Feels Like Floating

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Colloboh (a portmanteau of Collins Oboh) is a Nigerian-born, Los Angeles-based experimental producer and composer who has spent the past several years cultivating genre-spanning modular wizardry. We had a chance to chat with Colloboh about music as meditation, his summer residency with us, and trusting in the guide and the glide.

Let’s get started. What drives you to make music and what do you hope to share with it?

Collins: Making music is more like a meditation for me. It's just the way I express myself because I'm not the best at verbally expressing emotions, I'm still getting better at that. Music is an outlet for me to express myself.

What do you mean by music being a meditation?

Collins: It's like getting into a zone where I can spend hours listening to one loop. It feels meditative, you know? It's hard to explain. It's getting in a zone where your mind is clear, and you just flow into it. It's a way to practice intuition for me. When I'm making music, something pops out, and I'm like, "Okay, let's keep going with that idea." It's about flowing and practicing intuition, trusting the process of things.

Like being in a stable flow, I totally feel that. Is your interest in loops what got you into synthesizers?

Collins: Not necessarily synthesizers. I just like the idea of sculpting something. It's pretty analogous to being a sculptor with a marble piece: you have this raw thing that you can sculpt into anything you want. That's what attracts me to synthesis and using synthesizers. Starting with raw waveforms like sine waves, saw waves, and square waves, you can sculpt those sounds by filtering, adding delays, and other effects, combining different elements. It's just fun, you know?

Is there anything that led you to start playing with synthesizers in that way?

Well, I started making music with some friends back in high school. I was making beats for them, and we were in a little rap group. Then I watched this one YouTube video that convinced me to get into modular synthesizers. It's been about eight or nine years now. Shout out to YouTube.

Literally. It's free information. Love it. I heard that you used to study some kind of science before?

Oh yeah, I was into data engineering.

Do you feel like that has any crossover with your music practice?

I actually get asked that a lot, but it's funny because it feels like the other way around. When I was doing data engineering for a living, I was already into the synthesizer world. There are similar concepts, like having a sound source or data source, transforming it, and then outputting it in a different way. It was a concept I was already familiar with through electronic music. It actually helped my real life.

That's awesome. You do music full time now though, right?

Yeah, I do music full time. It's been almost a year now since I stopped my day job. We're trying to make it work. It's fucking hard as hell.

What kind of struggles have you experienced, especially with that transition?

Financial struggles, like most other artists. But we're making it work. You know, I have a lot of faith, maybe a foolish amount of faith (laughs), that things work out if you just follow the greater path, just quoting "Trust the Guide and Glide," a record by MatthewDavid. But I feel like it's a true thing. When I had my job, I was financially secure but not happy. Now it's flipped. I'm not financially secure, but I feel very happy and present. It's a priceless feeling. I'd rather have that than anything.

Yeah, I definitely feel there's truth to the idea that as long as you're true to yourself, you spread that energy and attract the right things. And maybe the money will come eventually.

Yeah, I believe in that. Mm-hmm.

I see that you grew up in the DMV area?

Yeah, I was born in Nigeria and then moved to Maryland when I was seven. I lived in Maryland until about a year and a half ago.

Do you feel like moving here influenced the way you see things or make music?

In a way, it's hard to say. I don't really feel like I'm fully American or fully Nigerian. I guess I'm just an Earth person (laughs). It's a benefit because I don't have to align with any particular thing. I can just be myself. 

Growing up in Maryland was cool. There's a lot of diversity, especially in Montgomery County where I grew up. I'm grateful because I got to meet people from different cultures and befriend them. It influenced my taste in music and my openness to different things. Living in Baltimore for five years was a big part of my coming of age. I learned a lot about caring for others, empathy, and music experimentation. Baltimore has a huge experimentation scene. It was a big influence on my creativity.

How was your experience transitioning to LA? What kind of impression did you have of the city?

I feel very lucky because before I moved here, about a month or two before, I came and played one of the park shows for Leaving Records. That's when I got to meet everyone and actually met Sam. Sam was really nice and let me crash at her place (laughs). So I got so lucky because I met so many people at that show who I'm still close friends with today. Moving here made so much sense.

That's awesome.

Yeah, I feel so grateful. Everything feels so right. I have no doubt and no fear.

