EPISODE 5 | Playing Against the Paradigm

Fodder

[Clip Douglas Kearney performing “Do the Deep Blue Boogie” in a loud, boisterous voice to the sounds of swirling electronic drums]

DOUGLAS KEARNEY: I’m Douglas Kearny. I’m a poet, performer, librettist, and teacher. 

VAL JEANTY: I’m Val Jeanty, an electronic music composer, turntablist, drummer, also teacher from Haiti.

[Sound of synth and drums playing in a syncopated, angular rhythm plays in the background] 

What you’re going to hear when you hear the album, Fodder, is the fifth time that myself and Val have gotten together and performed something. It’s just us listening, talking, connecting, and being together in Portland in August of 2019.

JEANTY: There’s a vibe in Portland. There’s a spiritual thing in Portland. I don’t know what it is, [laughs] but Portland’s got that vibe.

[Music fades out]

KEARNEY: So, we met on a project organized in tribute to Sekou Sundiata, the late poet, and she had arranged this whole band, crew, tribe of people to come together for that. And so, we’re doing this piece, and Val had her own piece. Val was working with everybody.

As we were going through rehearsal, there was a moment when I was performing and doing the drum machine, sample box approach to performance that I try to do. After we did that moment of rehearsal, Val was like, “oh, okay. I see what you’re doing.” [Laughs] She was like, “I see what you’re doing.” And that, to me, was like a victory.

That was like, “wow! Okay.” And so, [laughs] I don’t know if that’s always how Val thinks about it. I do feel like that was me auditioning to potentially work with you again. 

JEANTY: I think, for me too, maybe not a test, but just to see how far we can push it as just artists. And the second time we met, we had to do something, and you came to my loft in Brooklyn.

And then, I was totally like, sure. Like, “okay, Doug is not afraid. Doug is ready to just go.” It’s not just for one gig because you could just do one gig and it sounds great, but then the next one, you don’t know how that’s going to go.

The thing too, with us, we never have to talk about it. You just send me the texts. When I read your texts, because it’s not just like straight, it has all shapes. It’s not just flat, it moves. It’s never, like I said, a straight thing, this way; it’s always like it’s moving; it’s like the words are here or there.

And that creates a sense of movement. And the movement for me is a sound.

Now, I was like, “oh, of course, Doug is not afraid. Let’s go.” [Spoken with excitement and laughs] It’s a blessing to have what I would call a spiritual, artist connection.

And those are hard to find, but I think the second time, it was like, “yes, there’s a connection here.” We don’t even have to talk about it. You just send me the texts, and I’ll just send you some beats, or just some ideas, and then we just go. From that point on, I was totally convinced. The first time, it was definitely like, “hmm, really? He’s not afraid?” But, the second time, I was like, “okay, let’s just go.” 

Also, perfect artists, companions, take risks, and risk, for us, that’s where it’s at, and it’s great to have like that partner, like, “okay, you want to go.” And you just keep pushing, and that’s how we’ve gotten to this point.

I feel like, especially when we did that gig, the one at Portland, we barely spoke. You were just like, “okay, are you good? Okay. You’re good. Alright. Cool.” And we get on stage and then [claps hands together for emphasis] boom. 

[Upbeat, syncopated synth and percussion from “Do the Deep Blue Boogie” plays and fades out]

KEARNEY: So, I’ll send Val the words, and, each of the times we work together, you’ll send me some tracks, but there was a time in Arizona where I didn’t hear the tracks until the day of the gig.

We always make sure that there’s one piece in every set we’ve done that’s just one a hundred percent improvised, not even from a text. We’re just up there communicating. We don’t rehearse the set so to speak. We’ll do a sound check, but the big thing is to not try to reproduce whatever you did in the soundtrack check.

Cause, you know, that’s when you start chasing instead of leading. 

JEANTY: That’s the thing that’s also so fresh working with you, Doug, but when we get together live, it’s a whole different thing. Just like you were saying, I would send you a track, and then when we do live, we may start there and then we flip it to something else.

