Futureproofing #10: Tristan Arp on making feelings into sound

Plus Al Wootton, ASC, and more.

Edited by Tom Gledhill.

Tristan Arp made one of my favourite albums of 2024. I’m going to repeat something I said there, because I can’t improve on it: “Tristan Arp occupies an in-between space in dance music that might be precarious if he wasn’t so damn good at it.” He runs the Human Pitch label, which at its best feels like the American version of Wisdom Teeth—rooted in the club, with its head in the clouds. When he makes club music, like on his excellent 3024 EP End of a Line or Part of a Circle, he uses gentle sounds and improvised rhythms that sound familiar but uncanny—things you know, put together in a way you don’t expect.

Uncanniness is a big part of Arp’s musical practice. At some point around the pandemic, he became interested in biomimicry, or recreating natural sounds like birdsong using synthesis. He’s hardly as gimmicky or straightforward about it as that, but the technique lends his music a pseudo-organic feeling, like a diorama of a zoo with animals made out of dayglo colors and exaggerated shapes. His music is instantly recognizable and a little global, touching on sounds from around the world without appropriating or committing to one style for too long.

Really, though, I like Arp best in album mode, when he can go ambient and really bust out his cello. That latest album imagines a world where technology is integrated harmoniously into nature, but it hardly sounds utopian—in fact, sometimes it sounds a bit uneasy, like on the gorgeous and detailed ten-minute closer “beneath the world staring upwards.”

He’s one of those artists that’s fun to write about, but actually hard to describe: his music is one-of-a-kind but welcoming, pulling you into its digital-natural world with a hug. He’s one of those dance music artists whose music attracts non-dance-music fans, but not in the pejorative way.

A fan of the subtle way he incorporates these unusual elements into his music, I wanted to talk to Arp about his approach to production. I spoke to him last month, which you can read below. And below is some stuff I’ve been enjoying the past couple weeks, including some late 2024 highlights that I think deserve more attention.

The interview

How are you doing?

I'm in Mexico City right now where my partner is from. There's a possibility that we have to move to a place that’s new for both of us this year, but I spent a good chunk of 2024 in New York, and it felt good to be with friends and spend some time reconnecting—I lived there for ten years, so it feels like home to me. Before that, I grew up in a suburb of Detroit called Rochester, which is like 30 minutes from the city. I discovered techno and went to DEMF [Movement Festival] when it was still free to the public.

What was your first year?

It would have been 2006, so I would have been 16.

That sounds fun.

It was great. I was playing guitar music and I had a sort-of post-punk band, but I was getting into electronic music and I was like, "Oh, so much of this is from Detroit, there's this thing happening here—how do I not know about it?" It was a proper intro to techno, and a very fortunate one. 

I also listened to a lot of Aphex Twin and Warp Records stuff, and I loved Kompakt's Pop Ambient series. Maybe that's telling, because I always feel like I'm trying to cycle between my interests in club music and ambient music. 

To be overly simple about it, I feel like your records fall into two clear streams: dance music and ambient. So when you go into the studio, are you planning to make a certain kind of music?

Sometimes I plan, but I'm careful to leave it open and allow for unplanned playtime. I have all these different folders on my hard drive, and if I'm making something playfully or organically, and it's kind of a club track, I'll put it in the "potential club stuff" folder. And then there's an ambient vault. When I start to look at these folders later, something might take shape. So I do have separate archives. But I'm trying to see if I can divide those less and find a space where both ideas can live at the same time and find this balance, which I think you said, in a review, was "precarious." 

It does feel that way sometimes, because sometimes people are only into one of those things. Or they'll book you and expect you to play a specific way. I don't want to make only club tracks. I have more interests than that.

Are you one of those people that's just going into the studio and making music and every day, seeing where and how inspiration strikes? 

I try to make music every day, but there are times when I won't make music for several weeks. Or if I'm traveling, the "studio" might be an airplane or a train. I actually like those scenarios—there's something about the limited time you have. I think this year I also made something in like, the cabin of the festival I was playing afterwards—I woke up the next morning feeling really inspired. And I don't have a very fixed studio anyway, because I haven't been in the same place for more than one month at a time this year. But when I was making my latest album, I was showing up every day to a bedroom scenario.

In an ideal scenario, are you working with out-of-the-box stuff too?

