Interview: flimmer

flimmer, the ambient project of Stephen Hiscox, grew out of a lifelong love of songs, words, and the liberating uncertainty of experimental sound. After years as a singer-songwriter, Hiscox found a new creative language in slow loops, cassette textures, field recordings, pedals, and long-form pieces that offer listeners a place to retreat, drift, or listen closely. In this interview, he talks about Brian Eno, Dylan, anxiety, studio rituals, OP-1 Field, tape loops, AI, and why making music for the pleasure of the process can be its own quiet freedom.

General info

Artist Name: flimmer

Real name: Stephen Hiscox

Age: 65

Location: Vienna, Austria (originally from Australia)

How long have you been making music? Since I was about 10, when my 6th grade teacher, Father Andersen, showed us the basic chords on the ukulele and then guitar.

 

Social Media / Music Links

flimmer.bandcamp.com
instagram.com/_flimmer_
YouTube playlist
linktr.ee/flimmer

 

Do you release music under a label or independently?

Independent

 

Creative process and inspiration

What drew you to ambient music in the first place?

I've always loved “songs” and lyrics – I'm an absolute Dylan fanatic – and I worked as a singer-songwriter for a long time, and I still love to sit down with a guitar and sing. But – like probably everybody who has ever uttered the word “ambient” – Brian Eno left an indelible impression on me the first time I heard him, I guess in the late '70s, early '80s. I remember being sick and having a cassette with Another Green World on one side and Discreet Music on the other playing on repeat as I was drifting in and out of consciousness – the music seemed to transport me to a state somewhere between the two. Also, back in the 80s-90s the Australian radio station Triple J had an ambient music programme on Sunday evenings, and I would always sit in the dark and let this quiet, meandering music soothe away my anxiety about going back to work the next day.

A career change about 10 years ago meant I started listening to lots of ambient stuff – I began writing (just web content, nothing literary) full-time, and I found that having music in my headphones blocked out distractions and put me in a space where I could create. Even when I wasn't actively listening, it had to be something which (at least unconsciously) I enjoyed and which inspired me somehow, not just pretty, inoffensive sounds. (I absolutely loathe “New Age” muzak.)

Around the same time, I found that my lyric writing dried up completely, probably because I was trying to come up with words all day for my work. When I was recording “songs” I usually had to have at least a basic idea – some lyrics and a few chords – before I would go into Logic Pro and start fleshing out the idea and building something up. I became frustrated because I had nothing to start with, so I wasn't recording anything. I guess because I was listening to so much ambient music, I thought, “I'll try that”. It was quite liberating to simply start on a piece of music without any idea of where it was going to go. The great thing about “experimental” music is just that – you can simply experiment and see what happens. I found (and find) that very inspiring.

Can you describe your creative process when starting a new track?

When I'm starting one of my “long-form” tracks I'll often take a few snippets of other pieces I have and see if they'll fit together, and then add extra elements to make something (hopefully) coherent. I post every couple of days to my Instagram – usually just short experiments with some effects pedals or similar, and these little vignettes are often good jumping-off points for “proper” pieces of music. Although social media nowadays are generally awful, the little community of “weird music makers” on Instagram is a caring, respectful and inspiring corner of the internet that I really value. I find that the discipline of getting out a couple of pedals or some other piece of gear and simply experimenting for a short video is a great routine; it's a way to just try stuff, without thinking about where a piece might go. If I like something, I'll see if I can reuse it – and combining disparate elements can be very inspiring.

Alternatively, I might set myself some limitations, especially if I'm working on shorter pieces. For my recent album lower (flimmer.bandcamp.com/album/lower) I just used the Kinotone Ribbons pedal to simulate the “Frippertronics” tape recorder technique, with the OP-Field as my only sound source. Or my album anther (flimmer.bandcamp.com/album/anther) was made over a weekend with just the Chase Bliss Mood MKII pedal, right after I got it, and a single piano sample on the OP-1. Sometimes these self-imposed rules give me some direction – the abundance of options in a modern DAW can be overwhelming.

