Brooklyn-based visual artist and musician Hisham Bharoocha has had his plate full as of late. Sole founder and member of Soft Circle, Bharoocha released a split 12 inch with High Places (available on iTunes now) in July, has shown his photography and collage work in multiple group shows, and most recently has launched two projects with Sound Screen Design.

The first of which, released in October, is part of the label’s Artist Music Journal series, a collaboration with artists and musicians in the form of small, limited edition art books. Bharoocha’s book, the fourth in the series, includes collage work and installation drawings inspired in part by his music and notions of sound and rhythm.

Bharoocha’s second project with Sound Screen Design, Musician as Designer, is a series of musician designed t-shirts. Bharoocha has designed a shirt for the project, and additionally is curating those designed by Eye (Boredoms), Bjorn Copeland (Black Dice), Zach Hill (Hella/Wavves), Brian Degraw (Gang Gang Dance), and others who are yet to be announced.

Bharoocha graciously answered a few questions for Dossier via email, expounding on these two projects, and his creative processes both artistically and musically.

Could you describe your book a bit?

This book is one in a series Sound Screen Design has published, in which musicians who are also visual artists make artist books.  Some of the other artists who have made books or will be making them are Daniel Higgs, Bongout, Bjorn Copeland (Black Dice), Brian Roettinger (Hand Held Heart) to name a few.

I decided to create an archive of my past collage work and a few mural collage/drawings I’ve done.  These works all felt like they directly related to sound in one way or another. I also put some more transitional works in the book that describe how my ideas are moving towards minimalism and my interest in mental associations to certain imagery, particularly how we think of ‘nature’, spirituality and discovery.  This is my first artist book and I was very excited for it to come out.  

As I understand it, the aim of the Artist Music Journal is to display the “inseparable connection between music and art.”  How did being both artist and musician influence your work for this book?

I feel the collages and murals I have included in the book have a lot to do with rhythm and movement. This can be movement created internally in the mind or the simple visceral experience of looking at visual work and creating a rhythm with ones eyes while absorbing a composition.  The collages and murals are created with a cyclical rhythm in mind, where the eye can wander about without a start or end point.  This is an aspect you can see in a lot of my music as well.  I like music that is cyclical and trance inducing, where one gets lost in the composition.

Also, how similar are your processes when making art and music?

I feel the beginning of both processes are very similar for me.  In creating visual work, I will make a mark, then I build upon that mark by creating a relationship between the line or object with another mark and so on until the composition feels finished.  The same goes with music.  I will build sounds based on the first mark while adding and taking away elements until it feels complete.  I think about negative space the same way with music as well as visual art.  You must have negative space to have the rhythm really vibrate.

As someone who seems to be constantly creating and doing so in various media, what are some of your influences? And do you draw from the same influences for both music and your art?

I am influenced by all the creative mediums with which I come into contact.  In New York it’s constant and the internet has so much information as well- I get quite overwhelmed often by how many amazing things are being made all the time.

In terms of visual artists I love Gabriel Orozco, Rosemarie Trockel, Lothar Hempel, Katharina Grosse, Rinko Kawauchi, Dieter Roth, Richard Tuttle, Francis Bacon, Hans Arp- to name just a few I’ve been enjoying recently. I’ve been really excited by artists who create a sense of capturing moments that have passed and make work that conveys the air of that moment in which the artist created the work.  I like the idea of art work that can only exist temporarily in a space in which it is created, where a record of it’s creation exists but the experience for the artist has passed. The finished product is the remnants of what the artist experienced in the space, which is then something that is only left in the memory bank of the mind. This is the beauty of life and I feel this idea, of moments being experienced then passing, is something I think about when creating my installation work.  I like to make something where you feel the concentration I’ve put into the work but I am absent,and the work will be erased from the wall or room when the exhibition is over.  This is also a reference to Tibetan sand mandala paintings.

