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Saddleback

With two splendid albums on Australia’s Preservation imprint, Tony Dupé, aka Saddleback, deserves to be a household name, at least where modern classical and electronic music are served on a regular basis. “Night Maps” is one of 2007’s finest releases and the most fully realized work to date from an artist to be watched.

I assume you're sitting in that black desk chair that can be seen in the "Night Maps" booklet?

Almost, I’m in one of the comfy gold armchairs.

Ah, those are in the photos, too. If this is your house, then it is a studio full of instruments and recording equipment. Music must play a major part in your life!

I live in this nice wooden house with only cows for neighbours and I work full time making albums for people, songwriters mainly. It's a great environment for creativity and sanity. I really love instruments so I have way too many and I use them making arrangements for people and making music for Saddleback. I have an analog and digital equipment and all the rooms have a nice warm reverb. It's a productive life.

I wonder how you would describe the relationship between your production work and making your own music: How do they influence each other? What is it that you spend more time on and what do you prefer?

Doing production pays the bills and allows me to experiment, create and relate to music for many hours a week. I like working in response and working with other people provides that situation. When doing Saddleback, the musical conversations are more internal which is harder and probably more revealing and challenging for me personally. They are both good in
different ways, I guess.

What artists have you been working with in the past?

A few albums I have produced have been released in Europe for Holly Thorsby and Jack Ladder. Other people that I am working with are quite unknown but very talented artists. It's quite hard here to be heard and appreciated.

Yeah, I guess so, and I was wondering what the conditions were for experimental musicians working down under, in terms of musical and financial recognition. At least from where I live Australia seems to be so far away. Is there a scene or at least a circle of friends, an audience? Is it an imperative - and a realistic option - to get a world wide audience? On a related note: Are there any other projects you are currently involved in?

It is very hard here. There are definitely a healthy number of people making music and probably good communities within the city, but the audience is small though committed. Which means nobody can make money from it. We desperately need other audiences but as you say we are a long way away. Since I have chosen music as my life I have poured all my energy into understanding it and ignoring commerce. You really need to shout loud to be heard from Australia. I am working on about six different albums for various people but for one of them I am creating all the music. Her name is Lauren Horton and she makes up songs without music, and I make the music under just a vocal. It's challenging but so much fun. I get to play everything!

Your own albums have been put out by Preservation. What's your relation to that label and how did you get hooked up with them?

I have known Andrew [Khedoori of Preservation] for many years and have always valued his opinion. When I was working on my first album [“Everything’s a Love Letter”] I gave him a copy and he encouraged me and showed interest in releasing it. The label does a great job of presenting their releases with Mark Gowing as designer. They are a great team with a distinctive touch.

What were your key musical influences and what are you listening to these days?

Having worked in a music store for years my listening and influences are pretty wide and (I think) quite subconscious. I really love minimalism, people like Arvo Part and Steve Reich, I love the ECM label (especially John Surman), but I also really love Django and early jazz, Chet Baker, organic electronica on the Leaf label, Morr Music and Karaoke Kalk, folk music old and new, songwriters like Smog, Will Oldham, Joanna Newsom, Satie, Chopin, Debussy, Jobim, Tom Waits. If my music sounds like any of these people then that's fine but I would prefer that it sounded like me.

You've already mentioned your creative process when making music for Saddleback, calling it an "internal conversation". What is it that you get inspiration from and what is the creative process as you experience it?

Because of my love of instruments and sound and my desire to use my ears to navigate me, my inspiration is generally to try to release how I feel into the performance. So I am sometimes surprised by what comes out and then I shape it and respond to it again. I’m
mainly just improvising and then listening to what I like, keeping it, building around it, repeating it and playing again. This goes on always just keeping what I like and trying to sense what the music wants to do. Sometimes it dies in your hands and other times it flowers and flowers. I love it and get totally lost in it.

I find the idea fascinating that the music is taking over at times, that it "wants to do" something. Actually I've heard writers say something similar about their work: That the text does something, is developing its own logic and intelligence. If you’ve got the necessary technical skills to get there, that is. So where / when / how did you learn to play all those instruments?

I just started as a lost teenager drawn to music, played in bands and started making albums for my band in a house by the sea in a small country town. I thought it was the best part of playing music so I set myself up in the house for half of the week each week and worked in Sydney two hours away running a CD store for the other half. Over several years I made many albums and slowly got more instruments. Then I moved to a house on Saddleback Mountain which was nearby to where I was and kept working away. Eventually I moved to the country full time and now I can just get by but I have spent thousands of hours playing and listening and I feel happy with my skills. I feel fluent and I yearn for deep, meaningful conversation.

