Coherent Light Enclosed Without
Gahlord Dewald
July 8, 2020
|
Who is Gahlord Dewald, the musician, and what defines your persona?
I’m Gahlord Dewald. I make music with the double bass, the electric bass, and also a variety of electronic things. I work across several musical disciplines: composed music, free improvisation, and experimental music that explores the physical aspects of sound. My creative practice uses music as a way of understanding adaptability, change, decision-making. I make music alone and I’m in several bands: The Yes &, Jaguar Stereo!, Kerubo, and also work with singer/songwriter Ariel Zevon. I’m very interested in how we, as human beings, create the world we live in. |
Credit: courtesy of the artist |
What are some highlights of your musical journey so far?
There are many, most of them have to do with the social interactions—meeting other musicians, meeting people who love to hear new sounds in basement shows or art galleries or concert halls. Here’s one: a year or so ago I formed a collective of experimental musicians and composers called Community of Sound. So far it’s been a fascinating journey in organizing sound and people. Before Covid-19 hit we had several different concert series, opened our studio space to community organizers and projects, and shared our work with many people. Now we’re focused on resiliency. It’s been especially good to have people to work with at this time.
And of course, making Coherent Light Enclosed Without has been a real highlight.
Your newest recording titled Coherent Light Enclosed Without come out on July 3rd. Tell us more about this project.
A few years ago, I read an article in The New Yorker about a fantastic space in Colorado where sound hangs in the air for nearly a full minute. It’s an old water tank for trains, a thin metal skin wrapped into a cylinder that reflects sounds in a unique way. The place is called The Tank Center for Sonic Arts. I knew I had to go experience it.
Months after I read it, the article was still on my mind. As I performed in different spaces, I wondered: “How does this instrument sound in this space, how is it so pleasing?” Stone arches in a chapel or unfinished plywood walls in a recording space manipulate the sound. The lowest note on the bass generates a 28-foot sound wave. Each room sculpts those 28-foot sound waves and returns them in different ways. I came to think of how a room itself is also an instrument and, as an improviser, it’s something I can play. These are the kinds of things that were bouncing around in my head as I booked my flight to Colorado.
That October my collaborator in The Yes &, Anne Leilehua Lanzilotti, and I drove from just outside Denver, where she was teaching, to Rangely, on the far western edge of Colorado. We were going to record our own work during the day and then do an album release show for Thrush as an excuse to experiment with the sound of The Tank.
It was many hours through the Rockies, then off on small desert back roads—coyotes, deer, all kinds of wildlife in the low scrub just at the edges of the headlights. We woke up the next day in this small town, found the only diner in operation, and then up to The Tank to get to work. The recordings I made that day became Coherent Light Enclosed Without.
On a personal level, what have you learned throughout this whole experience from your exploration of Rangely Colorado’s The Tank Center for Sonic Arts, through your continued collaboration with Anne Leilehua Lanzilotti and connecting with Toussaint St. Negritude for the poem commissioned for this album?
The experience of sound in The Tank is unreal. The air and the sound end up feeling more like water, you can feel the liquid qualities of sound waves reflecting through the room. Stand more than 3 feet away from someone and it’s impossible to understand speech because all of the sounds of the words are present at once and hang in the air together. I’d practiced a little bit with a reverb pedal before going out there but the physical presence of the space was much more intense.
Collaborating and improvising with the space itself was a lesson in commitment. Whatever sound I made would be in the room for nearly a minute. Each sound was its own statement and would have to be accounted for with the next sound so on–layering and folding sound waves back into and on top of each other.
The on-site recording engineer, Samantha Wade, has an incredible experiential and intuitive knowledge of the space. Greg Heimbecker, the recording engineer Anne and I brought in, was one of the people who transformed the Tank from an abandoned water tank into a world-class studio. The front-end engineering is equally reflected on the mastering engineering team. Scott Hull, who mastered the album and cut the lacquers for the vinyl himself, probably has the most experience of anyone alive actively working in that capacity. And, like Sam and Greg, he’s into experimental sound. Having this creative-technical team was essential to capturing and reproducing the sounds on the recording.
I knew I wanted to release Coherent Light Enclosed Without on vinyl. One of the things I’ve always loved about records is that there’s room on the packaging to put a healthy bit of text. Anne Leilehua Lanzilotti writes some of the most intelligent and thoughtful liner notes in the realm of contemporary composed music. I’m fortunate to work with her and that she gets what I’m doing musically. Getting her perspective on meaning and sounds and that day of recording was important for me to establish the context of the recording itself.