In terms of music I love all different types of music, but I feel my work is influenced by musicians/composers who use cyclical movement such as Steve Reich or Terry Riley.  I love techno music like Basic Channel, Omar S, Wolfgang Voigt, Plastikman, and Aphex Twin.  I also love traditional drumming music from Africa, as well as Brazilian Batucada music. There’s a Portugese band called Buraka Som Sistema that I was listening to all summer. I am also a big fan of death metal and love bands such as Cannibal Corpse, Meshuggah, Morbid Angel, Pestilence, and Decapitated.  The relationship between all this music in my mind is that it all creates a drone that can relate to a meditative state of mind, as well as an overwhelmed mind where thought cannot exist.  Once the music starts and you get into the feel of it, you don’t think about the beginning or the end of the composition- you get lost and go into a trance inducing state.  I love this feeling and often try to create it within my music as well.

Although I must admit I have recently been into creating songs which have lyrics, verses, and a chorus because it is a new challenge for me to make short concise songs.  I come from an experimental, improvisational background, and I believe we all have to challenge ourselves to move forward.

You expressed that your book captures an “era of development” for you. I was wondering if you could describe this era for us.

H: In art school I was concentrating on making photographic and video works.  When I finished school I didn’t have access to the dark room or video editing equipment, so I started making collages.  These kept developing and I ended up making them a large part of my practice. These collages seem to show how I was trying to make work that was overwhelming in content.  I started creating the murals because I felt the scale of doing drawings on the wall was moving, and I wanted to overwhelm people with an experience.  This has led to me to create more minimal works in which I challenge myself to make less marks. I believe this makes the viewer concentrate on each mark more intently, as well as concentrate on the symbolism of each element within a composition.

I know you are also designing and curating a musician-designed t-shirt series. Was your design inspired by your music? What musicians are you working with? And have you found any synesthetic correlations between the musicians designs and their music?

With the t-shirt series the goal is for the artists who usually make merchandise for their bands to create something where they don’t have to think about their own band or put their band logo on the shirt.  This is a project for musicians who make visual work to take a break from thinking about their bands and to challenge themselves to make something that they wouldn’t usually create.

Some of the other artists who will create shirts are Eye (Boredoms), Bjorn Copeland (Black Dice), Zach Hill (Hella/Wavves), Brian Degraw (Gang Gang Dance) and a few more we haven’t solidified yet.  There will be some more amazing artists I promise!

In terms of my shirt, it is reminiscent of my music as it creates a rhythm through the way the deign was printed.  With music it is obvious that the sound waves are absorbed by your ears as well as your body and you create an opinion about the experience you are having through your body.  With the work you see in the book as well as the t-shirt, you can see that it relates to rhythm because the works vibrate. I am extremely interested in this vibration and I am always trying to figure out ways to make it happen in different forms.

Lastly, it’s been awhile since the release of Full Bloom, are you working on a follow-up? Also, you showed at Fuse Gallery this year, any other shows on the horizon?

H: I am currently working on a new Soft Circle album that will hopefully be coming out this upcoming spring on a label called PPM, which is Dean Spunt from No Age’s label.  He is a great guy to work with, completely supportive of the artist.  I had a split 12 inch record with the band High Places (it can also be bought on iTunes) that came out in July.  I can’t wait to get the album done, it’s been a while since I’ve been able to get more music out there.

I’ve been in many group shows since that Fuse show but I am currently working on a new body of work, as well as collaborations with different artists such as Aviram Cohen and Ahonen + Lamberg.  I am also working on doing more artist residencies this next year, as well as doing a lot of touring for the album

Make sure to check out Bharoocha’s website, www.hishamb.com and these two projects over at Sound Screen Design.

Barnard College BBQ Slam Jam Bam Bam
Address: 117th + Broadway, near the 1 train 116th st stop.

The lineup:
12 – 12:30 acrylics
12:45 – 1:15 liturgy
1:30 – 2:00 metalux
2:15 – 2:45 xeno and oaklander
3:00 – 3:30 free blood
3:45 – 4:15 packfm
4:15 – 4:45 soft circle
4:45 – 6:15 WBAR DJ Set
6:15 – 6:30 gang gang dance

I’m tempted to label this show ‘challenging,’ for a couple of reasons. Firstly there’s the purely logistical challenge of standing on cold concrete to take in full sets by five different bands. If you count set-up, performance, and take-down, each set averages out to roughly an hour in duration.

