On Modular Suitcases & Unforeseen Encounters
a conversation with LY Foulidis
Denis’ studio desk. Photo by Domenico Mangione.
Denis Wouters is a musician based in Brussels, performing as LY Foulidis. Together with Joachim Bovin he founded Brussels-based radio show and record label Anterior Insula, recently releasing their first compilation. Denis is also a mastering engineer at his NoFi Studios, where he likes to invite clients over for dinner. This issue features Unfinished Hoekhuis, a carefully collected and curated mixtape of demos and studies. We talk on a Monday morning, in a post-breakfast setting at //\ hoekhuis HQ.
What are you working on right now?
Last month I did a residency for Volta in Brussels, where I invited and played together with about twenty musicians for a month. I started every day without a plan, figuring out as I went how to find a comfortable routine with each musician, while at the same time challenging each other. There’s a lot of material to sift through, and it will probably take me a good while to work it all out. More modest in scale, I’m also mixing an EP that I recorded last year while house sitting for a friend. Lastly, Sanne Aletta van Otten and I are working on a series of audio stories about plantal city dwellers, which will be converted into a live performance for Amsterdam Fringe Festival. That's going to be a lot of fun.
Would you like to tell us something about your own studio?
I actually have two studio setups at home. I have one room with my computer, studio monitors and mastering equipment. This is where I do commissioned work, but also mix and edit my own recordings. Then I have a second room adjacent to the kitchen, which is more of a playground where I avoid looking at computer screens. This is the place where I can just freely explore, using my modular synthesizer, some instruments and effect pedals, and an 8-track cassette recorder.
How do these different spaces affect your work?
I never start a creative process in my first studio setup. I find it difficult to freely create, experiment, and feel like I have room to fail in an environment that usually demands finishing stuff. At Volta, we really did our best to make the fluorescent lighted rehearsal room a bit more comfortable by installing a few soft lamps. I wanted the space to be inviting when someone first walked into that room. I learned a lot about being a host through that experience.
Speaking of hospitality, you’ve always had your studio next to your kitchen, and you've mentioned cooking for visiting mastering clients as well.
It's a blessing and a curse, but it works for now.
What’s your take on solo- versus collaborative work?
It's never been that comfortable for me to work alone, and I've always seen it as a substitute for collaboration. That’s also why I did this residency. Especially after COVID, I really felt the need to get together with people, and to be thrown into that space of figuring out and trying to understand someone else’s world. Collaborative work is what it’s all about for me.
What makes you work solo anyway?
That started out of necessity when I moved to Antwerp and didn't have friends to start a band with. I first started experimenting with a crappy synthesizer I got from a friend for €20,- and a night of babysitting, after which I started performing live as well. At the time, I didn’t really know how else to make music. I do enjoy working solo and I’m proud of what I’ve put out, but the process is always much more difficult.
Is it important for you to be part of a scene, and how has that process of finding like-minded people been throughout different cities you've lived in?
That process used to happen quite naturally because I played in a lot of bands when I lived in Amsterdam. By playing in a five piece band, you already knew so many people through their connections as well. Since I'm not that active in bands anymore, I have to throw myself out there a bit more these days. I’m not sure if I really crave to be part of a scene that is too tight-knit and behaves like a clique. I like social dynamics that are inviting and fluid, with a few fixed figures at its center. I’m still searching a bit, but I feel like I'm slowly finding that place in Brussels.
It seems that you created that place yourself through your residency in Volta.
I hope so. The compilation I released on my label Anterior Insula was a similar attempt to allow unexpected encounters. I really enjoy bringing people together who wouldn't otherwise appear on the same record. To create a network and maybe even an anti-scene in a way by making connections that aren't too obvious.
It’s interesting that you enter creative processes at different stages depending on whether you’re composing for a film or mastering a record for example.
A parallel between these two examples is that they are both quite serving, in which you pay a lot of attention to the product and not so much to your self-expression or ego. I've always found it difficult to see music as a means of self-expression. Of course, if someone else had all the same resources in the exact same context, they'd be making different music anyway. So there’s no arguing that you put something of yourself in your work. But to me it doesn't feel like the most essential thing about music is expressing myself, but rather to explore.
Denis making sounds
Speaking of exploring, you have mastered many instruments over the years.
I mostly tinkered with a lot of instruments.
Do you have musical habits that transcend these different instruments?