Toussaint St Negritude is the leader of Jaguar Stereo!—a poetry/bass clarinet free improvisation unit in which I play double bass. In fact, I first met Toussaint in the airport on my way to record this album at The Tank—we both had arrived early because TSA is a hassle. We struck up a conversation and discovered we were into the same kinds of music. In his group I’ve had the chance to hear his poems many times now and I wanted to have some of the spirit of that freedom and liberation to help set the tone of the listener’s room too. So the audience can be in the right frame of mind to receive the sound.
All of this taken together—the physical space, a creative engineering team, the liner notes contextualizing the recording, the poem to smooth the transition from the music-object of the record into the sounds that come from the speakers--Coherent Light Enclosed Without is more than a “solo” album. There are so many hands and people and voices involved. Each perspective added gives another element for people who want to enjoy these sounds.
What place do you see this new music taking in the ecosystem of art and music created and shared during these difficult times?
For many, the times have always been difficult and have been difficult for a long time. Creativity, meaning, and understanding don’t wait for undifficult times. The work has to be happening at all times, whether it’s difficult or whether it’s easier. All of us have to do the work and to encourage one another to keep doing the work.
The kind of world I want to be building requires a variety of perspectives, of layered contexts and thoughts, the inclusion of different experiences and ways of knowing, different ways of generating meaning. The process of working with all of these people to make Coherent Light Enclosed Without is a way of putting into practice the idea of many-sided implicit cross-references.
Are you overwhelmed by all the virtual reality events from all sides or do you feel like virtual reality is something you enjoy and we’ll all see more of?
For many of us who rely on performance to help make ends meet—this includes thespians, athletes, dancers, lots of people—the situation is precarious. There are opportunities forever lost and our bodies, the thing we use to perform, won’t be the same in 2022 or 2023 when we might hope Covid-19 will be contained enough to resume performance as we knew it.
The rush to online performance and media production is definitely overwhelming. At the community level it’s important to support people so we can get through to the other side. But also many artists are learning on the fly, in situations that are far from ideal. I’m concerned about those who won’t make it through in a digital-only music economy. The barriers are high in terms of equipment costs and also knowledge/experience/patience with very specialized technology.
On the other hand, there’s a tremendous accessibility opportunity in these performances. Many people who could not attend a show because a building wasn’t accessible or because the concert format itself can sometimes be hostile to their way of living (not everyone is comfortable sitting quietly and motionless for an hour). Now people can see and hear sounds that otherwise would only be available in person.
I think if we can find ways to lower the barriers so a greater variety of performers can be present online and if we’re careful to keep from becoming captured by traditional social media platforms (and their economics which are very unfavorable to creators) then there’s some real opportunity to take back some of the human elements of online interaction that have been lost in the past 15 years.
My digital performance activity right now is focused on helping organizations and performers in my community of practice overcome the barriers to technology/know-how. Through Community of Sound, I’m working to help other artists develop the skills and acquire the technology for streaming performance. We’re refitting our space for live streaming with professional A/V equipment to encourage high quality productions. This will allow artists to present their best work.
Making ends meet is also important, so we’re working on new hybrid mechanisms for support. For example, small audience livestreams connected to Live Music Project’s Dots non-profit interface with additional connection via physical things like postcards and zines. It’s important that the projects provide both money and visibility (i.e. not only “exposure”) to individuals who are not white, who are not men, who are LGBTQ+, who are younger than 30, and who are in an older generation.
Hopefully, these elements will bloom into new artist/audience interactions. That’s the stuff I’m thinking about re: digital performance.
Do you have any special arrangements planned for promoting your new recording virtually?
I had originally planned to release my album at a solo show at Roulette which was to happen on March 25th, as part of the String Theories Festival. Things didn’t work out for that. Instead, on July 3, there was an online listening session and Q+A with some of the people involved in making this album. That way everyone could get a chance to meet and interact some of the other people the way we could at a live album show.
What’s your take on the social unrest and nationwide protests for racial justice and peace? How can musicians like yourself and the art community do more?
No justice, no peace. The current social unrest is part of a long history of social unrest that goes back more than 400 years. Sometimes it’s more visible to white people, sometimes less. But this social unrest has been here all along as part of the culture of America. And it’s time to change.
I’m glad that people are taking this time to get activated in whatever way is right for them: protesting in the streets, sharing information, talking to relatives, speaking out, acting out, all of it. I don’t have any time for policing anyone’s way of taking up the work; just respect the initiative. But it has to be something we’re always doing, in everything we do.
