Joe Frawley, the David Lynch of all sounds
- How did you get in touch with music?
>I stumbled in the dark for most of my life. I knew I wanted a relationship with sound, but I didn’t know what that relationship wanted to be, until I was around 35 when I figured it out. Initially it was piano lessons as a kid, then 80s metal, then synth rock, all kinds of pop and rock, then classical, then jazz. A big long mess.< - What would you do if there wouldn’t be music, starting with tomorrow?
>Take photographs.< - …and what if you had to produce in a different music genre? What would that be?
>I struggled with this question for a long time before I figured out the problem. The problem is with “had to” and “genre”. If I get locked into either one of those at this point, it’s pretty much game over.< - What’s your (original) profession?
>I’m a librarian.< - What turns you on creatively, spiritually or emotionally?
>The mixture of sounds and voices. Layer a certain spoken phrase over a certain sound and the ground just opens up beneath you.< - What’s your next plan music-wise?
>I am currently shaping and trying to make sense of a work-in-progress. No, make sense is the wrong word. Trying to make it convincing. It can be convincing without making sense.< - Who would you like to collaborate with the most and why?
>No one specific, but someone in another art form. A film maker, a poet, a choreographer.< - Is there a band/music genre you can’t stand listening to?
>I could probably name a hundred of them, but that wouldn’t be any fun, and I’d just be depressed at the end of the list.< - Is there some music you like – but ashamed to admit it?
>No. I admit to listening to all kinds of crap.< - The beauty of silence or the chaos of noises?
>The noises of beauty.< - What’s your favourite album ever?
>Kate Bush. The Hounds of Love.< - …and your favourite album cover?
>Kate Bush. The Dreaming.<
- If you could be a rock star, who would you be?
>I am terrified of being on stage and of being observed performing, so it would have to be someone in a mask. But not a scary mask. Maybe Laurie Anderson in the Sharkey’s Day video? (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BPbv2uVY6AY)< - Do you have a role model?
>I look up to any confident artist who sticks to his or her vision, regardless of public opinion.< - Who would you like to meet the most?
>I like the guy who said “myself at 14″.< - What are your favourite movies?
>Un Coeur en Hiver, Last Year at Marienbad, the first 20 minutes of Prospero’s Books, the 1992 Dracula with Winona Ryder, Zoolander.< - If you had to direct your own movie, how would it look like?
>There would be a beautiful young female protagonist. She’d be put through some sort of ordeal. Some inner turmoil rooted in past events would overwhelm her and lead to a host of strange imaginings. This would be conveyed through a series of video loops of varying durations, repeated in irregular sequences, with very soft transitions- fade to blur, fade to black- interspersed with sudden jarring quick cuts. I’d like to make a silent film.< - Which language would you like to speak most and why?
>Probably French, for obvious reasons.< - How would you describe yourself in 5 words?
>Obsessive, tenacious, absorbed, sensitive, outsider.< - What are your vices?
>I don’t discuss them.< - The best moment in your life?
>I’m sure most people could answer this question quickly, but I just keep staring it until the words blur up.< - What does beauty mean to you?
>Beauty should make you suffer a little, or else it’s not truly beautiful.< - What would you do today if the world would end tomorrow?
>I want to be playing the piano while the world blows up.< - Which places you love the most?
>Eyes closed, headphones. That place.< - What’s your favourite food?
>I don’t think I have one.< - What’s your favourite flavour?
>Taste is not a big sense with me.< - Three things you could never get rid of?
>I try not to get attached to things.< - Your three favourite websites?
>freesound.org, last.fm, bandcamp.com< - What’s your favourite picture about yourself?
- What’s your most favourite picture you made?
- What is the question you always would have liked to be asked but nobody ever did?
>I wish people would make recordings of their own voices and send them to me. I know that’s not a question, but I wanted to put that in there.<
Recurring dreams and repressed memories. Irrational fixations and secret desires. The rich underworld of the subconscious is the subject of Joe Frawley Music, which is as much its own singular genre, as it is an independent record label. With elements of dark ambient, classical Romanticism, sample-based sound collage, and musique concrete, Joe Frawley’s music resists categorization. Frawley’s work has been described by listeners as “audio David Lynch”, or “cinema for the ear.” Both phrases accurately point to the power of the music to conjure haunting visual images, and stimulate the imagination.
Joe Frawley (born New York, July 4, 1971) is a composer, pianist and visual artist whose works blur the boundary between music and sound art. By layering and juxtaposing original piano music with processed found sounds, field recordings, and re-contextualized speech fragments, the composer creates challenging yet accessible sound assemblages bearing a hypnotic dreamlike quality. He who also releases work under his ongoing collaborative project, Joe Frawley Ensemble.
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