On The Observer Effect, Canadian composer Meredith Bates builds long-form sound worlds from violin, electronics, and the sounds of the natural world — and finds that art, love, and politics are harder to separate than they appear.
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Today we're putting The Tonearm's needle on Meredith Bates, a JUNO Award-winning violinist and composer based on Salt Spring Island, British Columbia.
Meredith’s recent double album, The Observer Effect, spans roughly 140 minutes of electroacoustic music built from violin, viola, field recordings, and electronics, composed and recorded live in the studio, with very few edits. It's grounded in the physics principle that observation changes what's being observed, an idea she takes personally, musically, and politically.
Meredith talks about how the record came together, what it means to make music that witnesses and is witnessed, and what drew her to the wisdom of witches.
(The musical excerpts heard in the interview are from Meredith Bates’ The Observer Effect)
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0:00 Introduction
0:01:07 First reactions to The Observer Effect
0:01:52 Recording live in the studio: sound stations and process
0:04:21 Intuition, intellect, and the flow state
0:05:39 Witnessing and being witnessed
0:08:09 Quantum physics and the observer effect
0:10:48 Mysticism, Western science, and other ways of knowing
0:11:59 Incantations, witchcraft, and feminine power
0:14:05 Free improvisation: no prompts, no plans
0:16:31 Place, space, and acoustic environment
0:18:19 A moment with the wind and the move to Salt Spring Island
0:19:58 Collecting field recordings and the Merlin app
0:21:47 Collaborators: loscil, Chris Gestrin, and Curtis Andrews
0:27:34 The love song and long-term relationships
0:28:17 Drumming, marching bands, and the politics of percussion
0:29:28 Art, politics, and communicating intent through sound
0:32:40 Cognitive dissonance and living in the Western world
0:34:15 John Zorn: Masada, Book of Angels, and learning to listen
0:35:19 Egypt, minarets, and absorbing new musical scales
0:39:00 Acoustic ecology: cities, sound, and the nervous system
0:41:45 Vinyl, streaming, and the economics of music
0:42:37 A third album in waiting and what comes next
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Visit Meredith Bates at → https://meredithbates.com
and follow her on Instagram → https://www.instagram.com/meredith_bates_music
and Facebook → https://www.facebook.com/meredithbatesmusic
Purchase Meredith Bates' album 'The Observer Effect' from Phonometrograph → https://www.phonometrograph.com/recordings.html
Bandcamp → https://phonometrograph.bandcamp.com/album/the-observer-effect
or Qobuz → https://www.qobuz.com/us-en/album/the-observer-effect-meredith-bates/xcb0uzpkrxou3
and listen on your streaming platform of choice → https://li.sten.to/theobservereffect
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