64 - Sonaura

Giannis Kampiotis
March 31, 2023

Hello music people 👋

Today in the spotlight, Sonaura

Coming from England, Sonara creates experimental ambient music. He started making music from a young age and has played in various bands as a guitarist, bassist, drummer, and vocalist. He found his way into audio engineering, then ran a recording studio. In the middle of 2021 he created his own studio where he is working with a diverse group of artists 🎶

Read Time: 15 minutes 📰

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Interview

Who are you and what is your relationship with music?

Hi I'm Greg. I make experimental ambient music under the name Sonaura from my home in Kent.

From a young moment with a Casio vl-tone I realized I had some kind of knack for picking up melodies quickly and loved making my own. When rave and jungle was happening here in the UK I was emulating a lot of what I heard on radio with crappy toy synths (one with an in-built sampler!) and bouncing between tape recorders. Age 13 I picked up guitar and played in various bands (still do) as guitarist, bassist, drummer, vocalist. I feel like that's given me a good rounded look at music and songwriting. Alternative 'rock' music of the 90s made me want to be in a band but I was also exploring rave and hip hop which gave me a lot of rhythmic ideas and tendencies.

I don't make money from music as far as 'profit'. Anything I make covers costs if I'm lucky but that's not the drive at all. I honestly wish money didn't exist, it's nasty; either way I'd be making music and will be as long as I possibly can. However, I did find my way into audio engineering; while learning to play guitar I borrowed a four track from school, which was incredibly exciting - I could start to get ideas out of my head and explore layering much faster - plus learn to mix for the first time.

I studied music and music tech and blagged my way into a live sound job at a local venue which taught me a huge amount. Things like working with artists, making sure the show happens no matter what - a problem solving crash course every weekend! - and working with a PA. Not just using it but how music is shaped through it and how people react to that volume and so on. Some really interesting stuff!

Anyway, from here I blagged another job running a recording studio from its inception for a local trust. They created a modern community centre with lots of amazing facilities which also included a community radio station. I worked here for around 19 years, learning how to run a recording studio, work with recording artists and with vulnerable adults too, which added to the previous job has given me a whole lot of experience in making people feel comfortable enough to create and perform.

That's been my income stream for most of my life but around the middle of 2021 I left to form my own music production business. This was spurred on by working from home during the pandemic but it was always the next step (and massive leap) I was fearful of taking. I'm proud to say now that it's doing really well - business is getting busier and continues to be fun. I'm lucky to work with a really diverse bunch of artists and it's a massive pleasure every time to help someone see a project through.

Which piece of equipment in your studio is essential to your production process?

Coffee. Hands down.

Whether I'm at the big studio, at home or out somewhere thinking about - or taking a break from thinking about a project - coffee is the one. I would take a good cup of coffee over any fancy piece of audio equipment any day.

What is the least expensive piece of gear that gave you the most results?

Ooh that's a good one.

I could say something like handmade percussion eg. a sort of bracelet I made with discarded apricot stones... but most likely the thing that has given me the most results is my trusty microkorg!

I bought it second hand for about £150 I think? and as much as I'd like to explore a whole bunch of other synths, it does all the things! I can get any sound out of it i can think of (or stumble upon through experimenting) and I use it on everything.

Walk us through your process for creating and producing music.

OK. This is from a sonaura perspective: Mostly I'll start with a tape loop. The joy of these can be instantly inspiring little worlds just from throwing it the simplest thing. I think of this like a wash in painting: that first layer you put down which informs the next step. This is fantastic when you don't have much time to play and in particular if you have blank canvas syndrome! Say something; anything. Now you have something to say back.

For me this is usually a sound on the microkorg playing some kind of melody or phrase that has appeared in my head in reaction to the tape loop wash. If this wants to go down on to the tape loop too, we can go again; it forms a new path. Sometimes it's a stronger idea and needs to be played live so it can evolve naturally as I perform. So I'll jam on this a while, feel around (always recording by the way - ALWAYS Recording) until I feel like I've got some good options. What is the idea saying? What does the edge of this little world sound like?

What I've found useful with instagram posting - and this can be true of any social media - is the imposed time / attention limit; most people don't listen for that long and scroll on just because that's what the platform is constantly teaching us to do. The relevant part to creating here is it gives me a) a boundary, a small box in which to hone and present the best part of an idea and b) accountability; showing up regularly at your workspace to make something, anything! is immensely powerful. So, with this in mind I'm chipping away to find the essence of the idea and create a strong note of what it is. It's a bit like a dream diary trick where you use three words to sum up your dream as soon as you wake up and that way you don't lose it by turning over or hearing another sound that dispels the story.

