by Christopher Curley

As the head of local avant-electro/punk/jazz quartet A Troop of Echoes, Peter Gilli wields his saxophone onstage like a musical bludgeon: fierce, aggressive, precise, and uncompromising. Here, the Rhode Island native takes a break from the band to talk about his solo work, bucking tradition, and the meaning of ‘truth’ in his latest compositions.

IM: Let’s talk about the two pieces you submitted, “Volcano” and “Different Streams.” They’re very electronic, sample-focused, spacious compositions. This is a new direction for you as a performer. Is this the beginning of an ensemble of such pieces?

Peter Gilli: There’s no ensemble per se. It is part of a series of electronic compositions I made for my senior composition recital at URI. The pieces themselves are made up of about equal parts recorded instruments and found sounds, most of which I had recorded already for an earlier project. I wanted to make something electronic in the classical music setting that didn’t sound like any of the more well-known composers in that arena.

IM: So was there a purposeful avoidance of traditional form, or were you trying to do something using a traditional form using untraditional instruments? To me, it sounds more like the former.

PG: It’s kind of an unusual situation I think, because I was purposefully trying to avoid traditional form, but traditional form in that idiom means in some ways making the music almost as random as possible. People like Stockhausen were making pieces that would run for 40 minutes and contain mostly blooping sounds and all kinds of new and interesting colors. I think it’s interesting, but most listeners hear it as noise, which is fairly understandable. So by avoiding what was traditionally done I was really only moving closer to what people consider “normal” music, in that it contains instruments and recognizable sounds.

IM: There’s a little bit of that Pierre Schaeffer, even John Cage aesthetic.

PG: Exactly. I also think a lot of important work has been done outside of the academic realm in electronics, like what Radiohead and Aphex Twin have done. I thought bringing in a little bit of that would be more fun than trying to replicate the earlier classical work and I would enjoy working on it more anyway.

IM: Neither “Volcano” nor “Different Streams” bear much resemblance to your band (A Troop of Echoes), so they come as something of a surprise. Stylistically, how did you get from there to here?

PG: There was definitely some thought about using the saxophone on the end of Volcano, but it didn’t seem to work out. Between A Troop of Echoes and the classical saxophone pieces I wrote over the last few years, it felt like that was being sufficiently explored. I actually really like composition because every musician knows there are things that can’t be done on their instrument, but with composition you get to spend time doing any of those things you want.

It’s kind of selfish. [Laughs]

IM: “Volcano” has this conceit of different people saying the word “truth” in various ways. On the surface, this sounds pretentious, but on the recording it comes off very earnest. Was this something you thought about in the creation of the track, or did you just trust your instincts and go from there?

PG: It sort of happened by accident. I was recording an interview with my girlfriend for similar electronic purposes, and when I went to cut up the recorded sentences later into smaller bits I noticed that most of the time when she was talking, her words were falling into intervals that were really obviously musical. So I had a huge “what does this mean” moment and then started thinking about what kind of results I could get if I tried it with maybe a hundred different people. In the end I recorded, I think, 80 or 90, and only one person said no when she was asked. There was definitely some faith required that it was going to work because it took about two months to gather all the audio and it was finished only a few days before it was slated to be
performed. A lot of the faith and hope was vested in it not sounding pretentious when it was finished.

Volcano, by Peter Gilli

IM: Is there something in specific you hope the audience takes away from it?

PG: I didn’t have a specific message or anything, but a lot of my favorite songs are ones that have something really different about them and still seem natural. I was kind of hoping I could show people something that wasn’t too easily comparable to other works, but still makes sense when you’re listening to it and would allow whoever is hearing it to just take from it whatever they might find. I didn’t want to pontificate about how it should be interpreted or anything.

IM: How was the process for “Different Streams”? Similar? The two tracks clearly come from the same place, but the tone of the latter is darker, heavier and more abrasive – reminiscent of, say, Tortoise, or Stars of the Lid.

PG: It was similar; I think “Different Streams” was easier to make because it’s obviously more minimal than “Volcano” is. The instruments and electronic sounds were also already recorded in that case, whereas with “Volcano” I had to go out and do the footwork before I could actually start working on it. I was thinking about the pieces at the time in the context of the recital they were being written for, so “Different Streams” was written for the beginning, when people were entering the hall. I needed that to kind of ease people into that sequence of songs. It was made darker, but there’s also less going on and it doesn’t really build until the end, which segued into the rest of the electronic stuff. I went out on a limb and put “Volcano” last on the program, after all the “normal” pieces had been performed. I had no idea what the reaction was going to be, but it sounded really final to me and it seemed to make sense to put it at the end.

Different Streams by Peter Gilli

IM: I think it does, but what’s interesting to me is that the pieces work really well in absentia of the live performance they were originally intended for. Are you interested in pursuing more work of this nature?

PG: Definitely. If I go with the same process there’s going to be a lot more field recording to do before anything gets written, but I get to travel around with A Troop of Echoes and see all kinds of places I normally wouldn’t, so I’m hoping to use that and other travels to get good recordings from all over the country. I’d really like to put together a cohesive suite or something that uses material from all over.

IM: Did you record all the instruments yourself?

PG: There are two tiny samples that use previously published recordings, but they’re bent so far that they’re unrecognizable and they’re only used as texture. I have kind of a Catholic-style guilt complex about that. The rest of them I recorded. I think I got the most mileage out of a recording of a sitar player from a few years ago, that’s the stringed instrument that’s all over “Volcano”.

IM: What were the samples?

PG: Oh no, no, no. I’m not getting sued.

IM: If Girl Talk isn’t getting sued, I think you’re fine – but fair enough.

PG: [Laughs]

IM: Pete, thanks for your time. We look forward to seeing what you’ve got coming up in the future.

PG: Thanks for having me.