Sculpture Projects
Sculpture Projects interview
Listen to Restless EP on streaming services.
Sculpture Projects is the electronic music project of David Gauntlett, “ancient professor” of creativity at Toronto Metropolitan University (he is 51). We sat down with him in May 2022 for a conversation about what it is all about.
Have you been making music your whole life?
Oh no. This is a recent thing, going back six or seven years. Before that I’d loved music, recorded music in particular, electronic music, but I hadn’t thought about making it because that seemed like a whole other world. It didn’t especially occur to me, or I thought if I did it, it would be bad.
But then one day on the internet I accidentally saw that you could get proper interesting synths and music devices for not too much money and I thought ohhhhh – I could start doing this. Because it’s just making audio files isn’t it. That’s what recorded music is. It’s something you can actually make! This was a surprise.
By that point I had 20 years of experience of making digital things but they were visual things. I didn’t think about sound at all – despite also being obsessed with music.
So it seems deeply obvious now, but it was a memorable ‘wow’ moment at the time.
And so you assumed you’d be good at making music?
Oh no no. I kind of assumed I wouldn’t be good at making music, and that would make it more interesting – because I’m more used to doing creative things where I have some level of competence and it’s not too embarrassing. So this was meant to be more kind of hard.
Is it embarrassing now?
Well to some extent it’s always embarrassing. I mean I’d be less embarrassed if I was a young and cool person and not an older white guy making music, which seems like – well, who wants that? I don’t.
Well, I don’t as a rule, but then I make some exceptions. So I suppose I hope someone might make an exception for me for some reason. Not that I’m seeking an audience in particular.
The other thing in terms of embarrassment is that music taste is just very personal, and you can be great friends with someone but still be totally baffled by their music taste and you think oo crikey why do you like that? So even music taste can be embarrassing, and then when it’s something you’ve made, and then that’s inevitably very personal – that takes it to a whole new level.
Did it turn out to be as difficult as you thought?
Well it takes a lot of time to craft well-produced and carefully-mixed music, but that’s a well-known fact, and I kind of love the fact that pop music is made up of these very little things that have been worked on so much.
But I’ve turned out to be better at it than I thought – on my own terms. I mean by definition, I’m using all sounds that I like or that I find intriguing, and ideas that I am drawn to, and so of course I’m going to find it pretty satisfying just for myself.
I even wonder if some of the things I like are to do with individual physical properties of hearing. I mean, I love hi-hats and triangles and tinny or twinkly things happening at the top end, and maybe that’s just because I have tinnitus or something.
So the reasons why somebody might like a kind of music could be all kind of reasons. It’s sort of impossible to know if anyone else would genuinely like it.
You said you’re not seeking an audience? But really – aren’t you?
I know, it wouldn’t be surprising if I did want an audience. With writing books, for instance, I definitely do want those books to have readers. If the books didn’t have an audience it would be terrible and pointless.
But with the music, I do just like making it. And I think I learn a lot about the creative process by making it and by struggling with making it, and all the thoughts that go with the process which are not just about music-production directly but are about things like how you fit into a landscape, and if you want to fit in.
You’ve released it though.
Well that’s true, and it’s very satisfying to get to a point where I have a specific thing to put out in the world. And to create the things around it, like this CD package, and this record label.
I’m not really expecting people to like it though. I’d like to think that there’s some people who might like it, but I recognize that my music may never find them – we live in a world with a lot of music in it. That’s fine.
And you do know that nobody listens to CDs any more?
Of course. I don’t listen to CDs either. But my CD package is an art object. You’re not meant to play it. If it reminds you to look up the music on your streaming service, then that’s good. And you can enjoy the package, with its words and pictures. The actual bit where you put the CD disc into a CD machine is not necessarily expected to happen.
Doesn’t that make it wasteful?
Does it though? I’m not sure. Lots of things we buy comes in packaging that we throw away, and that’s wasteful. But this is not that. This is a permanent product for people to cherish – that’s the whole idea. So it’s no more wasteful than, say, a book is wasteful, and we don’t think of books as wasteful. I think this logic makes sense.
What’s next?
One nice thing about releasing this EP is that it means I have kind of completed this phase, and I’ve demonstrated, if only to myself, that I could do it.
And so then I can move on to the next phase. Which is liberating and refreshing. I did like this phase. But the next one can be exciting too. I imagine that the next phase is all about long ambient works, but that might not happen, because I’m paranoid about being boring, or being thought of as boring.
That’s absolutely why this EP is called Restless, because I might have liked it to be quite gentle, but there’s always things happening.
____________
Listen to Restless EP on streaming services.
View Restless EP in our catalogue.
Track by track breakdown of Restless EP.