psychedelic drones” of Colin Jenkins, aka “Canid”, I knew I wanted him to be a performer at the Speed of Sound events which are held every second Wednesday of the month at Rachael’s Cafe. Bloomingtonelectronic.com and the Speed of Sound series seeks to provide a public stage for forward thinking electronic musicians like Canid.

In Bloomington’s elusive history of electronic music, the “drone”, “noise” and “experimental” contingent of musicians and their fans have maintained a consistent presence at local music venues throughout the years due in part to the constantly revolving door of progressive thinking I.U. music students. This should give some solace to someone like Colin who recently relocated to Bloomington after enjoying a vibrant and cooperative electroacoustic scene in Washington, DC. We are thrilled to have Canid conjure his audio sorcery at the very first Speed of Sound event on this coming Wednesday evening, but in the mean time enjoy Colin’s recent interview-

-You describe your music as “Ambient Psychedelic Drones”. Can you elaborate a bit?

Probably the most accurate genre description of my music (at least according to Wikipedia) is electroacoustic improvisation, in part because that’s such a broad term.  I use a collection of electrical, electronic, and acoustic devices, samples and my own voice, to make free-form intuitive pieces.  My main focus is the drone, building up layered chords and textures through looping and delay.  Sometimes there’s elements of ambient music or industrial or psychedelic.  It’s all improvised, so usually I start a piece very broadly and then pick out and build up the elements that seem strongest.  Over the course of a long piece I’ll usually go through several phases and fade out loops, change others, bring in new ones.

-How long have you been working in the field of electronic music? Tell us about any other music background you may have.

I started putting this setup together in the Fall of 2008 and it’s evolved since then.  I have very little in the way of a formal musical background.  I played drums and hand percussion throughout middle school and high school and I took some basic piano lessons in college.  I taught myself jawharp and I can get by on xylophone.  I’m not very technically proficient in any one instrument, so part of the reason I feel so comfortable playing drone and ambient music is that I can play the instruments very slowly and deliberately.  My father was a big influence.  He’s a music teacher and collector of instruments from around the world, so I grew up with a house full of various drums and kotos and mbiras, and we were always listening to music from everywhere.

-Are there any particular artists who inspired you to produce and perform the music you presently create?

There are many.  The most direct influence was immersing myself in the Washington, DC, experimental music scene in 2008-09.  The scene there is pretty well-organized and very friendly.  There’s a lot of interaction between electronic, electroacoustic, free jazz, metal, and new music artists.  Some specific artists that I found particularly inspiring there were Insect Factory, Pilesar, Janel and Anthony, Nine Strings, and Fast Forty.  Going to shows there led to that classic punk rock moment of seeing someone one stage and thinking “Hey, I can do that!”

About four years ago vocalist/composer Pamela Z gave a talk at my college about combining classical composition with modern delay and looping software.  This was before I had any inkling of wanting to go into experimental music, but it put the idea into my head that I could put together fully-formed musical pieces in a live setting without a full band.

Some other artists: The Books, Stag Hare, Negativland, Lungfish/Dan Higgs, Growing, Dan Deacon, Sunn O))), Fuck Buttons, Sigur Ros, Earth, The Knife, early Beck, Tom Waits, Animal Collective, Om, Godflesh, and a lot of Indian and Middle Eastern religious music.

-Do you listen to a lot of electronic music? Is there an artist or album which really impressed you in the last couple years?

I listen to a fair bit of electronic music, but it’s not a huge percentage of all the stuff I listen to.  I have a wide variety, usually the weirder side of whatever genre.  One electronic album that really inspired me was Street Horrrsing by Fuck Buttons.  They’re a British duo I saw open for Mogwai in 2008.  They use a setup pretty similar to mine with cheap keyboards, loops, delays, and percussion.  They do a really great job fusing elements of noise and ambient music into these ecstatic, crackly, electronic drones.  I love that idea of ecstatic (i.e. a sensation that blocks out all other sensations) music, and to me Fuck Buttons really embody that along with artists like Dan Deacon and Sunn O))).

