Interview with The Joy of Nature: A flow of associations leading to other associations, until the core is reached

The newest album of The Joy of Nature is one the best albums of Music i've ever heard. I discovered this band and Music of L. Couto several years ago, just accidentaly. And since then i listen to every new album of the band and am astonished of its quality. Review will be written a little bit later, now i just can recommend this wonderful album, which is in Portuguese (i respect it). I just can say that Music of The Joy of Nature corresponds to its name: it's bright, it's sunny, it's wondrous, it's aesthesis...

The Joy Of Nature ‎– A Roda Do Tempo

(Cynfeirdd ‎– Cyn053, CD, France)

Released: 15 Dec 2015

Style: Neofolk, Industrial

Limited to 289 handnumbered copies.

1     Pastores Do Oceano Imenso     1:12
2     Para Lá Do Rio Do Esquecimento     3:40
3     As Ruínas Sob O Sol Do Fim De Verão     5:25
4     As Três Moiras Encantadas     4:18
5     Divertimento Do Mar     5:18
6     Ribeiras Sem Nome     4:43
7     A Criança Quase Abandonada     2:44
8     Ao Sol     4:28
9     Canção De Amergin     3:02
10     Aldeias de Basalto     4:14
11     A Borboleta Voando No Vazio     2:39
12     Águas Agitadas Passando Entre As Mãos     3:22
13     Nascido Da Lava Mal Fria     3:35
14     As Mangas Do Meu Vestido Primaveril     2:29
15     Valsa Do Trigo Queimado     6:04
16     Ilha Ao Longe     5:55

And interview with Luís.

How do You create Your music?

The ideas behind the music change with time and I don’t come up with some ideas first and make the music based on that. Making music is not a rational process for me. I depend quite a lot on inspiration and, usually, what sparked the creative process ends up completely transformed through a flow of associations leading to other associations, until the core is reached.

Anyway, there are some recurring themes, like the concept of the impermanence and how human life seems just like a play in a theatre. Tradition is also quite present in The Joy of Nature’s work, not just as theory but mostly as a practice of one of its manifestations.

I cannot listen to my work as if it were created by another artist. So… some of my own favourite tracks are on “a evasão das fadas” – “a outra margem do rio”, “clouds filled with fairies”, “canção do desassossego” or the title track are all very dear to me .
Sometimes it’s difficult to give form to what one has in mind, but on the latest “A Roda do Tempo” and on “The Empty Circle, part III” I had the sensation that the gap between what I wanted to do and what was done wasn’t that big. “The Empty Circle, part 2” and some parts of the compilation “Agkaanta, Asrti, Parasamgate” could have been better, though the songs were created on one of the most inspired periods of my life.

“A Roda do Tempo”, the new album, began to grow naturally on me after a period when I didn’t play any music at all, more than half a year without playing any instrument, mostly because work was consuming all of my time.

Then, it wasn’t like “oh, let me do another album because I don’t play a note for months”. I started to play again when I was invited by Costa to collaborate on his project “O”. A few days later I knew from the inside that there was something that I needed to express through music. I started making the first songs for it thinking about the streams I used to watch as a child. I find streams so beautiful and oniric. Then, I found a simile in a Buddhist text about how rivers lose their names on merging in the ocean. The deep sensation that our lives are like rivers, that one day lose their meaning into the great ocean of all that is created, urged me to create these songs. Then the ideas started to develop from that on. In the meantime, I found in a book about the ethnography of Azores references to six wheel swastikas that were quite common here, probably of celtic origin (at least, it is the opinion of the researcher) and that are still present on churches (like the one on the cover). By the same time I was reasearching popular poetry from the Azores and what I found about time and its cyclic nature stroke a chord inside me, together with the reading of ancient Chinese poetry.

Life with its ups and downs, trapped in this illusion of time. Everything is constantly changing, but only sometimes we realize that.

It would be unfair to highlight some of the artists with whom I collaborated with all over these years. I learned something with every artist and was fortunate enough to have great musicians participating in The Joy of Nature (and others outside the sphere of this project). The music can get quite better when one finds the right persons with the vision to add  something relevant or even give it a new direction.

What is silence to You?

