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As an experimental musician, Tyondai Braxton is aware that once he starts talking about one of his projects, he is susceptible to sounding like an asshole. It comes with the territory, really. Whenever an artist working along the avant-garde fringe is pressed to explain inscrutable ideas, there's a risk of making the music even more impenetrable—and of coming off like a total wanker.
But for Braxton, explaining himself is part of his process. As he sees it, interviews are a gesture of inclusiveness, a way of opening up the music rather than walling it off to anyone who isnât a composition major. If he seems, as The New York Times observed, âopenly self-conscious of any pretensionâ when discussing his art, itâs because heâs careful not to violate the spirit in which it was made.
"I feel like the spirit of music that is challenging and obtuse is sometimes alienating," says Braxton, 36, from his home in Brooklyn, "and I don't make music in that spirit."
Indeed, for a composer whose work is lauded for its technical complexity, Braxton's music, mostly, is not difficult to access. Its unifying quality is a playfulness bordering on cartoonish whimsy. Classifying it is another matter. Braxton first came to the attention of the indie world at large as the frontman of Battles, the still-extant math-rock band he left in 2010. A year earlier, he issued Central Market, a wild, full-on orchestral album. On his new record, HIVE1, the only elements are two modular synthesizers and a panoply of small percussion instruments. Such exploration is practically Braxton's birthright: His father is composer and musician Anthony Braxton, who's spent decades breaking apart traditional notions of jazz and classical music.
Whatever he's done, though, Tyondai Braxton has operated on a basic rule, drawn more from pop than the avant-garde: If he's going to play it, he must enjoy listening to it.
"One of the laws that governs the way I work is that, as cerebrally exciting as something is to me, in the end, it needs to grab me in a visceral way," he says. "I need to be able to push 'play' on something and say, 'Oh yeah, I'm feeling that.' It's not like an equation written on a chalkboard."
Despite its origins as an art installation, the same rule applied to HIVE1, which Braxton will perform selections of, along with new music, at the Time-Based Art Festival in Portland. After quitting Battles and releasing Central Market, Braxton's fascination cycled back to electronic music, just as a store specializing in modular synthesizers opened down the street from his Williamsburg apartment. The process of learning the instrument "turned me inside out," he says. Adjusting to the concept of algorithmic composition, Braxton then turned to another infatuation, the percussion ensembles of Edgard Varèse. "I knew I really wanted to have a live element interfacing with this [synthesizer]," he says, "and I was wondering what it would even mean to do that."
In 2013, Braxton debuted the project at the Guggenheim Museum, performing with four other musicians on specially constructed platforms. Although the visual component is removed on record, HIVE1 remains an immersive experience—and, if you believe the reviews, almost as visual. Critics have described the buzzing, bustling songs as sounding like the score to a "sci-fi chase scene," "an insectoid culture at work" and "an episode of Tom and Jerry if it was melting." Braxton had his own images in mind: On "Boids," the spirals of synth, snares and woodpecker hammerings were inspired by an '80s software program designed to mimic bird murmurations, while the gradual cascade of white noise on "K2" is, appropriately, meant to simulate an avalanche.
It is a world apart from Central Market's hyperactive symphony, and even further removed from the looping guitar-and-voice manipulations of Battles. But as Braxton explains, every project is part of a continuum, and while it might not be obvious in the music, he's taking something from each one and applying it to the next. In other words, the experiment is ongoing, and it never ends.
âI donât want to say this record is an outlier, because I donât know what Iâm going to do next, but it was very specific in what I wanted to do,â he says. âNow, Iâll be able to go back, plug my voice into this new way of working and see what that means.â
SEE IT: Tyondai Braxton plays Lincoln Hall at PSU, 1620 SW Park Ave., as part of TBA, on Sunday, Sept. 13. 8:30 pm. $20 for PICA members, $25 general admission. All ages.
Five Other Notable Music Events at TBA
Stephen Malkmus & the Jicks (10:30 pm Thursday, Sept. 10)
Portland's favorite alterna-dad kicks off the week with a free show.
Live Riot (10:30 pm Friday, Sept. 11)
A living tribute to the legacy of riot grrrl, complete with a cover band and karaoke.
Beacon Sound Night (10:30 pm Wednesday, Sept. 16)
The Mississippi record store and label curates an evening of loops, ambiance and techno, from Bardo:Basho, Benoit Pioulard and Apartment Fox.
DJ Klyph Night (10:30 pm Thursday, Sept. 17)
A showcase of Portland hip-hop new (Mic Capes, Neka and Kahlo) and not-so-old (Vursatyl), put together by one of the scene's longtime champions.
Decibel Night (10:30 pm Friday, Sept. 18)
The Seattle electronic music festival brings U.K. "abstract R&B" producer and Brainfeeder signee Lapalux, along with Portland's Strategy and a live set from Raica.
SEE IT: All performances are at the Works at the Redd, 831 SE Salmon St. See the full schedule at pica.org.
WWeek 2015