THATWHICHCRAWLS

CHARLIE MANSERGH TALKS TO THE MULTIMEDIA ARTIST ABOUT HIS NEW ALBUM, PATTERNS FOUND IN NATURE AND HIS PREOCCUPATION WITH TECHNO-ANIMISM

Newcastle music maker and multimedia artist Tom Lines, aka thatwhichcrawls, returns with his debut album entitled bug.albm this month, continuing the expansion of his collaboration with modular synthesisers. His music making process includes observing his synth when he changes certain settings and listening to what the machine gives him.

“The album consists of instrumental electronic music made by me alone in my room bathed in the blinking lights of my modular synth. Through a mix of organic simulated sounds of bells and strings, ambient soundscapes and frenetic beats I collaborated with my synthesiser to explore the life in technology in its brightest, cutest moments, as well as the darker, more unnerving moments where the life in the machine corrupts and becomes filled with electronic creepy crawlies (or bugs). I called the record bug. albm in reference to the emergent properties of the insect swarm as well as the computer bug, a disruptive agent of technology that turns our symbiotic tools against us, forefronting our reliance on tools we do not really understand.”

It’s an album rooted in nature as much as it is in technology, as Tom explains: “There’s all sorts of weird sounds to be made which you don’t find in nature or which are slightly morphed versions of what you find in nature.”

THE ALBUM IS BASED ON THEMES OF TECHNOLOGICAL ANIMISM AND THE SYMBIOSIS AND CONFLICTS THAT COME WITH THAT

Exploring the emergent behaviour of crowds and swarms, his interest has taken him to new realms musically, enabling him to find new sounds on his synthesiser. Tom has identified through his manipulations that it resembles hive-like activities. “By doing all these simple things, [there’s an] inner kind of unison which tunes together and creates something musical and organic sounding, which I think is really interesting. It’s the same kind of behaviour that makes people clap in time with each other or makes people do Mexican waves in crowds, and I think crowds are the clearest example to visualise.”

The album has a dual personality; on one hand it deals with the explorations of life in technology in its “brightest, cutest moments”, while also referencing darker forces, as evidenced on tracks like Trojan, svrdth and Malware, which has a darker mood, with mechanical rhythms to the fore; while on Life In Things the record takes a more positive turn, with higher, brighter tones and faster moving beats, a perfect example of the swarm-like behaviour he’s preoccupied with.

Tom explains how after learning about the beliefs of animists, in which a living soul is attributed to plants, inanimate objects and natural phenomena, he was spurred to create work which deals with the spirit within technology. “I make the music with a modular synthesiser which is my sole collaborator, by which I mean that compared to other instruments, the modular has a lot more autonomy and simultaneously performs as an instrument and a co-composer. The album is therefore based on those themes of technological animism and the symbiosis and conflicts that come with that.”

His thoughts have also led him down visual art pathways; with a background in art, Tom is interested in the relationship between music and fine art and does not see a distinction between them: “People think of fine art as visual art, but it’s also people making art with sounds, smells, texts, tastes...nothing’s really off limits.”

thatwhichcrawls releases bug.albm on 7th May www.tomlines.co.uk