Track By Track: David Evans

The second album from Melbourne tinkerer DAVID EVANS augments more conventional instrumentation (drums, bass, harmonium, autoharp) with manual typewriters, “field recordings in the home” (microwaves, electric toothbrushes, food processors, hairdryers, etc.) and vintage telephone-exchange machinery.

‘Element One’

‘Element One’ is centered around the snare beat which begins the track and continues unmoved more or less for the whole duration, with the sounds around the beat shifting. This was one of the first tracks I worked on and back then my plan was to make an album from drumkit and typewriters. While these are what make up the first half of the track (along with some brooms swept across carpet and the sounds of a cement mixer being used at my neighbour’s house), after a while I realised I needed some different sounds; while drums and typewriters are good for machine-like rhythms and textures, it’s hard to make elongated drones from them.

That’s when I began wandering around the house listening out for other sounds I might use. I was living in a sharehouse at the time and one of my flatmates kindly let me record her electric toothbrush, which is somewhat recognisable (cue 1:55). One of our other flatmates wrote cookbooks for a living and, apart from meaning we could sample test recipes when she was working on a new book (the South American grill book was particularly memorable), she had one of those pricey KitchenAid® blenders. This is the sound that enters at 2:10 (she was using the lowest speed setting), but it’s fairly heavily processed.

‘Telco House’

My partner Lou came home one night from her day job, where she had placed some IT students at the Victorian Telecommunications Museum in Hawthorn, and said: “You would love this place I visited today!” She’d taken some photos of the exchanges and described the sounds the machines made. I got in touch with the guys at the museum and was there a couple of weeks later with one of the volunteers, Richard Schipper, an exceptionally nice man with a passion for telecommunications history, and spent a few hours recording the sounds of the museum as he sent calls through the exchanges and triggered various machines.

This track is made primarily from the sounds of the museum, and mouse clicks (when I realised I needed more clicking sounds, I found them literally at the end of my finger), with a four-on-the-floor kick drum eventually making this in some measure reminiscent of a down-tempo house track.

‘Saturday Afternoon’

This is probably the closest thing to a pop song on the album and also the track which took the longest to finish. The harmonium, which I played by ear, gives more of a melodic element. I had been working on this track for ages and remember sending an early demo version to Steve Phillips from Sensory Projects [who released Evans’ previous album), who said it was “a bit Waitsian.”

The album version bears little resemblance to the demo, though, as I was never happy with the overall structure and ended up chopping about three minutes from the track and paring back the sounds a lot, which is a bit hard to believe as it still sounds very full. There’s lots of typewriter and drums on this track, but not too much exotic instrumentation aside from bicycle pump.

‘Phonologic’

‘Phonologic’ is meant to be a bit more intense and grating to the listener. It’s made mostly from the sounds of my garden shed, with the main sounds being a hand mower, pruning shears and (highly processed) whipper snipper. It’s a straightforward track, with some of the telecommunications sounds aiding its progression, plus the museum’s alarm bells trailing off for its finish.

‘Connection’

Apart from ‘Saturday Afternoon’, most of the tracks on the album were like ‘Connection’ – while finessing the sounds and figuring out panning and fades would take hours and happen for weeks afterwards, the basic assembly of the track would happen quickly. I suppose my brain must have been placing the sounds in relation to one another, but consciously I would have little idea how things sounded together until I would listen back after having spent a couple of hours constructing the piece.

This track was left more or less as I first constructed it. I remember hearing the dial tone that emerges from around 2:30 at the museum; it had such a rich, deep tonal quality and has very little processing aside from a bit of delay and some gentle oscillation. Around these dial tones, there is the perpetual movement of a bicycle chain buoyed by the ticking sounds of machines from the museum. My attempt at a more ambient, drone track.

‘Upswing Spiral’

Beginning with highly processed toms, this track is the closest there is to full drum kit on the album, augmented with alternating electric razor (mine), hair dryer (Lou’s) and handclaps from a 1980s Yamaha DD-6 drum machine. After the upsurge of the toms, the razor and hairdryer fade out the track in a slightly displeasing way.

‘Microsoundwave’

In some respects the biggest failure of the album. Features my mum’s microwave oven, as the title suggests. Probably as a result of mixing with headphones (I don’t think half an inch from the ear is the best place from which to judge the low end), the microwaves don’t sit well in the mix and I never achieved the effect I was trying for. I still like the idea of creating sounds akin to an analogue synth from a microwave oven, and will try again someday. There was still something tonally redeeming in the track, so I left it on the album.

‘Slumber’

Named for Lou’s observation that the track sounded like the telecommunications machines were waking up, ‘Slumber’ is made exclusively from the sounds of the museum. The wrenching sound which enters around 2:15 is a heavily-processed machine tone. I wanted this track to embody the museum more explicitly, and the pitch-shifted ringtones which bookend it are quite recognisable.

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‘Domestic Cinema’ is out now as a free download through Wood & Wire and a limited CD through Bandcamp.