How did you first gravitate to making experimental music, what set you on the path?

Well before I could articulate much of what I thought, jamming on my Nan’s piano with my non-verbal sibling Sam, him clapping, both of us singing wordlessly.  This definitely had a huge influence on me musically.  My parents hated it.  We loved it.. So I was already really aware of liking things that others didn’t.  I think Sam really radicalized me. 

Another very early musical memory was appreciating the sounds of the trainline. Coming from Ipswich with not much to do, I remember sitting in a tunnel crossing under the trainline and listening to the ambient sounds of the trains and workmen, the whistles and announcements and realizing I really liked it for some reason. I had no idea ambient or noise music existed yet but this memory stuck with me.  It was similar to my experience looking at rubbish piles and thinking it was beautiful.  I referred to it as “the beauty in ugliness”.   I’d try to talk to people about this stuff but they just seemed to think I was weird. 

Then as a teen, realising I didn't like much pop music or especially lyrics, but still loving the music before the singing would start.  I especially liked music that evoked feelings without using words.  I was very impressed by this power of music and abstract art, to be so emotive without being didactic. My first experiment in recorded music was cutting up, looping and layering random sounds i’d recorded around the house on my boyfriend’s home computer. Certainly no one I knew was interested.  I wish I still had that stuff.  

As I got older, finding my partner Chels and “my people” finally in my 20s in an art scene. It felt like more than just accepting me, they were actually appreciating the parts of myself that had always made me feel so alien.  People validating eccentricity as power is so liberating. 

And as I started to make more music, getting really interested in the idea of playing with my limitations and making music without needing money definitely made my music a lot weirder. With a bit of ingenuity and creativity about what constitutes an instrument you can make some really interesting stuff. 

I think above everything though, what makes me inclined to experimentality is a predilection for adventure, being brave and having fun. I’m obsessed with trying and seeing new things, especially with travelling, so being adventurous in art is a way to satisfy that craving without having to leave the house. Just testing the boundaries of what art and music I can make, being candid and letting things just kinda flop out of me without questioning who will like it.. After a childhood of feeling so alien, just putting faith in myself and my instinct and honest journey is very important to me.

Your early work always showcased mountains of circuit bent electronics, how did you first discover circuit bending and free-form diy electronics?

I love to learn new things and have a habit to spread myself a bit thinly, so when I was visiting my friend Gerald Keaney* and their Library of Radical Truth one day, and Gerry’s housemate offered to teach me how to solder and make a diy kit radio, of course i joined them.   I'd seen a friend, Ross Manning, playing Budgery Duck with circuitbent toys, and I thought why not try out this new skill I'd acquired. I bought a soldering iron and solder and some alligator clips and taught myself from youtube.  It’s really just about bravery and deciding to plunge in. Cracking a toy open and fiddling. You really don’t have to be clever.  It’s all persistence and a steady hand really.  And for a couple of bucks suddenly you’ve got these unique sounds and a weird looking instrument no one else has. I love that there’s no financial barrier to circuit bending..

Then as my obsession grew, I wanted to share it, so I started hosting workshops and still do, teaching the basics of very lofi music production. Like making contact mics - putting audio outputs on toys - making a mic from an old telephone receiver - building a very basic spring reverb unit - the foundations of circuit bending - the basics of using Reaper (a freeware editing software for all operating systems) - Also demystifying the names of cables, adaptors, batteries and other little bits and pieces the dudes at electronic shops look down their noses at you for not knowing.. I’ve got handouts for everything too! I was totally obsessed.

It’s very important to me that I don't gatekeep this stuff. I think making music and being a creative definitely isn’t only about my personal success..  It’s about having a thriving creative scene that benefits everyone - anyone. It’s always there for me to come back to, and for young people to walk into and feel fulfilled and welcome in like I did. Giving back to that scene has always been really important to me.  

