Michael Stearns – The master of total expansion

A crepuscular haze envelops the essential discography of Michael Stearns; among the pioneers of ambient and new age music from the second half of the 1970s onward, the American composer, born in 1948, boasts a stylistic complexity that actually brings him closer to some of the most celebrated names in serious music, thanks in part to a "concrète" approach in which technology transcends sound, venturing down new paths forward. More than his colleagues Steve Roach, Robert Rich and Kevin Braheny, he embraces an eclecticism that stems not so much from any systematic research as from the modus operandi of someone who trustingly surrenders to the compositional and improvisational process, conjuring up music that already exists in places still unfathomable to us. Often relying on just a couple of synth chords, Stearns sketches emotions of pure elevation; through the use of instruments of his own invention (chief among them, the Beam), he crafts soundtracks of austere beauty, self-sufficient with respect to the images alongside which they are placed. A crepuscular haze envelops these compositions, as noted above, and it is an impalpable presence into which sonic matter enters, and from which emerge testimonies of Time and Space stretched to the point of implausibility. Not the drone music of extreme minimalism, but rather the portrait of a pulsating organism, living and mutating extremely slowly within the ear. Without intellectualism or allegiance to this or that genre, Stearns continues to this day a career free of compromise, bearing witness to a biophilic language in which man is merely a fragment of a greater mystery.

Michael, let's start with a lesser-known but exceptionally high-caliber album, "Sustaining Cylinders/Sleeping Conches", from 1977.

Right. The album was derived from sonic explorations with the Ikosany, a microtonal instrument designed by Erv Wilson, along with recordings of kitchen utensils and the sound of a surfboard. At the time I had little money but plenty of desire to create soundscapes using whatever came within reach. Erv had retuned the metal bars of a vibraphone to specific pitches, relating them to the musical intervals produced by the Ikosany. It was a study based on the mathematical relationships found within the icosahedron. I recorded the sound by striking each bar with the microphone preamp turned all the way down, then fading the sound up, in order to create a slow attack; keep in mind that, at that time, ADSR electronic circuits hadn't been invented yet. The tape recorder I used was later slowed down to half speed, to create the texture effect typical of the piece. On the side of the LP with "Sleeping Conches" I used the same technique, but striking objects from my kitchen instead: pots, pans, silverware, etc.; these tones were then mixed with the sound of a surfboard cutting through the waves, which I had "captured" in Yelapa, Mexico.

One of your most original studio works is certainly "Lyra Sound Constellations", from '83. How did the project come about?

The artist George Landry had designed a large art installation inside his Double Rocking G gallery, in the arts district then located in downtown L.A.. He had named it precisely Lyra Sound Constellation, and it consisted of 156 strings stretched from floor to ceiling; some of them were more than 6 meters long. George asked me to help him design the tuning mechanisms and to build a sound amplification system for Lyra. Once completed, the installation was open to the public every day, at set times: visitors would move through it playing the strings, and some would even bring a musical instrument to perform alongside Lyra. During the run of the exhibition, I held a series of concerts alongside Lyra: I myself, along with a few other artists, played it, and other times I played my modular analog synth, the Serge Synthesizer. All the compositions on the album were captured during those performances, using only a pair of Neumann M 49 microphones.

Is there a foolproof method for shaking off one's formative influences, in order to find an original style?

To me it remains a mystery! My style evolved along the way, emerging from the "unfolding" of my own life. Perhaps it's my style that found me. I was lucky enough not to have a strictly formal musical education: I did study the physics of musical instruments and sound... and over time I met many musicians, artists, composers, microtonal music experts, scientists, and technicians of every stripe, from whom I learned and who influenced my approach to composition. I was also fortunate to be able to travel, immersing myself in the sounds of the natural world and in the music of peoples far removed from me, not only in what we call "Western" music. For a composer with a conservatory education, there needs to be some extra drive in order to find the strength to climb out of the "sandbox" of the music in which they were trained. And it's rare to find someone who does.

Unlike many of your peers, the influence of "komische musik" is not evident in your work.

Even today, those who draw on that movement tend to take a rather "formulaic" approach in their use of often quite traditional instrumentation, usually consisting of bass, guitar, drums and synth. Many composers sound good working within that approach. But that's not my case.

And yet, present in every one of your "recordings" is an adherence to a mystical way of perceiving reality, something akin to what is described, for instance, by the great masters of Sufism.