-You have a very interesting equipment setup. Could you describe the methods behind producing your unique sound?

I have two small electronic keyboards, one of them is a Casio SK-1, the other a very cheap off-brand model, practically a toy.  I run these through a distortion pedal and a phase shifter.  Sometimes I switch these out for small tape players, radios, and drone boxes.  I run my microphone through a multi-effects box that I often have set to octavizer and pitch shifter settings which layer the sounds on top of each other and makes it sound like a gigantic robotic choir.  I can add delay or reverb effects as well.  I have both of these lines (the microphone and the keyboards/devices) running into another box that adds another level of delay.  Then these run into a loop pedal and then into the amplifier.

The loop pedal is my most recent acquisition and that’s really brought everything to a new level and allowed me to take more of a compositional approach.  It was the only device that I’ve gone out and looked for specifically.  All the other pieces of my equipment are things I’ve happened to find for cheap or for free.  As each new object gets added and other things taken away it alters the overall sound and how I’m able to craft it.  When I’m playing I’m working within the limited parameters of what my equipment can do and just exploring how big that space is, and each new device expands that space to a certain exponential degree.

-What are your opinions on using software to produce electronic music?

I’m all for it.  I think imposing any kind of dogmatic limits on experimental electronic music is a futile gesture.  That said, there is definitely a place for the analog and the lo-fi.   They’re all different realms.  None can hope to imitate the others and they don’t need to.  A big part of my music is the element of chance and imperfection.  If I press too hard on the cheaper of my keyboards the pitch distorts slightly.  If I hit the loop pedal a fraction of a second too late then the background rhythm will be off slightly.  And that’s OK.  When something like that repeats over and over the brain comes to accept it and integrate it into the piece.  Part of my improvisational strategy is to make whatever I just did sound as good as it can with whatever I’m about to do.

The only software I’ve used in my music so far are iPhone apps.  There are a few really good free musical instrument emulators.  My favorites are a modular synthesizer app and a pedal steel guitar app.  They both have a lot of settings you can mess around with and the sound quality is surprisingly good.

To me, the greatest advantage of using software to produce music is the degree of precision one can achieve and I think the most effective computer musicians will use that as much as they can.  There have been studies on the brain’s response to music and sound at the cellular level, and there is the potential to create music that can directly trigger, or at least strongly encourage, certain emotions and states of mind.  They’re nowhere close to any magical musical bullet that will control people’s thought through sound waves, but it’s still an ominously exciting proposition.

My main qualm with computer music is the lack of a visual element.  My own performances are pretty subdued, but I am performing physical actions.  I’m turning dials and pressing buttons and moving things around and making sounds into a microphone and each action contributes to the sound.  Whenever I see live music, and especially experimental music, I always try to be up front so that I can see what the musicians are doing, where these sounds are coming from.  With computer music there’s no visual sense of cause and effect and that can be disorienting.  Or dull.  I think it’s important for computer musicians to be conscious of where they perform and under what circumstances.  Having visually stimulating surroundings or some sort of visual element projected or performed as part of the piece can give it a greater sense of wholeness than just a person sitting behind a laptop.  On the other side of the spectrum you can have someone like noise artist Novi Sad who prefers to perform behind the audience in complete darkness so that the experience is purely sonic.

-What’s in store for Canid for the rest of 2010?

My main goal is to start recording more seriously.  As it is I just have a few sporadic live recordings and nothing very recent.  I’d like to try recording on my own and, if possible, in front of an audience.  I want to keep performing live as much as I can with like-minded artists.  I have a few collaborative efforts that are going very well and I’d like to start performing/recording with them as well.  Lastly I’d like to collaborate with some sort of visual artist, be it performance, dance, video, or spoken word.

Anybody who would like to book me, collaborate with me, help me record or give me feedback can get in touch through the following channels:

droningon@gmail.com
www.myspace.com/canidsounds
http://www.facebook.com/pages/Canid/275862375583
www.twitter.com/canidsounds

~Written by Mark Kunoff

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