We chat with The Discretes about their collaborative proecess, creativity, and more surrounding their new album Immersive new album In Sore Bless, which weaves art rock, ambient, noise, and trip-hop influences into a captivating listening experience

How did the two of you initially connect, and what sparked the decision to collaborate as The Discretes?

We met at a Diamanda Galas concert in NYC. We were seated next to each other and after the concert, we were both under Galas’ spell and lingered for a while talking about the experience. We briefly talked about our own projects and CECILIA told me about her current projects including a new record she was working on. That record eventually became Adoration released on Halcyon Veil. I got a copy of the LP when it came out and became a fan. That coincided with a transitional period for me, not having enough time to commit to playing in a band and working on occasional solo projects. I also became interested in electronic and synth sounds and more importantly, wanted to follow up on my long term aspiration to collaborate with a singer. We had kept in touch, occasionally sharing works in progress and I began to get a stronger sense of CECILIA’s intuitive creativity and story telling, both of which I admired. I asked if she’d be interested in a collaboration and presented a couple of instrumental drafts as examples. She graciously agreed and we decided to make a record together.

CECILIA, after over a decade of producing your own solo work, In Sore Bless marks your first time stepping strictly into the role of vocalist. What was it like letting go of instrumental control and relying entirely on Ali’s production?

I think somehow the challenge of letting go of control was the whole point, a big part of the excitement to do this project. I was surely scared to ‘just’ sing, it was definitely outside my comfort zone. I never thought of myself as a singer. Although my voice is very important and often the center of gravity in the making of my music, I use it more as the voice of an actress I would be directing to lead my psychic script. I’ve always felt that this voice could only fit within the context of my own productions, that it could only serve and make sense within my own world.

But then, the instrumental demos Ali sent me were beautiful and moving enough that I felt inspired to focus only on vocals. They also sounded fresh to my ears, different enough from what I do, and from the collaborations I’d done previously, to pique my curiosity and spark my drive. I saw it as an opportunity to challenge myself as a singer and lyricist, and have fun with it. Writing lyrics is something I’ve never really separated from composition, recording, or even mixing. In my own work, all of these processes overlap and inform one another. I’ve also always relied heavily on improvisation with all of these elements when composing. But this time I had to approach the writing in a slightly more conscious and deliberate way. It was quite instructive.

The concept of creativity acting as a “bandpass filter” — cutting through life’s noise to focus on what moves you — is a central theme of this release. How did that philosophy guide the actual writing and recording sessions for the record?

A bandpass filter is the equivalent of zooming in, zooming out and focusing but in audio. You pick a center frequency which is your focal point, and then dial in a narrow or wide range of frequencies around that frequency. A common technique is to set a narrow bandpass filter to sweep a range of frequencies to hone in on a frequency you want to amplify or conversely to sweep for a frequency you want to reduce.

We all exist in life’s noise which can blur our focus and make it a struggle to listen and hear clearly, to find an un-fractured perspective, to find balance. Creativity is a way to refocus. You hone in on the frequencies you want to amplify and at the same time also reduce interfering frequencies. It’s a fitting analogy and in practical terms, during the production of the record, the acts of focusing, zooming in or out, become tools in cultivating and maintaining creative momentum. We can apply the same ideas to a workflow where we regularly alternate a narrower and wider focus, where we add layers to achieve greater density or strip layers to create space, experiment and come back with fresh ears after working on a different song.

Are there specific writers or artists whose presence felt particularly strong while working on these songs?

CECILIA — I personally found myself returning to the poetry of Marie Uguay, a Québécois poet I love. She only published one collection before dying of bone cancer in 1981, at the age of 26. Her writing is visceral, rooted in a body struggling on the edge of death, yet filled with an intense desire to live and a deep awareness of the sensual miracle of being alive. I was also rereading Fires (Feux) by Marguerite Yourcenar, which to me is her most intimate and poetic book. She speaks through reimagined figures from Greek mythology to process her own experiences of love, loss, and destruction. Reading it was like listening to a devastated post-catastrophe piece of music, shattered but still in motion, unraveling vivid visions of tragic events. And then there was Dalida, not so much her music as her presence, almost as a mythological figure. At some point during the recording of In Sore Bless, I was watching a lot of her interviews and listening to her songs, so moved by the way she carried grief, melancholy, longing, and glamour all at once.

Ali, given your background in recording and noise experimentation, how did CECILIA’s vocal approach influence the way you structured and layered the instrumentals around her voice?

CECILIA’s work contains an innate experimental dimension which was immediately engaging to me and I took many cues from her music. I imagined a starting point as a rough sketch, just the seed of a rhythm and harmonic background, somewhat minimal and fairly repetitive. The idea was to provide a staging ground and space for CECILIA to build a narrative and her vocals on. The driving melodies are all her singing and in some instances instruments were added to accent her vocals.
I would say my approach in establishing a base or fundamental vocal track was fairly traditional but open to more experimentation and exploration in trying to shape certain sonics, combining or alternating a more intimate proximity and a more spacious, ethereal sound.

The tracks move fluidly between English, French, and Italian. What usually dictates which language best suits a particular song, and does shifting languages alter the vocal energy or delivery?

Nothing besides intuition and trial-error dictates which language I’ll sing in, it all happens quite simply and naturally. Each language surely has its own energy and contours of delivery, reflecting my relationship with each one. In French, I feel more playful and free to deconstruct language and explore the sound of words, although I’m also more critical and easily prone to cringing. That gives a kind of restrained feel and contemplative mood I think. I like English to work with simpler ideas and a more direct emotional language; play with clichés and love song/pop song familiar tropes. There’s something more immediate about it, where simplicity can create a clear impact. I rarely write in Italian. When I do it’s mostly as pedagogical exercises to keep learning and improving. But for Remedium, I went back to a diary fragment from 2018, a letter I never sent to a crush I had while living in Napoli. It seemed like it had been written by a ten-year-old. I couldn’t really explain why I wanted to use it.

From four-track tape to detuned oscillators, the record carries a very tactile, analog weight. What key instruments, gear, or studio techniques were crucial in capturing the album’s distinct soundscapes?

As a mainly long distance collaboration, production was an incremental process. We invested more time in the early stages, into trying to define the sounds and approaches that we liked and inspired us the most. As an interesting collection of sounds began to emerge, our workflow also evolved. In the recording phase, we followed an “all is fair” approach out of necessity so the means and methods were a medley of spaces and gear. The anchor environment was the venerable institution of home recording with occasional use of a studio, and a rehearsal space. There was an assortment of gear, fairly inconsistent as a whole among the songs. In the mixing phase, we were able to get a good chunk of consecutive days dedicated to further sound shaping and overall cohesion.

To list some specific gear – vocals used various mics but most of the takes on the record used a Sennheiser MD 441-U. On acoustic guitar, I tried different mics but what made the biggest difference was using flat wound strings. Mixing is where everything came together and passed through a predominantly analog chain twice. One pass through an APB Dynasonics H1020 mixer to make instrumental and vocal stems and another pass printing the stems onto tape on a TEAC A-3340. A notable compressor I’d like to mention was a SKnote Vastaso and a notable equalizer, the GOLY PQ2. For time based effects, a Jomox T-Resonator II and the Meris Mercury7 helped push sounds further. I can’t say there were any secret or ground-breaking techniques, just repeated passes or explorations, not to achieve a hi-fi sound but a warm, brooding, resonant, thick or patinaed (as CECILIA likes to describe it) sound, as suits best the expression of the song.