For sure. When I made my first album, Sculpturegardening—and this one—it was with a lot of modular synthesizers to start with, and then finished in the box. Some of the tracks were almost completely finished in these big, longform takes that I would record in stereo right out of the hardware, then I would go in and reduce them to their most essential moments, and add some other bits in the box. After a pool, a portal, this year, I've been making things with only a laptop. Sometimes hardware is clunky, and I like to change tools. And there's so much awesome technology and weird plugins, that are much more affordable than hardware. So I'm catching up on all this in-the-box stuff too.

Like what?

There's this guy, Dillon Bastan, who makes Max for Live plugins. One is called Coalescence, where you can import a sample—or a folder of them—and map them on a global matrix of sounds, drawing paths between them. So when you're playing something, the sample sources might change. He has really interesting ideas. There's one that's called grain forest, where you plant seeds and they might grow into trees. I still don't really understand how some of them work, but that's kind of the fun in them. They're out there. 

Sounds like it suits your music perfectly. So when you're using hardware, you're more like… jamming, and then editing it down?

The hardware part is fun because when it's new to you, you're working in a state of discovery, and improvising as you discover. Some of the best things come out when you're learning a device or an instrument. But eventually I'll figure something out and then think, "Okay, I can take this patch in maybe five different directions." I'll rehearse a sort-of structured performance and decide what to keep and what to get rid of. So it's like jamming in order to find a structure.

How does that change when you're in a scenario where you only have your computer?

Sometimes I'll just be sound designing, then I'll export a bunch of samples. Later, if I'm starting a project, I'll see what I have in that sample vault and go from there. If I'm making a club track, though, usually I'm just starting with a rhythm.

What does "designing sounds" mean to you?

If I'm sound designing, I might start with a synth plugin, or a recording of a modular synth and, like, chuck it in a granular synth in the box. Or sometimes there will be demos of mine from the past that weren’t super interesting, but I'll bring them into a granular synth environment and find these hidden textures that can become the beginning of something new. There are constant iterations of things that I've made, constant recycling and composting.

So you have your own library of homemade samples?

Yeah. It's kind of a mess, and I always say I'm gonna organize it. To call it a library is an overstatement—it's a scattering of files across different hard drives

“ways of being” artwork

.When I was doing my research, I found an interview from a few years ago where in the lead quote was, "Lead with ideas, not gear," which gave me the impression that you would be very regimented with planning or writing your music out. But it seems like you're doing a lot of improvisation. So how does "leading with ideas" manifest when you actually record something? Do you have concepts in mind before you start working?

I like to give myself a creative prompt or a concept, or a world that I would like to make. Sometimes I sit and imagine what I'd like to listen to, to conjure the music in my head. Then I'll try to freeze that mental sound image and sketch it out later. That's what I mean about not leading with the gear. Some people think a piece of gear looks cool and that's why they'll use it at that moment. But it might not be the best tool to manifest the idea that they have. Gear isn't always a good replacement for ideas—for me, it's more like, I want to make a certain thing and this gear can help me make that thing.

Thinking about tracks, like last year's "panspecies rights"—which gives me a funny mental image right away—the explanation is a bunch of animals or insects rising up in protest. Is that a mental image to you, or is it a sound that becomes a mental image?

Around that time I was thinking a lot about why other species don't have rights. Bolivia gave the equivalent of human rights to its portion of the Amazon rainforest. And I was making this song that had lots of non-human sounds, so I thought maybe it would be a good song for this subtle political message. When you're making instrumental music, you don't have a lot of space to deliver a literal message. Song titles are a space to do that. 

I saw in a press release for another EP that it was inspired by Octavia Butler. How else do you bring these ideas or themes into music that's mostly instrumental?

I guess I spend a lot of time living with these ideas and thinking about them. So if I'm reflecting on them or trying to dream up a better world, or the world I want to live in, that must impact what I'm making. Sometimes it's about, “what would this scenario sound like?” Or “what would this feeling sound like?” 

You clearly have a preoccupation with the natural world. Where does that come from? 

I'm not sure where it comes from. It's not like I grew up in the countryside or deeply immersed in nature. It was a suburban, post-industrial environment. Maybe it was the lack thereof, and then living in New York for so long. But also I just have a deep sense that humans are not the most important thing on this planet, and we have a lot of work to do. The natural world is something we're a part of, but it also gives us relief from the human world.

Because of writers like me who try to put a framework around everything, you're associated with the idea of biomimicry. Can you explain that in layman's terms?

