Pat Carroll

  • Treating Material Roughly

    I’ve recently been working on the Elysian installation quite a bit. It’s being presented next Friday the 26th of September, 2025.

    I’ve primarily used the material of Time Vials (all parts) as a starting point. I used it to map out a base structure for the work, which ran for approximately 45 mins. This foundation gave me a good overview of the intensity trajectory the piece would travel through.

    With this, I created a bunch of new material by heavily processing the existing sounds and pieces, and creating new parts. This process presented me with an important lesson: be rough with your material. What I mean by this is that it’s important to get out of the mindset of the engineer, who is focused more on the subtleties and fine-tuning of existing material, and into the mindset of the creative and experimental artist. There’s so much information out there about the ‘correct’ ways to treat audio, but I’ve found that this mostly comes from an engineer’s perspective of working with sound. There is a massive focus on tidying out audio, or changing it subtly to meet an artist’s vision. Of course, there are examples of discussions of tones and overdriven sounds, but I feel like there is very little being discussed about the longer processes that can be undertaken by experimental artists working with material with more of a generative approach: aiming to create new materials, rather than clean up existing materials. To future me, I say: when doing work similar to this installation, go ahead and carry out very drastic levels of processing on your existing material, whether that is parts of, or entire, tracks. Transpose and stretch whole pieces; granulate them; run them through some spectral processors like SpecOps; do all of these things in a chain. Use ‘finished’ pieces or parts as the raw material in processes that result in new pieces. This isn’t some groundbreaking idea or anything – it’s a very common technique for more experimental or technical electronic music. But it’s one that I’ve really employed to create the installation piece, and want to adopt more in the future.

    I remember hearing Blawan talk about his studio processes, centring around similar drastic approaches to resampling material. It involved starting out with a drum groove or percussive synth line (created on a drum machine or modular synth), which is then processed and recorded it into a DAW. Then, the recording is sent through more processing equipment, driving or altering it in a range of ways, and recorded back into the DAW. This process is repeated over and over. At some point, you can stop and listen to what you’ve made, and it’ll most likely be pretty experimental and ‘weird’.

    What’s important here is the mindset: don’t think your material has to be treated like it is so fragile. Be rough with it.

  • Linking Knowledge and Technology

    Technology is the product of knowledge.

    The root of the word and concept of technology is the ancient Greek téchnē, which refers to art, craft, or skill. For Plato, téchnē meant something more than a mere knack or habit. It involved a deep understanding of a domain, and the ability to carry out a rational method for some creative purpose. This ‘rational method’ requires the craftsperson to know why what they do works the way it does; why that way is the best way to do something. In modern times, our concept of this is ‘technique’.

    Our concept of technology builds upon this: it is the knowledge and artefacts that allow for techniques to be carried out through mechanisation and automation, and allows these processes to be scaled. A piece of technology is the product of the process of applying deep knowledge and rational methods to produce something that fulfils some purpose.

    Consider the process of developing new technologies, whether they’re machines, devices or algorithms. It begins by gathering a pool of knowledge in usually several domains of knowledge. This involves understanding the principles of a field, as well as key problems or questions related to it. Skilled people are hired by a technology manufacturer, and/or they spend a large amount of time in the research phase, building the body of knowledge further. At a certain point, the focus is very much set on problems, and specifically on figuring out the best way of solving them. This may be a particular movement of an object, or a way of processing information. For example, product developers may come to the best methods for moving dirty clothes through water to clean them. This stage is aimed at building the essential techniques that can be used to solve the problems. This stage is an interesting one, because many of these techniques can be carried out by humans: they may be physical, physiological, or mental techniques. However, when building new technologies, once the techniques are decided upon, they are then mechanised, automated, and scaled. Those best techniques­—the ‘rational method’—for moving dirty clothes through water to clean them are programmed into a device that, when a button is pressed, goes through these motions. A customer of a new washing machine—and any technology for that matter—is buying an object that is capable of specific techniques: The techniques are the things that give the object value.

    Technology, knowledge and language are also linked in how they are all generative things, meaning that they evolve by combining simple building blocks of themselves into more complex structures, which are then further built upon. Words are built through combinations of other words, new technologies are built by combining existing technologies in new ways, and ideas are built by combining existing ideas. Our ideas in Western civilisation are based on a lineage of ideas tracing back to the ancient Greeks and beyond, into deeper history. In the same ways, our modern technologies are able to be traced back through a lineage.

    Knowledge and technology are thus absolutely intertwined and inseparable. Theory provides the basis for action, and technology materialises theory into artefacts. These artefacts are not only commodities but also products of a creative process. The creative process is the medium which the craftsperson moves through to turn their knowledge, understandings and rationality, into physical forms of technology.

  • Building Mental Maps of Stories, Music and Arguments

    One of the most crucial skills for understanding texts is the ability to build a mental map of what is being read, watched or listened to, while doing so. I believe the ability to do this has allowed me to understand arguments in non-fiction books and articles, musical narratives, and stories in fiction books and films.