If you could collaborate with any artist, alive or dead, who would it be?

Ali – This is an intimidating question! Going with the dead option, I’d like to take the opportunity to time travel to pre recorded music times or perhaps to the early days of the wax cylinder. It would be interesting to undertake a musical tour of the world, armed with a good digital handheld recorder, ca. 900 AD. Or take a drone-y synth and an electric guitar to early 1900’s Istanbul and jam with Tanburi Cemil Bey.

CECILIA — Spontaneously, without thinking too much about it, I would say the contemporary dance theatre company Peeping Tom, founded by Gabriela Carrizo and Franck Chartier and based in Belgium. Making an original score for one of their shows would definitely be a dream. Their language and aesthetic speak right through me. Hyperrealist settings are shaken and broken wide open, and we, spectators become voyeurs, witnessing scenes that feel like we shouldn’t see. Also,I have been contemplating the idea of sending an instrumental to Brigitte Fontaine for years, but never found the actual courage. She is my favourite living poet, singer and graceful rebellious soul. She is beyond. And in the dead category, I’d say I would like to write a romantic duet with Chet Baker.

What do you find is the most satisfying part of being an artist?

Ali – The most satisfying part is connecting with people in an evocative or thought provoking way. Music especially can appeal at a primal and emotional level. With its transient and fleeting nature, it’s a very human form of expression. You create a framework and it takes on a life of its own. It’s a latent spark that might make someone curious, or console them, give someone else a sense of balance or a certain perspective, maybe even become part of a cherished memory.

CECILIA – I don’t think I can speak of my joy of creating in terms of satisfaction. What I deeply love, even in the most painful moments of the process, is the research/active listening that makes me feel intensely alive, raw, present to the world. A wandering, a radical escape, which nevertheless grounds me and anchors me back in existence. Something intimate, yet strangely uncanny, almost foreign to me, something that is mine and at the same time exceeds me, does not belong to me.

There is a joy in digging, in unearthing, like an excavation of the psyche or the soul. Very, very rarely, something comes out of me that I am surprised to encounter, something foreign to myself. I feel like a voyeur. It can even make me uncomfortable, or make me feel a kind of embarrassment, but at the same time I know that it is right and true. This feeling is incredibly rare and vanishes quickly. Ultimately, that is what gives me the strongest sense of truly existing in my own singularity however nuanced or contradictory it may be.

All the rough and sharp edges of experience, all the cognitive dissonances and paradoxes can somehow be reconciled and held together within the invisible, intangible, dreamlike fiction of a piece of music. It is an absolute reconciliation of an irresolvable conflict. It’s an existential necessity that is prior to the coming of a listening.

The post Interview with The Discretes appeared first on Obscure Sound: Indie Music Blog.

Birmingham, Alabama-based artist cae delves into the influences, creative process, and personal transition behind new album Alt Girl Encounters. We chat with cae about developing his lo-fi, rock-influenced sound, finding inspiration in new musical discoveries, and embracing a more fluid vocal approach.

What initially drew you toward the style of merging lo-fi production with experimental rap?

Lo-fi music was becoming popular around the time I started making music, so I’ve always been interested in that production style, but I guess the pieces just fell together at the right time.

Your album Alt Girl Encounters came together during a period of transition, skateboarding, and taking a hiatus from releasing music. How did stepping back from the release cycle influence the creative energy behind these songs?

It allowed me to just live and gain new experiences. It’s hard to be a songwriter and not step away from music since you need something to pull from.

During the creation of this project, electronic and rock music became major focal points. Which specific artists, records, or subgenres were in heavy rotation during those recording sessions and the overall creative process?

I listened to everything. It’s hard to even pin it down, but I would say Deftones, Hozier, and maybe Death Cab for Cutie had the biggest impact. I also was catching up on Aphex Twin’s discography and just listening to all the music I’d always wanted to hear but never got around to.

This project marks a clear move toward a more fluid, rock-influenced vocal style compared to traditional rap delivery. What was the process like experimenting with that dynamic in the studio?

It took a lot of hours just listening back to the recordings and to different reference points from maybe a song or video I saw and trying to recreate that voice and keep iterating until I got better at it.

Tracks like “r u ai” and “her past’s ur present” touch on themes of modern connectivity, detachment, and romance. What is the usual entry point when translating those specific personal feelings into songs?

I don’t always approach the song with a theme in mind. A lot of times it just comes out in one session and you wrap it up and compile it all after. In cases where I am trying to push a certain theme, I think it’s sort of the same way in that you have to just spitball all your ideas out and then reiterate and try to weave all the ideas together and wrap it up. It’s just that more inspired work, that spitballing process is just more natural and raw.

Handling both production and vocal duties allows for complete creative control. How do you balance building out dense, panoramic instrumentals with leaving enough room for minimalist vocal takes and whispers?

My workflow is very production first, so I build the track first and if it allows me to be quieter, I’ll write the song that way and vice versa. I just try to use the vocal delivery as kind of an instrument that you’re adding to the track. The message can still be sent lyrically no matter how you say it.

The breakout track “crave you” resonated with over 15 million listeners across platforms. How has building such a dedicated online audience impacted your approach to songwriting and vulnerability?

I kind of compare it to when an athlete wins a championship earlier in their career. It gets the pressure off of you in terms of having a big song, and now you can just focus on making what you like and improving every day. I also know now that a larger level of success is possible while being indie and that I can do it. I just have to put all the pieces together again.

If you could collaborate with any artist, alive or dead, who would it be?

If there wasn’t any controversy, I would probably work with XXXTentacion, but for someone alive, it would be nice to work with Julia Wolf or something.

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Blending cosmic ambition with grounded emotional urgency, California-based band 6 Speed Supernova impress with the track “Starfire,” a groove-driven anthem rooted in resilience and shared human experience. The track reflects a band revitalized by change and driven by connection. We caught up with them to discuss creative renewal, rhythmic instinct, and their mission to be a light in uncertain times.

Your new single “Starfire” feels both cosmic and deeply human, channeling themes of fear, resilience, and empowerment. What inspired the emotional core of this track?

Those are core themes for us at this point. They’re both universal and deeply individual. With the world’s evolution over the last 10 years or so, we believe these concepts have become even more important to address. We always try to find themes that everyone can identify with and opt to touch on emotions everyone has experienced in their own way. We then present them in a narrative format both musically and lyrically. Music is and always has been an emotional rallying point. People need that now as much as ever. What better way to bring people together and empower them, than by tucking universal themes into irresistible groovy, rockin’ music that everyone can enjoy.

The single blends hard rock with progressive, jazz, and classic rock influences. How do you approach fusing these styles while maintaining a cohesive sound?

