Friesen/Hume/Waters Q&A

By Ado Nkemka

Photo by Trond Trondson, edited by Devin Friesen.

Read this Q&A with Devin Friesen and Nate Waters of Friesen/Hume/Waters ahead of an exciting weekend of experimental music workshops and performances from March 14th-16th. Co-presented with Tadpole. Read more event details on Showpass. This interview has been edited for brevity and clarity.

Ado: Can you introduce yourselves?

Nate: My name is Nate Waters. I am primarily a saxophonist, here in Calgary, Alberta. I do a lot of work as a jazz musician and educator. Also, I did my degrees in classical music and contemporary music, which puts me in a weird spot where I love to see the extension of what the saxophone is capable of, not just what people are used to. 

And for this project, that's where I think we get to align the most: playing our instruments in an unconventional way. I also front a band called Eye of Newt, which is a strange art-rock project. And I sideman for projects like Ryan Bourne & the Plant City Band, Bennett Mitchell, Samantha Savage Smith, a band called Temps. My friend Brock Geiger is putting out a record next month. I’m involved with all those excellent projects.

Devin: I'm Devin Friesen. I'm a guitar player, primarily, with a long running solo project called Bitter Fictions and I also run a small label called Shaking Box. I play with a bunch of people around town as well, not quite as many as Nate, but have a number of assorted, mostly improvised-in-nature, projects. I've got one called Frozen Lake with drummer Jesse Locke out in Vancouver. I play duos with both Nate and Andrew from this trio as well. I like to take part in the Bug Incision events and collaborate and improvise with people around there. 

Unlike Nate, I didn't study music. I can't read sheet music for crap and in the rare case people want me to do session work for them, it's often more of a textural/production sort of consultation. I’m ostensibly an “experimental” musician, though I really don't like the term experimental for what I do. I use the term serenity distortion instead, because I find experimental is a term that implies you either don't know what you're doing, or I'm wondering where your lab coat is, what’s the experiment, or something like that. At this point, I've been doing it long enough I know what I'm doing. I just want to express it, somehow, differently.

I see Nightspeak is your only project as a trio. Could you share a bit about how that came to be?

Devin: We recorded that in Nate's basement, January 2019. That was about a month before I left Calgary to move to Montreal, where I was living for about a year and a half until COVID and other factors brought me back here. So in January, I was very busy trying to record stuff before leaving town. I did two sessions with Andrew as a duo, and then I did the one session with Andrew and Nate, in Nate's basement here (Calgary) which would become the Nightspeak album. 

It was kind of just an inevitability that we would try a trio, because I had been playing duos with Nate and Andrew for years at this point. But for whatever reason, we had never met up together to do the trio, which seemed kind of like a no-brainer. And it was interesting for everyone involved too, because, at least, speaking for myself, I was kind of the glue here. I don't think Nate and Andrew have played as a duo. Maybe you guys have? 

Nate: A collaboration at an improv night or something. But nothing set in stone until this.

Devin: So it was a meeting point for us and the way that I approach those duos is actually quite different, usually, because Nate the Friesen/Waters duo is the most long-running project I have, other than my solo stuff. I think our first recording came out in 2014.

Nate: That sounds about right, yeah.

Devin: That was new for me, working with other people. Particularly, someone who's multifaceted in their talents and approaches, but also has that really rehearsed, really well studied – someone who could probably pick out what key I was maybe stumbling around in. And it's a more textural, ambient, aligned, free improvised kind of thing. When you have no drums, you have a lot more open space to work with. So Nate, and I really enjoy having a wide sound stage, so to speak, to work from, and that lends itself to that ambient, textural, exploratory music that – it can still get loud and noisy here, but it's not going full bore all the time. 

