6.2 Peter Van Hoesen and Haydn Green

Transcript

Welcome back Hung up season 6 episode 2. My name is Matt. I’m Aiden. This week we were talking to Haydn Green and Peter Van Hoesen, who in conjunction with Haydn’s project Hear My Eyes are screening Terminator 2, which has been rescored by

Peter, a very interesting music creator, music producer from Belgium. We are about to have a very wide-ranging conversation about performance music, music in spaces versus online versus in headphones, and a discussion

about some of Peter’s very early work from 2001, which caught him completely by surprise. Stay tuned Peter, you’ve been producing electronic music since like for a while now. The early 90s, is that right? Or mid 90s would you say?

I would say the first electronic note which I played in my existence was probably late 70s. OK, Yeah. OK. What? What was that? If you want to be really precise, I’d like to. Be precise, yeah.

Yeah, my first instrument was an electronic organ.

I’d seen a synthesizer on television, and I said to my parents, that’s what I want. Nobody knew what a synthesizer was in our household. So the closer, the closest we got to a synthesizer, which in, you know, in the late 70s was not such a common thing as it is now, was an electronic. But it was electronic. So making electronic music.

True. Yeah, true. Yeah. And then, I mean, I, I, I read, I couldn’t find an, an example of you actually saying it as a first source, but I read that you had an interesting like first club experience, like going to a club for the first time. Yeah, I think the the facts are long beyond any legal implications.

I wasn’t allowed in there because I wasn’t old enough. But yeah, basically I found some excuse to not be at home on a Saturday night or a Friday night or whenever. And it was during a time when electronic music in club music

in Belgium had a very specific, it’s very specific own thing going on, which was called New Beat.

And it was a fantastic three years for electronic dance music in Belgium. Like we really felt we did. We finally had something of our own.

And I, yeah, I got into the club and just was amazed by what was going on. I had, I still remember I had enough money for one whiskey Coke for the whole night. So I phrased, you know, small sips. It was a formative experience. And I, I thought to myself, I want to, I want more of this. And yeah, well, I managed to do

that. So how? Interesting, so they were playing EBM and and newbie at this night. So what was what was very special about that period is that the the DJs playing at the time had invented this technique where they were playing 45 RPM record at 33, which obviously slows down the pitch.

And if you slow down the pitch, your base becomes fuller. And if you then play that through a big sound system, then then all kinds of things happen with vinyl which are harmonically very interesting. And so they were mixing new wave, even Simple Minds, even Grace Jones, certain tracks

along with electronic music and kind of blending it into a, a mix which until then nobody really had done anywhere. And so these three clubs specifically in Antwerp where it started and then it it moved to Kent. Bocaccio is like the club considered as the the capital of

Nouveed at that point. But actually it started in Antwerp and I happened to be born in Antwerp, so I was very close to it. And during like 2-3 years you walked in around the city, you would walk into a clothing store, local radio would play that music all the time. It was, it was. So I was exposed to it all the time. Yeah, fascinating.

And so Haydn, but your your movies and cinema through and through. You studied cinema and philosophy. I read, went to YouTube. I. Like this background research? That’s good, yeah. Yeah, yeah, my, my bachelor was yeah, cinema and philosophy. And then my postgrad was just

cinema. But I wouldn’t say I’m cinema through and through. I actually found cinema later in life at uni. That’s kind of where I really fell in love with cinema when I was about 1819 and got really, really deep into it and watched everything under the sun, 2-3 movies a day for years throughout, throughout, you

know, university and 40 films per myth, you know, going to music film festivals, whatnot. But music is kind of more my family’s backbone. My parents, both musicians, my two older brothers are musicians and grew up in a house where we all played piano and drums and song.

Our family band is often drummed together for like 60th, seventieths, things like that. So very cool. Yeah. Played, played in a lot of also just bands growing up. So definitely know enough about music to be in the room with the artists and the composers when,

you know, when we’re putting it together. But largely, yeah, I kind of come from the angle. My creative input is largely from the angle of the film and how the music will relate to the film and and to a live experience. Yeah, yeah. Interesting. Which is something that I definitely chat about a lot, which is that, you know, him

eyes events. You’re not just writing and you score to a film, You’re writing this score to be performed live, which is fundamentally different to writing the score to be cut to the film and released in in cinemas.

Yeah. Which is of course how they used to do it. Like before there was sound on film like Hesitate films or safety film. There was a live like organist or a little orchestra even, right? Yeah, absolutely. So the silent film era was they just have an in house pianist

who would literally be doing an improv set two or three times a night. Yeah, I mean, some, from what I understand, some silent films had scores written to them and were kind of sent around for the in house pianists to perform, but, you know, didn’t always get there or whatnot.

It’s it was definitely very different per per session, which is, yeah, very human eyes. So yeah, totally, yeah. Totally. Except in a very modern way, because we don’t ever do silent films. We do, right? You you wouldn’t want to do that. You wouldn’t want to try.

