Interview

patten

The elusive London producer, who presents himself obscuring his face in press shots, is back to celebrate his newest. ESTOILE NAIANT, out on Warp, is an album that when visualised is deeply stroboscopic in nature. Dense in layers of sounds, it offers intricate, constantly changing patterns without end. As soon as we sat down before his set at DOKA last month, patten shared his thoughts on being a human in the world

 

Interview by Brenda Bosma, screenshots taken from music video Drift

 

“I don’t see a distinction between working on a piece, looking at the wind rushing through autumn leaves, or even this conversation”

 

 

Most products have slogans. Do you have a mantra you live by as a musician or maybe as a human being?

You describe a split between roles; a self as musician and self as a regular human in the world. One of the many things I hold close in my thoughts and actions would be trying to avoid putting out too many barriers between different roles and modes of thinking in the world that we engage with. In trying to remove those boundaries and the idea of fixity, like notions of orders, of sense and value systems, one could potentially open up a space for a more liquid and dynamic way of being in general, as a person in the world, musician or otherwise.

 

That almost seems to exceed all the existing mantras.

I don’t see a distinction between working on a piece, looking at the wind rushing through autumn leaves, or even this conversation. It’s important to consider all of these things with equal value; there’s no hierarchy.

 

That sounds hard to me.

I wouldn’t say it was easy, no. The other day I saw a woman holding a newborn baby. Every time there was a change in the environment, it got upset. This child didn’t know the difference between the tram riding by or feeling hungry, a deeply confusing situation to be in. As people it pays to have some sense of understanding, to know this is my own hand, this is how gravity works. But there’s also danger about preconceived ideas in that they can allow you to miss what’s actually there.

 

Are you saying you’d like to be like the baby?

That baby’s way of experiencing is a good analogy for a kind of openness, but in a very extreme sense. People are frightened by things they don’t understand. There’s a lot in the world that demands a bit of thinking about. It’s complex, crazy, beautiful, magical. It’s a shame if we don’t allow ourselves to engage with that whole range of complexity and dynamism that exists in the world.

 

“It’s a shame if we don’t allow ourselves in that whole
range of complexity that exists in the world”

 

 

You said ‘magical’.

Yes, though it’s a funny word. ‘Magical’ is one of those terms: as soon as you start on that path, you’re in a space that’s already heavily mapped out; it’s so widely used as a sort of shorthand for lots of things, that there’s little space left for open thinking. A sort of linguistic cul de sac.

 

Magic is truly an illusion?

If we talk about adding to the world, like performing music live, it would hopefully be not to prevent people from being able to engage fully with the world as it is.

 

Would you consider your music as a product or service, a brand?

I wouldn’t describe it like that. One thing that is really important to me is mental freedom to engage in that whole range. Life isn’t that long. The experiences you accumulate when engaging with other people and so on give you insight. That keeps things moving. And that’s what it’s all about: communicating, sharing ideas, trying to understand what it is to be human, expand and explore what that could be.

 

 

patten plays on 9 April at OT301, Amsterdam. The show is free for Subbacultcha! members. More info here