!earshot Top 200 of 2021

Bedroom Bliss

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David Payne began exploring the area of free improvisation and sound manipulation well over a decade ago. His journey has taken him through experiments with the acoustic guitar (free-form, de-tuned and pre-pared) to more recent works featuring only electronics. Thru-out has been a methodology embracing chance & freedom. He also plays/performs in Hamilton's only no rock duo, Offensive Orange.

1. When did you start becoming interested in creating your own music?

David: I remember being really excited by music as a small child, pure enjoyment from making it. At a very young age I had a small hand-held tape recorder and spent hours recording myself and surroundings. I started playing guitar at a young age, early teens, and was more interested in creating my own original sounds on a detuned acoustic rather than following any musical tradition or learning how to play properly.

2. Tell me about the first music you were making and your recording music process at that time.

David: Early musical pursuits were acoustic guitar improvisations or performances of skeletal song sketches. Very simple. Lots of repetition. Practice basically. I recorded live directly to a dictaphone, a methodology that has carried over to the more �sophisticated� 4-track recordings I have been making in more recent times. I never use over-dubs or bother editing. I enjoy that �live� feeling, capturing the moment.

3. Tell me about your music creation of today.

David: I spent a period over the past few years exploring processed and prepared acoustic guitar. As I found I was doing less with the guitar itself and more with the electronics involved, the natural progression was for the guitar to be removed. Discovering feedback loops (created by running guitar pedals back into themselves) opened a vast new world of possibility. Lately I have been putting emphasis on creating using strictly feedback as the source sound.

David: Classical piano lessons were literally forced upon me at a young age, so playing instruments was never really an option (thank God). I have been able to teach myself how to play the guitar relatively well over the last few years, along with manning a pretty mean analogue synthesizer.

4. What instruments or non-instruments do you use?

David: Mixing board, effects pedals, a microphone.

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