Lawrence English is an sound artist, who travels all over the world for installation and performance and the owner of the Room40 label which has been releasing experimental sounds of excellent quality and leads Australian experimental music scene. And he also just started to run the new label “Someone Good” with his wife. And he also organizes so many tours of various artists in Australia,.. He is one of the busiest person who I know among the music industry which I concern in...We asked about labels, his music and music scene in Australia...

And in this connection, our contributor Hideho Takemasa has interviewed the organizers of Australian Experimental music festival “Now now” , Jim Denley and Peter Farrar.

Now now festival Interview by Hideho Takemasa

Hi, I'm Lawrence English from the sunny climes of Brisbane Australia. I curate the ROOM40 label here in Australia. I also co-direct the Someone Good label with my wife Rebecca English. Both labels are proud to have a very special mascot - Schnapps! He's often found working hard here in the offices of the labels. You can visit him at www.myspace.com/schnappstone

ROOM40, which takes its name from the code breaking facilities as Bletchley Park, is primarily focused in releasing works that explore a particular aesthetic quality or sound - each of the records has a considered focus that might be conceptual, geographic, temporal etc. When I'm inviting artists to create something for the label often it's a chance for them to explore a different idea of focus that might not necessarily fit into their regular releases. Take for example the recent Christopher Willits disc, an amazing extended composition, which whilst using guitar and process, is very different to his other works exploring these tools. Equally many of the other records we've issued have been focused by a particular meeting or geographic space - my Ghost Towns work being an example of that.

Someone Good by contrast is primarily focused on the release of innovative and unusual forms of 'pop' music. By definition pop music is wide and varied and I guess the label is very much about discovering sound and structures that are both instantly able to connect with the ears, but also a little unfamiliar or perhaps testing the edges of song form etc. That label came out of a series of discussions with my wife Rebecca, she was interested in the fact that there was some interesting melodic music being created that worked with sounds and harmonic relationships that were both a real pleasure to listen to, but something largely unheard being released by labels here in Australia. Take for example the Akira Kosemura record, it's a record that combines elegant piano melody with abstract electronics and field recordings - in one way it could be a record that might sit at the avant garde end of things, but Kosemura's compositional skill means it takes on a far more welcoming quality - that means hopefully it can connect with audiences in a different way.

Often times I've met many of the artists who end up creating works for the label whilst I am touring or presenting works overseas. That said in many cases I've only met the artists after we've released their records. I do tend to think of ROOM40 as a 'friends and family' label - and by that I mean I prefer to have a strong relationship with all the artists involved in the label. I feel it's important to have that connection as there's a responsibility from any label to the artist whose work they're releasing. That's something I take very seriously.

To be honest, this is one of the most special experiences I have had making music. Tenniscoats are just such natural musicians - they understand sound, melody and harmony so innately, to spend time with them making music was a true pleasure and a reminder about how wonderful it can be to share musical ideas.

That album took nearly two years to complete - we started recording it firstly when they came to visit Australia in 2005. We spent a good few days recording and then I worked on some structures from those initial sessions. I then visited Tokyo and we recorded more there. Finally Tenniscoats made their way over to London and did one final set of sessions with our UK representative John Chantler. It was amazing because each of these sessions brought a different quality to the recordings and listening back to the early mixes for instance, verses the final versions that record had gone through many changes and shifts. That said, some of the songs are fairly much just 'as they were recorded' like Possumo from the Add To Friends compilation - that piece was written almost on the spot by Saya and I mised it shortly after that. That song was actually one of the works that inspired the creation of Someone Good.

It's interesting, I think there is a considered song writing and sound appreciation that many Japanese musicians have mastered that I don't hear in musicians from other countries. I'm not exactly sure where this comes from, but I'm guessing the musical history, the sound environments of Japan and other social factors contribute to that. Personally I do have a strong interest in Japanese sound culture - and equally visual arts cultures - Japan historically has some interesting phenomena that have shaped it into a unique cultural entity, so I am interested by this.

I have to say there's many artists I'm interested in for a variety of reasons - visual artists like Aya Takano or Naoya Hatakeyama for instance have a unique perspective that they bring to their work. Equally artists like Ryoji Ikeda have another highly refined aesthtetic as does Masami Akita or Toshiya Tsunoda. I'm always impressed by the focus artists like these express through their work.

I have to say, given the opportunities for design, packaging and creative approaches to releasing music these days I'm surprised more labels aren't exploring new and personal expressions of housing their music. I think that industrial design and mass production can be very beautiful in some cases - architecture in some new Asian cities for example if breath-taking with its form and lines - but I don't think the same can be said of jewel cases for the most part.

When I started ROOM40 i saw it as an art music label - so following on from that it would make sense to create a visual aesthetic for the label that might represent the music appropriately and create a visual brand for the label. It's true that this does cost more and for the most part either myself or some of the folks associated with ROOM40 have hand packed every edition we have released and shipped overseas, but this extra effort I feel is warranted considering the efforts the sound artists and musicians put into their work.

I think as well, increasingly, as the digital music 'revolution' takes place, the responsibility lies with labels to create a document or artifact that is something that people want to own rather than download. I know myself, I download a lot of music, as there's no point to buying the cd because I don't need a jewel case or standard package filling up my shelves - better to fill my hard drive. If it's a special looking edition though, then of course it's something that should be part of my archive here.