Yeah, like you spoke about. Metropolis, Yeah, yeah, yeah. So Metropolis is kind of like a bit of an origin story for me. I saw it’s playing Metropolis at Babylon Theatre in Berlin and wasn’t. I didn’t have enough money to go

to the earliest session that was paired with a reputable classical pianist, but had enough money to go to the late night session that was paired with a local industrial techno DJ. And it was the first time I’d seen the film recontextualized, you know, pairing the film with

a type of music that didn’t exist when the film was made. This but also aesthetically really works because you know if it’s length. Metropolis is set in the industrial era and. The sounds of the Yeah it. Really worked, but but yeah, as him as as an arts organization

curatorily, yeah, I haven’t ever programmed a silent film and don’t intend to just as a point of difference. There are all of the silent films are in the public domain, so you can access them very easily and freely. So there are a lot more of these type of events taking place with

silent films. But I love silent films as a film nerd, but I know that they’re just not necessarily that accessible. They’re very, they’re very often very dated and very jarring for people that, you know, we survey the people that come to our events and it’s usually about

50% of them haven’t seen the film ever. And we’re talking about Hans Labyrinth, No Country for Old Men, you know, films that are, in my opinion, household names. So it’s I like just pushing the classics that have been made in the last 50 years at least, rather than delving too deep.

One of the things I’m always really interested in is you mentioned like considering the performance as like a live moment. So how we think about like a, you know, recorded film like Matt and I watching Terminator on the couch at home versus, you know, your event existing at one

point in time as a live moment. If you have any thoughts about that. Yeah, absolutely. So kind of two thoughts, one being it’s very, it’s in the forefront of my mind when we’re making the production and like crafting the score, is that because the music’s being

performed live on stage, the audience are aware of the musicians in the room and they feel the energy and the vibrations in the air. And it’s, it’s somewhat theatrical. You’re, you’re more engaged with the space in your environment in a way that you wouldn’t be if you’re just watching a film. So you can use up the audience’s

energy and bandwidth a lot quicker than than a score normally would cut to a film. So you have to be quite careful. If you’re very big and bombastic in a scene, you don’t necessarily want to immediately back that up with more music. You need to give the audience time to rebuild that energy. So that’s something that we think about a lot.

But the second point is that, yeah, from an audience perspective, yeah, it’s it is really communal. Like you, you are really aware. You look, you look around the room more, you’re looking at the ceiling more, you’re looking at the people next to you left and right. It’s you’re watching the musicians on stage. And it becomes this really like communal experience.

And some of the screenings, especially with four houses do get quite electric and feeding off the energy of the audience. And but yeah, it’s we don’t really repeat them either. So they’re very ephemeral that you kind of have to be in the room to experience it and. That’s. A big part of it, big part of it for me as well.

But there, but it’s it’s been scored to some extent. Is that right Peter? Like you’ve, you’ve composed something in advance. It’s been scored to a large extent. Actually. I felt that this movie was not the best movie to just start improvising on as it’s the base of the movie.

The way it’s it’s evolving the specific character of certain action scenes or even the non action scenes.

For me it was quite clear from the start that it needed something really tight and sequenced. So I ended up basically scoring. Everything that you hear is basically rescored in terms of in terms of soundtrack. There will be an improvisational aspect on stage which involves

mixing it all together because we will have 5 musicians playing on five different synthesizes and there will be me mixing that live and adding my own sounds and effects on top. OK. Like literally with a a mixer. Literally I will have like a large mixing desk in front of me

and I will do a live mix. So, so it will be different from one night to the other to the other because because I will probably find different ways of dealing with different passages in terms of adding something or subtracting something or whatever. So there is, there is that. But with regards to what will be played on stage by the

musicians, that’s all scored. And this actually occurred to me only when we just watched it the film the other day, just to just to rehash it because I hadn’t seen it since I was a kid. But this hadn’t occurred to me to ask you until we watched the movie. What about the theme? Because there is a theme, a sort of melodic theme of the movie.

Do you do you deal with that material in some way? Or do you do you write a new you’re? Referring to the you’re referring to the the original score, the the theme of the original score. Yeah. So the original score is in no way present in the new score. Yeah, cool.

I think that. I think that that seems fitting. That seems fitting, yeah. The project, the project itself is largely to not use any of the original score. It’s complete, complete lean, new composition. And you know, obviously the main theme of Terminator 2 is incredibly iconic and loved by many.

And you know, one thing I say a lot is that it’s not a competition. We’re not trying to better it or change it like it in any way. Like if anything, it’s just an opportunity for audiences to gain access to a film that they know and love in a new way and experience it in a new life.

So yeah, it’s it’s, it’s 100% near and no reference to the the original score. Yeah, fascinating. Because I mean, like, and you know, while I was watching, I was sort of keeping track of what, what sort of happened in the, I would say more than usual, which is a weird way to

watch a film for me. I mean, I do know how they’re made. I work on photography sets and film sets. Like, I get it, you know, I studied music, but still, you know, I sort of watched it this time with like a sort of an increased acuity for what’s going on. And it’s actually not an overly scored film anyway, but we were watching it thinking like, damn,

this scene could do with something, you know, like, and yes, it’s got a fun. It’s got a, it’s got a great mix of like, you know, action scenes and, you know, like narrative, like dialogue stuff. Yeah. Fascinated to see how that gets dealt with, you know, like on the night. Yeah.

