Ben Eshbach Of The Sugarplastic

Ben Eshbach discusses his approach to composing the original score for ECHOES OF THE INVISIBLE, his stunning translations of Debussy's music for guitar, memories of meeting Carl Sagan, what he learned from his friendship with magicians Penn & Teller, and his experiences during filming for ECHOES at CERN’s Large Hadron Collider in Switzerland: https://www.steveelkins.net/Interviews/On-Music/Ben-Eshbach/

Morgan Henderson Of Fleet Foxes

Morgan Henderson talks about the original music composed for ECHOES OF THE INVISIBLE, the connection between long-distance running and artistic creativity, memories of working with Fugazi and The Walkmen, and diverse musical inspirations from around the globe: https://www.steveelkins.net/Interviews/On-Music/Morgan-Henderson/

Julianna Barwick and the Music Of Iceland

Julianna Barwick reflects on the music she contributed to ECHOES OF THE INVISIBLE, her experiences recording it in Iceland with members of Sigur Rós, transforming the sky into a live musical score in a project involving Björk, and inspirations ranging from the female choirs of Bulgaria to the many incredible women who pioneered electronic music: https://www.steveelkins.net/Interviews/On-Music/Julianna-Barwick/

Colin Stetson

Colin Stetson of Arcade Fire and Bon Iver dives into stories about the music he contributed to ECHOES OF THE INVISIBLE, the diverse influences (from ancient music to ‘90s electronica) that inspired his unique reinvention of how saxophones are played, connections between biological evolution and musical evolution, and the virtues of distortion. Along the way, they discuss Colin's transformative experiences with nomadic Tuaregs in Mali, Lurianic Kabbalah, Woody Allen, and Paul Salopek's global foot journey following the first migration paths humans took to discover the Earth. They also play a game to conjure stories of what Colin learned from his many legendary collaborators, including Tom Waits, Lou Reed, Godspeed You! Black Emperor, Sinéad O'Connor, David Byrne, and many more: https://www.steveelkins.net/Interviews/On-Music/Colin-Stetson/

Pauline Oliveros

Pauline Oliveros's boundless creativity led her to become one of the early pioneers of American electronic music and generated paradigm shifts in society's relationship to technology. She composed music for vast underground cisterns, transformed the entire city of San Francisco into an interactive musical score, and bounced the sound of her accordion off the surface of the moon during her concerts (the ultimate delay pedal). Her efforts to expand our listening further outward and inward inspired generations of composers like Maryanne Amacher, who made music from cosmic debris entering the cave under the pyramid of Teotihuacán in Mexico, and compositions that allow you to hear the musical tones emitted by your own ear.

Inspired in part by Día de los Muertos and the ceremonies honoring the dead by Nahuatl-speaking families of Chalco, Pauline contributed the perfect music to accompany scenes in ECHOES of Chilean astronomers struggling to perceive light from nearly the beginning of time. She also developed software enabling her to LISTEN through layers of time to underscore photographer Rachel's Sussman’s journey LOOKING through layers of time as she discovers the oldest living things on Earth. Pauline’s relentlessly groundbreaking work is a lifelong exploration of the many interlocking themes of ECHOES. Take a deep dive to see how it all connects: https://www.steveelkins.net/Interviews/On-Music/Pauline-Oliveros/

Victor Gama and the Music Of Angola

The soundtrack to ECHOES OF THE INVISIBLE features Victor Gama’s inventive 3D printed musical instruments, which are designed to reflect the global migration patterns of birds, constellations of the southern hemisphere, and Kongo-Angolan knowledge systems of central Africa. In the following wide-ranging conversation, Victor discusses his music written for instruments children made out of tank parts and bullet shell casings during the thirty year war in Angola, the profound ways Angolans have preserved their spiritual traditions through martial arts and graphic writing systems, his journey to Antarctica to research the connection between a disappeared anthropologist and nuclear testing near the South Pole, and his opera for the indigenous people of Colombia’s rainforests: https://www.steveelkins.net/Interviews/On-Music/Victor-Gama/

Valentina Süzükei and the Music of Tuva

Making ECHOES OF THE INVISIBLE involved traveling to remote Siberian villages near the borders of Kazakhstan, Mongolia, and China to work with musicians, shamans, hunters, and instrument builders. The following extended interview with Xöömei expert Valentina Süzükei during production in Kyzyl, Tuva explores how Tuvans have developed a rare form of throat singing that uses the human throat like a microscope to hear beyond the surface of musical notes, unveiling the universe INSIDE them. This remarkable practice embodies the unique ways traditional Tuvan culture syncretizes music, spirituality, and a quantum perception of nature: https://www.steveelkins.net/Interviews/On-Music/Tuva/

Tafillalt, Frank London, and the Music Of The Middle East

ECHOES prominently features a traditional piyyut from Iraq, performed by Tafillalt, an innovative group adapting sacred music from North Africa and the Middle East into modern expressions that convey the changing patterns of life over time. Inspired by Persian classical music, Hasidic niggunim, Andulasian traditions of Morocco and Algeria, Bedouin tunes, and Sephardic poets, their syncretic work unites the spirit of a diaspora of cultures Paul Salopek encounters on his foot journey across the Middle East.