On a more casual platform (i.e. my blog) I described the aggregate of the genres on display Saturday night as “jazz-influenced mostly-instrumental avant-punk” (except for White Hills, who could be pretty straight-forwardly described as ‘psych’, unless you think psych is dead, in which case they can be called ‘neo-psych’). If anybody who is a fan of these bands is reading right now they’re probably scoffing at my designation of ‘challenging’ in the first place and maybe they’ve stopped reading now that I said that thing about avant-punk up there. But at one point I was standing along the wall near the door waiting for Jonas Reinhardt to go on and I noticed this older, clean-cut, jogging-shoes-wearing dude talking to these two well-underage kids who were there, and I realized that he was one of those kid’s dad. And as he leaned back against the wall beside me and checked his watch and stuck his earplugs back in when JR began their set, I had to consider things from his perspective; I thought to myself, ‘this shit must sound weird as hell and this scene must look weird as hell to somebody without a strong frame of reference.’ Same thing happened to me as I was watching Gran Torino; I began to see the world from an older person’s perspective. Horrors. 

      Anyhow, there was a show. White Hills was a loud and effective examination of the art of the crescendo. Soft Circle was an occasionally mind-blowing display of what one man and modern technology can accomplish within a live setting. Arp was a dreamy segue during which time many people decided to talk/stretch their legs/go to the bathroom. Jonas Reinhardt made some people dance even while the drummer spent a few minutes wandering around backstage looking for another kick for his bass drum. Aa seem to be popular enough in BK that I don’t feel especially bad for bailing early and missing most of their swirling circle of drums and screams and therefore having not much to say about them except, Wish I coulda toughed it out, dudes.

Soft Circle, solo project of Lightning Bolt- and Black Dice-alum Hisham Bharoocha, is performing at the Knitting Factory this Saturday as part of a night of film and music curated by Portland duo Quasi. Also on the bill are Sic Alps, Marnie Stern, Crystal Stilts and Jeff Lewis. If you haven’t seen Hisham perform live, I suggest you get yourself to the Knitting Factory Saturday at 8 pm, or come to Glasslands tonight (289 Kent Ave), where Soft Circle plays with Bird Show, Sun Circle and Infinity Shadow.

Artist and one-man-band Hisham Bharoocha (aka Soft Circle) and Sumi Ink Club co-founders Sarah Andersen and Luke Fishbeck of Lucky Dragons met to discuss collaborative drawing, life after New York, and the world’s tiniest outdoor museum.

Luke: What is a “soft circle”?

Hisham: It’s like, say you went to the beach and you’ve been swimming all day and you’re tired from the sun. And you’re headed home in your car and you’re just…that feeling of just feeling so soft. Or when you’re in love and you’re feeling that joy from being stoked about something. Just about anything, I guess. It always feels like a soft ball of light or something — that’s where that name came from. I didn’t want it to have something to do with my name, because I thought it would be weird if I wanted to have people play with me.

Luke: I love the idea of having a different identity, a “band identity.”

Hisham: I liked it when I’d go see The Thrones and it was just him, but he’d always say, “Hi, we’re The Thrones.” I thought that was funny.

Luke: Have you played with other people as Soft Circle?

Hisham: I’ve done some collaborative shows. One of my favorite friends to play with is Rob A. A. Lowe, who does his solo thing called Lichens, and plays in the band Singer. He’s really fun to play with because we’re totally on the same vibe.

Luke: Oh man, I think we’ve committed to having to fill this entire thing with pattern.

Hisham: [Laughing] That is pretty, that’s sort of why I did the big marks.

Luke: It’s funny, my brush strokes are getting bigger than they were at the beginning. Do you think you’ll live in New York forever?

Hisham: I don’t think so, but then I don’t really know where else I would go. I guess that’s what everybody thinks about when they think about moving, but I like New York even though it is sort of turning into a big mall. The people who I like that make stuff are still there, still happily making stuff. So, I don’t know, I guess it depends. Do you have any place that you would imagine going after L.A.?