When you deconstruct a piece of music, it can often appear much more complicated than it probably ever was intended to be during its creation. The truth is, the special ingredients that make our band, and every great band unique get added by the individual members as they contribute to the creative process. The final stew is the product of years of each of us honing our respective craft, trying our best to master our instruments and become a conduit for our inner voice. That’s why we work so hard to chase technique or mastery; to have more unique and expressive artistic choices to create from. The life you live, the music you absorb and the emotional growth you experience over time blends together to create your sound. It is true that in writing each song, we usually start with a basic vibe or groove we’re chasing. Then, as the individual pieces and parts reveal themselves, we’re really just creating fresh versions and articulations of all the music and life experiences we have put into the pot. Ultimately, we hope it all combines to make an irresistibly delicious song.

There’s a strong sense of motion and urgency throughout “Starfire.” What was your mindset when crafting its dynamic shifts and high-energy instrumentation?

Groove and rhythm are almost always the first pieces of the puzzle we focus on when writing. Even a soft, slow ambient-type piece devoid of what you’d call rhythm would be a choice you’re making in order to create a sense of stillness, calm, etc. Whatever we’re going for, it most often starts with a rhythmic choice and then we wrap the melodic parts around those rhythms. The most infectious part of music, what really moves the masses are great rhythms. Whether you’re taking in a great DJ set or listening to the heaviest metal band from the mosh pit, the rhythms are driving the frenzy. Our goal is to blend the power of unifying rhythms with great melodies, lyrics and emotional content.

Lyrically, the track encourages standing your ground and embracing inner strength. How important is that message in the context of where the band is now?

Those are core themes that we, as band, are experiencing right now. The best art comes from deep inside the artist when they reach into their bag of influences and life experiences and emotionally reveal themselves. If artists are honest and effective in their delivery of their truths, audiences will connect to their own versions of those central themes and emotions. If the artist remains virtuous, the music will feel and sound deeply personal and be communally understood. There’s always solace in feeling like others understand your struggle; in knowing you’re not alone. The world is currently in a very volatile and unsettling place. We hope our music promotes a sense of community and empathetic understanding of the ongoing global struggles as well as a pure rock n’ roll escape.

You’ve spoken about wanting to be a “voice in the silence” and a “light in the darkness.” How has that sense of responsibility shaped your recent songwriting?

People want and very much need a rallying point; to gain a sense that others are feeling the same things they are and to know they are not alone in the fight. Our goal is to provide our listeners with a sense of confidence in knowing we are all in this time of turmoil and uncertainty together; there’s great power in numbers. We also want to somewhat lift our listeners out of their personal struggles, even if just momentarily, and give them an emotional free space to just let it all go and have a good time. Hopefully we’ve been able to and will continue to create music that accomplishes both of those goals.

The pandemic marked a turning point for the band, both creatively and personally. How did that period of reflection influence the direction of your newer material?

The Pandemic changed a lot of things for the band. We were riding a wave at the end of 2019 through the beginning of 2020. When lockdown happened, everything came to a screeching halt. There was no tide for a while. We had a full album ready to mix and master, but due to a lot of uncontrollable pandemic factors, we had to work extra diligently and overcame a lot of roadblocks to get it finished and released. It was discouraging to say the least, but we decided to pivot and use that time to revitalize and refresh our approach. We made a lineup change to further increase the power of our rhythm section and started collaborating with a new drummer. We also rethought our whole approach to releasing music.

Our old model was the classic formula; spend one to two years writing, rehearsing, testing new material live and then recording and releasing a full album. We’d then experience a period of intense activity playing shows, touring and garnering media attention. Things would eventually slow down. We’d go back into our writing phase and the cycle would start all over again. In today’s fast paced world, that old model just seemed outdated and inefficient in many respects. Our aim now is to release one song at a time at more consistent intervals. This puts pressure on us to have each and every song stand out on its own. This goal is demanding, but we love it because it forces us to stay sharp; it makes us a better band. We strive to be “all killer no filler” as they say. We never want our desire to put out great music to become diluted by the pressures of needing to produce content. We’ve also revamped our whole production process. We’re now recording the majority of the tracks ourselves and then finishing final vocals, mixing and mastering in a full studio production. The results so far have been great. These songs exemplify our best production quality to date by far. Our focus is to continue to put out fully realized art that we’re proud of at a more consistent pace and in so doing, maintain presence in the consciousness of our audience. It’s a hefty objective, but we welcome the challenge.

Your music often carries a cosmic or otherworldly aesthetic. What draws you to that theme, and how does it connect to your perspective as artists?

We’ve always been fascinated with the cosmos. How can you not be inspired by the universe and all the unknowns it encompasses. As an overall aesthetic, it allows us to be open minded and ponder the unquantifiable possibilities. We don’t like to pigeon hole ourselves into any one particular sound or genre. The otherworldly imagery is elastic and vast enough to allow us the freedom to explore all types of musical expression. We hope listeners will come along with us on this stellar journey as we explore the farthest reaches of the galaxy.

Marie’s vocal performance on “Starfire” is especially commanding. How did you approach capturing that intensity in the recording process?

Marie’s voice is very powerful and contains, like all great voices, a lot of raw emotion. We wanted to put her right up front in the mix so we hit the listener square in their frontal cortex. We made a conscious choice in mixing to leave the vocals as direct, dry and honest as we could to allow the humanity and emotion in the performance to be as palpable as possible.

If you could collaborate with any artist, alive or dead, who would it be?

That is a tough question. There are so many that it’s hard to narrow it down. Off the tops of our heads and with respect to artists still living, we’d say Muse, Avenged Sevenfold, Dream Theatre, and Halestorm. The mix of us and any of those bands would be epic! We’d love to hear Marie and Lzzy, or Marie and Matt, or all three of them throw down together. It would be amazing to hear Joan groove with the rhythm section greats. Our guitarist David would love to trade riffs and solos with Nuno, Mayer and others. Our list is long, ever growing and full of our personal artistic heroes.

What do you find is the most satisfying part of being an artist?

We love each phase of the artistic process as they each present their own challenges and rewards. Most enticing is the initial creative process of coming up with something new and believing in it enough to focus on it, mold it, shape it and turn it into a full song that we’re proud to put our names on. We love the process of working to make a new track grow, fill out and eventually become the thing it was always destined to be, a 6 Speed Supernova song. We also love the production side that comes along as you’re laying down tracks and are able to hear the whole musical picture come together. Making sonic choices, nourishing new ideas and inspirations and then polishing and enhancing the details until you’ve achieved the final product is what it’s all about. The artistic drive and the creative process in its entirety is everything to us. The beauty is in the journey, not the destination.

What is the biggest challenge you find in today’s music industry?

The machine that is the music industry has always been a difficult space within which to operate and create. The specific ways in which today’s music scene functions create even more and very real challenges. In some aspects, today’s music scene is much more open in that there’s the possibility to self promote and do everything independently, but that comes with a lot of noise. It hard to separate the wheat from the chaff so to speak. The one thing labels used to provide was a massive filter. You knew by the time an artist had signed a record deal and put out an album they had been vetted to some degree. You’d still need to plow through the lot of signed artists to find the true greats, but labels made the process much easier.

