Ben Frost & Daníel Bjarnason

Ben Frost & Daníel Bjarnason: "Reyja"

Last year, Mat Schulz, who started Poland’s Unsound Festival, asked composers Ben Frost and Daníel Bjarnason — each residents of Reykjavík, Iceland — to rework Andre Tarkovsky’s 1972 film Sólaris. For both Frost and Bjarnason, their collaborative album Sólaris is a complete departure. Though Frost’s music is often labeled everything from dark industrial to classical minimalism, Bjarnason’s compositions are wildly extravagant yet controlled; together, it’s an inspired collaboration. Under their guidance, Sólaris achieves a delicate balance of the two personalities.

The soundtrack began as an improvisation played to the film. With the help of music software, these initial sketches were reproduced digitally and were then given to a 30-piece orchestra to replicate. Though far from the original score, what resulted was a sort of experiment between man, machine, and art, skillfully capturing the beautifully fragmented, tense, and at times haunting quality of the film.

The piece has been performed — alongside stunning visual “film manipulations” by Brian Eno and Nick Robertson — with Sinfonietta Cracovia in Krakow and New York as well as Iceland and Austria.

In light of last month’s release of Sólaris, we spoke with Bjarnason about the concepts behind the album and the soundtrack's transformation.

Why did you choose to remake the Sólaris soundtrack? In what ways did the original fall short of your expectations?

For me, the issue was never to make a new or better soundtrack to the Tarkovsky film. The piece is simply inspired by the film and the book. Stanislav Lem wrote Sólaris in Krakow, and it had its 50-year anniversary the same year as we premiered Sólaris in Krakow during the Unsound Festival, so it was a great way to mark that occasion.

Was this originally meant to be a literal soundtrack to the film? How did it evolve into what it is now?

That was the original idea, yes, but we were quick to abandon that idea. I think we were both much more interested in taking the film as a starting point and then moving on from there. So all the music was made during improvisation session where me and Ben watched the film and improvised on top of it and recorded what we did. So every musical moment is a response to a certain scene or moment in the film. But we never watched after those initial sessions, and when I listen to the piece now, I have no idea what music goes with what scene. In a way, we left the film behind at that point and just looked at what we had musically. Then the Sinfonietta came into the process, and the whole thing took on another dimension.

Can you describe the process of recording Sólaris?

You can say that we recorded Sólaris twice: first in the initial sessions in the Greenhouse, where all the music was written, and then in the Alvernia Studios in Poland. By then we had already played the piece live, and it was recorded in the same spirit as a live performance. In the post-production, we moved things around quite a lot, though, so the version on the album is quite different from the live version.

What ideas or concepts from the film inspired the mood/tone of the compositions, and how are they reflected in the actual process of composing the music?

All the music was actually written by me and Ben watching the film and responding to its tempo and pacing. So I would say the film had an enormous impact on the music.

Musically, you two are very different. What drew you together to work on this project? How do your styles complement each other?

Ben and I have known each other for a long time, and when this project came along, we both saw it as a great opportunity to work together. We have long been admirers of each other’s music, and even though it may seem very different on the surface, I think we also have a lot of things in common. We are, for example, both very interested in texture and sound, and I think we also both are drawn to a certain visceral-ness in music.

What was Brian Eno’s inspiration behind his “film manipulations”? Did he have a role in the composing the score as well?

Brian was present during a lot of this project. He was in Krakow while we were doing the workshops with the Sinfonietta and also for the premiere. When we first came to Krakow, we were not planning on showing any visuals with the piece, but when we saw the venue we were performing in — an old cinema with a big white screen onstage — I think we all started thinking about that screen and how empty it would be in the concert without visuals. So then Brian came up with this very elegant idea for visuals based on frames from the Tarkovsky film, and that’s how he became involved in that. He didn’t partake in the music composition process, per se, but like I said, he was there for a big part of the project and was very influential in many different ways.

Yawn: "Acid"

“Yawning opens up the spirit core,” says the mustachioed faux-Zen master in Yawn’s public-access-style video for “Kind of Guy.” He continues in a satisfied, new-age lilt, urging viewers to “just give into the trance” before a strobe of rainbow-colored waves washes over the screen and the scene shifts to outer space. Glowing dancers, whose patterned figures are outlined by neon tubes, float, gyrate, and play instruments in unison with a tribal beat as kaleidoscopic lights pulsate.

The video is a perfect representation of Yawn’s aesthetic sensibilities — slightly off-kilter, totally saturated, and completely fun. “Colors are essentially just musical tones vibrating at a frequency that is visible to us,” says the video’s director, known only as Druid Beat. “Colors are another note to play.” The concept for the video stemmed from the playful mood of the song, yet there is an underlying progression taking place amid the flashing lights and bouncing rhythm. “The two dancers in the corners are composed of simple shapes; they are pure light, pure energy,” says Druid. “The middle dancers are more complex, lower entities, but still not pure matter. They combine into the human in the middle. From pure energy — light — comes matter.” Meanwhile, the members of Yawn oversee the procession, and the viewer is reborn through a “glowing, gloopy, neon vagina…witness to a light-show nirvana made out of the laser gods,” the director says.