We should, we should, we should see if we can we can come along, yeah. So one thing that you’re kind of touching on there that is interesting is that it’s the this film in particular, the score has really strong interplay with the sound design. So like the special effects audio Foley or car crashes or gunshots, like it really ducks

and weaves around that. So that’s definitely been a chat because we’re not taking any of that out. Obviously the film has all its dialogue and special effects audio, Foley. So Pete has definitely had to work in and around that. So that relationship to music, to sound design, will be retained in some way, because it

kind of has to be, but it’s from a different angle.

Interesting. Yeah. And I mean, like just watching it also, whatever it is like 20 something years later. Like there’s this really cheesy needle drop in like the first bit where they play like, is it ZZ Top bad to the bone? You know, it’s like just let’s, let’s see it without any of that, like, you know, sort of cultural. That’s still in there.

You’re kidding. That’s still in. There so that that yeah. So there’s two, there’s, there’s two moments not. Entirely true that the the original score, as it were. I suppose the theme is gone. That’s not a score, right? That’s. Soundtrack. That’s soundtrack. Yeah, that’s that’s. That’s composition.

And then there’s soundtrack. Yeah. So there’s there’s songs. Yeah. Sorry, Peter. It’s, it’s we, we talked about this during the creative process and for me from the start, it was quite clear it should be in there. And I think Haydn felt the same way. The question was raised because it’s a valid question to ask, as you are doing now, but it’s part of the, it’s kind of part of

what’s going on. Like the tone that is set in that scene. He, he comes out of the bar and, and, and, and that starts to play. Equally important is, is the Guns and Roses part where, you know, they’re on the bike and they have the, the ghetto blaster and you know, that that’s, that’s for me is yeah,

it’s essential to the movie because it it sets, it sets a particular tone. And Terminator 2 is a very violent movie, but it’s also a very funny movie. And and the the the muddy water strike is, is a very he I mean, he walks out of the bar, he’s carrying the start. He has no he. It’s just. It’s just. It’s just a funny part, and

without that music it would not be as much fun. I mean that that particular snippet of sound really defines that moment. He steps out of the bar and he’s bad to the bone. He’s a robot. He’s not bad. To the bone. Yeah. Yeah, That’s so beautiful. That’s very funny. I mean, at least I think that’s funny. Oh yeah, we were laughing all the way. Yeah, yeah, totally.

Yeah. So do you treat just for my like, I mean, maybe I shouldn’t spoil it for myself and listeners, but do you treat the Guns and Roses track as diegetic then? Like is it coming out of? It is diagenic. Yeah, it is diagenic. Yeah. So the that’s the bone track isn’t? It’s kind of. So it’s not not, it’s not, it’s not really like he’s walking.

It’s not part of that music being played at the bar like. So that is one that we could have changed, I guess, if we wanted to, but we made the decision not to. But the diegetic stuff, we’ve done that in the past on some, in some projects like 2 hands with the mill locks, you know, there’s this one scene when they turn on the radio, hits Ledger,

it’s in the back of the car and they turn on the radio and it’s like a Doo wop track plays in the original. But we they decided to change it and they played a different, they chose a different song to play because I just wanted to. So we have done that in the past, but with Terminator Two we decided to leave it, leave, leave those parts in.

Cool. There’s there’s enough material to work with anyway. So, you know, it’s not like we were, you know, in in need of more moments to to write score too. So. Yes, right, right. Sure. Yeah, that’s interesting. Yeah. I mean, I would love to hear more about, I love how like nitty gritty and how sort of conceptual and considered all of

these decisions decisions are from both of you. I would love to hear Peter and Haydn about the process. I guess the the sort of thing that I was poking at before was none of the original score exists, but like, I’m sorry, do you have a well good. We can hear you, it’s just a

little bit quiet. A little quiet I’m. Just closing the door now, but yeah. Yeah, just interested in, yeah, your, your process and how you begin approaching this. Are you listening to the original score a lot? Are you trying to, you know, move away from it so you’re not influenced in certain ways? Are you making, you know those sort of decisions to go counter

to just interested in that the process?

Yeah, it it is obviously the big question when you start this this journey, what’s your relationship to the original score and how will that influence what you will start writing? I have seen the movie many times. I saw it when it came out in, in the theatre and obviously the music is very familiar to me.

I’ve also seen Terminator one many times and there’s kind of a compositional overlap between both movies. So it’s, it’s, it’s something which I was very familiar with, which took me about four or five days to erase from my mind in, in, in the sense of as a, as a, as a composer, I realized after

writing for four or five days that what I, what I had written resembled the original score too much, not so much in rhythm or in melody, but in. Overall approach like it. It felt too overly classic soundtrack for a movie. And I thought that that was not what Haydn asked me to do.

He invited me to write a new score. So I figured that I would just have to make the music sounding like me and not trying to be a soundtrack composer, which what I was, which was what I was doing in those 444 or five days. So I threw everything out and started from scratch and just

said, I’m just going to write some techno. And let’s start with that. Let’s just start writing techno because that’s what I do for a living in the manner of speaking. And, and from there actually that that that was just that that was the main decision to take like, OK, it’s I’m just going to do my thing. And as Haydn already talked about, like there are obvious

points in the movie where you need to collaborate with the action and you need to have a dialogue with the action. You need to step away in many cases. So you need to have something which lowers in intensity because something else is happening. Usually that involves a lot of sound design things going on.

