Talented musicians crafting highly unique musical textures is like alchemy taking place; it's mysterious, magical and somewhat mischievous too. I Have Eaten The City, a flag-carrying band for the Association of Improvising Musicians of Toronto (AIMT) is keeping the craft alive with a strange brew of sonic experiments, or simply "motherfuckers playing some pretty motherfuckin' trippy shit." Tyrone Warner emailed the band's cellist/computerist Nick Storring, and here's an edited version of his answers.

Please describe your band to someone who hasn't heard it before '“ but do it as if you are Miles Davis, high as a kite.

Just three motherfuckers playing some pretty motherfuckin' trippy shit... Sounds just like some shit I did in the seventies, when I was listening to more of that crazy motherfucker Karlheinz Stockhausen.

Who plays what? What do they contribute?

I (Nick Storring) play the cello, the computer, Casio SK-1, dictaphone, tinkly bells, harmonica, bird calls, some voice, radiator cover, recorder, pieces of metal... but pretty much just cello through the computer with Audiomulch/ Max/ MSP, with other small instruments. Brandon Valdivia plays some drums and cymbals and percussion. Colin Fisher plays a couple of guitars and the tenor saxophone.

What's the point of your band? Why do you exist?

The point of our band... hmmm, well... we're not out to change the world, from where I stand. We're just out to make music which we all enjoy playing, and hopefully something that our audience can engage with too.

Why should people come to watch I Have Eaten The City perform?

Whoa... I feel like we have to brag or defend ourselves here. Ummm ... well I think we offer something pretty unique when we play in the sense that it's improvised but it breaks away from a lot of conventions that are established around improvised music in some regards. To my ears, improvised music is just as much a genre/ style as it is an approach; it's a style which is largely as tangible (and as intangible) as rock or ambient or blues. While this is a part of our vocabulary there are other elements that come into play, like elements of non-western music, forms of electronic music, various rock genres, and also the influence of earlier spiritual free-jazz like Alice Coltrane.

What do you think attracts people to improvised music?

For me, as a musician I like the fact that it's sort like an abstract conversation; it can be very natural, and very much related to one's dynamic with their friends. For audiences, the appeal is different, but related. Some people like to just see spontaneous musicianship and virtuosity.

The band is named after a line from "Manhattan," by H.R. Hays. Do you see your musical project as a reaction to that poem, or an embodiment of "the shadow of the monument?"

I feel like we're pretty far removed from violence the name projects and more in line with the surrealist imagery of the poem itself. Sometimes I feel like the sounds we're conjuring are very related to the dream-like and somewhat grotesque aesthetic of certain aspects of surrealism.

If you could eat any city, which one would you eat, and what do you expect it to taste like?

Paris could be pretty good but it might also taste too much like dog poop!

Say someone sees your band's performance and loves it. What other artists would you point them towards next?

There are few genre-bending improv-based groups Canadian groups like LaConnor, Smash & Teeny, the Guayaveras and Barnyard Drama which share certain features of our sound... especially due to their use of electronics. Then there's more known stuff like Black Dice, Supersilent, Alice Coltrane, Jackie-O Motherfucker, Sonny Sharrock's "Black Woman", Mephista, Miles Davis' "Get Up With It", Amon Duul II, even someone like This Heat... I don't know, those are just some things which spring to mind at the moment. Also the Paul Bley/ Annette Peacock album "Improvisie" is so ahead of its time in terms of its use of noise/ electronics in a jazz/ improv setting.

By Tyrone Warner