BY STEPHANIE ESLAKE
Joshua Rivory describes himself as a “post-genre composer, producer and multi-instrumentalist”.
Today, we bring you the world premiere of this Brisbane artist’s debut single Iri Ansa. And you’ll get to decide for yourself whether you find it a work of the contemporary classical world, or a composition that feels like prog rock.
After all, the ambiguity of sound and feel is what post-genre is all about, isn’t it?
Read the interview, then listen to the world premiere.
Who is Josh, anyway?
Joshua Rivory is a Brisbane artist who has studied at the University of Queensland and, while there, picked up two Percy Brier Composition Awards (2013 and 2014, respectively) for his works
Piano Trio No. 1 and Metamorphosis No. 1. He’s been commissioned for Pulse Chamber Orchestra, Argo, Queensland Youth Orchestra’s Wind Symphony (Eta Lyrae) and plenty more. (You can play each of these works yourself, too – pick them up in our digital music store.)
As a producer, he’s worked with singer-songwriter Maja Puseljic on her self-titled EP, and several singles for SIMON SIMON of which he’s a founding instrumentalist. You might also have seen him play amplified cello in Boss Moxi, and bass in Bin Chicken.
Right now, he’s undertaking a PhD in Music Composition and Music Technology at the University of Queensland, focusing on improving workflow for composers and audio engineers within virtual and augmented reality production.
Your debut single – congratulations! Tell us about this. What’s the theme? What’s it all about?
It’s been a long time coming and it’s been great to experiment with, and find, the sound of my solo project.
Iri Ansa began as a loop-based viola and electronic piece which was subtle and slow-moving. The idea was to create something which had an endless looping of the viola, with a climax at the end that used metric modulation to completely warp the perception of the loops.
While I was producing the electronic portion of the piece, and improvising the piano and synthesiser parts, I realised that I wanted to create something that fully embraced all my influences. I wanted the intimate interactions between viola and piano to grow into something more than a subtle electronica beat. From there, I decided to use all the instruments that I play and experiment with the addition of electric guitar, bass and drums. The result is a prog rock-infused composition that is as expressive as it is rhythmic; as complex as it is simple. A piece which combines simple and subtle ideas in a way which creates a thick, dense, and raw experience.
You describe yourself as a post-genre multi-instrumentalist. What has working outside the bounds of rules or convention taught you about your identity as an artist?
Working outside the bounds of rules and convention changed the way I work with genre expectations. My early compositions – and a lot of the projects I am/have been involved with – are grounded within a single genre or sound-world. Likewise, I focused on playing one instrument or electronic setup per project, instead of embracing multiple instruments. The result was that whenever I wrote for a chamber ensemble, I would be disappointed with the lack of amplification or drums. Whenever I wrote a riff, I would miss the expression of stringed instruments or contrapuntal abilities of the piano. Once I began to move outside of the mono-genre mindset and began to break genre expectations within pieces, I found that I could explore the subtlety of contemporary classical composition and the raw power of amplified instruments simultaneously. It has made me truly appreciate the complexity of my identity as an artist, and the interaction between influences that drives me to create music across so many different genres and within varying settings.
What draws you to such flexible composition and musical styles?
My development as a musician has stemmed from an eclectic musical taste and varied education of instruments – piano, strings, guitar, percussion, and brass. This, I believe, is the reason for my pursuit of flexibility across musical styles and compositional techniques. The influences of various genres and my classical training ended up creating a few questions that have underpinned my identity as a composer:
- When do I improvise and when do I notate?
- Should I conform to a single identity for each project?
- What is my goal as a musician?
- And, how do I create art that is new and refreshing in a way that completely encompasses all my influences, and achieves the balance of simplicity and complexity across the wide variety of genres which I value?
Searching for the answers to these questions has driven me to where I am today.
I improvise wherever possible. Notation is used to create a chart, which I then navigate to create my own interpretation of the initial composition.
I shouldn’t conform to a single identity for each project. As simple as this answer sounds, balancing the desire to create pieces that have the energy of a prog rock band, intimacy of a contemporary classical composition, and lush electronic soundscapes has been a long haul. Originally, I would compartmentalise each sound into its own hypothetical project with almost no crossovers. Now that I allow each unique sound to influence one another, a balance has been achieved.
My goal as a musician is to create intense experiences, both live and recorded. This results in compositions that build from intimate acoustic instruments and subtle electronics to climaxes of raw, amplified power.
