A short talk with Patrick Shiroishi on Godspeed You! Black Emperor, musical instruments, and collaborating with other artists during the pandemic.
Diogo: (As mentioned by Patrick before the interview) First of all, why the self-proclaimed interest in Efrim Manuel Menuck's music?
Patrick: Well, Efrim is an interesting musician and human. I've been a fan of Godspeed & their related projects since college and also had the honor of playing with them several times and opening for a couple of shows. It was also just so nice to hang out with them. Each and every single person in that band are sweethearts... There's nothing worse than meeting someone you look up to and them being an asshole. So huge thank you to all of them for taking the time to talk and being so kind.
Diogo: Let's start by speaking about your most recent release, Hidemi. What can tell us about this record? How do you contextualize it within your discography? I've read Hidemi is an homage to your fallen grandfather. It's also a document on Japanese-American concentration camps, exploring History through the sensations it provokes in you.
Patrick: Hidemi is named after my grandfather on my father's side, someone who I unfortunately never got a chance to meet. In my mind, I tend to separate my solo works from collaborations, each as a space where I can be as vulnerable, exploratory, and expressive as I want to. This record is a little different as it's the first time I've recorded saxophones on top of each other. It was a joyful challenge that if I had to repeat, would approach in a different way. To be honest, I wasn't sure that I would release the music out into the world but I'm glad I did (huge thanks to Jordan for the encouragement and putting this out). I do hope to expand on this music and one day write a four-movement saxophone quartet/quintet... That would be a huge undertaking so I won't try and force the music to come out, when it is ready to be written I'll take pen to paper.
Diogo: Just out of curiosity, what instruments do you play? How did the fascination for woodwind instruments, in particular the saxophone, grow up on you?
Patrick: I dabble with a bunch of instruments, when I was younger I loved getting my hands on and learning different instruments as much as I could. As far as instruments that I'm actually proficient at, I would say piano, guitar, and saxophones. I picked the saxophone in 5th grade when we had school band for no other reason than it looked really cool. Looking at the instrument now, I feel like it is an extension of myself, a way that I can express my emotions when words cannot. It has truly helped me over the years process and explore feelings and I am very grateful for the instrument.
Diogo: Even though we're living in a pandemic, you have been busy during the last two years, collaborating with various artists and releasing several pieces. There's a certain urge to materialize ideas.
Patrick: As I mentioned above, music is a way for me to process things. Whether it be everyday aspects, losing someone's life, or a pandemic, it helps me work through things. Although the quarantine that we all experienced was pretty life-changing, it did give me time to review collaborations and recordings that I had sitting on and figure out what to do with them. I was also very lucky to have started new collaborations through the Internet, which surprisingly to me was very successful. I imagined that it would be hard to connect with, let alone make music with, humans I've never met in real life before... thankfully I was wrong! Shout out to Matthew Sage, Chaz Prymek, Chris Jusell, Camila Nebbia, Noel Meek & Sunjae Lee for helping me realize this! I definitely look at this as a new avenue to travel down in the future, pandemic or not.
Diogo: Could you elaborate on your allowance for "community expression" to play a role in Hidemi?
Patrick: I wasn't too focused on community expression per se, but again, more diving into personally processing what my grandparents went through. A lot of Japanese Americans have these same feelings and are also working through the same thoughts so, in a sense, we as a community are expressing this. A few people have reached out and we've talked about stories that their grandparents/parents have gone through and I'm very happy to have sparked these conversations. Several people have also said that they were not familiar with the camps, so I'm glad to have gotten that on their radar. I'm not sure if I will be this explicit on future records regarding the camps, but I think the stories of my parents and ancestors will always find their way into my music.
Diogo: Do you relate the Avant-Garde approach of Free Jazz to an attempt to break down dated social contracts, and not limit Oneself's development to pre-established rules?
Patrick: I believe I do, but I'm not necessarily thinking of it in those terms... I tend to listen to a bunch of different kinds of music regularly (currently I am really deep into Black Metal and Field Recording-based records) and those sounds and structures, or lack thereof, definitely seep into the compositions naturally. Blending things that are genre-specific into something else is something that is very interesting to me... Descension was my attempt to make a Black Metal-Free Jazz record. To say I succeeded is something else, but I enjoyed trying to bridge the two together. I am into not limiting myself by the "rules," whether it be structure, melodic lines, or sounds, although I must say there is nothing like a strong melody.
Descension | Patrick Shiroishi
Diogo: To conclude our interview, could you suggest to us a couple of Avant-Garde Jazz albums released in the last decade that you've enjoyed listening to?
Patrick: A decade is a long time to dive back into.... but if it's okay with you I'd like to highlight five records that have recently come out in the past year that I feel are very important in this realm of music: Jessica Ackerley's Morning/Mourning, gabby fluke-mogul's threshold, Joanna Mattrey's Dirge, Camila Nebbia's Presencias & Mai Sugimoto's monologues. In a genre that is filled with white men, these five individuals bring an interesting, powerful & refreshing approach I think is sorely needed in the genre.
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