Being here has taught me a lot about community and the importance of having a shared mindset, shared vision, and uplifting each other to reach our fullest potentials. That's the vibe.

So sweet. For your residency, do you have any particular intention with regards to experimentation or challenging your current practice?

Definitely, I'll be challenged. The first show, which is gonna be on the ship, that's gonna be fucking amazing. I can't even believe that's happening now (laughs). It's been on my bucket list to go whale watching, and it was just a surreal thing when Noah was like, "Yeah, we're thinking about this whale watching thing." It was another moment where I was like, "Oh fuck yeah, this all feels so right."  I'm so excited for that. I have no idea what I'm gonna play. I'm excited to see Green-House play, MatthewDavid is gonna play too. I'm probably gonna mess around with some of the aquatic microphones, but honestly I don't even really care too much about the music (laughs), I'm just excited for the whales. 

And the next show, which is at the Hollyhock, I'm excited for that because I keep hearing how beautiful that space is. I've never been there. It's gonna be a good challenge because it's gonna be like a whole band with me, hopefully Mickey, Qur'an and Spencer. The three of us are gonna play my latest EP front to back, with some other songs here and there.

Saana Sahel is a gorgeous EP. It feels very elegant.

Thank you, I appreciate it. I made that while I was in LA and I was going through a breakup. It was kind of chaotic, but also there were moments of crazy energy and moments of super peacefulness, which is how my emotions were when I was going through all that shit. Living in LA for the first time, going through lots of changes, quitting my job, breaking up, moving to a new place. It's been a huge life change, but also just a blessing.

Totally. Through change, you kind of disintegrate and rebuild yourself, and then you're this new version of yourself, and it feels really exciting and sad. What about your last show in the Japanese Garden?

I'm actually gonna play a solo version of what I play with the whole band, but I'm gonna be on the side, and my friend Stephanie is gonna be doing a dance performance. So it'll be more of an elegant, low-key thing where she dances to it. She's one of my favorite dancers, and I'm just excited to see what she creates.

There's also a legendary poet named Kamau Daaood, and I'm trying to see if I can get him to read some poetry for that last show. So I would do this solo set with my friend Stephanie dancing, and then it would end with a poetry reading from Kamau Daaood. I feel like it would be a special thing, just to pay homage to the Pan African People's Arkestra, which has been super influential to my recent music. From their actual music to my friends like Mickey and Qur'an and Leaving Records. He can have all the money honestly.

It's literally just a labor of love, and I'm excited for the experience of it.

Do you have any particular relationship with the outdoors or sound in the outdoors?

I love being outdoors. The ocean, especially. It's a grounding space for me. I was at the beach two days ago, felt like I was recalibrating my energy. Now I sound like an LA girl.

(Laughs) You're centering yourself in Mother Nature.

But honestly, being by the ocean feels like that. Actually, my EP "Saana Sahel" on vinyl, the tracks are split into two sides. The first three tracks remind me of the desert, and the last three tracks remind me of the ocean. Those are two important spaces for me. When I moved to LA, I had psychedelic experiences in the desert, and I've always loved the ocean. It's one of the main reasons I moved here. The ocean reminds me of my ex because we both loved it. It holds a lot of personal meaning.

They're both endless expanses but extreme opposites of each other.

Beautifully said. I might steal that.

Go for it (laughs). What does "Saana Sahel" mean?

It's something I made up, actually. Making music is like a meditative space for me. "Saana Sahel" represents this place I strive to reach inward, a place of greater peace, higher self, and responsibility as a human. It's a made-up place, like a Mount Everest, where I'm working towards.

Like enlightenment.

Exactly. 

Do you have a favorite plant?

Damn, I love that question. That's tough. Well, I like hydrangeas. I remember when I worked at Home Depot in the plant section, I learned about hydrangeas. They're pretty.

I also like thyme. It's an herb, but it's strong. I planted it, and it made it through the winter. Like, bitch you won't die. It's just always there, I never have to worry. When a recipe needs thyme, I can just go outside. Not like fucking parsley, which might be dead. (Laughs)

It's reliable. It shows up. Is there anything else you want to add or talk about? Anything on your mind?

Yeah, I feel really grateful for this. The Floating community, the staff at Floating, shout out to Noah, Nina, Sam, and everyone else. You guys make this a no-brainer.

