"It’s all sketches right now..."
The past couple of years have been particularly formative for Kuedo. It’s been a period of transition, experimentation and mediation; about his sound, the narrative of his ideas and how best to translate them. It’s an emphasis on concept that bore wonderful results with his acclaimed 2011 debut album ‘Severant’, which saw its grand and melancholic opulence take the human into a hostile space; an immersive state of phantasmagoria that detached us from the natural yet still yearned for the enduring human element within that cool, mechanical sound.
This year saw the release of his new single ‘Work, Live and Sleep In Collapsing Space’, a track which allowed this conceptual sound to become fiercer and more confident by bringing together elements of Chicago footwork and The Clipse-esque ‘coke rap’ instrumentation whilst remaining faithful to his science fiction-centric cinematic overtones. This bold new direction in production has also led most recently to his rather beautiful live AV show designed by audio/visual collective MFO, which has been widely praised since its debut at European festivals and the recent Planet Mu showcase in London.
Ahead of the presentation of his live AV set at the Clash Magazine x Palace x Zeroten show at Chambre 69 in Glasgow on August 24th, Clash caught up with Kuedo to discuss this new direction for his sound, his first serious forays into instrumentation and how his live set is evolving.
How is working on your new material going?
I've been writing almost every day for the last few months. I wouldn't say I'm writing a particular project at the moment, I'm just exploring new territories, running experiments and practicing. A lot of material is getting generated in that process. It’s all sketches right now but of course some of it will get finished and released. The last album was written entirely within the computer but I've collected a lot of hardware since then - stacks of synths and wires - and it takes a bunch of time to master every new synth or program. There's a whole bunch of new processes for recording instruments too. I think most of all I'm trying to sharpen my composition and playing. There's so much to do.
How much of a departure or continuation of your previous material is it, if at all?
It will take some more shaping before it's time to put it down onto a record. So far this year I’ve been concentrating on harmonic structure more than rhythm and I've been listening to a lot of textural sound design music recently, so that might could creep back in to my music. I'm in that open play phase at the moment - it's not yet made solid.
In terms of a narrative ‘Severant’ was a concept album in a way, so I don't just want to repeat the formula. At the time I felt, naively, that I was in this bubble working on my own secret thing, thinking that no one was on the same vibe. But this year a lot of the features of the music that maybe felt less common at the time seem more prevalent… mostly because people were working on similar things at the same time, were shaped by similar tides, and they just got released a little later. But I like the experience of working on something different to my peers for whatever reason. I do feel this tug to move to a slightly different place.
‘Severant’ was also my first personal work. It was relating to my own life experiences and on that personal level my life has changed in so many ways since then, and so much came to happen in the interim, so the music has to reflect that. Once a project gets released it takes on its own world though, its own themes, and its own meaning in people's imagination, so the real challenge is pulling it to new places, neighbouring zones, beyond where it was, all without entirely breaking the thread.
The A/V show has received great feedback lately. How would you describe it as a visual and aural experience?
MFO's work on this has a lovely glacial, waterfall like character. It's a nice mix of counter flows - by turns warm then cold, familiar then futurist, simple then ornate, slow then fast. At some moments it goes into a repetitious drift space, other moments it forcefully grabs you. We tried to avoid the obvious expectations and find a new vibe to work toward so it ties in with the music – I hope.
How did you come to work with MFO and design the AV show - did you have much close personal involvement?
Initially it was a one-off dual feature at this awesome festival in Spain called LEV. We talked beforehand and hammered out some themes; I mostly showed them some very simple, kinda pop-art animation stuff which I wanted to aim for because they already were great at detailed high resolution, depth-of-field work, and for me it was about finding a blend of those two aesthetics. The LEV show went so well that we decided to keep working together and so far they've generated new material for each show. The idea is that with each new show we’re getting more and more close to that place we've been aiming for - and finding new places to aim for, too.
How do you feel your production has translated from the studio to a live show - is it quite hardware based?
At the moment I use similar tech to what I was using in my DJ sets but with a bunch more controllers so that I can trigger all these different parts of a track together and re-assemble it in different ways, like running them through a bunch of live effects. There's plenty of room to fuck it up badly though. I recently brought a bunch of guitar pedals, samplers and gear to eventually use and I'm getting my keyboard chops up so that I can eventually play synths live over the tracks, but for now it's more a live remix, sample trigger and effects jam type thing. It's going to keep growing and developing and it takes up a lot of time already, but moving to live sets was one of the best things to have happened. Getting up there and just playing your own shit is exhilarating - scary and wholly intense.
