Ian Hawgood Q&A Part Two, thanks for the amazing fields we found party, last day of half-price and Bandcamp Friday!

quiet details
May 2
9 min read

Hi friends - hope all good :)

I was really moved by all the super kind comments at the resolve / relate 04 Listening Party last night, especially as I’d had a long day in the hospital having maintenance immunotherapy - so grateful for it and to be in such a good place now but they are tiring sessions!

You’re an amazing bunch of people and I’m so pleased to see the series connecting so well - taking time to stop and listen, to this or anything else, is so important and hopefully gives you some of the catharsis and calm it gives me.

I’m leaving the stasis dub available to everyone for an extra day until tomorrow for Bandcamp Friday - so if you bought it and don’t subscribe, download it before it becomes a sub exclusive.

Last day of half-price qd33 Ian Hawgood - well, here we are - huge thanks again for the support on this too, such a wonderful release from one of my dearest friends.

Bandcamp Friday today so a great day to pick up anything from us or anyone else - they kindly waive their fee so more goes to the artists - see some tips below :)

Now Part Two of our Q&A with Ian - had a lot of comments of appreciation for Part One, so please enjoy this final part - huge thanks to him for everything, I loved reading this so much.

Please can you give us an overview of your studio and favourite instruments?

A lot of friends will laugh when I say this, but I hate talking about studios and gear. The way my brain works I need an open space with lots of light, and my dream would be a laptop in a glass house with a view frankly. I've worked in a bunch, had various studios in different countries (as I moved for work a lot), and have a long history after studying music tech moons ago. But try as I might, I just can't get what I want musically out of this, and find myself with some fun gear.

My studio is mostly focused on gear that is analog of an age that it is very simple to use. Two years ago my wife, friends and family put my studio equipment in storage and basically hid it from view as I suffered from severe panic attacks around any object to do with music (which was everywhere in my house). It took two years of counselling to really accept my enjoyment of certain music tools and how they were part of my expression and communication. It was an intense period but it has led to a new space and our house is full of wonderful instruments.

Without giving too much gear away, I've always had a love of old amps, synths and tape machines. My first synth was a Roland JP-8000 and I still have one I play all the time. I have an array of guitars despite not really being a guitarist but I use these all the time with a couple of Headrush E1 loopers from 2000 - 2001 I believe. These really influenced how I make music and still are so much fun. I love limitations and they have a 14 second limit for looping I think which I enjoy.

My second synth was an LP-10. This was the first (I think) 'electric piano' from Korg. I bought mine in Japan when I lived there from a local store in 2001 alongside a Fostex X-18, and again they've been hugely important since. That LP-10 was damaged in transit when I moved back from Japan the first time but a number of years ago I hunted one down. I have a few Korg synths from the 70's, a couple of Rolands, a Hohner Pianet and a Fender Rhodes, among other stuff. Beyond the JP no menus as I can't deal with them. I like to have access to one sound right away and that's it. Same with pedals and all my gear - it needs to do one thing and one thing really well. The only exception is my OP-1 which is just so much fun.

I've got some reel-to-reels and tape recorders, a load of guitars, my childhood piano, early Boss pedals (again...simple but beautiful). My biggest obsession is probably mics though. I used to fix them up and love old mics but my collection now is focused on field recording mics as the experimentation in frequency range and directivity is so much fun. That means hydrophones, geophones, lavaliers, a couple of 57's for amps...all sorts really. I have a huge singing bowl and gong collection as well, really just because I like playing them each morning.

Oh and my favourite instrument is probably my Gibson L-50 from 1933. They used round holes instead of the classic f for a two year period so it growls like it has its own amp. Proper blues that guitar. We sold it two years ago after my breakdown but we managed to find the buyer who kindly sold it back to us, and I relearned guitar patterns on it, leading to a real breakthrough in my recovery.

My whole studio is very simple and direct. No mixers as I'm just not into them at all, at least anymore. I go two channel into reels or tape with a back-up in a nice Nagra (digital) recorder. This could be direct or from recording my 70's Music Man amp which is just so warm. The synths on 'well, here we are' were mostly recorded using an old Hohner Orgaphon amp if I recall. I exclusively use Neve DI into the Nagra and Avalon pre's. Prism Sound is how I get to the digital side as it is the most accurate, warm and analog-like sound I've worked with in that realm. That's kind of it.

I do run a pretty weird process for recording day to day. I don't like cables. So I plug in everything on the day once I know what chain I want to run. I find plugging in to begin the creative process is like connecting my brain and spirit, and de-cabling and putting it all away like breathing and feeling complete. I can't go to bed with my gear cabled at all, so each day I play (even if I am not recording), I take it all apart. That's something I've really discovered and accepted in the last year but known about since I started making music. My brain can't function with cables and any mess, so this is the way I have to approach it each day. I have a number of these little habits that if I don't start and end with, it all just falls apart so maintaining them is fundamental to my creativity and mental well-being.

