In Conversation: Luke Howard
Australian composer Luke Howard has established himself as one of the most dominant and compelling musicians in contemporary classical music, challenging the concept of what can be achieved in its form. Classically trained, his gentle piano is interwoven with tasteful electronics and occasional orchestrations, producing an introspective sound that has really struck a chord. When describing his music, Howard sporadically refers to it as “music for a film without a film”, which I find both accurate and profoundly poetic.
KELLY KORZUN: As you might have noticed, Covid-19 hit the industry pretty hard. One of the very few silver linings here I can think of is Andrea Bocelli performing a solo Easter concert from an empty Duomo di Milano – sometimes the most exciting opportunities find us when we least expect them to, or we just stumble upon them when we’re not looking. What was your emotional state and overall experience working on new material during these challenging times?
LUKE HOWARD: It’s interesting, I remember being unimpressed that Bocelli was “humiliated and offended” by the stringent lockdown measures in Italy a few months back. But now in Melbourne, which is experiencing one of the world’s longest and strictest lockdowns, it’s more apparent it is a very difficult balance between containing the virus and maintaining societal mental health. These decisions will likely only be able to be objectively evaluated in hindsight. To be honest, it is not the most inspiring time to be writing music, and it takes a lot of discipline to structure one’s days or even separate them from the weekends. I have resigned myself to being happy if I get a good hour or two of creative work done in a day. The usual motivator of a deadline is largely absent because it’s hard to commit to delivering an album when you don’t know when you’ll be able to head into a studio to record, but I’m healthy and reasonably happy, so it will be what it will be.
KK: It looks like you like to switch things up. A little earlier this year you released a solo piano album, All That Is Not Solid. Your new EP, Dark Angels, continues to unfold your experimentation with Tilman Robinson. How did this collaboration come about and how did you come up with an idea to reimagine some of your pre-existing recordings?
LH: I’m a big fan of Tilman’s music along with contemporaries such as Ben Frost and Tim Hecker. I was keen to do something pointing in that direction, and Tilman and I have been friends for some years (we also both were interns at Reykjavík’s Greenhouse Studio). Our first collaboration was Requiem for 2016, written just around the time Trump was elected, so it’s a collaboration that is timely to revisit. The starting points for Dark Angels were the two choir pieces from The Sand That Ate The Sea along with a piece for chamber organ. I first processed them using mainly time-stretching techniques. Tilman came in and helped me edit each piece down to reasonable lengths, as well as adding and suggesting additional compositional elements.
KK: There’s this podcast, Song Exploder, where musicians dissect their material and tell the story of how it was made. The range of musicians is pretty extensive – from Apparat to Alexandre Desplat to Bjork, to name a few. Making music is a very intimate and non-linear process, so we usually have this vague, almost abstract concept of how musicians turn their ideas into reality, and I think Song Exploder is particularly great at showing that there are many ways and methodologies to make that magic happen – from an architectural, very thought-out and calculated approach, to trusting the instincts and embracing plasticity. Where do you personally stand in that spectrum and how has your approach evolved other the years?
LH: Song Exploder is indeed a great podcast. As an improviser, many of my ideas come from improvising at the piano or keyboard. The completeness of those ideas varies – sometimes it might be pretty much the entire piece, which just needs some arranging and a bit of editing; other times, they’re germs that require elaboration. The most important thing is simply starting with any idea, even if it’s terrible: it’s a lot more productive to react to or edit an existing idea than it is to stare at a blank screen all day. If I am writing a notated piece for strings, then I will generally open up a couple each day and do a few passes, sculpting, adding dynamics, phrasing, etc, until there’s nothing I can change that I don’t want to immediately revert. With piano music, I try to learn the piece inside out and limit myself to recording a few takes. Recording dozens of takes and selecting or editing between them is rarely fun. With more electronic music, the process is similar to notation, except I’m working directly with the end product rather than an intermediary.
KK: When working on new material without any given constraints, many artists find themselves procrastinating as it’s harder to come up with ideas when you don’t have any canvas to draw inside. How often do you find yourself simulating these constraints to create some sort of a starting point?
LH: You’re right, I do tend to procrastinate particularly when working on a personal project with limited constraints, as opposed to a film. Simulating constraints, as you say, is definitely effective and is something I am experimenting with in the album I’m working on at the moment. Once there’s a critical mass of material, the project usually has enough momentum to see it through, regardless of constraints. The difficulty is getting over that ‘criticality hump’.
KK: In 2001, Aphex Twin released Drukqs, an album featuring computer-controlled piano influenced by Erik Satie and John Cage. What’s interesting is that Avril 14th, one of piano compositions on the record, till this day remains James’s best known work and the most played track in his discography on Spotify, although he is primarily known as an IDM/ambient artist. How good do you think you are at predicting which tune has more potential of becoming a hit? Are you interested in any other genre crossovers besides the ones you’ve already had in your career?
LH: Good question. Avril 14th is a beautiful tune and certainly one of the most streamed solo piano tracks; it predates the current piano craze by a good ten years. With the kind of music I make alongside with the importance and seeming randomness of play listing in reaching audiences, it’s kind of hard to put much weight in hits. Occasionally you hear a tune that is so well written and earwormy that you know it will become a natural hit, but that’s pretty rare. If you ask me, most pop hits aren’t natural hits. Genre-wise, I don’t think I’m going to take any major left turns. I’m interested in getting deeper into electronic music, but I’m doing it gently – it’s easy to spread oneself too thin. In the past few years, I’ve been doing a bit of pop production, mostly projects that are yet to see the light of day. I did recently work with my cousin Gab Strum and Megan Washington on her song Lazarus Drug.
