In November I had the pleasure of releasing 'Spirit Level' by New Zealand based artists Bevan Smith and Andrew Thomas, who record as Feeling Flying. I first discovered their music from the Handstitched label, run by Maps and Diagrams from just a few miles away from me in fact! Their music is so deep and enveloping, and we thought for their blog post that it would be interesting for our readers to delve into their sound a little more. Andrew was away on work commitments whilst I was putting this blog together, but I had a chat with Bevan who has shared some answers on behalf of Feeling Flying.

See below for the album walkthrough and you can also hit play on the embedded YouTube video below, to check out the sprawling 17+ minute track 'Drift' from this album.

HT: How did you get into making Ambient music? And how did you come to start making music together?

BS: "I’ve always been interested in the texture of sounds within music. I started to learn guitar at the end of high school. A friend bought a cheap second hand synthesiser (roland juno 6)when I started university and I was blown away by the sounds it could make. Like adjusting the attack on a sound was such a discovery. I started to make ambient/found sound pieces on a four track recorder as well as shoegazey pieces and I remember discovering reverb at some stage in that same year."

HT: A four-track tape recorder, a Roland D-550 and pitch shifting took centre stage in the creation of this album. Did you start out with particular tools or a set of rules? Or did the album production flow more organically?

BS: "We didn’t have any rules. I wanted to make something that was easily made. I had been using the d550 to make minimal techno tracks and spent a year and a half going through 1,000’s of presets that are available and collating my favourite ones via the laser mammoth website. When Andrew sent through the midi files of his improvisations I turned on the D550 and it was on this patch that sounded very cool. A lot of the album is on this one patch. It’s heavily compressed and so there’s a lot of digital artifacts and noise."

HT: You mentioned improvisation is a big part of your process. Could you share a bit about what that looks like in practice? Did you work together in person or was the album created remotely with file sharing?

BS: "Yes improvisation is a big part of the process. We make music in a very easy/simple way. Andrew provided the midi files and these were all from improvised piano recordings. I slow them down a totally arbitrary amount and run the midi out to the d550. As the d550 audio is being recorded back into reaper I mix the track and often have parameters set to record so it’s being live mixed. If the track wasn’t able to sound good immediately then we would leave it and move to another one. The tracks were mostly mixed and finished as they were being recorded."

HT: Are there any specific places or memories that fueled the album’s atmosphere? Any special stories to share from the time of creating the album?

BS: "It was such fun to make something that immediately sounded great I thought. Andrew and I both spend a long time crafting in our solo music so it great to do the opposite of this. I would send Andrew loads of renders of different bits of midi recorded and most of them have turned out decently. I think I was making 6 or 7 tracks a day like this, over a few days.

There was a track that I just used one note on and I stretched it out to over 40 mins. Just to see how ridiculous I could get. It was so satisfying to work on though, once it went through some effects it was so hypnotic and I ended up listening to it quite a few times. Andrew had very specific editing notes for it, like an exact start and finish time from within the 40 minute piece."

HT: You’ve both worked across various genres, from jazz and dub-reggae to contemporary dance scores. How do these diverse influences shape the Feeling Flying sound?

BS: "We have a pretty big overlap of tastes and a shared language from working in these different contexts. There was a track in the dance show we composed and performed for where Andrew played this crazy noisy pulsing note on the Korg MS20 synth. SO much sub! Not too far away from what we’re doing now."

You can follow Feeling Flying’s work on Instagram here:

Instagram

'Spirit Level' is available in a limited edition run of gatefold vinyl-effect CDrs as well as a digital option in a range of high quality format options. You can take a listen to the album in full or buy a copy HERE!