Do you have any formal training in music or science? What is your background pre-Hafler Trio? I was one of those horrible child prodigies that decent folks deeply desire to strangle or cause to be strangled. My father was, amongst other things, a commonwealth games and Olympic-standard athlete (shot putting/discus throwing), and regularly used to go on jaunts around the globe, which for our part of the world was pretty exotic. He brought back from one of these forays a cheap, tourist-style guitar, which hung on the wall next to the front door for some time. It probably had fishing line for strings. I fooled around with it, and as a christmas present, my parents bought me a guitar and a series of lessons at a music shop in the city. I went through the book in much less than the allotted time, and so was moved off to private lessons with a guy who also made leather sofas in his room. With an alsatian dog which he loved a little too much, I recall. Anyway, outstripping that, I moved on, and ended up qualifying as a classical guitar teacher in unheard-of haste. Still play for my own amusement. But the most important point as far as I'm concerned is that I know the rules. I stopped trying so hard when I realized that I'd never be the best player in the world. Arrogant youth. So I thought I'd do something no one else did. Little did I know.... No science training whatsoever. Actually, I left school a few months before the legal age, not that I ever went there after the age of 13 anyway...no qualifications on paper at all.

Do you think it is important to know the rules? How did you come to break them so radically? It's essential. "know thine enemy". I have, for example, been involved with 'cracking' the digital sound domain for the last five years. I loathe and detest it. But in order to do my bit in bringing it to its knees (if it doesn't hoist itself by its own petard first – and this is a distinct possibility), I have to understand it. I've released a few things that might be considered 'time bombs' in this regard...still working on it....

What's to crack in digital sound? Much. Lots. The whole premise is riddled with stupidity and bad assumptions about the nature of human hearing, which is still a matter of considerable debate. Digital sound is tiring for humans (engineers can work with analogue for much longer periods than with digital before encountering what is called "temporary threshold shift" – which in other words is deafness to certain frequencies), and is basically another example of a technology released and implemented much too soon. It has its plus points, too, however. There are things that one can do with digital which one cannot do with analogue. But my essential problem with the format is that it is totally 'transparent' – divorced from a reference point, it makes the point of location of the 'substance' or 'essence' of the material null and void. This, IMHO is not useful. Reference and location are very, very important. It is an outpost of the idea that mothers now do not sing to their children but rather play tapes or CD's, removing the connection with the person that generated the impulse. But as it is with Analogue, which I may say that I have basically been 'hacking' for the last 15 years in order to overcome its own limitations, I am now engaged in the same process with digital. Some interesting stuff has come up, but we're not out of the woods yet by any means....

Why have you chosen to fight on enemy territory? Well, you can see it as the enemy if you like, but I don't. It's much the same as when I co-ran a natural foods shop – people come in because eventually they realise that what you're offering is real and can be trusted (this sounds a little pompous when applied to the sound stuff I do, but sod that for a game of toy soldiers). And I don't see it as fighting. I have to use commercially available products in order to do what I do – be they antique or blisteringly cutting edge. But the way I try to approach them is much in the manner that a guy I knew who had visited the Kaos Komputer Klub's International Hacker's conference in what was then East Berlin (before the fall of the wall). He related that in the Eastern Block, having never had access to any of the things we take for granted, a toaster was no less 'hi-tech' than a computer. I try to keep that in mind as much as possible.

Why have you chosen to critique from within as opposed to, say, starting a barbershop quartet? I can't really see that 'critique' is something I'm interested in. There have, I suppose, been some rather sarcastic references to such things in the past, but I'm blowed if I can see that starting a Barbershop quartet could be a critique of anything. Might be fun, though....

How much of your process is akin to that of a "typical" musician or composer – notation, improvisation, live performance?... And what exactly was the project, "12 Econ...Greenaway"? It would seem, from the liner notes, that you provided some sort of "musical" accompaniment for a live performance? Notation: more or less zero, apart from the odd scribbling which even I can't understand a week later. Improvisation: isn't it all, to a certain extent? Live performance: have done them – more like 'happenings' or some other silly term. Greenaway project: originally planned to have him reading the stories which I unearthed for him (they were written in about 1968 or so), as he had totally forgotten about them, and then he went all weird on me and decided that we weren't important enough for his lordship. So I went ahead anyway...no live performance involved.

How much do you work in media other than sound? Video – not at all, really. Have been designing some web things here in DK and for Iceland's biggest (resident) pop star. Film – did some years ago – otherwise I collaborate with others working in the various fields, but really, I'm not a terribly visually orientated person.

What about the packaging for your non-jewel case releases? and writing? The packaging for the releases that are not in Jewel case form were a protest and a solution to a problem that frustrated a little. How the hell do you get booklets of a reasonable size into one of those accursed things? The standard size is simply one of the least aesthetically pleasing occurrences of recent years, and some alternative clearly had to be offered. I'm not alone, you will notice. The experimentation that has gone on is far in excess of that which has been experimented with l.p. records. So the whole thing was not really pure visual design – rather, sheer bloody mindedness. Every writing I have done for the last fifteen years, more or less, has been commissioned or in some other way requested. The book that was published a few years back is simply a collection of these texts. I don't write for my own amusement!

I suspect that you are interested in John Cage, given that you posted to the silence-list. What is your primary interest in him? Just interested in him as one of the figures in the 20thC that shaped a lot of things I came into contact with, either directly or indirectly. Getting less and less interested in him all the time though....

