An interview with Evan Caminiti
Evan Caminiti
I recently spoke with Evan Caminiti about Barn Owl, his various projects and his brilliant new solo album When California Falls Into The Sea out on R Loren's Handmade Birds.
You’ve studied ethnomusicology in the past – is that something you think you’ll go back too? How, if at all, did it influence your sound?
I’m pretty happy to not be involved with the world of academia at this point, and I have no desire to go back to school. I don’t have a degree in ethnomusicology, but I took a few different classes in the field and devoted a lot of time to it. Studying the music of certain cultures through the western academic mindset can be the wrong way to approach them and really limiting. But I learned a great deal about sound from my professor in ethnomusicology, the amazing musician Hafez Modirzadeh. It really came down to the fact that he was able to approach all these different kinds of music in this holistic way and on their own terms. Learning new ways of hearing was very important. Opening my mind to sounds that seem dissonant to western ears was a huge step in a deeper understanding of sound. Hafez is a saxophonist who plays free jazz, so he really has this personal connection to the organic interaction of sound which translates to studying something like Gamelan in a really meaningful way. I think this was also how I was introduced to Terry Riley and La Monte Young, which changed everything.
Read the rest of the interview over at The Liminal.
Evan Caminiti - 'Night of the Archon' from West Winds (Three Lobed 2010)