    Musical Structures

    I only really stumbled on the existence of the ability while I was studying composition, and was having difficulties structuring my works. I was always lost during the creative process whenever I thought ‘What should come next?’ I began to consider the importance of understanding the structural models that pieces exist within, in order to hopefully be able to use them in my own work. I wanted to be able to know what the section of the piece I’m currently listening to actually is, and thus what role it plays in the narrative of the entire work.

    A simple example of this is in popular music. Knowing that I am listening to the 2nd verse, or the bridge, or the final chorus, within a typical structure of verse, chorus, verse, chorus, bridge, chorus, allows me to understand where that section is in the piece – what has come before it, and where it might be leading to. It provides context for the musical ideas I am hearing.

    A way to visualise this is to be building a waveform of the entire piece (similar to those on Soundcloud) as I was listening to it, and knowing how to break that waveform into a series of sections, understanding what was in them and what their functions were in the entire piece.

    Structures of Arguments in Non-Fiction Writing

    I have found that the same technique is essential for truly seeing someone’s argument laid out in a piece of non-fiction writing. As I read more non-fiction books – especially over the last year and a half – I felt that I had to develop this same skill to see how the author was piecing together their point. The initial chapters laid out the contexts, then concepts were gradually introduced and importantly interlocked into that context, until the later chapters when the author introduces their main points, drawing on the proposed information in the preceding chapters. Much like a lawyer building their case, now that I think of it.

    So a fundamental part of literacy is to be able to recall the points from earlier chapters, while reading the later chapters; remembering what was proposed there, and seeing how it all links together. It requires building this same form of linear mental map of the structure of the book, and holding this in your head as you read the book.

    Structures of Narratives in Fiction

    The same goes for fictional stories. I noticed how much reading non-fiction books has expanded this capacity when I read a fiction book. This was clear when I had taken about 5 months off fiction, reading a bunch of more difficult non-fiction than what I had usually been reading. Reading the fiction book – Shadow of the Gods by John Gwynne – felt so much easier than usual. I recognised that I could keep track of the plot for the entire length of the book way easier than I could 5 months before. When I was in the later parts of the story, I could look back over the previous length of the book and trace everyone’s journeys and progressions.

    Usually with fiction, it had felt a little more like I could only focus on where they were currently, and maybe where they had been in the previous chapter or two. But trying to piece together a complete timeline of where the character had been throughout the entire book was always very difficult. I don’t think I ever actively tried to do that – it was more that I felt that I suddenly could do it for this book.

    Is It Becoming Scarcer?

    A tragic thing is that I believe much of the problem was an over-engagement with short form content, and the structures of internet media. This is a big part of why The Shallows resonated with me so much – the books describes just how much a medium itself (rather than the content transmitted through the medium) shapes our thinking. The medium shapes how we think, while the content shapes more of what we think about. Non-linear, fragmented content leads to the same styles of thinking, whereas consuming linear, long-form content leads to cohesive and deeper thinking. I very much feel that what I’ve described above is a clear example of this concept at play.

    Building mental maps of what I’m reading, listening to, or watching, plays a crucial role in my ability to understand what is being transmitted through the text. It worries me that this ability is becoming scarcer, or perhaps more accurately, that the technologies that attack this ability are becoming more pervasive. I wonder if this will, or already has, led to a rising sense of confusion, alienation and misunderstanding of the world, its events, others and ourselves.

  • Discussing [How to Disappear Completely – ‘Seraphim’], and [Abul Mogard – ‘Circular Forms’]

    I bought two wonderful records this week: How to Disappear Completely – Seraphim, and Abul Mogard – Circular Forms.

    Seraphim is a great work of ambient. Big monolithic textures that come in slow waves. It’s a dark record, and doesn’t really fluctuate too much in intensity, but I think it is a good example of contemporary ambient done well: it’s not the corporate form of ambient that are so pervasive on DSPs these days — the ones that Spotify recommends in the afternoons to “wind down” or something. The harmony is often elusive, but still there: It cycles, often with hints of melody in its deep texture, but it’s extremely washy and cloudy.

    Circular Forms is one I stumbled on a couple of months ago and have kept returning to. I finally bought it, as I found myself habitually starting the record when opening up Spotify — that’s usually a good sign that I should buy it. This record is less droney that Seraphim, with clearer elements, though often extremely driven and washed out. My favourite track on it is Bound Universe, which features an incredible melody: an arpeggiated, speedy set of notes on a synth or sampler that sounds vocal-ish in some way. I feel like I can hear formants in there, especially on some of the lower notes with longer decays. But all tracks on this record just have this emotional quality that I love — at times its like looking over a wasteland, and other times its hopeful. It feels like that the final scene from the Dark Knight with the monologue just before the credits. It’s like a beautiful tragedy.

    With both of these records, they don’t feature any percussion — only (non drum-)synths. Due to this, there’s a massive emphasis on harmony, melody, timbre & space, and dynamics. I think that’s something I am finding myself more and more drawn towards: carefully composed ‘ambient’1 with a heavy emphasis on the more ‘epic’ or ‘cinematic’ approaches to harmony. Abul Mogard, Tim Hecker, and Loscil do this superbly.

    1. I feel like this is where someone would step in and slap a ‘post-ambient’ label ↩︎