Parallel Worlds

With Maps And Transit, The Georgia Guitar Quartet's Kyle Dawkins Merges His Acoustic, Electric And Classical Tendencies

originally published January 30, 2008

Kyle Dawkins knows how to play guitar. Not only that, but he can read it, make out with it, research its storied past, and sit on a stage with three other of his ilk and spin the avant garde into the accessible and back again. As a member of the Georgia Guitar Quartet, Dawkins has enjoyed a large measure of success in some esteemed circles. He released the solo guitar album Conasauga in 2002, and an ambient/ electronic album called Walls Became the World in 2005.

As Maps and Transit, however, he's been navigating below the radar for a while now on his own. Far from eschewing his love for things that are plucked, his brand of bedroom electronic music incorporates guitar, banjo and any number of things with strings, weaving them into ambient billows awoken by pastoral folk and caffeinated by beats with one foot on the dance floor.

This isn't as far from the GGQ as he could get, but it's a decided and refreshing difference. "Tendrils" and "Our Happy Life" are the two most readily available tracks to sample, as they are featured on Maps and Transit's MySpace profile (www.myspace.com/mapsandtransit). Both could fit comfortably on a Warp Records release were it not for the key ingredient in their sound: an organic touch over which the laptop never gains dominance. There's never a sense that anything is straying too far from beautiful simplicity; rather, there's the feeling one gets when first hearing the Books and their collage technique.

Dawkins recently answered a few questions to shed some light on this direction:

Flagpole

Not many of us know much about your work outside the Georgia Guitar Quartet. Could you give some brief background info on how Maps and Transit got started, what inspired you and how long you've been into ambient/ minimal techno?

Kyle Dawkins

I've been composing music on my laptop for the last five or six years. Mostly it's just been me tweaking and processing my own guitar/ banjo playing in ways that interest me. A lot of that stuff has been difficult to recreate live, so I've been taking a more minimal "real time" approach to my own music.

That's basically what Maps and Transit is, more of a live extension of the home stuff. The last few years, I've been inspired by people like Fennesz, Max Richter, et al. Type Records puts out some amazing music, too! Coming from a classical background myself, I've been inspired by artists who are marrying that tradition with modern technology and the colors and sounds of the world we live in now.

Flagpole

How is it to work alone in a more solitary sound world? I think of Maps and Transit's sort of style as involving time holed up, almost surgically layering sound, clipping and arranging, etc., but done in a less clinical way than most. How is it different from being in such a proficient and demanding genre such as classical?

Kyle Dawkins

With the quartet there are three other musicians to bounce ideas off of, so you get energized by the group dynamic. With my own stuff, it's just me alone with my own brain, so that can be hit or miss sometimes when I get the knobs and wires out and create something. With Maps and Transit, I've been embracing a less fussy approach - a lot more stripped down as opposed to stacking up as many sounds as my processor can handle.

Flagpole

What are your plans for the near future with Maps and Transit? Shows? Releases?

Kyle Dawkins

I'd like to play out more with this project just because I think it would work better live than a lot of the stuff I've written in the past. My wife Julie has been helping me out a lot, playing bass, mbira and glockenspiel on a few songs and some laptop manipulation.

We're playing a short set at the AUX event on February 23, curated by Heather McIntosh. We're also playing a couple of pieces at the Melting Point on February 11 as part of the Valentine's Day "Hoot" organized by Susan Staley.

Flagpole

It's obvious that the experimental scene in town has really started to get exciting, thanks to Long Legged Woman, Sweet Teeth and Chartreuse, to name just a few. Do you notice that things in this realm are starting to pull together? It would be fantastic to put Athens on the experimental/ ambient map.

Kyle Dawkins

Oh, definitely. There's some great stuff going on right now in Athens in the ambient/ experimental department. Athens has such an open-minded community of listeners that aren't hung up so much on genres. I think people around here just want to listen to good music no matter what kind it is.

I would love for more closet ambient/ experimental composers to get out and play live more, and not be intimidated that people won't get it.

Flagpole

Do you plan on shifting further in a beat-oriented direction or more ambient direction or do you predict you'll stay sort of in-between for a while?

Kyle Dawkins

I'm working on some songs for a new album. Some of the songs definitely have a more "rock" feel contrasted with more quiet introspective moments. The main pallet I've been working with mostly though is folk instruments: banjo, mandolin, guitar, etc. with various digital manipulations thrown in here and there.

I've always loved the sound of things you have to pluck, so I'm sure those will be my main source material for a while, at least.

Michael Wehunt