What is music?

Asking me what is music is a tricky thing. I would say music is a language I only speak when I need to convey what my soul is telling me to say. Whether you walk in light or in darkness, music can tell people what side you walk on. There is a lot of grey area in music, I think, that is just the filler between the extremes. I tend to think I make music that swings to each extreme and conveys my emotions to people or even to myself clearly. I do hate being wishy-washy.

Hypothetical situation: You find yourself in a very dark chamber, a single flickering torch burning in a holder on the wall. In the darkness you can make out the mouths of twelve twisty little passages, all alike. Above each passage is the faint, silvery inscription of a note in a twelve-tone musical scale, but from its wall holder the torch doesn't provide enough light to understand the writing. The wind whistles through the tunnels, creating a giant wind synthesizer. You hear the pulse of thunder and sea, breath and heartbeat, sky and land and everything between all folding in on each other in the combined sound of those twelve passages. The wind forms a statement, hurtles it into your ears: "There are two possibilities before you. You can grab the torch, illuminate the notes, walk the passages which sound as you choose. If you do this, you will know exactly what you are going to hear each step of the way. The caves will sing with your composition. The other possibility is to leave the torch's light behind. Run through the network of caverns and hollows as I do, as the wind carving the rock, as the crash of life upon the world. You will be the singing, you will be the song, you will be the composition, but will not know what you have wrought until the very end." Which do you choose?

A cavern of darkness that swells with song? Why would I grab a torch that lights my way when it is much more exciting to wander around, guessing what movement comes next. Music is supposed to be mystical, not some mathematical equation you can input into a computer and get an answer in the form of a composition. If music become predictable, then why compose it? I suppose there can be some fun in solving an equation if you are of that nature. I enjoy mystery, the darkness, the unknown. The light will come naturally at the end of the passage. I will enjoy the darkness until that moment.

Your music embodies honesty in process, as if you refuse to practice self-censorship or compromise on a track's final state. It sounds like what we hear as the finished creation is what came out in a single stroke of your finger, just as you intended from conceptualization to concrete expression. As an electronic musician, utilizing multiple tools and layers of process, how do you accomplish this? How do you create tracks which, even in their most polished states, feel from-the-heart raw?

Pain, sorrow, joy, blood, and many other emotions of my soul are exposed through my work. I cannot make a song that does not embody myself. The format I choose for my compositions is of the electronic nature, but I begin my writing with piano. I don’t have a real piano as of yet, but the samplers do the trick. I focus on what emotion I’m feeling. Sometimes I’m swarmed with multiple emotions and they can make the most chaotic of songs. Once the main melody is written with piano, I begin the task of sound design. Using presets is a no-no in my world, so I have to alter or design from basic tones and then apply the harmonies, bass, poly-rhythms to my compositions. Sound design comes from either samples I make from live recordings or noise from things I find on the internet. Old N.A.S.A recordings are truly a joy to fuck with. I love what they can pick up with their radio telescopes. The cosmic chaos truly inspires me to use sine waves, saws and squares in ways not intended. Layers of effects come at the end of my compositions. Everything has a place with my music. Filler is not allowed. I cut away poisonous elements in my music as I do in my personal life. A way to reach perfection I suppose, knowing that perfection is never truly attainable.

Your prolific output as L.A.M.P. covers vast musical terrain, from IDM to glitch to industrial to ambient to drone to soundtrack to truly unclassifiable. All your music is built on tragedy, beauty, mystery... how do you access so many emotional frameworks? Are you a master of mental focus, insanely unstable or, perhaps, doses of both?

I’m not fucking nuts, unless you ask my ex-wife. All kidding aside, I channel my emotions directly to my music. If I have a mental block it is only due to my frustration of not knowing how I feel. That is my bane, the snake in the soup. I can usually recall emotions from memory and remember what those feelings sound like. My emotions trigger soundtracks in my mind, just like a movie. If life is a movie, I want a brilliant soundtrack for my feature film.

