Brainwave Entrainment: The Return! - Another Conversation with Ryan Page, Part II
We continue our interview with Ryan Page, and things get interesting…
Blood & Spirit: So tell me more about the new album, The Night Ocean.
Ryan Page: So each of the tracks are inspired by different weird fiction authors, all of them referencing the ocean. I was really influenced by the idea that for a large portion of human history, the ocean was this almost entirely unknown space (and still is, of course) and that this was the focus of early science fiction and horror.
B&S: I don't know if the album title is intentional this way, but to me it flows like ocean waves as well, like swells of noise and silence.
RP: Yeah, I agree about the ocean wave sounds. I came up with these piece where I would create these reactive patches on the modular synthesizer and then you would have these very slow sequences, and all of these feedback systems would react to each instance of it. So it's a bit like waves or ripples in the sense of having a system in a resting state and then something activates it, and you have it slowly, audibly dying down. The first track "Terminal Beach" is a pretty good example of that. The opening and closing of the album are sounds from the ocean that I recorded on the coast a few miles out from my house.
B&S: I can definitely hear that. "Above The Melting Stars" sounds like an HPL creature guesting on a Carpenter track. I like that there's no genre restriction, musically or cinematic. I could easily see the title track in an early Michael Mann movie.
Check out episode 422 of the H.P. Lovecraft Literary Podcast, featuring more of The Night Ocean, at this location.
RP: That one (“Above The Melting Stars”) was kind of interesting. I used a 1960s-style passive AM modulation demodulation unit, so you got the sound you might get from a far-off AM radio that you could never properly tune to.
B&S: Post-apocalypse broadcast.
RP: Yeah, I can see that. Despite the fact that its the title track, I wasn't sure I was going to use (“The Night Ocean”) initially, just because it is so simple and melodic that it’s quite a departure from what I normally do.
B&S: It was unexpected in the context of other material you’ve done, but it's cool. How did “Plain Of Silence” come together? Did it take a lot longer, since it's so long?
RP: Surprisingly, that was mostly performed live into a 4 track cassette machine. There is some slight guitar on there (heavily processed), and the samples, but that's it. I had the patch up for a while, and practiced it until I was able to do all of the changes in real time. I recorded a few takes and kept the best one.
B&S: Wow, I would have never guessed any of this was live.
RP: Most of the album is, actually.
B&S: What's your primary piece of equipment for Repairer material? Or is there even a single one?
RP: I use a modular synthesize I've been building, that is the bulk of it. And a few 80s Roland synthesizers (Alpha Juno, Juno 106, and MC-202). The modular system is basically a synthesizer that has been broken up into individual parts so you can connect them together in different ways, so if you want your sound to go through a Moog filter, and then a Korg-style filter, you can do that. If you want 500 oscillators, you can do that as well. What I've done is buy or build various components over the years to build this insane reconfigurable synth.
Mystery Module
B&S: So like the Winchester house, but a synthesizer.
RP: Yep, but with more ghosts. I wanted to be able to do all the stuff I did with Body Hammer, but with a synth. So it has multiple samplers, digital effects (all with analog voltage control), filter banks, bit crushers, sample rate reduces, a Big Muff clone, etc. Oh, and a full drum machine. It's pretty wild.
B&S: It sounds like the possibilities are pretty much endless.
RP: Yeah, I wake up every day with an idea for something different to try with it. I have actually written my own firmware for one of the digital modules, and my friend David Kant and I are working on a hybrid analog digital design right now. I just lasercut the prototype panel for testing recently.
B&S: So the module is replicate-able to some degree?
RP: Yeah, we're trying to secure funding to have it manufactured, but we will also be offering open source. You could conceivably have your own PCB printed up, order parts, and drop the firmware on yourself to make your own.
B&S: Last we spoke, you were working on a potential app too, I think?
RP: Yeah, that design fell through, although we did release software through Cutty Strange (Records). I have been asked by a few major tech companies to do some programming for them, but I just don't have the time to invest with everything else going on and my Ph.D. At some point I'll get back on it and release an application for sound, probably spatial audio for some of my pieces.
B&S: So what's on the list, as far as what you want to complete next?
RP: I have to have my colloquium, where I present the first chapter of my dissertation. Then I have to finish writing it and I'll be done. I am writing about the aesthetics of simulation from both a technical and cultural perspective. Technical in the sense that I am interested, from a practical perspective, in how we distinguish simulation from mediation, etc.
B&S: In my head I read that in a robot voice.
RP: I write a lot about horror and science fiction actually. John W. Campbell's “Who Goes There?” (better known as The Thing) features heavily. I think what I'm writing about can be used (by artists) to better understand a lot of the nostalgic music/art/film we see lately. Specifically things like the simulation of the look and feel of film in digital video. Stranger Things is a good example of that.
B&S: They definitely get closer to it then a lot of the other attempts I’ve seen.
RP: Yeah, absolutely. I really want to get beyond talking about the return to styles of film-making as just nostalgic.