It's just a word for this practice, you could extend it beyond music to learning from the behavior of other species and imitating it, gaining some new perspective from it. With music, it can be as simple as using synthesized sounds inspired by bird calls, but for me, it's going further, music that has a creaturely-quality, as a challenge. How can I make something that sounds like an organism that has life, or breathes?

And how do you do that?

Well, living things are spontaneous. So there's a level of chance or unpredictability involved—melodies and rhythms that are non-repeating or self-iterating. That's one way that something can have a lifelike quality, when it's not too loopy. I also think ambient music is nice because there's no fixed or expected rhythmic structure. Things are more elastic, and you can speed up and slow down. That also feels more lifelike to me—an organic sense of time. 

When did you start making music with this idea in mind?

Five or six years ago, I think?

Is it influenced by Mexico City at all? I always think of it as a huge urban landscape with lots of foliage and vegetation. So it makes sense to me—like, sculpturegardening.

Well, now that you say it, there must be. When I first visited, that was something that spoke to me—there's not a whole lot of dedicated green space, but the streets themselves have lots of trees, and that tree canopy is doing a lot for the people who live here. That's part of what inspired me to spend more time here. And then when I met my partner, I delayed my return flight, and then the pandemic happened. It was never an intentional thing to move here, but during that time, the city must have inspired my direction.

When you started trying to channel these lifelike sounds and ideas, were you inspired by any other artists that have done this before—are there any important artists in terms of biomimicry?

There was an artist named Lee Evans who released a record on my label, Human Pitch. When I found his music I was starting to think about biomimicry—I forget where I read about the term first, but I don't think it was a musical context. Lee sent us a record and I asked him to tell me about it and he said that he was trying to make bird calls and frog sounds with his synthesizer. So of course I liked it! He made two records on Human Pitch, Animist Pools and Aphasic Forest, they're really good. 

When you're doing this kind of sound design, are you imagining specific animals, or is it a little more abstract than that?

Sometimes I'll use field recordings that I've made, or taken from Freesound. I try not to just copy and paste, but bring them into a granular synth engine, or pair them with a percussion envelope—so that it takes on the texture of another creature instead of, say, a drum. 

What are these field recordings you're using made from? What interests you in that realm? 

I like the sounds of what are usually invisible worlds to us—like recording underneath the soil, where there's lots of activity, you can hear insects moving around. Or underwater, the sound of coral reef, sounds we don't hear every day, sounds that can expand your awareness of what's happening around you. I'm trying to surface less heard voices and sounds.

“life after humans” artwork

sculpturegardening had a pretty clear inspiration behind it—what was the inspiration or approach for the new album? The new one feels even more "ambient."

It's not like, "Okay, here's a concept. Now I'm gonna go make all these songs that strictly follow this concept." Instead, I'll hear something in common in a few tracks I'm making and realize that this is what I was thinking about, this world I'm trying to imagine. Maybe each track on the new album touches on a feeling of a possible future—some optimistic, some less so—especially with the spoken word bits. And maybe it has more of a serious tone, because there's themes of decay. But there are also themes of regrowth. The approach was to write and record words that capture that feeling, and how to make these songs as immersive as possible, like entering imaginary worlds. 

On both albums, you used the cello a lot—how do you incorporate this instrument into what is largely electronic music?

It's not exactly an afterthought, but it's usually the last piece, a final detail—like once I've recorded a long improvisation on hardware, I'm thinking, “where am I losing attention?” Then, "Oh, cello would be nice here." It's like extra sauce, another texture, and it's always such a good tone. I still haven't learned the instrument to a point where I can play an entertaining performance. If someone asked me to play something, it wouldn't be so great. But I've learned enough to convey my ideas, and luckily, I can record multiple takes at my leisure. But I think I would like to be able to play it live one day. 

Okay, but why so much cello?

There's not much of a reason. Maybe it's intuition. It was always an instrument that I liked the tone of, whether it's with the bow or pizzicato [plucking the strings], it's always been a bucket list thing for me, to play the cello. And one gift of the pandemic was having time to explore new things, and I said I wanted to learn the cello and my friend set me up with a teacher, a very sweet friend, Mabe Fratti. 

We've talked about your albums. You have the cello, you have field recordings, you have these sound worlds or ideas in your head. Does this same process apply to when you make club music?

Sound design is just as important as rhythms, but I'm usually starting with a rhythm, typing it onto a grid or playing it by hand. I'm a geek for rhythm science, trying to find new patterns that I haven't heard before but are still exciting in an intuitive way, not too mathematical. 

