Great Earthquake: Seismic Shifts

For the multi-talented Noah Symons, visual art has taken a backseat to his audio experiments as Great Earthquake, writes DOUG WALLEN. Photos by MEREDITH O'SHEA.

Another worthy discovery drafted into the swelling roster of Sensory Projects, Great Earthquake is the work of Melbourne artist/musician Noah Symons. Aside from the odd guest vocals, his debut album Drawings is entirely instrumental. In keeping with the album’s title and Symons’ art background, crisp guitar lines trace across a would-be canvas while drums, accordion, glockenspiel and other instruments collide. The end product isn’t exactly collage – it’s too orderly and the instruments are too well defined – but there’s a sunny ambience radiated as so many strands are brought together from unlikely directions. It’s even better experienced live, as Symons uses looping to spontaneously conjure up his bustling songs.

On the verge of launching Drawings, Symons chatted about his past ventures, the role of loops and accordion in his songs, his own makeshift brand of musical notation and newly experimenting with his voice and lyrics in Great Earthquake.

I read that you’re studying fine art painting at RMIT [in Melbourne]
I actually just finished off the degree last year. I had been studying for four years, including a year at TAFE.

It looks like you also do video and photography.
That’s right. I majored in painting, but it was quite free and open to interpretation how many mediums we wished to explore. So it ended up being quite a mixture of different genres, I guess, in fine art.

There are all sorts of bad metaphors to be made, but I was wondering how your background in art informs your work in Great Earthquake.
Well, I guess from my early teens, I’ve been interested in making both visual art and music. I’ve gone between the two for years. When I’m on a bit of a path with music, I’ll pursue that for a while. Then I’ll change to drawing or painting. But funnily enough, during my time studying I became much more interested in recording and performing music. I still am very interested in visual art, but it’s taken a backseat.

If you get burnt out on the one, can you refresh yourself with the other?
Yeah, I find that definitely has been the case over the years. That’s been a nice thing, because you feel you’re not completely lost when you hit a block. But I’ve just been going full-throttle with music since finishing school. I have had a few exhibitions; I’m interested to see when I get back into that side of things.

And you’re in two other bands at the moment?
Well, at this present moment, Timothy And Wilderness is a band I’m in with my really close friend Tim [Brown], who is obviously the founding member. That’s sort of like an art-folk project. I just play drums. There’s a violinist and electric guitar and acoustic, nylon [string] stuff. And there was a band called Flag And Forget, but that’s sort of been on hiatus because a few of the members have had babies recently. It’s a more punk aesthetic. I also used to be in the post-rock band The Spheres, but I decided I couldn’t really keep up with that as well. But Timothy And Wilderness is just on the side. I’m enjoying playing a little bit of drums in that project.

Is it nice to have your own thing in Great Earthquake?
In some ways, definitely. Great Earthquake started around three-and-a-half years ago, when I was at a stage where I wanted to do instrumental music. Timothy and I were in a band called Lions Light years ago, and he went overseas to the Solomon Islands and I was at a loose end musically. I had been listening to bands like Mice Parade and thinking about how I could do a similar thing [on my own]. I was sort of playing with 4-tracks and making little recordings, mostly with guitar and glockenspiel and a little bit of accordion. Then I got the loop pedal and from there I became much more excited about trying to perform and record what I was doing. It just flowed from there.

Your friend Maude Farrugia sings two songs on the album, so you’re not entirely alone.
That’s been really nice. It was originally just one song, but we broke it up into two. We recorded the instrumental version first and thought it needed something extra. I thought of her because we’ve been friends for a while and I’ve heard her singing in her own project, Maudita. It’s been kind of a new thing, having someone sing. And she’s been doing it live when she can.

How much influence did Drawings’ producer, Josh Bach, have in the end?
I guess he had quite an influence. He’s an old friend and we were studying together. He was doing sound at RMIT when I was doing the visual art. We did a lot of experimenting on sounds and working out the best way to record Great Earthquake. It actually took most of last year to get it all together. There was a lot of trial and error, but in the end we came to an agreement about the sound. We were both interested in a pretty raw-sounding thing that was not too far from a live feeling and not getting carried away with effects. But he was definitely a huge part of the process and he still is. We’re starting another record at the moment.

How does the new record sound so far, compared to Drawings?
So far there’s been a slight progression towards upbeat and I guess a joyous approach in some ways. Not that I was directly trying to go that way, but it’s just the way the new songs have been heading. For some reason, there’s a little bit of calypso and reggae undertones that have been coming out, which definitely makes it sound a bit different from Drawings. We’ve just recorded five tracks, so we’re going to keep working and get to a stage where we can work out what works and what doesn’t.

Is your songwriting process as loop-based as your live show, layering things bit by bit?
In most cases there’s a guitar involved. Often, if I’m at a friend’s house or at home late at night, I can just have a bit of a play on the acoustic. Often a song will start out with a little riff idea. I’ll take that in and loop that riff and then work out things around that. From there I’ll play around, just looping and trying things and working out a structure. And I write everything down in this strange way, like my own musical notations that are very important and integral to remembering songs. They’re like cheat sheets that I have with me for performances. But I can’t read or write music in a proper, traditional way.