Despite the brief existence of the band, Yawn’s avant-pop jams have garnered a considerable amount of buzz. Prior to becoming Yawn, the Chicago-based quartet performed and recorded under the name Metrovox, wielding an aggressive, guitar-driven setup. When asked where the new name and direction came from, multi-instrumentalist/vocalist Adam Gil explains, “We were just throwing names around. I forgot who came up with it. It doesn’t really sound like a genre or anything — or a type of music. So we can constantly change and Yawn would be a fitting name for what we do.”

The five-song EP that followed is a meditation in layers, a game of tricking the listener to make it sound bigger than it really is. “Kind of Guy,” which features lyrics about bassist Sam Wolf’s late cat, dangles playful harmonies over a smattering of reverberated shower-curtain pulls, drum-rim clicks, and chopstick key jabs. Avoiding the potential cacophony, the track exudes chilled-out vibes, as African wind instruments weave about the rhythm. And “Empress,” Yawn’s darkest song, shakes out the last bits of the band’s Metrovox days with an assertive guitar push and an explosion of bright, sweeping synth lines.

As a relatively new band, Yawn is still establishing its style, musically and visually. The video for “Kind of Guy” is a bold aesthetic statement, one that sets the tone for future visuals. And because it was a jumping-off point, a great deal of work went into its creation. “There was a very conscious effort to actually build as many of the elements as possible,” Druid Beat says. “The [light tents] were actually as tall as people. The band's costumes were constructed using a lot of EL wire. We hand-soldered all of it ourselves. The glowing element on the dancers' costumes was created using mason's twine and black light.”

David Beltran, who goes by the name of Starfoxxx, created the artwork for Yawn’s EP, which shares the vibrant visual aesthetic of the “Kind of Guy” video. A young, sickly girl is illustrated in reds, purples, and yellows in a scrawled, notebook-margin style, complete with faux paint drips and bubble graffiti letters. It’s a slightly more refined style than the band’s mix-tape cover, which is a frenzied collage of disparate elements.

On this cover, alongside drawings of a “huge red shark” and “motherfuckin’ Starfoxxx,” is a monolithic blender. Besides evoking the obvious implications of a “mix,” it serves as a visual metaphor for the band’s own style, which blends the organic with the digital effortlessly, as drum machines and rain sticks keep time in polyrhythmic coexistence. And with an acute sense of melody and pop-song convention, Yawn makes its signature blend with ingredients and influences from The Avalanches, Ariel Pink, and Brian Eno.

With its sophomore single, “Acid,” Yawn hints at another transformation, from happy psych to impending darkness. Stretched out in minor keys, the song echoes the heavy angst of Pink Floyd and displays shades of MGMT’s path — from Oracular Spectacular ecstasy to Congratulations freak-out. However, the end attraction still bubbles with some seriously liberating hypnotic pop.

The band’s full-length record, due in the first quarter of 2011, “[is] very much like a mix tape,” sampler/guitarist Daniel Perzan says. “Some tracks touch on the sampling nature of The Avalanches and Tough Alliance-style beach sounds, and others are mostly organic that ride drums with synths and guitars. It’s come to be a mishmash of song writing that really isn't like the typical album that keeps to one idea — which we fear may not exactly be the best thing. But that’s kind of what we are as a band.”

With a vague, elastic name and an equally pliable sound, the band is poised to do just about anything. And although much has changed since Yawn’s high-school days as Metrovox, its creativity and DIY passion have remained constant. The Zen master would be pleased; by “giving into the trance,” Yawn is just beginning to realize its potential.

Chris Connelly: "Wait for Amateur"

Chris Connelly, formerly a member of industrial bands Ministry and Revolting Cocks, is set to release his 15th solo album in November. Entitled Artificial Madness, the record is guitar-driven rock that wears its contrasting pop and post-punk influences proudly. A month before its scheduled release, Connelly took some time to run through each song, explaining lyrical content and narrative themes.

Track-by-Track Breakdown of Artificial Madness
by Chris Connelly

Here is a breakdown to the lyrics on Artificial Madness. I’ve never really done this before. It’s always been my intention to leave a lot of things ambivalent, giving the listener a few red herrings here and there. Perhaps I’ll leave some stuff buried in there…

1. "Artificial Madness"
The protagonist is not really a person — more of a collective consciousness built from panic and paranoia. The city and landscape are fabricated, and all the aggressors or distractions are metaphors. Here we have the crux of the album: the “artificial madness” brought on by the deity that is technology. It can be used to enslave parts of our minds, conscious or subconscious, and it can also serve as a control tactic and a mind-numbing drug. Why do we feel the need to talk and keep in touch with each other so much? Because we are panicking and fearing some sort of apocalypse? I recently read that the Taliban turned off all cell-phone communication at 8 PM in an urban area that they had control over. Control and fascism — always at work.

