Happy Christmas everyone and thank you so much for the support you've given the label over the last 12 months.
As I've said many times before, we couldn't do this without you.
To celebrate, all Mighty Force compilations will be FREE/NAME YOUR PRICE until the end of the year - including the original Fog City one from way back in 2020.
Or, if you need to fill some gaps in your MF collection, you can grab the FULL DISCOGRAPHY FOR ONLY £38.80! That's for the rest of the year too!
Blimey.
Thanks to all the producers, artists and designers whose contributions keep the MF a-train rollin' (especially Jon & Paddy for the cover designs, Dan for mastering and Rob for the CDs).
In keeping with the longest night of the year here in the north, a playlist that celebrates the longer, slower and darker corners of the audio realm. These are created for the streamers but I encourage all to support the artists via bandcamp, live shows, physical albums, merch, etc.
And on that note, a heartfelt thank you to everyone who supported me this year coming out to events, purchasing albums, books and prints. I’m humbled and grateful to be connected to everyone in this way.
All the best through the end of 2025 and wishing everyone peace and prosperity in 2026.
Strait of Phase - Kara-Lis Coverdale A Handful of Olives - John Also Bennett River That Flows Two Ways - Jefre Cantu-Ledesma Bag Tidens Lukkede Hænder - øjeRum Illusory Figure - Christina Giannone Zones of Privacy - Yann Novak Atmospheric River - Chihei Hatakeyama Deviation I - Taylor Deupree & Zimoun"
However, what Wendy & I would like to say here is a huge thank you to you all for supporting the DiN label and the musicians on it throughout this year. It has been a really great year for us music-wise, with two collaborative albums from myself alongside Harald Grosskopf and Erik Wøllo, as well as stunning new solo works from Field Lines Cartographer and Loula Yorke. On top of that, there were a couple of compilation albums with iNDEX09 continuing the tradition of DiN samplers every tenth album, as well as the epic final double CD closing out the Tone Science series. And finally, a couple of special releases of my own output, with Modulations IV continuing to document my modular synth explorations and the amazing reissue of Caged, my 2000 collaborative album with Chris Carter, that was remastered and reissued by the legendary Mute Records.
We have lots of good things in store for you next year, but for now, Wendy & I wish you all a lovely Christmas & peaceful New Year.
One of the aims of the DiN label was to act as a community of artists who could interact and collaborate in different ways. Moiré is a perfect example of this with label founder Ian Boddy forming a new creative partnership with Bernhard Wöstheinrich.
Sonically the 10 tracks effortlessly range from classic analogue sequencer lines to deep, metallic atmospheres through to full on drum & synth work-outs. The majority of the tracks employ organic analogue arpeggiations together with muscular & unusual percussive loops to form the backbone of the music . Ethereal ambient textures provide a suitably surreal counter-balance to the solidity of the rhythmic structure to create a constant sense of flow & change within the compositions.
Check out the Bandcamp page for Bernhard Wöstheinrich here:
I’ve been sitting on this collection of photos for about a year and finally decided to put it into zine format. This project started in earnest in October 2024 with a trip to Joshua Tree, California. Obviously, the desert makes for an alluring photographic subject and, naturally, I collected quite a few photos during my time there. But touring a live AV incarnation of my 2025 album, Lake Fire, compelled me to explore in print some of the visual themes from the video. What emerged was a hybrid project, Ash, which threads together a collection of images from the desert along with the blackened wood, ghostly limbs and charred forests of BC.
Musically, Ash falls into a family of more sparse and somnambulant works in my catalogue like stases, coast/range/arc// and Umbel. It embodies the feeling of stillness of a forest after a wildfire. There’s a similar feeling in the desert. Life at its arid edge. But what also exists in both of these fragile landscapes is life’s emergent potential and its inclination to persist.
Ash is available on bandcamp as either a combination 40 page zine and CD or digital download. It will find its way to streaming eventually: https://loscil.bandcamp.com/album/ash"
"As I mentioned in my write-up about September scheduling, I will be taking the rest of the month off, but I still have a few bits to share with you, as an extra special bonus for sticking around and contributing to the growth of this community with your loyal support! So let's jump right into this bonus round where Scott and I tackle the questions on nature, geography, and environment - an altogether different conversation with your favourite musician!
//////////////////////////
Natural landscapes and phenomena have clearly inspired much of your work – from the coastal and mountain references of Coast/ Range/ Arc to the cloudscapes of Equivalents, and even the oceanic depths hinted at in Submers. What draws you to these elements of nature as central themes? Do you find that having a natural concept (like a type of landscape or weather) helps guide the tone and direction of an album while you’re creating it?
I do find landscape, soundscape, and our temporal perception of such infinitely inspiring. Most often, these themes emerge alongside the creative process of an album. It’s rare that I will start with a solidified theme, and most often it's the case that the framework emerges with the work. I find the act of going deeper into a location or subject provides a kind of justification for the music in my head. Like a galvanization process. Using your example, Coast/ Range/ Arc ended up being more about time than mountains. Our local mountains became the vessel for which this was expressed, but the core of my thinking revolved around this perception of time scales we can’t perceive; that the pace at which a mountain forms and dissolves over epochs is so much slower than anything we can experience as mortals. And in some simple way, this concept of geologic time explains and justifies the long, slow-moving arcs of the music for me. It gives me a kind of permission to be extra slow with the music.
You’ve lived in Vancouver and its surroundings for most of your life, a region known for its ocean, rainforests, and mountains. In what ways has the Pacific Northwest environment shaped your sound and creative outlook? You once noted that “living among mountains…changes your internal clock a bit” and that you tried to capture the “stillness” of high altitudes in your music. Are there other specific aspects of Vancouver’s geography or climate (the constant rain, the coastal soundscapes, the city’s industrial port sounds) that have seeped into the fabric of your music? Do you think loscil would sound fundamentally different if you had grown up in a different environment?
I think I should be given some sort of ambassador role for the region because I’ve definitely leaned quite heavily on influence from the Pacific Northwest - or Cascadia, as some of us like to call it. First Narrows was probably the first album that tipped the hat to what is formally called the Lions Gate at the entrance to Vancouver Harbour. But Sketches from New Brighton, Sea Island, coast/range/arc, Endless Falls, Faults, Coasts, Lines, and Strathcona Variations all draw some sort of local influence. I do love it here.
But when I go elsewhere, I find the same sort of connection develops. I fell in love with Joshua Tree when I went there last year. I’ve been inspired by places like Banff, Wyoming, the Canadian prairies, Thailand, Australia, etc. I think my exposure to the World Soundscape Project, field recording, and photography are all connected to this absorption of landscape and surroundings. So much inspiration can come from deep observation and reflection in any environment. Sometimes these are more pristine natural spaces, but I’m equally inspired by urban and human things, be it bridges, architecture, or industry. Other artists' interpretations can also be folded into these fascinations. Equivalents is as much about clouds as it is about Alfred Stieglitz’s interpretation of clouds as a form of visual music, equivalent to human emotions. For me, the points of influence always get fractured and reworked alongside the development of musical ideas. I just find this process rewarding, even if it’s transparent to the listener.
You often incorporate field recordings of natural phenomena. For example, recordings of rivers and creeks were the starting point for one project, and you’ve talked about the sound of rain being a fascinating “randomly generated texture” comprised of many small sounds. How do you decide to use field recordings in a piece? Do you usually keep them subtle, like hidden layers of texture, or let them stand out front and center? Can you share a bit about your process in blending these real-world environmental sounds with synthesized sounds to create a cohesive atmosphere?
Field recordings are another tool in the toolbox. I don’t use them as much as I did in the past, perhaps. I think it comes from my background in the World Soundscape Project at university, and also working on film and game audio. You’re always building up a collection of sounds. I used to be much more tuned into this, had a managed library of sound effects, and was always actively building upon it, but this aspect has admittedly taken a back seat for me lately. If I’m ever doing a residency or extended stay somewhere, I will usually bring along my recorder and grab some sounds, but I’m no Chris Watson!
Back in my university days, it wasn’t uncommon for us to be tasked with creating soundscape compositions; music built entirely out of field recordings. A lot of this was based on the musique concrète tradition, which later morphed into acousmatic music, which, in the Canadian (especially Quebecois) traditions, is an important academic form of electroacoustic music. Exposure to all this was certainly foundational for me, and I think those traditions are deeply embedded in the soupy mess of my influences. But these days, I mostly use field recordings and natural sounds incredibly sparsely to add colour or context. These sounds mostly serve as sources for further transformation and processing. Or directly as a bit of air or light noise to round out the sound. I seldom build new work directly from field recordings.