It’s harder now to poke your head out above the ever growing pool of artists. Audiences are being further and further subdivided, which makes it even more difficult for small to medium sized bands to even gain recognition let alone make a living off of their artistic efforts. The artists that labels are signing today are less and less diverse. Their selection process is hyper focused on selecting artists most likely achieve “pop” status as in “popular” monetary success. This leads to general audiences being less and less adventurous in their musical choices, which in turn pushes more diverse and unique acts to the fringes. So, like anything, there are goods and bads that come with each business model. For us, the trick has been and still remains navigating the realities of the current music scene, finding our place in it and establishing ourselves as a band to be remembered.

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Blending cinematic flair with theatrical wit, Benjamin Dean Wilson crafts an ambitious “film for the ears” on Until the House Falls. Inspired by sheltering from a tornado in his Oklahoma home, the project unfolds as a four-part radio play, fusing progressive folk rock, vaudeville, indie, and musical theater into a sweeping, character-driven narrative. We spoke with Wilson about building story first, balancing humor with drama, and translating visual instincts into purely sonic form.

Until the House Falls plays like an expansive audio drama, blending progressive folk rock, vaudeville, indie, and musical theater into one interconnected narrative. When structuring the project, did the story or the music come first?

For the most part the story came first. Basically I started with three or four connecting songs and ideas which formed the basis of the project. From there I started building an outline for the full play. Next I filled in the outline with the songs that were needed at certain parts of the story. Lastly I wrote the scenes which connected the songs.

The release unfolds as a four-part radio play alongside standalone song versions. How did your songwriting and arrangement process differ when crafting music meant to function both narratively and independently?

I don’t feel like my process changed too much. The first consideration for the music was for it to move the story along, but if there was a way I could make a song work as a stand-alone number then I definitely tried to lean into that as well. An example of this is the song “Home in the South,” which I felt could work in both ways. For the narrative version of the song there is a musical interlude where the characters have spoken lines, there is narration, sound effects, etc. But during the standalone version of the song there is just the musical interlude without the dialog, narration, or any of the other elements.

The opening “Tornado!” introduces listeners to a cinematic world of characters, sound effects, and shifting perspectives. What were the biggest creative challenges in translating visual storytelling instincts into purely sonic form?

I had to explain things a bit more than I would in a visual art form. In some ways it felt like I was writing for a minimalist theater production which took place on a blank stage without any props. Instead of the audience seeing the location, the script, actors, and sound design would have to describe the location in a way that invited the audience to use their imagination and go along for the ride.

Having a background in filmmaking and musical storytelling, how did your experience directing films influence pacing, character arcs, and dramatic tension throughout the album?

I wrote the entire first draft of the project in the exact same way I would write a film. It wasn’t until later drafts that I realized this project would work better as a radio play and began adjusting it for that medium. So everything that I would have done for a film in terms of story, pacing, and dramatic tension I did for this radio play as well.

Tracks like “Busy Day” and “Sleepless Night” move quickly between tonal shifts — from humor to tension to theatrical bravado. How do you maintain cohesion while navigating such dynamic stylistic turns?

In life things can go from funny to ridiculous to dramatic in a number of seconds so it felt natural to have those types of tonal shifts in the radio play as well. I felt that if the story, music, acting, and all the other elements were working then the cohesion of the project would come together on its own.

The project features a wide cast of characters with distinct personalities and musical identities. When composing, do you assign specific sonic palettes or instrumentation to different roles within the story?

Yes and no. I probably did have some specific palettes that were assigned to different characters although it wasn’t exactly a conscious decision. I was constantly tweaking the arrangements for what I thought sounded best for the performers’ unique voices. If different voices were cast in this production I’m pretty sure I would have arranged the songs differently to fit their voices.

The album balances sardonic humor with darker dramatic undercurrents. How do you approach that equilibrium so the comedy enhances, rather than undercuts, the emotional stakes?

Actually I thought about that in reverse. I saw the play first and foremost as a comedy. There are dramatic parts throughout but I tried to keep them relatively humorous (in tone at least) to match the overall silliness of the concept. A fun, dark, little operetta.

If you could collaborate with any artist, alive or dead, on a theatrical or concept-driven project, who would it be — and what kind of production would you envision together?

Dead: Maybe Bob Fosse. I have no skill in dancing or choreography and think it would be cool to write some songs that could come alive through that art form.

Living: Maybe Eteri Tutberidze and/or Kamila Valieva. Some kind of ice skating musical about the 2022 Olympic controversy.

After venturing into audio drama with Until the House Falls, what creative directions feel most exciting moving forward: more narrative-driven releases, film projects, or entirely new musical experiments?

The decision to work on one type of project over another has to do with what assets I can get a hold of and what opportunities are available at the time. Sometimes things line up and it feels like a great time to get a bunch of people together and work on a huge year-long film project and sometimes it feels more natural to work on a small album where I play all the instruments myself. Sometimes it’s something in-between. Different projects feel equally exciting to me in different ways.

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Swedish duo Moon Mother impress on new album Meadowlands, a deeply personal second chapter shaped by trauma, survival, and renewal. Recorded at home and rooted in their self-described månrock sound, the album traces songs born in darkness that gradually reach toward the light. We spoke with them about bearing witness to their own stories and the emotional rebirth at the heart of the record.

Your new album Meadowlands feels like a journey through darkness toward light. Emotionally, where did this record begin for you?

It started with a word actually of being the ”witness” of my own story and journey back to life from some life shattering trauma growing up. Something was ready to be voiced. It feels like all the songs was born in the dark but they also as they came together clearly became an act of reaching for the light.

You’ve described the making of Meadowlands as a kind of “death and rebirth.” What changed within you during the creation of this album?

The creative work always feels like a sort of death and rebirth-process and music has always been a way of transmuting pain into something beautiful for us. Like sowing the seeds for tomorrow’s garden and give yourself something to live for.

Themes of grief, isolation, intergenerational trauma, and survival run throughout the press material. How did you navigate revisiting such deeply personal terrain while writing and recording?

It is not by choice but rather what demands to be brought to the surface at the time. I always strive to unmask myself while writing, like there is no separation between my life and my art. It’s just what it is and I just deal with what I deal with in my life. The whole idea of bearing witness as I mentioned up there is kind of present throughout the whole album. From going through the unimaginable as a child a teen, to be left in the fires when you needed help the most. To find a haven and belonging in nature and connect to the natural world when you felt most isolated. To find strength in all of that. To find strength in being vulnerable. The songs really embody the raw reality of going through trauma but still shines a light on the things that makes life beautiful in the midst of it all.

There’s a strong sense of seasonal movement in the album’s narrative, from autumnal decay through winter heaviness into spring light. Was that arc intentional from the beginning, or did it reveal itself over time?

It revealed itself when the album was done. We had no intention of this but when the songs was done and the full track list kind of showed up it was so clear that this death/rebirth process had taken the shape of melodies and was very present in the whole soul of the album too. It wasn’t until we could hear the whole album and all of the songs that went on to it that we could see the whole picture.

