Le Navire Night

Eric Létourneau rencontre RITCHIE HAWTIN PLASTIKMAN

Cette entrevue fut réalisée le lendemain de la prestation de M. Hawtin qui était présentée dans le cadre du Festival du nouveau cinéma et des nouveaux médias de Montréal en 1998.

Éric Létourneau installe son équipement dans le restaurant, encore désert, de l'hôtel. C'est l'après-midi. En bas on voit la rue Cherrier et son terre-plein, en voie de congélation. Eric est timide en anglais : soyez indulgent s'il-vous-plaît.

On peut rejoindre Eric Létourneau à l'adresse suivante : eric_létourneau@yahoo.com

Eric Létourneau : We are with Ritchie Hawtin. Hello Ritchie.

Ritchie Hawtin : Hi. How are you?

EL : Good. And you? How do you feel you after your performance of yesterday ? I think it finished quite late, around 4 maybe?

Richie Hawtin: Yes, we finished around just after 3 o'clock, 3 a.m., and then we had to pack some of the equipment up and then we had some food, then we went to the Stereo Club, a new club in Montreal and go back to the hotel around 5:30 a.m. Yeah, a long night but typical type of evening for me because I travel a great deal … and whenever I perform I end up performing very very late, so 3 a.m. is actually very early. Sometimes I perform until 6 a.m. or 7 a.m.

É.L. : Do you perform many times a week, in this kind of event?

R.H. : This event was quite different because it was a little bit more free form and experimental. You know, I was able to play some music which was with beats and dance, dance music also some more experimental things but, you know, going out and playing records and performing I probably do two or three times a week. Sometimes, I have a couple of weeks off but since June I've been probably averaging three of four gigs a week.

É.L. : I didn't know before the show what to expect because I saw the synthesizers and the sequencer and the drum machines. I was thinking that you planned to perform with that and I was surprised, at the beginning, that you used only the records, but you really used the records as a musical instrument.

R.H. : The equipment infront of me was for another guy for my record label Minus, his name is Therim. He performed a hundred per cent live and my show consisted of turntables and a drum machine and some effects. I was able to use records in even a more creative way. Once you learned how to add records together, subtract sounds and modify sounds, it can be a very creative process with two turntables.

É.L. : You played, I think, a few records that you produced yourself with your label. We were wondering what is the advantage to use the vinyl instead of the CD. Because, I think now the technology is there that you can use the CD also to change the speed, play with it, etc…

R.H. : You can change speed and everything with CDs, the sound is better in some ways but, you know, the CD medium is actually, it's digital so it's very clean but you actually, in some ways, you get a greater depth of sound on vinyls sometimes. You get more noise but there are characteristics that I like about the vinyl and of course there's still something very special about it. You move and touch with your hands. We're in a society where tactile, our sense of touch, is a very very important sense and to hold the records, spin the record faster or slower, or stop it with your hand is very important. That's probably the main reason I still use turntables. It would be a lot easier to use CDs because I wouldn't have to carry so much. (Rires)

É.L . : Yeah, it's lighter. I noticed that you used also a digital effect and also a pedal which was connected probably to the effects.

R.H. : It's very rock'n roll ! The effects are an important module because it enables me to change the records and add things and really really modify the sound and it's just another dimension. It offers me a lot more potential and the foot pedal again it enables me to do more things at once. I need my hands for the turntables. When I first started to use these effects I also had to touch that by hands a lot and now with the foot pedal I can have two records going, a drum machine and I can also modulate the sound with my feet and it works well.

É.L. : It was quite fascinating to watch you performing that because, well, I think you're a kind of virtuoso of the live EQ because you never stopped to change a sound, add some other sources or add an effect or make an effect and you never stop also to changed the levels between the different sources and that was very great because it was really big amplitudes or...

R.H. : There's a lot of dynamic too when I play. It isn't just about beats or about a certain style of music. It's also about sound. It's also about silence and the differences between that. Some things I play louder, some things I don't let the bass come through as much some things I just even bring up the high and the middle range even too much. You know it's really on the verge of being painful for the ears, and then bring it back. So I'm trying to play with all the different colors of sounds and not only go to the left or to the right but also go to the up and down, north, south, east, west in every direction possible.