In describing New Brighton (the park that inspired Sketches from New Brighton), you mentioned it being “strangely natural yet unnatural” – with one foot in the industrial urban world and another in the natural world – much like how you view your music. Do you consciously seek a balance between urban and natural influences in your soundscapes? For instance, might you pair a field recording of a forest with electronic tones that have an industrial edge, to reflect that duality? How does life in a city like Vancouver (with its mix of city noise and natural beauty) influence the textures and moods you create?
Oddly, I think I’m searching for imbalance. And this can come from the juxtaposition of nature and industry via field recordings and electronic sources. Lake Fire is really about this kind of juxtaposition as well. There is tension at the heart of the conflict between human activity, climate change, mass destruction, and the beauty and serenity of nature and its inherent ability to heal. It’s scary stuff and hardly seems like good source material for “calming” ambient music, but I think there’s also this fundamental potential for hope, resurrection, rebirth at the centre of this tumult. And that’s probably a driving force of inspiration for me. The idea that the natural world, or Gaia as some call it, will always strive to restore the balance.
Do you see your music as carrying an environmental message or commentary, or is nature more of an aesthetic influence for you rather than a political or ecological statement? Some artists use nature themes to comment on climate change or humanity’s relationship with the earth. In works like Monument Builders (with its inspiration partly from Koyaanisqatsi’s themes of environmental imbalance) or your glacial-themed releases, was there any conscious reflection on environmental issues, or were you more focused on the sensual and metaphorical qualities of those natural images?
If I’m being completely honest, I’m uncomfortable with the idea of music as a platform for direct activism. I know some of my themes and inspirations have come from big, tangible, real-world issues that cross into environmentalism, politics, etc., but I still much prefer music as a kind of neutral, sacred space where the poetic aspects of these subjects override any literal message. Ideally, the sounds should allow more than one feeling, interpretation, or even function. It’s an impossible line to walk sometimes - between allowing these influences into the mix of my creative process, but not overly relying on them to frame the music in any literal way. I’ve tried over the years to transform these more theoretical influences into poetic, abstract, and pensive feelings in the music and titles. Instrumental music is fundamentally abstract. More like a dream than a lecture. Feelings over ideas. And to me, those aspects are far more important than the theoretical concepts behind the music, which merely offer me and possibly the listener a structure. While I may be influenced and enjoy the process of diving deep into subjects, ultimately, I view the listening experience as standing on its own, and the listener is free to interpret the music differently than any of the extramusical ideas I’m presenting.
Many of your track and album titles are names of places or geographic features (e.g., “First Narrows,” “Mountains,” “Staves” referring to static places, etc.). Do you usually choose these names because the music originated from an experience in those locations, or do you name them afterward as a way to anchor an abstract piece to something more concrete? Essentially, how do you associate music with specific places when it comes to titles? And have you ever been inspired to compose music for a specific location as an homage or “audio postcard” of sorts?
It’s a mixed bag. Sometimes I will title a piece based on direct experience in a place. Otherwise, it’s about that place as it continues to exist in my imagination. With Sea Island, for example, the real location became transformed in my head as a kind of fictional story location. The track titles are named after real places like Sturgeon Bank and Iona, but with a fictional storyline and film noir narrative that was running along in my head. The experience of the place gets infected by memories and nostalgia, being influenced and transformed over time to become blurry and fantastical. The “place” in the end belongs to imagination.
I have done a few location-specific audio postcard-type pieces over the years. I was asked to score an architecture walk once. I didn’t use any specific sounds for this, but sat in front of the buildings I was to “score” and stared at them for a while, researched their history, etc. It’s an enjoyable way to work.
When listeners describe your music, they often use landscape metaphors. Your albums can feel like journeys through foggy coastlines or across open seas in the mind’s eye. When you compose, do you visualize scenes or landscapes? Do you have any particularly strong mental image or environment that recurs to you while making music (for example, an overcast harbor at dawn, or a dense forest at night)? Or do you think of it in more abstract sound terms and let listeners paint their own mental pictures?
I would say the latter. I don’t have mental landscapes in my mind when I’m working. But I do enjoy pairing music with images to see what kind of new perspectives and juxtapositions emerge. I would say I’m visually quite blank when I’m working on music. And I thoroughly enjoy this void. This has always been the case for me with music. It’s as if my other senses stop working fully. I go into a kind of trance. When I played drums in bands, I would often be told by bandmates that I was dead-staring at them. It really freaked them out. My eyes would be looking at them, but I wasn’t seeing anything. I was lost in the sounds. Similarly, I can’t read and listen to music. I end up focusing on the sounds and forgetting what I’m reading. Perhaps this is a deficiency.
Have your travels to other places influenced your sound in noticeable ways? For instance, if you’ve toured in Europe or elsewhere, did you pick up any field recordings, ideas, or inspirations from those different environments that later found their way into your music?
Yes always. Maybe not as much when on tour because I’m so locked into the next flight, train, soundcheck, concert, hotel, meal, etc. that I rarely get that time to work on new things. But if I’m ever traveling for enjoyment, or in residence somewhere, I am always absorbing. Last year, I went to Joshua Tree for the first time. Hugely influential. The desert is magical. And knowing it was a big inspiration for Harold Budd, I was thinking about him and his music a lot in this environment. And it’s a great way to travel as you really give yourself to a place and allow it to sink into your being.
As someone attuned to environmental sound, is there a particular natural environment or sound that you find most inspiring or soothing? It might be rain (given Vancouver’s climate), or the sound of the ocean, wind through trees, etc. What natural sound could you listen to for hours, and have you tried to capture or emulate it in your work? On the flip side, are there any environments whose sounds you haven’t recorded yet but would love to, perhaps for a future project (for example, arctic glaciers, desert dunes, deep underwater, etc.)?
It’s cliché, but I do love rain. The granularity of it and the dynamics from light to heavy rain. Perpetually fascinating. Perhaps growing up in a rainforest has trained me to tune into the sound, but it’s comforting for me. All aspects of moving water are amazing, really. Creeks, rivers, lapping waves, melting ice.
I don’t have a sonic bucket list per se. Wind can be incredibly challenging to record, and I feel like it’s something I’d like to capture more effectively. I’d love to spend more time in the north. The Arctic has always fascinated me, but I’ve never been. I’m not necessarily an adventurer, but if an opportunity arises, I have no doubt I’ll jump at it.
If you had the opportunity to perform an ambient set in any natural location, where would you choose and why? This could be anything – atop a mountain, in a forest clearing, by the ocean at night, inside a cave… How do you think the surroundings might interact with or enhance the music? And have you ever done something like an outdoor site-specific performance or considered doing one, where the environment becomes a part of the experience?
I’ve had this idea for years of a kind of multichannel electroacoustic campout. Basically, the audience is in tents in a forest campsite surrounded by speakers, and the music plays quietly throughout the night. I’m sure it’s been done somewhere, but I think it could work nicely somewhere in the forest here.
I’ve played a few outdoor shows, and honestly, they’ve mostly been miserable. Not to say that it couldn’t work if done well, but contextually, I’ve not been in outdoor concert settings that have worked for my music. Maybe because they’ve always been daytime festivals, etc. Broad daylight is not complimentary to my music. I prefer to soundtrack the night."
"Good morning, friends and loyal supporters. We're quickly approaching the end of August, but I have a few more things to share with you. Today's instalment of this ongoing conversation with loscil is all about live performances, touring, and collaborations. This demonstrates an entirely different side of what it means to be an ambient musician. I hope you enjoy this in-depth interview. Let's dive in!
//////////////////////////
Your music is richly layered and subtle – how do you approach translating it into a live performance? Do you aim to recreate the album tracks as they are, or do you prefer to deconstruct and improvise on them when playing live? I’m curious how you maintain the atmospheric detail of your recordings in a concert setting while also keeping the performance engaging for an audience.
My live performances are comprised of the exact same core components of my album sessions - because my compositional process usually involves starting with improvisational loops and layers, most of this material exists in a premixed and prearranged format, allowing me to perform live mixes and arrangements. I’ve always taken cues from dub for how to perform live. Essentially mixing, triggering, adding effects, and playing instruments over the top of looped material.
I’ve struggled with the idea of engagement in the live context over the years. Non-dance-oriented electronic music can frankly be boring to watch, and not all audiences are comfortable disappearing into the sound. Adding video has been my go-to for moving the focus away from me on stage. Just something for the eyes to drift into and hopefully enhance rather than detract from the music. Adding live performers when possible or experimenting with immersive multichannel sound systems when available are other ways I’ve tried to add dimension to an otherwise static experience.
How important is the visual or atmospheric component of a concert to you, especially for music as cinematic as yours? What kind of imagery or stage setup do you feel pairs well with a loscil live experience?