Luke: I don’t know, we just got in the habit of doing things in this city. I have been thinking that, as much as you’re thinking things have been going downhill where you live, they’re probably going even more downhill somewhere else. And as much as you feel like things are better somewhere else, they’re probably getting better where you live, too. I used to think so much about moving; all the time, I was like, “I wanna see this place, I wanna do that.” I don’t even like touring that much. I like sitting at home.

Hisham: That’s because you’re so busy having to do it all the time. I remember when I was touring a lot more and I just wanted to be home chilling. It makes you totally lose yourself after a while.

Luke: I was just having this revelation the other day, that almost all of my friends who make music are on tour constantly, just playing the same show every night somewhere different. It’s such a weird way to live.

Hisham: It gives you opportunities, but it also creates its own monotony.

Luke: I think it’s a musician’s duty, because I feel an artist’s duty is to be able to share what you have, in terms of creative talent — that’s how artists affect people the most. You can move somebody with what you do, whether it’s music or visual, and that hopefully inspires people to do something creative with their life — or just to take that joy with them. That’s something that’s important to me.

Hisham: This music is getting into the drawing. Get out of my drawing! I’ve been trying to get more minimal these days, but it’s still kind of hard.

Luke: [Laughing] It’s especially hard when it’s collaborative, because you want to give the other guy some space — draw over here, draw over there — and there’s this fear of empty spaces.

Hisham: I really like it when people can pull it off though. It’s so amazing. Do you have any upcoming projects?

Luke: We’re opening an art museum.

Hisham: Oh, really?

Luke: We’re going to build one.

Hisham: No way.

Luke: I mean, it’s not that major, but I guess it sounds major.

Sarah: It sounds major, but it’s a tiny museum, maybe five feet tall. In Elysian Park.

Luke: There’s an old nature trail that’s been abandoned and we’re sort of reclaiming it and turning it into an art museum.

Sarah: And its [going to be] retrospective in one wing, and then one wing is going to be a project space for whatever artists want to do.

Hisham: Wow, that sounds pretty awesome.

Luke: If you ever want to do anything, that’d be awesome, but you’d have to accept it if the work is stolen or vandalized. Because it’ll be outdoors, it has to be geared toward that understanding. And there will be a book for every show that’s there.

Sarah: I’m so excited. I can’t wait to have gatherings in Elysian park.

Hisham: How did you guys come up with that idea?

Luke: I found the trail, and I was like “Oh, what is this?”.

Sarah: We were inspired by people that squat galleries and squat stores. We were scouting around for a place we could squat here to do art shows. But it’s not clear what’s going on in L.A. most of time with empty properties, so we decided that we should do one that is accessible 24 hours a day. And is in a beautiful place.

Luke: It’s a great mix of accessible and hidden. Our friend Ron was going to do a thing where he took people on walks to Elysian Park and call it “Elysian Park — it’s right over there.”

Sarah: It was kind of like Sumi Ink Club, but for landscape drawings — people would gather and make a drawing of Elysian Park.

Hisham: How did the Sumi Ink Club start?

Sarah: It started when Luke and I started drawing together. We developed a set of rules together that would work well for larger groups, and then we just opened it up to people in Providence. [When] we moved out to L.A., it became a lot bigger and a lot more work, and a lot more people involved and a lot better. Now it’s at a level where Luke and I don’t even have to be there for a meeting of Sumi Ink Club. People write to us for instructions for how to do it, and then they conduct their own meetings and post their drawings on the internet.

Luke: This is a really crazy skull, isn’t it?

Sarah: I love that drawing, it’s so beautiful. I love the orange.

Hisham: I’ve been getting way more into monochrome recently. I’m obsessed with the space you put in between a line.

Sarah: Especially with black, the white kind of pops up all of a sudden. It’s really in your face, almost as if the black is ground that you never realized was there, and the white drawing was there all along. Yeah, I really like that too.

Hisham: This part looks like sea urchins.

Luke: Yeah, it’s gonna get there.

Image courtesy Hisham Bharoocha.

Check out our friend Hisham Bharoocha aka Soft Circle tomorrow (Wednesday, August 27th), at 9:00 at LIT. Blanko & Noiry (Frank Haines and Chris Kachulis), Drawlings (Abby Portner of Rings solo) and Lone Wolf (Ryan Sawyer solo) also perform. Six bucks. See you there.