1: Analog or Digital?

both. I have an analog synth but use digital effects; often I record to tape but then rip the tapes and play around with them in a DAW.

2: What time did you wake up today?

I was awakened at 8:20 this morning by an apartment maintenance crew.

3: Last thing you read?

I’m currently reading Philip Larkin’s Collected Poems. The last thing I finished was The Age of Reason by Jean-Paul Sartre

4: Whats your first memory?

Playing in a green turtle kiddie pool on the back deck of my parent’s house.

5: Tea Or Coffee?

Coffee in the morning, tea in the afternoon.

6: Last thing you cooked?

Steel cut oats with brown sugar, walnuts and cranberries.

7: If you’re reborn who or what would you like to be?

A life form that is capable of an even more profound intellectual, spiritual and creative experience than Homo Sapiens are. Perhaps some cloud-like composite consciousness?

8: What inspires you?

So many things. All the standards: books, films, records, shows, art, nature, friends, meditation, animals, science. Maybe the best answer is: The Universe?

9: Last record you played?

Dub Taylor – Lumiere

10: Favorite piece of musical equipment?

Duh, my dot com modular synth.

11: Last movie you saw?

Did a doubleheader last night: Walter Hill’s The Driver and Alan Pakula’s The Parallax View (thanks Paul Clipson!)

12: Who do you love?

I’m trying to cultivate love for all sentient beings.

13: Do you have any pets?

Not anymore. :( My cat Robert was the most amazing fully-enlightened transcendental Buddha cat of all time but he was hit by a car and killed a few weeks ago.

14: Are you useful?

Such a loaded question! I’ve always liked what Eno has to say about the use of culture being a kind of collective exercise for the imaginative part of the brain, a form of game-playing that allows humans to ask “what if…” and try out different models of reality. I know that other people’s art has been extremely “useful” in my life and so I just hope I can reciprocate a little bit.

15: Biggest fear?

That humanity will be unable to foster skillful strategies of large-scale cooperation and will thus squander the amazingly precious opportunity we’ve been given by the cosmos.

16: What do you value the most?

Being able to appreciate the experience of being a conscious entity in this world and communicate with others about it.

17: Famous last words?

Duuhh…me inbred.

Matt Carlson has contributed to various projects over the ears including Bonus, The Parenthetical Girls and Oregon Painting Society. His stunning and explorative solo work is recently exemplified in ‘Gecko Dream Levels’ on Gift Tapes. As one half of Golden Retriever (with Joanathan Sielaff), Root Strata is pleased to present their debut LP ‘Light Cones‘, due out September 13th.