Ever since I was a child I've had experiences outside of ordinary reality. We could call them "escapes from the sandbox". On a more formal level, I've spent weeks in silent meditation, and I've been blessed with a deep immersion in our natural world. These aspects radically nourish my music.

What advantages does non-narrative art offer to those who appreciate it?

With non-narrative art there's no one interpreting things for you, telling you what the story is, giving you a description of what you're seeing or hearing, instructing you on how you should feel, creating a connection that feels familiar to you, or a narrative to follow. There's no script or voiceover telling you about what you're witnessing. There are no "actors" through whom a story is being told. Through non-narrative art, everything lies within you, the viewer. It's you who imposes your own stories, your own feelings, your own emotions onto the art. Or perhaps it's the experience of the art that creates a space within you, in which to discover something new.

What might one risk discovering?

One might discover what it means to be a "you", but in a different way, outside of the stories we keep telling ourselves.

What does your setup look like today?

My setup is constantly evolving, dissolving, shifting as new instruments arrive to experiment with or to use for specific projects. And instruments I haven't used in a while find new homes. Right now I'm focused on a Roli Seaboard 2 as a controller, a laptop with various virtual synths, the Waldorf Iridium modular synth, a 3RD Wave, a Korg Wavestate, an ASM Hydrasynth, and finally a Moog One. There's also a section of the studio with a large Eurorack modular system – great fun for sonic exploration – plus instruments that connect to the Soma and the Folktek, as well as an area with guitars and other acoustic instruments. The studio computers, of course, also house an assortment of software synthesizers.

Has the digital revolution changed your approach to composition?

The compositional act has always been an intuitive process for me. Sometimes something inspires me, that's clear, and sometimes I just sit at the keyboard and it happens. There seems to be an invisible "thread" that I follow. As for the digital world, in some ways it has opened up new paths for those who want to explore: there are now more ways than in the past to capture and immediately process sonic material, and in that respect digital instruments are wonderful.

Can the sounds spontaneously produced by nature around us be considered a composition in their own right, capable of reconnecting us with whatever divine essence dwells within us?

Music made by man is born from the mind of man. In nature there is no mind, no recognizable point of reference. There is no separation, except for the ones our thoughts create, so everything happens in harmony, as a single unfolding. That's why a simple walk in the woods can be so meaningful and inspiring.

Among the many, you collaborated with the founding mother of the new age genre, Constance Demby.

I played with Constance often, she was a special friend. We performed both individually and together, at New Age fairs, at the Asilomar conferences, and so on. She played her Space Bass and Whale Sail on the opening of my soundtrack for Ron Fricke's film "Chronos." If I remember correctly, it was our mutual friend Anna Turner who got in touch with me to play on her "Novus Magnificat."

Fricke isn't just a great cinematographer: through films such as "Chronos," "Baraka" and "Samsara" – for which you composed the soundtracks – he has proven himself an artistic documentary filmmaker often superior to the better-known Godfrey Reggio.

Ron is an artist with a truly unique vision of the world. Besides being a cinematographer and director, he's a painter and has invented special technical mechanisms for cameras and their support rigs. As a lighting technician he's a genius. And he's also a "meditator." We work together in a very intuitive way: we don't need words between us, we just follow the flow. But credit must also go to his collaborator, Mark Magidson: without Mark, another genius in every respect, we might never have been exposed to Ron's greatness.

"Lightplay" ('83) is one of your densest studio efforts. What was your original intention?

I can assure you that I never set out to achieve any particular result with my music. It never even occurs to me to try. Music simply happens. Most likely, it's an expression of my engagement with life, at the exact moment I compose and record it.

How was your life flowing during the Continuum experience?

In 1975 I left Tucson to join Emilie Conrad's Continuum movement, based in Los Angeles. In Tucson I played in a band six nights a week, attended college, and spent my days roaming the desert areas and mountains of southern Arizona, the places where I grew up. Leaving them was an important turning point for me, it truly meant leaving everything behind and starting over. Besides Continuum, I was introduced to the L.A. electronic music scene, and there I found the ideal habitat to grow musically. It was an incubation nest for me, but also for Kevin Braheny, Steve Roach and many others.

The album "Desert Solitaire" ('89) brings together the three great innovators of American ambient music, namely you, Kevin and Steve. How did you divide up the roles on that occasion?