2. "Wait for Amateur"
The emperor’s new clothes. A satirical song about modern pop culture using modern theater (namely Samuel Beckett’s Waiting for Godot). Can you tell if the play is being superbly or horribly acted? Are the actors playing us? Taking us for a ride? Is the director making fools of the actors? (Make a mark in the ground with a primitive tool.)

3. "Classically Wounded"
A high-speed chase on a wet night, and a violinist is ultimately impaled on his/her own violin bow. A cautionary tale.

4. "Cold Blood in Present Company"
War being waged via technology, misinformation, independent contractors (mercenaries), and the torture of innocents to glean information that will result in the deaths of thousands. Like I said earlier, fascism is very good at adapting to the times.

5. "Compatibility"
The song on the album I did not write. This song was the A-side of a single by the Edinburgh band Visitors. It was actually taken from a John Peel session. When I discovered Visitors in 1980, it was a very important revelation. They were my seniors by a few years, and I attended many of their gigs, eventually becoming friends and allies with them. My band, Fini Tribe, would often play gigs locally with them. It was they who taught us how to play gigs, it was guitarist Colin Craigie who taught me guitar, and it was through them that Fini Tribe learned about change, about moving forward always, never playing the same thing twice, and not being afraid to challenge your audience at every juncture. I am lucky enough to still be in touch with them, and will forever value their teachings.

6. "The Modern Swine"
An absurdist wordplay. Phrases cut up and thrown awkwardly together. A game of Scrabble with Eno.

7. "Imperfect Star"
No matter how bright the sun, it cannot expose everything.

8. "The Paraffin Hearts"
Strategic bombing of multiple inhabited targets at night. The bombs all have combustible “paraffin hearts.” Entire villages wiped out before they wake.

9. "The Subjects"
This person is able to open fire on a crowd and merely observe with casual interest the reaction and the consequences of his actions. Not people, just "subjects."

10. "The Goner"
The same asshole that stars in “The Subjects,” only this time it’s one on one. He’s a serial killer — an impotent one at that.

11. "A Career in Falsehood"
People lie. Maybe it’s just me, but it seems that the harder it becomes to lie, with more and more ways to prove people wrong, the better we are at doing it. People's minds can crawl around any lie and turn it quickly into a truth to suit them. I used to give most people the benefit of the doubt and be stupidly happy with that; now, I think that most people are lying to my face.

Brian Eno and the words of Rick Holland: Drums Between the Bells (Warp)

Brian Eno: "Glitch"

Ambient/electronic luminary Brian Eno has been on a collaborative kick in recent years, and that streak continues with his latest album, Drums Between the Bells. Using the words of poet Rick Holland, Eno offers an eclectic mix of timbres and moods as the foundations for metered metaphors and tales, as recited by a range of guests.

The album’s varying musical styles are striking, ranging from celestial to funky, down-tempo, cinematic, and even slightly aggressive. Eno’s trademarks tie it all together, giving the album a necessary cohesion, but between the assorted sounds and vocalists, Drums Between the Bells achieves a diversity and quality that few spoken-word albums do.

Manorexia: Dinoflagellate Blooms (Ectopic Ents)

Dinoflagellate Blooms is the latest instrumental opus from musical alchemist JG Thirlwell, better known for his varied compositions as Foetus. Reprising his Manorexia moniker for its first studio creation since 2002, Thirwell uses these 11 tracks to craft dark, cinematic drama while using a plethora of orchestral instrumentation.

Last year, Thirlwell released The Mesopelagic Waters, a re-imagination of his previous, sample-based work as Manorexia using a live string quartet and percussion ensemble. Dinoflagellate Blooms goes a step further, performing the faux film-score sounds with full sonic regale.

There remains, however, a number of strange, brooding samples in the mix, taking the lead for pieces such as the 10-minute "Krzystl," which should frustrate listeners with its cuts of an old telephone busy signal and buzzing flies. But whether sampled or performed, the album's moments of formless ambience, dissonance, and moodiness create an unease that permeates it.

Yet it's not entirely sinister; chimes and bells bring melodic touches to Dinoflagellate Blooms, and at other times, the album establishes a sense of frantic urgency with pounding percussion and deep horn swells. It's a delicately crafted release, as reflected by a bonus DVD of the album that's in 5.1 surround sound.