Before we’re musicians and artists, we’re human beings. We do the things that human beings do to advance social justice: we speak up when we witness injustice, we lend our bodies and labor to do what is necessary, we lend our minds and ears to hear and understand, we actively engage with others and encourage one another. If we can see something that needs to be done then we do it. We ask how to be helpful and if we can do it then we do it. Listen, educate ourselves, put in some time doing the work.
Musicians and artists who want to work for social justice can do it very easily: hire people who are different from you, promote the work of people who are different from you. If your current community of practice isn’t diverse then get to work developing yourself to be a better collaborator. This is a permanent piece of the work that will never be finished so plan accordingly.
#BeatTheBlues – What do you do to take care of your mental health?
The best thing I’ve ever done for my mental health is the thing I don’t do: I don’t drink alcohol. Not everyone needs to do this, but for me it was necessary and I would not be here today making music if I still drank alcohol.
Quitting, especially as a performing musician, wasn’t easy. There’s a toxic-masculine culture around drinking that is pervasive in some music circles; you might need new friends and/or to unfollow people who mainly post photos of the alcohol they’re drinking. It took me more than one attempt to quit. The first few months were a little rough. But I got through and it’s without question the best thing I’ve ever done for my mental health, my creativity, and my ability to make projects for me and my community of practice.
Any new discoveries and interesting connections you’ve made recently and how?
I’ve been reading Dr. Shana Redmond’s book Anthem—as a bass player, I’m inspired by the timbre of Paul Robeson’s voice and he is featured in the book. Toward the beginning of the book Redmond presents the idea of anthems as music that transforms an audience into a public. I think there is some powerful stuff at work in that collection of ideas and I’m still sorting out for myself how it might be applicable for the work that I do.
Do you have any parting words for newcomers in the music scene where you belong?
People who are musicians have been part of the precariat for a long time and right now, with performances halted and society shifting away from supporting art with purchases, many are facing some hard realities in making ends meet.
There’s an idea that “to make it” as a musician means that all of one’s income comes from music. That somehow having a “day job” is something to be embarrassed by. Most of the musicians that I know who are considered successful have one or more of the following: generational wealth, spousal wealth, a day job teaching, or a day job that they keep secret.
Anyone new to music I would encourage to instill in yourself the reality that if you are making music, if you are being creative, if you are working together with your community to make things then you are valuable and you’ll get a chance to do the work you need to do. How you pay the rent doesn’t matter. What matters is that you’re doing the work. And don’t try to do it alone.
Thank you and good luck!
There are many, most of them have to do with the social interactions—meeting other musicians, meeting people who love to hear new sounds in basement shows or art galleries or concert halls. Here’s one: a year or so ago I formed a collective of experimental musicians and composers called Community of Sound. So far it’s been a fascinating journey in organizing sound and people. Before Covid-19 hit we had several different concert series, opened our studio space to community organizers and projects, and shared our work with many people. Now we’re focused on resiliency. It’s been especially good to have people to work with at this time.
And of course, making Coherent Light Enclosed Without has been a real highlight.
Your newest recording titled Coherent Light Enclosed Without come out on July 3rd. Tell us more about this project.
A few years ago, I read an article in The New Yorker about a fantastic space in Colorado where sound hangs in the air for nearly a full minute. It’s an old water tank for trains, a thin metal skin wrapped into a cylinder that reflects sounds in a unique way. The place is called The Tank Center for Sonic Arts. I knew I had to go experience it.
Months after I read it, the article was still on my mind. As I performed in different spaces, I wondered: “How does this instrument sound in this space, how is it so pleasing?” Stone arches in a chapel or unfinished plywood walls in a recording space manipulate the sound. The lowest note on the bass generates a 28-foot sound wave. Each room sculpts those 28-foot sound waves and returns them in different ways. I came to think of how a room itself is also an instrument and, as an improviser, it’s something I can play. These are the kinds of things that were bouncing around in my head as I booked my flight to Colorado.
That October my collaborator in The Yes &, Anne Leilehua Lanzilotti, and I drove from just outside Denver, where she was teaching, to Rangely, on the far western edge of Colorado. We were going to record our own work during the day and then do an album release show for Thrush as an excuse to experiment with the sound of The Tank.
It was many hours through the Rockies, then off on small desert back roads—coyotes, deer, all kinds of wildlife in the low scrub just at the edges of the headlights. We woke up the next day in this small town, found the only diner in operation, and then up to The Tank to get to work. The recordings I made that day became Coherent Light Enclosed Without.
