A Canary in the Coal Mine: Laurence Pike Interview

Laurence Pike talks to Gareth Thompson about the hellish wildfires that inspired his new album Prophecy for the Leaf Label

Laurence Pike’s music draws the past into the present and future. A renowned drummer and composer, his solo works combine rhythm, trance and ritual with the use of a synth pad. Pike is also a member of nu-jazz trio Szun Waves, whose last outing New Hymn to Freedom met with great acclaim. His new album Prophecy offers a response to the bush fires which left his Australian homeland charred between 2019-2020. These ‘Black Summer’ fires killed around a billion animals and burned half of Queensland’s world heritage rainforests. Recorded in one day, Prophecy is a message from the embers, using digital samples like field recordings. As always, Pike delves into unseen worlds, never relying on the purely visible for inspiration. Prophecy captures both a place of stillness and the vibrancy of dance. It begs us to think on our existence and take nothing for granted.

Can you describe the experience from your proximity to the fires? How did this feed into your musical vision?

I live quite close to the centre of Sydney. There was no immediate danger, but even the centre of town was dealing with heavy smoke and raining ash. We were recommended not to go outdoors on some days. This speaks nothing of the people and wildlife in the direct line of those fires. The entire east coast was burning. Communities were literally being driven into the ocean by flames. There was a palpable sense of the world ending, a genuinely existential event. As a musician, responsive to his environment and the moment, this couldn’t help but feed into my music. You can’t step outside at midday to a dark pink sun against brown skies and not question your relationship with the earth.

Prophecy has the essence of a protest album, but are the pieces more reflective than raging?

There’s elements of both reflection and rage in this recording. I never really know what the result is going to be until after the sessions. Certainly, there was a strong feeling of helplessness and anger in this country at the time. The way our Prime Minister handled it felt utterly perverse, to say the least. It became clear that this event was a shift in the reality of how we exist on earth. I wanted to capture something of that essence in the music.

“Death of Science” is a pointed track title. Has science become an ideological choice?

The issue of climate change has long been kicked around by Australian governments, especially the current Conservative party. We’ve had the science on this subject for decades, but an absence of leadership on the matter. No one from either side of politics will put their skin in the game over this human crisis. A former PM described bushfires as ‘simply part of the Australian experience’, and our current PM turned up to parliament with a lump of coal, mocking the opposition with it, telling them not to be afraid. It’s like the principles of science that govern our universe don’t apply if they’re inconvenient to your personal or political agenda. That’s a dangerous direction for society.

How does the sample pad work in tandem with your percussion?

It’s a rolling process. I try staying open to the moment, finding a process for the music to make itself. Increasingly I think of myself as a participant, rather than the creator.

From a performance point of view, the sample pad becomes an extension of the drum kit. All of the music is open for interpretation. Adding vocal sounds this time wasn’t a conscious choice to expand the sonic range; the vocalisations just felt a natural thing to do. I follow the music’s threads, then frame ideas as they present themselves.

Your recent three albums have all been recorded quickly. Why the speed of capturing it all?

Part of the appeal is having limitations on the parameters. For example, I don’t like getting bogged down in pre-production over the sampled elements. I want them to feel intuitive in the final performance. I usually spend about four weeks recording and editing the sample components, building banks of material which I then develop as pieces with the acoustic kit. When I’m still not 100% certain, I’ll take them to the studio for a day and cut the album live, much like you would a jazz record.

The samples have already been mixed in a sense, so there’s no post-production there.

You’ve claimed not to be an activist, but have recent events drawn you to the front line?

Dedicating your life to making music in Australia is a form of protest! Despite its beauty, resources, history, talent and good fortune, this country takes for granted and squanders many of these things. In the past, I never wanted to make my opinions overt, or of greater importance than the music. But I also think artists are like canaries in the coal mine. Part of our task is to expose ourselves to intangible conditions and transmit the information. It’s a function that now feels necessary to justify my place in the world. Sometimes I feel that working in abstraction may no longer be enough, particularly in a country where the role of art is under attack. I don’t consider myself an activist, I’m a musician. But it’s important to be one with something to say.

What percussion instruments do you play alongside a standard drum kit?

It’s essentially a regular jazz kit augmented by the sample pads and pieces of hand percussion (bells, shakers, chimes). I try to transcend the standard drum kit’s timbre, as it’s an orchestral, textural and melodic instrument. I’m looking to maximise that potential, or reframe it with extra dimensions, rather than reinventing the wheel entirely.

The real beauty is maintaining a sense of humanity in this process, whilst challenging people’s preconceptions of the instrument.

Do you prefer performing without a fixed structure, to improvise freely?

That’s the whole idea. A method that allows me to integrate dimensions of sound using electronics, but still have that freedom of expression as a drummer. So much live electronic music is restricted by playing to a ‘grid’, or the functionality of ‘beats’. The power of performance for me lies in accessing the moment, to manipulate the air between myself and the listener. When the structure is too predetermined, so is the future in some ways. My concept of ‘free’ playing is underpinned by a sense of pulse, if not tempo. I think more in circular shapes and arcs, rather than strict linear tempos. My playing and the interaction of the samples are like a Venn diagram, with overlapping circles of running information. The areas where they intersect are what I’m aiming to explore and where the music exists.

Laurence Pike Bandcamp

Laurence Pike website