Interview With Carlos Ferreira
Sound Postcards From Porto Alegre
Carlos Ferreira is going to release his new album on Past Inside the Present in November. It's a cassette tape called "Six Postcards & Other Stories". I talked to him about his music and his decision to go vegan.
The ambient/drone musician Carlos Ferreira from Porto Alegre, Brazil uses his guitar-based textures to create sonic landscapes. He has released albums on labels like Assembly Field (UK), Past Inside The Present/Healing Sound Propagandist (USA), ARCHIVES (Spain), and Aural Canyon (USA).
His most recent works are the EPs "...And Then We Became Ashes" and "Quiet Reminders" (with Shuta Yasukochi). Carlos released both pieces in 2020.
"The album has a special meaning to me"
Anne: Hi Carlos! How are you doing today? Thank you very much for taking the time for this! I am glad to meet you!
Carlos: Hi Anne, my pleasure! Thank you so much for inviting me!
Anne: Your new album will soon be released on Past Inside the Present. Are you excited?
Carlos: Very! "Six Postcards & Other Stories" was recorded and produced in mid-2019, a time when I was experiencing many changes in my personal life, so this album has a special meaning to me. I feel honored to be able to release it on a label as incredible as Past Inside The Present.
"'Six Postcards' And Other Stories was developed to come out on tape"
Anne: When did the idea come up to put it on tape? Will there also be a vinyl version?
Carlos: From the beginning, the whole concept of "Six Postcards & Other Stories" was related to its physical format. Even many of the audio stems were actually mixed on tape, as well as the album mastering.
As I tried to work with the idea of making "sound postcards", something that contained a message and was portable, cassette tapes are perfect for that. So there's no intention (at least for now) to release it on vinyl... But who knows?
Anne: What do you think makes the fascination of such simple and haptic things like records, cassettes, and printed books in these fast-moving times? Why are we all so excited about them?
Carlos: I believe that our fascination with these things lies precisely in the fact that they are not perfect, they need to be preserved to last. Cassettes, vinyl... they have noises, crackling, wow, and fluttering sounds. They are reminders of what life is like - organic, finite, imperfect.
"I am not a purist"
The same thing happens with books. I just can't read ebooks! The reading experience, for me, is linked to physical contact with the paper, with its texture. It's like a ritual.
But I'm definitely not a purist. All creative possibilities are valid and should be used. I often see people criticizing "digital plugins that do everything for you". I think this is silly. The important thing, for me, is the intentionality, the artistic choices that are made.
Anne: The tape will be accompanied by hand-painted postcards by tattoo artist Fernanda Ishida. Is she a friend of yours?
Carlos: Yes! She is an incredibly talented and kind person. I'm flattered to have her with me on this work.
"My creative processes are very intense"
Anne: How long did it take you to record "Six Postcards & Other Stories"?
Carlos: To be honest, I don't remember exactly, but I believe it took no more than a month. Usually, my creative processes are very intense. When I start a new project, I like the feeling of being totally immersed. Your brain starts to operate in another system, and the time-space continuum is altered. It is like meditating - your mind and body enter a very different and special stream of consciousness.
Anne: Your sound lives from its guitar improvisations. Which are quite brilliant. It seems you have a special connection to this instrument. Do you play all parts on your records yourself or do you collaborate with other musicians?
"Making music is like breathing"
Carlos: Thank you very much for the compliment! The guitar was the first instrument I had contact with, at the age of 12, and I always had a strong connection with it. But I like to think about the guitar in an unconventional way. It is an electric instrument, who offers endless sound possibilities. I don't think about scales, chords. I'm more interested in textures, colors, and shapes.
Well, I'm really a collab guy! One of the best things in the ambient music community is a collaborative sense. I love producing music with different people, from different cultures. It is a very rich process, and I've been very lucky for being so well received by so many incredible artists. Some friends say I work too much, but I don't even consider it a job, as it seems to denote a certain pejorative tone. Making music for me is like breathing. I just need to keep doing this if I want to stay alive.
