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by Andy Hamilton
Philip Samartzis, main man of Melbourne's burgeoning soundart scene, rations his visits abroad: "We're concerned about the availability of kangaroo meat over in Europe – it's really tough". Not having it, he means. "And not just the meat, but the light and the sense of place – they're the things you miss when you leave". Known for environmentally based CD-compositions such as Soft And Loud, and as curator of festivals such as Melbourne's Liquid Architecture and – with Elke Moltrecht – Berlin's Immersion, Samartzis came up through rock, noise and ambient channels. What's unusual is his insistence that he's not a "musician". "I like the word 'soundartist' – it could be anything from installation art, to sound-design, to improvisation", he comments.
"When I was growing up it was extremely hard to find left-field music", he explains. "I listened to Lou Reed's Metal Machine Music – intrigued at the textures, the colour, noise and chaos of it, which really opened my ears." That 1975 album, whether an early essay into noise or a joke, had a deep effect, complemented by Kraftwerk's Autobahn. But he was never in a band, and has never learned an instrument. After leaving school he worked in the post office and travelled the world, but that early listening seeded an idea that eventually took him as a mature student to Melbourne's RMIT, and to his current job teaching Sound in the School of Art there. After punk, and post-punk, he discovered industrial music, and was inspired by bands like Wire and Neu. But a major influence is French musique concrËte of Pierre Schaeffer, Pierre Henry and Francois Bayle, plus mavericks Luigi Russolo, Conlon Nancarrow and Gyorgy Ligeti. Over the last 20 years, Samartzis has been at the centre of in Australia's transformation into a focus of experimental music and soundart.
Soft And Loud from 2004 – on Microphonics – shows his musique concrËte sympathies in its a dazzling array of sonic objects constructed from environmental sounds of Japanese cities, its fragmentary procession showing a minute attention to detail. I suggest an influence from Luc Ferrari's field-based compositions, especially apparent in the less interventionist Unheard Spaces just released. "Yes, a work such as Presque Rien No.1 highlights how our appreciation of music is culturally shaped," Samartzis agrees. "By focusing on a sleepy fishing village as the source of sound, Ferrari shows that the environment is as sophisticated and mutable an aural experience as any musical construction." He finds a great sense of fun and playfulness about the way that musique concrËte manipulates and juxtaposes sounds. "When I listened to Stockhausen and others from the WDR, it was technically interesting but very clinical, the content still connected to that idea of absolute music. They deal with pitches, and serialism was the point of reference." As a professed non-musician, this approach seemed constricting: "With musique concrËte, whether the source-material was a prepared piano or a locomotive, I could hear the process and the composer's inventiveness better".
Samartzis's emphasis on being a "non-musician" puts into sharp focus the contrast between music and soundart. "I go back to the old Brian Eno idea", he explains. "Since I've never learned an instrument, I come to music purely from an interest in sound, and that brings a freedom to your thinking, broader than an interest in structures based around harmony and melody and rhythm." Though he collaborated with Andrew Curtis in the late 80s in GUM, producing an abstract but not totally ironic take on pop/rock culture, it's only since 1998 that he's worked regularly with musicians, notably improvisers David Brown and Sean Baxter, and Günter Müller and Sachiko M. "I do have to think in musical terms, because most of the people I teach do…but I don't use the word 'musician', or 'composer' – I know, I am a composer!" he adds.
I'd argue that Samartzis's work subscribes to three connected imperatives of non-musical soundart. First, it's often multi-media. He works with video and installation artists, though not commercially: "I decided ten years ago that I wouldn't compose for money, as the artistic compromises are too great. When I do sound-designs I work collaboratively to achieve an equal artistic outcome." Second, it develops out of phonography in the way it often straddles the fine line between independent contribution of sounds, and production/post-production. On Glacial Erratic (Dr Jim's, 2003), by the trio Western Grey with guitarist Dave Brown and percussionist Sean Baxter, Samartzis's contribution is listed as "electrical, mechanical and environmental sound". Brown describes the rigour with which Samartzis recorded and assembled the pieces, reshaping and refining them to an extraordinary level of precision – the result is an inspired synthesis of Bailey-inflected Improv, electro-acoustica and lower case deployment of silence.
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