Ida Toninato interview

photo from Instagram

 

Ida Toninato was born in France, but has been based in Montreal, Quebec, Canada for a few years now. A baritone sax player, composer and improviser, her first solo album, Strangeness is Gratitude,  was released in 2016 on Montreal's Kohlenstoff Records.  This was followed up in 2018 by The Space Between Us, a duo album produced with viola player Jennifer Thiessen, and released on the Actuelle label. That album went on to be nominated for a 2019 Juno in the Instrumental Album of the Year category.

Her new album, We Become Giants, is due for release later this month on California's Dragon's Eye Recordings. It was recorded at The Tank Center for Sonic Arts in Colorado, and features some truly deep sounds and inspired composition, delivering an ambient experience that vibrates both the physical and ephemeral core.

 

 

How did this project come about? Did you approach the Tank Center or were you approached?

 

I've been scavenging reverberant spaces or uncommon acoustics for a while now and a friend of mine read an article in The New Yorker about the Tank Center, and sent it to me. I contacted them and rented the space for a few days to record.

 

At the time were you thinking of it as an album project, or just a chance to record in the space?

 

I had the idea of an album, for sure, but I didn't have any idea of how it would sound. There are recordings made there online, but nothing that's close to my music. And I really wanted to work with Blaise BorboÎn-Leonard for the recording and the mixing. I had the idea of a synthetic sonic space, created in the studio, that would be wrapped around or inside the natural reverb. The concept was kind of clear to me, but the actual pieces, melodies and stuff, weren’t very elaborated before going there. I had sketches of melodies, and played them, arranged, tried things until we had enough sound in our ears.

 

How was the experience of playing in the space?

 

Purely mesmerizing. It's giant. It is very out-of-this-world being how the Tank is located in the high desert of Colorado, so when you are inside, you play with 40 seconds of reverb, and when you step outside, it is silent, mountains, dust.  The sun is really high and the ground burnt.

The 40 seconds of reverb is like an instrument that becomes activated as soon as you start to play, and since the Tank is circular and metal, it is a type of reverb I had never experienced before. The beating patterns didn't feel like something I could plan or imagine in advance, so it was a real dive in the present moment, just dive and play, and listen, listen.

 

How much material did you have to work with, and how long did the editing take once you had recorded?

 

I had around 3 hours of music recorded there, and the editing in studio took a few months. We took our time really to get to the final result.

 

Were you surprised by anything you heard, listening back?

 

It's kind of strange to record in a place where you are inside the sound, and then to listen to the music on speakers. It's another experience, totally. Oh, and then I heard a real shift between the first day of recording and the following ones. The first was very much around extended techniques and like "classical contemporary stuff", but it didn't feel like it was the best thing to do there. It's not a surprise but still, it is a surprise, to hear how a certain space can trigger different type of music. It's like the space tells you "what about getting out of your zone and truly come to meet with me?"

 

Knowing the properties of the space now, is it tempting to try recording there again, or is it more interesting to find new spaces and the possibilities they offer?

 

Ohhhhhh... BOTH!! Haha, I would go back any time. I'd be curious to try feedback there.

 

Do you have any other space already in your sights?

 

In terms of other spaces, I'd really love to explore natural spaces, like a cave with a lake... or a cave with gems, or a forest, very deep, with super tight bamboos clicking against one another... I would also love to try a cistern, just like this one, and to have the possibility of playing close to the ceiling, to see how it is from above. Is the sound different up there?

 

So, in your mind, does a recording like this exist purely on album, or have you considered ways to bringing it to a live audience?

 

I'm currently working on a way to bring it to a live audience. I suppose that there are three types of experiences: the actual Tank and how it feels there, the album that has its specific sound, and the live experience which will be slightly different too. There will be live video as well, with footage from the Tank, so I'm going for something that will be between the Tank, the stage, and all the in-between possibilities

 

Despite its deep resonance, the baritone sax is not an instrument usually associated with ambient music, but your work is definitely interested in it... has this always been the case, or is it something that developed over time?

 

It's really a part of me in development. I come from written contemporary music, and didn't pay much attention to ambient music when I was younger. But now I'm really interested in going inside the sound. I have as much pleasure listening to filtered white noise as a symphony or anything else. And I want to play and create music that's about connecting with spaces. I think that the ambient tone is a result of playing with reverb and spaces, because that type of set up requires time, to take the time, to go deep inside. And I'm really interested in deepening my connection with electronic music and electronic instruments.

 

What do you have planned for 2020, for touring, recording, etc?

 

For 2020 I'm writing a piece for 4 electric guitars, one for an improvised music ensemble. I'm putting together the live version of We Become Giants.  I'm becoming an Ableton Master (ok this is partly in my dreams still but it is slowly emerging in reality). I'm touring with my wonderful duet partner Jennifer Thiessen and I'm going to Yukon for the first time to play there. I have a collaboration with a French ensemble called Ars Nova, for a new piece by Pierre Michaud and hopefully a few other things.