Seven years ago when we started the label, especially in Brisbane, there wasn't a very advanced or sizable experimental music community. I am glad to see the expansion of this music nationally - we're seeing more and more excellent Australian musicians heading overseas and increasingly more international sound artists travelling to Australia for concerts, exhibitions etc.

One of the difficulties with running a label here is the tyranny of distance - sometimes to ship CDs or simple things like that can be quite costly. These are only small problems though and really Australia is an excellent place to be working from. In terms of the government, I feel ROOM40 has been very vocal in its advocacy for the arts here, especially sound culture and there are many others assisting with this cause too! I think we've seen the government becoming more aware of new cultures and in some cases supporting these new areas - but clearly there's still a very long way for things to go.

It's interesting, I feel you're right, Australia has projected an impression of being a very 'rock' oriented culture and for the most part that is still the preeminent form of music being created here. But below the surface there's an amazingly rich culture of indie, electronica, experimental and other forms of sound exploration.

I think if we're talking about the Australian experimental music heritage, well sadly a lot of that history is either undocumented or largely over looked. In the past two or three years there's been some attempts to rectify this and that's been great to see, but really there's no where near enough celebration and understanding of the history that informs a lot of the music being made now.

The scene here is increasingly healthy with each passing year. Early festivals such as What Is Music? have led the way for newer festivals such as Liquid Architecture (now in its 8th year!), Now Now, Open Frame the annual ROOM40 festival, Other Film Festival and the upcoming Biennial Of Experimental Music in Melbourne are now the most focused and regular events taking place in Australia.There's also a range of smaller concert series happening in each city, which is great as it offers a chance for musicians to experiment and explore new ideas. In Brisbane I curate a number of performance and sound art programs including Fabrique at Brisbane Powerhouse, Mono at the Institute Of Modern Art and Syncretism and Nine Hours North at the Judith Wright Centre. Each of these series explores a different end of contemporary sound practice. And also in Brisbane for instance the Audio Pollen Social club which happens weekly at a cafe in an area called West End is just fantastic and explores sound, experimental film and improvisation.

I guess for my own work, I have a number of different focuses, which reflect my interests in sound practice. For instance, when I am working on gallery installation or public artworks, then I am usually very interested in a concept or theme that can guide the work - so for example I have recently completed a sound installation with Toshiya Tsunoda, and the exhibition was for a group show called Grey Water, so we both became interested in the atmosphere of water and how it takes a certain agitation or stimulation for that atmosphere to become audible. The same idea can be said of the Airport Symphony project, which I have also just completed - this work focused on the experiences of travel and the 'art of travel'. In that project I invited sound artists to work with sounds I had collected and created works that explore and reflect the nature of travel in their own lives. The results were just superb it was just incredible to see the diversity of responses people came up with when reflecting on the curatorial brief.

I also have a number of musical streams I'm exploring - I've made a number of records concerned with guitar as a sound source, such as Happiness Will Befall. Then there are the records I've made that are more concerned with field recordings and sound textures - the For Varying Degrees Of Winter album for example tied together my interest in field recordings with the textural electronics I've been working with.

For me, I am primarily interested in sound - in all its forms - I think a cricket in a field can be equally as engaging as a pop song or strange sounding synthesizer. And I think often the combination of these elements can create wonderfully engaging results - it's a pleasure to have your ears brought into different levels of listening focus across one piece of sound or music I always think.

Actually sometimes I ask myself the same question - how can I bring so many people to visit and present their work in Australia? I think because ROOM40 is involved in many different levels of sound - from gallery installation to performance etc - there's more opportunities to bring artists to Australia. Also currently we are lucky enough to have the opportunity to collaborate with some excellent organizations who are supportive of experimental sound, new sound/song and different forms of sound practice.

One of the main reasons I have been interested to bring these artists to Australia is the fact that I feel they contribute greatly to the sound culture here. Traditionally Australia has been very isolated, and this can be a great advantage for creating original sounds, but increasingly I feel it's important to not only grow the internal sound cultures in Australia, but to bring other artists working with sound to this country to allow people here to experience the work of international artists. Especially with sound art, documentation doesn't always serve as the best way to engage with the work - sometimes it just has to be experienced first hand and this is something I feel strongly about in the sound culture here is still to continue growing.

Well I can safely say that the ROOM40 schedule is very full right up into the middle of 2008, which is great. There's a good deal of exciting releases on the cards including editions from Chris Abrahams + Mike Cooper, Ueno Takashi, Steinbruchel etc and I'll also be starting on a few new projects including a new record with Tujiko Noriko that I'm very much looking forward to making. She's an astounding visionary with her songs.

For Someone Good, Rebecca and I are working more slowly with that label, giving each of the releases time to breath a little. That said there's quite a few new releases on the cards including an EP from Qua, which we're very excited about.

well as I sit here on this flight to melbourne....I've been listening to

Shellac - Racing Italian Greyhound
Von Sudenfed - Tromatic Reflexxions
Piana - Eternal Castle
King Tubby - Dub Like Dirt
Burial - Burial