Collecting these concise little ideas, I listen over them sometime regularly, sometimes not for months later with a more objective ear and pick out the strongest ideas to work on further. I'll round these guys up into a shortlist and feel for any emerging themes or shapes or patterns and once I've got a strong group (not thinking about it being a single / ep / album or anything like that, just seeing what's there) then I will begin to refine the ideas by making notes while listening, then exploring those ideas, listening, notes, exploring and repeat until it feels right. Then I will explore ways to join the pieces or order them as a collection.

It's probably worth noting that I'm mixing as I go with minimal but crucial moves - I absolutely view both mixing and mastering as part of the creative production and usually this is part of the feel.

I guess that's about it! There may be a few iterations of the final mixes / masters with again, very subtle changes, but by that point the collection is its own beast.. Artwork has entered the arena somewhere round here if not further back and is the same for titles. Either they come straight away or I'm agonizing at the very end!

What is a production technique that you always come back to?

Serve the song.

This goes for any style, any genre. It doesn't matter what YOU can play or say or do. It only matters what the song needs. Often this means muting a lot of things, throwing out ideas. But essentially, just listening to the idea and giving it what it needs to fully realize and present itself to the world.

How would you explain your style?

Err. Well, let's think this out.

Sonaura is very abstract, sometimes sound art, sometimes more formed. Punching Swans (the band I play guitar and shout in) is very energetic and wonky. They're very different worlds but I would say I approach them the same way: action and reaction. In the band, we create from jams so it's very similar already. Someone will play a thing and someone else will react to that thing. As I've said above this is exactly how I write for Sonaura. So... I guess that's it.

My personal style is reactive. I'm a reactive artist? That's interesting to think about because I do also (very much) just hear stuff in my head and have to put it down. I suppose that's a form of reaction. I could choose to ignore it. No wait, I totally couldn't!

What is a big challenge you have as an artist?

Finishing projects!

Interestingly I can and do help other artists with this all the time as part of my work but it's still hard to apply to myself sometimes.

When the idea comes, that's the best part. Exploring it and just enjoying it. Taking it from there involves a whole lot of harder and different types of work which can sometimes just spoil the thing, but I just try to remind myself it's part of the process in getting that idea out into the world, which is where it needs to go.

Has building a hardware setup changed your perspective on music or life in general?

Yes. Kinda.

Perhaps not changed it but taken me back and reminded me of the fun parts in both creating and recording involving real, tangible things.

Originally I learned to create and produce music on cassette, then reel, then had to re-frame it in the digital realm. Where I'm at now I can fully enjoy and make the most of both digital and analogue worlds for the parts in which they both excel and that's amazing. But even up til recently and most definitely because of having to rely on the speed of digital in running a cost effective studio, I clung onto that way of doing things in my own music.

Since getting my cassette 4 track out again and exploring tape loops a whole world has re-emerged: creating a space for happy accidents to happen and allowing myself just to go with them. I've managed to take this back into my music production work now which is incredible - it's made things a lot more fun again.

And even outside of music, it's helped me to focus on real experiences and tangible things a lot more. Something clicked during the covid lockdowns where I remembered I actually much prefer to work with my hands on real things and make stuff.

I love making stuff! Especially when it's about to get thrown out. If there's any possible way it can make a usable tone, I'll create something with it. And even if it doesn't turn up anything worth pursuing as s piece of art, the fun was in the doing. That's a message I think gets lost very quickly and often when you're stuck in the computer.

One tip on how to spark creativity?

Change something up. Anything.

Play your instruments in a different room. Tune your guitar without looking. Play a different instrument (even better if you've never played it!) Use something that's not an instrument as your starting point. Start from the end of your usual process. Or in the middle. Play it with your opposite hand. Play it backwards, upside down, blindfolded / in the dark. Record yourself improvising for one minute, chop it up randomly and learn it.

Now develop it.

Sorry that's a bunch of examples but you get the idea. If you're stuck somehow then change up your process, the more random the better. When you take control away you act instinctively and that can lead to who knows what? Exactly.

I have to throw another one in here, sorry. But it's also part of some of these examples: limit yourself.

Limitation is creativity's best friend, 100%. If suddenly only three keys work on your keyboard, you're gonna think a lot more creatively on how to make something with them (Toy instruments are fabulous for this!) Too many options is the complete opposite and going back to the last question I think that's where writing solely in music software can get really stagnant really quickly.

Anyway I love this topic but I'll stop there for now!