Interview: Soft Circle (Fact Magazine, 2008)

Since leaving Rhode Island, where he played with Lightning Bolt and Black Dice, Hisham Akira Bharoocha has participated in various visual art exhibitions and musical projects, including organising the Boredoms’ 77 BOADRUM drum circle. He’s also been recording solo as Soft Circle, a one man band whose songs structurally inhibit a mad hinterland borne from avant pop, krautrock, improv drum jams and even minimal techno – they’re formally disparate, but feel bound together through an alignment with nature; the soft circle itself. What follows is the full transcript of an email interview with Bharoocha that was condensed into a New Talent piece for Fact 26.

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Where does the name Soft Circle come from?

I believe everyone has a spirit or soul within themselves, and we feel it clearly when we feel love. It’s the feeling you have when you first fall in love with someone, or you see something beautiful like an amazing sunset, and it gives you a warm feeling inside. It feels like a warm ball of light to me, and that’s where the name comes from. I wanted people to visualize a warm sphere of light made of love when they hear my music. I know that sounds cheesy but that’s my style.

You spent a lot of time in Rhode Island recording with Black Dice and as an early member of Lightning Bolt. What prompted you to go solo, and how has it affected your song writing process?

I was burnt on band dynamics, dealing with all kinds of personalities and opinions so I decided to try to create music that would come purely from me, without relying on other people helping me make decisions on song structures. I wanted to see if I could make music that would feel complete just by relying on my own vision. I felt like I was successful in doing that, but I wouldn’t mind finding people to play with again. I want to expand the sound and not have to rely on equipment so much. It can create limitations after a while. I miss the social aspects of playing music, but I like how specific each sound gets when you play by yourself. It’s a love hate relationship I have. I still have some tricks in the bag so I may keep going with it for a minute.

I was reading an interview with you before where you said you’re really into nature, and you can tell that from your artwork. But then I had this moment listening to your music and looking at a picture of this sunset over Providence, and they seemed to make sense together. Do you think inspiration from the city creeps into your records, and has that changed in the transition from Rhode Island to New York?

Yeah I was born in Japan, then lived in Southern California, LA and San Diego during elementary school, and I moved back to Tokyo, Japan for Junior High and High school. I wanted to go to art school in The States and I chose to go to RISD because there was a bit more nature than going to school in New York. I looked at Parsons and I didn’t want to be in the same kind of city I was living in during High school. It was too urban and full of heavy vibrations with all the people struggling to survive. Providence was so pretty and felt really mellow. I loved living there because we could do things in nature like go swim in a lake, or we could do urban stuff like sneak into abandoned buildings.

My music is definitely influenced by both urban environments and nature. Since I grew up in cities, and have lived in New York for 10 years now, I feel nature is an escape for me. The second I see a tree swaying in the wind I feel calmer. In the end you can often hear the rhythm of the city in my music. I just try to balance it out with my love for the rhythm of nature.

What sort of stuff were you listening to while recording Full Bloom, and what artists have inspired your Soft Circle work the most?

I am influenced by everything I hear on a daily basis. That could be the sounds of the subway and the cars in the city to the sound of trees rustling in the wind, or the sound of waves crashing. During that time I loved the feeling of soft ambient things as well as tribal things. I always listen to folk music from all over the world and when I went to Macedonia a few years ago I picked up this Macedonian Eastern Orthodox ecclesiastic folk album of a mens choir singing traditional religious hymns. They sound very eastern and beautiful. The space they sang in created heavy natural reverb and I loved that sound. All the Bulgarian choir singing stuff is always recorded in some cavernous sounding space and that influences my vocal sound.

In terms of melodies my influences could range from eastern masters like Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan or Abida Parveen to contemporary western singers like the dude from the Byrds, Beach Boys, Colin Blunstone etc. I also have this Voodoo drumming CD from Kenya and that kind of heavy trance inducing drumming was a heavy influence. I always listen to a lot of Brazilian music from the ’60s and ’70s, people like Milton Nascimento, Gil Gilberto, Caetano Veloso, Joyce, Os Novos Baianos etc. Also Steve Reich is a big one. He does the trance inducing vibe but from a Western perspective.

I also dug into my brain to get a feeling of what I have always been interested in, which would be heavy music as I was a metal head growing up, and really soft Eastern acoustic sounds, such as folk music from Okinawa Japan or Native American music, Indonesian guitar music. Bands like Spacemen 3 and My Bloody Valentine also influenced me a lot. I love that under water, deep lush feeling those bands have, like everything is is blasting through torn speakers and with a ton of reverb. I was listening to Incredible String Band and Faust as well. Those Etheopiques comps are rad too. A lot of African stuff like Francis Bebey… some Wackie’s dub stuff. It’s kind of hard to remember now as I’ve tried to move on from that. It’s all about the heavy drone created by repetition for me. There are so many different types of music that do that. Dance music can do that as well. I was listening to a lot of new hip hop, but was specifically into the Houston Texas/Swisha House stuff. I had a earlier CD that I found used of that stuff and it was so slow and amazing.

You’re not into that record Flood, by Boris are you? The guitar on some of your songs reminds me loads of it, especially ‘Feel the Light’ and I guess the aquatic bit at the start of ‘Shimmer’. Just curious, as it’s a favourite of mine.

