Maps have numerous purposes in life; they are one of the fundamental means by which human beings represent information. Experimental mappings such as data visualizations, cover a wide range of different influences that can make the complex simple and the simple complex. TVO’s addition to the FIBER podcast series is a mapping of a wide variety of sounds that represents the various territories of his aesthetic.
TVO stands for The Village Orchestra, both are monikers under which Scottish Ruaridh Law plays a vibrant role in the scene. Apart from managing his Broken20 label, releasing productions, and playing DJ-sets, he also shares his knowledge and taste for music with the occasional written contribution for FACT magazine. So what are influences that contributed to his musical development?
“I started listening to UK Rave and Hardcore when it hit the charts in the late 80s/early 90s. From there a progression to ambient techno, “IDM” type stuff and into techno – UR, Drexciya, Basic Channel etc…and then a chance purchase of a load of old Fat Cat cds led to a discovery of drone, industrial and noise and my realization of how all those sounds crossed over with the techno I already loved”. The mix conveys this variety and has some unpredictable turns. “I don’t plan things much”, explains Ruaridh, “I just keep mixing records together as they sound good, and sometimes that makes some odd changes”.
These unexpected transitions also occur in experimental maps and in TVO’s sources of visual inspiration. “I love Max Ernst and Yves Tanguy, and art from my friends like audiovisual artist Konx-om-pax and Krypt. In films, rather clichéd unfortunately, I love the looks of the films of Lynch and Tarkovsky – Solaris, Stalker, Inland Empire and Lost Highway are probably my favorite films I’ve ever seen”. All these examples offer a surrealistic vision where reality and subjectivity intertwine. Similar to how Broken20 as a label is not tied to a certain static reality of a genre, but rather to a dynamic aesthetic related to “decay, erosion, entropy, mistakes and errors, line noise and tape hiss, hum and buzz”.
The sixteenth FIBER podcast shows exactly what this dynamics is all about, and offers a wide landscape of techno as well as a few unreleased exclusives.