Interview with Kate and Iain from Rubbish Music

 RUBBISH MUSIC is the duo of Kate Carr and Iain Chambers. I asked them a few questions about their work and what drives them

1. There is a moment in life for every artist and musician to get inspired and move on towards a certain direction and commit to start doing what is closer to your interest? Can you describe this (those) moment(s)?

KC: Well for Rubbish Music that moment came about quite subtly in a way over several meetings and discussions. As we met to discuss how we might collaborate, and what we might focus on it slowly became clear to us both that rubbish was at the centre of our various ideas and we then quickly embraced the name of 'Rubbish Music' which set the framework even more clearly. From this moment of embracing the name of our duo, we still had many things to work out, such as if field recording (which we both do) would play a part in our duo, and if so how, and also how we would attempt to play live together, what methods we would pursue for that, also what types of rubbish we would play and how. So for me I don't see it as a certain moment, but a series of steps I suppose along a path, where one decision led us to the next and then the next.

IC: I would add that when we started practising together and establishing a musical language as a duo, that was a significant moment in terms of hearing something that sounded new to us, and being able to imagine many possibilities for future directions 

2. In your work there is a great sense of attentive listening which I feel is strongly related to your experience in field recording? How do you feel about it?

KC: I am sure field recording does play a role in Rubbish Music, even though our work includes very few actual field recordings. For me the technologies of field recording -- the particular mics (in particular contact mics) I have become very used to using have played a big role in our live performances. No doubt the ways in which I have attempted to record in the field with these types of mics, and my efforts to activate various structures in the field as well in order to record particular sounds has given me particular knowledges and skills which I now use in Rubbish Music to coax different sounds out of bottles, tin cans, crisp packets and the like.

IC: I think there is something of that sense of time and focus you get whilst recording in the field that is preserved in our longer form studio pieces. They feel like they emerge from a particular way of focusing attention on an emerging soundworld. Plus as Kate said, transporting into the studio the technology involved in making field recordings is interesting, as it makes any object potentially performable

 

3. Using litter, rubbish and other waste to create music is a great idea but can also be a message. What drives you to create sounds using those materials? 

KC: I would say there are a few layers to what we are doing and trying to communicate here. First there is the obvious message that rubbish and how we process and dump unwanted items is a big problem in today's world. There is so much more we could be doing around re-use and recycling which we are not, in part because for companies it is financially beneficial to have things break and cease working and also not to be readily repairable. This is a terrible aspect of capitalism and one which I hope we can change. So we do want to draw attention to that with our work, just how fucked up it is to have a world, particularly now given climate breakdown, which is structured around these throw away economies which are so wasteful and destructive. And then on a more positive I guess or creative level, the project offers us a very discrete challenge which is how to explore the range of sounds we can make with garbage, and how we might play them together as a duo. I am very curious about what sounds I might be able to make with these unlikely instruments, and also how I might approach playing them in the format of our duo, so this is another driver of the project.

4. How do you set up for your live gigs?

KC I use a looper, mixer, noise box, vocal mic, contact mic and sometimes geophone, which I run through my computer as I use a few plug ins there to vary the sound in particular ways. 

IC My rig is all hardware, no computer, but otherwise has similarities to Kate's - a looper so I can continue certain gestures in the moment, which I reset when switching sounds, contact microphones, ambient microphone, delays, reverbs, pitch-shifters, analogue filter 

5. How did you feel about collaborating with anyone before you met? What brought you together and how did you find the communication?

KC: I hadn't done a collaboration which was about playing live with someone else in this sort of intensive way. I had played different duo gigs, and also made one or two collaborative pieces, but not that many. I was quite a solo artist really for much of my practice until the last few years. Iain is more of a collaborator than me and he approached me about the possibility of doing something together, and he was also exploring quite a few other collaborations at that time as well. Given my history I did wonder how Iain and I would play together, and even if we would be able to. But I was quite curious to explore how that might take place, however, I think I was also open to it not working as well. I felt it was quite a low pressure environment really where we were just exploring different options to see if something might work, rather than feeling it had to. Iain and I have talked about this a few times now, so I think we are on the same page here in that we have both been somewhat surprised the project has had as much interest in it as it has so far. When we were first chatting about perhaps pursuing a project together I definitely was not expecting that two years later we would still be collaborating and have now travelled several times together to play gigs or give workshops. For me it has definitely been a surprise, but I think we have managed well with the communication even in a few fairly high pressure environments. I think the main thing is to check in from time to time as to how each other is experiencing the collaboration, and if any issues are emerging which need to be discussed.  

IC: We knew each other's solo work before we met in person, and got talking when we were both included on a field recording compilation. We each run a label (Persistence of Sound and Flaming Pines) and had been talking about that too before we started collaborating. The communication is the key thing, and it establishes where you overlap in your duo work, and what is a good fit for Rubbish Music. It's been nice exploring ideas together for our next steps, and as Kate said, we're pleasantly surprised by the momentum we've built up over two years. 

 

6. In an ever changing distribution of music how do you see your place and how do you feel about physical releases?

IC: It seems like there remains a committed global audience for sound art and experimental music, and in some cases that manifests itself through well-supported live music festivals. Bandcamp has clearly been a nexus for finding this type of music from anywhere in the world, so any major changes in the way that site operates would clearly have big implications for the ecology of this scene, and that applies to physical releases too. 

7.Plans for the future?

We have some exciting plans to develop a Waste Symphony, as well as ideas for developing physical installations using the soundworlds we've been immersing ourselves in for this project. There should be a new album later in 2025, and we'll also be performing shows with the percussionist Beibei Wang (playing junk percussion) in 2025, starting at Cafe Oto in London on March 3rd.

https://rubbishmusic1.bandcamp.com/