Luiz Ser Eu: Sarja
Navel-Gazers #71 is an interview with Luiz Ser Eu who is going to talk to us about Sarja. I’ve been discovering some remarkable archival releases on the Phantom Limb label of late, with two artists Ellen Zweig and K. Yoshimatsu joining me to talk about their music from the late 20th century. ‘Sarja’ is a current Phantom Limb release, although if you held a confetti-gun right up to my head I’m not sure I could tell you from which era. There’s something about it which reminds of my own first experiences recording: the wonder of being able to overdub one sound over another, the ability to throw anything into the mix, and also a certain “household” quality to some of the more conventional instrumentation which is in there holding everything else together. It’s as though right there in the factory settings of cheap electric keyboards and guitars, the artist has managed to uncover something revelatory and new and weave that with care into the album’s hazy topography of field recordings and sound effects. The liner notes for ’Sarja’ describe the project being inspired by “a chair”, and the more I ponder, I can imagine how. This is not simple music, but it’s earnest, built from the ground up, one leg at a time. Luiz Ser Eu is responding from Brazil, which is not a place I know well - let’s get a glimpse onto the other side!
AC: Thanks for joining me on Navel-Gazers! Firstly could you tell us who you are, where you come from and how you got started as an artist? And “ser eu” means what in Portuguese exactly… something like, “to be me”?
Luis Sr Eu: Hi. It’s a pleasure to be here today.
I am everyday Luiz. I like washing dishes.
I got started as an artist long time ago.
When I was 3-5 I think, drawing a character from rayman, the game and trying to replicate the image of a plush garfield toy that came in a promotional meal (a bit like mcdonald’s happy meals) with a pack of “esfihas” from a famous brazilian fast food chain specialized in arabic food.
Ser Eu, yes.. not really written in a common way. In portuguese we would say and write Luiz Sou Eu or Eu sou Luiz.
Ser means being or to be.
To be is very important for me.
In english that would be like Luiz be me…!
So so so Maybe this name is a question? Maybe it isn’t. It is a statement either way, like all of my songs. Each song I make is a final statement about something that I concluded or found important inside my consciouness.
I come from rio, although I didn’t really live in the center. I grew up in a sort of rural-like area. A really poor one, but full of interesting everyday sights.
AC: At Navel-Gazers we cover one specific album, and with you we’re going to discuss the release on Phantom Limb ‘Sarja’, which is how I discovered your music. Of course I listened to your other music as well, and I was impressed at how varied it is. There’s Whales Are Flying… which is more ambient, Wind Chime which is sort of like noise-punk-comedy, and then this one which I’m unsure how to describe but it’s very distinct. Do you go through different phases with your music, or different techniques?
Luiz Ser Eu: First of all thank you for listening to all of my music that is available! This makes me really happy. I have at least 7 more hours of unreleased material! So yes, change is inevitable in such an intense and unpredictable process of creation. It is part of who I am and what I feel I need to do and put out in this life.
I have started in a more rustic approach of learning and creating art, many of the tracks in Sarja were actually made when I was 15 to 17 years old! I had no idea about anything remotely related to music theory, it was maybe the “purest” form of creation. I was just doing what I could with anything that I had that would produce sounds. I put it all together in a way that maybe is more common in the visual arts. Then I started experimenting playing guitar with different tunings. And I wasn’t trying to learn more chords, but rather adapt the tunings to the shape of my fingers. I wanted to create or find a tuning (or tunings) where all the shapes of the chords would look like what they sounded like in my head.
Some tracks like Vida Artém and Face de Concreto are more recent and may reflect the maturation of my ideas and processes, as now I have studied a lot of music theory and jazz in the past few years. The process is still the same but different. So in the end I would say all of these years (I am 26 now) are all one phase of creation. Sarja is still chapter zero. Now we are in chapter one.
AC: It’s quite interesting to hear that some of these tracks are over 10 years old and created by someone at such a young age, I wasn’t aware of that. Which ones are the earliest and which was the very first? How did you decide that all these disparate pieces from different times should belong together on the ‘Sarja’ album?