É.L. : It was fascinating also to see how you gave a physical experience to the crowd who, most of the time, was dancing, but when you were putting the dynamics lower, it was interesting to see people who were claping hands and suddenly were able to produce sounds themselves and have a different consciousness of their own body …

R.H. : You know some people look at DJs in just one directional medium. The DJ plays, he's speaking to the crowd but there's a lot of collaboration and cooperation between the two. As people starting to dance more and, after, I thought I had given them enough rhythm I started to subtract that down and then as I saw them to start to wonder then you bring another thing and you know you have to keep in tune with what you're doing, what you want to do and what the people are doing and what they're thinking.

É.L. : That could be quite difficult I think.

R.H. : Sometimes, of course, sometimes it works better than other times but it worked quite well last night. We were very close to the people and you get an atmosphere and a kind of a vibe of the people so you try to work with that.

É.L. : When you think about a set like the set of yesterday night, do you plan some actionds in advance.

R.H. : No, the only planning that goes into it . . . I can only bring so many records. So, for any given set, sometimes I have two boxes, one box. Last night I had maybe 80 records. I knew that I only had that material but aside from that it's spontanuous. I didn't really know which records I was going to play first until I came on because right before I came on I kept changing and deciding what I should play first and the drum machine has no information and it's built live and the effects, for every different show I do, I go in… I start…I program all the new effects for the evening and sometimes I add new things. Last night I made new effects that I never used before. So it's always involving and changing and I'm always trying to modify things and give people things slightly different.

É.L. : I mentioned that you were a virtuoso of the EQ. When I was watching you performing, I was thinking that it was almost like seeing almost a classical musician performing. I mean you were so precise in the movements you had to do and you were doing so many movements and you never stopped for, I think, three or four hours. It was amazing.

R.H. : I'm not up there to keep people interested watching me just for the sake of it I'm only moving when I need to be moving. I move all of the time because I am trying to change effects and change the EQ but everything is quite precise and quite necessary. There isn't much unecessary movements. So I guess it does look very pure and very nearly scientific, I guess.

É.L. : For how long did you work to make live EQ and live mixing?

R.H. : It's just a combination of many years. I started DJing in 1987 and where I grew up DJing in the Detroit, in Windsor area, where I'm from, a lot of the DJs . . . there was very special things for the area for the people using the EQ and stuff and so I developed my own style with that and it became very much a part of my Djing, my performances and my recording technics and so you just become kind of in tune with the machines that you use and the ideas that you want to represent. I've been using that particular mixing board very much for the last two years and each one has a different, slightly different sound and so I know what the controls do very good now just slight movements do this and don't go too far this way, but you can go, you know, very far this way. The DJs, the musicians, the producers of electronic music, the EQ is one of the most powerful tools. It's very much like an instrument. With a saxophonist, you change the structure of your fingers where they are in the holes to let air through. You use different pressure and how you blow so for us one other way to change the color of the sound, the intensity is to move the EQ.

É.L. : What is the difference for you between producing your own music on the records and doing things live. I mean when you work for the record, are you using the same kind of technics with real time manipulation?

R.H. : Most of the things I work on, without going into heavy details, is real time. In the studio, I'm not the type of person who records to multitrack and goes back over and over and over things. I usually record things in one pass and it's very hands on, you know. If the sound needs to change, I have to jump over to different parts of the studio and turn knobs. It's always been very hands on the mix the way I DJ and perform. The two are also very inseparable because a lot of the ideas represented go back and forth. I tried something on the dance floor or the performance and that inspires something in the studio and that idea maybe gets more often into new idea which then gets again tried out on my next performance. So it's back and forth. It's like a generative loop that is slowly involving and moving forward.

É.L. : When I listened to this performance, I found that you had a deep understanding about the relationship between the rhythm, structure and the tembral structure. I'm wondering how did you come to that kind of esthetic?

R.H. : That's just something you can't really learn.

ÉL : You simply feel it ?

RH : You feel and you maybe just own the skill. It's something that . . . You know, you can't give to someone who doesn't have it. I think it's like a trate*, it's a characteristic of the person and … it's just something that is growing progressively. I've been more and more and more in tune over the last couple of years. When you first start, you have different people, people who know how to put things together because of tone, people who can put things together because of rhythm. When you can combine those two then it becomes kind of very amorphis thing fluent to one another without people really noticing and maybe without yourself noticing.

É.L . : I felt a lot of influence, of course, from afro-american music but also perhaps music from other places. Where your inspiration is coming from for the composition the rhythmic structures?

