Though the aftershocks of his outsider acid house project, Black Meteoric Star, are still being felt, Gavin Russom has already moved on, adopting a brand new recording guise for 2010: The Crystal Ark.

The producer, synthesizer whizz and multi-disciplinary artist recently returned to New York after a stint living in Berlin. But the inspiration for The Crystal Ark came south of the equator, when he spent five weeks performing in, and travelling around, Brazil – absorbing the sounds of carioca funk, atabaque drumming, tropicalia and South American club styles. At the same time he was preoccupied with the work of Belgian rave supremos Praga Khan and Nikki Van Lierop, particularly their classic Phantasia 12″s ‘Inner Light’ and ‘Violet Skies’. The Crystal Ark finds Russom bringing these unlikely strains of party music together.

The first Crystal Ark 12″, ‘The City Never Sleeps’, dropped earlier this month on DFA Records, the label which has been Russom’s home ever since his earliest collaborations with Delia Gonzalez. It features spoken and sung vocals by Escandalo’s Viva Ruiz, while the single set to follow it, ‘The Tangible Presence of The Miraculous’, includes contributions from percussionist Alberto Lopez and additional vocals from Lizzy Yoder (Fischerspooner). These various personnel will also help make up the live incarnation of The Crystal Ark, set to debut later this year.

FACT caught up with Russom to talk about The Crystal Ark, as well as his role in the current line-up of LCD Soundsystem, the flavour of forthcoming new material from Delia & Gavin, and his views on contemporary dance music at large.

How are you? What’s been happening?

“Most recently I’ve been involved in re-experiencing New York after being away [in Berlin] for five years. The city has changed a lot so I’ve been learning my way around again, but also getting into deeper threads here, things that haven’t changed at all, like parks, museums and certain neighbourhoods.”

How has the move back to New York affected your work?

“My work and life in Berlin was really about introspection. Returning to New York has been all about getting involved with a community made up of some people from when I lived here before and some new people, and bringing to the table what I learned while in Berlin.”

Do you consider the Berlin period closed?

“Who knows about the future, but I have definitely left Berlin for now. I don’t live between the cities or have a suitcase there. New York is home.”

“It’s not as if I’m using specific Brazilian music styles on The Crystal Ark, I’m not Paul Simon.”

The Black Meteoric Star project found you foregrounding dancefloor percussion in your work, and The Crystal Ark tracks, though very different, are similarly “club-friendly”. Is the dancefloor impulse one you find yourself more and more inclined to indulge?

“I’ve always been interested in dance music, and have produced music geared toward dancing since early days. What’s really changed recently is that I used to make a kind of inner division between dance music which fits in the category of ‘fun’ and more ‘serious’ music.  This wasn’t an intellectual distinction that I had and it didn’t apply to other people’s music, but it was a kind of creative block that I carried with me in my own work.  This is probably most obvious in the simultaneous releases as Black Leotard Front, which was clearly dancefloor-oriented, and the material released under ‘Delia Gonzalez & Gavin Russom’, which I considered at the time – and still consider – extremely danceable, but which obviously has an attitude of being ‘serious’ music.

“During the time I was beginning Black Meteoric Star I was striving to integrate these two sensibilities into something that would be a more complex and cohesive whole.  That opened up some new ideas about DJing, but also my productions – I began to get a hold of a music that worked on the dancefloor but also created a deep experience for the listener, and could be narrative. The narrative is really important to me to tie all these things together. That drive towards integrating seemingly different sensibilities is continuing for me and is becoming a primary motivating factor in my productions.”

“I wanted to make music that shared that, that made people excited to have bodies and to move and experience them.”

I gather that the inspiration for The Crystal Ark stems from time you spent performing in, and travelling around, Brazil. Can you elaborate?

“First off I think it’s important to say that when I say I was inspired by spending time in Brazil and the music I heard there, I mean that in a general way. I had a lot of deep experiences there which put me in a shifted perspective and allowed me to be creative in a way that perhaps wasn’t possible or at least perceivable before. And what I mean is that what happened when I came back was that I made these [Crystal Ark] tracks.  It’s not as if I’m using specific Brazilian music styles on The Crystal Ark, I’m not Paul Simon. I listen and I let things get into my blood, let sounds get into my blood. And then when I make music those things go in there somehow, or they help me to do things I couldn’t do before.

“I was there [in Brazil] for five weeks and what stood out for me the most was the way people experience music there, and the way I was able to experience music as a result. Music is largely a body thing for me and my experience there echoed and reinforced that. When I came back I wanted to make music that shared that, that made people excited to have bodies and to move and experience them. I went there to perform a 3-hour set of Black Meteoric Star with Assume Vivid Astro Focus at the Bienial of Sao Paulo. I had been there once before and had been similarly inspired, in fact I had begun BMS after returning from my first trip there.

“This time I stayed as long as I could, traveling to Rio and to Salvador de Bahia and spending New Year’s Eve way out on the beach on an island in the North-East.  I soaked up rhythms constantly. I went to a Candomble ceremony in the favelas, I went to clubs packed with people all dressed beautifully, once I wandered into the old center of Salvador and all of the Capoeira masters were playing Berimbau as their best students competed with each other.  That music is incredibly hypnotic and, as I said above of music there in general, physical in a way that translates directly to the body. The music and the movements exist as one cohesive whole.”

This entry was posted on Wednesday, April 7th, 2010 at 2:01 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.