Anne: How would you describe your music?
Carlos: Sound paintings. I like to think of music not as something that is projected in time, but as something that has its own time. This brings me closer to the idea of a painting, where time is something even more abstract and relative.
Anne: Your song "Supernova" is a meditation on the loss, absence, and ephemerality of life. Do you meditate a lot?
Carlos: I would like to learn to meditate, in a more traditional way, so to speak. But I believe that my mental process while making and listening to music is a form of meditation.
"Music helped me to get over the loss of my beloved dog Jimmy"
Anne: You wrote the piece in loving memory of your dog Jimmy. Did it help you to get over your loss? What did you learn from it?
Carlos: It certainly helped. At that time, there was simply nothing else I could do to deal with Jimmy's death. He was a lovely dog, we lived amazing moments together. He saw me grow, he was by my side all my teenage years. When he passed away, I thought: "something has changed, definitely." In fact, I believe that great losses are things that we have never overcome because these are events that reestablish the entire order of the world. It is like being born again. You need to relearn how to live with your environment, how to deal with an absence that was not there before.
Anne: You told me that you went vegan when the pandemic started. Congrats on that! What led you to this decision?
"We wanted to do something against animal suffering"
Carlos: My wife and I have been vegetarians for some years, but we still haven't managed to restructure our lives to the point of becoming vegan, which was already a goal. So, during the pandemic, being at home all the time possible... we decided to take this opportunity to try. For us, being vegan has never been about food health (this is a consequence), but about the awareness of animal suffering.
I mean, it's very selfish to think that our lives are worth more than the animals’. We are all on the planet together, and we must coexist. Gradually people understand that being vegan goes far beyond a habit. It is another way of looking at the world, it is a critical political stance. When you are vegan, you start to question the capitalist society even more. You start to question this irresponsible system that prioritizes profit over life.
Anne: The situation is quite clear. The animals are suffering in factory farming. People are dying of diseases that come from animal agriculture. The rainforest is deforested because soya is cultivated there for animal food. Besides that, vegetable nutrition is demonstrably healthier than meat and milk-based diets. The overuse of antibiotics in food-producing animals is being blamed for the increase in resistant bacteria. From an outside view all in all it looks as if we are killing ourselves and the planet. How is it possible that still, so few people are making the connection?
"Animal rights activism plays a key roll in the social revolution"
Carlos: It is a complex problem, with many variables. There are cultural issues, for sure, but I think that the difficulty in understanding this goes right through intellectual imprisonment perpetuated by capitalism. Thousands of people continue to starve to death every day, perversely. This is no accident. This is a project.
If you need to keep the profit, you need a mass of people desperate for consumption. This is a system that can only be successful through exploitation, whether of workers, animals, or the planet as a whole.
Anne: Do we all need to be more consequent?
Carlos: As soon as possible.
Anne: What can we learn from animal rights activists?
Carlos: First of all, I believe that animal rights activism plays a key role in a much needed social revolution. I would add feminist, anti-racist, and LGBTQ+ rights activism too. These are all pillars for a social reorganization. If we want a more just and equal world, we need to be together.
"There will be several albums in 2021"
Anne: What are your plans for the next months? You've told me about some collaborative albums being produced for 2021?
Carlos: There's a lot of things going on! In December I'm going to release a collab album with my Brazilian friends Wøunds and Ely Janoville on Healing Sound Propagandist. I'm currently working on two collab albums - one with Patricia Wolf and the other with Christina Giannone. It's really crazy because I admire them both immensely!
I could hardly believe it when I realized that I was making music with these amazing artists, and really kind people. I also have a third collab album finished with my dear friend Bu.Re_, based on guitar and piano improvisations. It's really beautiful!
Besides, I already have two more solo albums ready to be released, and other incredible collaborations to start at any time, so there will certainly be even more releases next year. Did I say that some friends call me a workaholic?