R.H. : Well, the thing with electronic music is just inspiration and influences from all over the world and all over the spectrum of different musics and I have a kind of eclectic taste, I mean to very experimental german bands, to some jazz like Miles Davis and things like some Dub. It's like the world becomes less like ten countries and becomes more like one world. Music becomes more like one music. It can just draws different influences and inspiration from all over the place, and that's the interesting thing. That's how new ideas and new musics are created by passing to musical or to opposing ideas together and hopefully coming out with something new.

É.L. : Do you feel that, now, more and more people are producing music and are doing their own music and, in a certain way, it's very strange because now I think a lot of people feel it's really difficult to follow what is happening now because there are so many things happening?

R.H. : Yes, it is true, it's like with anything especially anything associated with technology, things get smaller and smaller, faster and faster and that offers you newer, greater potential and greater amount of possibilities. Now, there's too much of information sometimes, too many products, too many records, too much music, but also along with that, comes information, types of technology like the internet and new sources of allowing people to find out new things. So, maybe now there's more music, more information out there but it's not like you have to go and pick the paper. Now you can go on the internet and kind of search for something that you want. That kind of this type of music and this with maybe this type of rhythm and suddenly, hopefully in your screen pops up. You should check out these artists and so maybe there's a lot more possibilities out there but there's also a greater possibility for a person to find something new.

É.L. : Is your minimal approach can be related to that excess of information we're living in now?

R.H. : Yes. I'm not one for an over abundance of information of anything. I really like the internet. I think there's a lot of potential there but there's a lot of potential to get too much, but if you use it for the right way it allows you to get just the specific things you need, and that's what we're really trying to do with my music, with my record label and the things that we are associated in. Even with the visuals last night we didn't have tons and tons of flashy visuals. It was just very specific and … in some people minds. That's what we're trying to do. We're just trying to get to the hearth of the matter, the very specifics of it and hopefully by giving people small reference points, small bits of information, they can put together and get a greater picture.

É.L. : There was an experience people are living in this kind of celebration. We often talk about kind of ritual. I was wondering how do you feel about that. Do you feel that this kind of art have a ritual place or a profane place? What is your feeling about . . . ?

R.H. : You can look at both sides. A lot of these events, the way that this type of music people attracks and the crowds and the atmosphere is very ritualistic, but things like last night when you have that kind of approach, you have all these people together and all these things acting on another. It really can become something also profound. I think people felt something last night. They were exposed to new things. They were able not only to dance, to talk to people, they were also able to sit back and think about the music and really get a sense of something else. That level it can become profound, it can, in some way, speak very very directly to people because electronic music is probably the purest music around. It's also because of the lack of vocals and speech and reference points to language. It also can talk to people again on a very pure level, to all types of people no matter who you are, where you're from, what color, what language you speak. Even on that level it can become very profound because it can reach many many many people.

É.L. : I think you mentioned that the visual element was involved in more or less that process too. Did you create the visuals ?

R.H. : No. The visuals were created by a friend of mine who has a company called Chromicide and we did, in collaboration with Silicon Graphics. We've done some projects together before, so we talked a lot about our ideas, but we also put each of our ideas together to form new things. The visuals were collaboration of what some other things reflected the music I was doing some also in their own ideas.

É.L. : Are you practicing some visual art discipline yourself?

R.H. : Not really too much visual. I'm working in some type of installation type medium right now. One of the extra room of the event last night, the Simon room, was one of the first pieces I have done. And again those pieces work . . . I try to combine the audio and the visual together to kind to create a certain atmosphere. Very much like what I do when I perform but a way that it can be self-reliant nearly like it's alive and you can leave it do its own thing. I think I'm going to explore those possibilities even more and more.

É.L. : I noticed that in the videos, there was a lot of blue color - like in the design of your Consume album. In some Anish Kapor work that I think you like . . . I read that in the Wire or somewhere . . .

R.H. : You know his work?

EL : Yes, pretty well.

RH : The Consume album was differently inspired by a lot of Anish's early works with the blue pigment pieces. A lot of my music, for the last four or five years, have had many different concepts, many ideas about a certain concept of house town* relates to each other. I've always been interested in this space between sounds and also about silence and how that reacts with sounds. When you start talking about sounds and space, you start to talk about an undefined amount of room, undefined areas, places which go further than you can perceive. A lot of these ideas start to visually become works nearly like what Anish Kapor is doing. Anish's work was nearly a way of me being able to see how I see sound in my head. Again, that became very focussed inspirational point for Consume. We'll see what will happen in the future. It could get interesting.