You refer to your sound as “månrock.” How does that fusion of slowrock, Nordic folk, and darker undertones allow you to express emotional nuance that perhaps other genres wouldn’t?

Månrock is simply what becomes when Pat and I make music together. It’s all our experiences and influences boiled down to a sound of our own and we call it ”månrock” because it puts a name on our sound and it’s easier than trying to explain it. You could also say that like the moon – the sound can take different shapes but still be the same. It’s also a companion for those who sits in the dark night with only the moon as company. A light in the dark!

Your music weaves darkness and despair with glimmers of hope. How do you balance those emotional extremes without tipping too far into either direction?

I think it’s just who I am in spirit. I’m a woman with a heavy story that always manage to seek the sun. I want to embody the wholeness of life. Night and day. That joy can be present at the same time as the greatest pain.

The imagery around Meadowlands speaks of “the place outside, the place within.” What does that duality represent to you personally?

In some way it represents the meadow, the soul, that’s swirling around us and inside of us. The place of dreams and mystery I guess. We are the meadow and the meadow is us, always bound to the natural cycles of life, always open for the magic.

You’ve been performing frequently around Sweden since your 2023 debut. How has playing live influenced the emotional evolution leading into this second chapter?

The first album was done with a short time frame and after playing those old songs live for some time they evolved and grew into something more. We wanted to explore our sound further and also we wanted to tie back into where we started out back in the days so making this record it sort of felt like we were giving ourselves the time and space to create something that felt more honest and true to ourselves.

If you could collaborate with any artist, alive or dead, who would it be?

Oh, there are some good ones up in the heavens and in this time too for sure – first that comes to mind if I’m gonna dream big would be Nick Cave!

If listeners take away one emotional truth from Meadowlands, what do you hope it is?

That the sun will rise again.

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“Be a Forest, Child!” and other tracks featured this month can be streamed on the updating Obscure Sound’s ‘Emerging Singles’ Spotify playlist.

The post Interview with Moon Mother appeared first on Obscure Sound: Indie Music Blog.

On ‘mother’s day,’ Suzanne Jarvie channels grief, mythology, and maternal reckoning into something intimate yet expansive, where folk and Americana intertwine with dreamy allure. Across songs shaped by piano, symbol, and story, personal loss becomes a meditation on mortality, resistance, and renewal. We spoke with Suzanne about navigating sorrow, heroic archetypes, and the quiet power woven throughout the record.

Your new album mother’s day explores grief, acceptance, and the intersection of personal and universal loss. How did you navigate these emotions while shaping the album’s overall tone and structure?

Hard to answer that. Sometimes I navigate complex emotions and other times they navigate me. As we were recording and mixing, the overall musical and story arc seemed to coalesce around a resolute, solemn, soft, and enveloping mood. The turmoil of grief, from the general to the specific, seemed to find its resting place in that mood. Honestly, my rage also dissipated there.

The album blends folk and Americana with mystical, dreamlike, and sometimes unsettling elements. How do you balance grounded songwriting with explorations of the subconscious and symbolic imagery?

I’m not sure there’s conscious balancing. Though subconscious, dreams are full of quasi-reality fragments. Things are going on, there’s action. There’s a headspace I’m in when writing such that no matter how metaphorical or semi-conscious I get in the moment, I’m always writing about something real that is consuming me — something that is happening or has happened which I am reacting to. The imagery and symbolism might feel mysterious, but it’s not abstract. The lyricism is always connected to something real. To me, that’s balance. I do move at times to concrete expression, though personally I’m very resistant to totally concrete songwriting.

Several tracks, including “Honeycomb” and “Caterpillar,” were composed on piano and highlight classical training. How does the choice of instrument influence the emotional or narrative weight of a song?

The piano is so grounding. I was suffering over one of my offspring and playing around with a simple thing, “Frère Jacques” in C, which all children start with on piano. The piano and the melody reflected such innocence, and I was raving on ruined innocence — so frustrated, desperate, and wanting to kidnap and save my child. I wrote the words to “Caterpillar” as I was messing around with the nursery rhyme. The piano was perfect for the soft opening, up to the rumble and down to surrender.

On “Honeycomb,” which is about fear, escape, and sanctuary, the piano helped me find the darkness and the resolute, marching feel.

Mythology, historical events, and personal experience all intersect across the album, from black rabbits to Litvinenko’s story. How do you decide which narratives or symbols to weave into a track?

I pay attention while my feelings and thoughts drift together. I don’t “decide” in a fully conscious way. What moves or inspires me varies. I read a lot and am obsessed with epic sci-fi, mythological, and fantasy “hero with a thousand faces” stories.

While making the record, I was very preoccupied with Watership Down as a primary heroic story. A Cassandra-like rabbit has a horrifying, blood-soaked premonition about the destruction of the warren. His vision is dismissed, but a small band take it seriously and flee. The journey is riddled with perils and evil. They must find does to survive. Even after they find their new home — at the center of which is the “honeycomb” — they have to fight a dreadful war to keep it. There’s a tremendous commitment to sacrifice. Their angel of death is the black rabbit of Inlé, which is “fear and everlasting darkness.” Such things interest me a lot as I ponder loss and mortality.

I’m drawn to symbols of resistance and strength, and the vital role that small or unseen actors play in stories and in life. As Tolkien said, myth is made of “truth,” some of which can only be revealed in that mode.

It’s okay to acknowledge being horrified with one’s own life, and the world, at times. Contemplating loss and death is natural. Experiencing loss can make you feel preyed upon by an unseen predator. I often think of the horror veterans have to cope with. I am not a nihilist — I love being alive and creating: children, music, community. Then there’s the Litvinenko story. I speak to that in another question below.

Collaboration with your daughters on back-up vocals adds layers of familial resonance. How did involving them shape the textures or meaning of the songs they contributed to?

I suppose it creates a sense of continuity and strengthens our bonds and love for each other by making music together. The loss I write about is their loss too, experienced independently and uniquely. Their voices share certain frequencies with mine, which added a mysterious kind of musical cohesion for me.

The album art draws heavily from natural and symbolic motifs, particularly rabbits and the forest. How do visual concepts interact with or enhance the musical storytelling on mother’s day?

Joseph Campbell wrote about the hero’s journey. Great writers and filmmakers have told that story in endless variation in epic terms. But I believe every single person is a hero in their own life. At some point, we all experience the fall, a journey, and a return — by degrees. To awaken us to the real purpose of life, which is certainly not to be comfortable.

The cover has three symbols of death or the “underworld”: the reaper on the branch, the black rabbit, and the large holes in the two main trees as gateways. My four children and I are in the forest because I take refuge in the natural world. My boys look away. My girls and I face the viewer. Our weapons represent tools in the spiritual and emotional wars we face. Rabbits everywhere — innocent, fertile, beautiful, soft, heart-shaped faces. They are prey animals but also fighters: resilient, survivors. Beside me on the tree stump is my own rabbit, Casper, a very mysterious creature in his own right. The blue heron represents my partner, holding the world in his beak.