*I was in a band with Gerald for 8 years called Gerald Keaney and The Gerald Keaneys and I highly recommend you seek them out and especially read Gerald’s poetry.  

Can you please share one of your strangest, best or most memorable experiences performing live?

* Strangest - Probably the time I had an out of body experience on stage. I was super sick but hadn’t wanted to let people down, so I was on stage playing, and knew the songs well enough that somehow my body kept playing while I floated up above and behind myself, watching, and listening to Brainbeau.  It was very trippy.  

* Best - Was probably just busking on the streets in Fortitude Valley which is how Brainbeau, my band with my partner Chels initially started.  We’re finally getting back to it. Cultural dissemination is cool, playing to people who would NEVER hear you otherwise and you're getting paid to practice basically.

* Most memorable - Playing along to a car alarm at our first ever gig at Audio Pollen Social Club has certainly stuck with me. In the car park area out back, suddenly a car alarm started so we just improvised and played along. It was so impromptu and worked so well somehow, the audience was very amused. 

* Scariest - Also at Audio Pollen, moments after completing a FUYU set, this very weird art band I was in.. We’d managed to tape ourselves up in a knot together with a lamp light, using sellotape on ourselves and the crowd as an instrument. To remove ourselves from the knot one of us was cutting the tape and suddenly the light went out as they cut the electric cord.  I’m still surprised we didn’t all fry on stage.  What an encore. 

* Most rewarding performance - Always towards the end of a tour when you’ve played so much and really honed your set, this is also the best time to record!  Make sure you do it!

You make very beautiful, very intricate art works so prolifically, how much time do you spend making art in your daily life?

Thank you! To be honest I always wish I spent more time.  

This is a really good question and something I really want to be more in control of.  I used to feel that I'd been a late bloomer and had to make up for lost time. I still feel a bit like that. I really want to do my best and be proud of my art..., but also it’s very important to me that I'm enjoying my life and taking time to smell the roses, sample life’s flavours.. There’s a lot more to life than productivity. 

I try to do something everyday these days (unless I’m travelling).  I do a minimum 3hrs, 3 days a week, but on other days, if I at least START and commit to 15 minutes, most of the time it gets me into a flow and I lose track of time. Always the hard part is starting so you just need to develop that habit.  I love healthy habits. 

I also really like having a routine. Since I went straight edge a few years back, I overhauled my life. I started doing a little morning yoga, calisthenics, a quick run, a cold shower*, and then i’d do 3 hrs on my art before I’d do anything else. I was doing this 5 days a week for a year and a half but it was a bit intense and I’ve cut it back to 3 days now and I love it.  

When I was younger and prioritising friends and partying more my productivity used to fluctuate A LOT.  I‘d make art in ridiculous spurts and often not sleep for days. I resented having to eat or sleep because I thought it was a waste of my time. I’d drink and smoke a lot as i worked too.

I don’t miss my old lifestyle at all! I always say I’m high on life now..  I feel like the dopamine bar is so much lower when you’re staightedge.  Singing, dancing, walking in the sun, riding my bike, having a jam, making art.. That’s a good time.. 

*If you haven’t tried cold showers or plunges, it’s the bomb! You hate it at the time of course but after, it releases more dopamine than cocaine and is such a buzz. It’s even better in Winter. 

With your art, before you start do you see Visions? please share with us your process. 

Sometimes. It’s exciting when it happens.  It’s totally normal to have an idea in my head or a fleeting image of something before I start creating.  But occasionally, and I can't control it, it’s completely out of nowhere, I’ll suddenly see an image that is incredibly vivid and just like it's really there, in front of my eyes floating. It’s so weird. I can zoom in and out on it.  Really closely observe the layout, colours, materials, textures..  I try to memorise as best I can because if I try to find paper or pens it disappears.   I have a rule to try replicating these visions when they come, like I’m transcribing something from the gods.  I try my best anyway.   I have no idea where these visions come from but they feel significant.  