KK: Your piano teacher, Nehama Patkin, passed away in 2010. It is truly a great loss for the classical music community. Looking back, what are your thoughts on the time you spent with her, and what do you think is the biggest lesson she has taught you?
LH: Nehama was a great teacher who began fixing a lot of technical problems while encouraging me to explore composition and improvisation, so I will always be grateful for that. Many Melbourne musicians passed through the ‘school of Nehama’, including my aforementioned cousin. She does live on in her pencil annotations to the classical music I still return to today. Nehama taught me to take care in sound production, meaning the quality of sound when one plays the piano, and to not be afraid of exploring the nexus of classical and improvised music.
KK: Many classically trained musicians find themselves losing some of their technique over time if not regularly practicing. What do you think about the role of technicality and the impact it can potentially have on the creative process in terms of problem-solving?
LH: Great question. Certainly, I don’t have the technique I once did because I don’t practice that much. I do, hopefully, have more taste than I used to; it’s possible some of this is due to not having such a prodigious technique that your fingers run faster than your mind. The danger, as you rightly point out, is that a limited technique – particularly for someone who uses improvisation as a path to composition – will limit one’s ideas. With so-called minimalist music it’s less of an issue because much of the musical interest comes from less pianistic devices (structure, harmony, rhythm). It is something I am aware of though, and when playing with my trio, I am often frustrated that I’m really pushing the limits of my technique. Perhaps I will practice with renewed fervour once lockdown is over and I am reunited with my piano.
KK: When it comes to your music taste, do you find yourself gravitating towards listening to new music or revisiting older records? How would you define that ratio? In your opinion, what are the most random or unexpected music artists one can find in your playlist?
LH: Ultimately, I try to keep a good balance. Sure, I do like going back to the things I like for obvious reasons, and there’s always something deeper to be learnt. Also, I do like to listen to music for fun as well as professional development. That being said, I also try not to always listen to every release of my contemporaries as it can be all too easy to become trapped in an idiomatic bubble. Artists I’ve listened to in the past week according to Spotify: John Adams, Crowded House, Cesar Camargo Mariano, Grouper, Susanna Wallumrød, Shostakovich (string quartets), Veronica Maggio, Lizzy McAlpine, Nico Muhly, Elton John, Boyz II Men, and Pink Floyd.
KK: In 2017, Sampha released his debut album Process, which subsequently won the Mercury Prize for Album of the Year. Personally, I think it’s one of the best records of the last decade, and a short film by Kahlil Joseph that accompanies that record is truly a masterpiece. After touring for a bit and becoming exponentially more famous, Sampha has suddenly disappeared off the radar. Rumor has it that he wasn’t quite ready for all that success, and it took it out of him. In theory, how comfortable would you be with this degree of exposure and how do you define success?
LH: Thank you for reminding me of that excellent record. Mind you, taking three years between records is a fine thing if you ask me – artists shouldn’t need to be content factories. To answer your question, I think I am past the point of caring about that sort of success. A larger audience is great in terms of providing an opportunity to connect with people and to have a sustainable career in the arts. To me, success is really just making music I’m proud of, mixed in with the occasional rubber stamp of approval from my peers.
KK: Over the last years, modern classical music has become more popular, partially due to its bridging with electronic music, yet still many people consider it background music, even in case of Max Richter or, let’s say, Dustin O'Halloran. A couple years ago, I went to Ólafur Arnalds concert, who is also signed to Mercury KX, and there weren’t many people in the audience, even considering all the attention he’s getting. When I saw Pat Metheny performing live just a little prior to that, the venue was almost packed. Perhaps it just has to do with the fact that historically jazz is more popular here compared to classical music. How would you appraise the popularity of classical music in Europe? Ultimately, is there such a thing as instrumental music with a mainstream audience?
LH: I think that’s kind of a demographic thing. From talking to booking agents over there, this modern ‘European’ branch of classical music hasn’t quite broken through in the U.S. yet. It has now for Ólafur Arnalds and Nils Frahm but few others. I suspect part of the reason Pat still has a large audience is decades of domestic touring throughout his career, in addition to the American affinity for jazz. As far as the mainstream audience goes, it ain’t going to be Beyoncé or Taylor Swift, but there’s an audience for that type of music in Europe, even for smaller artists.
KK: Back in the day, when the music industry wasn’t that defragmented, the range of music artists who were at the cutting edge of mainstream music used to be far more diverse – The Beatles, Elton John, Stevie Wonder, Pearl Jam, Radiohead, Sting, you name it. Do you think we will ever witness such a variety at the forefront of pop music again? Considering the fact that the brain does adapt to its listening environment, to what extent do you think a music artist is responsible for nurturing the taste of the audience, and what are your thoughts on the role of music today?
LH: That’s a big question. I think pop music is doing pretty well, not that I listen to too much of it, but there’s plenty of amazing stuff and the ‘long tail’ of streaming means that even someone who isn’t Taylor Swift can have a decent international audience these days. I love Elton John and romanticise the 70s when everyone was playing music with actual chords in a room together, perhaps with the London Symphony to boot. Arguably that’s not happening as much anymore, but tastes do change and, let’s face it, no one can afford to build a studio that can fit an orchestra. I don’t think an artist is responsible for nurturing the taste of the audience, but it’s always nice when they don’t insult their audience's intelligence. Music certainly has a larger passive role these days, but ultimately it’s always going to be something that people are compelled to make and compelled to listen to. Whether you can make a decent living out of it is, and has always been, a different question.
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