So you you can’t go full blast with music when the sound design is going on full blast. We do that once or twice in the movie, but then you know, it’s, it’s a very intense moment. So you kind of have this interplay between, between the the movie and, and what is being written. But I, I think that’s the main difference in terms of writing

for this project versus writing for my own productions. I, I felt very familiar once I’d made that switch using techniques I use in sound design for the project, sound design for my solo work. So that actually I I found myself a more familiar terrain again.

From there it just it just happened. And and like, I’m sure there was some like I, I would love to know how the sort of collaborative element of this process looks. You know, like I was Haydn in the studio there with you or is it was there sort of back and forth or was it just like, here’s the idea, run with it?

We, we had a very good foundational briefing and then I started composing. I usually compose by myself.

I just work better when I’m by myself in a space. This, this goes from composing, mixing, mastering. But we kind of settled on, OK, let’s do your thing for a while and then we’re going to regroup. And actually it was very beneficial for the project that Haydn came to my home base in

Vietnam and spent, what was it, 5 days? Do we do? Yeah, five days together, just going through what was already there, what I’d what I’d written and, and just basically having a very open creative dialogue because obviously he has the experience of having several of

these projects taking place. And how does that translate to a venue? How does that translate to the movies intensity? These are things that I was I was not familiar with. So it’s it’s that interplay was, I think highly valuable. Like, I think that that really lifted the whole thing to another level. I’m sure. Yeah, that’s interesting.

Yeah, I. Would like to hear about some of those considerations, Haydn. Like what sort of notes and what sort of things maybe that Peter hadn’t dealt with before? I think that largely the role that I play when I’m in the studio with a musician is offering a zoomed out

perspective because musicians are concentrating on a section of the movie or a scene of the movie and in intricate detail and often get lost in the woods. No saying this is you, Peter specifically, but this is more talking broadly over the last decade of doing this. And what I can offer is knowing

the film really well, knowing how these things translate, these compositions translate to a live environment and thinking about, well, if this is happening now, what’s happening next? Or if this have you have you thought about the scene that just happened butting up to this scene or this is the final third of the movie?

This is the climax. So we should definitely duck our heads energy wise before that so that we can really come home strong. And so yeah, I just, I’m just offering considerations and thoughts in that direction.

But a lot of it also is just my opinion and my gut feeling. This might not work. This works really well. Just this is just me offering my opinion. It’s not a hard direction. You know, Peter and I worked really well and we’re like a very aligned, but that’s not always the case. And you know, some things I’ll

fight for other things I weren’t. It’s, it’s a collaboration in the end with every, with every artist. So, you know, the reason that I’ve chosen Peter to do Terminator 2 is because he’s a phenomenally, phenomenally talented musician and I know he’ll do this job. So I’m not going to come in and

say do this, do that. So it’s, it’s his, it’s his, it’s his task ultimately. And I can just provide advice or help. And you know, I think Peter, you, you mentioned this, that it is useful having fresh ears and useful having extra perspective and useful having additional

commentary and thoughts. Because you know, no matter how sure of yourself you are with your your art, at times you can can get blurry when you’re so close to a a piece of art that you’ve developed and been working on for so long. There’s there’s two things that I’d like to add to this.

So first of all, the, there is this really interesting process that happens when you listen to music you’ve made by yourself or you listen to the same music with someone else present in the space. Your perception changes.

It’s a very interesting psychological thing that goes on. I, I don’t know the mechanics behind it, but I’ve, I’ve noticed it and I’ve experienced it so many times. And I’ve also heard colleagues of mine saying exactly the same thing. They’ve made something and then they present it to someone else either in a different space or in the same space, and they

hear, oh, something’s off. They did not hear that a day earlier or an hour earlier when they were by themselves. Very interesting. Very interesting. So having Haydn there and then just looking at the movie, playing it through from, from, from start to finish, it was

very interesting for me. So I made a lot of mental notes. And then the other thing is that a lot of those mental notes, but also a lot of questions I had before we started watching it together kind of matched Haydn’s perspective as well. So it’s nice to, you know, you’ve, you have a, a certain feeling about a certain scene and you’re thinking, I think,

you know, this, this scene should be a bit more XY or Z. And then having Haydn say, I think this scene should be a bit more XY and Z. And you’re like, OK, cool, all right. And we have several of those moments. And that is actually quite beneficial because it gives you a sense of OK, right. We’re, we’re going somewhere, we’re on the same track.

And it makes sense because now two people have the same opinion and you know, it’s, it’s one is the the composer and the other one is somebody who has huge experience with that specific creative art form. It was a good science, right? So that’s totally, that’s why this this, this collaboration was so important. Yeah.

And such a sensitive moment when like something collaborative is sort of in the process of being made where, you know, like, like I’ve, you know, I work with two creative briefs all the time, you know, And we we see, you know, when like this is particularly in very commercial things, but where the creative sort of leader is kind of squashing it too much, for

example, or where there’s not enough direction. And, and that then it kind of runs wild and it, it leaves the, you know, leaves the path. But yeah, very what’s the word? It’s, it’s a sort of delicate, it’s a balancing act. Absolutely. That, you know, and then and then so interesting that like it can go from this, you know, private, the whole life cycle of this artwork can be a private

thing just coming out of probably, I don’t know if you use stereo, but stereo monitors in your studio and Saigon all the way to like, you know, quite grand, you know, arenas or I don’t know what the venues are for Sydney or Melbourne, but you know, like it’s interesting that it would sort of that it has a life and that it works and on all of those scales.