I guess that also explains your project’s name.

If that's fine with you, let's talk about more general aspects of what you do. Your music blends post rock, folk, classical and electronic music. All things considered (music, audiences, production and distribution methods...): Would you say that what you do is part of the pop or rather of the classical field?

I don't think I can look at my music in any other way that you might look at a close relative. It might sound silly but I try to let go of it when it leaves here and bid it the best of luck. Go find some friends, I tell it.

I was asking about pop and classical because here in Europe, one key distinction between pop and classical can be made by looking at the funding: Pop music mostly has to rely on the 'market' and on self-exploitation, which means that most musicians have to make ends meet taking other jobs, etc. Classical, however, relies heavily on funding by (private or government) institutions. I've noticed that "Night Maps" was supported by the Kiama Council Cultural Grants Program. What kind of program is that and how did the support get about?

It's the local council for the small town that I lived near who have small grants for local artists. It was a small amount but everything helps when you are a musician. The funding situation here is pretty bad because the arts are not really understood or encouraged by the bureaucrats. Personally I feel that it is much better to find an audience than meet the criteria of some arbitrary board. I am fairly self sufficient because I have my studio so I can make music without funding, it just takes longer.

Speaking of your music going out and finding friends, I've been wondering whether you also perform live. And if so, how on earth do you play these multi-instrumental tracks live?

It's tricky. I performed after the first album using some loops and improvising over them with a small group of piano, cello, bass, trumpet and drums. I’ve been too daunted to try with this one because I live two hours from the players and it would take a lot of work. I will probably try something soon, though.

I wonder what your approach is towards working with loops and improvisation, especially when it comes to the dynamics that are so interesting in your work. How, for example, can a loop work towards building up tension? And how, in general, would you describe the potential and difficulties in combining loops and improvisation?

I have found that working with Pro Tools, which is very sympathetic to working in a collage fashion, it is quite easy to cut things up and move them around. It's great to just grab notes and move them, repeat them and just play with them. Everything that I use was made within the track so they have a rhythmic and melodic relationship, so there is great freedom for happy accidents and synchronicity. I never use click tracks, they are always musical fragments repeated which to me have flavour. I really love loops for their rhythmic precision which helps for instruments that I can't play as well. I do need live playing with them for me to feel the music breathe and have more fluid lines.

I find the photos in the "Night Maps" booklet fascinating. They remind me of pictures of artists (painters) in their studios. You could almost call those a sub-genre used by artists to convey their artistic programmes or at least to display the means they use. If I look at the “Night Maps” photos that way, what stands out is the wealth of musical instruments, but also hints at influences like Dylan's "Pat Garrett" album, a French dictionary, finally objects like a badminton cone. How did the idea for the cover photography come about? How would you describe your relationship to Western and native Australian tradition? And finally why are you, the artist, absent from the pictures / the house / the studio?

I was in Germany when the photos were taken and a friend was staying who was listening to Pat Garrett. He works for the designer who half-runs my label who came and took the photos. I felt the music made sense here and I thought it represented it in essence and mood. I like human music and I’m interested in how humans live and how they work. I like when I hear music and I think, where does this actually come from, with what and why.

My relationship with Australia is mainly through the land, the sea and the trees and the sense of space, the colours and sounds. I feel mainly adrift from the society.

I would love to move to Europe for a period of time and see what comes out of me in a different environment. I feel like new inspiration would be good, new challenges, new culture. I hope to find more opportunities to make music in response to things and to develop and expand my language. I’d also like to get my music heard more broadly because I am finally proud of where I am at.

Have you played other continents in the past and is there any chance we might be able to see you perform live in the US or in Europe?

I would love the opportunity to play in Europe especially but it hasn't happened yet. Hopefully next year.

What else can we expect from you / Saddleback in the future?

The first album "Everything's A Love Letter" will be reissued with some remixes in 2008. I hope to travel to Europe in 2008 to stay awhile and record a new album. I will also be creating a soundtrack for an animation with the artist Emma Magenta. I’m hoping for more collaborations and music for film, theatre, dance would also be exciting.

-- Jan-Arne Sohns (19 December, 2007)

reviews related to Saddleback....

Saddleback "Night Maps" A stunning album on the Preservation imprint... review :: by Jan-Arne Sohns (19 December, 2007)