As the Keeper of Backwards Records NW, you're releasing some of the most eclectic and truthful music available right now. There's obviously a unifying mission behind the label. What's the Backwards Records NW philosophy? What's your ultimate vision for the label?

The Axis Of Evil Music, Injecting Aural Abuse Into Your Wasted Life: that is the mission of Backwards Records. In Denver, Matt Jones runs the show while Patrick Urn and myself hold down the Northwest Terror Dome. Our vision is to keep releasing music that doesn’t compromise the artist’s vision. Music without boundaries or limits and with real vision. I do want to become a major independent label like Warp or Ed Banger. If we don’t, I’ll go into selling sonic weapons to warlords in various African countries.

You've travelled the world, played on the largest of stages. Tonight you're ending the tour with a home town performance at Paramount Theater in Seattle. It could have been the funny tasting bottled "energy" water someone left in the backstage area, or it could have been the strange seeds on the sushi at lunch... but the energy on the stage tonight has a physical presence. Spirals of force fly from the sound system, weave themselves into the lighting rig, reach out and into the audience. Whirling coils of sonic ouroboros flying by, you realize you can direct them, casting tentacles of sound outwards into your listeners' minds. You look out into this hometown audience, made up of people you've lived with, fought with, loved with, grown with, and send these L.A.M.P. lightning strikes directly into their minds. It's your music entering their lives and becoming an active principle in every future action they will take. How will it change them? What will they become?

Truly free. Right now, demons possess and constrict their souls, bogging them in hate, fear, anger, all the sins of man chaining their ears, eyes, souls to the void itself. The first keystroke is a resonating tone that shatters these chains which bind them. The void cannot maintain its black hole grip on them. They might not show physical change or be any different on the outside, but they will have the weight lifted from their shoulders. I hope to achieve that for myself someday.

How do you use the Daevl.Plugs?

I use the Daevl.Plugs for extra warmth in my analog percussion. I like daevl.cubedriver for adding slight delays and grainy high pitch sparks in my synth lines. The daevl.noise.white and daevl.triptych can be great for completely destroying sound or just adding small touches to it. It is hard for me to describe all the ways I use the Daevl.Plugs in my sound since they are such a big part of my effects chain now. I recommend them to all my sound design friends, and they are never disappointed.

What will music and individual creation be like in the next nine years? The next thirty-six?

In the next nine years I’m sure sound creation will keep going the digital route but analog will still have its place. The tools will get more expensive as everything else does. I think there will be less individuality as all the artistic talent and creativity is bred out of people. In thirty six years there will be a complete change in digital sound design to the point where people will either be for it or against it. Kinda like now, only in a Mad Max wasteland. Just walk away, just walk away.

Last year Backwards Records expanded tremendously with you taking over the Northwestern US turf to build your own Kingdom of Noise. You released versions of the Black Waltz, Final and The Glitch Path digital downloads as L.A.M.P., were a competitor in Seattle's laptop battle and honed the legendary L.A.M.P. live show with local appearances stretching all the way to Denver. What's next on the L.A.M.P. platter?

I'm planning releases on Backwards Records NW by fellow artists such as Joy Von Spain, 100PIECES, NoiseTherapy and myself. I'm also working on Le Petit Morte, a split EP with Nichts, who is also on Backwards Records. Empty Zen are label mates of mine and we're working on their new LP where I'm doing some guest programming and vocals. My EP The Black Waltz will be finished in September for a limited pressing, followed by The Glitch Path LP in early 2008. I’ve been working on remixes here and there... a general mess of plans. I'm also giving time to a music night in Seattle called HARSH. We're looking to book bigger acts like Richard Devine and Milanese. John Wiese, Blue Sabbath Black Cheer, and KJ Sawka are a few of the bigger acts that have played our night. I plan on doing a lot more releases and live shows.