Slugabed: Moonbeam Rider EP (Ninja Tune)

Slugabed: "Moonbeam Rider"

UK musician Greg Feldwick is the man behind Slugabed, a multi-pronged electronic project that touches on dubstep, glitch, and grime with a generally spacey, bass-heavy MO.

Following a handful of releases for electronic labels Planet Mu, Stuffrecords, and Ramp, the Moonbeam Rider EP is Slugabed's jump to Ninja Tune, which will release his debut full-length later this year.

The music recalls many different electronic artists, albeit in a way that sounds familiar.  But Slugabed's strength is maintaining a distinct balance of beauty and beats, and that's most evident in a track such as "My Sense of Smell Comes and Goes," which achieves a quasi-Flying Lotus vibe thanks to active melodies and some 8-bit dubstep.

"Tomorrow Morning" is dancier than its predecessor but just as intricate with its scales, and "Nu Krak Swing" closes the EP with a one-minute throwback to new jack swing with cheesy synth bass and "orchestra hit" keyboard effects (like, for reference, the theme music of Entertainers with Byron Allen).  It's a gorgeous debut, hopefully laying the groundwork for greater things.

Honorable Mentions

Big Spider’s Back: Memory Man (Circle Into Square / Fake Four)

Com Truise: Galactic Melt (Ghostly International)

Exhumed: All Guts, No Glory (Relapse)

Gardens & Villa: s/t (Secretly Canadian)

My Silence (Jason Stein, Nick Butcher, Mike Reed, Sharon Van Etten): It Only Happens at Night (482)

Old 97s: The Grand Theatre Vol. 2 (New West)

Samiyam: Sam Baker’s Album (Brainfeeder)

Locrian: "Epicedium"

Andre Foisy and Terence Hannum are pleased that their band Locrian defies musical categorization. “We’re not completely at home in a metal scenario or ambient or experimental,” Hannum says. “We’re in a weird place, and I like it.” In addition to playing synth and providing vocals for the band, Hannum is an installation artist who has exhibited at Chicago’s Museum of Contemporary Art and many other galleries since 2003. He and guitarist/bassist Foisy both teach at Columbia College Chicago as adjunct faculty.

As teenagers, Hannum and Foisy gravitated to local punk and hardcore scenes as a way to buck the status quo. Foisy grew up in a small town in northern New York state, and Hannum hails from the stifling retirement town of Naples, Florida. Through their respective ventures, both became fans of the French Canadian band One-Eyed God Prophecy. “Hardcore was a revitalization or a conscious effort of the people in my culture to create a more satisfying culture,” Foisy says.

Following their introduction through a mutual friend and subsequent collaboration with their respective wives in the dark-folk band Unlucky Atlas, Foisy and Hannum joined forces as a duo in December of 2005. They established a name by playing at small DIY venues such as record stores, lofts, and art spaces as well as rock clubs and the DNA Test Fest.

The band’s first studio release, Drenched Lands, is a polished journey led by dissonant guitar, wicked synths, and anguished vocals. In contrast, another recent release, the intense, droning, noisy Rhetoric of Surfaces, a compilation of previously unreleased and out-of-print cassette tape and CD-R tracks, reflects the sound through which the band has gathered a following during the past four years.
 

“The failure of urban planning, environmental collapse, and general decay is what is behind our music. Something we hope to reflect is a journey through a dormant landscape where you’re the only occupant.”

“I don’t think that we fit in anywhere, but we feel most at home in the noise community in Chicago,” Foisy says. Gaining support and encouragement among such varied noise groups as Bloodyminded, Face Worker, and Winters in Osaka, Locrian developed its own aggregated sound.

“Most people [in the noise community] are coming from, or really interested in, different places in music, from krautrock to power electronics,” Hannum observes. And within its music, Locrian utilizes varying strains of music in order to make a statement. “The failure of urban planning, environmental collapse, and general decay is what is behind our music,” Hannum says. “Something we hope to reflect is a journey through a dormant landscape where you’re the only occupant.”

Part of the journey to create this discordant sound is channeling ambient and black metal through each other. “We’re approaching black metal through the lens of what Brian Eno and Robert Fripp were doing in the ’70s, and the last song on Deluged (“Greyfield Shines”) we’re approaching through a riff from Obituary,” Foisy says. By dipping into multiple musical genres and communities, Locrian pushes boundaries in the quest for exploration. “Our goal is to bridge the gap between experimental and black metal,” Foisy says.

In comparison to previous works, the tone on Drenched Lands is darker, with longer, more organic drones and sharp pieces of feedback entering the frame. “The vocals are pronounced, which has to do with black metal and power electronics, and finding a happy medium between the two,” Hannum says.