Words by Lauren Martin
- - -
Clash Magazine, in association with Zeroten x Palace presents:
Shackleton (Live)
Kuedo (Live AV set)
Konx-om-Pax (DJ)
Mark Maxwell (Fortified Audio/This Is Our House)
£5 early bird tickets / £8 advance tickets
£10 on the door
tickets: http://www.residentadvisor.net/event.aspx?393061
Facebook event.
This year saw the release of his new single ‘Work, Live and Sleep In Collapsing Space’, a track which allowed this conceptual sound to become fiercer and more confident by bringing together elements of Chicago footwork and The Clipse-esque ‘coke rap’ instrumentation whilst remaining faithful to his science fiction-centric cinematic overtones. This bold new direction in production has also led most recently to his rather beautiful live AV show designed by audio/visual collective MFO, which has been widely praised since its debut at European festivals and the recent Planet Mu showcase in London.
Ahead of the presentation of his live AV set at the Clash Magazine x Palace x Zeroten show at Chambre 69 in Glasgow on August 24th, Clash caught up with Kuedo to discuss this new direction for his sound, his first serious forays into instrumentation and how his live set is evolving.
How is working on your new material going?
I've been writing almost every day for the last few months. I wouldn't say I'm writing a particular project at the moment, I'm just exploring new territories, running experiments and practicing. A lot of material is getting generated in that process. It’s all sketches right now but of course some of it will get finished and released. The last album was written entirely within the computer but I've collected a lot of hardware since then - stacks of synths and wires - and it takes a bunch of time to master every new synth or program. There's a whole bunch of new processes for recording instruments too. I think most of all I'm trying to sharpen my composition and playing. There's so much to do.
How much of a departure or continuation of your previous material is it, if at all?
It will take some more shaping before it's time to put it down onto a record. So far this year I’ve been concentrating on harmonic structure more than rhythm and I've been listening to a lot of textural sound design music recently, so that might could creep back in to my music. I'm in that open play phase at the moment - it's not yet made solid.
In terms of a narrative ‘Severant’ was a concept album in a way, so I don't just want to repeat the formula. At the time I felt, naively, that I was in this bubble working on my own secret thing, thinking that no one was on the same vibe. But this year a lot of the features of the music that maybe felt less common at the time seem more prevalent… mostly because people were working on similar things at the same time, were shaped by similar tides, and they just got released a little later. But I like the experience of working on something different to my peers for whatever reason. I do feel this tug to move to a slightly different place.
‘Severant’ was also my first personal work. It was relating to my own life experiences and on that personal level my life has changed in so many ways since then, and so much came to happen in the interim, so the music has to reflect that. Once a project gets released it takes on its own world though, its own themes, and its own meaning in people's imagination, so the real challenge is pulling it to new places, neighbouring zones, beyond where it was, all without entirely breaking the thread.
The A/V show has received great feedback lately. How would you describe it as a visual and aural experience?
MFO's work on this has a lovely glacial, waterfall like character. It's a nice mix of counter flows - by turns warm then cold, familiar then futurist, simple then ornate, slow then fast. At some moments it goes into a repetitious drift space, other moments it forcefully grabs you. We tried to avoid the obvious expectations and find a new vibe to work toward so it ties in with the music – I hope.
How did you come to work with MFO and design the AV show - did you have much close personal involvement?
Initially it was a one-off dual feature at this awesome festival in Spain called LEV. We talked beforehand and hammered out some themes; I mostly showed them some very simple, kinda pop-art animation stuff which I wanted to aim for because they already were great at detailed high resolution, depth-of-field work, and for me it was about finding a blend of those two aesthetics. The LEV show went so well that we decided to keep working together and so far they've generated new material for each show. The idea is that with each new show we’re getting more and more close to that place we've been aiming for - and finding new places to aim for, too.
How do you feel your production has translated from the studio to a live show - is it quite hardware based?
At the moment I use similar tech to what I was using in my DJ sets but with a bunch more controllers so that I can trigger all these different parts of a track together and re-assemble it in different ways, like running them through a bunch of live effects. There's plenty of room to fuck it up badly though. I recently brought a bunch of guitar pedals, samplers and gear to eventually use and I'm getting my keyboard chops up so that I can eventually play synths live over the tracks, but for now it's more a live remix, sample trigger and effects jam type thing. It's going to keep growing and developing and it takes up a lot of time already, but moving to live sets was one of the best things to have happened. Getting up there and just playing your own shit is exhilarating - scary and wholly intense.
Words by Lauren Martin
- - -
Clash Magazine, in association with Zeroten x Palace presents:
Shackleton (Live)
Kuedo (Live AV set)
Konx-om-Pax (DJ)
Mark Maxwell (Fortified Audio/This Is Our House)
£5 early bird tickets / £8 advance tickets
£10 on the door
tickets: http://www.residentadvisor.net/event.aspx?393061
Facebook event.