Like, I wonder if that’s just something inherently, like, inherent to the artwork or the sort of medium itself. Well, but yeah. The, the, The thing is that this is a bit more about myself rather than the, the artwork in itself. But I’m used to making music

which sounds completely different in the studio than in its intended format or, or or the the setting. Because when you when you compose club music, I have a very nice. Studio. And and, and, and everything is there, right? I mean, my studio is mastering great, but it doesn’t sound like

a club. So you learn over time to compose with that kind of calibration in mind. Like, OK, if I do this, it will sound like that in that’s in that particular setting. You also learn that when you do mastering and somebody asks you very specifically, this needs to sound really well on, let’s say, headbutts, earbuds, earbuds like

so OK, so you know, or I need to take certain things into consideration. The cool thing with earbuds is that you can actually plug them in yourself and check it out, but you learn how to calibrate certain things for certain settings, which you might not have access to all the time. But it’s it’s it’s definitely also something that I suppose

comes with doing it a few times and. Absolutely the. Experience with I have some experience with music in theatrical venues that also helps. Yeah, for sure, yeah. And it’s there’s something kind of exciting about that as well. One thing that I’ve always that always keeps me on the edge of my seat is the premiere, because you can have, you know,

rehearsals in studios and you can have rehearsals at rehearsal spaces and you can have production rehearsals. Then you can have full run throughs like, you know, next Wednesday at Hammer Hall, we’ll we’ll be in the space. It’s, you know, 2 1/2 thousand capacity, 3 levels huge like cabinets in in many ways. And we’ll be in there with all

full production run through by then. That night the space fills with, you know, 2002 thousand people. So the sound environment changes drastically. So when you, you when you’re mixing in the day, you’re preemptively mixing it to sound better with the people in the

room. But yeah, it’s that that first 15 minutes, 1015 minutes is the sound engineers fine tuning the the sound with all the people’s bodies in the room. So it’s like you can’t actually prepare fully for that. Beautiful, Yeah. Beautiful, Terrifying.

Yeah. What an amazing thing to give to like, you know, like it’s it’s an old film, you know, like it’s an amazing thing in the air suddenly with like, I mean, and everyone, a lot of people have seen this film, probably more than would have seen, I don’t know, Waken Fright or something like this is more niche Australian stuff. I’m sure the ratio will be higher here.

Yeah, very interesting. I’d love to talk about like if there’s anything like I I don’t know how interested you are in this, you know, more conceptual side of stuff like, I don’t know, like do you, is there anything like that you wanted to kind of try and that you wanted to do on, you know, like aside

from just scoring a film, Peter, like is there anything in additional like a sort of subplot, as it were, or do you see what I’m saying, like? Yeah, yeah. I mean for me, I when I was watching it over and over again thinking about, you know, should I change the fill? Should I take the score out? If so, why?

My kind of rationale was the film was so modern, so contemporary. It’s 35 years old, but it’s dated really well. There’s some lines of dialogue that are potentially a little bit outdated, but like color grading and the editing and the CGI and it’s the production values of it are kind of really timeless.

They and the themes of AI are so present and you know of the moment. So it feels like a very contemporary film. So I thought, let’s add a contemporary modern score to it and make it feel very 2026. And I thought sticking with electronic music and making it

maybe techno like more exhilarating, more thumping, more adrenaline fueled and aggressive in some ways than the original. That was that was my kind of curatorial direction. But then when I spoke to Peter, Peter had specific ideas around conceptually wanted you what you

wanted to deliver. I remember in the early days you saying that, you know, the word physical is something that I remember a lot as you like, I wanted to create. I want to create something very physical. Yeah. So the original score is, you know, it’s a piece of art. It’s fantastic. It’s, it’s great. One of the things that it does

is it sometimes offsets the level of aggression that you see on screen. There is one scene where where the, you know, where Arnold has this huge gun and he shoots at all these police vehicles. It’s a hugely violent scene. Like it’s, it’s, it’s incredibly violent.

And then you just have this kind of melodic thing playing and you’re like, that’s interesting. It’s a way to offset that brutality which is happening in the movie. And it makes total sense for for, you know, from a very long term perspective. We don’t have that long term

perspective. We are going to show this thing in in three cities right now as it as it stands. And we’re going to show it in theatrical setting with a huge, massive sound system. And there will be a lot of people present and it’s a quite intense ride the whole movie.

So my, my, my immediate idea was let’s just make it even more intense. And so I kind of stepped away from from those moments in the original score where sometimes the the music is used to offset the aggression a little bit. Basically what I’m doing is just amplifying everything. And that that idea of physicality, I think the movie

has that there’s a lot of very physical, physical man on man combat going on. It’s it’s extremely physical. So I thought, let’s let’s try and give that somehow an extension through the throughout throughout the score. Interesting. Yeah, that’s, that’s an interesting point. I wonder how, how they came

across that idea of like they might have been, they might well have been some producer in the room saying can we make it a little bit less scary, you know, for 19, whenever it came out 90 one or whatever. Yeah. Interesting. Yeah. So like the, the, the physical thing is, is like, that’s a fascinating angle to me. So.