In similar fashion to Locrian’s archetypal themes of cities on the decline, the album revolves around the state of the world as a result of war, poverty, and other ills. Hannum and Foisy got the idea for the album’s title from a line in William S. Burroughs’ bleak novel The Soft Machine. “We wanted [the album] to be a memoir of some hazy civilization that’s gone,” Hannum explains.

Like a novel, the album has an introduction, middle, and dramatic ending, taking the listener on a devastated yet addictive trip through a wasteland. “Like a noxious fog that erupts in the passages of more song and guitars washing up on a dingy shore,” Hannum says.

World’s End Girlfriend: Seven Idiots (Erased Tapes)

World's End Girlfriend: "Teenage Ziggy"

World’s End Girlfriend is the wild, hyper-melodic project of Japanese composer Katsuhiko Maeda, whose vivid arrangements have created a following in his homeland and been used in critically acclaimed films. Originally released last year in Japan, Seven Idiots is his tenth studio album.

The music is a dense, larger-than-life blend of post-rock, classical music, and electronica, and within just the first minute of Seven Idiots, the listener is hit with a beautiful union of Battles-esque guitar lines, funky bass slaps, classical melodies, glitch beats, and squiggly synth lines. As the album progresses, it delves into polyrhythms, improvisation, and other complexities — particularly during the “Bohemian Purgatory” triptych — but a robust sense of melody and an opportunity for head-nodding are almost always at its core.

Helms Alee: Weatherhead (Hydra Head)

Helms Alee: "8/16"

With its 2008 debut album, Seattle trio Helms Alee forged a sound all its own — part metal, part post-punk, part melody-driven rock, and all abandon.

If it was Isis joining up with The Breeders for a quick outing into the wilderness, then the band's sophomore effort, Weatherhead, returns to the woods to find our friends older, craftier, and better bonded.

As a trio, the band's personal contributions are easier to discern: the driving, effected guitar and guttural screams of Ben Verellen, the distorted low end and breathy, light-weight vocals of bassist Dana James, and the steady, pounding aggression of Hozoji Matheson-Margullis.

On top of alternately punishing and pulchritudinous riffage, Verellen and James again are paired for vocal harmonies.  But this time around, they're joined by the assertive vocals of Matheson-Margullis, who leads a call-and-response exchange with the two in the standout single "8/16" and who adds screams to the title track.  James, however, takes the lead at other points, and she frequently harmonizes with Verellen's clean vocals to produce some of the album's most hypnotic tracks.

The egalitarianism of the vocals is nearly matched by the diversity of the music — albeit music that nearly always rocks.  But the soft moments are pronounced, and the acoustic interlude of "Anemone of the Wound" is a welcome change of pace.  This contrast and disparity makes Weatherhead just as compelling as its predecessor, while featuring additional growth as a trio.

3:33: The First Thousand Days (Parallel Thought Ltd.)

Stream the entire album here.

Just two months ago, the mysterious, experimental electronic group 3:33 released its debut album, 333LP1. Its follow-up has an uncharacteristically communicative title — The First Thousand Days (Bandcamp) — but the group's mechanical, idiosyncratic number/letter combinations are still present in the track list.

If it weren't so amorphous and downright sinister, The First Thousand Days would fall somewhere in the experimental electro-hop territory typified by musicians like Prefuse 73. It is set apart by a rawness of texture that recalls Amon Tobin's field-recording-style compositions, where the line between digital and analog is scuffed beyond recognition.

The mystery of the music, and of the artists themselves, is compounded by spare, muffled vocals and crunchy, textured instrumentation. The group's ability to simultaneously plod and pulsate, to move swiftly from tribal percussion to glacial ambience, is unmatched — and unsettling.

- Text by Kyle Gilkeson.

Seun Anikulapo Kuti: From Africa With Fury: Rise (Knitting Factory)

Seun Anikulapo Kuti: "Rise"

The youngest son of Afrobeat legend and political dissident Fela Kuti, saxophonist and singer Seun Anikulapo Kuti is the latest to continue the cherished legacy of his last name.  Similarly to Femi Kuti, Fela's eldest son, Seun maintains his family's tradition of activism and rump-shaking funk, both of which are prevalent on his sophomore album, Rise.

For the second time, Seun is joined by his famous father's Egypt 80 ensemble, a group that played with Fela 30 years ago.  The music, though not treading new ground, is chock full of tightly wound horn harmonies and dance-inducing rhythms, as filtered through the one-of-a-kind sounding board that is co-producer Brian Eno.

As per the album's title, there's plenty of political fury: "African Soldiers" addresses the cyclical nature of military governments throughout modern African history, and "You Can Run" dissects the cowardice of brutal dictators who flee when the prospect of justice is threatened.  "Rise," meanwhile, emphasizes tribal heritage, rejecting the imposed demarcations placed upon Africa by the Western world.

The fact that the music doesn't delineate from the Afrobeat legacy is irrelevant.  Africa, perhaps as much as ever, needs a messenger like Seun Kuti.