Please can you give a quick breakdown of how you made each track?

The album was created and mixed as one long form with distinct changes and paths intersecting. I didn't know why when I mixed it but it ended up reflecting my life and the journey I'd been on in that period. So elements and melodies come in and out, and highlight a path of not only relearning how to play instruments again after memory loss, but also reflect the concept of everything existing in all its boldness and fragility, and being quietly present with positivity and acceptance.

I originally found myself tying together an album of previously recorded ambient pieces that I loved. But the more I played with sound after my breakdown, the more hiss, noise, field recording, playful relearning of piano, guitar and percussion came to matter. And I found myself randomly mixing these elements in through tape and just having increasing fun with it.

The album is based around the Ciat-Lonbarde Cocoquantus in part. This is a random hand-built looper and delay where you can process noisy elements and just keep evolving sounds in a fun way. I love the deeply hissy sound it produces and the sheer wildness it maintains. I put mellotron, Pianet, Rhodes, OP-1 and JP-8000 into this, as well as a lot of guitar. The wide panning is created naturally in the Coco and leads to the sound fluctuations throughout. I found myself mixing in field recordings I would go out and do that day with these, and again, the whole album was mixed in a very random way pretty much off the top of my head. The thought process was very much 'I think that could fit here, that key sounds about right...yeah that noise there could work'. And I didn't really think too much about it beyond these 'in the moment' initial thoughts as it just felt like the most natural way to work for me at that point.

For a very early draft of the album before I started to really add elements, I asked Brad Deschamps (who I record as Rosales with) to do a reworking of a track. I then asked Craig Tattersall (who I record as observatories with) if he fancied adding some layers to play with. By the time these were ready I scrapped the track Craig had created elements for, but it inspired me to shake things up completely and I went back to randomly adding elements without looking at timestamps. Craig's parts were so amazing and worked so well spread out rather than concentrated to one track, that it really opened up the palette of the album for me. I spent about two or three months playing around these elements of elements to create something quite different to the original draft of the album. I mean the ambient elements all come through of course, but the wildness and ever-expanding palette of sounds and noise just evolved organically.

Sam Liu is a very dear friend of mine from many moons ago who happens to be a brilliant artist. We've made music in bands and together for the best part of almost thirty years now. I played him the album as it was and mentioned how it was getting wilder and wilder, and just asked if he wanted to send me something to add while it was getting noisier. He sent over some brilliant guitar layers to work around mine, as well as a lot of field recording from his two year old son's toy collection and random objects. These were on top of a whole load of field recordings and noise pulses I had going on anyway, and I just thought 'brilliant'. I asked Sam for timestamps and he sent a pixelated image of where they could roughly sit that I just couldn't mentally deal with as I'm not great with patiently looking at computer screens. So I put them all in totally randomly, chucking ideas at the canvas and seeing what would stick. I reworked my side as a way to challenge myself and create in the most elaborate (but fun) way as possible. :) And it just worked - I re-layered elements, went back to cassettes and reels of recording and reworked the entire thing as it just happily made complete sense in my head. And it has the feel of a band interacting to create something pretty unique I feel, which I love.

The final part that was recorded was from you Alex, adding that amazing tone to carry the nine minute beginning of wild noises and random sound bursts which I'd always planned to open with. That's all Coco wildness and random processing until you brought that gorgeous tone to carry things calmly forward before all beautiful hell breaks loose. I remember placing it right there early on and just thinking 'well, here we are'. And it was a moment where I not only completed an album I am super proud of, but a moment where music reflected my journey and the incredible random bursts of joy I feel now as I come back to music for the sheer fun and connectivity of it all.

So here we are.

Thank you.

fields we found - resolve / relate 04

Big thanks to Neil for including the release in his excellent Moonbuilding weekly Good Stuff round-up - great to be mentioned alongside Jo Johnson and Loula Yorke, who also have monthly subscriptions and are putting out next-level amazing stuff! Congrats to Loula for a year of sub releases, lovely The Book of Commonplace mixtape to celebrate!

Also great to see Brandon Invergo’s ‘Here, Beneath the Ash-Choked Sky’ (Moon Atlas) - lovely album I mastered here at quiet details studios - get in touch for any help you need with your music!

qd33 Ian Hawgood

Big thanks to Stephan for including the album in his excellent Best New Ambient series

qd31 Polypores

Trevor including a track on his Virtual Cassette Library 033

qd28 Wil Bolton

Thanks to Harry over on the excellent Whitelabelrecs for including a track on this lovely mix

Find all the albums here

https://quietdetails.bandcamp.com

and

https://www.quietdetails.com

Now some Bandcamp Friday tips!

Labels - everything from these wonderful curators is worth exploring