It’s personal but also reflective of the title song, where I write and sing in the voice of the feminine earth — a mother who gave us everything through her body and has had enough. The artistic vision was in my mind, but I could never have realized it without Kima Lenaghan, who is such a brilliant fine artist.

Themes of motherhood, mortality, and human responsibility recur throughout the album. How do you approach conveying such weighty concepts without overwhelming the listener?

Musically, I weave dynamics, beauty, and resolution into dark lyrical themes to provide space and relief. I’m doing this for myself as well as the listener. I’ve been overwhelmed by my own experience and at times by the experiences of others.

I get very granular and selective when reviewing mixes and takes. Sometimes we just cut things and start over. “Caterpillar” and “Polonium” are good examples. There is so much sorrow in “Caterpillar,” but I was inspired to write something soft and quiet, with a few bars of howling for a moment and then quiet on the F major. Like, it’s okay — I just needed to get that out — but we have calm again. Kind of like parenting. We are all mostly least effective when we overwhelm with too much emotion.

“Polonium” is a song about murder — something horrific, an atrocity. I was obsessed with the facts (my lawyer self). The lyrics reflect the horror and condemnation of what was done. I imagined his wife beside him trying to comfort him as he lay dying. I speak to the perpetrators. But the music starts and ends very soft and spends time in ethereal, airy spaces. The listener can absorb the creation in an eerie space but not a crushing one.

“Mother’s Day” is similar. Mixed in with the rage and despair is beautiful, enveloping instrumentation. I hope others feel that. “Temporary Emissary” is like a review of my entire life, with my youngest daughter at the center. It’s meandering and lonely, but intended to be peaceful.

If you could collaborate with any artist, alive or dead, who would it be?

Right now? Either Leonard Cohen or Laura Nyro.

The post Interview with Suzanne Jarvie appeared first on Obscure Sound: Indie Music Blog.

Blending avant-garde experimentation with a deeply personal compositional ethos, Jason Vitelli’s ‘2. No Wave Gaze’ embraces the anti-commercial spirit of late ’70s downtown NYC while channeling modern sound design into something immersive and unpredictably alive. We caught up with him to discuss creative freedom, sonic risk-taking, and the evolving language of his work.

2. No Wave Gaze pulls from the experimental, anti-commercial ethos of late ’70s NYC No Wave while embracing modern sound design. What aspects of that era’s creative philosophy resonated most strongly with you while making this album?

I intimately relate to the no holds barred sensibility which permeated the No Wave movement. Way too often, I see artists struggling within a mire of idioms to fit into a marketplace. Arbitrary guidelines we are urged to follow can stifle creativity and force a square peg into a round hole. Although some listeners are apt to fall by the wayside, pushing the sound envelope (pun intended) broadens the vocabulary and brings about innovation. I am an experimenter at heart and the alchemy of modern sound design techniques I learned at university and through subsequent film projects gave me the impetus to create much of this work.

The album thrives on disorienting yet immersive soundscapes, often challenging conventional ideas of melody and structure. When building a piece, do you intentionally try to subvert listener expectations, or does that happen organically?

The form for many pieces in this collection arose as a product of their conception, rather than a means to their end. Perhaps this inverted sense of logic is what thwarts expectations. I often use film cues to compose so the choices I make bridge to what is happening physically and emotionally on-screen. I’ve used dance choreography to write in this method as well.

“Standing at Your Doorstep” transforms everyday sonic details — ringing phones, breathing, environmental textures — into something increasingly tense and cinematic. What draws you to recontextualizing familiar sounds in unsettling ways?

Just like how consonance and dissonance create a sense of tension and release, sound effects can provide a similar push/pull effect in the aural timeline. There are a multitude of examples of this compositional approach, which is often referred to as Musique Concrète. You can hear elements of it in the Pink Floyd catalog, as well as in many modern classical pieces from the ’50s and ’60s. Once artists got access to a tape recorder, the creative possibilities were boundless.

You incorporate homemade instruments and unconventional sound sources throughout the record, including modified strings and toy-based percussion. How do these DIY tools influence the emotional tone or unpredictability of your compositions?

“Train Alarm,” which I originally developed for a commercial, is a prime example of how a novel idea can foster the creative spirit. The producer asked me to use the clicky sounds of the toy being advertised as the backing track’s focal point. Once I programmed the individual sounds into my sampler, its frenetic energy translated into an exceptional percussion patch.

The home-made electric cello you mentioned I had utilized in “Like Herding Cats.” Not being an experienced luthier, I did not level the fingerboard correctly, however I could still bow the notes as touch harmonics. These created a ghostly timbre which inspired the improvised melody and the subsequent canon section of that piece.

Mathematical and chance-based approaches — like Fibonacci-driven sequencing and aleatoric processes — play a role in the album’s design. How do you balance structured systems with intuitive musical expression?

In “Grandfather Clock” and “Echo Chamber,” I built a signal path using an interactive, visual patching coding environment called Max. Like a domino toppling, this unique tool sets in motion a chain reaction, bringing about a multitude of possible outcomes from an initial input. Editing the earworms generated by this software, I weaved together a beginning, middle, and end. It is the balancing act you describe, but it’s ultimately governed by intuition.

Tracks such as “Like Herding Cats,” “Asimov’s Robots,” and “The Black Lodge” explore fragmentation, unease, and abstract textures. Do you think of these pieces more as sonic narratives, conceptual experiments, or something else entirely?

I don’t know, but I think the album has a strong affinity to Five Pieces for Orchestra by Arnold Schoenberg. Describing them in a letter to Richard Strauss, he said, “They are short orchestra pieces (between one and three minutes long), not cyclically related . . . that is all they are about: absolutely not symphonic – precisely the opposite – no architecture, no structure. Merely a bright, uninterrupted interchange of colors, rhythms and moods.” I couldn’t have described them better myself!

“A Piece of a Sing Along” merges vocal takes recorded decades apart, creating a literal dialogue between past and present versions of yourself. What was that experience like from both a technical and emotional standpoint?

Technically, the biggest hurdle was converting the older DAW files into a newer session without losing any minute details. Once I could start working on it, the process felt like this otherworldly collaboration which came about easily. Ultimately, I’m unsure if I’m better off now or then, but I’m glad I still have the desire to make music and be connected to the moment. There is a kind of magic in the moment that transcends through time.

If you could collaborate with any artist, alive or dead, who would it be?

Ah, there are so many possibilities, but I think the artist that is always in the forefront of my mind is John Coltrane. The house he lived in during his later years was only about a mile away from where I grew up. I’d like to think his spirit still lingered around the neighborhood and helped me discover my artistic path. He never let the constraints of genre limit the music he would create and if he were still alive, I know we would have found each other.

With a live-recorded classical installment and a new singer/songwriter album reportedly in progress, what’s on the horizon next — and how do you see your sound evolving from here?

Most of the classical music is already written, so the recordings just need to be produced. I’m very excited to be bringing those pieces to life. However, the songwriting project will be the harbinger of my future self. The things I am driven to write about now will be what I represent to an audience down the line. All in all, the thing about evolution is we never know exactly where it will bring us. I can only hope it will bring me closer to who I am.