Honorable Mentions

Bon Iver: s/t (Jagjaguwar)

Cassettes Won’t Listen: Evinspacey (Daylight Curfew)

The Devin Townsend Project: Ghost (Century Media / Inside Out)

Elitist: Fear in a Handful of Dust (Season of Mist)

Father’s Children: s/t (Numero Group)

Grieves: Together/Apart (Rhymesayers)

Laurel Halo: Hour Logic (Hippos in Tanks)

Mark Wingfield & Kevin Kastning: I Walked into the Silver Darkness (Greydisc)

Painted Palms: Canopy EP (Secretly Canadian)

Ty Segall: Goodbye Bread (Drag City)

So Hideous, My Love…: To Clasp A Fallen Wish With Broken Fingers (Play The Assassin)

Viva Voce: The Future Will Destroy You (Vanguard)

White Hills: H-p1 (Thrill Jockey)

Syntaks: "Blue Sunshine"

Jakob Scøtt of Copenhagen, Denmark has been releasing solo albums under the moniker Syntaks for years, while simultaneously balancing projects with longtime collaborator Jonas Munk (Manuel) and a slew of other bands. In 2006, just like in a film, Scøtt met his muse, Anna Cecilia, in a bar.

A relationship sparked, built on a shared love of music and European art-house movies, and the two slowly began making music together. The release of Ylajali marks a new beginning for Scøtt. Syntaks is now a duo, with Scøtt acting as instrumental technician and Cecilia as vocalist, keyboardist, and songwriter. The two are also a couple in love, with a baby on the way. Ylajali is their love letter to one another.

Ylajali revels in the dreamy ambience and melodic haze of Brian Eno and Tangerine Dream, combined with the densely textured beats and crescendos of Death in Vegas. It’s a mood piece, a step towards minimalism, with the thumping blips and beats of Scøtt’s previous work toned down in favor of slow interludes and sonic exploration.

The inspirations for Syntaks are varied and spring from the minds of two people with a voracious appetite for literature, film, and art. “I have a master’s of literature, and Jakob has a master’s in film and media,” Cecelia says. “So that was the way we started talking, and later it became about the music for us.”

The gray skies of Copenhagen, a norm rather than the exception, lend an air of moodiness to the music, along with the feeling of floating in a fever dream that doesn’t quite make sense.

“We get inspired by all kinds of fictions that have sort of open endings,” Scøtt says. “Stuff that doesn’t have a lot of closure and stuff that doesn’t move from A to B to C — those are the things that evoke emotion in us.” The couple’s appreciation of directors Alejandro Jodorowsky and Guillermo del Toro help explain some of Ylajali’s visceral darkness.
 

"We aren’t bleak people, but beauty is more complex to us. The beauty should always contain its ugly counterpart, and we never forget that.”

“Those movies — I’m thinking of Jodorowsky’s The Holy Mountain, or any of del Toro’s work — contain ugliness, but they also have such amazing beauty,” Scøtt says. “The imagery is very brutal, but there’s a beauty that overshadows the whole death and negative aspect of it. We aren’t bleak people, but beauty is more complex to us. The beauty should always contain its ugly counterpart, and we never forget that.”

The sound textures of Ylajali are rich without sounding overly digitalized. There is an organic, lo-fi texture, reminiscent of the early scores of John Carpenter. “I started out playing drums, so if I’m not playing live, I’m trying to think it into a live context,” Scøtt says.

“You can make organic-sounding stuff through programming," Scøtt continues. "There are live drums on Ylajali, yet even though they were recorded live, the drums can still sound very clinical. A lot of times, you can get more of the right feel, the warmth, through digital instrumentation. People think we should record our albums on tape or do tape experiments, but tons of records have been done on tape that don’t sound warm or have that certain texture that we’re looking for. We try to use as many different mediums as possible.”

Some Americans have begun to catch on to Syntaks. Ylajali was released on Ghostly International, an electronic-specialty label out of Ann Arbor, Michigan.

“Everything about this record was open-minded and open-ended, and if people don’t like it, then we’ll just have it for ourselves,” Scøtt says. “That’s been really inspirational to us.” Cecilia chimes in, “I think it’s important to say that this album is our love child. We really put a lot of romance and thought into it, and we’re not afraid of the sound being too grandiose or romantic.”

Todd Reynolds: "Transamerica"

Violinist, composer, and producer Todd Reynolds has taken on an outsider, almost renegade role in music. Though he had a strict classical upbringing and a leading seat in an orchestra, Reynolds took his own path for a more personal means of expression, utilizing electronic loops and effects as a context for his dizzying improvisational instrumentation and emotive compositions.