I think I’ve heard that but I can’t remember what it sounds like. I don’t own it. I like Boris but I only own the record they did with Sunn O. I like heavy guitar stuff like Earth and Sleep but I don’t listen to it much. I listen to a ton of death metal though. Cannibal Corpse is one of my favs. Always love Slayer, early Metallica, Death, Meshuggah, Napalm Death, Decapitated, Hate Eternal, Morbid Angel, that kind of stuff. The guitar stuff comes more from that side of me as well as the My Bloody Valentine side.

Your sound’s incredibly diverse – ‘Avalanche’ reminds me of an Eastern-sounding minimal techno track, and the new single ‘Night Hike’ is faster paced than the Full Bloom stuff. Do you deliberately go out to make each track in a specific way, or do they just end up this disparate?

Well, up until the end of Full Bloom I was into making really meditative tracks. During the process of making that record I started to get into the trance inducing elements of dance music and wanted to create my own version of that by making that song ‘Avalanche’, or even the last track ‘Earthed’ on Full Bloom. That track was meant to be a ‘to be continued’ style jam as I was already starting to want to play heavier stuff again. I really love kraut rock and ‘Night Hike’ ended up sounding like that.

Right now I’m really into trying to make songs that get people hyped live, and have a heavy drive. I felt everything was getting soft around me in terms of music and I wanted to make something that sounded heavy again. The best thing about playing solo is I can make any kind of song I want. I like making whatever kind of song I want to make, but I always try to create a dialogue between the tracks. If you listen you can tell that what I am trying to get at, which is to create trance inducing tracks. They all have a cyclical aspect to them. It all goes back to the circle.

Tell us about your visual artwork: your paintings, photography and collages. To what extent is there an overlap between them and your music?

I create all my work in a pretty organic way. I’m greedy and can’t let go of working with all these creative mediums. In one way it creates time to take a break from being stuck in one world. When I’m busy with music stuff I concentrate on that, and when I’m busy making visual work I deal with that. It all influences each other, and creates space for me to think about the other medium when I’m not physically working on it.

My work seems to all deal with creating patterns that you get lost in. I do a lot of commercial photo work but recently my own photo work has been about people taking a break from their daily lives and enjoying quiet, joyfull moments. I shoot a lot of people hanging out in nature. I love seeing how people transform when they are taken out of their daily routine. People always seem calmer and peaceful. I like trying to capture that feeling in a photo, because then you can feel that peace when you look at that photo. It brings you back to feeling balanced.

What’s your set up like when you play live?

It’s a huge pain in my ass, but I have a live drum kit, my electronic drum pad, vocals, guitar, and that’s it. All my electronics go into a mixer, then through a looping system, and that’s how I play along to everything with live drums and vocals. The one thing I hate about being a solo performer is that I have to carry all that gear by myself. You should see when I fly to a different country to play. I look like a weird cross between a bag lady and a gear head. I have bags and cases hanging off every limb. I’m usually sweating profusely as well, not a pretty sight at all.

Last year you organised the Boredoms’ Boardrum 77 concert – tell us exactly what that entailed, and just how much of a wild experience it must have been…

That was definitely crazy. I spent months in front of the computer communicating with all the different parties involved. It was a team effort between Jelly NYC, Kevin Collinsworth, Vice, and I. I did all the organizing of the drummers and coming up with ways to deal with things like writing the directions of how the piece should be played, what the sequence of drummers should be, dealing with each drummer’s needs for the performance, the whole nine. My title was music director, and also I acted as the Boredoms art director. They are friends and they trust me in making a lot of decisions for them, as I know exactly what they want and don’t want. It’s a really good creative relationship we have. They were my idols growing up so I know everything about how they want to create performances, why they want it to be done in a specific way. All the work payed off and everyone involved had a great time. A lot of drummers cried during the performance because it felt so blissed out. It was the perfect day out as well, warm and sunny. I think everyone who got to see if felt that bliss as well. It was one of the best New York moments I’ve ever had. I was glad to have been able to be a part of creating such an amazing experience for so many people in New York. It felt like I was able to give something back to the people.

And finally, what have you got planned for the rest of 2008?

Speaking of Boredoms we are working on doing another performance with 88 drummers on August 8th 2008 in Los Angeles. There may be another performance with 88 drummers in New York on the same day. Keep your eyes peeled for details on that. The theme this year is infinity, as an eight sideways creates that symbol. More details to come when things solidify.

Musically I am in the middle of setting up an outdoor tour with an acoustically based band I do with a bunch of friends called USUN. That will be right after the 88 drummer performance in August. We will be touring with another fantastic band called Bow Ribbons. I’m also going to be doing some touring with my friends High Places sometime in the fall as well. I’m also working on getting some new music out. High Places and I have a split album coming out sometime in the fall on PPM. I’m working on a new album as well. Still looking for a label to put that one out.

I’m also working on new visual art for some shows coming up. I will be doing a show with Triple Base gallery in San Francisco in the early fall. I have other shows coming up but all the logistics are being worked out right now. I’m doing a solo show at a gallery in Vanderbilt University in Nashville during January 2009. Pretty much just trying to make new work so I can show it. It’s all a mad juggling act at the moment. I think it will always be that way for me. That’s what I get for being greedy.