É.L. : I always feel that when you see one of his work, it's like if the entire space where the work exposed is changed like if you put anything in the space it changes, but especially his work is like doing a gap in the space and I felt a little bit the same especially when I listened to your CD " Concept I ". Does that make sense?

R.H. : No. For sure. I hadn't seen any of the work of Anish Kapor before " Concept I " but the ideas that made Concept I came out of what I saw in my head and Anish's work looks to me how I see my sounds sometimes. It does as much as it's all about space and room. It's about how the sounds interact together but also interact with the space that they're played in or the space that Kapor work is displayed in. It's a very interesting thing. A lot of people just make music for just to play out. They don't really take into consideration where it's going be played but that says much where an album like Consume is going to be played, how it's going to be played, reacts with the atmosphere that it creates. It would sound very much different in this room than it would in a huge hall with bigger speakers. That is definitely an important point about my works and works like Anish Kapor.

É.L. : I think in Anish Kapor work, in some perio ... s, he used a lot of blue, a little bit like the Yves Klein blue, and I noticed that there was more or less this kind of blue a lot in this kind of video…

R.H. : With that color, the blue, it's a shade that starts to become towards the cross over between blue and black where things start to appear infinite, where things can go on for ever and ever, where you can never decide for how much depth it's actually there. That's why I like Kapor's work, that's why I like that color. That's what Consume is really suppose to be about. In the sonic sense, as you listen to it, as you get further and further into the sound, then maybe you find another level of sound. Everytime you think you have found the end, there was always more space. I don't think you can never listen to it and always say yes I've heard everything, I know exactly what it is.

EL : You can't never know is your perception is right…

RH : You can understand some bits but you can never truly know. It's like many of Anish's works. You never know how really far it's going back. Maybe you know, but your visual cortex can never really figure out how deep it is, and how much space is contained within.

É.L. : That could sound like a simplistic question. Do you feel that, in your mind, you can associate some sounds with some colors or it doesn't make any sense?

R.H. : No I think so. I can, with the blue, the black color, if you're talking about things falling away to infinity, I like to use sounds which are somewhat specific but also mould into the background of things. You can get a rough idea of the structure of the sound, but you can't really truly define it, exactly. If you're trying to picture that sound, I think again you're looking at the color spectrum of blues and purples to black. There's a shape but maybe you can't really just see the *.

É.L. : I would like to refer to to your installation because, the Simon Room, where each note is associated with a specific color. Did you choose specific colors for specific notes ?

R.H. : No. Simon, the two times we installed it probably each time we weren't able to get the exact same jells - so the important thing about Simon is associating a tone with a color, not a specific color with a tone because sometimes the tone changes and each time I've installed it sometimes I change the sounds but it's more allowing the participant, the person who is inside, to start to associate those colors. Some people wouldn't normally associate the yellow or red with that tone, but, in this room, you have to; it is already set and it creates an interesting environment for the listener and for the observer.

É.L. : This game is about memory and it's strange because most of you music, as you said earlier - each time you listen to it, you have a different experience, so you can never really memorize the music. Is it all right that your work has a lot to do with that idea?

R.H. : There's always a sense of randomness but still in a structure. My original music was very much more structured then you could remember it. Now things even to the blue and black they fade in and fade out. Nothing is truly examined or explained and so it's very hard to always remember. You know something is coming, but you can't remember exactly when it comes and when it goes. Like the Simon, part of the interesting thing about the Simon is the actual game that was based on. The Simon game was all also about memory, and it was nearly always a test of intelligence to some people. Memory and intelligence, and how many who could win, crazy ideas. Simon is always the same eight notes. It's always the same color to the note, but I allow the computer to randomly pick when it decides to play the notes. It's impossible to memorize unless the computer accidentally falls into a rhythm, which is possible. You never know.

É.L. : Did you program that with MAX?

R.H. : No. It's a special hardware sequencer.

É.L. : I will talk about pragmatic things for a moment -about the social situation of the artist. About the record label for instance .. I have some very simple questions. I know that the vinyl is nice to work with for the DJs, but I was wondering how can somebody who is doing this type of music can live from producing few twelve inches a year. It could be quite difficult for most of the artists to live from that.

