Kotimaisella levymerkillä Signature Dark tällä viikolla julkaistava If Anything, Suspicious & Aleksi Myllykoski kollaboraatio-albumi on levy, mitä kukaan ei osannut odottaa. Haastattelin kaksikkoa ja tällä kertaa artikkeli julkaistaan poikkeuksellisesti englanniksi aiheen kansainvälisyyden johdosta.
Hi guys! So cool to make an interview with you.
Your album Aleatoric Psychoacoustic Frequencies is the collaboration which no one didn’t expect to happen.
You are coming from different music scenes and I understood that you didn´t know each other before.
Anders, how did you find out about Signature Dark and decided to suggest this collaboration?
And Aleksi, how did it feel to be approached by Anders?
Anders: Since the pandemic I’ve been getting into ambient, drone, jazz and more abstract musical expressions. We have a great little record store in Stockholm called FADE and on one of my weekly vinyl hunts I stumbled upon the album called Dark Days from SD and I was instantly drawn to the art and the layout, something just spoke to me. Sometimes I just buy the vinyl because of the artwork and for the most part I really enjoy it. Because of that album I looked into the label and found more great artists/music.
From what I remember I just reached out to Aleksi to compliment him on the label, introduced myself not really thinking about a collaboration at that moment. But the more we spoke and the thoughts we had on music and art, I feel a collaboration grew and flourished kinda quickly.
Aleksi: We didn’t know each other personally before this project, but I had come across the name In Flames before. I got in touch with Anders and naturally got to know the band If Anything, Suspicious. Which is Anders’s downtempo/electronica/post-rock project. This contact created the starting point for future discussions about collaboration.
During the discussions, we decided to try a few songs as a collaboration, where I made my own additions and changes to the finished songs based on the ideas I got. When the songs were ready for me, I gave them to Anders to listen to. He liked the new form of the songs, and I was also very happy with them. Actually, at that point the idea arose to make the whole album in the same spirit. That’s how it happened.
The fact that Anders found Signature Dark and wanted to collaborate was of course a really great thing, a great honor, but also a surprise. I didn’t expect it to happen, but I’m glad it did. Now the album is finished and out.
How was your creative process? How easy/challenging was it to find your mutual voice to this project?
Anders: I had the album written already but to get further and expand my sound from my first album, I feel now in hindsight this was the perfect collaboration. Aleksi has a certain sound that really compliments and make my expression greater.
For me it usually starts on the piano or I go deep into my modular system, give it some guidance but then just let the it speak to me. When I find something interesting I build from there, add and takeaway sounds, noise, whatever is needed to make something that I feel is complete. A lot is atmosphere and a simple melody. For the rhythm I use my drum machines (808, 606, CR78) or I build something from field recordings either throw it into the modular or use the computer.
Aleksi got the separate stems and did his thing. He made everything better….
Aleksi: It happened quite easily. We seized the moment and started developing a joint album. Both of course have their own ways and styles in making music, that artistic way of doing things and history.
When two creative artistic minds start collaborating, they often seek a common presence, a common direction and that natural role of being a part of the emerging work. The framework of the Signature Dark profile also creates a kind of playing field. Each of them guides the emerging work in a certain direction for their part and eventually that common direction is found. This was easy with Anders. The aforementioned process is a kind of detachment, throwing themselves into something new and fascinating.
The collaboration started two years ago and we have progressed from the beginning to the release slowly but surely. For my part, the process has been slow. I am such a slow and thoughtful person that it takes me time to finish a song. Although I received finished very good songs and a lot of ready-made material and a very good starting point from Anders, what I added to them took time. It’s not just about remixing, but I often ended up arranging existing content in a new order, I could remove some elements from what was already there or add something new to it. I could play new elements into the work or I got the idea to ask an external artist to participate in the work in a featuring role. The works naturally have a lot of the original content, but the atmosphere and structure of the works have also changed in parts. In my work, I used numerous different devices and techniques in my studio. These devices now at least ended up on the album: Cyclone tt-303, Plinky, UDO Audio Super 6, Soma Enner and Asm Hydrasynth.
Tell us more details about other visitors featured in the album.
Anders: I have two close friends that I work with, they add some live drums, bass and guitar. My co-producer Niels Nielsen and Martin Boman, both of them great musicians on their own. Niels is also the live keyboard player for In Flames and Martin and I collaborated under a named called Nolavær.
Tapani I knew from his work with Aleksi and Signature Dark, love his tone and expression.
I have some records from Nils Petter that I really like and when Aleksi suggested him it was a no brainer. Can’t believe he’s on our album, it’s so fucking good.
Heikki and Antti I didn’t know previously, Aleksi introduced me but they also did fantastic work.
I couldn’t be happier.
Aleksi: The first performer I asked to join was Tapani Rinne, whose RinneRadio band I am a member of. Naturally, Tapani was asked to join because he has a great clarinet sound that is perfect for ambient music. He also has releases on the Signature Dark label, through which he was also known to Anders.
Heikki Lindgren is a bowed lyre player and also an extremely skilled and talented ambient musician. Ambient aesthetics are very familiar to him and he is the first person who has introduced the ambient possibilities of bowed lyre to me. I have collaborated with Heikki before, so asking him to join the project was easy.
Antti Hevosmaa is known from the band Virta. I discovered the band when we were at a gig in the north with Wimme and Tapani. We had a free evening at the cottage and watched the Virta band’s gig on Yle. Tapani asked me in passing what I thought of the band.
Their playing and performance were hypnotically great. The musical style of the band includes elements of electronica and rock aesthetics, both ambient and modern jazz. I told Tapan that the band was a new acquaintance for me. The orchestra stuck in my mind and so did the band’s trumpeter, Antti. He plays a wonderful ambient trumpet that suited our song perfectly.
One guest on the album is the Norwegian fjord jazz pioneer Nils Petter Molvaer. He is a very versatile trumpeter and quite familiar with ambient aesthetics. The trumpet sound with a long echo has stuck in my mind, the kind you might think you hear when the sound opens up into a large fjord in the evening twilight and at the same time you can hear some kind of really introverted presence. Beautiful and speaking. I didn’t know him personally before, but it was great that he came along with our project when I asked.
Do you have further plans together?
Anders: Let’s see. We speak the same language and I love to collaborate on future projects.
Aleksi: I hope we will collaborate on music again. There has also been plans of a possible remix album of Aleatoric Psychoacoustic Frequencies songs. It would also be great to play live together one day.
https://signaturedarklabel.bandcamp.com
Mikko Ihalainen