So it’s this kind of shorthand only you can understand?
Exactly right. [Whenever someone] makes it close enough to the stage, or at a gallery opening where there’s no stage, often I’ll get a lot of comments about these strange-looking notations. They look like something a madman might write, because they’re colourful and scrawled and have a lot of different numbers involved. [Laughs] But they make sense to me. That’s my way of keeping a record of the process of writing the song, just to be able to look back when I’m playing the track.

“[Whenever someone] makes it close enough to the stage, or at a gallery opening where there’s no stage, often I’ll get a lot of comments about these strange-looking notations.”

You sing some harmonies live, but have you ever been tempted to put your own vocals and lyrics into a Great Earthquake song?
Funnily enough, I’ve actually started to experiment with that lately. So far, live I’ve started to with some of my new songs here and there. For some I just make vocal sounds without lyrics, just sort of melody lines … Of the little German I know, I have a few lyrics in German in one of my newer songs. It’s little bit strange to be adding voice, because I’ve been making instrumental music for years. But it’s definitely exciting and fun because it’s like bringing another instrument into the mix. I’m still really working out the best way of using voice, and I guess in the recording process is a good way for Josh and I to work out what’s working and what’s not. But there’s been really good feedback with two of the songs I’ve been doing live that have voice involved.

When you supported Otouto in Melbourne, you did a Joy Division cover without vocals.
That was ‘Disorder’. That song I’ve been playing around just as a fun cover. Actually, whenever Maude is singing [live with me] on those other songs, she also sings that. It’s nice to be able to do that with some vocals.

There are a few longer songs on the album. Do you ever shorten those live to move the show along?
Yeah, in some ways. It’s definitely the case with ‘Different Orders’. It has two sections and the last section is really soundscape-y and then the drums kick in for a while. When I do that live, it’s a lot shorter. I guess in the live process, there’s a difference between what kind of things will keep going and what needs to stop. And then in some cases, songs need to be longer for me to get through all the different parts [with live looping]. So there’s definitely some difference between what’s on the record and what’s live. They’re just slight differences, I think.

I saw you play, totally randomly, in Adelaide with Jason Sweeney [Panoptique Electrical] late last year. Beyond that, how far afield from Melbourne have you managed to play?
That’s actually the only show I’ve played in Adelaide so far. I’ve been to Sydney a few times, sort of on the back of touring with the Spheres, the band I used to play in. And then I’ve been over to Tasmania a few times with various other acts who have invited me along. But the next few months I’ve organised a tour. I’m launching in Melbourne and then the weekend after, I have four shows in Adelaide, and then I’m going to Hobart. I’m in the process of getting Sydney together for late July, but there’s always complications with organising things. And when you’re mostly by yourself doing it, it can be pretty hard. But I’m getting there, yeah.

Not many bands use accordion. Do you ever feel like you’re helping make it a more credible instrument?
It is an interesting instrument. I don’t know why exactly I chose to pick that up. Well, in the band I was in before Great Earthquake, I had a mini-accordion which I used very minimally. When I started Great Earthquake, I didn’t have bass, but the guitar and drums were all at a similar level and I thought some [other] instrument would be good to have another range or frequency. I guess I got lucky, because I was walking on Brunswick Street [in Melbourne] and there was an accordion in a pawn shop window for quite a good price. I wasn’t on this hunt to definitely have accordion, but it was something that came into my hands. I’ve really enjoyed trying to learn it, and I still don’t have that much of a grasp on it, especially the bass notes on the left-hand side. But I guess as a instrument to drone or play some chords or melodies over, it does something different.

You mentioned Mice Parade earlier, and there seems to be a post-rock influence in Great Earthquake, especially in the guitar.
I guess maybe years ago I was playing more post-rocky sort of stuff. But I don’t play the guitar a particular way. It comes naturally to play the way I do. I don’t know if Mice Parade is what I think of when I play it.

Does the guitar sort of anchor the songs?
I think so. I think more and more it’s been the case, in the sense that the beginning of how I write a song is very much to do with a riff or an idea on the guitar. I guess anchoring the song would be pretty onto it. Unintentionally, but that’s just kind of how it works.

GREAT EARTHQUAKE LAUNCH ‘DRAWINGS’

Saturday, June 12
Newtown Workers Club, Melbourne, VIC
w//Love Connection + Milk Teddy

Friday, June 18
The Crown & Anchor, Adelaide, SA
w/Paper Arms + Weightless

Saturday, June 19
Clarity Records, Adelaide, SA
In-store

Saturday, June 19
HeadQuarters Studios, Adelaide, SA

Sunday, June 20
The Grace Emily, Adelaide, SA

Saturday, July 3
The Alley Cat, Hobart, TAS
w/Love Connection + Paint Your Golden Face + Transcription Of Organ Music

Sunday, July 4
House show, Hobart, TAS
w/Billy Whims + Transcription Of Organ Music