I had in the past discussions with composers and musicians about silence. The majority of people don’t think that silence is possible, because there will always be some noise, even if it is the beating of the heart or the sound of the blood flowing. But, based on meditation experiences, I know there is a kind of absolute silence. Cannot quite explain that. Maybe someone who reads this knows what I’m referring to.

What is Sound Art?

Sound Art is a way of sculpting with sound. I remember seeing an interview to John Cage in his New York apartment where he talks about how people don’t perceive how music can be hidden in the sounds of a street. We’re so used to so many sounds in our daily lives, but does that sound means art? All art needs the presence of the human touch. Or maybe it doesn’t?

What do You think about relations between the old art and computer art? Are they compatible?

Yes, they are compatible. I prefer art made with the hands, the brushes, the instruments that are really played. Technology makes everything too easy nowadays, and what is too easy, usually is also soulless. But computers are, mostly, a tool, and some can create good art with it or use it together with “manual tools”.

What do You think about thousands of neofolk/industrial/ambient/tribal/electroacoustic/avangarde etc. bands/projects? Is it a kind of trend, o just a tendency forwards better music?

The genres you mentioned are too diverse to include all in only one category. The “neofolk” tag always seemed  strange to me, because, more than twenty years ago, when I started listening to Death In June and Current 93 it was all put under the umbrella of “dark folk”. There is so much different music filed under the tag neofolk that it confuses me. Industrial music, though I still like its aesthetics, belongs to another era – 70s and early 80s – it was essentially a reaction against political and social issues that changed somehow in the meantime. I like good ambient and drone music, but there’s also a lot of lazy projects in that area. Electroacoustic and avantgarde are a different story, as it doesn’t belong to popular music in its broad meaning. Listening to classical music, it seems that we have been reinventing what others created in the past. So, where to go? Have we reached the limits with John Cage and Pierre Schaeffer?

Regarding avantgarde, I love experimental improvised music, especially to play it. It can be a very rich experience, when you’re left only to the sensation of music. And the communication with the musicians happens at such a profound level. Maybe it’s a way of playing / making music that makes sense in these specific times.

Better music? I don’t think so. Great music was created in the past, it’s difficult to surpass it. But the language of music changes with the times.

What do You know about Lithuania? How and when did You come to it? What Lithuanian and foreign musicians do You value most?

I know a bit about Lithuania’s history and, some years ago, met a girl from Lithuania. I’d like to travel one day to Lithuania as I’ve never been there. I don’t know much music from Lithuania, but I do sure love Külgrinda.

What inspires You most?

Mostly, my own life experiences and the sensations and emotions those experiences leave on me. And the little nothings: a simple observation of a bird flying in the sky, the sound and sight of a stream. Beyond that, something that does not have a name.

What are You working on right now?

Just on a cover of “Glass and Smoke” for a tribute to The Sound. Unfortunately, I’m going through a period in my life when work is taking most of my time. There are also some things that I’d like to develop: while in the process of making “A Roda do Tempo” I started  a few songs that wouldn’t fit on it but that are worth to develop and also have other tracks to finish that would fit better in the world of my “Rock” side project – Moving Trees. Also, I have in my mind the idea of making a covers record with songs that were important for me.

What does the name The Joy of Nature means to You?

There’s a sentence on the alchemical book “Turba Philosophorum” that goes something like – “Nature rejoices in nature and Nature contains nature” (the capital letters are important in this context). Is Nature just trees and lakes and clouds? Why do people link nature to peaceful images? The manifestations of nature can be very violent and it’s beyond any human notion of good and evil. Nature created and Nature uncreated, but source of all possibilities, that Nature which contains the various natures. Why should one feel sad for the world being as it is? Isn’t it the work of Nature? As mankind takes part of Nature, what is created by man is also a part of Nature.  

Could You tell me about Azores' music scene?

When I was a teenager there was an important Metal scene here. By that time I was in a punk rock band we would always share the rehearsal room with a metal band. That scene is completely dead now.

I don’t go to see much live music nowadays, but I’m aware that are now many covers band and the young kids prefer to listen to DJs than to bands. But there is some artists here doing interesting things, most of them from older generations.