Uœrhe
Uœrhe, also known as J. Alfred Prufrock, is a 33 year old sound collagist from the Czech Republic.
“I leave space for a sound to just be there”
Do you see what you do as “making music’? Or is it more experimenting with sound?
J. Alfred Prufrock: I wouldn’t call it “making music” myself; I don’t feel confident to
consider it such a thing. Most probably it’s experimenting in making sound the way I can and am able to and trying to achieve some idea I have about the possible outcome. Usually it ends up as something different but that isn’t really an issue, I think.
You often don’t use elements which make music music, such as rhythm, melody, harmony or a musical development, so do you see yourself as a musician?
I wouldn’t call myself a musician. I’m not trained in any musical instrument and my understanding of music and/or musical theory is very vague. For me, it’s a question of liking the sound, finding it interesting and seeing a possibility that it might work together with other sounds, and maybe, in the end, these sounds together might resembles music. Or: the sound itself and alone is enough. There are no real borders on what is music and what isn’t music and everything can be music; yet I tried to answer this in the “generally accepted” definition of music (whatever it is).
What I enjoy about your work is that it’s got a lot of space and time. There’s often not a lot happening, you take your time to let it happen in a very natural or organic way, which works, I think. Is this something that you do on purpose, this ‘hands off’ approach?
The answer to this question is tied with the previous one: it isn’t necessarily on purpose; sometimes it’s just that I enjoy a certain sound and I’ll leave space for this sound to just be there. And when I think it’s enough I try to evolve/change it into something equally interesting. If you think that it works, then I might have done something right.
Your music reminds me of the work of Graham Lambkin, Gabi Losoncy, Jeph Jerman and Mark Harwood. Are these references which make sense to you?
I get these references and I appreciate their music. Yet it’s hard for me to evaluate such a thing. For me it seems that the people you’ve mentioned tend to have clear ideas and visions about what they are trying to achieve, sort of theoretical background you could say.
Maybe I should have started with this question: can you tell me a bit about yourself? Who are you? How old are you? Where are you from? What is your day job?
I’m from the Czech Republic and 33 years old, working at University and it has nothing to do with music. Been an avid listener to various forms of music for a relatively long time. Past couple of years I’ve been thinking about experimenting with sound myself, then tried to do something. Later I made myself a Bandcamp to present some ideas to anyone who’s willing to listen. In 2022 I self-released a CD-R and later that year the tape was released.
Joeri Bruyninckx
