Wrapping up the Rollaroll interviews for the year, this time with Scissor Lock:
How did you get into making and performing music under the name Scissor Lock?
When i was 14, i started playing around with all the shitty musical equipment i had, mainly with guitar, making this really delay heavy experimental music. Some of it sounds really quite otherworldly, and there's no way i could reproduce that kind of sound now, back then it truly was experimental. I had no idea what i was doing, which gives it a certain charm.
Why the name "Scissor Lock"?
Who knows. it has lots of meanings -- slang for sleep paralysis in north america, a wrestling move (think scissor, lock), and i generally choose whichever of them seems appropriate at the time. I think i just liked the sound of it, since i was a fan of the band Dredg when i was 14, who have a song called "scissor lock".
How many releases have you released under this name?
I think its around ten now. In some ways I wish I'd paced myself a little more, or been less tenacious or precious about the content that i allowed out into the public, because i've come to regret many moments one or two of those releases -- Above & Below particularly. Its all part of growing and shedding skin i'd imagine.
How would you define or describe your sound?
I used to call it experimental solo post rock but it never really had much of a stylistic focus. At the moment you could probably say its pretty focused on sonority and colour, particularly in terms of attempting to compose bits and pieces of sound electro-acoustically, whether it be
voice, or a reed instrument, or plain old guitar, without losing the integrity of either element, blurring organicism with the electronic. I've become a little obsessed with a lot South East Asian folk music, so that's another element i've been juggling with -- i think that began as a sidestep from the release i did which was based mainly around Himalayan singing bowls.
What equipment do you use to perform live with?
I used to play guitar and occasionally sing through a guitar amp -- the live show used to be a little more ambient guitar oriented, but now i've been playing through an interface running audiomulch on a laptop.
Forgetting all that, though, the central tool has been the loop sampler of the DL-4 delay modeler, which has been useful for me particularly because of the decay that it has, which encourages newer musical ideas to progressively push out older ones and has an interesting influence on the life of an improvisation.
This year has seen you move leaps and bounds; from performing shows with some of the heavyweights of the Australian experimental scene (e.g. Grey Daturas at Static Age Festival) to your upcoming collaboration with Jasper Tx and Mirrored Silver Sea, how does it all feel?
Firstly, that's a split with Jasper TX, which I'm unbelievably excited for, not least for it being my first release on wax. In terms of experimental music, Australia's a particularly friendly musical environment, its not all that difficult to find people who'll lend an ear, a word of advice, or even a show without much prompting. I've profited from this sort of atmosphere and I'm really grateful to people like Cam Webb (Seaworthy), Andrew Tuttle (Anonymeye), Seth Rees, Shoeb Ahmad and a number of others who've provided a motivation to continue with the project.
Tell me more about your upcoming split and any other future releases you may have slated for this year (or next).
The 7 inch with Jasper TX is part of sound&fury's Passeridae 7 inch split singles series, with pairs Australian artists with their international counterparts. As much as i feel far less than Dag Rosenqvist's counterpart, i'm really looking forward to see how the two pieces work against each other. I still havn't actually heard Dag's side of the 7 inch, so it should be a pleasant surprise for Christmas. Thanks Mr. Adam D. Mills!
There's a collaboration with Mousetrapreplica which should be arriving on Monstera Deliciosa, Crab Smasher's label, early next year. I'm launching a split 3 inch CD-R with Seaworthy at Bohemian Grove on 1st February, which involves Seaworthy reconstructing a piece of mine. There's also a CD-R on hellosQuare in around April called "Now", which i recorded the summer 2 years ago as a sort of last hurrah to post-rock. Then, we'll see what happens with the Mirrored Silver Sea material.
Which current bands interest and excite you?
From what was released this year, the albums by Richard Skelton, Why?, Atlas Sound and Nico Muhly have been the best of a huge number of bits and pieces i've been creaming my pants off to. Locally though, Qua, 3ofmillions, Ohana and Ghoul have been awesome to watch and listen to, "Silver Red", the Qua EP from earlier in the year is probably my pick of the Australian releases.
What really excited me right now though is a prospect of a new Solo Andata album. Those guys are my heroes. Elsewhere, i've been listening to lots of Art Ensemble of Chicago and Stravinsky, but my head's been firmly adjusted to stuff that's been released this year in the past few weeks, catching up on all the shit i missed out on when i was doing the HSC thing.
And lastly, Isis or Mogwai?
Mouth Of The Architect!
Note: Look forward to some more interviews with us in the new year!
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