Artists Spare Room | Kai Swarvett
My name is Kai Swarvett and I’m a musician and composer.
I think the music will be about forgetting and how, once the memories themselves are gone, we are left with just the feelings they once accompanied. Unbound feelings merge, resonate, and are amplified. Sometimes the less we remember something, the more strongly we feel about it.
The sustain pedal of an old felt piano in a repurposed fire station works in much the same way. When a note is played with sustain, the string will continue to ring out long after the event, and it will rub up against any new notes played in the present, and then blend the memories of those notes. This reframes every melody as a chord, an accompaniment to whatever happens next. Just as memories we carry subconsciously affect how we perceive the present and the future.
Another phenomenon I very much like is sympathetic resonance. If I sing an A3 into the piano, this will cause the strings tuned to that pitch to vibrate and the piano will sing the note back to me in its own voice. It’s like when two friends are in the pub and end up bonding over having a similar experience. (Note, the hammers must be released to allow the strings to vibrate freely)
I remember a man who heard the ghostly sound of the saw coming from St.Constantine’s cell.
We talked about the changes that had taken place in Eden Valley (and in his knees) during his lifetime. He showed me cute pictures of his dog. Imagined the murmurings of drunken monks and their dirty habits in times gone by. I wish I had more of that conversation on tape. Most of it was lost to the sound of the rain. I do have him saying ‘’I still have the histories and the memories and I will have to be happy with that’’ and I’ll have to be happy with that.
Our brains are notoriously bad at recalling the past and with time this quirk becomes more of a nuisance. In this sense, they are just like tape. One of my favourite recordings is ‘The Disintegration Loops’ by William Basinski. He recorded the sound of old tape loops degrading in real-time. With every pass, the fidelity is reduced, more distorted, and further removed from the original event. Eventually, the tape is ripped to shreds by the tape machine. We’re left with just the feeling. Another musician who inspires me greatly, Erland Cooper, buried the only copy of his album in the salty earth and left it there for years to imprint the effects of time and the elements onto the tape, which will become instruments in the final production of the record.
In the case of my record, I aim to release three of the pieces I recorded at the Old Fire Station. Natural sounds from my field recording trips, as well as incidental sounds, the creaking of a chair, and the clatter of the piano’s pedals will be presented with equal focus to that of the notes themselves. I will use the processes of compression and reverb to draw out the rolling swells of sustain, caught by my microphones taped deep inside the guts of the piano, to change the listener's experience of time, the notes one hears in the present will be wading against the memories of the past.