His new double album, Outerborough, is an all-encompassing look at the myriad ways that the artist creates and collaborates, with one half of the album composed and performed entirely by Reynolds, and the other a disc of Reynolds performing pieces written by friends such as Nick Zammuto and Paul de Jong of The Books, Michael Gordon, David Lang, Phil Kline, and more.  Speaking with Reynolds from his home studio, the virtuoso experimentalist shares his passion for music and explains why he choose the path that he did.

What was your musical upbringing?

Well, I’ve been playing the violin since the age of four. Around high school, I ended up studying with the late, great violinist Jascha Heifetz, one of the most famous concert violinists who ever lived. I then went to music school back in Rochester, joined the Rochester Philharmonic, and was principle second violin. I then moved back to New York, went back to school, and began my career.

When did you start exploring electronics as part of your compositions?

Even from my earliest days of college, I was interested in the outside aspects and the avant-garde side of music. So I was pretty heavily invested in that music. But I started using electronics shortly after I left the orchestra. I went back to school to get a master's degree, and it was in that time that I went in that direction.

How did that change things for you?

Well, a lot of my electronic exploration was in the service of learning how to improvise. When I write music, I always leave a lot of space for myself to be able to make something up on the spot. So I began with long reverbs and digital delays and just creating things that I could hear back and then play to. That was some of the early stuff. I was not so interested in drum machines or synthesizers at all.

I became a looper, for lack of a better term. It became all about signal processing. And I still do a lot of processing, but now I use drum loops and so on, and the whole process evolved to point where I produced this double CD all in my studio at home. Sound production became my way of composition, my compositional tool. Much like Brian Eno, the studio is my collection of instruments and my collection of processes to make music.

What was the inspiration for your new album?

My whole career has been about the two sides of me: the side that plays other people’s music and then my whole compositional and improvisational evolution. So one side is organized with my music, and the other side is organized with music that was written for me. And those people who I asked to write for me are long standing collaborators, so they know what I do.

Can you speak more on those differences in the two sides?

Classical people grow up playing everybody else’s music, right? So I’ve been playing other people’s compositions forever. What changed for me in college was that I realized I wanted to play people’s music who were alive, not dead! So it became very important to me to play things that were really current and not too old. The difference is that when I’m playing other people’s music, I’m playing it with a mind to make it my own and getting inside of it as much as I can. When I’m playing my own music, I don’t have to get inside of it at all because it’s coming from the inside of me — which is sort of why the two CDs are each named “InSide” and “OutSide.”

This album was reportedly five years in the making. Can you talk about why, or how, that affected the outcome?

A lot of it has to do with how much I have to actually work to make a living, constantly touring and playing for people. Also, since I’m doing all of the work myself and have no real partnership in terms of production, I’m sort of obsessing over every little detail.

Do you consider yourself a perfectionist?

Well, I have a real problem with that word. I don’t believe in the concept of perfection. But I will say that I don’t let things go easily. I’m a person who wants to play with something until it feels exactly what I want it to feel like. But it isn’t so much about the details of having every note be perfect; it’s more that I want the feeling to be perfect. I want to make sure that when I put it out to an audience that it has the greatest chance of communicating what I want it to communicate.

So I’d rather take a long time and really let something develop, like all of these pieces. These are pieces that developed and changed over time. And because the production part of it is partly my instrument — it’s not just the violin — I would try things out and then come back to it months later, and think, "You know, I’d really like to hear this now."

And how does your tendency for improvisation play with this?

What I’m leaving room for is so that when I play live, parts can change or I can loop, more or less. So yes, all the pieces have room so that they’re fresh every time I play them. And the reason that I want that is twofold. One, I want every audience to hear something special, and I also want to keep my own attitude fresh and not get into a routine.

How critical for you is it to be able to compose and write regularly, rather than just playing?

Absolutely critical. It’s completely important for me to be improvising all the time, to be playing for people all the time, and to be composing. So all those things in different variations and recipes, that has to be happening for me all the time cause that’s the lifeblood of who I am.

I grew up as a violinist, you know. I was destined to be a concert violinist playing in front of an orchestra. That’s what my parents wanted for me, but I realized that what I was looking for was a vehicle for self-expression that couldn’t just be confined to the violin, couldn’t be confined to playing other people’s music. What I found that worked for me was this combination of ways of making music, and also collaborating. It's vital for me to be collaborating with people. So some combination of that is what keeps me going in this world.

[Have you pre-ordered yet? Don't miss our limited-time offer, saving up to 38%, for Chromatic: The Crossroads of Color and Music, our next book that profiles independent musicians and artists who explore color in unorthodox ways.]

Fredrik: "Rites of Spring"

Fredrik is an experimental folk-pop band from Malmö, Sweden. On its newest album, the simply titled, elegantly crafted Flora, layers of organic instrumentation meet dark, thundering electronic elements. As its name alludes, it was recorded in the band's own "ramshackle garden studio." In this piece for ALARM, the band decided to go to an eccentric local flower store to explore the theme of its new album.