The result of discovering the answers above created the solution to the final question. By blending improvisatory elements in a post-genre setting to create an intense experience, I have begun creating art that is new and refreshing in a way which completely acknowledges all my influences.
What similarities can we find between post-rock and classical music, anyway?
Post-rock broadly describes bands that push the boundaries of rock by drawing influences from a wide variety of different genres – including avant-garde, contemporary classical, electronica, or jazz. Despite the vagueness of the definition, the unwillingness of most bands to be labelled into the category, and the large variance between sounds of post-rock bands, some overarching musical characteristics do exist. They include long song (or piece) duration, use of drones, unusual or complex time signatures, repetition and the preference for instrumentals rather than vocals – if vocals are present at all.
One could argue that I just accidentally described Steve Reich or John Adams; indeed, most bands that are categorised as post-rock tend to treat their music in a similar way to a composer. And the crossover between contemporary classical and post-rock genres becomes more convoluted when considering composers like Nils Frahms or Olafur Arnalds, and bands like Sigur Ros or Oceansize, side-by-side. Choice of instrumentation includes a blend of electronic, amplified and acoustic instruments; songs/pieces are minimal in form; and the importance of the vocals are generally set aside for the intricate, ever-growing instrumentals.
In simple terms, one could argue that a rock band that leverages contemporary classical techniques, and a contemporary classical composer that leverages rock instrumentation, are aiming for a similar goal from different sides.
You’ve worked quite collaboratively on your debut single. Why was it important for you to share this experience with other musicians?
Collaborating has always been a huge part of my compositional process. Discovering new things about your own ideas, purely by working through them with another musician, is one of the most fascinating processes and, whenever I compose, I always leave a lot of headroom for improvisation and interpretation. Letting the performers take control of the piece allows for more interesting and invested performances, and this results in a unique artistic creation for every new performance of the same piece.
To this end, I love working with an array of people to achieve unexpected results. In my recording of Iri Ansa, I chose to work with Kieran Welch (viola) to leverage his raw emotion in melodic sections and powerful tone in rhythmic sections. To contrast his playing style – and the smooth electronic backdrop – I specifically chose to work with Jasper Gundersen on drums. He describes himself as a ‘neo-soul’ drummer, and his undeniable groove adds a level of depth to an otherwise simple drum beat. I could have used a drummer who specialises in post-rock soundscapes, but then how would this piece be unique?
What do you hope people take away from your debut ,and how do you feel this will affect the way listeners understand you as an artist?
I hope that people will be drawn into Iri Ansa’s unique soundscape; feeling relaxed when the track breathes, and ecstatic when it climaxes. I hope the blend between acoustic, electronic, and amplified textures transports people to a new realm of possibilities. And I hope the improvisatory nature of the piece begins to expand the relationship between composer and performer from author/actor, to co-creators.
With all that in mind, Iri Ansa is an insight into the complex, and sometimes conflicting, desires of my artistic identity. It is a testament to my desire to work collaboratively, to write flexible and manipulatable compositions for interpretative performance, and to create my own sound that truly blurs the line between a contemporary classical composition and a sprawling post-rock piece.
What do you love most about your new work – what makes you feel the most proud?
It seems like a strange thing to be ‘proud’ of, but in all seriousness, I am most proud of being able to mix this recording in any comprehensible way. I truly went to town with the contrapuntal interactions between instruments in my interpretation of the composition. Everything was considered as important as one another. It leads to some – in my opinion – spectacular moments; multiple lines suddenly playing in unison, or the drum groove mimicked in all the independent lines. But nevertheless, it is a remarkably dense track.
But the thing I love most about Iri Ansa is that I managed to make the simplest piece I have ever conceived into one of my most complex artistic experiences.
Any parting words before we listen to the world premiere?
Iri Ansa really would be nothing without the incredible work of Kieran Welch and Jasper Gundersen. Their interpretations of the (very sparse) composition that I provided them has helped create a truly unique piece.
And on that note, a score for the piece will be released in the next few months. It will be a modular composition, with electronic backing, that will allow the soloist to choose the instrumentation, number of layers, and degree of improvisation utilised.
Now LISTEN!
This is the world premiere of Iri Ansa, composed by Joshua Rivory. It will be publicly released on April 13 across multiple platforms.
Images supplied.
