Francisco Riffo is a composer and sound artist from the southern city of Puerto Montt, Chile. His works are based on the use of computers, particularly Max/MSP and Ableton Live, to create works and algorithms based on repetition and defined structures, using only one or two synthesizers that are intuitively altered in time. These interactions create rhythmically rich music that resembles dance music that can also be contemplated while sitting down.
His current album Hyperme was released on September 5 by the Barcelona-based label Modern Obscure Music. Run by the artist Pedro Vian, the label is focused on releasing musical explorations and bold experimentations in sound. The label features artists like Merzbow, Pedro Vian, Susumu Yokota, Ryuichi Sakamoto and others.
Questions and Answers
3 FACTS
1: The US did nuclear tests in space.
2: Our bodies have stardust in them.
3: Bananas have radiation.
11 QUESTIONS
1. What is the biggest inspiration for your music?
I have to say I am not a very inspired person. Usually when I start working on something I go completely blank. I work with the tools that are at my disposal at that moment, but I like to be in that position too. It is very liberating. I don’t think about making art, but I do think of sitting at my studio and trying things out. I would say: in my life art is the cherry on the top and things that happen in daily life and other types of experiences are what makes everything happen. It is the translation that’s beautiful.
2. How and when did you get into making music?
I got into making music when I was about twelve. My two brothers listened to a lot of music, each of them with very different tastes. One of them used to play classical and electric guitar and this is how I discovered one can play instruments. I started to play his guitar at that point, playing Judas Priest’s Painkiller on the acoustic guitar. Then, when I was an adolescent, I started to meet very amazing people on the internet and show me bands that I would’ve otherwise never discovered. I got to discover punk and atonal music and that changed me forever, because you get this feeling of “You can do that?”
3. What are 5 of your favourite albums of all time? (yes we know it is difficult).
Charles Mingus – The Black Saint and the Sinner Lady
Eric Dolphy – Out to Lunch
The Knife – Shaking the Habitual
Harold Budd – The Pavilion of Dreams
Arthur Russell – World of Echo
4. What do you associate with Berlin?
I associate this city with a sort of “intellectual darkness”. One can be inside a train wagon at Kottbuser Tor, and then a woman without legs comes and asks you for money, while you might be sitting down in front of a Nobel Prize. It’s a discomfort that puts things into perspective, so you know where you are standing.
On the other hand, I have been living here for 7 years. I came here to study at UDK, so I would say I also associate this city with my path towards adulthood and artistic maturity. There are incredible artists from all over the world and it’s a privilege to be here and to get to experience that.
5. What’s your favourite place in your town?
Jakoub. best shawarma in Berlin.
6. If there was no music in the world, what would you do instead?
I would’ve probably become an historian or a physicist.
7. What was the last record/music you bought or listened to?
I am in a period of my life where I am barely listening to any music, but the last album that struck me was Company Flow’s Funcrusher Plus (1997).
8. Who would you most like to collaborate with?
Anybody who I could have a musical/artistic connection with.
9. What was your best gig (as performer or spectator)?
A show I will never forget as a spectator: Rage Against the Machine & The Mars Volta in 2010, Santiago de Chile. The entire stadium was jumping.
10. How important is technology to your creative process?
Very important, but not because of the technical aspects or the type of sounds or possibilities it can give me. It’s more like a relationship of companionship. I interact with the machine, or instrument, or tool, and in response the tool gives me something in return, something I can work with and that I don’t precisely know what it is. It’s not a rational relationship, but rather almost purely an intuitive one. I don’t want to control the machine, but rather to have a dialogue with it.
11. Please tell us more about the development of your new album Hyperme?
The creative process of this album was initially intuitive, I mean, the skeleton of it was. I recorded most of the songs using a pair of headphones and playing around with Max/MSP. Messing around with the presets, but also maintaining a spirit of simplicity throughout the album, not thinking about it too much. My motto was, if it makes me move, then I will leave it like that.
Last year there was a time where I was making a lot of music, all of them with very different intentions and sonorities. I have always been tormented by this, since I have always found the different tracks of my music heterogeneous. This paralyzed me because I thought things needed to “make sense” beforehand. With this EP I learned the narrative comes afterwards, at least for me. This thought became liberating for me, and so I felt genuinely free experimenting while doing this work.
Then came the publishing part. In the beginning it was hard because I had some miscommunication with a label where eventually the plan of releasing fell through, so I had to start sending e-mails to other labels. I was very lucky that Pedro Vian, the director of Modern Obscure Music, replied to me saying he was interested in releasing it. The communication was very fluid and we managed to release the EP with the help of my friend Mitchell Keaney who did the art cover for us.