Live, integrated video has become central to my performance setup. I use software called Resolume and send OSC triggers and controls from Ableton Live so I can indirectly control video while I perform. I’ve been doing this in earnest since around 2014 with Sea Island.
loscil actually started as a multimedia project. A couple of years before I sent a demo to Kranky, friends and I had a small multimedia collective we called The Multiplex, which had regular AV events at a local experimental cinema here in Vancouver called The Blinding Light. I’ve always been interested in the history of experimental film and what is generally referred to as visual music: Oskar Fischinger, Thomas Wilfred, James Whitney, Jordan Belson, Norman McLaren, Stan Brakhage, etc. Creating an integrated visual accompaniment to my music is something I find creatively exciting and enjoyable. Aesthetically, I’m attracted to a hybrid of natural footage with overlays of abstract, two-dimensional graphics and colours. It has evolved into a kind of language for me, with certain visual elements connecting to layers in the music. It’s a ridiculous amount of work, but it's rewarding to experiment with.
You’ve performed solo with just a laptop and a controller, but you’ve also done shows with live collaborators. Which format do you enjoy more on stage, and what different possibilities do each offer? When you play with an ensemble, how does the dynamic change the way you experience your music?
It changes a lot when there are live performers. For audiences, I think it adds that familiar dynamic of seeing musicians interact. For me personally, it usually means I have less control, which can be good and bad. Unfortunately, being a smaller artist, it’s not always practical for me to tour with performers or ensembles. And it can be time-consuming and costly to employ locals in every destination. I’ve had opportunities over the years to work with live players, strings, horns, piano, ensembles, etc., at festivals or here at home, and it is always rewarding and worth the extra effort. In reality, the cost of taking such a performance on the road is insurmountable for me. There is also a simplicity to the solo electronic performance I do enjoy.
What has been your most memorable or rewarding live performance to date? Can you share a story from the road that encapsulates what you love (or find difficult) about performing live?
I previously mentioned the performance at the Canadian Embassy in Tokyo with Ryuichi Sakamoto. This was a memory I will cherish forever.
Another memory I really cherish is performing with Brian McBride in New York in 2007 as part of the Wordless Music Series with the Caleb Burhans Quartet. This was one of the first times I had the opportunity to perform live with strings, and while my set was probably a bit clunky and unbalanced, it was such a pleasure to hear Brian’s solo work in this context and to play this show with him.
On the flip side, many shows are unfortunately memorable due to some sort of calamity. I once played in Lyon on a boat (Sonic) while on tour with Fieldhead. My friend Jason Zumpano was playing keyboards with me on that tour. The boat was literally listing in the water when we arrived for soundcheck. We thought the show might be cancelled as the ship was sinking and the gangway had fallen into the river. But they managed to get the pumps running in time, and the show went on. Super bizarre night. On top of the unnerving nature of being on a potentially sinking ship, it was Valentine's Day, and the weirdest collection of characters showed up that night. None of them were interested in our music, it seemed.
When performing live over a tour, do your pieces tend to evolve from show to show? For instance, do you allow improvisation or new layers in your sets that keep the performance fresh each night? And has anything developed during live shows – a happy accident or audience reaction – that later influenced a recorded piece or gave you an idea for the studio? Additionally, do you record your live sets, and might we ever hear official live releases or improvisations captured in concert?
This definitely happens. I usually get a little more adventurous live, probably due to boredom. Sometimes I end up with versions of pieces that are quite different from the recorded renditions on the albums. I think this reflects back to what I was saying about an album rendering merely being a snapshot of a composition in that moment. But the piece can live on and perhaps morph over time. A perpetual remix.
I have a few live set recordings from over the years. There are a couple lingering on YouTube. Some more embarrassing than others. I played a set a long time ago in Dordrecht for Wilbertjan aka Fluister. It was the end of my tour, so I looked a little haggard and greasy. A broad daylight version of me playing to a room of super sweet, super smart Dutch folks on a Sunday afternoon at the museum. The dialogue in the comments is very interesting. “Controversial” even. What live electronic music performance is, isn’t, shouldn’t be, etc. The layers of subjectivity and opinions around authenticity and what is considered valid or not in the context of live electronic music are perplexing. I default to the idea that we’re all working on a spectrum from completely pre-planned work like a tape piece to DJs to full-on improvisation, noise, and performance art. Ultimately, where you land within that range as a performer shouldn’t really matter so long as the music is created in earnest.
How do you find the experience of touring as an ambient artist? Ambient music often thrives in intimate, quiet spaces – have you had to adapt your sets for different types of venues or audiences? What do you enjoy about being on tour, and what do you find most taxing? Any rituals you maintain to stay sane and inspired while traveling from city to city?
I find touring incredibly difficult if I’m being honest. It’s a lot of work to plan, a lot of travel, which is hard on my body and mind, and a lot of “being on,” which is emotionally draining and challenging. It’s also lonely for me as I mostly travel solo. It’s always way more fun to have a companion or a band, but it's challenging financially. Add to that, you rarely get enough time while on tour to see the cities or visit with friends. It can be quite cruel that way, and I’m really trying to space things out a bit more now as I get older.
Venues are all over the map. I’ve played boats, puppet theatres, outdoor spaces, black box theatres, dance clubs, rock clubs, galleries, churches, restaurants, yoga studios, you name it. I really try to insist on a well-equipped theatre with a good sound system and projector. But you work with what is provided, and I always really appreciate all the hard work of promoters, tech staff, and booking agents, of course. I’ve self-promoted my own local shows and done that for other artists as well. Every artist should do this to fully appreciate the hard work that goes into making even the small shows happen. A good promoter is worth their weight in gold to a touring musician. A beacon of light in a sea of chaos.
You’ve collaborated with a variety of artists over your career – for instance, an album with bvdub (Brock Van Wey) on Glacial Movements and a recent joint project Colours of Air with Lawrence English. When you collaborate with someone, what do you value most in that creative partnership? Do you have a defined process for collaboration (such as trading files remotely vs. jamming together in person), and how does it differ from working alone?
Collaboration is a relationship, like all relationships. It involves trust and generosity and relinquishing some control of the process and the sound in favour of creating something fresh and new and different from anything you could make alone. Sometimes it’s easy, such as working with Lawrence. He’s an incredibly gracious collaborator, plays to others’ strengths, but is extremely present, diplomatic, and intelligent. Lawrence and I mostly worked apart as he is in Brisbane and I’m in Vancouver. But for collaborations with High Plains, Mark and I have only really worked together in person. So it’s always different. I value learning from others in this way and the deep bond that happens from working together. I also really enjoy being surprised by the results. Working solo almost never produces this same sense of surprise. Like the music exists outside yourself rather than deeply inside. If that makes any sense.
How do you ensure a collaborative project still feels true to the loscil identity while also embracing the input of another artist? Is it a conscious effort to balance your signature sound with new elements, or do you let the collaboration take you into completely new territory?
Collaborations come in many forms. Some, like the ones with Lawrence or Brock, are compositional. Other times, I’m collaborating with performers like Intervalo featuring Kelly Wyse on piano. Some are with other disciplines like dance or film, so you’re working on something bigger than just music. Generally speaking, if a project is a ‘loscil’ collaboration, I try to keep it true to the sound to some extent. If it’s going to drift too far from that I just go with my given name.
What have you learned from your key collaborators that has maybe influenced your solo work thereafter? For example, working with someone like Lawrence, did it introduce you to new techniques or perspectives? Or working with a pianist, did it change how you approach melody and space in your own music?
Sometimes what you pick up is tangible, like new approaches, new tools, etc. But sometimes what you pick up is less tangible and more about subtle creative ways, or even just about personalities. Sometimes you learn a lot about people by how they collaborate. I imagine myself as a little bit stubborn as a collaborator, but someone like Lawrence, for example, is a subtle teacher for how to let go and be a little less precious and protective. I’ve also had collaborations go wrong. This is a learning experience, too.
If you could collaborate with any artist (musical or otherwise), who would you love to work with and why? What about them intrigues you, and what kind of project would you envision for that collaboration?
For the longest time, I always dreamed of working with Kronos Quartet. Or any adventurous string quartet. I think there’s something in that combo that could really work. Or perhaps score a Terrence Malick film? Something tells me that won’t happen. But I’ve always wanted to score a film that exists a little more in a dream space."
"Good morning, friends. Is it Friday yet? I guess I shouldn't try to speed this up. So let's enjoy some quality time with loscil again. I've got another installment of our ongoing interview, in which Scott and I discuss his artistic journey. For the accompanying images, I selected some of the photos that Scott sent me. A couple of these have already appeared on here as covers for the exclusive tracks, but I wanted to share them again at a higher resolution. I know that you won't mind. Also, I want to say that this particular entry is so far my favourite. I love the technical deep dives into the studio, but here, Scott shares so much more, and I feel like I'm genuinely beginning to know him on a deeper level. I hope you will agree.
