Now Playing: The Best Is Noise - The Body is the Biggest Recorder Possible (an interview with Shelley Hirsch)

When I was walking around Greenpoint with Shelley Hirsch, I envied the way she hears the world. She listens to everything - Radiohead's "Creep" playing at a coffee shop, Hindustani singing playing from a speaker hanging above boxes of used records on the sidewalk, the particular cadence of a word she happens to say, birds chirping. What struck me most was how present she was in the sounds of the world.

As she says in her piece, "States" (1997), "the body is the biggest recorder possible." In her compositions, she soaks up the world and spits it out in glorious sonic streams of collages and consciousness that are fragrant with themes of childhood, city living, sex, and the absurd. Even if performing isn't her favorite thing (composing is, I learned), seeing her live is like watching a peacock in a ritual dance, and hearing her sing is like hearing all of nature blossoming forth from one body. Her whole oeuvre is a lesson in getting out of heads and into our bodies.

Ahead of the world premiere of her piece, "And So It Was and Was and WaAAass," at Roulette Intermedium on January 23, I interviewed her as cars honked below and jet engines rushed above. I learned about how she found her voice, what it feels like to get yourself into a trance-like state, the younger generation of experimentalists (like the demonic Ka Baird), and how an exercise in sex positions led to a year of opera singing lessons.

It was such an honor to be present with her.

(Photo courtesy Roulette)