I wish it happened more often really.  I like the idea of being a conduit. Actually some of my favourite artists are spiritualists.  Augustine Lesage, Hilma af Klint, Noviadi Angaskapura.

I have this one series I call my manuscript which is all about little rules to live by, moral guidance, important lessons I’ve learned...  I write poems and draw an image to match it.. the visual idea informs the poem and then the poetry informs the final drawing. That’s always quite satisfying. I’ll compile them into a book one day. 

I have another series painting cardboard food packages.. Another using lino stamps i’ve made. Making non-patterns, repeating and then suddenly disrupting patterns. The nature of the medium gives them a lovely uniformity. An order in the chaos. That’s definitely a recurring theme for me.

I have another series I want to get back to, using only circles, straight lines and colour.  It feels like a balance game and even unexpectedly spiritual, like they’re depicting unknowable cosmic principles.

As I said, usually I have an idea or maybe just a little flash of an idea first..  I kind of want to not though. I’d like to try channeling more. I’ve started automatically painting. Hundertwasser talks about this. 

"Hundertwasser, in a nutshell, explains that the way he does art is "vegetative", he never thinks about it prior to creation. It just happens, flowing out of him.He deems it necessary not to think about it, stating that ambition and over achieving should be put aside, in order for the creativity to freely flow. He even goes further, saying that neither intelligence, diligence nor goodness help. Creativity is for him something exterior and thus he adheres to the idea of muse, of an external force that guides the artist, whose only job is to be ready, so that this creative force can reach him." - Kilgast on Huntervasser

What thing, idea, person, etc,  inspires or energises you to create lately?

Like I mentioned, bravery and my craving for adventure and really trusting the moment and my first impulses is a massive inspiration to me. Travel of course is a constant fuel and inspiration. And just having fun, and enjoying the process.  They’re the keys I found that never stop opening creative doors.. 

But also pain and the shitness in life is very inspiring. When anything goes wrong, I have a rule to use it, to transform it into something positive somehow and art is a really good way to do that..  Using it to inspire new healthy habits or choices is another thing I do a lot.  I’ve self helped the shit out of myself I always say.  And I’ve ended up being actually grateful the crappy things happened. These silver linings are the story of my life I think.   

And also I’m massively influenced by my spirituality. That being loosely the cosmos and pantheism. Not a defined religion but a lot of principles borrowed from many like Jesus, Sufism, Hindu/Jain/Sikhism and especially Buddhism and the Tao.

Art for me actually has become a kind of spiritual work.  I call it my Sadhana. (from Hindu, Buddhist and Jain traditions).  It is a very meditative and humble, solitary pursuit that I find very helpful and connects me to the divine somehow. But also, I’m definitely trying to use it as a means to influence the world around me positively. I hope I am!

I read a cheesy self help book called “The Seven Spiritual Laws Of Success” by Depak Chopra that I highly recommend actually.   It’s principles are from the Hindu tradition, very Zen. It’s a lot about being mindful, letting yourself have ambitions of course but remaining unattached to outcomes. About the idea that the world will always give back if you use your talents with the purpose of helping humanity. It’s nothing like Law of Attraction quackery, but I know there's still some inbuilt privilege in an idea like this and that people suffering right now might not have this luxury… but in our comfort culture, I really do strongly feel  the value of these ideas.  It just makes sense even if you don’t believe in the mystical nature of pantheism.  Like, what if luck is not a real thing, but just the natural result of believing you’ve earned it?… If I believe I've earned help from the universe I’m more likely to accept help, or to ask for it. If I’m using my powers for good, then kind loving people are more likely to be receptive to me. And obviously these are the people more likely to help someone in trouble, so they’d help me.  It’s logical.  If you focus on making spiritually barren art, you might get successful sure, a lot of people might resonate with that, but the sort of fans you’ll attract and the people you’ll have to be surrounded by in the industry that amplifies that… I don’t really want that in my life. 

