Start Listening To: Laura Kampman
Through a meticulous curation of phone recordings, Laura Kampman navigates themes of grief, solace, and the overlooked beauty inherent in the rhythms of daily life.
Dutch composer and experimentalist Laura Kampman invites us into the immersive world of her debut EP, Coming into Daily Life. Through a captivating blend of sound and visuals, Laura delves into the intricate tapestry of emotions that thread through the mundane moments of our everyday existence. The release of the accompanying visuals marks a significant milestone in Laura's creative journey. Collaborating with visual artists Ardemar and Iver Kim, Laura transforms raw footage from her phone into a mesmerizing visual narrative. This multi-sensory experience offers viewers an intimate glimpse into the emotional landscape that inspired the EP.
For those unfamiliar with your music, can you tell us who you are, where you’re from and about the music you make?
My name is Laura, I’m a photographer and composer from The Netherlands. I make sound collages from phone-recordings. My compositions are experimental but calm and meditative, intertwining recordings of conversations, natural and urban sounds, song demo’s, pets and many more.
What inspired you to create your debut EP ‘Coming into Daily Life’ using phone recordings as the primary medium? / Can you share more about your personal journey with grief and how it influenced your relationship with sound?
With my father’s passing two years ago, my world suddenly changed color. Experiencing grief for the first time influenced my relationship to sound, during this challenging period it was difficult for me to listen to songs as they struck sensitive feelings. Still, I longed for the comfort of sound. That’s when I started to focus on my archive of collected phone recordings. These intimate recordings, recorded over the course of several years and without any intention, held a safe space for me. After realizing this form of music brought me a lot of comfort, I went to explore this practice to ultimately create gentle, dreamlike and playful soundscapes.
How did the process of compiling and composing these phone recordings help you navigate through your grief?
During this time I was spending a lot of time at home processing everything that had happened, I didn’t have a lot of energy to go out. I started searching for things to do at home, searching for ways to work with sound as that is something I enjoy doing. Working with phone recordings didn’t ask for too much energy; I didn’t have to record any new sounds, instruments or vocals. I just organized recordings that already existed and put them into a new context, that felt very satisfying. It had a calming effect one me.
In what ways do you believe conversations about death and grief can be normalized through art and music, as you’ve attempted with your EP?
Just talking about it adds up to normalising it I hope, making work about grief opens up conversations just like this one. It feels incredibly private, even tho it is one of the most natural parts of life and we are all dealing with it. Why not a get a bit more familiar with it together? Might feel better than everyone having their process mostly isolated as its seen as a taboo.
Grief is incredibly sad but it also holds a lot of love. Through its sharpness I gained a new perspective and grew a wonderful appreciation for the simple things that surround me. I’m grateful to share all these different layers of the grieving process and have tried to do so in my EP.
Your collaboration with Korean artist Iver Kim on the second part of the EP is intriguing. Can you discuss how that collaboration came about and the creative process behind it?
For live shows I like to invite different musicians to try to compose part of the show together. For an upcoming show I asked my friend Iver Kim if she wanted to play her flute during the sound of waves. I sent her a phone recording of waves from the beach in Holland and asked if she could improvise as if the flute was having a conversation with the waves. She tried it at home and send me a recording of the improvisation, I liked it so much that that recording in its full length is now out on the EP as ‘Waves piece’.
The EP artwork features a self-portrait by you. What significance does this hold in relation to the music and themes explored in the EP?
My sound compositions are extremely personal, its mostly recordings form my own phone from very personal moments. For example the part that I sing Angels, that’s a recording from 2018 than I sent to my boyfriend at the time. I was singing him this song before he would fall asleep. I couldn’t think of anything that would represent this personal work better than a self-portrait. As these compositions to me feel like self-portraits asl well, coming from the same place and intention. They go hand in hand.
Could you elaborate on the decision to incorporate visuals alongside the music in the intimate gallery space at Galerie De Schans in Amsterdam?
I long to create a whole world from different media, so I knew early on I wanted to create visuals for this sound work. The album visuals are transformed videos from my phone, I sent two friends (Iver Kim and Ardemar) who are visual artists, a folder of selected phone videos and they interpreted it in their own way. The result is very atmospheric. I wanted the videos to be abstract with hints of reality, so people could have a bit to hang on to but still drift off and focus on the sound.
How do you envision listeners experiencing the EP in this gallery setting compared to a traditional listening environment?
For this release I wanted to give people the privacy and space to enjoy the music in their own time, for as long as they want. I moved part of my living room into the corner of a gallery; a couch with 20 pillows, my TV + some personal objects like books and an instrument. I didn’t want to ask for their attention on a certain date and time like a release show does, I just wanted them to feel as comfortable as possible and have a personal experience. Without too many people around and without me being there and presenting it to them. I wanted it to be theirs in that moment.
Your transition from photography to sound recording is fascinating. What prompted this shift, and how has it influenced your creative expression?
I’ve been moving between taking photos and making sound work my whole life. I started taking photos, playing the guitar and playing piano when I was about 13. Over the years it both had its own moments, up until 23 I was mostly focused on photos and after that I started to give sound more attention. This was also the period when I had stopped modeling. I had been in front of the camera for over 8 years and there grew a need to not be focused on images anymore. This was when I started to focus more on sound and it kept on growing on me, it’s been my main focus ever since.
Can you describe your process of collecting and curating sound snippets from various sources for your compositions?
I’ve been making phone recordings myself for many years, at all random moments and situations. When I started composing these soundscapes I became very curious of what people around me would have recorded on their phones. I knew a few friends did it as well, so I started asking them for their recordings. It fels so personal to listen to recordings of them talking to themselves, trying to write a new song, sounds from the streets in Egypt while they were on holiday. It really inspired me so I started asking more and more people. Also people I had never met before, people I only knew through the internet. It was so interesting receiving all these small sound-diaries of people’s lives. I grew an archive of all kinds of recordings from all over the world, through the perspective of differents people’s ears. I love braiding these recordings together in compositions and making them a whole.
What challenges did you encounter during the creation of the EP, and how did you overcome them?
Over the last 1,5 years I had made many different soundscapes for live settings. For this EP I wanted to stay close to one concept and intention. The challenge was choosing from all the different recordings and feelings I had collected, narrowing it down into one composition. I wanted this EP to go back to the core intention of how this process started which was the grieving period. I created a composition around that feeling and the need I had in that time which was a meditative need.
What do you love right now?
Cooking, spending time alone, spending time with my loved ones, writing, daydreaming, walking the dog, traveling inside my mind, organising concerts.
What do you hate right now?
When I have too much to do in too little time, I don’t like it when my mind is too occupied by tasks and I doesn’t have the space to drift off or just be.
Name an album you’re still listening to from when you were younger and why it’s still important to you?
James Blake - James Blake (self-titled album, 2011). As a young teenager I started listening to him. His sense for experiment, spacing and abstractly expressing emotions through his work has been such a big part of me, I’m sure it’s imbedded deep in my subconsciousness.
Lastly, what do you hope listeners take away from ‘Coming into Daily Life’ after experiencing it?
To grow awareness of the beauty within the simplicity of sounds and things that surround our everyday life.
