Joe Harvey-Whyte on Flatland / Spaceland

Joe is a producer, pedal steel player, composer, and visual artist whose work we came to love via his work with the Hanging Stars and on the 15th of October he’ll release his solo debut Flatland / Spaceland, an pair of sister soundscapes inspired by Edwin A. Abbott’s 1884 novel Flatland. Although Joe’s the latest pedal steel player to launch his pedal steel prowess from traditional to futurism, it’s unique and otherworldly and ultimately all his own. And oh my god what an undertaking – imagine trying to put 300 separate tracks together, like a bizarre musical Tetris puzzle. And the result is breathtaking. Via email, Joe shared some thoughts and insights into the innovative orchestral movement this EP is.

I just wanted to communicate the feeling of being transported to another place (dimension, if you like) in the hope that others might be able to experience it through my music. 

Hi Joe! I obviously love your playing with the Hanging Stars, your production work with Naomi in Blue, and so I was so excited to hear that you were releasing some solo material. What can you tell me about the concept of Flatland / Spaceland?

Hey Lara, thanks for the kind words.  I really love working on other peoples’ projects and feel honoured when someone asks me to be a part of something they are creating.   But when all that stopped due to the pandemic I finally got to dedicate some time to my own work.  In between tours and recording sessions I had been quietly experimenting with my pedal steel and effects pedals… Then this sudden influx of spare time happened and this enabled me to really go deeper and push the boundaries of what I could achieve sonically using the pedal steel.  For me it’s always been an incredibly expressive instrument that sustains notes and reaches out into the cosmos. 

Almost all of what you hear on “Flatland” (Side A of the EP) was made using the pedal steel; looped and processed through effects. I also layered in some field recordings and sampled some gongs and Himalayan bowls played by my good friend and sound therapist Marco Florio (Sound Salvej).  Flatland/Spaceland is a refraction of the same piece of music through two lenses. Side A was written/composed first and then side B was created as an orchestral interpretation of Side A. In some ways it is also an exploration of 2 different modes of creating.  Side A is totally free, improvisational and fully in the moment.  Side B however, was meticulously crafted, scored for an orchestra and carefully layered. 

The EP was inspired by the book “Flatland: A Romance of Many Dimensions” written by Edwin A. Abbott in 1884.  I first encountered the work through cosmologist and astrophysicist Carl Sagan’s TV series COSMOS.  Aside from being a great work of cultural criticism on Victorian social values, the story centres around a hypothetical 2-dimensional world (“Flatland”) in which everything is completely flat.  Left, right, forward and backward all exist in this world but there is no “up” or “down” – There is height and width but nodepth. The protagonist “A.Square” has a strange encounter with a being from a higher dimension and finds himself experiencing the depths of the 3-D world (“Spaceland”) for this first time.  Sadly when he returns to Flatland he is unable to successfully communicate his experience to his fellow Flatlanders.  They ask him to point to this so called “up” and he is unable to – consequently they label him a madman and throw him in jail. Now I didn’t set out to translate this story into a sonic narrative… And I don’t claim to have done that. I just wanted to communicate the feeling of being transported to another place (dimension, if you like) in the hope that others might be able to experience it to through my music. 

Back in the depths of lockdown I began taking long improvisation sessions with the pedal steel. I would play solidly for 2/3 hours, sometimes much longer whilst watching the live feed from the International Space Station projected onto my wall at home.  I would completely lose track of time and just exist in this liminal space for as long as the session lasted. Then I’d float back down to reality again. Free improvisation is an incredible tool.  90% what you hear in “Flatland” is taken directly from one of these improvisation sessions.  It all happened in the moment and was a reflection of wherever it was I went on that particular improvisational journey. The whole thing was done in one take and the samples/field recordings I added were thrown into the mix in an edit which was itself another form of improvised performance.  

“Spaceland” took MUCH longer to pull together and was masterminded by my good friend and composer/orchestrator Ell Kendall.  I had been a fan of his music for a long time before we began working together.  We sat in the park one day and came up with the idea of trying to mix our two worlds together. Me coming from the ambient/electronic direction and him coming from the world of classical music. The idea was to take something I had written on the pedal steel and orchestrate it for a classical ensemble.  We chose “Flatland” as the candidate piece.  It took about 10 sessions just to transcribe and score the pedal steel parts. Scoring multiple layers of overlapping loops, reverse delay and reverb trails was a challenge to say the least.  Ell then orchestrated the score for violins, viola, flutes, cellos, french horns, oboes, clarinets, trumpets, double bass and cor anglais.  This was only the first stage in the process. We then began recording the instruments. This was all done in the height of lock down so we had to record each instrument separately and put the orchestra together piece by piece.  We ended up with something like 300+ tracks which were all layered on top of one another.  It was then masterfully mixed by our good friend and producer Ben Behesty. 

Can you tell us a bit about the field recordings and how and where they were collected?

Aside from working as a session musician and composer I also create soundscapes for a sleep/meditation app called Kokoon.  I have struggled with insomnia and tinnitus for many years and started making recordings of rain/waves/fire etc to help myself sleep. I go off into nature with my field recording equipment and seek out interesting sounds.  The 2 field recordings that I chose to use in this piece were taken from very different places.  The subtle crackling sound (almost like Rice Crispies haha!) is the sound of my bonsai tree just after I had watered it.  It had never made that sound before so I quickly grabbed my recording gear and managed to capture it.  It’s such a calming texture throughout the whole track. 

Perhaps slightly less noticeable in the mix is a field recording of a storm which I recorded during a trip to mountains in the south of France back in 2019. It was one of those days when the heat and humidity is so thick you can almost taste it.  Then the storm broke and completely cleansed the atmosphere. I felt that was appropriate for this track.

This is obviously a meditative piece and certainly really soothing for listeners. Is it a meditative act for you to create this type of music?

Completely. As I mentioned before, when I create my pieces I go into that state of flow where ideas are able to pass through freely. It’s almost like you need to get yourself ‘out of the way’ in order to be truly in the moment. That feels pretty close to meditation to me. 

What do you love about “ambient” music? 

I love ambient music like I love the morning light creeping through the corner of a window…Casting its rays whether or not anyone is paying attention but rewarding those who look closer.  Ambient music is subtle.  But powerful. It can be enjoyed both as a sonic backdrop and as an object worthy of our full attention.  There is no hierarchy to these modes of listening though – they’re just different lenses which naturally yield different experiences.  

The first piece of ambient music I ever really connected with was “Moss Garden” by David Bowie and Brian Eno.  You’d guess by the name that it was influenced by Bowie’s interest in Zen Buddhism.  The undulating drones and subtle textures that permeate the piece captured my imagination and those 5 minutes felt like hours. 

Brian Eno said once that “if you make music that doesn’t direct people too much as to what to think, turns out people have very fertile and creative imaginations.” I think that pretty effectively sums up the power of ambient music.  It’s an invitation.  An invitation to be imaginative both as a listener and as a creator.   

I love ambient music like I love the morning light creeping through the corner of a window…Casting its rays whether or not anyone is paying attention but rewarding those who look closer. 

Pre-order Flatland / Spaceland on Bandcamp.