How and where does the idea of the human and the individual figure in your music? Are you interested only in evoking ‘zones without people’?
“Not in any pointed way. I don’t want to make ubiquitous music, although I’m often inspired by it. At the same time, romanticizing the unique characteristics of a composer or an artist can be problematic as well. We all, in some way, are at once adding to the collective stew of human production while searching for a unique voice.”
“I don’t want to make ubiquitous music.”
Why did you decide to anthologise your music on Rifts when you did? How did you decide what to use and what to leave out?
“It was [No Fun Productions label-head] Carlos Giffoni’s idea. The LPs were really limited so we felt that it would be great to have a cheaper, larger run version of the music that was mastered to spec – that way people wouldn’t have to cobble together mp3 rips of tapes and LPs on the internet. I had a hard time picking the selections for disc two (after Russian Mind) because if I had my way, I would have loved to put a bunch more on there, but that’s the way it worked out.”
I read somewhere that you were quite taken with the music from the NES game Metroid. Can you tell me more about that?
“It’s a sweet game that has a really dark atmosphere and it was also one of the first NES games that was non-linear in the sense that you could just run around and freely explore and go back to previous screens if you wanted to. Also there was no interaction with other humans, you just went around blasting alien life and were totally alone in a future dungeon maze. The music is really beautiful. I can only compare it to Dopplereffekt or Drexciya or something like that, but it was before all that, and so mystifying.”
How much does place – where you live, where you record – impact on your music? Where was Returnal recorded?
“Returnal was recorded at my parent’s home in the suburbs of Boston. It was a very quiet summer. I spent a lot of that summer in air-conditioned rooms. Everything impacts everything.”
“I was primarily interested in Soviet-era TV programming as well as Japenese consumer electronics commercials…”
Any new artists that you’re particularly digging at the moment?
“Let’s see… I’m into a lot of whats happening on Olde English Spelling Bee. Also I like Blondes quite a bit. White Car. And Laurel Halo.”
Can you explain the concept behind Memory Vague, and how you went about executing it?
“I was tired of waiting for video artists to make me videos – it takes too long – so I started ripping YouTubes and editing them in Windows Movie Maker. I was primarily interested in Soviet-era TV programming as well as Japenese consumer electronics commercials, and I started organizing the footage by its body language and emotive aspects. Some of the videos on Memory Vague are really nice and still hold up, particularly ‘Computer Vision’, ‘Nobody Here’, ‘Nest 5900′, ‘Radiation’, and maybe some others. Some of them were object lessons. I’m making much better videos nowadays. I just finished working on a video for White Car actually, which I think is my most complete video yet. Hopefully that’ll be on the internet soon.”
Who’s responsible for Returnal‘s cover art? It looks great…
“Stephen O’Malley, thanks! He’s fantastic. What’s amazing about working with Soma is that you learn a lot along the way. He’s very direct and clear in terms of intention, which is how it should be.”
Kiran Sande
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