ayrtbh Interview: about Synthetic Weather Reporter

Date: July 2024

Question: Sun Yizhou

Answer: ayrtbh

Translated: Zhang Cai

1. I haven’t asked about ‘Synthetic Weather Reporter’ before, I don’t know if I’m right, the following is all speculation.

The album sounds like a fictional narrative, with track one featuring extreme weather from far to near, but all is synthesized unsampled sound. Track 2 not at all completed the task of a weather reporter, but rather a stutterer or a group of stutterers. These are crazy narrative imaginings? Do you think it’s beyond human imagination? Or is it dry humor?

Rather than ‘fictional narrative’, I would prefer to call it ‘post narrative’, most of the music I make is initially made just to hear that movement, nothing else, and the titles come later. “Synthetic Weather Reporter” is a recording of two gigs at Trigger last year, the title came to me after. With the titles on they do have a narrative image, I don’t think the imagery is mad somehow, and I don’t think it can transcend anything, ‘synthetic’ gives the illusion of being artificial, fake, and potentially dangerous to lose control of (presumably due to the influence of film and television).

2.Is there any connection between the “Synthetic Weather Reporter” and your field recordings? What kind of weather do you enjoy?

Nothing directly related to my usual field recordings, but long term field recordings have probably formed a cue for me about sound choices. I like colder, less everything-friendly, slightly toxic, mosquito coil-like weather.

3.Many computerized musician patches are designed/modified by themselves and have a comfort level that applies to their playing. If your patch is a body per say, how many parts does it have? Do they modulate each other? Do you tweak them often? How much control do you have, or do you let it run its course?

My latest patch is actually a bunch of “max for live”, each m4l has different responsibility, they do modulate each other and I try to make them as relevant as possible so that when I change one of the parameters it creates some sort of organic like overall change. They can run on their own or be controlled, I have a not-so-good habit of tweaking them too often, I should let them run on their own for a bit longer. It’s true about playing comfort, that’s one of the advantages of making your own playing system, you can design the interface according to your own habits, I’ve always found the mouse to be a very good controller, but using a computer keyboard as a controller in ableton live often conflicts with some of the existing shortcuts, otherwise it’s a very good choice. My stack of m4l’s was made with this preference in mind, and has a lot of buttons in it.

4. How do you make choice in your sound-shaping? What do you not want? Is it important for you to observe and model real-life sound phenomena?

It’s hard to say, the choices often doesn’t make much sense, as mentioned it has to do with each person’s own experience of listening to sound (favorite music to listen to, favorite recordings, etc. all shape a person’s preference for sound). I like to observe sounds in real life, but don’t try to simulate them, real life sounds have a much more potential and unavoidable effect on people.

5. Live computer music has a kind of awkwardness of its own, and I like the feeling that the musician is actually doing a lot, quite busy, but the audience doesn’t know it, it’s boring. So they watch, looking at people, looking at the back of the computer, looking around; slowly starting to observe, the musician’s micro-expressions, the amplitude of his arm movements, whether he’s sweating or not. Do you have this tension of being gazed at when you perform? Are you half of the audience too?

It’s true that live music with computers as instruments is actually a different kind of performance, but I think a lot of people don’t share that view anymore. I get nervous about being gazed at while performing, but I can largely ignore this tension if my energy is focused on interacting with the sound, and sometimes my face involuntarily cramps because I’m so focused on it, as I found out in a live movie a friend made for me a while back.

I’m not an audience member during the show, I may not even be there during the show.

6. For electronic music, in the broader sense of hardware and software, the musician has both hands free to do a lot of things; you can be a group of violinists, a one-man band, or even a commander-in-chief. Are you a collective? Or a solo player?

I’m a player that is not lone as well as an early listener of this music. :)