Looking back to your first album on Kranky (Triple Point, 2001) and comparing it to your most recent work, in what ways do you feel you’ve evolved as an artist? Are there any core elements of the loscil sound or philosophy that have remained constant throughout, even as other aspects have changed over the years?
Well, first of all, I’ve said this many times over the years, I view loscil as a project. While it has become a very long-term project and intertwined with my identity as an artist, part of the reason I release things under the loscil name is because I consider those releases true to the identity of the project itself. Obviously, the project is inextricably linked to me and my identity, but keeping things at arm's length allows me to keep a kind of personal distance from it that I prefer. Musically, I think I’ve allowed the project to expand outward stylistically. Perhaps some of those early influences of Aphex Twin, dub, and IDM have been mashed and transformed into something less obvious. In more recent works, I’d say I’m more interested in experimenting with form and contrast. A constant for me is probably rhythm. The drummer in me never quite dies. Even though I push things into drone, ambient, and acoustic realms, I always return to pulse and meter as points of interest. Rhythm and the traditionally undervalued musical elements of texture, density, dynamics, and timbre have remained the most constant points of interest for me over the years.
What moments or releases do you consider turning points in your artistic trajectory? For example, was there a particular album that you feel redefined your approach, or an experience that deeply influenced your creative outlook moving forward (such as a significant collaboration, a change in technology, or even a personal life event)?
One of the biggest events in my life occurred in 2012 when I was laid off from my job in the video game industry. I had worked in games for over 10 years, was in a senior position as a Sound Director, and was quite established. Despite loscil already being a project for 13+ years, it had never made me enough money to live off. I had resigned to it being more or less a hobby. But getting laid off, despite how terrifying and devastating it was at the time, ended up being an invaluable gift. I had an incredibly productive few years producing Sketches from New Brighton, Sea Island, and Monument Builders between 2012 and 2015. I started touring again, doing audiovisual work, and took on every scoring project I could. I committed to being a full-time artist, which completely changed my life. It hasn’t been without ups and downs and stressful times, but looking back, this life shift was momentous for me, and I wouldn’t have it any other way.
You’ve been releasing music on the Kranky label for most of your career, which speaks to a long-term partnership. How has working with Kranky (and occasionally other labels) shaped your journey? Do you think being on a label known for experimental ambient music provided you with a certain freedom or audience that impacted the music you made?
It’s a very special relationship. Like family. Kranky has been a foundation for me, and I’m so lucky to have made that connection with Joel, Bruce, back in the day, and Brian. Clearly, I’m a huge fan of the roster. So many artists I admire, but also great friendships I have sustained over the years.
Brian McBride’s passing was incredibly difficult to accept. My first tour as loscil was opening for Stars of the Lid in Europe in early 2002. I really bonded with those guys, Brian in particular. I looked up to him. It’s a harsh reminder that this life is fragile and temporary. But I’m grateful to have known him, toured with him, and collaborated with him.
It’s humbling to be a small part of the Kranky story. I honestly can’t imagine being in the position I am now without that partnership. At this point, I think we’ll just ride it into the sun together.
The ambient/electronic music scene has grown and shifted since the early 2000s. How have you seen the scene change in terms of audience, technology, or aesthetics during your career, and how have you navigated those changes? Have broader trends in music ever influenced you to try something different, or do you deliberately shield your creative process from outside currents?
Honestly, this topic could be a whole book. And I’m not really a musicologist. If you can call “ambient” a scene today, I would say there wasn’t one back then. There were perhaps individual, disconnected scenes approaching music in similar ways. But there were vast spaces of emptiness between Stars of the Lid and Gas, for example. They didn’t exist in the same world, despite the fact that they might be on a Spotify playlist together today.
I think the introduction of streaming really solidified some of the more disparate musical worlds - for better or worse. It has globalized everything to some extent. I mean, genres don’t matter to most artists, but it is interesting how homogenous everything has become now. I used to shudder at classifying my music as ambient, but I’ve just given up the fight for lack of a better descriptor.
And then there’s vinyl. A whole other weird phenomenon that had all but died by the time I started releasing albums in the early 2000s, then was slowly resurrected again and acted as a counterbalance to streaming for a lot of niche artists and labels. It’s possibly dying again, or at least becoming too expensive for most of us. The ebbs and flows of the industry can be difficult to keep up with and impossible to predict. Hence why I’ve resigned myself to just focus on the joys of making things. A significant part of me is forever indie. I think it’s really important for artists not to get too caught up in adhering to what the market demands. I get chills when I hear of artists trying to cater their music to best suit Spotify playlists. I don’t blame folks for wanting to make a living, but part of culture dies when artists cater to corporate forces.
After so many releases and years of making music, what drives you to keep creating? Has your personal definition of success or fulfillment in music changed since your early days? For instance, were there goals you chased when you were starting out (like certain sounds, playing live, reaching listeners) that have since been replaced by new motivations?
I honestly don’t know. I feel like I could stop at any point. I have low days where I feel like there’s no point in continuing to create and produce. But music is also a deep-rooted part of who I am. I’ve been making music in some way, shape, or form for over 40 years. And I enjoy all the people I’ve met and connections I’ve made. If nothing else continues, I hope the community aspect will.
My goal in the early days was to release an album on a reputable label. I achieved that goal by signing with Kranky. My goal after losing my job in 2012 was to make a living off my music, and I achieved that goal, so far. I think I’m entering a new phase where I want my focus to shift away from anything overtly commercial and focus on self-direction, collaboration, and mentorship. I still haven’t made my best record. So it helps with motivation to feel like there’s still a magnum opus to pursue, even if I never find it.
If you could go back and give advice to yourself at the time of your first release, what would you say? Are there things you wish you had known about making music or the music business that might have made the journey smoother, or would you let your younger self make the same mistakes and discoveries organically?
Yeah, I would just tell my younger self to trust your gut, stay true to those who are true to you. Put yourself out there, but don’t chase things. Put your love of music and the greater community above personal success and enjoy the ride. Make mistakes, take risks, but only if they are towards meaningful ends. Be grateful and kind and pay it forward when you can. I have minor regrets, but I think I would let myself make the same mistakes again to learn what I learned.
What about your journey so far would most surprise the Scott Morgan of 20 years ago? Are there achievements, sounds, or paths you’ve taken that your younger self might not have expected (for example, collaborating with certain artists, integrating classical instruments, etc.)? Conversely, is there anything you swore you’d never do as a young musician that you eventually ended up doing?
Honestly, the idea that anyone listens to my music and likes it still blows my mind. Of course, you always hope for listeners, that’s what music is for, but some of the stories people have told me about how and where they’ve listened to my music, how important it is to them, is truly humbling and mind-boggling. Sharing the stage with Ryuichi Sakamoto at the Canadian Embassy in Tokyo to honour the late Glenn Gould is by far my proudest singular moment. I don’t think my teenage, small-town self, working retail at Canadian Tire and playing in garage bands, would have ever imagined that as a possibility - I probably wouldn’t have even understood it.
I think there are junctures and moments where I’ve regretted pursuing growth over a kind of truth. The music business can get callous and corporate and ridiculously competitive, and I’ve always regretted participating in anything that unabashedly embraces capitalist motives. You either end up getting shafted, abused, taken for granted, and a distance grows between the real reason you started making music and the pursuit of money. Participating in “the music business” can feel hollow at times. Again, this feels like a much bigger discussion than we can have here, but I’ve made decisions in the past that go against my core values, and I regret some of those decisions. Live and learn.
Throughout your career, you’ve also worn other hats – from working as a sound designer for games to being a parent (we know your daughter even contributed the cover photo for Endless Falls). How have you managed to balance these life roles with the demands of producing and touring music? Has becoming a parent or having a non-musical day job changed your perspective on your artistic work in any way?
Well, the longest gap I had in releasing music as loscil was between Plume and Endless Falls. Plume came out in 2006, not long after our first daughter was born, and I was in the throes of working very long hours in the game industry. With a young one at home and the work consuming so much of my time, I wasn’t able to make records. It didn’t help that Plume was very poorly received by critics (check out its Pitchfork score), and I think my motivation to take part in the music industry at that time was very low. It could have been the end of loscil. This was also around the time I stopped playing drums in Destroyer.
But the video game world moves in cycles, and in the downtime around 2009 or so, I used the studios at work to record some new work, which became Endless Falls. One of the players on Endless Falls, Rob Sparks, was actually a colleague at work. An audio programmer who played some violin and also had the coolest collection of old wooden recorders. If I didn’t have that period of “pre-production” time in games, I don’t think I could have pulled off making music on the side.
Parenting is another story. Lots of people are parents, obviously. I’m not alone in that. You find a way, and it has always been fun to involve the kids in projects whenever possible. They are much older now, but always come to my shows and enjoy meeting artists that come through town to perform and collaborate. They have their own interest in music too, which I hope I played a small part in.
