As the anime develops Lain accesses deeper, darker, more complex levels of the Wired and I believe that is under control and out of curiosity for a while but then it’s followed by a prawl of chaos that overtake everything… that I feel can relate to Accela a lot as tracks progress, layers evolve and sounds distort more and more as track goes by.
What is the meaning behind the album artwork? It looks like there is so much symbolism involved.
The artwork was made by Dario Alva, who has also worked with some of my favorite musicians both mainstream and underground. It does indeed have a lot of symbolisms. It’s a treatment of digital 3D image in contemplation or a sort of ode to classic Flamenco art and medieval pictures, an homage to oneiric worlds created by Bosch, and uncanny symbols that resemble Gothic art and a religious-pagan content. But we’ll leave the interpretation of the elements up to the viewers, it’s more sincere that way.
There is truly something medieval in this album. I think the organ in FAV confirms it. Did you study music? Is medieval & gothic music a big influence on you?
Never studied music, always self taught. Indeed the whole release has a huge medieval and baroque sonic influence. I had an idea in mind when we started recording and Tim (Sin Maldita) went fully on board with it. I wanted to incorporate a lot of strings and classic instruments but blending it over with club sounds & contemporary maximalist drums, trying to find a balance in between the two very different worlds. In order to do that we used both hardware and software for this release. And myself living in Waterford, the oldest town in Ireland, helped influence me through that sonic landscape.
The whole album evokes something kind of spiritual, like a journey, intense & full of layers. These layers intrigue the listener, both because of the conceptual weight they bring, like the Outro which starts with a voice which is nearly understandable, & from a production side. How do you begin a track & go creating all these layers? How do you know what the song is missing?
We had so many stems (layers) on every song project I won’t lie it drove us both crazy, since we mostly worked remotely sending bounces back and forth, gathering at Tim’s studio a few times only, I can’t lie it was thousands of audio and midi files bouncing back and forth.
But that was the point we wanted from the start, to release a coherent maximalist sound design album with the influences stated before, which were a bit remote one from each-other. I’d say finalising the tracks and knowing when to stop was also a very hard part… we had to know when to stop because otherwise we’d probably be adding more layers until now. On the track All Day I Hear the Noise of Waters, I couldn’t let go of the fact I wanted it to sound like clashing water currents, “sailing in the middle of a thunderstorm” kind of feeling— and wasn’t feeling it — so when mixing time came around we told this to Imaabs and he understood our vision perfectly, he worked in a binaural audio kind of wizardry, plug in magic. I could finally let go.
I have read somewhere that Mekas is a big influence for you, do you want to tell us when you discovered his films? What is your relation with cinema? Are there other referential directors that influence you?
Yes I really like Mekas, his films make me super emotional, can’t remember how I discovered him but probably because in my teens I was a huge John Cale and V.U fan. As for another directors, I’m a massive fan of Wong Kar-Wai, Gregg Araki, Eliseo Subiela, Cronenberg and David Lynch.
What brings you back to earth, calms you down, soothes you? A way to prioritise your mental & physical health maybe.
Probably by hiking or walking around alone with my Tascam in search of field recordings with noise canceling headphones on.
What can we expect from you for the near future? Another album, live show, maybe something in the visual field?
Yes! We are preparing a follow up to Accela, I enjoyed very much collaborating with Sin Maldita so you can expect more from us and meanwhile I’ll be touring my solo AV show around.