R.H. : One of the problems right now, there isn't a very huge number of records you can sale. The sales potential for twelve inch is not that good unless you do very commercial recording which we're not really interested in or a lot of people aren't. It's really a sense of having a number of things going at the same time. With our label, with Minus we release the vinyle, we release the CD of some certain projects. For myself, I also run the label, I also DJed and performed all over the place. All together, it enables us to keep going. If we were to rely on one thing, I don't know if we would be able to continue. Also, I wouldn't want to rely on one thing because, if you have to rely on something to keep you going, to keep you financially stable or anything like that, then it becomes, there's a certain question that may have to arise about what you have to release or can you take time off or do you have to release to keep going. It gets into a very weird situation when you're talking about something which is considered as art and something which is very close to you. By doing a number of things, which are all interelated, you can do something more than one or the others and then switch and do things how you feel. If we don't feel like releasing too many records, maybe we put more of our energy into performances or to installations or to events. It's slowly changing from one spectrum to the other but always focusing on similar ideas.

É.L. : A lot of people who starts a records company have this problem with the distribution. How did you solve that?

R.H. : We were very lucky because we started in 1990 with my partner John Acquaviva first record label Plus8 Records and when we started electronic music, the electronic music scene was very young and the distributors were very looking for a lot of new productions. It wasn't an open door but once we got in the door, it was quite easy and people stocked with us because we really stocked behind, and believed in what we were doing. We just built up a very good distribution chain, a lot of colleagues, a lot of friends and a lot of people who really helped us out. Now it's becoming increasingly hard because there's more and more people like you said setting a records company, more and more records coming out, more for the distributors to choose from and it's harder and harder to get a distribution or just to get your records out there. There's not really any right or wrong way to do it. I think one of the best things that is helping a lot of new upcoming produces and labels is the internet because it allows you to get your music to many many more people than it would ever been thought possible. If you can get people asking for your records or your music and listening to it, even before you pressed it, then the distributor would be a lot more interested in your work.

É.L. : Do you think that this situation have an influence on what you choose to release?

R.H. : With the internet?

É.L. : I mean the situation that perhaps it's more and more difficult by the distributors and . . .

R.H. : For now, it's like when we started. Because we got in there, the distributors and we built up a catalog. The distributors knew we're really behind, supporting what we believed in. We can do records which they can sell very many of, we can do very strange records, we'll take six months off and will release another record. We're really free to do what we wanted to do, but I think now the distributor at the end of the day is a money making machine. It's a business. They want to buy records. If they buy 500, they want to sell 500. They don't want to buy 500 and sit on 200 of them. They're going to buy things that they know will sell. A lot of people, to get into the door now, maybe have to think: well, maybe I should do something else, not exactly what I want to do but just to get myself into the door. I'm not here to say if that's good or bad. I would say if you can get yourself in the door, do what you have to do as long as you stick to the original idea. If it's a way to get where you go, then do what you have to do. If you " bange " your ideas and your ideology just to the distributors just to get through there, then you're probably not doing very much interesting anyway.

É.L. : As a composer, do you feel free to really express all the ideas you have or you feel restricted by this kind of situation?

R.H. : No. I felt restricted a couple of years ago but really with Consume, I felt a lot more freer and I'm beginning to feel more freer because the whole atmosphere is changing. A couple of years ago, electronic music was really confined to the dance clubs and it's really spreading. It's spreading to the homes, to the cars, to everyday life. It's starting to intermingle with installation work and our work. The FCMM was exactly that. Different people from all " walks " of life. That gives new potential to what we can try and new potential for the amount of people who are out there saying " Hey ! I can hear what he's doing. It's very interesting. " I think we're at the beginning of a whole new section of the history of electronic music now.

É.L : I think it's interesting because you mentioned earlier that you used the silence and a lot of the sounds between the sounds. This is, of course, an idea close to John Cage. It's interesting to see that this kind of music you are producing which is now part of everyday life can manifest this idea. I think this situation is quite new in the world of non-academic music. . . How do you feel about that?