Each loscil album has its own feel and concept, yet they are all unmistakably you. How consciously do you craft each album’s identity or theme during production? Do you set specific frameworks for yourself (like “this project will revolve around underwater sounds” or “this one around orchestral samples”, etc.), or do you notice the theme only after the pieces come together? Basically, how deliberate is the thematic development of an album in your process?
It’s not that deliberate in most cases. I’ve joked about trying NOT to structure work around thematic ideas, but my brain just forces me back to that paradigm. Instrumental music is fundamentally abstract, which is why I like it. But I also just really thrive off the presentation of a cohesive motif. It feels more complete and purposeful to me to frame abstraction this way. That said, there are almost always elements on these “concept albums” that break from the theme. I think this is a subconscious effort to break my own rules. Some albums reveal this internal struggle more than others; rebelling against my own draconian self, I suppose.
Even after an extensive discography, is there anything in the realm of music you haven’t done yet that you still aspire to do? This could be a new style or genre experiment, a dream collaboration, a film score, an installation piece, or any other artistic challenge. Where do you see the next phase of your creative journey taking you, or are you content exploring deeper into the space you’ve already carved out?
A bit of both, I think. I have at least one album I want to make that I have not made yet; something in my head that I’ve attempted and failed at a few times now. Most often, the failures have turned into different albums - Lake Fire is basically this. But there is a sound I’m hearing in my head that I haven’t yet realized. I have no doubt other fixations, aspirations, and areas of pursuit will appear as they tend to. But I also think there’s value in going deeper.
Many years ago, when I was in music school, I stumbled on a realization that became a kind of mantra. One of my composition teachers was trying to dissuade me from defaulting to making drone music. He was encouraging me to explore different musical structures and harmonic devices to compose with, a natural and good piece of advice from a composition teacher. But it occurred to me then, I needed to go deeper into drones, find out more about why I liked them so much, why they felt “right” to me, and use the criticism from my teacher to further develop rather than abandon my fixation on this form. Long story short, I think you can always go deeper into your practice and find a wealth of new territory and inspiration. It’s not unlike John Cage’s famous quote, “If something is boring after two minutes, try it for four…” Music as a kind of meditation, I suppose. That premise has kept me going for 25+ years."
"Good morning, friends! I hope you've been enjoying this journey with loscil's music. Thank you for all of your positive feedback and engagement with the content! I know that Scott appreciates it too! I'm going to skip a general introduction here and jump straight to the interview, which is focused more on the sound design and process behind loscil's music. Let's go!
What does a typical session in your studio look like these days? Do you have any routines or rituals when you sit down to create sounds or music (for example, starting with sound design experiments, or improvising on an instrument, or maybe setting up a particular mood in the room)?
It depends on the project and what stage of the project I’m in. If I’m in the beginning stages of a new album, for example, I will usually start with sound exploration and collection. This can be in the form of recording acoustic sounds or creating presets in software or hardware instruments. If I’m in the composition stages and I’m sitting down to create a piece of music from scratch, I will typically start with one of the existing instruments I’ve created and improvise patterns and loops, building up ideas and textures until things start to emerge. This can turn into a sketch or a fleshed-out idea over the course of one or several sessions. The finishing stages are all more technical and less creative, and primarily involve task-driven work like editing, mixing, EQ, etc.
For whatever reason, I find it easier to work in the evening and in the winter. Perhaps it’s the insulating feeling created while sheltering from the dark and cold (and wet here in the Pacific Northwest). The longer days of summer are more distracting. While it’s still possible to work in summer, and often necessary to, I usually find the atmosphere of the winter night more inviting to introspection and creativity.
How has your production setup evolved in recent years? Are there any new pieces of gear, software, or technology that you’ve adopted that have significantly changed your sound design process? Conversely, are there older tools or software from your early days that you still find yourself returning to because they just work for you?
It might sound ridiculous, but I’ve tended to avoid synthesizers over the early years of loscil. Lately, however, I’ve been exploring synthesis more than in the past. The Black Corporation Deckard’s Dream MK2 is a synth I’ve been using a fair amount, and most recently, I acquired an Erica Synths Steampipe, which I really like. I’ve used the Reaktor Steampipe software synths too - similar design. I really like this form of synthesis, less about oscillators and more about resonance; ghostly and blurry around the edges, and very fickle. I also regularly use my Novation Peak and Moog Minitaur. The Peak is a good all-around hybrid synth, and the Moog is just a bass machine and excels at that.
Two forms of DSP I first learned about in university in the 90s, granular synthesis and convolution, will likely never leave my toolkit. My former professor at SFU, Barry Truax, was instrumental in the development of real-time granular synthesis, so I was very lucky to learn from him and use the PODX system developed at SFU. At the same time, I was exposed to convolution through Tom Erb’s Soundhack application, and I’ve never stopped using convolution as a sound design tool. It’s most often used for emulating reverb, but I use it more to blur and stretch sounds, combining shorter harmonic impulses with longer, noisier sounds to blend and smear.
You have historically used tools like Max/MSP and Ableton Live (with Max for Live) as well as Nuendo for mixing. What software or digital instruments do you find indispensable in your workflow now, and why? Have any newer plugins or music software altered how you approach making music, or are you mostly sticking with the same tried-and-true setup?
I think there’s something useful in keeping your tools and techniques core to yourself. It’s like having a trusty old sewing machine or hand saw. It’s fun to learn and expand at times, but also nice to have that “riding a bike” feeling when sitting down to work. So yes, my core working tools have remained relatively the same for 25 years. Kind of boring, but that solid ground offers a great launch point for creativity.
A sampler, either hardware or software, is indispensable to me. Currently, it’s the Ableton sampler. But I’ve used Kontakt extensively too. And for hardware, I’ve had Akai samplers and a weird old Yamaha sampler called the TX16W. I’ve been exploring the Korg Wavestate recently, which is a sampler/synth hybrid. There’s something invaluable to me about being able to transform, loop, and perform sounds via a sampler.
I also really like any tools that smear the spectrum of a sound. I was really into the Spectral Dronemaker by Michael Norris for a while. Lately, I’ve enjoyed Cascade, a VST from a Dutch company called 112db. I use these processes more for sound design than channel effects. Generally speaking, I’ve always found spectral manipulation of sounds rewarding. There’s something about putting sounds under a temporal microscope that brings out their timbre and harmonics in beautiful ways. Granular processing, phase vocoding, and convolution can all offer this. Even a reverb like Audio Damage EOS2 with a freeze function can fill this role. I then dump the resulting sounds into a sampler for further shaping and layering.
Do you often create your own software patches or custom instruments for your music? For instance, are you still building unique Max patches and synth presets to achieve the textures you want, or have you moved more toward out-of-the-box solutions? Can you share an example of a unique sound design technique or homemade tool you’ve used on a recent track?
I still build custom things in Max occasionally, though, I must admit, I spend far less time on this now than in the past. If I’m working on a project like an installation, Max is an indispensable tool for custom audio applications. And for my live AV shows, I use my own Max4Live devices to connect to the video application Resolume. I have been building a convolution-based instrument in Max recently. This uses the HISSTools convolution in Max, which is also the core engine of the Max4Live Convolution Reverb devices. The instrument I’m working on allows you to drop a sample into it, which then gets convolved with pink noise to create a washed-out tone that can be performed via MIDI like a sampler. It’s almost like having an infinite reverb built into a sampler. I used it on a few tracks on Lake Fire, such as Flutter and Silo. It’s an attempt at creating a single instrument that streamlines the aforementioned offline convolution technique. But as with most of my homemade things, it’s buggy and glitchy and not 100% reliable.
Overall, I have less time and interest in custom max patches these days. It’s possible to lose yourself in this endeavour, and I prefer to spend most of my time composing rather than building tools. But on the flip side, I tend not to use things “out-of-the-box,” especially sample instruments, sounds, and presets. It’s just not exciting to me to use other people’s sound sources or designs, even if they sound amazing. I prefer the intimate connection that forms when creating bespoke sounds, patches, and combinations.
Over the years, you’ve kept a fairly minimal hardware setup (often just a laptop, controllers, and an audio interface). What keeps you mostly “in the box” with software-based instruments? Do you ever get tempted by modular synths or hardware samplers for inspiration, or do you prefer the flexibility and simplicity of the computer-based approach?
There’s a range of answers to this question. Like I alluded to before, there’s value in having a go-to default set up that is in your comfort zone. I have ventured into hardware a little more recently, and I think hardware can offer a unique tangibility over the sound.