Your style of dance music has always seemed out-there to me—it's danceable, sure. But do you think about functionality when you're making it? Could a DJ play it? Or is that not important to you?

I do think about that, but not a lot. There are so many other people out there who are really good at that, at making functional things. It's nice for a track to work on a dance floor, but I'm not going to make that the priority. I'm not huge on testing tracks out at gigs, but sometimes if I do and I get good feedback, or the dance floor cools down when I play something else, I can learn a lesson from it. I think something I could get better at is arrangement. It's not, "Is this danceable," it's more like, "Does the arc of this arrangement work?" I'm impressed at artists who can craft the arc of a seven-minute club track and really immerse people. 

So do you think of yourself as a dance music artist, or an artist who sometimes makes dance music? Or do you not think about that at all?From the outside, it seems like there are two versions of you, but that's probably not fair.

I think of myself as an artist who makes music that is sometimes danceable and sometimes is more for listening's sake.

It's like what I wrote about the "precarious" balance between the two things. Do you think it's tough being an electronic artist who's in-between, kind of on the periphery of things? Or is that just the way it is, and it's fine?

It's hard sometimes, but it is the way it is, and it's fine.

Weekly listening

Al Wootton - Calvinist Hospitality [TRULE]

The title of this one caught my eye immediately. Have you ever seen a more perfect techno title? In fact, it reminds me a lot of early Blackest Ever Black releases in title, look, and sound—imagine Raime if they were just a little closer to techno. Using vintage delay units and other hardware, this four-track EP is among Wootton’s most distinct post-Deadboy works, sounding both of its time and eerily close to early-’80s industrial and post-punk. It’s unrelentingly dark, but it’s fun: check out the way the delay effects scorch the textures on “When Hempe Is Spun,” or how the hand percussion frames the d(r)eadened thump on the ten-minute title track, almost playfully. And a swung tabla lends a trance-y tint to “Facing The Horses Tail,” with flare-ups of noise and distortion like flecks of tar in crashing ocean waves.

Various - Hyaku [Samurai Music]

Samurai has been on a tear over the last six months, including December’s incredible Brendon Moeller album, and the spooky beat science of Spanish techno producer Reeko’s Urmah. This compilation, though, feels like discovering the label's long-lost ur text, blending the rowdy rhythms of their initial records with the dark experimentalism of Samurai’s latter days (and its incredible sister imprint Horo). Fans of darker techno and club music should be able to appreciate the gothy textures and rhythmic acrobatics on almost every track, but particular highlights come from founder Presha—whose “Ratcatcher” sounds like jungle combined with goa trance remixed by Nine Inch Nails—and Ancestral Voices, who has an uncanny way of making 170 BPM speed up and slow down right in front of your ears. Plus, banner turns from ASC, the Untouchables, Eusebeia, and Dom & Roland.

Mosam Howieson - PTC4 [Protection]

Australian producer Mosam Howieson has made all manner of electronic music over the years, often landing in a purple patch between techno and IDM, with textures that feel steely and futuristic but hardly ever cold. Enter his release on Haruka’s label Protection, which approaches techno with an open heart. Structured a bit unusually for a dance music 12-inch, this one has two 11-minute tracks on one side, and two chunks of regular-sized techno on the other. One of the longer cuts is gorgeous, windswept ambient, while the other moves on two axes simultaneously, starting out as a rather brittle techno track before a whole new rhythm bursts out in the middle. 

ASC - Tales Of Introspection [quiet details]

ASC is one of my favorite electronic music artists of all time. I could listen to his music forever, and sometimes I do. Whether he’s making rowdy drum & bass, old-school jungle, or ambient music, there’s a level of polish and a sense of austere beauty to everything he does, which is all the more remarkable considering how much he releases. Tales Of Introspection, released on the very-busy quiet details label, is a little different. Where ASC usually holds back a little in the emotion department, this one billows out with feeling, like the dam bursting after a one too many days of bottling things up. This has all the ASC trademarks—powdery pads, sighing melodies—but with bolder melodic brushstrokes that remind me of his old Deep Space mix series, where he put together video game and anime music with tracks by artists like Ulrich Schnauss. I’ve probably listened to this album more than any other this year. It’s addictive without demanding too much of you but still rewards deep listening. My favorite is “Safety In Numbers,” which sounds like ASC if he were on Kranky—drifting, dubby, daydreaming.