PREMIERE: Pat Carroll's Excellent New EP
‘Augur’ is another display of his highly touted production prowess…
Whenever media starts comparing artists as the next Jon Hopkins or Bonobo, sceptical hippo eyes are definitely in order. In the case of Pat Carroll, those comparisons are more of a truism than a platitude. His music hints at those auteurs, but it’s more comparable in a general vibe than outright execution, oscillating between soaring euphoria and deep introspection.
Now, he returns with the 'Augur' EP, a spatial 3-tracker that moves through ambient and atmospheric to driving. We are pleased to premiere the title track ‘Augur’, a powerful and journey-filled production embedded in broken beats and shattering percussion that will sound absolutely massive on a festival soundsystem. We had a quick chat with the local prospect about the EP and his work processes, so get the inside goss before listening to the excellent ‘Augur’ below…
Can you tell us a little about the title of this track, sharing the name of the EP?
Figuring out what certain things mean in terms of the future is an idea I was thinking about while writing the EP. It's obviously quite present in the news, especially with conflict and global warming, and it plays a big role in some of my favourite books. But it's close to the idea of foreshadowing, and that is definitely something that I love in music!
The EP is a continuous project with each track blending into the next. What was the motivation behind this?
I've wanted to do this kind of structure for a while now. It forced me to think of the tracks in the context of a bigger narrative: I usually spend so much time working on the minor details of a piece, then sort of zoom out and think of all the sections, then again thinking about these sections in the context of the whole piece. So that broader perspective of the piece in the context of a bigger body of work was one that I wanted get my head around.
You are currently completing a body of work for your PhD in composition at the Sydney Conservatorium of Music. Do your studies have an impact on the music you create or do you keep them fairly separate?
No, they definitely have a massive influence on how I write. At first for some reason, I was keeping them separate, but soon realised that the skill set I was building translates really well into the areas of dance music. That was actually why I changed over from Piecey to Pat Carroll - I wanted to consolidate all the things I was learning at uni and all the music I was writing outside of it into one project. I'd say that the strong emphasis on sound transformation is what I see as the biggest influence on my music by my studies.
The music in this EP is quite heavily layered and textural. What is the process behind your production? How do you create this sense of texture in your music?
(This question is super relevant to my uni studies, so apologies if I chew your ear off here!) I think in electronic music, textural density is one of the best ways to work with tension and release, by building it and then stripping it back to a smaller set of short sounds.
For those big atmospheric textures, it is usually a process of fusing together recordings of synths, stretched out vocals and field recordings, and then processing them all together with reverb and distortion. Once I have this long bed of sound, it's then a matter of making it emerge and grow the right way, according to what is going on in with the other sounds. That sense of growth is pretty essential in my opinion - the way things start, develop and end is so important. I also love that contrast between really fast and short sounds against much longer and slower ones - it's something I've been drawn to for a while now, probably because I listen to a lot of ambient and drone stuff as well as grooves.
This EP could translate quite well into a live performance. Is this something you are working towards?
Yep! I've incorporated all three tracks into my live set, which I'll be performing on the 22nd of November at the Chippo Hotel. Playing live definitely allows me to build the tension a little more if the audience wants it, and to also get way more hands-on with the individual instruments. That is the really interesting area - still keeping a live, human feel to music that is almost entirely based on technology.