Whereas, when I play with Andrew, that's generally a lot more noise rock and aggressive. That's a lot louder and noisier. That's an excuse for him and I to let it rip. Andrew and I played in a band together for a while, too, in the mid 10s, called Ashley Soft, which was a proggy, noisy, post-punk group, indie rock thing. Andrew and I established a rapport for improvising in between our songs, or the parts that were a bit more open ended so we would often lead those things. And once that band broke up, we just continued free improvising as a duo, but generally a lot louder and more aggressive than the stuff I was doing with Nate.

To have all three of us come together like that was fun and interesting, because I feel like the noisier, more aggressive noise rock elements combined with the more textural and exploratory ambient stuff with Friesen/Waters – it mixes, but not totally. There's a constant movement and tension at it that I find really interesting to explore. 

Nate: And I think since both Andrew and I were very familiar with a version of Devin's playing and we've known each other in this scene a long time, even if we haven't played together much – it was almost like we were trying to play towards the other's approach a little bit. 

One of the crazy things about recording a first meetup is that you're instantly trying to capture something, or have a meeting of the minds with the person that you haven't played together with. So for me, I was playing a little more aggressive to try and meet Andrew's energy, and I think he was playing more soundscape-texturally to try and think about where I might have been coming from (or Devin and my duo was coming from). 

So what it creates is tension. I think Devin touched on that. Or that “Oh, I thought it was going to be this, but now it's this!” And having to respond to that in real time gives these recordings a bit of an interesting energy of uncertainty, or trying to read each other's minds as you're playing, which is really fun. 

Devin: I think those first meetings are really interesting, a lot of the time. They don't always work, but there's something to be said for experience and really establishing a rapport with other people that you're playing with. But there's something that you can't really recreate from that first meeting where you are figuring that stuff out. I like a lot of rock bands who do that, but I also like stuff that sounds like it's kind it's coming apart at the seams. 

Could you share examples of the benefits of cross-country collaborations compared to collaborating within the local scene?

Nate: I think one of the reasons that we’re involved is because this project, as Devin mentioned, he moved across the country right after we recorded this. Part of this cassette’s origin story is that “percolation” while Devin was away, trying to figure out how to actually present this improvised music in song form, or in these digestible chunks of music, these little improvisations. 

What's really interesting is how much we've all grown and learned in that time. From Devin moving away to Montreal. For myself, when Devin and I first got together. I lived in Vancouver at the time, and so it was a cross-country collaboration.

Devin: I forgot about that. 

Nate: My first interactions with Devin were always like, “Oh, I'll be in town this weekend.” “Oh, do you have a couple hours to come over and I'll turn on the tape deck and we'll see if we get anything?” That was formative to our experience together. So I think some of that far-flungness of collaboration is on display, both with the recording and what we do live, even though we all live in the same city now.

Devin: Also, I spent a lot of time mixing those recordings when I was in Montreal too. I scrapped an entire mix and then did a second one later. I have a tendency to sit on recordings for a while, but particularly with the pandemic and everything, we sat on it even longer, because what are you gonna do with it in the middle of that?

And there was almost, especially in the winters in Montreal, when you've got nothing to do, and you're just cold in your crap hole apartment, it's like “This is nice. I can work on this thing with these people that I remember back home, laughter, and then later take it to Monty's studio (Saint Zo in Montreal) to listen to or whatever.”

I'm glad I had an extra pair of trusted ears (and studio monitors) to encourage me into actually completing the project.

How much of your music is from academia/formal, versus being self-taught? And would you change that balance? If so, how?

Nate: I think that is one of the undercurrents of our collaboration. For myself, having done multiple degrees in music performance, and then for Devin and Andrew to be both more of the kind of people who've run record labels, been in the scene for a very long time, been in so many projects. If you start going back and asking these gentlemen just how many things they've done. 

I think that's what makes this such an interesting meeting of the minds is that when we start playing, I might start thinking “Okay, is there a key, or is there going to be a tonal center that I can help inhabit, or should it be all chaos?” And for the two of them, it's much more in a literally tactile touch and feel kind of way – just keeping your ears open and doing exactly what you love to do when playing music with these other people as you always have. 

