Why we do what we do – part 3, Audiocast Productions, May 2011

Throughout this series of posts we are exploring what music means to our artists, what first inspired them to create music and how their music has evolved since they first started.
In this third installment we speak to Soli-Ohm and Second Thought.

AP: What does music mean to you?
ST: Music is more than just aural to me – it is also visual. Much of my listening is based around ambient/electronic/atmospheric music which can take me to a different place. Groups like The Future Sound of London and Biosphere give me the chance to imagine scenes and landscapes through their use of field recordings, samples and evocative melodies; listening to such music from a young age has enabled me to apply this visual approach to most of the music I listen to, and from this I use music as a chance to escape the mundane world and explore new landscapes, partly my own and partly the musician’s.

AP: What or who first inspired you to start creating music?
ST: I can’t remember a time when I didn’t create music. Like many people, I used to create tapes as a child – my friends and I singing along to instrumental tunes and making our own songs. I took this a step further, however, and began compiling massive discographies of these recordings, with ‘Best of’ collections, singles and various artist monikers depending on who I was recording with. I spent as much time listening to these tapes as I did records I’d bought in the shops.

The first band I ever discovered was 60s guitar group The Shadows, and it was their music that formed the backbone of the early tapes. Their guitar tones gave me an interest in modern indie rock music, but it was the instrumental nature of most of their music that put me in the direction of modern electronic and dance music. Bands such as FSOL and Orbital were at their commercial prime at just the right time for me to discover them when seeking out contemporary electronic music and it was this influence that shaped most of my music recorded from then on.

AP: How has your music evolved since you first started creating music?
ST:After the earliest, childish tapes (with track titles such as ‘Ghost Mountain’ and ‘I Love You Baby’), I began to experiment with the sounds I was creating, making side-long instrumental compositions, and playing with tape speeds, going so far as to record one tape based entirely around tuning a radio. In 1999, a friend and I formed Second Thought in mind of creating vocal techno in the vein of Underworld. The project was short lived, and we split a year later.

In 2001 I was given a copy of Fruityloops for my PC and decided to ressurect the Second Thought name for the basic trance recordings I made using it. It didn’t take long for me to realise the endless possibilities of music software, and I began to fragment and deconstruct the sound with each successive recording, moving through to trip-hop, downtempo breaks and eventually abstract ambient soundscapes that successfully matched the visual elements of my biggest influences.

With advances in software, and a more serious attitude towards my music, the sound has improved and expanded over four albums, to now encompass elements of dub techno, glitch, and modern classical piano and string compositions.

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