No need to introduce Francisco López : anyone interested into sound art, field recordings and acousmatic music may have heard his name, and should own one or two of his numerous publications...

Here is an interview with him I conducted during the "Musique & Quotidien Sonore" festival, in Albi (Fr), 5th May 2005.

During this discussion, we were speaking about broadband and complex sounds, listening experience in nature, urban sounds, perception-orientated soundworks and monitoring... 

Visit also his website and read another interview on Binauralmedia. 

Yannick Dauby : So you like frogs ?

Francisco López : Yeah. I like frogs better than birds for example.

Yannick : Why ?

Francisco : I don't know.

Yannick : You don't like sinewaves ?

Francisco : I have no idea. Sinewaves, well it depends. I don't know.

Yannick : You prefer frictions rather than whistles ?

Francisco : I will have to make a psychoanalysis to find out [laughs]. Another issue ?

Yannick : Ok. What difference do you make during recording one animal or one non-human made sound source...

Francisco : Mechanical, like a machine or something ?

Yannick : For example rivers, waterfalls... Some nature sources but not animal, not organic. And some urban sources such as this motor explosion.. [a car starts]

Francisco : Well, the thing is.. You know, I look at the sounds... Put it that way, I look at the sound as a sound, you know? With my personal taste as everyone else, you know. So, the thing is, I cannot really have the memory of a lot of the different recordings, and those things I found interesting in nature because of the the richness of the sounds, quality of the sounds, because there is such an incredible variety of possibilities, you know. From a very very quiet to extremely loud, to very rich, very complex, things that mix in a way that you don't... You find those mixes already done in nature. And those combinations of that richness is for me an incredible source, so I really look at sound as a source. And I'm not very respectful of sound as a reference or as a sympol or a representation of what it came from. And because of that, I will have a hard time trying to make a difference between those categories, like urban sounds - of course there are different typical sounds of those different categories. But for example, it is very normal that I have an archive of many differents type of things. Urban sounds, nature sounds, organic, non-organic, but then in the studio or during the work, to me all of that becomes... They become all with the same entity, with the same value in terms of... Regardless of their categories that's what I mean. And many times, as you probably know, sound from an animal can be very similar to sound from a machine and all this kind of things, if you are looking at the sounds as sounds. And that basically creates a different categorization of sound, of course, you know, I didn't invented it. To me that's more what in practice actually happens. So for me it is not a theorical type of thing, but I am interested in certain things... Because all the reasons... It really has to do with the quality of the sound by itself. And that perception of sound, for me, really starts more in the studio than in the field. In the field, I tried as many different types of things as possible. This is normally my goal. And as a specific goal, I am not a nature recordist. So when I go in the field, I never looking for something specific, I don't have to find something. So I try to collect a lot of different thing. And I don't think a lot about that. And then in the studio I face that material, and it is really a totally different situation. I try to start like from zero. It is impossible because I was there and all of that, but as much as I can I try to start from zero, I listen to the recording many times, and listen different things, try differents things, and that is a different world. And for me it is a different world to the world of representation for example since I don't  have those goals, those purposes, or those interests. So, of course, it  will come up with the classifications of the kind of Pierre Shaeffer or Michel Chion's classification, which is more of a phenomenology of sound. And it is really what interests me. Now, many times when you're in the field, you can have that perception as well. And you listen to thing regardless of... If you like a certain space for example or landscape, as you know, many times there is a beautiful landscape, from the point of vue of the visual aspect, and it is not interesting from the point of vue of the sound. So, it is difficult to disconnect those things, but that disconnection happens for people like you and me who work with sounds so intensely. It's more for me that kind of categorization. The only thing that I would say is that in urban environment, in the cities mostly, what happens of course, is that it is very homogenous because of the traffic, especially in the street. Of course there are many other things, but many many cities, the sound is basically the same because of traffic. And the sound of traffic, I don't find it very interesting, probably because it's very hard to extract from traffic interesting things, interesting material that doesn't sound like motors or traffic. At least it's my personal experience, it's very hard to extract something out of it that  doesn't sound like what it was at the beginning, and I find much easier to do that with many other things. For example, I love machines in general as sources of very interesting materials. Because with these qualities, the texture of the sound, I find very interesting... And also the idea of a machine making sounds is incredible as compared to traffic, and since traffic is predominant in the streets in basically all of the world it become something... I don't know... Very homogenous and very... And also it doesn't have a droning quality. Many droning sounds I find very appealing, because they provides you a material which is like... It leads you in a flowing kind of work with sound while the traffic even doesn't have that. Occasionally if you are very far away from a highway you can have something like that. But in the streets of a city or a normal situation, you don't have that. It's too irregular and too homogenous. This is my personal perception. From that point of vue when I do a project in cities, I always.. In the last years I tempted to go indoors, in the city, and to find things that can be specific to the city or not... But from my personal experience you find much more interesting things indoors than outdoors.

Yannick : You were a speaking about perception-orientated listening, a phenomenological system of listening, not considering signification but the produced sounds. Outdoors, in cities you have the same stuff that in forest... For example, in La Selva notes, you explained that you were recording environments, not animal voices, in cities, you also have this aspect, with streets resonators, tunnels or cavities, that you can explore...

Francisco : Of course. I've been knowing that. Of course, and I know a lot of people who have this kind of inspiration. If you know how to look for things, you will find interesting things anywhere. The only thing is that for me the amount of interest that I can find for cities normally is less appealling. In many case you have to move away from what is predominant in the cities. Once you've done this kind of explorations, looking for little things and special things, you basically moving away from traffic, and that's the problem. In nature, you don't have to... even when you have something loud and present like, let's say, a river or waterfall, or the sea, this kind of material is of course very broadband material, so you can do a lot of things with that, and personnaly I have a preference for broadband material, so it's a fantastic possibility for me, but in the city all the time you have a super dominant source that is like, over everything else, is that traffic sound. You have to go away from it, to look for other things.