The post Interview with Jason Vitelli appeared first on Obscure Sound: Indie Music Blog.

We sit down with Swiss multi-genre composer Alf Jetzer, whose recent album UNFOLDING caught our ears with its masterfully layered textures and cinematic depth. He details his intricate “musical painting” techniques and the deep-rooted meditative practices that allow his compositions to breathe with such singular life.

UNFOLDING feels deeply cinematic and transportive, blending guitars with duduk, udu percussion, singing bowls, and more. When beginning a new composition, do you first envision a sonic “landscape,” or do the textures reveal themselves gradually during the process?

I don’t imagine a landscape. The whole thing is process-oriented. By immersing myself deeply in the individual instruments and the phrases I play on them (making them my own), this expressiveness emerges, which then creates images in the listener’s mind. These images are different for everyone, depending on their individuality.

You’ve described your approach as “musical painting.” When working on a track like “There was a Time,” how do you decide which instruments become the foreground colors versus the subtle background brushstrokes?

The fact is that, measured in terms of its inner substance (energy), every instrument could play a leading or background role. The placement in the room takes place during the process. Towards the end, I can also hear where a few fine “brushstrokes” are needed. It is important that everything is very well coordinated at the end.

Many of the songs balance hypnotic percussion with slowly unveiling instrumentation — particularly on “Zeitgeist.” How do you maintain that sense of patient evolution without losing momentum or emotional pull?

This is something that has to do with my whole way of life, with years of meditation and internalization. It’s not about constantly playing something new to create variety, but about making what already exists even stronger (expressiveness).

Whereas it used to take 100 notes to convey a certain power, today it can be done with just a few notes. So it has more to do with inner development. If you are fully present internally and give your all, there will never be any lulls in the piece. The energy is always there, from the beginning to the end of the piece. Even the pauses are imbued with this energy. You can’t practice something like that on an instrument.

Your work merges meditation music, world music, progressive rock, jazz, and classical elements. Do you consciously shape genre intersections during composition, or do they emerge naturally from your improvisation and experimentation?

The second is the case. The genre transitions arise “by themselves.” However, I don’t call the starting point improvisation, but rather “immediate composition.” This goes deeper than improvisation. When I look inside myself, musical forms emerge that can be assigned to genres.

But seen even more originally, these musical creations simply spring from a musical need for something to ultimately sound more or less like this or that. In that sense, I let myself be surprised by the result. Because there comes a point where you can no longer influence the result with the mind.

It may sound a bit far-fetched, but the most beautiful things, phrases, and sounds always come as a “gift.” You can’t practice that on an instrument. But what you can do is prepare the “ground” (get yourself in the right mood) so that these “gems” come naturally. Usually in an unexpected form. This happens a lot to me, and it is then “complete authenticity” that cannot be influenced mentally. It is contemplative (observational) creating and playing = the result of decades of meditation.

Tracks like “OASIS” and “Cosmic Lila” evoke a strong sense of atmosphere and place. Do you compose with specific visual imagery or environments in mind, or are the destinations more abstract and emotional?

I never compose with images in mind. An image only unfolds once the composition is complete, created by the expressiveness (vitality) in the work. Each listener sees a different image, depending on their individuality—or you could also say that it activates the listener’s mental cinema.

Each composition reportedly takes close to two months to create. What does that extended creative timeline look like in practice — from initial sketches to the final immersive soundscape?

I always proceed in the same way. First, I simply try out different things on an instrument that appeals to me at the moment. As soon as I get an “echo from within,” I dive into it. To do this, I often play a pattern on the instrument for a long time and repeat it daily until this pattern becomes a part of me. Sometimes it can also be a snippet of a melody that emerges, which I also internalize over several days. This becomes the solid foundation on which I then build everything else around it, all with the same dedication and investment of time.

What’s also important is that I take breaks every now and then for two or more days so that I can gain some distance and hear things objectively again. And for the entire work “Unfolding,” I built in breaks of two weeks or more between pieces before continuing. This gave each piece a special identity because it embodies a kind of mini-epoch. It’s very different from if I had created all the pieces one after the other without a break. This also explains the relatively long time frame for the whole thing.

You’ve mentioned decades of meditation shaping your artistic mindset. How does that practice influence the pacing, dynamics, and emotional stillness present throughout UNFOLDING?

It goes beyond the way of thinking. Meditation brings you into a state where everything you do is lived much more intensely. This kind of music would hardly be possible without meditation. It would probably sound good, but it wouldn’t have the depth.

Through meditation, you also learn the immense patience it takes to bring such compositions to life. Every detail, right down to the pauses, must be filled with life. This is achieved by delving deeper and deeper into the creation, playing individual phrases over and over again until they take on a life of their own. The result is a creation with a very high energy level from beginning to end, regardless of whether it is played fast or slow. This “energy behind the notes” gives the work its immersive aspect. One could write a book about this interplay between music and meditation. But I prefer to put these facts into practice, to make them tangible, rather than just writing about them.

If you could collaborate with any artist, alive or dead, who would it be — and what kind of sonic “painting” do you imagine creating together?

This level of detail that I pursue here can only be achieved alone. It’s just like with a painting: a painting can only be painted by one artist; it is his identity, his recognizable signature. When music is on a simpler level, I can definitely perform certain things with other musicians on stage. I’ve done that a lot, especially in the past.

But here this is so extremely distinct and “hyped up” that any small change in direction would result in a loss. It can’t be reproduced on stage. Since I live very much in the present, in the moment, I’m still open if something new comes up in terms of collaboration. It wouldn’t just have to be a good musician, but almost a soulmate.

After compiling over 40 years of experience into UNFOLDING, what’s on the horizon next — new sonic explorations, live interpretations, or entirely new instrumental palettes?

That’s difficult to predict. At the moment, I don’t think I can surpass UNFOLDING. As a perfectionist, I always strive to ensure that new things surpass what came before. I have to let time pass and see if something new emerges. When I play live from time to time, it’s very simple, quiet stuff, so there’s plenty of room to “communicate” musically with the audience. So it is music of the moment, very simply arranged.

The post Interview with Alf Jetzer appeared first on Obscure Sound: Indie Music Blog.

We chat with Brooklyn-based Company Town, the experimental project of sampledelic producer John Gallagher. Following the release of the Wrong Generation EP, the project continues to defy genre boundaries by blending psychedelic textures with hip-hop foundations. At its heart lies a sense of anemoia, where fragments of imagined memory and obscure archival samples are woven together to create a profound emotional resonance.

With your newly released Wrong Generation EP, what core ideas or emotions did you want it to establish about Company Town as a project?

I think the whole project is rooted in nostalgia in some sense, but I don’t think that really means it’s a throwback or a pastiche. The nostalgia comes from my obsession with the history of the music I’m sampling and being influenced by. I’ve always been a really obsessive student of the music I love. Even from a young age, whenever I heard something that I thought was interesting, I wanted to learn everything I could about it and who made it, and how, and why. And this project has given me an outlet for that curiosity to a much greater degree than anything else I’ve done musically, which is really exciting. So while nostalgia is definitely there, I also think of this music as a kind of historical reckoning with a lot of music and art I discovered at different points in my life. That’s something I think is really important, and something I hope people pick up on.