I have totally avoided modular for a few reasons. Mostly, I just don’t trust myself going down this road of researching, collecting, and building the perfect set-up. I’ve seen friends get consumed by it, and I don’t really want to live in this mental space of forever searching for the next piece of the puzzle. Not to say I’ll never go there, but up until now, it’s something I’ve avoided. I don’t think it suits my approach, which is firmly rooted in the interrelationship of acoustic instruments, the recording studio, and computer music. But I don’t judge others for their love of modular. I think it’s a fantastic ecosystem, and I’m always intrigued by it as an outsider. And hearing what others do with it is very inspiring.
Although your studio is laptop-centered, you have incorporated live instruments into your process (mentioning, for example, using a tabletop slide guitar and other instruments alongside your computer). What do acoustic instruments or amplifications add to your sound design palette? Do you record a lot of live source material in the studio to process later, and how does that tactile element influence the final music?
That dichotomy of acoustic/digital, human/machine is really interesting to me. I’m often looking to work with performers, especially performers of acoustic instruments, as it adds this incredible depth and dimension. I’ve worked with harpists, cellists, violinists, French horn players, pianists, etc. The track Ash Clouds on Lake Fire features my friend James Meger playing double bass, which is such an incredible instrument. So deep and rich and rewarding to weave into the tapestry of the sound. We had these long sessions of James just bowing the open E string. I could listen to that for hours.
With High Plains, my duo with cellist Mark Bridges, we took this further. Cinderland, our collaboration for Kranky, was rooted in deep sampling of Mark’s cello and a Steinway piano we were lucky enough to use while on residency in Wyoming. Cinderland is a classical music palette of sounds, transformed digitally into its own soundscape. There’s something deeply inspiring for me in recycling sounds in this way. Really putting the timbral qualities of the instruments into a blender and then layering the results back on themselves like an acoustic/digital duet.
You often use field recordings (like rain or flowing water) in your music. What are your go-to tools or techniques for capturing environmental sounds out in the field? Do you keep a recorder (such as your trusty Sony PCM-D50) handy for spontaneous recording sessions, and how do you decide which recorded sounds are worth integrating into a composition?
Unfortunately, my D50 died. It was a great handheld while it lasted. I replaced it with a Zoom H5, which has been good. Similar design to the D50 with built-in XY microphones, but it also has XLR inputs and can record 4 channels simultaneously, which is great. I’m usually very purposeful with its use. I don’t carry it everywhere like a point-and-shoot, but it’s something I pack if I’m going on a hike, a longer trip, or a residency where I know I will set aside time to record. Field recording is something I’ve always returned to since my school and sound design days, but it’s also not my specialty nor my focus.
Something I like to do is use the field recorder to collect gentle noise. Water is great for this, as is wind in trees. These kinds of washed-out, ambient noises can be very useful in a sound design context to use on their own or to process with convolution. It can be a nice way to add a little bit of organic “air” to a piece.
How important is the physical atmosphere of your workspace to your creative process? You’ve said that isolation and quiet are essential for you when working. Have you done anything special to your current studio space to optimize your focus or inspiration (e.g. acoustic treatment, lighting, having certain objects or views around)? If you could design your dream studio environment, what would it be like and where?
My studio is very simple and comfortable. It’s more of a workspace than a recording or mixing space. I suppose it has a little atmosphere. I do have some DIY sound baffling, and I recently built myself a rack-mount cart on wheels, which houses a couple of synths and a Focusrite Clarett preamp to expand the inputs of my RME Babyface. I recently switched to a sit/stand desk and mostly now stand at my desk, which is something I wish I had done years ago. The other thing I really enjoy is having space away from the computer. I have a workbench on the opposite side of the room for photography projects, shipping, soldering, etc. I have a collection of photo books and gifted art pieces on a shelf nearby for inspiration. And I have windows into the garden, which I enjoy mindlessly staring out of.
I don’t know if I have an ideal studio space. I see these epic rooms that some people have, and I think I’d feel lost in there. I used to have access to great recording and mixing rooms when I worked in games. I do miss having those ultra professional sounding spaces to audition mixes in, but I’ve learned to live without.
I love artist residencies. Going to new environments with minimal equipment and just meditating on ideas, recording, and taking everything in. That’s kind of my ideal studio in a way. It’s less about the gear and more about the experiences, change of scenery and opportunity to focus and experiment.
In an earlier chat, you were eyeing Livid controllers and dreaming of owning a Cristal Baschet instrument. Did you ever acquire any dream gear or find the “ideal” controller that you were looking for? How has your philosophy on gear shopping vs. making do with limitations changed over time? Are there still any “holy grail” instruments or tools on your wishlist that you hope to add to your arsenal someday?
I did end up getting a Livid Ohm years ago. It was great for a time. It has joined my “museum of midi controllers” - aka the closet. I resisted going down the road of a Push for a long time, but finally gave in with the Push2 and now the Push3. It just makes sense with my setup. The only thing I miss is faders. But I’m always looking for new and better controllers. Especially for touring and playing live.
I came to the conclusion years ago that owning precious boutique instruments is not my jam. Why own and maintain when there are all these collectors and studios that will let you come rent or borrow time on machines, some of which are truly inaccessible to me. I’ve twice visited the Melbourne Electronic Sound Studio (MESS) thanks to connections through Lawrence English. What a gem that place is. They have an incredible collection of gear you can sign up to use. I got to play around with a Novachord, Korg PS-3300, Yamaha CS80, ARP 2600, Fairlight, etc. The list goes on. The National Music Centre in Calgary also has an incredible collection, including TONTO! Similarly, locally, I have several friends who have incredible synth collections and local studios like Afterlife, who have amazing microphone collections and a working plate reverb! I’ll defer to the expert engineers and collectors and happily pay for access when the budget and project permit it.
All that said, I’d still like to own a Cristal Baschet.
These days, there’s an overwhelming array of plugins, synths, and gear available. How do you avoid option paralysis in the studio? Do you intentionally limit your toolset on a project (for example, using only a certain synth or sound palette) to spark creativity? Feel free to share if you have learned any personal tricks for staying creative without getting lost in technology.
I’m a firm believer in the philosophy of working within your means. There is a plethora of tech and tools out there, but the very basics can be enough to get started and create pretty amazing-sounding things. The pursuit of the latest and greatest of everything is not necessary. That said, I believe in supporting developers, instrument builders, and local retail shops too. We are all part of the same community and market and should build each other up.
Searching for inspiration in sounds is a great way to avoid gear lust. Making the focus about the sound sources and design, and not the gear, really helps me stay away from over-consuming.
Limiting my focus to what I already own, challenging myself to see an existing tool from a new perspective, and using what I already have to its fullest potential. These are basic mantras I tell myself. And I find these challenges and limitations creative and enjoyable for the most part. Most limitations can be creatively liberating in an ironic way. And arbitrarily imposing limitations or rules is something I rely on all the time to keep from that paralysis, as you call it."
"Good morning, friends! I hope you have enjoyed that generous discount on Plume and have been bathing in that warm, pulsating sound for a few days now. If not, now is a great time to grab it and put it on as the background music to this interview! I'm playing it as I write this.
It's time to delve into Scott's composition and production techniques with the first part of our interview. And yes, there will be multiple parts throughout this month. A gentle reminder on one of the benefits of this community - as a member, you can also ask Scott questions! Drop yours in the comments section of this post!
Also, some of these questions reference my past conversations with Scott. I didn't want to repeat what I asked before, and instead followed up with more detail. If you want to start at the beginning, you can also read these:
Your work is often celebrated for its restraint and minimalism. In past interviews, you’ve noted the concentration it takes to “strip things right down” and avoid letting the musical “noodling” take over. How do you decide when a piece has just enough elements? Do you have any strategies for maintaining interest and emotional depth while keeping the music so minimal and calm?
Deciding when a piece is complete has always been a challenge. The impetus to call something ‘finished’ usually arises from some combination of pressure (both internal and external) and intuition. It’s important for me not to succumb to the pull of perfectionism. Deciding something is finished one day only to reopen the box the next day can be very counter-productive. A helpful mantra I’ve leaned on is understanding a composition as forever a work-in-progress. This way, the snapshot you’re deciding to record or render for an album or project is only one version of that composition. It’s complete for now. Even if I never revisit that piece again, it’s liberating knowing the possibility is there.
Compositionally, I’ve always kept the melodic and harmonic material in my work super simple; sometimes as ridiculously simple as a drone or two-chord structure. The benefit in this is that the other elements, namely texture, timbre, dynamics, and density, become the feature of the sound. So the minimalism in the more traditional musical elements takes a back seat to sonic complexity elsewhere. It’s perhaps counterintuitive to push the musical elements into the background, but it leads to a kind of shift in focus that I like.
You once mentioned striving for a feel where “the music exists but doesn’t exist” in the background. Could you elaborate on what that idea means to you? What techniques or intentions do you employ to achieve that subtle, almost subconscious presence in your compositions?
