Science vs Music

Nigel Stanford is a producer of New Zealand since 1999 cultivating electronic ambient music, powerful and low enveloping atmospheres.

Interview by Fernando Bruccoleri.

• Nigel, you are from New Zealand and we know you were based also in NY. Can you tell us a little bit about your journey to NY and what your current plans are?

I’ve been living on and off in New York since 2005. Originally I moved there to do a film course. I met my wife there, and ended up living in between New York and Wellington, New Zealand. They each have their advantages! It’s nice to be in a big city and nice sometimes to be out of a big city.

• Cymatics could be defined in simple terms as “making the vibrations of sound visible”, do you agree with this and how did you get interested in cymatics?

I like Cymatics, but I am more interested in Synethesia. It is a neurological phenomenon where some people can ‘see’ sound. I think I have a mild form of it, for me I think of bass sounds as being red, high end sounds are yellow and white. For fun I used to stare at visualizers on WinAmp while listening to music. I’ve always wanted to see music videos where every sound and instrument has a corresponding visual element. I discovered Cymatics videos on youtube and they were perfect for the job. I see it as just basic physics, different ways to visualize waveforms.

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• Were there any artists or musicians that were particularly influential on your compositions?

I have always loved Massive Attack, although my music is becoming less like them every day! In the iTunes era, it was hard to discover new music, but now that there is Spotify I discover new artists all the time. I would say I do listen to lots of different music, pop, hip hop, heavy rock, and EDM.

• Albert Eistein showed that everything in the universe is energy and vibrations including a person. Quantum physics is telling us that even our thoughts are vibrations. Do you think that our thoughts create our reality?

I have read something about this, where basically there are ways to prove that certain things in the universe only occur if someone is observing them. Kind of like how in a video game, the game engine only draws the area that you are seeing and the areas that you don’t see are not drawn. Some people like Elon Musk think that this makes it likely that our reality is some kind of simulation. I haven’t looked into it too much, and I’d prefer not to think about it. It opens all sorts of existential questions! Better to focus on what’s for breakfast tomorrow.

• What are your next steps? Any new release?

I have another video project which I shot about a year ago, it’s nearly ready to go live. It involves industrial robots playing the instruments. The video and album are both called “Automatica”. It’s a bit of a departure for me, as up until now everything I have done has been instrumental music, whereas on this album I have been working with a bunch of singers, in various genres. It’s fun to branch out and do something new. I can’t wait to share it with the world.

Visit: http://nigelstanford.com/Automatica/