So does that also come through in your choice of instrumentation ‘cause I know there’s this amazing library of like old synthesizers that you have access to. Is that right? I would say that’s maybe not the main consideration for the selection of the, the different machines. I would say it’s like a 5050

thing. First of all, there’s certain machines I, I really think are excellent for this project because they can generate a certain type of sounds. That’s the more modern machines that we’re using to corks, for instance. And then on the other hand, I, I wanted, I wanted a selection of machines which had a virtual

counterpart because obviously I live in, I live in Ho Chi Minh City, I live in Vietnam. So I do not have access to those synthesizers at the mess. So I needed to find a way to start composing within a framework which. Something that has a AVST like a software instrument that you can. Exactly, exactly.

So that that also defined the selection, obviously. And so I ended up with a list of machines. OK, they all have virtual counterparts or something that comes close. And then from that list, a final selection was made. And then there was some back and forth with with miss. But this actually all went quite

smoothly, I have to say. So in the end, we have a nice combination between I would always almost call them vintage synths and very modern synths. And on top of that, there is an extra layer of abstract sound design which I’ve I’ve I’ve written specifically for certain parts of the of the movie, which

then add us a more even more modern layer on the whole thing basically. Also with the physical, the physical comment, I remember you saying that just in its most basic form, just the amount of bass and sub bass will have a physical effect absolutely on the audience in the room.

There’s a lot of low frequency content in this core and that bass has an impact. It’s, it’s, it’s one of the most simple things in sound. It’s it’s the effect of bass on on the psyche and on the body. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, I love what you said about like this is going to be 3

screenings at least for now, or three in three cities. Like it has a much smaller sort of like we can. Yeah, we can really dial it up because we’re not playing this a million times. So it gets back to those. Like this is a live event. It reminds me of like that tension and that fear you were talking about. And you’re talking about like the premiere and opening night

and how the cinema does have an aspect of that. Like I still get kind of super wowed that people still go to a cinema, like, you know, and they’re super excited and then don’t have their phones and young people and old people. And then I love theater and theater has an element of that liveness and that tension because something could go wrong

or something, you know, there’s something might need to be steered in a certain direction or the sound design. Whereas, you know, just hitting play on a on a film, even at a beautiful cinema, doesn’t quite have that aspect and that like communal feeling. I think there’s something in that tension of a live performance that, you know, a

recorded screening will never have. So, yeah, it’s just really interesting to hear about just how considered this all is. And I guess two you’re talking about like the AI and the the form of the film, like the film’s themes. And, you know, I guess one of the doctors in the asylum is talking about 2029.

Yeah. And it’s something that’s always quite sweet about these sci-fi films when you realize, like, you’re up to or even past this, you know, big terminal. Event. It’s a dreaded day. Yeah. Judgement day. Yeah. The judgement day. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah, 2029 is the time stamp for the future war. Yeah, the opening scenes in the

movie where all the Terminators, Terminators have taken over. Yeah, for for warfare with AI. So only three years away. Get ready. Yeah. Yeah, we’re calling you guys that sound ultimate.

Yeah, interesting. Yeah.

So if we can, can we go back just into your past again, Peter? I was listening this morning to release the object which is the first like CD that I can find that you did. You did. You did some proper digging. You absolutely nodwad.

Him, I nodwad him. Yeah, yeah.

Which was hard to find, I have to say. Like, you know that there’s not very many online like copies of it, but like just just hearing. Was that what’s the? What’s? The yeah, maybe you can describe it for him, I mean. So I have to give like huge props to you because I haven’t spoken about this in 15 years.

I think you. Were just previously talking earlier today about lazy journalism and. This is like this is this is this I’m I’m very impressed.

Even I have to think now. Nice one, I haven’t even asked my question yet. Please do give me give me some time, OK? So, so like what I would like for you to connect for me and, and you know, I’ll, I’ll, I’ll have to post an example of the music somewhere just on my story, if it’s OK with you. But it’s, you know, just to, to

go over it for you guys that haven’t heard it today, Like it’s, it’s hyper experimental, but I, it comes, I would say from club music. But I would love to hear how you connected those dots, how you saw this guy’s playing whatever Anita Baker record at 33 instead of 45.