Not all my work fits under that same conceptual banner. Certainly, the more Eno-inspired generative works like Adrift and Alta do as well as some of my more drone-centric works like Stases or coast/range/arc. Generally, I love the capacity for music to sneak up on you and suck you in. This can be true of any music, but it’s most evident with ambient, soundscape, and maybe soundtrack music. You’re not really hearing the music until suddenly you are, and you realize the subconscious has become conscious. Your focus shifts from passive to active listening, perhaps due to some element of the sound or a shift. I love it when this happens, and I think I’m intuitively trying to create the circumstances for this shifting perspective to occur, either by gradually introducing new elements or shifting the overall quality or structure of the piece at some point.
Over the years, how has your approach to composing structure changed? You’ve noted that Coast/ Range/ Arc was composed more “offline” and structured, whereas earlier works were often performed and recorded more improvisationally. Do you now plan out the arcs of your pieces beforehand, or do you still prefer to let compositions unfold naturally through experimentation?
I would say my core approach has remained relatively consistent, but I have a bigger collection of tools in the toolbox now than I did 25 years ago. It’s still most common for me to feel my way through a piece. Structure can change dramatically from the earlier stages of playing with ideas to the later stages of editorial. I usually begin the composing process with some form of improvisation. Then, it’s a gradual process of whittling and chiselling until a more concrete form is revealed. Sometimes, I will consciously break my process; break my go-to tendencies, and break the go-to structural elements just to push things somewhere and see what happens. Working in longer form, working “off the grid,” or composing using chance. It can be rewarding to intentionally go against instinct and commit to “bad ideas" to train yourself away from habits. Doesn’t always work out, though, and not all habits are bad.
Your alias “loscil” comes from the looping oscillator function in Csound, yet your music feels very organic and alive. How do you reconcile the technical, loop-based origins of your project with the organic textures and evolving soundscapes you create? Do you consciously inject human or random elements to make the sound less mechanical?
A lot of my work revolves around dichotomies. I think the intersection of the human and the machine is fascinating. As is the clash of industry and nature. With Lake Fire, it’s the cycle of destruction and rejuvenation. These areas of transition, contrast, and opposition offer a lot of fertile ground.
I started loscil at the height of glitch and IDM in the mid to late 90s. I was so inspired by Pole, Oval, and SND, among others. I was super into the full embrace of that kind of digital aesthetic - numbers for track titles, broken tech, science as art. My first release with Kranky, Triple Point, was kind of in this domain. But I drifted from that and let some of my instrumentalist roots come into the music with First Narrows and Plume. I was still building the foundations of the music inside Max/MSP - a close relative of Csound - but then inviting friends to play guitars, vibes, strings, etc. overtop to create a more layered sound. The contrast of the digital coldness with acoustic/analogue warmth was intriguing and made sense to me. I think Labradord and Gastr del Sol were big influences here. It’s about the contrast more than anything - a dichotomy in both sound and style.
When you set out to make a new track or album, do you have a particular atmosphere, story, or emotion in mind that you want to convey? Or is your process more about exploring sounds and letting the meaning or feeling emerge for the listener on its own? In other words, how much of loscil’s music is driven by conceptual intention versus pure sound experimentation?
Most of the time, the concept and the music grow together from nothing. I’m almost never trying to communicate an emotion directly. Sometimes I will have an idea, conceptual or otherwise, floating around in my head. Perhaps from a book or a movie or informed by a trip or my photography. Or maybe I’ll have a process in mind like with Clara, where the idea was to pre-compose an orchestral piece that would become the source material for remixing and resampling. Usually, there is some random collection of ideas and experiences floating around inside me that ends up being the keystone of an album. But the actual creative process is more like feeling around in the dark. Experimentation, recording, building a palette of sounds, breaking things. That’s usually the starting point. Followed by a more frantic compositional stage where I’ll churn out numerous sketches and rough compositions. This is usually followed by a long period of editing, arranging, and mixing, and at that point, I’ll try out track titles, sequence tracks, and form the album itself. I’d be lost without the album format as a framework. I value the inherent structure albums provide, and I’m forever a fan of the concept album.
Do your compositions typically begin with a concrete idea (a scene, a concept, a title) or with a sound (a field recording, a synthesized texture) as the seed? For example, you once started an album by recording forest creek sounds as the foundation for dense, static drones. How do those initial sparks guide the development of a piece, and can you share an example of a recent track and what triggered its creation?
Exactly this. I love growing things from seeds. I love the compositional challenge of building complex palettes of sound out of unique, singular sounds. I truly believe sounds have a kind of aura that can transcend processing and editing. I once sampled Glenn Gould’s CD 318 Steinway that lives at the National Arts Centre in Ottawa. They kindly let me come in after hours and spend an evening setting up mics and recording every key of the piano. I went on to completely process and transform those sounds, but my knowledge of their source was such a driving inspiration. The main use of these sounds was for a set of live music as part of Ryuichi Sakamoto’s Glenn Gould Gathering in Tokyo in 2017. Such a thrill to be part of that. But a lot of those sounds ended up on my album Equivalents - transformed in such a way that they don’t sound like a piano anymore. However, for me, there is some magic in the sounds - an aura that carries through because of the significance of their source. Colours of Air, my collaboration with Lawrence English, is another example of this. Lawrence sampled the organ at the old museum in his hometown of Brisbane, and because of the aura of those original recordings, the acoustic pipe organ, the album has this living, breathing quality despite how much we manipulated and transformed the source.
Many listeners detect shades of ambient dub and classical minimalism in your work. You’ve acknowledged being “heavily influenced by dub” and even compared the minimalism of dub reggae to composers like Arvo Pärt or Steve Reich. How do these influences manifest in your production approach? Have any other unlikely genres or artists significantly shaped your aesthetic without fans realizing it?
I can’t shake my love of sub bass, and that’s all a dub influence. Adding the bass just makes everything feel right. Can’t quite explain that other than an instinctive love for sound that you feel more than hear. Maestro Pärt is just working on a higher level. I will never achieve that level of spirituality and pure beauty in my work. I am always left in awe listening to his music.
I studied Gamelan in university for a couple of years, and I think that left a big impression on me. I love the polyrhythms and the tunings. It’s a beautifully hypnotic sound. Plume contains examples of those influences.
You’d probably struggle to find evidence of this in my music, but I was super into Free Jazz at one point. Specifically, Ornette Coleman. Maybe because I played tenor and baritone sax in my youth. No idea why, but it really resonated with me for a time. Kind of the opposite of ambient in so many ways. But Free Jazz is its own musical universe, and I love that about it.
Given your background in sound recording and design, do you approach creating a piece more like building a soundscape than writing a traditional song? You’ve mentioned enjoying the process of recording sounds, manipulating them, and “building a library of sounds to work from” before composing. How do you balance the creative sound design aspect with the more formal aspects of composition, like melody or structure, if those even apply in your work?
I consider what I’m doing as composing, but it does contain an element of sound design. There are some shared techniques and tools for sure. Maybe the essential difference for me, having been a sound designer, is that sounds are usually designed for a specific function in a production. They are mostly designed to make the environment more immersive or believable. Whereas music is never really trying to do that - even in the case of a score. It’s trying to live inside your body, your ears, your mind. Obviously, there can be some crossover between what is sound and what is music. But for me, when I’m composing, I’m organizing sound to stand on its own. It’s not an accompaniment to another experience. Even in the case of a score, the music can and should be able to stand alone. Sound design is always kind of subservient. And I suppose, in this sense, sound design can be subservient to music as well. That’s not a negative, just a different mindset and function, and I separate that from composing.
You’ve hinted that some of your tracks could be “better suited to generative music” that runs indefinitely. Have you explored generative or algorithmic techniques in your compositions or live sets? What appeals to you about music that can evolve endlessly, and do you foresee creating a piece that listeners could experience differently each time through some generative process?
I’ve tried this approach many times over the years, but perhaps the most specific was an application I created called Adrift. I worked with a former colleague from my time in video games to build the Adrift app for iOS and Android. This is clearly very influenced by the work of Brian Eno and Peter Chilvers, but also grew out of some of the challenges of creating music for video games and multimedia. In the gaming context, music needs to adapt and evolve, ideally not be too repetitive; occasionally directly interactive, though mostly just fluid and non-linear.
Adrift was a very simple incarnation of generative music that consisted of multiple streams of randomly chosen phrases and sounds. I called it “endless music” as it was non-linear and could run infinitely. The challenge with any custom tech-based approach like this is resources, both in the programming and distribution, as well as the marketing of the idea. It becomes laborious to have to build, debug, educate about, and sell such a thing. So I abandoned the app this year (10 years after initial release). But the music lives on, and I’m still very fond of the concept of an endless piece of music with no true beginning or end.
