Sunday, October 26, 2008

Savage Ohms

Savage Ohms

Georgia's Loren Hall has been recording as Savage Ohms for two decades. He's a trained visual artist with a very spiritual, or at the very least improvisational, approach to making music and art. He has four EPs and a full length album and has performed with bands such as anAMloopantenna and Nemesis. You can find out more information at his Myspace page HERE.

He describes his work as sounding like "a sentient cricket society in a tuft of grass, as heard from above. A dream remembered." You can hear some examples for yourself HERE, or tune in to Episode 218 (download it HERE).

Without further ado, here's the SAR Q&A with Savage Ohms...


*Name: Savage Ohms

*Are there any additional names used to describe this project: It's only ever gone by Savage Ωhms.

*Do you use a pseudonym? I usually go by just my first name.

*Members: Just one. Loren G. Hall.

*Founding Members: I founded the band myself, and I have always been the only permanent member. At times I have had various guest musicians, but none have ever joined permanently. By the way, I got the name 'Savage Ohms' from the animated film 'Fantastic Planet'.

*Tape manipulations, digital deconstructions or turntable creations: My first set of recordings was 100% sampled tape manipulations, using a broken tape deck that behaved erratically. I never knew exactly what it was going to do when I hit 'play' (or 'rewind', for that matter), and it was my oracle for about a year until it finally stopped working altogether. Later on my music became much more digitally deconstructed, but I still used a lot of tricks that I had learned from my tape days. I've never used a turntable in my work.

*Another genre descriptor: The only term I've ever been able to come up with that describes the process of aligning two patterns together to illuminate a hidden third pattern (such as in my music) is 'techronicity'. It's similar to the Dalinian concept of a work of art being more than the sum of its parts, only the catalyst is electronic, rather than painted."

*Why you use this descriptor: It's simply a cross between the words 'techno' and 'synchronicity'.

*Location: The band was started in Rome, Ga.

*Original Location:

*What is your creative/artistic background: I attended Memphis College of Art in the late 80's, but wound up getting a BFA in painting from the University of Georgia. From the age of about 5 to the age of about 15, I saw only visual art in my future. I've always had a deep love of music, and from a very young age I drummed on EVERYTHING constantly, but it wasn't until I had heard bands like Skinny Puppy, Coil, and Cabaret Voltaire in the mid 80's that I became interested in making music seriously. By 1990 I had completed my first demo LP entitled 'EKE', and by 2002 I had completed 4 EP's ('Where is Love', 'I Hear the Tree', 'Near-Life Experience', and 'Abandonment Issue') and 1 full album ('Lifelike'). I had one song on the ACIDSOXX comp. entitled 'F-DISK: Encrypted Transmissions' in 2002, and played at the Savannah Fringe Fest in February of the same year.

*History: I started recording as Savage Ohms in 1988, after borrowing a friend's 4-track tape recorder. I had formed a lot of ideas before that date, but I hadn't yet recorded anything. I've also been in an Atlanta-based band called anAMloopantenna, and a side project called Nemesis, with a friend from Canada.

*Born: I'm 37, and I'm from Rome, Georgia, which is about an hour NW of Atlanta. I've also lived in Seattle, Memphis, and Athens, Ga.

*Motivations: To put it simply, I create art and music to keep from going completely insane.

*Philosophy: Strangely enough, the philosophy behind my musical creation is virtually identical to my visual creation. In both cases I've found that I have the best luck when I don't have any preconceived ideas in mind, but rather vague concepts or moods. Some people say that they have a higher power governing their actions, which is ultimately responsible for what they create. In my own case I feel that it's more of a 2-way relationship. I may have vague notions to begin with, and I definitely look for patterns in the chaos and work to bring them out, but ultimately the final result is almost always a complete surprise to me, and I love that aspect of creation. In short, my philosophy is to work WITH the music, to help it make itself.

*How would you like to be remembered: As someone who could laugh at himself, and cry for anyone.

*Web address:
music - http://www.myspace.com/savageohms
art - http://www.wooloo.org/loren


Link
www.some-assembly-required.net

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