On a personal level, what have you learned throughout this whole experience from your exploration of Rangely Colorado’s The Tank Center for Sonic Arts, through your continued collaboration with Anne Leilehua Lanzilotti and connecting with Toussaint St. Negritude for the poem commissioned for this album?
The experience of sound in The Tank is unreal. The air and the sound end up feeling more like water, you can feel the liquid qualities of sound waves reflecting through the room. Stand more than 3 feet away from someone and it’s impossible to understand speech because all of the sounds of the words are present at once and hang in the air together. I’d practiced a little bit with a reverb pedal before going out there but the physical presence of the space was much more intense.
Collaborating and improvising with the space itself was a lesson in commitment. Whatever sound I made would be in the room for nearly a minute. Each sound was its own statement and would have to be accounted for with the next sound so on–layering and folding sound waves back into and on top of each other.
The on-site recording engineer, Samantha Wade, has an incredible experiential and intuitive knowledge of the space. Greg Heimbecker, the recording engineer Anne and I brought in, was one of the people who transformed the Tank from an abandoned water tank into a world-class studio. The front-end engineering is equally reflected on the mastering engineering team. Scott Hull, who mastered the album and cut the lacquers for the vinyl himself, probably has the most experience of anyone alive actively working in that capacity. And, like Sam and Greg, he’s into experimental sound. Having this creative-technical team was essential to capturing and reproducing the sounds on the recording.
I knew I wanted to release Coherent Light Enclosed Without on vinyl. One of the things I’ve always loved about records is that there’s room on the packaging to put a healthy bit of text. Anne Leilehua Lanzilotti writes some of the most intelligent and thoughtful liner notes in the realm of contemporary composed music. I’m fortunate to work with her and that she gets what I’m doing musically. Getting her perspective on meaning and sounds and that day of recording was important for me to establish the context of the recording itself.
Toussaint St Negritude is the leader of Jaguar Stereo!—a poetry/bass clarinet free improvisation unit in which I play double bass. In fact, I first met Toussaint in the airport on my way to record this album at The Tank—we both had arrived early because TSA is a hassle. We struck up a conversation and discovered we were into the same kinds of music. In his group I’ve had the chance to hear his poems many times now and I wanted to have some of the spirit of that freedom and liberation to help set the tone of the listener’s room too. So the audience can be in the right frame of mind to receive the sound.
All of this taken together—the physical space, a creative engineering team, the liner notes contextualizing the recording, the poem to smooth the transition from the music-object of the record into the sounds that come from the speakers--Coherent Light Enclosed Without is more than a “solo” album. There are so many hands and people and voices involved. Each perspective added gives another element for people who want to enjoy these sounds.
What place do you see this new music taking in the ecosystem of art and music created and shared during these difficult times?
For many, the times have always been difficult and have been difficult for a long time. Creativity, meaning, and understanding don’t wait for undifficult times. The work has to be happening at all times, whether it’s difficult or whether it’s easier. All of us have to do the work and to encourage one another to keep doing the work.
The kind of world I want to be building requires a variety of perspectives, of layered contexts and thoughts, the inclusion of different experiences and ways of knowing, different ways of generating meaning. The process of working with all of these people to make Coherent Light Enclosed Without is a way of putting into practice the idea of many-sided implicit cross-references.
Are you overwhelmed by all the virtual reality events from all sides or do you feel like virtual reality is something you enjoy and we’ll all see more of?
For many of us who rely on performance to help make ends meet—this includes thespians, athletes, dancers, lots of people—the situation is precarious. There are opportunities forever lost and our bodies, the thing we use to perform, won’t be the same in 2022 or 2023 when we might hope Covid-19 will be contained enough to resume performance as we knew it.
The rush to online performance and media production is definitely overwhelming. At the community level it’s important to support people so we can get through to the other side. But also many artists are learning on the fly, in situations that are far from ideal. I’m concerned about those who won’t make it through in a digital-only music economy. The barriers are high in terms of equipment costs and also knowledge/experience/patience with very specialized technology.
On the other hand, there’s a tremendous accessibility opportunity in these performances. Many people who could not attend a show because a building wasn’t accessible or because the concert format itself can sometimes be hostile to their way of living (not everyone is comfortable sitting quietly and motionless for an hour). Now people can see and hear sounds that otherwise would only be available in person.