What kinds of experiences or environments tend to inspire your work most?

Might sound mundane, but the “environment” which inspires me most is my studio. (When I say “studio” I actually just mean a little room in our apartment. It's one of the fringe benefits of your kids moving out of home.) But after years of trying to find space to make music, it's incredibly liberating to have a friendly, bright space with all my gear at my fingertips. There's nothing that can quite kill inspiration like having to hunt through boxes for the right cable...

Otherwise... I find art, photography and film very inspiring. I usually make accompanying videos for most of my pieces, and I find the two mediums have a sort of reciprocal relationship for me: often filming something will evoke a musical atmosphere, and when I've finished a track, I'll usually have a picture in my head of what the video should look like.

And – it's probably a cliche – but the sounds around me are a source of inspiration. I'm always making “field recordings” when outside, either in the city or the country; it's easy nowadays when you just have to whip out your phone. Even if they're barely audible, they add enormously to the atmosphere of a piece of music.

Oh, and I'd love one day to be able to make a piece of music with the depth and stillness of a Rothko painting.

What atmosphere or emotional space are you trying to create with your music?

I don't know if it's actually something I consciously set out to do, but I guess like many people who make slow, quiet music, I do it partly as a reaction to the noise (both metaphorical and actual) and frenetic pace of the world. (And the process of making it is a time out from the outside world for me.) I guess I'd like the music to be a space where the listener can slow down time for a little while. The first long pieces I made were actually for my own “use”. I was having (mild) anxiety attacks, and I found it useful to have music I could “retreat” into while doing breathing exercises – 20 to 25 minutes turned out to be a good length of time. Most of my music is loop-based (even if some of the loops are very long); I find that recurring “motifs” induce a sort of reassuring hypnotic state.

I like the quotation attributed to Brian Eno, along the lines that ambient music should be able to accommodate different levels of listening attention, without forcing a particular one, and that it should be as ignorable as it is interesting. I'd like there to be enough in my music – melodies, sounds, parts entering and leaving – that catches the attention and rewards close listening, but I'm just as happy if people have it playing in the background. Colleagues have told me they have my music playing while they're writing, and hearing that gives me a thrill!

What moment made you feel like you had truly found your sound?

Boah, I don't know if I can actually say I have found my own sound! I'm probably still looking for it – and if you're still searching you'll keep experimenting. One difference from when I was writing conventional songs is that I look back on quite a few of those songs, with the benefit of years of hindsight, and I can tell what I was listening to at the time. The influences are obvious to me. I don't have that with my ambient music, so I guess it is more “mine”. But I couldn't pinpoint a time when that happened.

How important is storytelling in your work?

I don't think I'm consciously trying to tell a story, but it would be nice if my music evoked an atmosphere for the listener to dream up their own “story”. That said, I think my music does have some sort of “narrative arc”; there's definitely a beginning, a middle and an end. Much as I love music that simply “drifts”, I'm still tied to melody and some sort of structure. But maybe one day I'll get to abstraction!

What makes a track feel “finished” to you?

Hard to say. Especially with my long pieces, I usually have a feeling when I've got to the “end”. I tend to put them aside for a few days and then come back with fresh ears. I usually put the track onto my phone and go for a walk with it playing – it's good to get it out of the studio and to just listen, rather than listening while I'm looking at my DAW. Then I'll often either find that something is missing and add something, something sounds bad and needs changing, or that too much is happening in a particular part and I need to take something out. This process doesn't usually go on for too long, though. If I come to the conclusion that lots of changes aren't helping, then it probably means that the piece isn't worth trying to save. (No point in polishing a turd, though nowadays fortunately the turds are fairly rare.) But generally I'm not someone who has trouble finishing music.

Which artists (or even non-musical influences) have shaped your artistic vision?