Aww, thanks. That's what we try to do.

Hopefully you guys get a bigger budget one day. It's tough right now for what we're trying to do, but if we all believe in it and don't give up, that's what matters.

For sure. Something will manifest, even if it's not what we can imagine right now.

Save the dates for Colloboh’s summer residency! For more info visit our website at https://www.feelslikefloating.com/colloboh-summer-residency

[feels-like-floating]

Born in Hawaii and raised in Japan, Dustin Wong is an American guitarist and former member of art-rock band Ponytail. Represented through Thrill Jockey and (soon) Leaving Records, Dustin has also collaborated with musicians Takako Minekawa and Dan Deacon. 

We recently had a chance to speak with Dustin about his practice and upcoming spring residency with us. Get cozy for this conversation that meanders through the architecture of sonic collaboration, landscapes of music-making, and being inspired by AI impressionism.

Interview conducted and edited by Light Liu, Director of Community Platforms at Floating.

Light: Let’s start by talking about your music, your practice, and what you're looking to do with music in general.

Dustin: There's been a lot of changes in process since I started playing publicly. At first I was just trying to figure out how to put together sounds using software by trial and error and incrementally try to understand the theories and how things worked.

It was all visual and shapes, like squares and triangles and rectangles, putting together shapes to create sounds. And as I started doing bands [in Ponytail], music was all based on ideas rather than theory, through trial and error working things out, [then later realizing] what kind of musical ideas we were actually [using].

[Then] it shifted more into solo performance and group-based music and that became more about studying the geography of the guitar and understanding the mechanics of how each note corresponds to each other, research and study of harmony, counterpoint, patterns & percussive elements.

I started collaborating with Takako, and that became the realm of sampling, the idea of taking a sound and understanding what those sounds can feel like in different octaves. While we were in Japan, at the end of the show, the promoter would [sometimes] suggest doing improvisations with the people and the bill, and I found that to be really novel. I started getting the bug for improvising, and we shifted into a more free form structure. We went on a few tours where we improvised [the whole time.] 

Here in LA, I became way more interested in the idea of building something new every time when performing. There are more opportunities here to play more improvised music with other players here. I was so impressed with how people can catch a sound, play with it and return something back that’s resonant or challenging or [taken] to a whole new realm. It's been such a great practice for me what I'm trying to do with the Floating residencies. 

L: Listening to your music & the way that you talk about your music, there's this very cross sensory feeling about your approach. It’s very visual and almost tactile, there’s a real sense of a concept or framework to your music. Would you like to talk about that at all?

D: It's changed a lot, my idea of the way I approach my gear, my interface, my pedals. When I was doing solo loop guitar, I associated everything as a kind of factory, each pedal corresponding to each other as this module of resources [where] sound is being transformed into another sound, into another sound, into another sound. 

That has changed quite a bit. I don't see my gear as a factory anymore. The scenery has gotten wider. It's like I can see the things outside of the factory so to speak, where there's sounds that slip into the space, like cars, trucks, people yelling, sirens. It was a bit of a challenge in the beginning, because I always thought of those sounds as being intrusive, but the fault was mine, [because] in a sense, I had to include those sounds for the music to work. And now I welcome those sounds when I practice. It's inspiring. It's like, “Oh, I want that texture, and so I'll include that.” It's like, “Thank you for the tip,” you know?

L: How are you taking this kind of mindset into your residency at Floating this spring?

D: I'm hoping that the people I'll be playing with will create, you know, fun accidents. That can be a potential for something new.

L: Is there some kind of intent that you have for the residency or how you’re curating people? 

D: The first performance will be with Cate Kennan and Celia Hollander. They're both excellent with the keyboard, the synthesizer and [have] a sensibility of the surreal and uncanny aspects of what music can do, and I'm just really excited to explore these new spaces. I want to grow more as a musician, I want to know what I can do beyond what I'm doing right now. And by playing with other people, you're able to reflect on each other and see yourself more through other people. 

The second performance will be with Butoh dancer, Kyoko Takenaka. That'll be this whole idea of how movement, physical & bodily movement, can affect how I will change my sounds or how the sounds can change physical movement within the context of the environment. I'm excited about that. And then the third performance will be with Brin and Dylan Fujioka, and they're both drummers, so it'll be more of an exploration of rhythm and percussion & how I can navigate through that. It’s like trying to put together a fun obstacle course, by inviting your friends to play and maneuver and find yourself through that. [laughs]

L: That's a really nice way of putting it. Have you played with them before?

