BY SAMUEL PETER
Tilman Robinson is a composer and performer based in Melbourne who has just released his second album Deer Heart. Released through Hobbledehoy Record Co., Deer Heart integrates ethereal multi-instrumental resonance, dynamic percussion and fastidious production. it was recorded at various locations in Berlin, Melbourne, the Canadian Rockies and Reykjavík’s Greenhouse Studios over the past three years. We chat with Tilman about his experiences composing around the world, and the blurred lines between genres that he likes to inhabit.
Listen to CutCommon’s first audio feature, in which Samuel Peter interviews composer Tilman Robinson about his latest release Deer Heart. You can also learn more in their interview below.
How do you characterise your music?
Dense. Possibly too dense, at points! But dense. I struggle to make things ‘minimal’, even though some of it does hark back to minimalism. As far as dense sound is concerned, I guess what I’m hoping for is some kind of psychological impact. So I guess it’s testing the psychological impact of dense sound. Make of that what you will, or do you mean: ‘How do you characterise your music’ in terms of genre?
Some people find genre helpful to describe their work. Is that something you find useful?
No, I don’t find genre useful at all. I was recently on a radio show, on a jazz show, and I always find it interesting talking to people who want to fit you into a box. I just kind of saying: ‘Well, I’ve just been making the music that I want to make for the last four or five years’. What genres people want to fit you into is their problem, really.
I hadn’t really considered it too much, but I think there is a tendency, here in Australia, to genre-label and for people to not necessarily feel comfortable working outside of their genre. I remember, when I was working as a trombonist in Perth as a young whipper-snapper, there was definitely a tendency not to step outside of your genre. I’m not saying everyone did this, but definitely there was a tendency not to play or listen to classical music if you were a jazz musician, and vice versa. I think that this is a little bit different on the east coast of Australia, but there’s still this kind of tendency for people to have the attitude of ‘you’re that kind of musician, and that way I can pigeonhole you’. Whether that is indicative of Australia’s greater arts culture, I’m not entirely sure.
Much of Deer Heart came together while you were participating in a residency in Iceland. Is there as much focus on an exclusive style there?
It was really interesting making this record and working in Iceland for as long as I did last year. There are not enough musicians in Iceland to really have this luxury of people only sticking to one genre. If you are a cellist then you may be one of only 15 cellists working in Reykjavik. Chances are, you’re playing in the symphony orchestra, but you’re probably also playing in your mate’s post-rock band, or in the case of Hildur Guðnadóttir, you’re probably playing with Múm or doing your own solo project. And that was intriguing, because it lifted the vale on this really Iceland-o-philic view I had of this magical place where all of this amazing art is created. It is that, but that is by the virtue of there not being that many people, so everyone needs to be involved. So, for someone like me who tries to connect, and borrow, and piece pieces of these works together, it’s interesting. I feel that my work is quite strong, but it doesn’t really sit into any of these scenes that exist around Australia. I’m not saying that with pride or disdain, I’m just saying that because that’s kind of the way it is, for better or for worse.
So what is Deer Heart to you?
The album is a collection of pieces, really. The last couple of longer-form works that I’d done took this grandiose idea of long-form concert works, and I was thinking of that in the context of an album. And, as much as I like to think people would sit down and listen to an entire 50- to 60-minute piece in one go, I thought ‘I don’t even do that that much anymore’. So, with Deer Heart I was trying to make a series of pieces that could stand alone as compositions.
This album was pieced together over three years from all throughout the world. Did you find the album changed significantly across this period of time, or do you find it remains cohesive despite this long process of writing and recording?
It’s an interesting question, and the question of time is important here. Three years ago, when I started writing some of this music, I had very limited production skills. I was still very much a ‘pen-and-paper’ guy, and I didn’t really have too much knowledge about recording and production. Over the course of the past three years, that part of my practice has changed significantly, to the point where some of the last pieces I worked on for Deer Heart are very much made in the computer, with minimal recording and ‘pen-and-paper’ writing.
What was interesting to me was taking pieces I’d written in very different contexts and trying to apply them to a recorded project. The first track Where We Began is very much written for a live ensemble to play. How does that then translate into a recorded version? Something like Pareidolia was written in the computer with sequencing software. I then added timbres and textures from recordings of improvisational games and approaches with the ensemble in the studio. I guess Deer Heart is made up of a little bit of everything I’ve been working on over the past three years.
Your first album Network of Lines (2013) was highly regarded. What’s your reaction looking back on this album now?
I think Network of Lines was a really good indicator of where I was at the time and I was proud of all of its moving parts. Looking back on it now, I can see how what I was trying to do at the time was hampered by the way I recorded the album and the way I approached the ensemble. That is to say, if I had my way and I were able to go back and do it again, I would’ve made Network of Lines in more of the same fashion that I made Deer Heart. And I kind of knew that at the time. After we’d done the multi-track session of Network of Lines, and got into the space to do some of the post-production, I was really frustrated at how limited I was. So I look back on Network of Lines with pride, and I’m very happy with it, but I can hear in it the kind of musician and composer that I want to be, and I feel like Deer Heart is more of a step in that direction.
So what are the connections between Network of Lines and Deer Heart?
I think there was a simplicity to the musical structures, harmonies, and melodies of Network of Lines that has carried through to Deer Heart, and these elements have probably become even simpler in Deer Heart, to be completely honest. Compositional techniques that I used to write things in Network of Lines have become more immediately ingrained in me and came out less forced in Deer Heart. In Network of Lines, there’s these two tracks – The Void and the Iron Bridge, and Shadows Gather. Those two tracks were recorded as one giant improvisation that we all did together in the studio, and then I took it apart and turned it into other things, adding post-production and layering other stuff over the top. That kind of technique of taking raw material and treating the sessions of the recording more as a way to mine new material is how I ended up making most of Deer Heart.
Tilman Robinson will launch Deer Heart at The Toff In Town, Melbourne, on December 15. Event details are on Facebook.
Image supplied.
