12 questions for TOM HALL

The Australian native with the black belt in Max/MSP programming is a sonic lab researcher with the heart of a pure bred musician. Something that his latest release “Bestowed Order on Chaos” (ERRGRD-009) amply proves. This unique artist is known for brewing up hyper-complex and seemingly chaotic rhythms and going off into wild explorations of unknown dsp territories. But his paths are never erratic, and neither are his motifs.

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1. What drives you to create music? What do you seek to achieve with it?

I was and still am drawn to sound by its fluidity and relation to the environment. Sound is all around us and we are constantly hearing it consciously and subconsciously, our bodies are always resonating.

Music is a way for me to put my interest in natural environmental phenomena into forms that structurally are more akin to what most people think of as “music”. By pursuing interpretations of stochastic models, probability and brownian motion I’m able to make works that are both approachable and challenging at the same time.

2. How would you describe your music to someone who’s never heard music before?

Sonically I work across a broad range of sound, I’m not really interested in “defining” a sound for myself, I’m interested by all aspects of sound from extreme industrial noise to Enya and beyond. Typical key words I would use to describe my music would be textural, random, sharp, crisp, dense, sparse, drone, low.

3. Which album do you wish you had made?

Confield (by Autechre). Without doubt it’s probably THE electronic album that never ever seems to date, maybe just 2100 people will be able to say it sounds “old.”

4. If music is a form of therapy, what is it healing in you?

For me music has a profound ability to do several important things. When listening personally at home it can easily change a “mood” which is something that I think is often under utilized casually and in the workforce. It can transcend time, given that it is a time-based format primarily I’m always amazed how an album can turn hours into minutes and vice-versa. I’m always amazed at sounds’ ability to conjure up nostalgia, listening to a piece of music from a moment 20yrs ago will bring back vivid memories that you haven’t thought of in along time, in this case it appears to work as a key to access parts of your brain that have been dormant, programmed neurons for years. Live music can do all of the above and more, the energy exchange between audience and performance is something very special and I REALLY REALLY miss live music right now, often for me seeing a great live performer results in several weeks of enhanced motivation, not just creatively but life in general.

5. If you could use one image to represent the intention of your work and burn it into your audience’s heads, what would this image be?

That would be the cover of my current Errorgrid release, “Bestowed Order On Chaos.”
Tough image to “burn into your mind” but somehow I felt this captures both the sounds I’ve made in this release and the current state of what’s going on in 2020.

6. What do you consider your best piece of work yet? And why?

Well, I haven’t made that yet, and to be honest I’m not sure I’ll know if I’ve made that piece of work until long after it’s been released into the wild.

I have a real love for my release “Muted Angels” on Complicated Dance Steps from 2011, it’s strange to say but this is a record that has grown on me. I always feel like I should go back and mix it again and have it professionally mastered because I know there’s a lot hiding in it there.

Something that’s become important to me over recent years is starting to work as a mentor for others, contributing to the community and acknowledging that it’s through others assisting me in little and big ways over the decades that I’m able to be here. Nothing feels better than helping others, sharing etc.

7. What is your sentiment about the current music scene, and how is it helping with the state of the world?

Music is political, but I feel like the edge has been lost in recent times, I think that the edge has been taken off by capitalism. It feels like mainstream popular artists are less willing to speak up or even take a risk with their sound for fear of losing streams or cancel culture backlash.

Whilst that fear is valid, I do feel like unless some big folks hold out on these conglomerate services that determine what “music” is worth, rather than the listener or the artist, music, artists and creatives in general will continue to have the terms dictated to them.

We live in a culture that thrives on creativity, artistry and values it in their lives, but at the same time unwillingly to nourish those who make it.

8. How would you describe ERRORGRID in your own words? What is it to you?

An imprint with gusto, looking to go against the grain and forge new trails.

9. When do you consider a piece of music finished and ready for others to hear?

It’s problematic, I often liken this to oil painting where you can definitely layer on too much, and taking it off usually has an adverse affect.

The problem I have is that I often program the frameworks these days that surround the thing that I’m making. In order to finish something I need to set rules, NO MORE PROGRAMMING on this patch, and then forge ahead with actually recording it. Only when the recording is finished can I go back and continue to programmatically improve the patch.

10. How much importance do you put into your tools?

I really hate talking about gear, creatively nothing takes the wind out my sails like gassing on about an object. “Game Changer” is severely over utilized these days.

There’s a lot to be said about minimal setups where the artist knows 95+% of the functionality, when you see these people in action you immediately see the benefits of spending the time to learn something throughly.

11. What is the one piece of equipment you will never part with?

In the box: Laptop w/ MaxMSP

Out of the box: Nord Modulars

12. What do you have in the works/ what is next for you?

There’s more music in the works for Errorgrind and a sneaky release early 2021 on Superpang. And if all goes to plan some software for others to use derived from my own programming ;)

TOM HALL’s current release on ERRORGRID RECORDS is the 6 track extended EP ‘Bestowed Order On Chaos’ - Available on Bandcamp.