When we’re live, when you’re doing your like arrhythmic stuff, for me, that’s like a drummer. So, I’m right there with you; I’m like, “oh, okay. Okay, he wants to go there.” So, it’s not just the words, it’s how [you’re] kind of like playing the words like a drum. For me, I feel like it’s always a hundred percent improv.

Always because after we do the sound check, we always say, “okay, we’re not going to do that.” [laughs]

[Kearney’s soulful moaning and Jeanty’s off-kilter percussion and synths from “That Loud Ass Colored Silence” plays and fades out]

KEARNEY: And you talk about the drums. The voice becomes a drum, and your music is always a conversation. You are always communicating. It just feels like you are reaching out, reaching back, reaching forward. And you’re just drawing all these different sounds and textures. When you’re playing skins, or when you move to something electronic, or you’re processing, all of those are like different languages and different frequencies that you’re bringing into it. And so those are the moments where I feel like, “oh, okay, I need to be even more percussive now,” because you’re talking, you’re singing, you’re making sound in that way.

And it’s that constant exchange and that feeling of, you were saying earlier, I’m not scared when I’m up there. There’s no fear. And so much of that is because the only way I can mess up, the only way I can feel like I can mess up when I’m up there with you, is to stop listening.

Once we’re up there and we’re hitting, the text is like a suggestion. [Laughs] Right? It’s a context, but we’re transforming that as we go, and that, to me, is incredible. So, yeah, you are a sound chemist because, whatever a sound is understood as, you transform it when you play.  

JEANTY: I have to find a way to interpret that movement.

Not just the word because the word is just the word. Let’s just say “love.” Of course, for love, I could have some pretty sounds because of how we perceive love, but the way you would say love, I have to think of a different sound for that. 

[Clip of “Sho” plays. Kearney recites lines of poetry emotively as the sound of wind, birds and chimes rises and fades out]

KEARNEY: Anybody who listens to what Val and I do understands, I think, better the kind of freedom that I want people to feel in these poems that are set all across the page in different ways. They have to know that I did not plan. However it comes out that performance, that’s the spontaneous moment.

And for me, Val creates a room to be in, a space to be in, and then I provide the other part of that room. 

JEANTY: If you’re a musician, first, number one, you have to be fearless, especially doing this kind of stuff because what I do is super avant-garde. So, you know, that world, you already have to be— [laughs] there’s no fear.

I mean, you’re already in the avant-garde zone cause I feel like we’re not just working. I mean, it is art, but we are doing things. We’re creating a better world. We’re creating portals, creating different ways to approach our physical reality. We can create all these different worlds to escape to, to help others. So, it’s not just about the art. So, you have to approach it with no fear in general, whether you’re alone or whether you’re playing with someone else. You just have to be that kind of artist first.

Cause when you get with that other person that doesn’t feel scared—so, depending on whatever situation, if it’s working with, let’s say, a full jazz band, it’s the same kind of approach. You have to approach it with at least some kind of joy because, for me, that’s what it is.

That’s what takes out the fear of things. You just have to have more joy than fear. 

KEARNEY: A part of the reason why there’s no fear, is exactly what Val is saying about the joy. I am so happy to be in the room with that. The moment I said, “okay, Val needs to be on this,” the idea of, “oh, we gotta do something different cause it’s recorded.” No, the moment I said, “Val, can you do this?” And Val was like, “yeah,” I didn’t feel like I had to think about the recording of it anymore. The preparation for the significance of the event was the last time Val and I hit [laughs]. That was the preparation. That spiritual connection, that artistic and creative connection, takes all the fear out of it.

JEANTY: It’s straight creatives, spiritual connection straight up. Yeah. Yeah. Such a blessing. Such a blessing. And for us, I think risk is a good thing. We want to take those risks. It’s like, “yes, push yourself.” And it makes it a lot more fun. And that’s how you get to these places.

You don’t get to these places by just being safe. You have to push, push things beyond risk. Yes. Beautiful risk. You know, dance with it, dance with the risk. That’s what we do. We dance with it.

[Clip from “I Imagine I Been Science Fiction Always” plays Kearney is heard reciting lines of poetry rhythmically over the atonal beating of drums and metal skins.]