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Part 2

What will influence your decisions on how or how much to edit the material captured in the field?

I guess my compositional taste.

Without any prior information on field recordings, listeners may sometimes find it hard to determine their precise origin and context. Depending on one's perspective, this may be desirable or a problem. Where do you stand on this? Do you feel that, as part of your work, music needs to be explained or should it retain its 'inexplicable nature'?

I understand trying to determine the origins  or contexts for sounds if we're playing a game or something like that, but in music?!... To me, music is at its best when it remains absolute.

Usually, it is considered that it is the job of the composer to win over an audience. But listening is also an active, rather than just a passive process. How do you see the role of the listener in the musical communication process?

I believe that the most fundamental act of composition or creation is listening.

What, from your point of view, can the sound - rather than, say, its visual appearance - of a particular location or of a particular recording object tell us about its nature? Or, to put it differently, in which way can listening to field recordings change our perception of the world?

To me that's quite irrelevant. What most people miss is the potential of so-called 'field recordings' to truly constitute a self-contained world.

The idea of acoustic ecology has drawn a lot of attention to the question of how much we are affected by the sound surrounding us. What's your take on this and on acoustic ecology as a movement in general?

I'm not interested in it.

In how much, do you feel, are sonic environments shaped by cultural differences - and in how much, vice versa, is the perception of sound influenced by cultural differences?

A lot, I guess.

The role of an artist is always subject to change. What's your view on the (e.g. political/social/creative) tasks of artists today and how do you try to meet these goals in your work?

Doing fucking awesome work is the only decent political task of an artist.

Music-sharing sites and blogs as well as a flood of releases in general are presenting both listeners and artists with challenging questions. What's your view on the value of music today?

This 'flood' is a natural consequence of the social right to create. My view on the value of music is the same today as it was years ago: I'm interested in good work. The flood has absolutely nothing to do with that.

Visit Francisco López' website at www.franciscolopez.net


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