Interview with Jamieson MacKay

Jamieson MacKay's piece 'Stream Day' is part of our New Works programming.

You can hear his piece on Wednesday September 17th at 7pm or Tuesday September 30th at 7pm by tuning in to 106.5 FM (Gatineau) or by listening online.

Learn more about his piece and his creative process through this interview.

1. Can you introduce us to the bodies of water featured in your composition?

The main stream recording was made in a hilltop forest in Mulgrave, QC, outside of Buckingham.  It winds itself through the forest, eventually becoming a rushing waterfall as it descends down the hill to the fields and the Lièvre river below.

Julia’s vocal was recorded at her family home in Poland, along the Pilica River, near Czestochowa, Poland.  At my family home in Canada, on Clark Lake near Ladysmith, Quebec, I played her vocal through loudspeakers on the edge of the water, and went out in a pedal boat to the middle of the lake, and recorded the voice as it echoed across the water and through the hills surrounding us.  It was pretty cool to hear her voice echo on the water from so far away.

2. What were the stages of the process to compose and record 'Stream Day'?

I was walking out to this stream behind where I was living almost every day, and thinking about recording it.  So, one day I did, and ended up with about 25 minutes of rich ambient stream sounds.  The composition was very much a series of improvisations, playing along to the stream and trying to play with it.  Then, some overdubs and experimentation.

Julia’s contribution came quite serendipitously, as she simply sent me a voice memo of her singing out of the blue one day, and it’s spellbindingly beautiful.  I asked her to translate the words, and she told me it was loosely based on an old Polish song by Violetta Villas, she says, it is a song that is a letter to her mother while she was gone away on her singing career, missing home, speaking of what she is longing for.

Mother

it is sad and empty here

the trees that grow here are different

3. Do you see this piece as connected to your songwriting practice?

It was really interesting to work on this music, where there is no real defined structure like the classic verse/chorus tradition.  I found the music led itself naturally through changes and it made me write a bunch of other songs on the side throughout the process.  Discovering parts through the experimentation process.

4. What does composing for radio feel like?

I think it’s interesting to be making something for radio in that I wanted the piece to have a flow of moving parts to form some kind of narrative, but also knowing that many people may just tune in for a few minutes in their car.  Its also funny to think that this is probably the least “radio friendly” piece of music I’ve ever made in the traditional sense of making pop oriented music.  It was really fun.