I think it's that counterintuitiveness that makes things work – where there’s two people who are playing in this very visceral way, and then one person who's potentially playing in a more calculated way. But then as I say that, Devin's got to chime in and tell me how many calculations he's made about how he's going to subvert playing guitar or –

Devin: The thing is I don't think I almost ever think in terms of academic speak, in terms of how I approach things. Not to say I'm ignorant of music theory. I’ve been doing this long enough that I understand some basics and I at least understand it as patterns of how I can try to express things or use that as a tool. 

But, in the moment, when I'm playing with whether it's Nate and Andrew or really anyone, unless we've decided on something beforehand, I'm usually going by intuition. I'm going by feel. I'm listening about as much as I'm playing. Ideally. Laughs. 

There’s always a balance there. You're constantly shifting where your attention is, whether it's that you want to respond to what's being played, or you want to try to latch on to something and guide it in a way. But these are all things that I wouldn't consider myself very calculated about, because so much of it is just in the spur of the moment like, “Okay, Andrew's doing one of these things. So I could probably change where I'm on the fretboard or take this tool and play the guitar with it or something.” 

It's tough to explain. There's a reason they say “writing about music is like dancing about architecture.” I do think you can understand and have an idea of how you want a piece to go, you can try to discuss it, but I also just like having people at the edge of their seat. More than once I've done an improvised gig with people where I'll ask, “Hey, do you want to start off really quiet or really loud?” and then I'll do the exact opposite of what they tell me, just to see what that does to their improvising.

What's the importance of a DIY ethic to you?

Devin: A lot of the DIY stuff has always been out of a degree of necessity. I started Shaking Box for a few reasons, but one of them was just acknowledging that no one else was going to put out my music. So okay, I may as well do it myself, and I like having control over how it's presented, how it's available and so to speak. But a lot of that, for me, just kind of came out of a place of necessity. 

And I do think if you're gonna do music or anything creative, you've got to, at least, start there. You can eventually bring other people in. It's helpful, too, if they've done stuff themselves, or have that similar shared whether it's subculture or whatever experience. I think that's really important, especially in an age where so much of creativity is just cast out into a void, or left to an algorithm to figure out. It's one of the last bastions of the individual having some say over how they are put into the world. 

Nate: Our music, generally speaking, it's either recorded to tape or mixed through Tascam or something like it. And then being produced as a medium on cassette tape. Sonically, there's a DIY element that's baked into it. I think we all associate the sound of cassette tape as being this mixtape thing that you could do when you were a kid. You just start trying to record your favorite songs off the radio and that was your DIY thing. And then as you start making your own music, there's a natural continuance there, which, especially a record that's had so many different iterations, mixes, and now our production back on cassette, still has that DIY thing really baked in. It's sort of unavoidable.

Devin: Yeah, I do like the sound of a basement recording or a rehearsal space. I like a lot of tape hiss. I like these hallmarks of things that aren't totally see-through. I feel like this is an entirely different topic. But in terms of even just the production of music and how things sound, I like when there's an audible fingerprint on it, like when you can tell it has f a lived-in quality to it. And I think a lot of that can come from a DIY starting point, or at least, a background in it.

Photo by Michaela Gilchrist. From the "Nightspeak" release show live performance in 2024.

Regarding the concert, what would you say you’ll be bringing as a trio?

Nate: All of our live performances are fully improvised. It's tough to foretell what's what we'll come up with on the spot. But at least instrumentally, you know you're going to see Andrew on a drum kit, and Devin holding a guitar, and probably a bunch of elements that are really going to make it not sound like a guitar, and then I'm going to be holding a tenor saxophone, and then whatever those first sounds are, whatever that first impression is. Then everything just happens after it. What's the next thing that you, as an improviser, want to hear out of yourself in this group is always the leading question. 

Devin: Yep.

What are you most looking forward to?

