Interview: Ducklingmonster Debut Solo Album 'I know......a...way...'

Vital force in Aotearoa's noisy underground for more than two decades, I know​.​.​.​.​.​.​a​.​.​.​way​.​.​. is somehow the first ever solo record from Ducklingmonster aka sound / visual artist Beth Dawson — of O/pus, Futurians, N. T. Honey, Rise Of The City Cat Cult, Murdering Monsters, File Folder, It Hurts and lots more. Recorded and produced by Stefan Neville (Pumice) as part of Audio Foundation's on-site Winter Residency programme in central Tāmaki Makaurau, Ducklingmonster's new album is the inaugural vinyl LP physical release from the experimental hub's imprint Audio Foundation Records (AFR).

Dawson chatted with peers Neville and interviewer Pat Kraus about the anti-capitalist kaupapa and community orbiting her debut solo long player and ongoing art practice. "Each vinyl comes with a risographed animation frame from Ducklingmonster's 'Run Into Waves' music video" which is also out today, scroll down to watch. Read their conversation, hit play below and grab a copy at next Friday's launch event at AF, co-starring Pumice and Paradox Princess — a show also celebrating the vinyl LP reissue of GFrenzy's 2002 album EEL CREEK ("We are gonna show some of Glen's animations too"). Pōneke punters can catch Ducklingmonster at Pyramid Club on 3rd August, with Beach Balls ("old pals") and Cook ie Cutt er ("new pals")..

Ducklingmonster 'I know......a...way...' Album Release Show
with Pumice, Paradox Princess
Friday 26th July - Audio Foundation, Auckland
Tickets on sale HERE via UTR

Ducklingmonster, Beach Balls, Cook ie Cutt er
Saturday 3rd August - Pyramid Club, Wellington
Tickets on sale HERE via UTR

Pat Kraus: I wanna start with the most important question, which is, were there any particular snacks or beverages involved in the recording sessions that you guys remember?

Stefan Neville: Cups of tea, and coffee...

Ducklingmonster: Oh, yeah, the bottomless coffee that's always on at the Audio Foundation anyway.

SN: That's just normal with whatever you're doing, recording or not, but Milkshakes lollies was the thing eh? I don't know, one of us bought a packet and they just have never tasted so good!

So you recorded at Audio Foundation?

SN: In the live room, in the gig room yeah.

D: I had what they called 2023 Winter Residency, which was to use that space. From the get-go, I did want the live room sound. So being in that space where I've performed, probably hundreds of times at this point, that was nice as well, and setting up my noise table so it could just be left. Instead of, when you play live and you have that scramble of trying to pack everything down.

How do you see the album as relating to what you do live? And was it new material? Or was it stuff you've done live before?

D: Because this will be my first solo LP, my previous releases have been cassettes and seven-inches, I did want to return to some songs. The main thing from the live performances that I really wanted to bring to it was some of the textures that happen when everything was playing. And letting the devices kind of play themselves out, and to step away and build them up into the mesh of what happens, especially playing through the JVC boombox, treating that as an instrument in itself. And I had quite a small guitar amp as well. So it's like, I could have those crunchy textures.

The full list of gear was my mixing desk, a Casio, a turntable and 45s, the boom box, a guitar, a theremin from the MEL collection, microphone, delay effects pedals, and the distortion box that you built for me. The JVC boombox has guitar input, and it has a subwoofer. It's kind of like, my bandmate, at this point. It's like how Pumice have Table. These are like characters and actors. And because I come to playing solo from playing in bands, I'm always conscious that there's not the same sonic conversation that can happen with another person. So it's like, I've fed that into some of those instruments and devices that I use, and then I feel like they're contributing to it as well. And the JVC is portable. So it is something that we've used for the No Venues project and actions as well. I forgot to mention in my list of gear, there was the Dr Rhythm drum machine. And I have found that when I play that, and the Casiotone together through the JVC, this really nice pulsing starts to happen, that thing where you can step away from them, and it becomes this nice rhythmic drone.

SN: With the recording, the music on the record is all pretty much done live. I don't think we overdubbed any instruments, we just overdubbed some vocals. The instrumentation is all live. With the recording process I like to add layers in that. So recording the signals you're sending to the amps, but also a line out of the mixer into a spring reverb. And some room mics, you know, just to get layers and flavours.

