Benji B talks with artist Devon Turnbull about the approach behind his common setup, HiFi Listening Room Dream No. 1.
Walking into Devon Turnbull’s HiFi Listening Room Dream No. 1 (2022), you may discover yourself transferred to a smoky jazz bar in 1962, a gong bath in India, a classical Spanish guitar recital, a twenty-minute speculative drone set in east London, or an improvised mosh pit of artists sounding like external area. It is at once energising, relaxing, euphoric, extreme–all things that music can make you feel, just more.
Listening Room’s gently carpeted seating platform reverse the peaceful wall of noise finishes its symphony of grey tones, the speakers sparkling at head height in an off-blue and silver hammered paint developing an enforcing, austere sculptural existence. The record gamer, amps, and associated modules are all handmade and commercial in look, each part important to the musical output.
Devon Turnbull hasactually been making hi-fidelity parts, club systems, and domestic-scaled speakers under the guise of Ojas for twenty years. His naturally generous listening practice and participatory viewpoint all stem from the much previously affects of transcendental meditation and his momsanddads’ gratitude of music and routine. A young Turnbull was soaked in these mentors however deserted them for a various kind of transportive experience through music, style, and art.
For this interview, DJ and veteran Turnbull fan Benji B stopped by throughout the 2nd setup of the Listening Room at Lisson Gallery in London in 2023 after its New York gallery hosted the launch of the system in2022 Their conversation varied far and broad, however this excerpt provides an insight into the believed and information behind Turnbull’s techniques and messages.
This function was initially released in Fact’s F/W 2023 concern, which is offered to purchase here.
Benji B: HiFi Listening Room Dream No. 1 is the conclusion of a lifetime of enthusiasm and experience. It’s an experience to be wellknown and be soakedup within.
Devon Turnbull: The finest method for this piece to live and work is that it be entirely democratic and offered to everybody for complimentary. That’s part of the appeal of it, too. You’re sharing something which is generally really much gated, however you’re doing it in a method that’s like, “Hey, if you’re at all interested in this, if you’re curious about it, simply stop in and invest time.” The finest is when there’s 10 individuals or less there and individuals simply wind up lying down flat and taking a nap. I’m 100 per cent cool with that. When individuals puton’t feel any pressure, they end up having the inmost kind of psychological experience.
BB: Absolutely. I believe that’s a truly great location to dive off in our chat. You’ve currently possibly gothere at the most essential part. It’s not the technical information, it’s not even what record you’re playing. It’s the reality that you haveactually takenapart the snobbery around something which was formerly unattainable. You are atthesametime part of a ‘secret society’ of audiophile specialists and yet you haveactually made items that are available to the rest of the world. It’s a universal fact that almost everybody values music, so in a method, we have a lot to thank you for by opening a door for individuals to experience quality, for individuals to experience a meditative component to music that I believe unconsciously they understand is there, however sanctuary’t always had the right environment.
DT: Absolutely. There’s a lot to unpack there. When it comes to listening to music, the set and setting are so crucial. That’s kind of what led me down the course of structure my own hi-fi equipment, of desiring to have as deep as possible an understanding of the entire signal chain in order to have a closer relationship with music, and likewise producing sort of a shrine for music in my home so that I provide myself that area to listen to music.
This is a journey that I’ve been on for about twenty years. I feel like I can’t keepinmind a time when I didn’t care about having an audio system that I desired to sit and listen to. Even when I was a DJ, when I was playing hip-hop and electronic music, it was the main method I was gathering records. I believe we have jointly fallen into that thing of, “Oh, I can listen to all the music in the world,” and then it simply endsupbeing background music; however there’s not enough attention to the real procedure of listening to music. I began finding this entire culture of individuals that listen to music as their main drive, and I truly determined with that. It can endupbeing a quite reclusive pastime, however I developed some buddies who were likewise interested in it and I ultimately shared it with some individuals who idea that it was unique sufficient to shouldhave a bigger platform, which is what we’re doing here.
BB: We might state that right now we’re at the most ideal, preferable, dream-utopia level of the scalable concept which is inside Lisson Gallery, a ideal area to listen to your ideal noise system. But for those individuals that may not be able to make it to London, I understand that within you, you understand that the assisting concepts are scalable, and that the structures of a excellent noise system to value music are appropriate on a modest scale all the method through to the one at Lisson. So, what would you state those concepts are and what are the structures of setting up a noise system no matter what your suggests?
DT: I shot not to get too dogmatic about philosophical perspectives on what makes a excellent noise system or what makes excellent music.
BB: Maybe the objective, then.
DT: Yeah, the objective is the essential part. I like extremely effective speakers. I like minimalist, low-power amplifiers. I like that kind of formula for having a really psychological, visceral, textural kind of noise. Audio engineering as a entire is a huge location of academiccommunity, basically. There are lotsof methods to go about developing a speaker or a noise system. So what I inform individuals when they ask me, “How can I findout how to do what you do?” is that you must simply listen to as much things as you can, as numerous chances as you can to hear as numerous various noise systems as possible. Don’t be frightened. You can have an psychological connection with so numerous various types of noise systems. Find the one that truly speaks to you, and then simply researchstudy it. There is a low expense of entry for any one approach, whether it’s high performance, whether it’s an open-baffle full-range kind of thing, or simply a relatively standard three-way tower speaker. Find something that you recognize with, researchstudy it. And then discover methods of structure your own development, influenced by the thing that you understand you like.
BB: That’s a lovely response. And in a method today hasactually been, in my individual life, the ideal symptom of that mindset. This earlymorning I woke up listening to your bookshelf speakers with a streaming gadget. Then I relocation to my studio, where I’m listening to rather difficult conventional studio keepsaneyeon, and then onto something utilizing an EMT turntable and a much more hi-fi setup. And now I’m in the holy grail at your noise system at Lisson. And in a sense, those 4 experiences of my day were appropriate and completely right for each specific minute. And perhaps in a method, that leads us back to one of the initial things that you pointed to which is context, duetothefactthat so much of your work is about context. You have a shrine in your home for music. Downstairs definitely feels like a shrine to music. Talk to me about music in its environment and how that’s a huge part of your vision.
DT: I believe that light and air are essential elements of takingpleasurein listening to music. I make smells for listening to music too. People simply walk in and they whisper before they even walk into the space. They sit down, they typically close their eyes. It’s not unusual for somebody to start sobbing in that environment. People have informed me that they’ve had the realisation that they’ve kind of lost touch with this psychological context for listening to music. I believe part of that is not having an undetectable music listening system. There’s an element of that that’s psychosomatic. But if you are playing a file from the web and there’s no anchor for your music listening, of course it’s going to be background music. That’s