Devin: Playing, frankly. It's always a pleasure to be able to present this improvised music on a stage. Don't get me wrong, I like doing this in my basement and recording it too. But there is an immersive quality to performing live that you can't really replicate otherwise. And those opportunities to present this kind of music to an audience. 

Nate: I always look forward to these as a listening experience, even though I'm one of the people on stage playing the music, I always feel like it's such a unique opportunity to have to open your ears so that you can properly respond to other ideas people have in real time, to make sure that you're not overplaying or underplaying, that you're actually communicating with the people in real time and not just throwing stuff at the wall randomly. 

I think for listeners in the audience, what you can always take away from one of our sets is that we're having parallel experiences as performers and listeners. You're equally being surprised by some of the things that go on, on stage. The only difference is that we get to have an impact on what the next move is, whereas the audience member is just subject to whatever that next move is.

Is there anything that you'd like to share that I haven't given you the opportunity to share? 

Nate: One thing I'm excited about is I've always known New Works Calgary to be a pretty multifaceted organization presenting a lot of different kinds of music. I'm really excited by the notion that there's a lot of pretty wild programming, different kinds of things, a lot of people taking a lot of different kinds of risks on stage, which I think is always just so cool, and I'm happy to be part of that in some small way.

Devin: Yeah, what Nate said. Laughs.

Friesen/Hume/Waters trio bio
This trio of musicians from Calgary (guitarist Devin Friesen, drummer/percussionist Andrew Hume, and saxophonist Nate Waters) was borne of two longstanding duos: the textural, ambient-via-free jazz explorations of Friesen/Waters, and the blistering noise-rock freefalls of Friesen/Hume. Why not put it all together? Where does all of that meet?

The trio’s first recording “Nightspeak” released in 2024, a dynamic set of “noise rock meets post-ECM ambient free jazz” which appeared nationwide across experimental and/or jazz (depending on how the music director in that town felt about it) charts throughout the year. Reviews noted a sound “on the borderlands of post-rock and free improvisation,” drawing comparisons to late-era Talk Talk and certain 70s ECM releases (e.g. Rypdal/Vitous/DeJohnette), as well as spikier, noisier fare — “an appealing yet unlikely juxtaposition of disparate or even opposing elements,” a new ‘edition of contemporary music’ with feet jaggedly balanced between ‘academic’ and ‘dropout’.

Devin Friesen is a guitarist, sound & visual artist, as well as proprietor of the Shaking Box label. He performs and records “serenity distortion” music under the name Bitter Fictions, a long running guitar-centric practice utilizing alternate tunings, preparations, electronics, and 4-track cassette basement studio arrangements. “Serenity distortion” is intended to suggest a disruption of calm, yet also an expressively calming noise — an expressive and distinct style which soothes and cuts at the same time: the sounds of crumbling edges, fraying of surfaces, a craggy precipice between industrial collapse and a quiet world ready to replace it.

Andrew Hume is a drummer/percussionist and synth/electronics musician, who also performs with Burro, Calgary’s greatest free improvised rock trio since 2011. Hume has performed with many bands, including-but-not-limited-to: the noise-freak duo Seizure Salad, the gruff alt-country Cold Water, the fractured indie rock of Extra Happy Ghost, the electronic swamp of their solo project Pale Lobo, and (along with Friesen) the proggy post-punk of Ashley Soft.

Nate Waters is a saxophonist and multi-instrumentalist who has performed and recorded in a number of disparate musical iterations. He fronts local strange-guitar-pop combo Eye of Newt, leads a jazz quartet under his own name, and has lent his talents to innumerable recording sessions. He has contributed to the city's musical fringe as half of the freely improvised Friesen/Waters Duo and as a part of the minimalist quartet Nobody Say Anything. He has appeared in more classical and contemporary contexts with the Calgary Philharmonic Orchestra, Alberta Winds, Timepoint Ensemble and the Calgary Chinese Orchestra. He has also featured prominently in pop groups such as The Cable-Knits, Hunter-Gatherer and Samantha Savage Smith.