If I remember correctly, all three of us were moved by Edward Abbey's "Desert Solitaire," a wonderful book that recounts the author's experiences as a park ranger in the canyons of southern Utah. All three of us had spent time in that environment and had been deeply influenced by it. There's an inner "reason" that led us to compose the self-titled album. We decided to record both collaborative pieces and solo pieces, as an expression of the mystery of those lands. Steve and Kevin have always felt like kindred spirits from another time and another place, and for me it was a pleasure to share the project with them.

Enjoying the purity of an album like "Singing Stones" ('94), one has to wonder whether we humans of the hyper-technological era can still connect with that spirituality that leads us to the revelations of Mother Nature.

It's not just possible, it's likely. It happens every day. But it happens on an individual level. Life is such a wonderful mystery.

For those who haven't listened to you yet, which titles would you recommend as an introduction to your aesthetic?

I'd probably start with my debut, "Ancient Leaves," and move on to "Morning Jewel," "Planetary Unfolding," "Chronos," "Encounter," "The Lost World" and "Baraka." Among the collaborations, I'd mention "Beyond Earth & Sky" with Steve Roach.

Which album best sums up your artistic evolution in recent years?

During the Covid pandemic I recorded several new albums, the first of which is titled "In The Garden" and will be released in early 2025. It will probably be, within my discography, the title that best sums up what I'd recorded up to that point.

Losing oneself in your music, one gets the sense that the reverb triumphs over the beat that generated it.

Reverb has to do with space, and it creates for the listener a spatial sonic environment that resonates internally. You know, incorporating reverb into my tracks in a particular way has always been an important part of my style. I still remember when the Lexicon 224 digital reverb processor came out: Stephen Hill, founder of the Hearts of Space radio show, and I were in a recording studio in Culver City, and we were astonished by what it could do. About a year later I managed to get one for my own studio and immediately started creating situations where that kind of sound took center stage.

How does one become a compelling interpreter of one's own music?

A musician's worth lies in their ability to resonate with the listener. Regardless of their level of technical skill or expertise, they resonate with some people, and not with others.

What did your early experiences in late-Sixties pop-rock teach you about that industry?

It's an industry, probably like all other industries, and therefore with the same kind of pitfalls. That work supported me financially during the period when I was going through the changes I needed to make to "find myself," both personally and musically. And it also allowed me to meet a lot of interesting people.

Future ambitions?

I don't have any, and it would be hard to say I've had any in the past. There were certainly deadlines imposed by my commercial projects, albums and the like. But life seems to guide my work better when I don't get in the way by setting goals.

What does a typical day in New Mexico look like for you?

I live on a ridge overlooking Santa Fe, at 2,200 meters above sea level. Behind the house, the mountain climbs up to 4,010 meters. There are other houses in the area, but also plenty of untouched land where coyotes, bobcats, deer, bears and many other creatures live, and which often wander into our yard. It's a stimulating environment to live and create in. Sometimes I spend time in the recording studio, other times I head down into town or I'm off traveling. Often I just lose myself out in nature. Lately, my studio time has mostly gone into mixing a series of projects, both stereo mixes for download and streaming, and Atmos mixes for immersive distribution.

This one's from the writer Jules Verne: “By inventing the Machine, man is destined to be devoured by it.”

Absolutely. It's evident in the devices of our everyday life, from computers to cell phones. Musically speaking, though, I'd trace it back to the invention of the harpsichord keyboard and, through it, to the invention of the tuning system known as equal temperament, which we then exported to countless other cultures around the world, and which turned out to be the “digital clock” underlying most modern music.

Just one question about current events: for much of the international press, Trump in the White House is a threat on every front. What if he turned out to be one of the architects behind ending the war in Ukraine?

On the world stage, in our country and within our government, he could be the occasion for a lot of things... time will tell. What we consider positive or negative always stems from a great change, and that's what he represents, one way or another.

What's the most extraordinary aspect of being an artist?

The most beautiful thing, and perhaps the hardest, is trust, the act of surrendering to something. Every artist has something unique to carry forward and share with the world, regardless of others' opinions. The manifestation of that is the “place” where beauty is born. So, trusting in the unfolding of that beauty, of that uniqueness, is sometimes the toughest challenge of all for us.

(January 12, 2025)

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