Nostalgia, and specifically anemoia (nostalgia for something never lived), is central to your sound. How do you personally experience that feeling, and how does it shape the way you choose and manipulate samples?

Yeah, it’s central to the sound, of course. I’ve long been fascinated by the distinct sonic characters of music from different places and times, even before I really understood any of the mechanics of that. I’ve never quite been satisfied with my attempts to channel the sounds I love – they kind of exist in my head but I could never fully get them onto a record the way I wanted to. With this project, I worked hard to choose sounds that are really interesting to me, then play with them and ultimately put them down in a way that maintains a lot of that original life and the character that I find most compelling. That’s why I’m drawn to sample-based music that does this. I’m less interested in music that uses samples but pushes them in a very modern or polished direction. If that polish is part of the original source, that’s one thing, but I’m more drawn to music that really respects the character of the initial sound. I think that’s something a lot of the hip-hop made in the ’90s did incredibly well.

The opening track, “In Your Imagination,” sets a striking tone with lush woodwinds and magnetic vocal fragments. The “until the wheels come off” moment feels stirringly perseverant. What story or mindset were you hoping to introduce listeners to right from the start?

Lyrically – if that’s the right word – it’s a really important song to me, which is why I chose it as the first track on the first release. All the different vocal bits in that song tell a lot of the story that I’d like to tell with this project. And in particular, that final monologue that closes the song is deeply meaningful to me. It’s a great expression of many of the feelings I’ve had as a musical artist who stubbornly refuses to compromise on any piece of what I do. To me, that monologue is about knowing I need to make my music in a certain way or else I’ll never be happy with the result, and I’d never see the point if I compromised what’s important to me musically and sonically. There are a lot of emotions that come with that – there’s self-doubt at times, and there’s a lot of rejection when you refuse to do things that might make your music more easily “marketable” or accessible. But at the same time, there’s an incredible feeling of joy and personal fulfillment when I make something that makes sense to me, even if it doesn’t make sense to most other people. That’s ultimately what that section means to me, and why it’s such a poignant song lyrically.

“Obscura Six” has a sweeping, cinematic quality that feels especially transportive, almost like a montage from a film that doesn’t exist. Were there specific cinematic or musical influences behind that track? It has a distinctly Avalanches-esque emotional pull.

That song does have a montage-like quality, and I think that comes from the way I put it together. It’s one of the ways I’ve been approaching these songs, which is basically to come up with a collection of different interesting samples that may share a drum beat—or sometimes don’t—and then piece different ideas together. It’s a little bit like the Beach Boys’ approach on Smile and some of the other stuff they did in the late ’60s and early ’70s. I think that method is what led to that feeling.
And the other important element of this song is that I’ve been interested in taking vocal samples far out of their original context. It takes a lot of work and patience, but I’ve found ways to grab vocal samples from these very disparate places, where they’re in a totally different tempo and maybe a different key, and place them into a new context that gives them a completely different existence from where they started. That’s what I did with most of the vocals on this song, and it’s something I’ve been doing a lot in my recent work. So I wanted to include that approach on the first EP and highlight that side of this project.

Sampling plays a huge role in how meaning emerges across the EP, especially with interview and archival-sounding vocal clips. How do you decide when a sample is functioning as texture versus when it becomes a narrative or emotional anchor?

Well, my process – even before this project – has always relied heavily on free association. I rarely, if ever, start a song knowing what I want it to say or mean, but I let that emerge as the pieces come together. With this project, I’ve had an incredible amount of freedom to work that way, to free-associate and interpret different clips, vocals, and interviews in a way that creates a cohesive meaning for me. Sometimes I just hear something or layer some pieces together in a way that I think is musically interesting, so sometimes a sample is just serving that purpose. But a lot of the time, as I’m building the song, I’m discovering how these pieces fit together to create that meaning. That approach just makes the most sense for me, and it allows me to make music that’s experimental and musically interesting, but that also has a deep meaning to me – and hopefully some listeners as well.

The finale, “Some Daze,” feels like a release, feeling colorful, bouncy, and playful. It includes the line “rock music in the ’60s was extremely powerful” amongst other samples. What does the track mean thematically?

Really, the reason I wanted this song to close the EP was because of its themes. Where a lot of the EP is reflecting on the past – looking back at my influences and at my experiences as a musician and artist – this song is a little bit more focused on looking forward. It’s asking what I can take from that reflection to move forward in a more positive or productive direction.

I always believe listeners should interpret music in whatever way makes sense to them, but for me, the ‘rock music in the ’60s’ line is an examination of a period that I see as one of the most – if not the most – dynamic and socially important periods in pop music. And this could potentially apply to a couple other periods as well – hip-hop in the late 80s and early 90s, for example. It’s a little bit of a contemplation of whether we could ever do that again – can we bring back some of that power that music once had? At times, it feels to me like music no longer carries that kind of cultural weight or sense of limitless innovation. Could we find another musical movement like that, and maybe even do it better and make it more meaningful and lasting?

Oftentimes, a lyric has an extremely clear meaning in my head but it’s hard to fully articulate it, and this is one of those times. I tried my best.

If you could collaborate with any artist, alive or dead, who would it be?

It might not be immediately obvious from the music, but two of the artists who have inspired me most on this project – and in everything I’ve done – are Brian Wilson of the Beach Boys and Mark Hollis of Talk Talk. There are obviously many differences between their music and what I’m making, and I understand why this might not make a lot of sense on the surface. But I see those differences as largely superficial, whereas the underlying heart and the mechanisms for creating the music feel very similar to what those guys did. I’ve always drawn from a wide range of influences, and I don’t think much about the surface-level differences – one song might feature a lot of guitar while another song features a sampler or synth or whatever. I’m much more interested in the method and thinking behind the creativity of different artists. So I think it would be fascinating to work with either of them – both dead, sadly.

In probably a more easily recognizable way, the album Deltron 3030 – which was Dan the Automator, Kid Koala, and Del the Funky Homosapien – is just an incredible achievement. I’d love to work with someone like Del on a project that takes hip-hop in a cinematic and experimental direction. There aren’t many albums that really just blow me away like that one, so that type of collaboration would be high on my wish list too.

What’s on the horizon next for the project?

I’ve been working on this music for almost a year now, pretty much every day, so I have a ton of music and a ton of ideas that I’m eager to share. I tend to struggle with that phase of closing the book on something and fully finishing it, because I love the process of creating and discovering new ideas so much. It takes a lot more energy and dedication for me to do that last sort of 10% and finalize a song and put it out. But I’ve got a lot of music that I’m really excited to get out there, so I’m pushing myself to evolve and get better about that part of it.

On a very practical level, I’ll probably put out a few more EPs or some singles in the next few months, similar to what I’ve done here. I’m also working on a full-length album, which is mostly put together already and is extremely important to me. It still needs that final step of being shaped into exactly what I want it to be, but I’m very excited about what’s ahead.

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We discovered this release via MusoSoup.

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