I think if we can find ways to lower the barriers so a greater variety of performers can be present online and if we’re careful to keep from becoming captured by traditional social media platforms (and their economics which are very unfavorable to creators) then there’s some real opportunity to take back some of the human elements of online interaction that have been lost in the past 15 years.
My digital performance activity right now is focused on helping organizations and performers in my community of practice overcome the barriers to technology/know-how. Through Community of Sound, I’m working to help other artists develop the skills and acquire the technology for streaming performance. We’re refitting our space for live streaming with professional A/V equipment to encourage high quality productions. This will allow artists to present their best work.
Making ends meet is also important, so we’re working on new hybrid mechanisms for support. For example, small audience livestreams connected to Live Music Project’s Dots non-profit interface with additional connection via physical things like postcards and zines. It’s important that the projects provide both money and visibility (i.e. not only “exposure”) to individuals who are not white, who are not men, who are LGBTQ+, who are younger than 30, and who are in an older generation.
Hopefully, these elements will bloom into new artist/audience interactions. That’s the stuff I’m thinking about re: digital performance.
Do you have any special arrangements planned for promoting your new recording virtually?
I had originally planned to release my album at a solo show at Roulette which was to happen on March 25th, as part of the String Theories Festival. Things didn’t work out for that. Instead, on July 3, there was an online listening session and Q+A with some of the people involved in making this album. That way everyone could get a chance to meet and interact some of the other people the way we could at a live album show.
What’s your take on the social unrest and nationwide protests for racial justice and peace? How can musicians like yourself and the art community do more?
No justice, no peace. The current social unrest is part of a long history of social unrest that goes back more than 400 years. Sometimes it’s more visible to white people, sometimes less. But this social unrest has been here all along as part of the culture of America. And it’s time to change.
I’m glad that people are taking this time to get activated in whatever way is right for them: protesting in the streets, sharing information, talking to relatives, speaking out, acting out, all of it. I don’t have any time for policing anyone’s way of taking up the work; just respect the initiative. But it has to be something we’re always doing, in everything we do.
Before we’re musicians and artists, we’re human beings. We do the things that human beings do to advance social justice: we speak up when we witness injustice, we lend our bodies and labor to do what is necessary, we lend our minds and ears to hear and understand, we actively engage with others and encourage one another. If we can see something that needs to be done then we do it. We ask how to be helpful and if we can do it then we do it. Listen, educate ourselves, put in some time doing the work.
Musicians and artists who want to work for social justice can do it very easily: hire people who are different from you, promote the work of people who are different from you. If your current community of practice isn’t diverse then get to work developing yourself to be a better collaborator. This is a permanent piece of the work that will never be finished so plan accordingly.
#BeatTheBlues – What do you do to take care of your mental health?
The best thing I’ve ever done for my mental health is the thing I don’t do: I don’t drink alcohol. Not everyone needs to do this, but for me it was necessary and I would not be here today making music if I still drank alcohol.
Quitting, especially as a performing musician, wasn’t easy. There’s a toxic-masculine culture around drinking that is pervasive in some music circles; you might need new friends and/or to unfollow people who mainly post photos of the alcohol they’re drinking. It took me more than one attempt to quit. The first few months were a little rough. But I got through and it’s without question the best thing I’ve ever done for my mental health, my creativity, and my ability to make projects for me and my community of practice.
Any new discoveries and interesting connections you’ve made recently and how?
I’ve been reading Dr. Shana Redmond’s book Anthem—as a bass player, I’m inspired by the timbre of Paul Robeson’s voice and he is featured in the book. Toward the beginning of the book Redmond presents the idea of anthems as music that transforms an audience into a public. I think there is some powerful stuff at work in that collection of ideas and I’m still sorting out for myself how it might be applicable for the work that I do.
Do you have any parting words for newcomers in the music scene where you belong?
People who are musicians have been part of the precariat for a long time and right now, with performances halted and society shifting away from supporting art with purchases, many are facing some hard realities in making ends meet.
There’s an idea that “to make it” as a musician means that all of one’s income comes from music. That somehow having a “day job” is something to be embarrassed by. Most of the musicians that I know who are considered successful have one or more of the following: generational wealth, spousal wealth, a day job teaching, or a day job that they keep secret.
Anyone new to music I would encourage to instill in yourself the reality that if you are making music, if you are being creative, if you are working together with your community to make things then you are valuable and you’ll get a chance to do the work you need to do. How you pay the rent doesn’t matter. What matters is that you’re doing the work. And don’t try to do it alone.
Thank you and good luck!