The Flowers of Flora
by Fredrik

As you may or may not know, we are Fredrik, a band from Sweden. We'll be releasing our third album soon called Flora. People have started describing it as being about "things that grow." Fair enough. But we always start out building on dream stuff and freewheeling association. So when a music journalist recently asked us, "Dewds, which flower is this record about?" we sort of didn't agree.

One of us said, "All of them." The other person said, "The ones that grow in darkness." Third person said, "It isn't." So, to settle the confusion, we figured that we'd find out for real. In our neighbourhood in Malmö, there's a really old, strange flower store that literally has 10,000 varieties of exotic plants (allegedly the biggest collection in the whole of Europe). So we headed there, intent on finding the all-star representative of this album's alt-conscious musical theme. Here's the top 15.

The Flower Store

15. Some damn orchid

Okay. Thank you. Nice. But here's one for the record: orchids are for wimps.

14. Aomorian Biscuit Belly

We Wikied this. Aomori is a town on the island of Hokkaido, Japan. Supposed to be really pretty there. No idea about the rest. Somebody probably just made it up.

13. 10-Ribboned Agave

Y'all think these are aloes, right? Nope. These guys are kind of hard and had a weird smell, a bit like coconut without the sweetness.

12. The "Northern Hemisphere" section

Left: Rapaluna

Right: Saskatchewan Bellwhistle

Center: ignorant bystanders

11. White flowers

Imagine these guys in tacky blue. Would have made top three, easy.

10. The mysterious entertainer

The weirdest thing about this guy wasn't the outfit, the sax, the makeup, or the demon horn, but the AA (Alcoholics Anonymous) tattoos on his eyelids. Feel like he's trying to say something. Is he happy? Can we help him? Is that makeup or just a seriously boozed-up sniffer? Can you still be anonymous if you're an alt-celebrity and everyone knows you're doing it?

9. Manchurian Scorpionette

Ola stung his hand so bad on one of these babies that we thought he was gonna faint. Props. Nature vs. nurture, 1-0.

8. Carp

Carp are kinda chill. They live for 100 years, survive in just about any kind of water, and actually put up with honky-ass tourists and cameras EVERY day without having a mental breakdown.

7. Some flower

Imperfection is emotional. Eno said that once about voices (and possibly also speakers). People generally take that guy very seriously. We think he has a cool name.

6. Polynesian Walnut Bush

Fred mostly thought this photo looked like some ad for a crappy Web firm, or something out of an entry-level photo magazine.

5. Amphibious Morning Glory

No idea. Feel like this would make a good album title if we played chill-wave-type music.

4. Sicilian Giant Poppy

These guys were like chunky rods where you could actually feel stuff moving inside. Scary as hell. And sort of made you want to take a bite.

3. The Rejects

You probably get the beauty in this. If not, you may want to consider clicking the "close" button at the top left (Mac) or right (PC) corner of the screen.

2. Green Plant

Small, unassuming, and very likable. Fred's fave. For some weird reason, "extrapris" means bargain in Swedish. That's handy to know if you ever go thrifting or shopping for groceries in Sweden. Other common misnomers include "slutrea," which means final sale, and "infart," which means car entrance. Swedish can be strange for English speakers.

1. The Junior Kentucky Mayhems

These guys reeled us in right away. There's like a thick fur on them, with the prickly things underneath. The clerk said they're also poisonous. If you took a bunch of German art rockers and buried them in ice for 12 centuries, this is how they would come out. There was no sign or name tag, but a torn newspaper was lying next to them. The words "Junior," "Kentucky," and "Mayhem" sorta lined up at the front.

Should we really do this?

O: You know what? We could just ditch this ALARM thing, use this for a press shot, and go get ready for that festival in Cowboyland.

F: I don't know. I'm not feeling this shot. Your camera is in the frame, your hand looks like a skeleton hand, you're doing the scary professor face, AND someone put a red lame-ass tuque on your head that makes you look like you think you're in a Wes Anderson movie.

O: WAIT a minute! Deep-sea divers in France wore these tuques in the early days, like early 1900s. Made their helmets sit really soft on their heads so they could even out the pressure by bumping the regulator with the forehead. And it made them easy to spot in the water. It does NOT have anything to do with Hollywood.

F: People are still gonna think you'd blow Mr. W for a pack of straights.

O: Drop dead. I don't even smoke.

A: There's a huge white flower sticking out of Fred's nose.

*CLICK*

[Have you pre-ordered yet? Don't miss our limited-time offer, saving up to 38%, for Chromatic: The Crossroads of Color and Music, our next book that profiles independent musicians and artists who explore color in unorthodox ways.]