And then how you get from there. I mean, I know it’s a few years later, but I just want to see if you can sort of show us how that how that relationship goes. Because basically it’s it’s incredibly texturally tambourily minimal music. It’s got like, you know, the first track is these like almost like sonar pings and then the bass comes in, you know, 3/4 of

the way through the track. But it’s it’s such a sort of revelation that it even exists. You know, you’re sort of put in this world. I don’t know, do you want to? You could just sort of talk about that for our audience. The yeah, this could be an hour long expose, but it’s I’m going to shorten this as much as possible from being in that club

to to that album which was recorded under the name of Object back in the day. I think it’s 2001 or 98 or something. Around that on the on the Discogs link, yeah. 2001, yeah or 98, yeah. OK, so 2001 is the period I had a a very intense relationship

with techno. Let’s say from 92 till 999899 when I was DJing a lot, I was buying a lot of techno. I was DJing mostly Belgium, and around that period I became a

little bit fatigued with techno as a as a genre because it was, it was a moment during which things started to repeat themselves. You have that in every creative development of, of basically every art form, in every subsection of every subsection of every subsection of every art form. It’s fresh and then it’s no

longer fresh and it needs to go through a cycle of, of finding itself again and then something else happens and then a new start gets on the way and, and this process just repeats itself all the time. For me, that was the end of the cycle. 9899. I, I was buying records, which

after three weeks, I wasn’t even D Jing. I wasn’t even playing them anymore because I was like, how did I buy this? This sounds so much like all the other stuff I bought this year. So I sort of stopped D Jing for a while or D Jing techno for a while and I started doing all sorts of other things. Basically I went through like maybe 10 genres in one year, drum and bass, whatever.

And I ended up with more and more stripped down music, which I was getting into and I ended up just listening to, you know, very minimalistic, experimental electronic music. And it started to reflect in my own compositions and, and music work. Around the same time I decided

to start my first label. And that was also the first album ever I released that was this release, The Object.

And it, it kind of fits in a period where I was a little bit fed up with electronic dance music and I wanted something that pushed the envelope a little bit more. I always feel like techno and electronic dance music in general should be pushing the envelope the most, more more

than any other musical genre. It’s not happening. So it’s a frustration of mine that it’s not happening or it’s not happening enough, or it’s not happening as much as it used to for me. When you make this kind of music and you work with those kinds of tools, tools which go further than any other instrument humans have ever developed, you should

not be content with just sticking to a formula and repeating that we’re not Blues musicians. No, we are something completely different. So you need to push the envelope. And at that time, I felt that wasn’t happening enough. So I was trying to find music which did. And when I was exposed to that music, I said, well, how can I interpret that and how can I maybe put my voice in, in, in,

in that particular field? And that’s why this album was released. And that’s why there were maybe two other albums released after that. Then that that cycle for me then had its its end. And I kind of rolled back into techno after that. So it’s, it’s, it’s just, it’s just everything’s a cycle, right? Yeah, it’s got this amazing

sense of like trying to shake off that kind of like a sort of superficial level of what? Like the, the sort of certain subgenres might, you know, you could say this is tech house and this is fucking whatever. But yeah, it’s got this great sense of like getting at the structure of of what? Yeah, no, I, I really enjoyed it. So yeah, perhaps. It was, it was also a time in Europe where suddenly all these massive clubs were appearing and

festivals were appearing like we didn’t have electronic that music dance festivals before, right? Right. 93 or 92. I think it started in the UK 9192. But things that that happened outside were not festivals, they were raised and most of the time they were underground things with no commercial attachment

whatsoever. But around that 98992000 period, suddenly everything became big and commercial and the music suffered, Yeah. And that’s why that you know. I don’t know how much more time you guys have got, but we’d love to just before you have to go, we would love to talk about the

origin story of this project. Like as you’re, you know, at like the hear my eyes thing in general and like, and what it took to add to come to the level where you’re, you know, now at the scale where you’re taking it on the road. Because this is your first time, isn’t it on going to Sydney I believe like I haven’t seen. No, no, no, we’ve done, Yeah,

No, we’ve toured a bunch. Yeah. This will be the fourth time in Sydney.

Yeah. This is like boring stuff. So you can, you don’t have to dig deep on this, but Yeah, no, this will be the fourth time in Sydney. We’ve been to Brisbane twice, been to Adelaide twice and done a few regional shows and whatnot. But I mean, your question still remains. Like, I mean, my origin story is largely kind of what I touched

on before when I was living in Berlin at the time and finished my undergrad and was obsessed with cinema. And I was involved in a handful of experimental cinema groups in Berlin, like creating experimental short films and

doing a bunch of curation, as well as one group called Mobile Keno that did screenings in all films in locations that suited the suited the film. Like, you know, they showed Jaws on the back of a boat in the middle of the ocean at night.

We they showed Nosferatu like the original Nosferatu in an actually supposed haunted house. So, you know, like to really evoke that fear. So we’re doing Evolve with that group and having lots of fun there. And yeah, with some of those programmers and went to this

event at at Babylon Theatre. And I thought that was.

Yeah, it was. It was just like really gave birth to this idea of changing a film’s context by changing the music sonically. And it just made me think that, you know, a lot of film is quite a static art form. Like you think about lots of other art forms and they’re often given the opportunity to be remixed or whether it’s music

or visual art or theatre, it’s like, you know, lots of different interpretations of, of existing plays or, or works. It’s very accepted and you know, to continually have the the art form yeah grow through its through its director or writers

at like interpretation. But cinema, it’s kind of like it’s shot and it’s locked. But I love this conversations around the dinner table being like, oh, did you hear that, you know, the newly cast, this actor, the role for this how different film being if it had this actor instead of this one.

