Sonic Circuits Interview: Jeff Surak
What's the difference between postmodern brilliance and utter crap? At the ongoing Sonic Circuits Festival of Experimental Music, Jeff Surak has been the person to make that call. Surak, who became director of Sonic Circuits in 2006, has been performing in various experimental music projects since the 19080's, both in the U.S. and in Russia.
His current project, Violet, produces sounds out of cassette tapes, various pieces of electronic equipment and other found items. As Violet, Surak actually performed in the first Sonic Circuits Festival in 2001, then again in 2005, and has actually collaborated with several of the artists on this year's bill. Surak also runs a label called Zeromoon, which has recorded work by dozens of experimental acts. So if anyone is qualified to make such a judgment call, it would be him. We sat down with Surak after the release party for District of Noise, Vol. 2 to talk about the particulars of this year's festival, which continues tonight at 7 p.m. at Pyramid Atlantic.
Mayor Fenty endorsed Sonic Circuits this year. Had he done that in the past?
Jeff: No, no. First time. I thought of it last year that, “we’re going to do a program guide and we’re going to have a letter from the mayor inside.” It took some time, but, we got it.
Reading the letter and the description of the types of music that Sonic Circuits has grown to include, my first thought was, “You haven’t always included these types of music.”
Jeff: Well in the beginning, it was more geared toward electronic music and things like that, but over the past couple of years it’s grown and expanded in terms of different genres or different approaches to experimental music. So, it’s not all electronic. Like, we had Nine Strings and they’re pretty much all acoustic, but sometimes they employ electrical items as well. It’s really a wide scope of approaches and sounds.
When the lineup for this year was first announced, initial press indicated that the festival would only last for three days this year. But it’s clearly expanded.
Jeff: Yeah, what happens every year in terms of scheduling and venues when they’re available and then trying to coordinate artists who are on tour, when they can travel so sometimes it’s like, OK, we really want to have this person come but they can only make it this night, and this venue’s only available on a certain night, so it’s a lot of gymnastics to juggle everything and sometimes the festival gets bigger.
Was there a lot of red tape for getting a show at the Swiss Embassy?
Jeff: No, not at all. I know the cultural attache there, I don’t know the full title, but she knows about us. She’s a fan. I’d been talking with her for maybe two years already. And we bring a lot of Swiss artists over. The Swiss are very supportive of their artists. So I thought it would be a good idea since we’re having a lot of performers. They actually sent me a stack of CDs a year ago, like, “Here, listen to these!” So, I said, “Okay, cool!” And this is a bunch of obscure, really experimental CDs to listen to. I said, “I want to have this person and this person play,” and then I wrote them and they were interested and they said, “Oh, we could bring some more people over!” So we turned out to have a whole gang of Swiss performers coming to play. The Embassy was really excited about that. So am I.
Was getting Jandek difficult?
Jeff: No. He has the same agent as Faust and Tim Hecker and Evan Parker, so talking with her she was like, oh, would you like to have Jandek? I was like, “Uh...yeah!” So, that was not hard at all to set up. Of course, communicating with him, it goes through her and even she has to go through certain protocols to communicate with him, or them, as well. So, it’s going to be quite interesting; a very unique performance.
I listened to the NPR piece that ran in January. Do you think having that piece run assisted in getting artists for this year? Do you think that it will assist in getting turnout for the performances?
Jeff: No. I mean, that interview was done last summer, in August. And I was like, “Ooh, could you please run this before the festival or during the festival?” And they’re like, “Oh, no, maybe, ya know,” and it kept getting pushed back and finally they ran it in January. So it didn’t have any effect on the festival per se. It did increase in people writing me and saying, “Ooh, this sounds interesting!” I think a lot of people heard it but not many people responded in some way. It did help spread the news about it, raise awareness. People around the country have said, “Oh, I heard that piece! That’s great! I’m so happy that we’re getting some kind of attention.”
What was it that got you started in your appreciation for experimental and avant-garde music?
Jeff: Oh, I’ve been making it for 25, 27 years now. I started when I was little and I’ve been doing it ever since. So, it just comes naturally.
Photo from the Sonic Circuits website