Oh gosh, probably far too many to mention! Off the top of my head: Eno, of course. The delicacy of Satie and Debussy. Yes, even Dylan: “Sad-eyed Lady of the Lowlands” lulls me into a trance. John Cage for minimalism. Philip Glass and Steve Reich for showing me the beauty of repetition (even if “Come Out to Show Them” traumatised me when a school music teacher played it to us!). Arvo Pärt for his sacred beauty. William Basinski for the sheer audacity of releasing an hour of a single decaying phrase (and for its tragic beauty). Aphex Twin for weirdness. Stars of the Lid for slowness. Max Richter for Sleep. Biosphere and Eluvium for tunes. Fennesz for guitars.

And probably lots of others I've forgotten.

 

Gear and setup

Are you using hardware instruments, software, or a hybrid setup?

Hybrid. These days I usually start with hardware instruments, before moving to my DAW and continuing to work on a piece there, although occasionally if I get a new sample library I might start in Logic Pro. As I mentioned before, my starting point might be just a little fragment from an Instagram video, some mucking around with a pedal or something. I'll put that in my DAW and see if I can develop it or combine it with something else and work from there. I like to have a starting point – probably comes from my writer's fear of the empty page! Time-stretching, transposing and generally manipulating sounds is so easy in a DAW nowadays and can be so inspiring. I'm definitely not a DAW-less guy!

What's your favorite piece of gear or plugin, and why?

I love my Teenage Engineering OP-1 Field. I don't really understand synths – I've tried, but when I hear “filters” and “oscillators” my mind just somehow switches off – but the OP-1 is incredibly inspiring. I bought the original version and loved it so much that when the Field came out I had to get it. People say it's a “toy” – for me that's a compliment. It's so playful and every time I pick it up I create something. It gives me all the synth sounds I need, the sampler is brilliant and I love the virtual tape recorder.

I love working with cassette loops, so I have to mention my Tascam Portastudio 424. I adore the fragile, melancholy sound of tape and I find the unpredictability of manipulating cassettes so inspiring. Sound-on-sound techniques almost always give you something interesting and changing the speed can completely alter a sound – the Tascam's four tracks mean the possibilities are almost endless. And I like the way tape is irrevocable – once something's there, there's no way back apart from erasing and starting from scratch. I've also got a couple of modded cassette players by Battery Operated that are lots of fun.

There are a few guitar pedals that never fail to inspire me. The Chase Bliss Blooper is my favourite looper pedal, with endless ways of manipulating your loop, and almost every time I plug in the Mood MKII I'll come up with something interesting. The Kinotone Ribbons is ostensibly a lofi pedal, but it has a fantastic multitrack looper built in. The Empress Zoia is a modular pedal that lets you download users' patches, and some of them are brilliant. You can make your own patches too – but that's way beyond my skills! And recently I've been running everything through the Hologram Chroma Console, which just adds a lovely subtle saturation to your sound – although it can be unsubtle if you want!

What piece of gear completely changed your workflow?

Well, apart from my first “proper” guitar, a Maton acoustic which just celebrated its 50th birthday and which I still have, I'd have to say the piece of technology which was life-altering for me was a DAW. Being able record full arrangements in Apple's Garageband – I guess I first got it around 2005 or so – gave me a huge creative impulse, and it probably set me on my path of being a “one-man band”. I tend to work in solitude, and having a studio in your computer lets you do everything yourself. (Somewhere along the line I moved on to Logic Pro.)

 

Challenges

What's been the biggest challenge so far in creating ambient music?

It might sound odd, but I don't really experience many challenges. Because I don't consciously make my music for an audience (although of course it's nice if people listen) and because I don't usually have a particular vision in mind when I sit down to record, I'm free to follow whatever ideas come to me during the process. As I said, that's the great thing about “experimental music” – it lets you simply experiment and “see what happens”. That's also a benefit I feel in making short gear experiments for Instagram – I'm not starting out with the pressure of “making a track”, I'm just trying stuff out. If something good comes out of that I might try to develop it; if it doesn't then it doesn't, and I still had some fun.

How do you stay motivated or inspired when you're in a creative rut?