Do you hear that this director just missed out? Like you got this personal director and you know, it’s like you don’t really ever get to live that you can’t re cast an actor in a film totally like that. That can’t happen. You could re edit a film. That’s something that I’ve said a lot Like there’s like and the the role of an editor is huge on a film and especially nowadays

where everything’s shot like digitally with a million takes and million different angles. You know, how how different would there’s some of these modern films to be if you just gave it to a different editor and like, like as a film nerd would love to go down that path. And sure, you know, you can’t, you can’t really shoot a film. You can’t give it to another different cinematographer. But you know, they do like

Chrome versions. You know, they release black and white or Chrome versions of films. So there’s a different color grade. But yeah. Yeah. For some reason, it’s quite it touches a lot of nerves changing the music. Like, I think cinema is precious to a lot of people and they don’t, they’re not familiar with the idea of the art form being changed in any way and they take

it as an affront. But it doesn’t take too long to really put pieces together where it’s like the original score and the original version of the film will exist forever. No one is running that through a shredder, and it’s. And if you. If you’re not into it, you don’t have to come. No one pressuring you to come. But it’s like, I don’t think it’s an insult to the film or

the art form or the original director or or composition. If anything, it’s a compliment. It is for me. I’ve always said that I feel like human Eyes is a love letter to cinema because in my mind, if people go into the cinema and say, oh wow, I experienced this film so differently because the score is different. Like what if the lighting was

different? Like what if this was different? You know, like, it makes, it opens any people’s minds up to the various elements of the production of a film. Film is the most industrial of all art forms. You’ve got hundreds, sometimes thousands of people working on this piece of art. But, you know, all these artistic contributions come together in this amazing way.

I want people thinking about that and acknowledging that, not just in the score sense, but. Yeah. And then after that in Berlin, I moved to Melbourne and thought that I’d do it myself. And I had different friends and bands and I was doing programming here with the Melbourne International Film Festival and Human Rights Arts

and Film Festival and just started dipping my toe into curating these events. And yeah, just slowly, slowly over the last sort of been 11 years now, yeah, we’ve gotten incredible and bigger. Nice. Really, really nicely put. Is there a sort of sense for the

next year or years, something that’s just exciting to you or some sort of curatorial direction that is jumping out at you? I kind of go through phases like I’m very, very much, it’s a hard question to ask and I always get asked to impress when I’m like promoting a specific thing.

But I’m very, very much in like this project and delivering this project. And when this is the dust has settled, I will go back into programming and curatorial like mode. I don’t really have personally the brain space to be doing everything all at once. So and it’s really, I enjoy it. It’s so indulgent.

You just watch so many films at home. You watch listen to so much music. Like it’s a really romantic fun time. So I don’t really want to cram it in while I’ve got this. So I mean, I’ve got films that I’ve got licensed and I like musicians earmarked that I’d love to work with. But in terms of anything lined up or locked, it’s it’s not

there yet, OK. Cool. Makes a lot of sense. He’s not going to tell us, folks. We won’t get the scoop today. Enjoy the stay indulgently with this film and enjoy the premieres. Yeah, I think we’re nearly. Yeah, I think we’re probably going to, yeah. So it’s been really lovely to meet both of you the the way

that you want to re interrogate this this this film and Haydn, all these other films in particular does you both a great credit and it’s been really fun to talk. So thank you so much, Peter and Haydn. Yeah. Thank you so much for getting into the weeds with us. That was a really fascinating conversation. Yeah, absolute pleasure and thanks for having us on and you know, paying attention to this

project. You know, a lot of media put this put us in the too hard basket because it’s a little bit of a odd project. But yeah, thanks for showing interest and it’s been a great no. That’s quite all right. Odd is our bag. Well, thanks very much guys. You can you can catch hear my eyes coming to Sydney on the 25th of Feb, I believe.

Is that right? Yeah. Sydney is March 7th. March 7th. Oh, that’s the Melbourne dates. Yes, 7th of March. I will be inside. Great. Yeah, Sydney was coming. Great. We will add that. Yeah. Yeah. Nice.

Great. Well, it was really lovely to meet you both. We’ll see you around. Thank you, have a lovely day. All right, enjoy the rest of you. All right. Yeah, yeah, cool. Cheers. Bye. You can catch hear my eyes showing Terminator 2 Judgement Day scored by Peter Van Hoesen at the City Recital Hall on the 7th of March.

Please go. We will definitely be going and we will be relishing every loud ass bass note booty shaking bass with the with the custom sound system yeah really fun show that was that was cool discussion and we totally got him with the we

nod want him even though we promised we wouldn’t nod want anyone this season we. Did it was literally in the production meeting not to. I was like Matthew, no nod wag. And then Matt was like, I saw him. And you know what? Just as Nodwa does, the fucking artist loves it. Come on. It’s true. Yeah. Like they deserve it. He’s he’s a cool artist. Really interesting. Yeah, no, they’re both very open

and obviously very thoughtful and considered in the way that they think about art and film and music and life.

Show notes

Follow hungup on instagram @hungup.au Peter Van Hoesen Haydn (hear my eyes)  When Haydn's agent contacted us, we knew we had to talk to these guys.  Try and find a copy of Some of Peter's early work that we discuss. release the object  Get on the waitlist because this is now sold out!  https://www.cityrecitalhall.com/whats-on/events/hear-my-eyes-terminator-2-judgment-day/