Interview with resident artist Jayden Barber
At the beginning of the month we sat down with resident musician and filmmaker Jayden Barber to talk about his upcoming release which will be out on 12/20 and his performance at AS220’s Black Box on 12/19 where he will be playing the new EP in full.
How did you find out about AS220?
I learned about it in high schoolI think it was through my friends that were in Hairspray Queen and that was my first time going to AS220, for a Hairspray Queen show.
Tell us a little bit about the new release.
It’s a four track EP of tape loops and experimental electronic stuff. It is dedicated to my Nana and my Dingha Tanya who are twin sisters. My Dingha Tanya passed away a couple years ago but the listening event is on the 18th of December which is their birthday and then the release show is the next day where I am playing the EP live. So, it reflects a lot on my family and the part of Portugal they are from, about a longing and thinking of a place that I haven’t been yet and wondering what that place is like.
Is this project something that you are proud of?
Yea definitely. For the longest time first starting with music I would kind of hate anything I made after some time had passed. Lately, especially with the making of this project, there’s a new confidence to my work. It feels less and less like I’m taking complete shots in the dark and more like I’m honing a sound that I’m really happy with. I’m trying to avoid answering this with the cliche ‘I feel like I’m finding myself or who I am as an artist’ — It’s just feeling easier to know what I want to explore and experiment with and with that comes confidence in my work.
The project is also especially special to me / something I am proud of because it’s dedicated my nana Eulalia and in memory of her twin sister Tanya (my Dingha Tanya)
Has finding that new sense of confidence opened you up to experiment and try something that you maybe wouldn't have done before?
Absolutely — I would say part of it is that confidence and the other part is fear of becoming complacent and using familiar practices/methods that become stale. Nobody wants to hear the same thing you’ve been doing for 25 years — It sounds like shit and it’s boring for all parties involved.
All of my favorite artists have reinvented themselves over the years and are vocal about the value of trying something new, uncomfortable, unfamiliar and it’s something I value too
Would you consider the music you make your way a sort of meditative reflection?
I’m paraphrasing but I saw an interview with William Basinski a while back and he said something along the like of when making tape loops he’s looking for the ones that suspend time. When you find that one loop or stumble across that one melody you get that feeling that you just know. This is a long winded answer but I guess what I’m saying is that’s what interests me about the music I make — the suspending time and entire world stopping feeling I get.
Did you take any kind of specific inspiration for this project, not only from artists but just things from life you found inspiring that bled over?
I’ve always been so inspired by the angelic voice of legendary Portuguese fadista Amalia Rodrigues — I’ve made hundreds of loops sampling her voice and the first track on the EP is the first loop sampling her voice I’m finally releasing.
Track 1 - Açores, 1956 samples this:
Track 3 - Beautiful In The Beginning Beautiful In The Middle Beautiful In The End is a loop sampling heavily processed Buddhist chants I did twice a day while staying at Buddhist monastery a couple years back
The use of Amalia obvious connection to my nana and Dingha Tanya and thinking a lot about the part of Portugal they’re from and kind of daydreaming about going there eventually
When it comes to putting together these visual and audible projects, what are some of the challenges you come across?
Music wise - the huge tape loop you see behind you, you need a specific amount of tension for it to pass through the tape player properly and sometimes it doesn’t want to behave so you have to mess around with it for it to simply play.
Visually - I’m going to have some projections playing, I have a shit ton of those dvds right there are a bunch of old home videos that I’ve been sifting through to find old footage of my Nana and Dingha Tanya and i’ve been thinking of the project itself and what part of those videos feel nice to play throughout but if I want to have control of certain videos playing over certain parts how do I do that, so I’ve been working on having live control of video.
Is there any connection or significance to holding the first listening event at Providence Public Library?
Going there and seeing how beautiful the space was and wanting to do something there, it’s a really beautiful historic space. It is also interesting to present music in different and unique spaces in Providence and try to explore what other spaces there are available. To not go too into a rabbit hole, I live at AS220, I’ve done a ton of shows at AS220 and I feel things can get stale sometimes. It starts to feel like you are going through the motions and I wonder how interesting it is for the artist but also for anyone who goes to the shows. Going to the same place every couple of months, does it get stale at any moment? Interested in trying new spaces, I really love that space in the library so I wanted to do it there.
What different places do you have mind?
A church. I’ve been bothering every church in Providence for the last two years to no response at all but finally I got one to answer. There is a church in Providence that’ll be letting me host a show sometime next year. That's some fun news to me.
I definitely romanticized those spaces because of the beautiful historic structures and when I make a lot of the stuff that I make I envision it being played in those huge dramatic, romantic spaces so it feels nice to do something in one of those spaces.
