Tim Hodgkinson (b. 1949) started his journey with studies in social anthropology, and from 1968 he spent ten years in a band making music that merged popular and high-brow elements within a Marxist framework. Paradoxically, it was free improvisation that pushed him to explore sound and grow a personal language that he could carry over into composition. Then, starting in 1990, Tim made repeated trips to Siberia to work with both musicians and ritual specialists. This inspired him to ground his music in his own relation to the world rather than in other music that was doing the rounds.
A parallel encounter with Romanian spectralism in the 1990’s unlocked a new way of both thinking and realising compositional structure through working directly with sound. Tim considers himself immeasurably fortunate to have been part of a time in which recording technology has opened music towards the world in dramatically new ways, redefining the nature of composition, of voice, and of stylistic process.
Photo: Yumi Hara