Luiz Ser Eu: In fact I did not make the selection, Phantom Limb did. They asked me for my material and I sent them music from all of these years. Then they proposed that I released two selections that they made, that are now the pieces that you know as Pluvial and Sarja. My earliest song is actually in Pluvial, it is called Mergulho. From Sarja the earliest is Telepatia Mental. I thought they made a really crazy selection and I liked that. It made me reconnect to my old style in a way that I was already wanting to for some time. So I chose the name for the EP and the album and I chose to rename all of these songs so they could reencounter their true path, together. The most recent song in the album is Face de Concreto.
AC: I particularly like Carvão Branco. There’s some singing at the beginning, a recording of a crowd in the middle, and a separate section at the end which sounds like video game music. What a treat. As an example of your creative process, could you tell us how you created this one?
Luiz Ser Eu: Thanks. It’s great to know that you like it.
I personally really love this song and its simplicity.
I would really love to see more simple, beautiful songs where I sing in future releases of mine, because singing for me is as important as playing all the other instruments and stuff.
The singing at the start is about smoking a cigarette, but how I can only feel the cigarette effect on me while I feel I don’t exist.
I wrote that song because in that point of my life I was still lost, feeling very sad, and feeling other bad things…. But that changed because I met the love of my life, who is the girl who was by my side in all the releases and helped me pick names of songs (and she named two songs! Noturna Primavera in Pluvial and a Celebração das frutas e da Madeira in Sarja), send emails, and every type of support.
So this song is about the past, but the past is dead for me. I live now. Today. Always.
The section with the field recordings with sounds of people is just a representation of what I was seeing everyday, because I used to go to the park to make songs, and paint.
I still like to carry my guitar everywhere I go, and paint outside.
About the videogame like section thanks haha I love this thing that happens that people always comment that my music reminds them of videogames - I love videogames and they were a huge musical and artistical inspiration for me. Also I am developing my own videogame. But this is a secret.
AC: Not anymore! Haha.
Another track with some really curious sounds is ‘A Celebração das Frutas e da Madeira’. There’s a “honk” which keeps popping up, and then there are sounds which may have come from somewhere deep inside a rainforest. What can you tell us about what we’re hearing on this one?
Luiz Ser Eu: This is one of the tracks in which I decided to apply something that I have been thinking about for some years now.
And this that I wanted to apply is the idea of sound and how notes are born. When I started creating music I always loved sounds that had certain textures with a different feeling and that were new for me. Something I didn't know, or it could be something I knew, but that sounded and looked beautiful, and then it exists when someone starts to use it.
Creative power and something that goes beyond imagination.
One of these types of textures are for example a sound that feels like a transparent silk wall right in front of your eyes (at least for me!). It happens when I use one EQ or more with specific parameters which I find comfortable to feel and to put something in the canvas that the EQ is.
Equalization is one of the most important things in my music, and mostly all the sounds that I achieve have their main timbre changed a lot with all these EQ's. For me the EQ is not only the canvas, but also the brush, and mostly it is the brush, just like in the process of creating this song.
Actually before this idea of EQ'ing things in a very very very specific way I used to sing in a very low volume for years, and it wasn't just whispering. It was hard, and I was singing in a lower and lower volume, but still doing my best to maintain nuances and dynamics.
I think my way of EQ'ing things do reflect the way I sing. All the sounds in this composition came from instruments or sounds that I find to be highly dynamic, and this idea is used throughout the song. For me sounds and instruments that are highly dynamic are the ones that can make you hear a wide range of notes. It's like using a overdrive pedal: it is usually seen as ''noise'' that works like a filter on something but I believe that what is actually happening is that we are hearing much more from the fundamental note, therefore we can hear the other notes loudly and clearer too.
I believe the “noise” we hear when using distortion is nothing but the incapability of our human ears to hear louder sounds in its pure quality, at least mostly.
So I find instruments like the voice, brass and woodwind instruments, percussion, the electric guitar, bowed string instruments very good for this idea, and usually I find the ''melodic'' instruments to be more aligned with this idea, because if not always, usually they have multiphonics, so I use them to play chords and harmonic patterns even if they are perceived as a ''strictly melodic'' instrument... This is one of my favorite things about wind instruments, also good to merge with techniques to play microtonal notes, which I have found the feeling of freedom by listening, playing and singing them. The honk that recurrently appears is the representation of harmony, just like the people in Carvão Branco were the representation of the people in the park.