R.H. : I don't really know too much about John Cage but it's a strange topic - because increasingly we're surrounded by more and more and more noise, more and more sounds which . . . We don't even realize that they're there. It's like the music in the background of the chatter. Air condition is running, tap is going. There is always something in the background. A lot of people seems to get even more and more uneasy around silence. I really enjoy it. Twenty, forty years ago, there was a big bang or a loud crash or someone was talking too loud, everyone was like what's going on? And now noise doesn't bother people so much but when there is (Ritchie arrête de parler un moment pour écouter les sons du restaurant) everyone is like " what's going on "? It's nearly like we've had a reversal in communication and sound structures. It's very interesting maybe that's why as there is more and more information, there's more technology, our lives are faster and faster. I think my music has always been an escape for people and I think maybe now it's increasingly more. I'm giving people sounds and slight structures but also a way to get into something but also a way to get out of something else. Maybe that's why it starts to become more interesting for people.

É.L : I'm sure it could be very interesting to listen to your music in a really quiet place like . . . I was living myself in the countryside for two years and really in a place, in the mountains, you know, in a place where every little sound I mean you can hear a bird that walks on the water like 500 meters away. When I arrived here, in the city, you always have this perpetual background noise. I'm sure when you listen to the music in these two different contexts, the music sounds so different. Have you ever tried to do something in some really quiet places in the nature or something else related to the countryside sound environment?

R.H. : To record or just to go?

EL : To record or to perform.

RH : Not to perform. But acouple of years ago, I went down to Easter Island which is on the west coast of South America. It's also called Easter Island. It's where all the statues are. That's a very very quiet place, all very uneasy, in some way scary because it's so quiet but very good. That's where I did some recordings, some sounds and just was able to sit back and think. I like sounds, I even like what we call silence now which isn't so much of a silence, it's just less of the noise that we're used to. Whenever I can get to somewhere like that. Not all the time, I have to travel very far, I'm able to sometimes get away from noise without getting away from everything with recording studios and things like that. When you turn everything off because there's sound *, you get this very uneasyness, very quietness. I've had an interview for Brave new waves the other day in the studio. When we stopped talking and everything was off, it was just dead and it was very nice.

É.L : I am thinking about this story that John Cage was always saying. He was invited at Bell Laboratories in an anechoic room. He has been in the room. He listened to the noise, the low and the high ones, and he said to the technician well I think there is something wrong with the room because it's supposed to be silent and I hear a really high noise and a really low one. The technician replied: the really high noise is the sound of your nervous system in operation and the low noise is your blood going around your vessels.

RH : No way ! That's great !

EL : So the silence can never exist as long as you are living !

R.H. : The harder you think about what is surrounding you and the more you can concentrate on sounds when there is an absence of sound around you, it is, it starts to become the life sound, the sound of your own body, and there probably never really is a true silence. It's just what it is today. The silence is what we make silence to be. It's what we become used to over the generations, over hundreds and hundreds of years. We have become used to our body. We don't even hear it now. It's just something which we felt it out. Now we nearly filtered the air conditionning. You don't notice the air condition. It's just evolution. You associate sounds and things, you become comfortable with them and then after being comfortable with them, your body nearly filter and they become non existence.

É.L : Why do you think people are afraid of silence?

R.H. : Hum… I think it's a time when there's little to do but to think. I think it's not the silence, I think people sometimes are afraid of thinking for themselves too much. When there's nothing else going on, all you can do is thinking to reflect on yourself. That's when you have to make decisions. That's when you have to decide if you're comfortable with what you've done, what you want to do, where you're going, where you have been. A lot of people just want to go straight without any repercussion. Maybe silence is a space to think.

É. L. : I was talking about the realistic aspect of the performance. In many cultures like in Indonesia especially in Bali - I've been living there ... Every new year they're doing a lot of noise all around the houses to scare the bad spirits. They're supposed to leave. How do you feel about the ritualistic use of the noise in a general sense?

R.H. : I think different societies use different levels of sound for different purposes. Like we were talking about earlier, if you really want to drive spirits away or drive people away in north american society, maybe you would not allow anyone to speak, maybe you would make everything silent, maybe that would drive everyone away, maybe other places, they make noise to drive spirits away to drive people away. It's interesting. Sight and sounds, I would say sound in the hearing is probably one of the most important senses especially comparing to sight because you can always close your eyes and that's a physical thing. You can cover your ears but it's very very hard to stop sounds. It's always coming in. You can nearly feel sound at certain intensities. It's very hard to escape.

É.L. : Thank you very much Ritchie Hawtin.