rod cooper - accepting the machines (2cd)

The landscape is not a new theme in the arts and music is no exception. No matter what themes an artist uses to draw attention to their work and ideas to the audience, the dominant message is still about the artist. Wether or not the artist succeeds in communicating external ideas via their transmissions to the audience, is open to much interpretation. For me Accepting The Machines was about combining many musical thoughts that would other wise have stayed as singular ideas or sonic experiments locked into a particular aesthetic or style.

There are many landscapes in these recordings some rural, some urban. Sites include my home in Melbourne, Australia, where I recorded in an empty factory shell, my back yard, workshop and studios. My beach house on the coast of southern Victoria provides me with access to an estuary system, rivers, forests and farmland.

Because I work across many art forms such as sculpture, painting, music and instrument building, its easy to categorise each separate practice, a system which I use to help me adapt from one body of work to the next.

I ask myself, "what is the connection between these different folios?, the answer is my mind". So I then ask myself another question, "why do I make up rules about how I should express myself? Shouldn't I just enjoy the freedom of expression with out making up rules or following codes pf practise?" To truly follow one's instincts is not easy. Teaching influences, learning and study effect this process also.

Building portable instruments that I could carry into any potential recording location was a good decision for me during the creation of Accepting The Machines. Their simplicity and crudeness changed the way I played to the microphone, less musical and more intuitive. Playing onsite rather than overlaying separate recordings from the studio environment and landscape puts me into a different state of mind. You have to cope with the landscape where everything is not at your fingertips. It has taken me a while to appreciate digital technology; having a preference in the past to work in a more acoustic dominated aesthetic, even though I experiment with and love electronic sounds.

My main instrument is a tubular frame that holds a Styrofoam box resonator against a long steel wire and spring. The frame is hammered into the earth and the wire or springs are stretched out along the ground or attached to an existing structure. Sound travels into the styro box via these resonating materials. I also use small amps and tape decks to transmit electronic sound and vibrations through the box walls.

Anoher instrument is an 8 meter long vertical aeolian string, again with a foam resonator.

I may stay in one place for hours or return repeatedly until I capture the moments I am working toward, when the winds, birds, branches, surf and noises are all working together. The computer helps me do the rest.

Humans are not only species on the planet to make music.

Rod Cooper