D: I have not played with Kate in a session before, and not really with Celia either.

L: So what drew you to their work?

D: I've played a show with Cate where we were on the same bill, and she plays these sounds that, it's so hard to put into words, it's not cerebral because it feels physical, but it does take you to a place that's otherworldly, a realm that's surreal, fantastic, dream-like, not in the sense of the landscape, but more of a feeling, that you're feeling it in your mind and in your soul.

Similarly [with] Celia, she's able to juxtapose different sounds that when you hear it it makes you realize, “Of course these sounds work together,” but you would never think to put those sounds together. It's poignant, simple, [but also] very intentional.

L: What kind of relationship do you feel like you have to the outdoors or playing music outside?

D: It's the best. 

Floating was actually the first show I've played since the pandemic. That was with Jeremiah Chiu at the Japanese tea garden at Storrier Stearns. It was the most cathartic experience I've had in a long time, because I hadn’t played a show in maybe a year or so. And maybe more so now, but you feel comfortable being outside. You feel safe. 

The way the sounds bounce, you know, it's different in every outdoor setting. If there's trees, there's a certain acoustic reverberation that the trees have, they soak in the sound, but they also bounce back the sound, and you have the wind. The sounds can be very welcoming, the rustling of the leaves, or even a person in a distance having a conversation, the sounds all integrate without being intrusive. Dogs barking, children crying. It all works for some reason, rather than if it was indoors, it would feel different I believe.

L: How so?

D: It'll be too much. It'll bounce off the walls too much. The pace of the sounds are different, you know, it's a lot more opaque. Outdoors, the sounds are more translucent.

L: That's a really lovely way to describe that, it's very poetic and also insightful in a way that's different from stating an objective fact about it. It's nice. [laugh] I really liked what you said earlier about the geography of the guitar. Is there any resonance between that and the geography of a landscape?

D: It's kind of like treading paths, right? You're walking through this environment that you're not accustomed to. When I was learning guitar, I was like, “How do I approach this?” And at first I was like, well, I'll just figure out, I'll make recognizable shapes that I can memorize. And the path to this environment, it just starts growing into the landscape more. It's like, “This is a shortcut.” Or, “This is the long way around, but a better view.” I just feel a lot more comfortable now with the guitar. It feels like a home where I feel comfortable walking around.

L: Cute, and very cool. Let’s see, is there anything else that you want to add?

D: The other thing I've been thinking about a lot is the recent AI stuff that's been happening with stable diffusion and AI-based music and where artificial intelligence is able to emulate imagery. It's reminding me of this idea of likeness. I don't know if you remember being a child and having a classmate that's really good at drawing and being like, “Wow, that looks like the thing you're looking at.” I've been really thinking about the idea of likeness, in the sense of music as well. It kind of sounds like music, and maybe that's just right, you know?

I think that's what the fascination of impressionism is. It's not a complete painting, but that's what makes it complete. I'm exploring that idea with my sounds right now, like two steps removed from “what it's like.” AI's making “what it looks like,” but I'm trying to redefine the idea of “likeness.” It's measuring like, where's “almost there?”

L: Do you have anything coming up that you wanna promote?

D: Two records coming out this year. The collaboration with Brin will be coming out with Leaving Records this year. And a solo record is coming up on Hausu Mountain Records. I'll be preparing for those releases soon.

Float with us this spring for Dustin Wong’s seasonal residency & check out his upcoming albums :)

[feels-like-floating]

interview w/ claire rousay for her winter residency ‘23

In February, we caught up with claire rousay on her last night of tour for an interview about her winter residency with Floating. We explored her thoughts and intentions in her general practice, as well as with Floating specifically: being a normal person in the music industry, the meaning of dialogue in her residency, and her relationship to sound and the outdoors. Interview conducted & edited by Light Liu, Community Platforms Manager at Floating

L: What drives your music practice? How does it intersect with what you're trying to do with your Floating residency?

c: Basically the reason I do music or any kind of making is to connect with other people. And Floating has always been one of those things that feels more in line with that, actually connecting with other people and having real relationships and human connection. It seems like a really good fit. I'm just trying to continue that thing that Floating is doing and be part of it.

