Oct 255 min read

Awesome party last night! r beny Q&A Part One today - background and philosophy x

Hi friends - hope all good :)

These parties just keep getting better, was so good to see you all last night!

Thank you so much for the all the positivity - means a huge amount to me and was so good to see Austin getting all the love he truly deserves.

He’s a wonderful person as well as a brilliant musician so deeply grateful for you showing him how appreciated he really his - you’re an incredible community, so honoured to be a part of it :) x

Lots more CDs to go out today, some still left if you want. Remember to message me if you bought one and want a private Bandcamp code to Austin’s unique long-form version of the album.

https://quietdetails.bandcamp.com/album/discerned-in-the-fugue-of-streams

Ok, now for Part One of our Q&A - Austin is as eloquent as he is musical, so enjoy!

Please tell us a bit about your background and history in music

Music has long been my sanctuary, a fulfilling and safe way for me to express myself and to satisfy my soul. I’ve been playing music in one form or another since I was about 12. Throughout my teens and early 20s, I played guitar in various industrial, metal, post-rock, and alternative bands with friends and folks I met through Craigslist. While I also discovered and fostered a love for guitar pedals, ambient and electronic music, and the recording arts, I didn’t really get into electronic instruments until about 10 years ago.

In my mid 20s, I hit a wall creatively and was immensely struggling with my mental health. Things came to a head when my mom unexpectedly passed away. I was in such poor shape, making music became unfulfilling and overwhelming (like many things did for me at that time). I quit the bands I was in and sold nearly all of my guitar and recording gear, effectively quitting music.

A year later, my wonderful friend Dev (whom I grew up playing music with, aka Shipwreck Detective) showed me a Korg Monotribe he had recently acquired. We were jamming out on it and it dawned on me that I was actually having fun making music again. The Monotribe had just become discontinued, so I picked up a Volca Keys to mess around with, with no real intention in mind outside of having fun while doodling. And just like that, something clicked. I found that I was able to express myself on a level that I struggled to realize with guitar. It was almost like I opened up these pathways in my creative brain that were long blocked off or unknown. Synthesizers not only helped me fall in love with music again, but they allowed me to see and make music in a new light.

I started the r beny project not long after that, originally as a YouTube channel for tutorials. Eventually that bloomed into making original music.

Please can you describe a bit about your general philosophy and process as an artist?

Throughout my music making journey, I’ve always held that music is a way for me to express myself - especially emotions that I’ve had difficulty processing and putting into words. While my processes or motivations may have shifted and evolved over time, that ability to express the difficult and unknown has remained at the heart of my music.

I’m currently in the midst of making sense of what my process is. A little over 3 years ago, I quit drinking alcohol. While music provided a constructive way for me to work through difficult emotions, alcohol provided a destructive way out of them - a way to numb the pain, a way to quiet my overthinking brain. As much as it hurts to admit, alcohol became a part of my creative process. Alcohol almost acted as a “fuck it” button, allowing me to forge through any creative stumbling blocks or inhibitions. I came to rely on it - not just in music, but in life.

Over the last 3+ years, I’ve worked diligently to realize what creativity looks and feels like sober. There’s been countless times where the thought of going into my studio or picking up an instrument made me feel sick to my stomach and heartbroken. A few things really helped me out. Reading “The Creative Habit” by Twyla Tharp was such an eye opener. I learned just how beneficial setting habits to get into the creative mindset could be. I used to rely on whim and hope that a creative idea would come to me, but that type of creativity wasn’t sustainable for me. It needs to be cared for and fostered, worked out as if it was a muscle.

Another beneficial process was getting back to creating music for myself with no other intention or any expectation. Purely expressing myself through music. Shedding the weight of expectation was difficult. As soon as I start making music with an audience in mind, I falter creatively. I feel beyond grateful if anyone ever happens to resonate with my music.

What works best for me these days is to start my creative work with certain habits to get in the mood (typically going for a walk in the morning, followed by coffee and a bit of reading, then lighting some candles once I’m ready to turn on the studio) and then work in the studio for maybe 60-90 minutes before I head off to my day job. The approach I took for this album was to cycle between making patches on the synths, recording as much as possible, and culling and shaping and mixing the recordings in the DAW to make the arrangements.

What does quiet details mean to you and how did you use that to approach this album?

To me, quiet details are the individual threads that make up the whole. Details that are gleaned through intent. They may not be immediately noticeable, but one would notice their absence. When Alex first invited me to be a part of quiet details, my mind immediately went to moving bodies of water. The sounds of rushing water are akin to white noise, which are made up of a spectrum of frequencies all audible at once. When I need to think, I often seek out moving bodies of water. I like to sit and intently listen.

Eventually I can start to notice individual sounds that make themselves known from the noise. I like to imagine that I’ll find whatever I’m looking for in those streams of white noise. If white noise carries the entire frequency spectrum, why wouldn’t one be able to glean music or the voice of a loved one. It's a fantasy, but it brings me comfort in a sense.

When starting work on the album, I started to think about how quiet details could be found in other noisy threads. I thought of the noise of an ever increasingly warm world, polluted by the sounds of humans and human technology and war machines. I thought of the noise of social media, the endless doom-scroll dominated by algorithms and ads. I thought of the wind blowing through the trees. I thought of my overthinking brain.

Beyond that, I thought about the importance of slowing down and trying to take notice of the quiet details in these noisy threads. Slowing down and noticing the small. The moss, the bark, the dirt, the sand, the snow, the grass.