The Crossing from PROTOCULTURE The Shapings EP

SONIC ALCHEMY 

Alchemy 
noun \ˈal-kə-mē\  a form of chemistry and philosophy concerned principally with discovering methods for transmuting baser metals into gold 
sonic alchemy 
noun \ˈsŏn′ĭk •ˈal-kə-mē \ the philosophical practice and improvisational cultivation of transmuting sound and instrument from one form into another. 

I remember at a very early age, hopped up on tons of Anime, Star Wars, Robotech and assembling plastic mecha models, I wanted to be an aeronautical engineer. I dreamed of designing beautiful, fully functioning, modular aircrafts that could transport people to mysterious other worlds. 

Simply, I loved the idea of taking one thing and making them transmute into another form.  

As an eternal student of Music and Design, at a young age I was taken by the myriad of ways Art could be shaped: the way an 8 minute Zeppelin song could morph, to the way a Bosch painting could rant about the human condition without a single word or the way the static from switching TV channels or radio stations could sing the most beautiful untold secrets about the Universe. But like the latter, the most captivating melodies and phrases I heard were the random ones made by objects in my environment. As a kid, you’re taught automobiles, fax machines, insects chirping, garage doors, the wind, waves or animals fighting is not music…I disagreed whole heartedly.  

With my older musician brother’s instruments lying around the house, I passionately landed on guitar and loved how the strings sustained in a soothing way, yet also, how beautifully violent it is crashing upon them when played through an amp with the right kind of distortion.

Being a self-taught musician, I was very passionate about absorbing phrases and riffs that I manically wore out cassette tapes or broke turntable needles replaying endlessly parts of certain albums to figure how to play them.
Exploring phrases quickly moved from being fascination to full blown obsessions. Rare Groove and early Funk (Hancock, Cymande, Meters, Fela Kuti) played a huge role in my understanding of how the pentatonic scale could be sparse yet rhythmically intentional in tight grooves that snake their way around space, “ghost notes” and syncopation. My brother’s BeBop albums were abundant and rather than just studying guitarists, the shapes I loved figuring out were the brass runs and noise bursts of Monk, Coleman, Davis, Goodman or Basie, as fodder for breeding interesting guitar lines. But then synthesizers, samplers and Hip Hop turntablism came along and the 70’s and 80’s were exploding with new possibilities! The ways analog and digital pioneers of Trip Hop, Techno, IDM, Krautrock and Industrial were phrasing things, I grew more insatiable. Loops and short phrase samples were fertile ground for collaging for a young teen never knowing the rules or limitations of guitars and FX pedals! I loved how Modular Synthesis is definitely one type of alchemy, but I wanted to explore further how guitar could be a brilliant platform for transcending sound beyond the modern understanding of what the instrument can do and other roles it could play. I became fascinated with certain designs of vintage guitars in discovering how the "acoustics” of amplified instruments could be resources for percussion or ambience when channeled deeper through effects pedals. Manipulating sound through modified digital and analog effects in absurd, heretical ways, cultured new relationships in sonic dynamics and a whole different instrument could be born! 

The aeronautical engineer dream didn't end up panning out the way I initially imagined, especially after I found out it how much schooling, math and time it would take. So I committed myself to THE NEXT BEST THING to achieve the same goal: MUSIC. I continue to cultivate interesting ways to transport the audience to different dimensions and planes, effectively transmuting base amplified instruments into sonic gold.

The Crossing from PROTOCULTURE The Shapings EP

Steve Abagon