L: What kind of connection do you mean?

c: I mean shared human experience or universal like experiences and feelings as far as everyday life goes. What I want to do is connect with people about normal stuff, not necessarily about music, but use music or performance as a vehicle to transport these experiences and feelings related to everyday life. Normal things like being tired or feeling lonely or feeling misunderstood or happy, whatever. I feel like Floating does a really good job at taking people and putting them in the event or performance space and then people go to those performances rather than [depending on] all these weird abstract terms like “booker” and “promoter” you know what I mean? Like the people that go to these things are just normal, the person that shows up regardless of their role is a normal person. The person showing up is a human rather than this role that fits within a structure.

L: Right. A lot of music industry stuff feels like it's trying to be abstract or grand or profound, but a lot of the actual connection happens on a smaller plane.

c: Yeah, exactly. Being normal is really sick. These massive artists are like “It's this massive [abstract] thing, but at the same time I want you to take all of this in while you're in transit” or something like that. It's kind of weird. Then [at Floating you’re] taking all of those things out of it and just being like, yeah, we're gonna be outside. There's not really a bar or a restaurant or any business attached to this and everybody here is just coming because they want to.

L: I read a bit about how your residency is about dialogue with the audience, do you want to talk a bit more about that? 

c: Definitely. The idea for the first show is to start the residency off with this open dialogue and conversation with the audience, on whatever the “stage” would be, talking about everybody's experiences [with] consuming music and what it means to consume music. That felt like a really good way to start it off. 

But that's been kind of transformed into this new idea of a conversation but less with the audience and as an FM broadcast. So me and a couple other people will have a Zoom call, it'll be recorded and then everybody will drive-in movie-style to listen to this one-off broadcast. I think it'll be interesting because in order to listen, you need a car or some sort of shared device and I think it'll bring out some [community mindfulness]. Instead of being like, ”What if we brought five cars to this event?” Somebody's just gonna be like, “Oh no, we can just all ride and all listen in my car.” We're creating these micro social circles within this parking lot of cars. 

[I think] starting off like that and then bringing out of town people and curating the residency for people outside of myself would be a smarter move [to] bring people from my community into the Floating world.

L: What’s your approach to the curation of a residency instead of playing three shows?

c: I travel a lot, and if I was playing three times [I don’t think] I would bring my best self to it. I know that if I use the resources to bring somebody else, they will, [and] it'll be a really specific and intentional event. Or logistics get in the way, like I'm in a different country and I can't physically be present, but I still want people that would want to come to an event like this to have that experience. [It’s] more in line with what I want to do: connecting people. 

I also think I don't need to be there. Like I've played every role in the fake music industry. I've run the door, I've run the bar, I've booked the show, I've been the person putting up posters, I've played the show, like I've done all those things hundreds of times over the last however many years. It's nice to just do those roles but not have my name attached to it in any way, like not necessarily being the person that people clap at, [just doing] the backend work so you can set somebody else up to succeed. They can connect to other people in a space or a time that I wouldn't have the energy or the ability to.

L: What kind of relationship do you have with nature and music?

c: Personally I hate playing outside. (laugh) In terms of the sonic aspect, [doing] what I do outside is a little difficult. It's actually funny, I always complain about playing at bars and things like that, (laugh), but these generic spaces lend themselves better [to what I do]. Maybe part of the reason why I don't perform at these is [that] my music utilizes so much field recording, and sound association is a huge thing that I'm into. Playing the recording of a washing machine in a garden just doesn't feel right. I also am not somebody who puts nature sounds in my music. So as far as music goes, I don't really have a huge relationship with nature. I love going to see people who are good at that, but I'm not. So I [prefer] connecting people like Devin [Shaffer] or Macie [Stewart] and Lia [Kohl] who are good at improvising and listening to their environment and reacting to it. As far as my experiences go, visually and sonically, I'm not the person to add to this situation, but there are other people who can.

claire’s last winter residency with us will be on Sunday, March 12th @ 5:30pm at a historic arts ranch in Pasadena. Join us up top for a specially curated evening exploring the interconnectedness of all things 🌿 RSVP here 🌿

— Floating team

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