I do have my habits and things that I love. I like repetitiveness, working with musical modes and asymmetrical rhythms. Although I wouldn’t give in to these habits if they wouldn’t serve the musical context.
Do you approach your modular synthesizer differently because of your roots as a guitarist?
Yes, definitely. I've always approached synthesizers from the analogy of a guitar connected to a string of effects pedals and an amp. My synth is a fairly classic instrument. There are voltages going in all directions, but it could have existed in the 1970s, albeit a lot bigger and more impractical. Most of what I like is very old school in that regard. I know people who have setups with sequencers and samplers that are much more complex and modern. But I always feel the need to make sound with my hands, be it a string or a patch cable. As someone coming from a musician’s background, using samples feels very counterintuitive to me, although I wouldn’t deny that the musical result can be the same.
Working with your modular setup, would you consider yourself a sound designer?
I see myself as a musician who sometimes makes slightly more abstract sounds. I never saw myself as a sound designer. To me, sound design is about meticulously working out a sound down to its finest details. And that's something I don't do very often. My synthesizer is one designed for live performance. Although that has its own difficulties as well, because a modular synthesizer is inherently unintuitive, slow and unpredictable. Ultimately, I’d like to have a setup that is as responsive and intuitive as a guitar, and feels equally nimble in terms of improvisation.
Can you tell us a bit about your record label Anterior Insula?
My friend Joachim initially started the label to release his own work during COVID, and then asked me to join. That slowly turned into something where we also invite other people like on our compilation. I’ve always thought that running a record label was the last thing I wanted to do, but I’m lucky that Joachim and I complement each other very well. Joachim does a lot of the things I’m not good at or don't like and vice versa.
What would your ideal study look like?
I think my ideal study is wherever I bring my modular suitcases, because I tend to be most productive when I’m working with a limitation of time and resources. I like a study that challenges me and changes all the time. Home is more of a working environment where I come back to. A stable and reliable place to finish things, and where I know exactly what to expect from my equipment.
What does your archive look like?
My archive is mostly organized by year and project, but I have a lot of unused material and seldom throw things away. I do plan to release a collection of unused ideas one day. Because I noticed a pattern in the material I keep on making, but never end up using. These are often ideas that sound a bit silly, or have dull and sleepy melodies.
Can you tell us something about the process of curating your accompanying mix in light of this //\ hoekhuis’ issue on the study?
I curated a mix of unfinished music initially not intended by the artists to be consumed. Most of these are demos or studies meant to be improved upon. I somehow underestimated how hard it was to get demos from friends upon asking. A lot of people are hesitant to share that intimate part of their practice, and would rather keep that to themselves.
I often listen for a certain openness and ambiguity in music, and I appreciate having space as a listener to fantasize about musical possibilities that aren’t articulated yet. Studies often have that same sonic aesthetic. If you’re into this aesthetic, it’s actually less of a stretch to finish work, because the question of when something is finished becomes less forcing in a way.
Wouter van Veldhoven for instance has a piece for tape where you hear him record something, after which it falls silent and you hear it all back in reverse. That's something very simple, but gives you the idea that you are part of the process as a listener. That you are involved in that intimate part of studying and you hear how something is being built. I've been improvising quite a bit lately, that's one area I'm studying right now. For me, improvisation is not an end in itself, but a method to learn to deal with music differently, to meet people differently. I may start composing much more strictly again at some point, but this is the path I feel I want to explore for now.
Is there anything else you're looking forward to?
I’m looking forward to the summer. And fireflies in the Sonian Forest.
Raymond Scott - Idea #35
Linda Perhacs - Chimacum Rain (demo)
Mark IJzerman - 2
Leonardo Melchionda - buffalo jam_rough demo
uzala - aquafauna
Laurie Spiegel - Donnie and Laurie
Wouter van Veldhoven - (un)Finished contraptions
LY Foulidis - Blue Light slotscene demo
Lazzaro - maanvoldaan demo idee
Raymond Scott - It's a Little Complicated
LY Foulidis - Blue Light 2
lmnop - Flora VR muziek V1 4824 280422
Erekutoronikku TM - Modular Study no15 monte Just Friends Buchla
Stereolab - Contranatura (Demo)
Stan Wiersma - MODUL-00
Mark IJzerman - flounderFound
Raymond Scott - The Rhythm Modulator
uzala - lw drones
fonitronik - Serge Exercise ResEQ Percussion
Lazarro - oude opname demogarden
Air - Bossa 96 (Demo)