Frank London — a central figure in the last half century of Jewish music and the klezmer revival — contributed a series of musical prayers for trumpet titled "Invocations," each a meditation on one of the ten sefirot (emanations) of Ein Sof (the Infinite) found in the Tree of Life of Jewish Kabbalah. As Frank explained, “There's a Jewish concept called Kavanah, and it means spiritual concentration. Kavanah is not only concentration, its intentionality. Like many Jews, I have felt a sense of alienation from operatic, showy cantorial music that feels like a performance. My approach evokes an older heymishe hazònos, conducive to a meaningful personal prayer experience. In each piece I focused intently on one of the sefirot, like wisdom, or mercy. Heard together, they represent the branches of God’s attributes, the skeleton of the universe that grows throughout the whole of creation.

Michiyo Yagi and Chieko Mori (Japan)

Michiyo Yagi's haunting and inquisitive fingerwork on the koto provided the perfect underscore to photographer Rachel Sussman's discovery of a 6,000 year-old tree in Japan, sparking her journey around the globe to find the world's oldest living things.

Chieko Mori's "Dreams" was improvised on the koto during a sunny day in Italy, and found an unexpected home in the scene where painter Linda Lynch explores the ancient migration trails still visible in the Chihuahuan Desert of New Mexico and west Texas. That an ancient Japanese instrument would resonate so well in a scene set in such a different part of the world mirrored Linda's reflections on the incredible distances our ancestors traveled to find a place to call "home." Their echoes, which still resonate in these landscapes, in turn inspired journalist Paul Salopek to walk across the entire globe following in their footsteps, one of the central stories in ECHOES OF THE INVISIBLE.

Another pioneering koto player is featured in Elkins' previous feature film THE REACH OF RESONANCE. In the following interview, Miya discusses her musical collaborations with cockroaches and plants, her invention of musical clothing made from electric fabric that responds to brain waves, and inspirations ranging from CIA interrogation specialists to giant squid, strippers, Bangladeshi physicists, Shinto traditions, and much more: https://www.steveelkins.net/Interviews/On-Music/Miya-Masaoka

Nils Frahm Performing On Earth's Largest Piano

The soundtrack of ECHOES also brings together two incredible German pianists: Nils Frahm and Hans Otte. Nils performed his track on the largest piano in the world (situated in Tübingen, Germany), which weighs two tons and stretches over two floors. To play it requires climbing a ladder to the top floor, while the strings expand below the pianist’s feet like roots; an appropriate coincidence for a scene about discovering that Earth’s oldest living things are often growing under our feet. By slowing down to ensure their long term survival, these ancient life forms have become a window into the depths of time. Or as Nils describes it in musical terms: “The joy of playing and listening to the sound of the instrument made me play slower and slower, softer and softer, as almost every new note was destroying the immense beauty and sustain of the previous note.”

Nils Frahm and Hans Otte (Germany)

The music of Hans Otte was inspired partly by John Cage's desire to get to the root of sound itself, to liberate it from the weight of expectation and tradition and to view all sound as a manifestation of nature. In his own words, “‘The Book of Sounds’ is dedicated to all those who want to draw close to sound, so that, in the search for the sound of sound, for the secret of life, one’s own resonance is discovered…I would say that behind my artistic work, as an aim or hope, is the need to find myself. In other words: despite all the separating structures, the division of all the work, the ideologies, fixed ideas, systems, despite the state and everything that ceaselessly tries to separate and divide us, I fundamentally want to be complete."

John Luther Adams and the Music Of Alaska

Pulitzer Prize-winning composer John Luther Adams has explored the sonic geography of Alaska through its birdsong, native language and drumming, and the geophysical phenomena of the land and sky. His monumental piece "The Place Where You Go To Listen" is a room which instantly translates the weather, earthquakes, and aurora borealis of Alaska into music in real time. It was an honor to work with John again after collaborating on THE REACH OF RESONANCE. John elaborates on his exploration of ecology through music, his translation of fractals into sonic forms, the ancient sculptures scattered across the Arctic which inspired his piece "Inuksuit," and why noise can be experienced as a form of prayer that contains "all the songs of the world" here: https://www.steveelkins.net/Interviews/On-Music/John-Luther-Adams/

NOTE: More interviews will be continuously added to this gallery, keep checking back for more.