Entrevista: Holy Hum

Holy Hum // Andrew Lee

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Este mês de Junho trago-vos a entrevista com o artista Andrew Lee que está a desenvolver o projecto Holy Hum. Este músico que actualmente reside no canadá aceitou ser entrevistado para o blog.
Ouvi primeiro a música dele no bandcamp e a primeira coisa que pensei foi em noise, mas é muito mais que isso. É a composição de diferentes sons, instrumentos e melodias que faz da sua música algo especial. Neste sentido, achei que mais do que eu falar num post o que achava da música seria melhor ouvir.

LISTEN//OUVE

Sun Breaking

Appendix A+B

Appendix C

Relativamente à entrevista interessava-me mais conhecer o artista por detrás da magia que ouvimos nas três músicas acima sendo com esse objectivo que fiz a entrevista abaixo:


C: From what i gathered music has been almost like a healing process as well as a get to know myself process for you (even if not conscious), but have you ever felt that you had achieved a certain level where you think it's enough? Are you still using music with that purpose?

HH: I don't think I understand exactly what I'm doing and I definitely don't know who I am.  I guess with time I have maybe cared less about some of the anxieties in my mind.   I think the music for me, at the least, gives me a type of reprieve.  I get to emote whatever I want and people can choose to listen to it or not.  I guess in a lot of ways I'm doing this for myself.   And I can't really see myself stopping the exploration of sound or music any time soon.   So I guess I'm not done with it yet.  It's all a process.  I'm going to quote Soren Kierkegaard - as I think he kind of sums up nicely what I think about attempting at understanding yourself..."Enigmatic one should be, not only to others, but also to oneself. I study myself; when I tire of that, I smoke a cigar, to pass time, thinking, God knows what Our Lord really has meant me to be, or what he will make of me."



C: Super curious about the creative process in general!

HH: The creative process for me is super simple.  I make time to experiment.  I have never sat down and tried to write a song.  It all kind of happens by accident.  I usually always hit record when I'm in my studio.   If I do this enough usually a song or a type of composition starts to make itself apparent amongst all of the noise.  The writing process is really drawn out because it's based on experimentation but because I'm always recording I don't have to go back into the studio to record anything.  It's already there.



C: And now on a more personal level... I saw your pictures on IG and wow you really did like Lisbon... Why did you liked it so much and have your travels (not including) contributed to your music in any way?

HH: A sense of place is very important in my work.  When it comes to literature or a film I'm always paying attention to the details in the setting.  In my music, the sense of place or the setting is most often than not the main character and I'm always working within that universe to create moods or textures.  I can recall in my mind certain nights in Esterhazy, Saskatchewan where my father was sick in the hospital.  It was during winter of 2011 and I had no place to stay so I slept in my car in the parking lot.  It was snowing and I can remember waking up to the most monolithic sound rise I had ever witnessed.  The prairies are super flat and the white snowy horizon was illuminated by a pinkish, orange, red glowing sun.  It was just me in my van, wrapped up in a sleeping bag, in an expanse of white snow with the sun emerging from the earth.  That memory is somehow indexed by the first Holy Hum song "Sun Breaking".

Lisbon has definitely had an influence on my music.  But that stuff hasn't been released yet.  I stayed in Lisbon with my friend Alex Zhang Hungtai who is formerly of the band Dirty Beaches.  We went out to a jazz club one night and I can't remember what the place was called or who was playing but I can remember the walk there and also the walk back home.  It was a very warm night and although it was pitch black the white cobblestone was reflecting the light from the moon which gave everything this grey scale look.  I could go on and on about how a sense of place can be very evocative for me but I will just leave it at that.
I liked Lisbon so much because it was nothing like where I was from and at the same time it seemed very familiar.  I'd like to spend more time there and possibly do some residencies where I can focus on my music.


C: Bands or singers you recommend?

HH: I recommend: Hwang Byungki's "Spring Snow", Destroyer's "Bay Of Pigs", Vangelis's "Blade Runner Blues", This Mortal Coil's "Song To The Siren” and Ralph Vaughn William's "The Lark Ascending"



C: What songs in your life have inspired you the most?

HH: There are so many songs that have inspired me in my life that it's hard to pin point them.  But the music that has had the most influence on me growing up was definitely Nirvana's "In Utero".  But I mainly grew up listening to Opera and Classical music because that's what my father was into.



C: While living in Canada did you have access to a lot of Korean Music or Korean Culture? Do you feel it had an impact in your music today?

HH: The only access to Korean music I had while growing up in Canada was whatever my parents were listening to.  I can vividly remember my mother listening to a lot of Korean music that sounded so sad.  It was always a man or a women with so much vibrato that they could shake a small building singing about something tragic that I really couldn't understand.  I remember being able to feel the pain or sorrow in the singers voice but I never understood what they were singing about.

I was exposed to a lot of Korean culture because that's all that my parents knew.  So they raised me as a good Korean kid.  It wasn't until I was invited over to little Ryan's house after school for dinner that I realized that not everyone had kimchi with every meal.



C: What message do you want to give to your future listeners?

HH: I don't really have a message.  I think that if you like my music I already think you're an awesome person.  If you don't like my music, then that's cool too. But as for a message I don't really have one.



C: Would you like to join the korean music scene? If so what bands would you like to work with?

HH: I would love to join the Korean music scene.  But for lots of reason I remain rogue in any music scene.  I'm not a white dude in skinny jeans playing indie rock and so I'm a bit of an anomaly here in Canada.  And Koreans really have a hard time excepting me as one of their own.  But if I could work with any Korean bands I would definitely ask Jambinai and also this crazy experimental group called Pope X Pope.

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Tenho de agradecer ao Andrew pela paciência do mesmo, durante os emails que trocamos mostrou-se não só um músico talentoso, mas uma pessoa super acessível e da qual gostaria imenso de conversar pessoalmente.
Este entrevista coincidiu com a minha vinda para Macau e o início do meu estágio. Durante o processo de adaptação era difícil arranjar tempo para fazer este post.


Neste momento Holy Hum está a trabalhar em novos sons, o qual espero que em breve possamos ouvir.