There's something way more important to me than churning out commodity and making money or being popular. So long as I have water, food, housing, clothing.. art supplies, nature, friends and freedom to roam.. I’m really very happy.  I feel like the world really has looked after me. I feel so incredibly lucky and grateful.  You know the phrase “the meek shall inherit the earth”,  I think in a sense this is how.. When you want for nothing, once your belly’s full and you’re warm, you already have everything you want -  There’s no feeling of lack.  That feeling of lack is what makes people unhappy.  That constant frustration at not having enough, whether it be necessities, or the new thing, the big toy, the fancy dress, makes the world seem very disappointing.   I try to remind myself of this all the time

These kinds of spiritual principles are really important to me, so I try to express this stuff in my art.  But also, i just wanna enjoy my life you know?. Radical love, motivated acceptance* and gratitude are the vital ingredients for that.. Art is the decoration.

*I say motivated acceptance because we shouldn’t get lazy or give up our (healthy) desires, our high ideals and efforts to make the world a better place, but things might never be perfect, so we shouldn’t postpone finding inner peace and happiness now. And acceptance in the moment is the vital component of happiness.   As i always remind myself “I’m a good person and I deserve to be happy”. 

Please share your advice to young people (of all ages) that are interested in exploring the world of sound art and electronics?

Well my advice has got to be in two parts.  For success, and for happiness, but they’re not mutually exclusive thank goodness.

For success,

Just do whatever you like.  But be productive. 

I talk a lot about being at the vortex of creativity.  Working on it enough that you’re there and practiced and ready to catch the magical idea when it presents itself.  Creativity is in ACTION, and you have to accept it’s about failures at times but also simple, everyday advancement.  

If you create everyday, experiment everyday, you place yourself right at the vortex of creativity, and create the preparedness for the right ideas to appear. To quote Picasso - “Inspiration exists, but it has to find you working.”

And actually science shows you’ll advance faster creating 60 x 1 minute pictures rather than taking one hour on one piece. So just doing it A LOT is really important. And this will help you develop a vocabulary, build a style, invest in a process, so you don’t feel like an imposter.

For happiness,

I saw a sticker once that said “Being good at art is the least important part” and it’s really true.  The inclination, the effort, the time and resources, the ideas, and materials, the sharing, and marketing - All of that’s really important.   But even more so, I think it means you just really don’t have to be good at art to ENJOY MAKING ART, which is way more important.  Of course, with effort and practice, the talent comes. But regardless, we need to stop thinking about art as something that has to be commodifiable!  

We don’t only dance or swim, or sing, or go hiking because we are amazing at it. It’s fun. It’s good for you.  It’s a healthy habit that can supplant something, fill a void in your life.  

Art is therapy! Its a mental health tool, a teaching too, a social lubricant... It literally helps create new neural pathways in our brains. It helps improve fine motor skills and visual processing. It lowers anxiety levels, aids focus, and guides contemplation.  It’s really good for helping to encapsulate massive ideas in succinct manageable symbolism.. to share experiences and feelings. Loads of studies show art even improves empathy and makes us nicer.  And it connects us too so it’s great for your social life, sometimes (hopefully one day) even your wallet. 

I can’t advocate art enough really.  I’m an Art Facilitator by trade for this reason and love hosting creative workshops.  Art has gotten me through some really incredibly difficult times in my life. Being poor and growing up in a culturally impoverished town, it filled a massive void that before I found my passion for art, I’d been filling really dangerously .  It was the only thing that helped me cope and survive years of very severe depression in my early 30s. It’s helped me make so many amazing friends and travel the world.  I’m so incredibly lucky I found it so it’s really important to me to share it with as many people as possible. 

Please make art!! Spread the word! Art saves lives!! Creativity cures!! 

Stay Kind. Stay Creative. XOXOXOXOXOX

I hope this helped or entertained anyone at all.

Sincerely always,

Kat Martian.