By Will McGuirk
Ambient architect Hymns 57 (aka Steve De Taeye) based in Guelph, ON., has released his latest album, ‘On the Weird Winds of Ontario.’ Hymns 57 will be performing at Kops Records in Oshawa Saturday Nov 17. The record is available on Aural Tethers and is built from fragments of found sounds and sonic musings on moments travelling over the summer of 2019. It is reflection on heart warmings and De Taeye has called it slippergaze. That seems like something Slowcity.ca could get into so we sent Hymns some questions.
Slowcity.ca: Slippergaze?? what is this slippergaze?
Hymns57: “Ha ha ha ha 'slippergaze'. Yeah, comes from my obvious love of shoegaze and hazy sounds. In some respects my music isn't too far off, albeit much more on the ambient spectrum. Hence, the slippers. Playing into some sort of aesthetic maybe, like the logo being the Heinz logo equals slippergaze. Making music, seriously, without taking myself too seriously.”
SC: What is your process for making sounds - where do you begin and how do you know where to end?
H57: “Creating or crafting the sounds is an ever growing multivariate thing. It could be as simple a particular pedal arrangement and settings.
“Often for live sets I consider the basics. The who, what, where, when, why and how am I going to sonically occupy this moment.
“I hand make a lot of tape loops out of cassettes for gigs. On a 5 or 10 second tape loop I can have a few segments recorded. Perhaps piano notes, waves crashing, tin foil being crunched and some dissonant drone note. Using a few vintage four track machines I'm able to fade in and out each segment, then toss in some effects and make careful loops. Now there's a base layer to paint on with samples or guitar.
“With a guitar piece it's natural to feel when and where to bring closure.
“The thing I've learned is to not let elements over stay their welcome. Introduce, let them mingle and excuse them once they've said what they needed to. This let's me experiment and improvise live without taking the ship off course.”
SC: When building songs are you building a soundtrack for a particular experience, or are you following where the sounds lead you?
H57: “It's a real mix bag. I could have an idea to try something and spend a few nights tinkering with it until it leads to something. For releases it's definitely more of an isolated approach. I tend to assemble with a certain 'feel' in mind.
“The newest release 'On The Weird Winds of Ontario' has it's own personality. Those tracks were done all with a very nostalgic dustiness to them. There's very personal field recordings throughout, samples of my kids... there's a vulnerability to this one. Other times the field recordings are just interesting textures to work with.
“I think building a soundtrack or an experience are very similar. Music soundtracks my day to day and inhabits particular experiences.”
SC: Tell me about your label, its evolution and how you choose artists?
H57: “This was a long time coming. This is just me, taking a stance on the importance of art, the sharing of it and having a physical accessible medium. Aural Tethers has been a radio show on CFRU 93.3fm in Guelph for almost 4 years now. It only made sense to make a small label catering to the show, it's audience and the type of music I curate. Putting a focus on inclusivity and artists not just from around southern Ontario but abroad also.
“I'm working Richelle Forsey, a Guelph artist/ photographer. Her photography is the aesthetic for the label. I really love her abandoned spaces work. So we used one already for the first release, a Guelph artist, Fossil Hunting Collective - The Fear of Landing On Water. On Aural Tethers bandcamp there's digital downloads and we produce limited edition cassettes. We'll also be offering full size prints of the album covers. We only put the artist info on the spines and inside the jcards. Almost like each release is a collaboration between Richelle and the music.
“So, we have the next few releases lined up. From Buenos Airies Mi Cosa De Resistance; very lo fi minimal piano ambient. From UK, Finglbone; fireside guitar and soundscapes plus others
“I'll be opening up label submissions in the new year. If you're a fan of the radio show, you'll know what the label is looking for. Experimental, drone, ambient, lo-fi, soundscape, field recording, minimal, instrumental, esoteric and electroacoustic are all things I wouldn't shy away from releasing.
I'll also be doing a collaboration series on the label called Emotioncodes. I'll pair 2 artists up to do a split or a collaborative release. I hope next year to have a few volumes complete. One is in the works currently between Hamilton's Building Castles Out of Match Sticks and myself. The idea is to donate all those proceeds from Emotioncodes to local mental health resources in the cities the artists are from.
“It's hopefully going to make a difference for at least one person, the same way the music will affect somebody else.”