Are you finding him to be a limited resource, or are you finding problems with his approach? Not really a man of action, I feel. Yup, a limited resource, as you might say.

Are there artists in other media you feel especially akin to? That's rather a leading question...it comes and goes. It all depends, of course, on what you mean/how strongly you intend the word 'akin'. I have worked with others, of course, but I never wanted to have what they had, just see what the cross-pollination effect would be. I have a few heroes and heroines, but this fades as a) I get older, and b) I learn more about the fact that ultimately, they all have feet of clay. What has happened that I really like is that nearly all the people I really admired I have worked with, and come to realise that the people are infinitely more interesting than what they do. In that respect, the 'work' leads to the person, and this is a very positive thing, in my opinion.

Who is Konstantin Raudive and what is your interest in him? Question should be who WAS KR. He was a Latvian scientist (possibly half Swedish – the book I had that he wrote has been 'liberated' from my archive) who experimented with receiving 'voices from the dead' via a) shortwave radio, b) crystal radio. c) recording in supposedly 'empty rooms', mic channel with levels full up, and d) all manner of diodes and things. There are recordings of the stuff he got, plus transcripts in the aforementioned tome, entitled "Breakthrough". Long out of print. Fascinating. I'm just interested in interesting things, I suppose! This interest in Raudive, however goes a bit deeper if I leave the flippancy out for a moment. This has to do with the very nature of the recording medium and what it does and is – c.f. the Islamic idea that making a picture ("taking a photograph" or "representation") essentially is taking part of the soul of the person or object. The rest of this subject is the real 'core' of a lot of what I "do".

Would that make your work necessarily heretical? Quite the reverse. I gave up the 'sensationalist' stuff after a series of run-ins with what I might refer to as 'the little people'. I am now possibly over-cautious with regard to my source material – there are no unwitting participants in my pantheon, thanks very much. Not no more. I'm not really old, but I must say that one of the great things about getting older is that you learn what 'responsibility' is. And that is a gift that should not be refused. Lastly, I am sufficiently in 'awe' and have enough respect for anyone's deity, so that I am not about to step in someone else's mess. I stand or fall on my own terms. Maybe I read too much....

This is something that has long interested me in your work. You use a medium (audio recording) that is necessarily representation.... Disagree – it is itself and no other. It can be construed as such (a representation) but this is not how I see it. It is a magical act, but without the 'k', in the order of pulling rabbits out of a hat. It is playing a kind of lesser God. Sounds are not symbols of anything else – they are sounds. It is entirely different from the visual medium where for a large part of the time everything is a reference to something else.

Are you saying that recorded sound does not represent? (Turn on 'dealing with really knotty problem' mode.) No, I'm saying that for me it doesn't represent anything. Sounds are sounds. So are words – BUT:

Level one: sounds are not, in brooooooad general terms, REPRESENTATIVE of anything else, rather, 'byproducts' of happenings. level two: there is a language of sounds, but this is confined to realms that we are TOTALLY unable to fathom completely. Bird songs, whale noises etc – it is impossible to interpret these sounds as to their meaning – suppositions can be made, to be sure, but tell me what that dolphin just said...do you speak Swahili? It is precisely this 'nature of the thing in itself' that is so interesting. The layers of meaning that humans smother them in is fascinating too, but it leads to a level of 'certainty' which borders if not on the fascistic, then certainly on the didactic. The sound of running water does not have any meaning, but reminds the hearer of 'water experiences'. And those are all entirely subjective and cannot be empirically compared AT ALL from person to person. This is where language comes in – to provide agreements as to which sound or worse, which representation of which sound (writing) shall be understood to represent what. It is no more than that – an agreement which can be destroyed very, very readily. Think of 'Chinese Whispers' and their potentially disastrous effects.

BUT: there is of course the idea that within a sound a fragment of the 'essence' of the person, place or thing is embodied. Think of the Holy names of God, of Mantras, and the like. This brings the whole thing down to the effect that sound has on the body, mind and spirit. And thereby, real effects can and are created, for good or for ill, and we cannot speak of representation at all. It happens or it doesn't.

So, does music represent? That's different. Of course, musical compositions can be representative and allegorical. But this has nothing to do with the sounds. This is merely the use of the compositional tools available to those composing. Dead dinosaurs have no conception of the idea of fuel for engines, and yet they provide it.

Then your music does not represent? Oh dear. One more time...I really no longer have a problem with people calling what I do 'music' – but I still don't really agree that it is. Certainly not as related to the previous quasi-definition. But to anticipate: WHAT THE HELL IS IT, THEN? The best description I've ever been able to come up with (it's borrowed from a friend of mine with his permission) is MOOD ENGINEERING. When people ask me what I do, I say, "I'm a sound engineer". Or, if I'm feeling cryptic, playful and tired of the question, I say, "I build houses". Think about it...but it is not the representation of a house. You can go 'in', walk around, stay there for a while, use it to do something else in, or walk past it. Invite your friends over. Redecorate. Whatever..

What would you say is the difference between representing and signifying? I forget now who brought up this 'signifying' thing. Barthes? Anyway, it's far too slippery a concept for me to explain, that's for sure! I understand the word represent as 're-present' – to present something once again after it has happened, or indeed, NOW happening again. Patently unworkable, it would seem at first glance. But fun to play around with....