Composer of the Month feature

Nine Questions: Sion Orgon

Sion Orgon is a Cardiff-based sound designer, multi-media artist and experimental composer who has for over twenty years created critically acclaimed work for stage, screen and radio productions.

Tŷ Cerdd's Artist Development Manager Freya Dooley caught up with Sion for a chat about his fascinating musical world and wide ranging creative interests.

What are you working on at the moment?

I’m currently working on two new albums — one for the Portuguese experimental electronic label, CRONICA and another mixed genre album for Fourth Dimension Records in Poland. I’m prepping compositions for a dance theatre production for choreographer Alex Marshall Parsons, ready for tour later this year and have ongoing work as a mastering engineer. I’m also working on a live experimental set, which hopefully will grace venues across Europe later this year.

How would you describe your work as a sound designer, and how does sound design inform (or differ from) your work as a composer and musician?

I guess it depends on what the project is. With sound design for television or film I could be creating foley, or perhaps more formulaic compositions, or both. Sometimes I’m learning to complete something entirely different. I have to think outside of the box about what each scene or project requires.

How do you begin your day-to-day work in the studio... Do you have a particular routine attached to your creative process?

I do. My day always starts with meditation to help focus my mind. With my solo experimental music, the thinking never stops. I always have a list of ideas that I try and achieve everyday. It will differ from project to project. Whether it’s collecting field recordings, drawing from my archive, or refining a patch on my modular system, I’m always looking to challenge my creative processes in some way.

Are there particular instruments, softwares, or technologies that you are enjoying, or have enjoyed working with?

I’m very synthesiser based these days. I like to take real world sounds like field recordings or acoustic instruments, and process them through various eurorack modules or effects, to make other worldly sounds. I’m still using traditional instruments as well. My first instrument is drums, which I’ve been playing since I was 14. I guess I’m what you call multi-instrumental, certainly not virtuoso in any way, but somehow I manage to create something that’s interesting to me, using instruments that I can get my hands on. I also sometimes use AudioMulch software, to process or create sounds. Microphones are a huge part of my creative battery.

What are you listening to at the moment?

I’m always listening to a lot of music. I’m still very much into buying physical media such as vinyl and CD's on a weekly basis.

Recently I have been listening to:

Fausto Romitelli - An Index of Metals

Zu - Carboniferous

Colin Stetson - When we were that what wept for the sea

Thomas Dolby - The Golden Age Of Wireless

Morton Subotnick - electronic works

What are key references or influences in your work? Are these always sonic/musical, or do you draw influence from other art forms and media too?

Probably everything is an influence really. When I’m creating more experimental music it’s like painting a big picture, in a Jackson Pollock kind of way. I will splash a load of audio paint on a canvas, and make sense of it all by organising and shaping it, until it feels right to me. Personally, experimental music is almost a visual thing, it’s a sub conscious image which I am creating through the medium of sound.
Besides being a composer/musician I am also a visual artist. I create a lot of mixed media art work. I think the artwork influences my music and my music has influence over my art. It’s almost a harmogenous practise for me.

You also work collaboratively: in audio engineering / mastering, and also in theatre and performance contexts. How does working on projects by / with other artists and disciplines influence your creative practice and process?

I love being a mastering engineer. I’m given all kinds of wonderful music to work on. I’m influenced by listening to how other artists perceive audio production or music composition.
I’ve drawn an influence from everyone I’ve ever worked with. There’s always something in there which inspires me. In theatre I’m often working with artists/choreograpers/actors who present quite unorthodox compositional ideas. It requires me to think outside of my music box, but often these artists present to me a new process of creating, which in itself is inspiring.

Are there any projects you've worked on in the past that have shaped the way you are working now?

Everything I have worked on has probably influenced me somehow. You can take a little piece of something and turn it into another thing. It’s all a work in practice. The sum of all the parts.

▶ Composer of the Month: Sion Orgon

▶ sionorgon.co.uk

▶ Sion Orgon on bandcamp

▶ Composer of the Month