D: Also with that little turntable, which is another type of portable instrument amp, you also got the feed from that. So the mixing, rather than having to do overdubs, it was more like taking it to a place of deep listening, and really carefully picking up on the sounds and textures that we liked in it.

SN: Yeah blending the direct sound of instruments, as well as the room and various weird little speakers.

D: Lyrically, I was talking a lot about elements. And a bit towards climate crisis as well. And also being in that space, that's like, on the Waihorotiu underground river, and I think quite an important place in Tāmaki. So I wanted that to come across in those layers as well. So the sound could be an echoing and more like a conversation with the material and elements. And maybe something that was on my mind was like, oh, it's the Winter Residency. So it's like, what do we do in this contained space? I've been thinking about this thing, which is maybe age-related as well. It's like the things that you do before you know "how things are done". That can really have lasting impact for you.

Because you've got to figure it out yourself?

D: Yeah and not having that expectation of "doing things properly".

SN: When you don't know how to do things properly, not that I even think there's a proper way to do things, but when you're making it up, it's sort of liberating that you can do anything.

D: Also it's about working on projects with your friends as well, Liz (Mathews) came in to drum on (these recordings) too. So when there was the offer of doing the album, I was like, obviously, I'll get Stefan to record it, and Liz can come and play drums, you know, working in that way, working in community.

Right, whereas some people would be like, "I have a professional relationship with these people, and we do this thing, and that's it".

D: And that's why their music sucks!

Haha yeah!

SN: The process of recording was Beth would kind of be fiddling around and sort of getting a recipe together, or setting up a setting or a combo of sounds and objects, and I'd just sort of eat some Milkshakes and draw on the tape box and then go, yep, then we'd record it. She would sort of get everything simmering.

I'm just imagining if you did the same project, but at a "proper" studio, how different that would be.

D: Well, there was also the fact that there's the MEL (Musical Electronics Library) collection there. So I hadn't gone in with the thought of using that theremin, but I went in one afternoon with the view of using something that's in that collection, and bringing that into it. Which would make it another thing that's about that space. And it was quite nice, the busyness of the Audio Foundation, like, being in the performing room and recording, and then going out and sitting around the kitchen table there, and people pop in, and that's what you wouldn't get somewhere else. It has this social element to it as well.

How does community inform what you do as a musician?

D: It's hard to separate the two out for me. Because my community is all about making music, going to music, playing each other songs on records. So it's tied into the sociability of it. And also, it's outside of socio-economic pressures as well, you know, it's an anti-capitalist way of being.

SN: If you look at the music industry, you know, they seem like real estate agents to me, you know, they don't seem like a community. And that is about money and product and stuff.

D: And I think it's also that sense that making music is a way of sustaining community, a way of being in the world where you're putting in place these structures that can hold you and your friends.

So it's a way to bring people together.

D: Yeah.

SN: It's a nice way to exist. You don't need money and permission and all those weird things. You're not entitled to a superstar living because it's nothing to do with any of that stuff.

Yeah, I feel the same, that the music industry just seems like something completely separated from what I'm involved with...

D: I mean, that's the same with the art world as well. These things can run parallel.

Something I've seen you do a lot is going out into the audience with a long mic lead.

D: Yeah, partly that allows me to listen to what's happening as well, which was something that I wanted to put into this album was that process of stepping back. Because I think when you play solo, you can get into this thing of always having to activate something, filling it all in. But sometimes, the coming off stage, or setting my stuff up on the table so I have to move around it, builds in this choreography that's a bit haphazard and leaves things to chance. And that takes away the fixedness of it for me. It makes it like, "What's happening"? "What is this space?". And that can be true when you're listening to a record as well, you can enter into this unfixed space where you're like, "What are those sounds?"

It's like an environment you're creating for people.

D: Yeah, because a lot of the sounds that I'm using have a real physicality to them. Especially in the last couple of years, I've been working a lot with those 45s that have really scratched surfaces, so you're actually listening to the physicality of the sound as well. And I really liked the idea with this record of them having vinyl pressed that had vinyl crackle and scratches on it. So then in the same way that you might question when it’s playing live: "Oh, is that broken? Is that intentional?" You might think, "Is my needle fucking up when I'm playing this record at home, or is that on the recording?"

Special thanks to Audio Foundation for arranging this interview.