I’ve also adapted this to an installation format. The piece Alta on my Bandcamp is a rendering of music that was created for an installation here in Vancouver at the Emily Carr University in 2023. Along with letting the music run continuously for the length of the installation, we had a durational performance where local musicians were invited to improvise over the installation over a two-hour period. The audience was allowed to wander in and out and around the space of the gallery. Generative ideas work great in the installation context, and I’d love to experiment more with this.
With a career spanning over twenty years since your first release, how do you keep yourself inspired to explore new territory within the loscil sound? Have you developed any personal rules or challenges to prevent repeating yourself and to continue growing artistically? For instance, do you set specific limitations or goals for each new project to give it a distinct identity from your past work?
Inspiration is harder to come by these days, honestly. But it’s never been easy, and it doesn’t come like a gift. You need to work for it. I think what I’ve learned over the years is to just be stubborn about it. If I’m not feeling it today, pack up and try again tomorrow.
A piece of advice I formulated for myself years ago is to try something different and something the same with every new project. That sounds a bit like an oblique strategy. I’m embarrassed to say this grew out of opposing criticism from album reviews. I can’t remember which record it was, but I had two reviews for the same record that say these opposing things. One reviewer criticized the record for sounding too similar to my previous album. Another reviewer claimed my latest record wasn’t as good as my early records. I remember thinking how absurd it is that we need to live in this impossible space between providing something new but not too new. But from another perspective, I think it’s good advice: stay grounded in the sound world you’ve created, but always introduce new things to it."
LOSCIL: FEATURED ARTIST OF THE MONTH (AUGUST) ON HEADPHONE COMMUNITY
"Hello, everybody, and thanks for your ongoing patronage in this little corner of the music world. A warm welcome to all the new supporters joining this community with the announcement of our latest featured artist. I have already made the reveal a few days ago, but today, I wanted to give a proper introduction to one of my beloved ambient artists.
I am pretty sure that I've been listening to Scott Morgan's music as loscil from his very early beginnings, when in 2001 he released his debut on Kranky, titled Triple Point. When I officially launched Headphone Commute seven years later, one of the first albums I covered was Plume, and this is where I began diving deeper into his ambient soundscapes constructed with looping oscillators and his project, named after a function in Csound computer language, which reads samples from a table in memory.
Since then, Scott's music has evolved much further, transforming this "looping" into a personal cartography of place, time, and human fragility. Within Scott's world, music occupies more than space with its repetitive pressure levels. It breathes space itself, pulsates within it, becoming indistinguishable from the very air in which the frequencies live.
In over two decades, arriving at his latest album, Lake Fire, I have witnessed more than just an artistic evolution of this Canadian composer. I followed his music along, and it became a documentation of a consciousness grappling with an increasingly unstable world, finding solace in the patient construction of his sonic architectures that can weather any storm. His music emerges from a practice of deep listening, where environmental sounds become the foundational components of compositions that feel simultaneously ancient and futuristic.
The influence of classic dub (particularly the spacious minimalism of King Tubby) courses through Scott's work like underground rivers, surfacing in the patient deployment of echo, the sculptural use of bass frequencies, and the understanding that music's power often lies not in what is offered on display, but in what is withheld. Yet Scott's vision extends far beyond genre constraints, drawing equally from the glacial minimalism of Stars of the Lid, the environmental isolationism of Thomas Köner, and the rhythmic hypnosis of Pole and Gas.
Scott's music always reveals new layers with focused attention while remaining perfectly at home in the periphery of consciousness. Albums like Coast/ Range/ Arc and Sketches from New Brighton (which we'll revisit here again) serve as sound postcards from specific geographical locations. They transcend mere field recording to become meditations on the relationship between human perception and natural phenomena.
In our upcoming deep dive, we'll also investigate how Scott's music functions as a form of temporal architecture. I think that these compositions actively reshape our perception of time and space. In the last decade, your attention has been consistently fought for by algorithms that intend to monetise it. But you can take it back, by "spending your time" with us here, listening to Scott's patient, evolving soundscapes, which gift you your attention back. This is a space for genuine contemplation, where loops become mantras and repetition becomes transcendence itself.
So, in this last month of the summer, I invite you to slow down, breathe deeply, and allow these carefully constructed sonic environments to wash over you like the Pacific rain that has shaped both the landscape and the imagination of their creator. This is music that serves as both refuge and revelation in our increasingly messy world. So turn off that other glaring device, and put on your headphones. Let's all take a well-deserved break from the chaos within.
DC-based artist While put out several records on Chocolate Industries, SKAM, and Musik aus Strom in the late 1990s, releasing several full-lengths of crunchy breakbeats, melancholy melodies, and engaging productions -- While debuted on the MASK compilation series, the much-hyped EP series launched by Britain's Skam, and followed with 1999's Seek EP"
“Bandcamp Friday today. New album from Saloop and it is free!!
The Shadows of Ghost by Saloop
The initial inspiration for this album came during a holiday with my parents for their 60th wedding anniversary.
I wanted to create something introspective, meditative but also include the odd snatch of a tune. I didn't want to go completely down the drone route. l started with seven melancholy chord progressions and then improvised until I had something that worked for me. It's probably the most "live" album I've made.
Fewer edits, less quantising, lots of first takes. I've incorporated a number of recordings I made during that brief trip in this album to make up parts of the overall soundscape. Some interesting noises that seemed to fit.
The cover art is a picture of some graffiti I saw just outside the former convent that now houses the Bayeux tapestry.”
A gentle reminder that there only a few days left in September where Chiasmata (DiN16), by Ian Boddy, is available as a free-to-download/name-your-price album.
Chiasmata was recorded during Boddy’s concert at the planetarium of the National Space Centre, Leicester, UK, on 1st November 2003. The music ranges from deep space ambience through chilled-out analogue grooves by way of classical orchestrations and Berlin school sequencing to intimate solo piano improvisations. The main suite of music seamlessly blends all these elements into a continuous set that ebbs and flows with the assured touch that Boddy brings to bear on his concert appearances.
And a second little reminder that the same few days are left for the special 25% prices on the first 9 volumes of the Tone Science series. This applies to both CD editions & downloads.
No code is needed as the prices have been adjusted accordingly. These previous volumes are laid out at the top of the DiN Bandcamp store for your convenience. Please note the CDs for TSV1 & TSV2 are sold out.
And a big thank you for the amazing support you have shown for the tenth & final iteration of the acclaimed Tone Science series, namely The Final Patch.
A Line Dissolving' built from ethereal drones and drifting pads that slowly disintegrate into blurred textures and soft noise. It evokes a feeling of being in a vast, weightless space where forms are constantly shifting and sounds have no clear origin. The music carries a profound sense of solitude, as if listening to faint signals from a distant and forgotten place.
"In 2003 Speedy J began his Collabs series of records on NovaMute, offering “the possibility to explore corners which we wouldn’t so readily visit as solo artists,” and it quickly became clear that one such collab with Chris Liebing was not enough.
Both techno heavyweights in their own right, there was a mutual appreciation since the late 90s, further sparked at Liebing’s Frankfurt club nights that would go on to inspire over twenty years of challenging each other on the decks.
Collabs300 became Collabs301, then Collabs3000 with their Metalism album and later records for Liebing’s CLR label, until finally in 2025, building upon a legacy of hard and fast techno with pummelling rhythms and whirring mechanical details, Chris Liebing and Speedy J mark their glorious return.
This partnership is one of the longest for either artist, and after reviving their fabled live sets, they’ve distilled their high energy into this 2025 EP. The incessant jackhammering beat on ‘Zwart’ throws up rocks and gravel as it grinds into subtly modulating yet rigorously percussive synth stabs, kicking off a stark and potent round of hardcore techno cuts. ‘Spiegeling’ mobilises an ethereal whirlwind of spectral sonics with a reverberant heartbeat rhythm, layering up on the intensely mixed house percussion before a deluge of drum machines descends on ‘Strum’, agitating volatile sparking acid synths and the steadily clanging tempo of ‘Galude’.
Chris Liebing and Speedy J give us the goods with an intense EP mirroring their prolific touring history."
"Aphex Twin’s ‘Classics’ album receives a long overdue vinyl & CD reissue, with a fresh vinyl cut by acclaimed mastering engineer Beau Thomas, and a R&S Records sticker sheet inserted into the LP sleeves. The compilation includes seminal cuts ‘Digeridoo’, ‘Analogue Bubblebath’ and two Aphex remixes of Mescalinum United’s ‘We Have Arrived’.
"RAWAX proudly presents Swayzak – Goose/ Hectical from 2000! We are very happy to re-issue this beauty and celebrate the 25th anniversary with a new mastering."
