RIKI GOOCH: Conduction
An interview by Tim Gruar.
Does the name Riki Gooch ring a bell? It should. Gooch has been an intricate part of the Wellington and national music scene for nearly two decades – as drummer and founding member of Trinity Roots, orchestral art behemoth Eru Dangerspiel and Orchestra of Spheres. Occasionally, he’ll sneak on stage dressed in a gigantic Cat’s head to do a set as DJ Oboe or Cave Circles. And he’s collaborated with everyone and anyone from Ria Hall to Neil Finn, Shayne Carter to Ladi 6 and Fat Freddy’s Drop, to name but a few. Gooch’s repertoire is brave and boundless, ranging from electronic dance music, film and television scores, to large ensembles and solo performance. He’s a veritable powerhouse of creativity, yet is quietly spoken and humble. In fact, I was almost overwhelmed with information when I called up to find out about Gooch’s new project for the upcoming Wellington Jazz Festival.
Usually, this little boutique festival runs over a weekend in mid-winter, with every bar and restaurant in the Capital bulging at the seams with musicians and good vibes. But like many of this year’s iconic events it had to be postponed due to Covid-19.
We now know about the impact the virus has had on musicians and the places they play. But the shutdown was not entirely devastating, in fact lockdown has been a very fruitful time for Gooch. He told me he managed to find time to complete two albums, a four movement orchestral piece all while working on his PHD. Wow!
On the 2nd of September he released an album, ‘Rangatira’, completed during that quiet time and dedicated to a lost friend. It features taonga puoro player Alistair Fraser. As tangent to this project he also composed a bush walk sound installation called ‘Forest Human Forest’ for the experimental arts collective The Pyramid Club.
‘Rangatira’ is a set of seven sonic vignettes formed from grief, offering contemplative rhythms and haunting breaths reverberating from their hearts, crossing realms in mourning. Gooch and Alistair Fraser wanted to recognise their friend Eddie Tutaki, who’d passed away. The pair had met in Dunedin, where they both were raised, because of their mutual friendship with Tutaki. Eventually both Fraser and Gooch moved to Wellington where they continued both their friendship and their music careers. Gooch going on to play in a wide range of high profile bands as a percussionist, drummer, composer, and now, as a conductor. Fraser became one of Aotearoa’s leading experts of ngā taonga pūoro. On their website Gooch sums up the therapeutic side of creating ‘Rangatira’: “It’s almost like a whakanoa in a way. It was an impulse, and it was quite simple within that. During that (initial) lockdown we just thought “let’s do something for Ed” and because of that intention behind it, it felt like everything we played was coming from trying to capture that visceral feeling around grief. Some of those pieces too try to capture that feeling, that finality of death. The brutal-ness of it all and the way he went. I wanted to keep it raw”.
You’d think that working on such an emotive piece would be all consuming. But somehow Gooch found time. And he’s busy again, he tells me, “working on my performance piece for the upcoming Wellington Jazz Festival”. He’s also about to release another album (on 23 October) under his Cave Circles moniker, this time a more solo, DIY effort. Just to show how diverse he can be as a musician, he’s going all electronica, teaming up with US label Secret Angels, and enlisting the help of vocalist/MC’s Edie, Silka, Leo Coghini and Borrowed Cs. He can’t say much about it right now but promises that it will be a definite departure from jazz.
And if that wasn’t enough Gooch is also working on a PHD.
PHD? Now that sound serious? “Yes,” he says “it relates to my Festival work. I’ve been studying the methodology of (American Composer/Conductor) Butch Morris – which he calls ‘Conduction’ (like electrical conduction). This is very different from the usual way a conductor would lead and direct an orchestra or a band. As opposed to the usual method of performance, the music is not scored, written down. The orchestra or band has an understanding of particular hand signals. These are gestures that represent the structure of a small section of music. Normally, a conductor has control over how long a note is, the shape, form. In this case a gesture gives that to the player, who also provides the colour and volume. The gesture is like a brief, which the musician improvises. Like the gist of a phrase, without specific words to learn, just the idea.”
So, it’s a bit like the way an MPC works, I ask. You have an understanding of what each gesture means and within that a musician can improvise anyway they like, with the conductor using the signs and playing each like a button over and over or in a particular order.
“Yes, an MPC is a great description. With an MPC, you know what each sample is and it’s up to you how you construct the song, using each, dipping in, switching around on a whim. The difference is that each sample is constructed by the musician, not the composer.’
‘Conduction’ also is like using a palette. Think of it like a musical paint box, you have defined colours but how you apply the ‘paint’ is up to each artist or player. The conductor controls the order and length of each brushstroke but the rest is up to the musician.”
Gooch is keen to explore the creative potential of ‘Conduction’, and says he became interested in Morris several years ago when he was studying music at University. Now for his PHD he’s returned, and as part of his submission for his course acceptance, he created ‘Tuone – Found in Translation’, which are sonic arrangements played in real-time by adapting parts of Morris’ ‘Conduction’ lexicon, as documented, and using it for a large acoustic ensemble.
The album, available on his Bandcamp page, came from two separate performances, involving over twenty players, recorded in Wellington last year. That was the framework. Gooch now intends to create his own lexcion, a reimagining of Morris’ style – this time with some indigenous references, much like the hand gestures in Haka, poi dances and other musical tāonga.
Which comes to the Jazz Festival. As part of the journey, Gooch has created a ‘symphony’ of four parts that moves from ‘nothingness’ to awakening, vibrant life, and finally death. Gooch notes that this year has been a hard one, having lost a number of friends, including of course Eddie Tutaki, which has played heavily on his mind during the creative writing process. His festival piece, ‘Ngā Tuone’, will directly incorporate themes of te ao Māori – the interconnectedness of all things living and non-living, the structure of this symphony focuses on the Māori song form of Mōteatea (chants). With an eleven-piece ensemble, this will be his world premiere.
For Gooch, jazz is an invitation to explore musical boundaries and really push the envelope. He’s not wedded to conventional interpretations of Be-bop or traditional New Orleans Jazz. For him, it can go in any direction. Which is why a performance of improvisations led entirely by predetermined hand signals with only an ‘understanding’ of the music’s direction will be so exciting.
You can catch Riki Gooch’s ‘Ngā Tuone’ on Friday 20th November as a part of the Wellington Jazz Festival. Tickets are on sale now from https://www.jazzfestival.nz.
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