In this song we can hear the berembau, my voice, trumpet, simple sounds of wood being hit that have been recorded then sampled and synthesized, a tenor recorder flute, some wind chimes and recordings of insects and other things of the night.
All sound is air in the ending, right !?
AC: Yes maybe some of it has drifted over here to London!
Do you perform? What’s it like doing music in Brazil, is it easy to connect with other artists? Have you encountered anyone doing similar things?
Luiz Ser Eu: Yes, I do perform. I would love to perform more in fact. I wish there were more opportunities for me to play anywhere in the world.
I like the places I have performed. For me playing in the most unusual places is the coolest.
One of my favorite performances that I did was in a cinema.
I improvised live to create a soundtrack for an old movie (I think it was old) some years ago. A movie with no sound.
I had a bass tuned in unison to create a big beautiful sound.
In other situations I had some issues with the people ''managing'' events turning my volume down....because it’s ''too loud'' but that's just a funny story for me nowadays.
About being a musician in Brazil...I will be completely sincere: Making music with true passion and creativity is horrible in Brazil. The situation is not good in the mainstream or underground, but specially for those who seek to make something new, Brazil is not the place.
It is extremely hard to be an artist here. Doesn't matter what type of musician or artist you are. Well just like in rest of the world.
Brazil is the home of incredible musicians, one of the places where I have seen the most unique art!
I am very grateful for being Brazilian and for have being exposed to art from lots of places, because the country culture is made of so many other parts of the world. (Like in so many other countries too!)
But it is very sad to see such a decline in culture and music.
Unfortunately I haven't seen anyone doing something similar to my work in Brazil after all these years.
The music here in the underground or mainstream scene is always like some revival of something and if we talk about ''experimental'' or ''different'' music it is mostly noise.
And I have met and seen live many people from many scenes from many states.
AC: I’m sorry to hear that the culture in Brazil is not so supportive, perhaps you can influence it.
What are you working on next, any new projects to mention or final comments for our readers?
Luiz Sr Eu: I am all about life.
I believe that if one has a strong belief in something, this belief can change anything. And I believe that if someone truly has such a strong belief in something, this means that this belief can only be benign, because for me if someone is spreading bad ideas in the world, it has nothing to do with belief, but rather with disbelief.
The truth of life wants to be seen. It can't be found because it is not hiding from us. And it can be only seen if someone wants to see it with the purest intentions possible. The search is the answer, but usually the answer is only a representation of itself and the true answer is inside the representation of the answer, which is another answer.
So if the search is the answer, and the answer is in the search, how can we answer the answer ? By feeling. The truth wants to show itself.
All we have to do is open our eyes, our hearts and minds, and then the soul, the consciousness and the being will have the experience of life. And I believe this is what transcends everything. And not only in music, but in everything related to existence, everything related to life.
I have several projects in the works.
Recently I have finished 3 new albums and I am working hard on a brand new album, and I have been Djing online and I have been building some experimental instruments.
I have started writing and drawing a comic too.
Also there are more videoclips for both Sarja and Pluvial coming up. All the videoclips from Sarja and Pluvial are connected, there is a story going on, there are characters with views and feelings about lots and lots of ideas and situations. There are characters helping each other, conspiracies, ghosts, pursuers, angels, characters that aren't ''characters'', but a manifestation of maybe what they are and maybe what they represent. Sarja, Pluvial, any painting I did, story or poetry, or even when I post 2 words in social media, it's always about telling this big story.
Both the album and the EP are like a book that is telling a story that has no words, that could be a painting because paintings can tell stories without words, but in this big painting there are no colors that can describe a word. So that's when the sound comes in.
Everything is connected.
I would like to thank everyone that has been listening to my music, and absorbing all the other extensions of it.
Thank you very much for inviting me and the questions!
The Hawk has landed on the roof a thousand times.
