needless art – An Experiment In Sound Assembly

needless art - Embryo e.p. #1

A bit of Adam Ant, David Sylvian, Cabaret Voltaire, Metallica, Alva Noto, Ryuichi Sakamoto, Gary Numan, Brian Eno, Taylor Deupree, Tom Waits and Christopher Willits. What does an eclectic mix of influences create? Is it more of a potjie* stew than a soup? No doubt a concoction that has an intriguing outcome.

Gavin Moffat’s first foray into the world of commercial music, the project needless art, results from his lifelong passion for bits, bobs and strange sounds.

He has distilled his many influences to produce music with a hint of Nine Inch Nails and a smidgen of Diamond Version. Sounds that strangely enough benefit from the opposing forces of a clean, warm sounding production and a gritty and grungy electronic feel.

Using samples, sounds, field recordings, drum bits, rhythms, keyboards and the beep of a hospital heart rate monitor, he creates tracks that draw on his electronic and ambient influences.

The first release, embryo e.p. #1, contains three tracks the first of which is “g is for groove” a piece that he describes as “A groove track with a couple of bits dropped in that catch the ear and are meant to detract from the overall pace and pitch of the piece. I wanted something that was slightly off kilter and with bits of delay. I have also tried to break the pace and groove with dead stops and sudden shifts of energy.”

The second track “c is for can't find it” “Had a frustrating gestation as I tried to find a slow pulse that would form the base of some beeps and pops,” Moffat says. “The piece has a degree of known in the underlying rhythm. I then worked to introduce a number of things that flow over the top and go from the front to the back. These elements displace the known in the piece and move it from a place of known to unknown. Don’t worry, I was confused until I finished the track too.”

The final track “d is for drone” saw him “looking to do a piece with a syncopated beat and that came across slightly distorted while still working sonically”. 

“I love the quote from Taylor Deupree ‘one person's error can be another's compositional element’. It describes how I feel about what I do musically. There is much here that provides me with joy but stops short of making it onto my mom and dads playlist. We produced a video for each track and much of that was done in the same manner as the pieces of sound. I used some elements that were useful in capturing the feel of each track and then distorted them. Now that was fun!”

Says Moffat: “I thoroughly enjoy the process of getting the feelings into a sound sculpture that represents more or less what I want. embryo e.p. #1 is the first of a four E.P. series that will be released during 2014 / 2015. The next one has a far greater focus on an ambient feel with less underlying movement provided through a rhythm. e.p. #1 was such a pleasure to record. The pieces almost assembled themselves and reflected the way I felt as each one came together. All in all an energetic set with tinges of my dark side weaved in and out.”

needless art’s first release embryo e.p. #1 will be released on 1 August 2014 and will be available through iTunes, Amazon MP3, Google Play, Spotify and most other online stores.

For further information:

Website: www.needlessart.com

Facebook: www.facebook.com/needlessartza

YouTube: www.youtube.com/needlessart

Google+: http://google.com/+NeedlessartMe

Twitter: www.twitter.com/needlessartza

SoundCloud: www.soundcloud.com/needlessart

BandCamp: www.bandcamp.com/needlessart