That would follow on from the previous question. I'll usually just try experimenting with a different instrument, a different combination of pedals or similar. For example, I enjoy running my voice or perhaps “weird” instruments like harmonica, ukulele or toy glockenspiel through pedals, simply to get some new sounds and to see where they take me. Even if you don't have many instruments, you can find lots of amazing – often free – samples online. Or make your own samples with your phone! There are so many ways to keep yourself inspired, and the wonderful thing about making “ambient” music is that it offers so much space for experimentation.

How do streaming platforms affect the way you release music, or what is your relationship with those platforms?

The internet, including streaming platforms, makes releasing music easier than it's ever been. But that also means that there's more music being released than there ever has been, and the sheer volume means that it's extremely difficult to have your music heard, especially when you have to get past the algorithmic “gatekeepers”. I point people to Bandcamp for my music first, as I think its business model is the fairest for musicians. But my music is also on the streaming platforms, simply because the reality is that nowadays most people consume their music via them.

I think the streaming model – or more precisely the way the platforms pay (or don't pay) artists – has a had a catastrophic effect on musicians generally. It's virtually impossible for the vast majority of artists to live from their music. And because even the tiny portion of their vast revenue that they pay to artists is too much, Spotify and Co are flooding their sites with AI-generated music, which doesn't cost them anything.

I personally have no expectation of making any money from my music, and very little expectation of many people actually even hearing it; coming to terms with that has actually been perversely liberating. It means I don't feel forced to make any compromises at all – I make exactly the music that I want to make. But that doesn't mean that I'm not thrilled when someone hears my music and enjoys it!

What are your thoughts on AI's impact on music and art? Have you, in any form, used it in your approach to creating and shaping ideas?

Maybe it's because I'm old, but I honestly find it hard to see any positive effects of AI in society at all! Perhaps in fields such as medicine or scientific research – I don't know enough to make an informed comment – but I think the dangers far outweigh any possible benefits, and I certainly wouldn't rely on the tech gazillionaires who are pushing the AI revolution to have the wellbeing of society at heart!

AI will definitely have an effect on people making what's broadly called “ambient” music – the streaming platforms are already flooded with AI-generated “relaxing piano” and “calming meditation” slop. And the great majority of music “consumers” probably neither knows nor cares whether what they're listening to was made by a human or a machine.

As far as making music using AI – it's not something I'm at all interested in. For me it defeats the entire purpose of creating art. Creating something should involve some sort of struggle (even if it can be a pleasurable one). Creation involves recognising something within one's self and manifesting that as art, be it a book, a painting or a piece of music. If you're just typing a few commands and letting AI do the rest, then you're delegating an integral part of the process to the machine. I think the comment by Mikey Shulman of Suno, that, “It's not really enjoyable to make music now...” shows how little these people understand musicians. They think making art is just too hard.

I've never had any hands-on experience with music-making AI, but a good friend who is a wonderful folk-oriented singer-songwriter was approached recently by someone she didn't know well about an “electro” side project. While they were talking about possible directions he put a few prompts into an AI music machine (I don't know which one). My friend was shocked at how accurately it followed the prompts (including her voice), but also how creepy and sterile it sounded. Needless to say, nothing came of the collaboration.

The optimist in me believes that there will nevertheless always be artists who continue to make music for the love of doing it, just like there will be an audience who seek out that music. It may become a niche passion though.

How do you see AI evolving in music and art? Are you cautious about it, or do you think it will increasingly function as a tool within creative workflows?

I think I got everything off my chest in my answer to the previous question. I'm sure AI will become more prevalent in music and art, but it's not something I can ever see myself seriously using, simply because I make music for the pleasure of the process.

What are you currently working on?

I've just recently released a new album, vessel (flimmer.bandcamp.com/album/vessel), so at the moment I have a clean slate and I'm in a phase of experimentation, looking for sounds and seeing where they take me.

What advice would you give to new ambient artists?

I'd simply say to make the music that you want to make. “Ambient” is such a broad church where almost anything goes. Be willing to experiment, take risks and – most importantly – enjoy the process!

Is there anything else you'd like to add?

Only to say “thanks” for the invitation! It's been a great opportunity for me to think about my own work!

 

The sound of flimmer