Near Future Residence: William Doyle’s Ambient Excursions
There has always been several different strands to William Doyle’s artistic practise. Alongside his standard catalogue – which includes Mercury nominated work – the electronic musician has shared several ambient projects on Bandcamp.
Drifting, down tempo electronics, this work offered a different viewpoint on his work. Cherished by those who stumbled across them, ‘The Dream Derealised’, ‘Lightnesses Vol I & II’ and ‘Near Future Residence’ have now been given a broader release by Tough Love.
Placed on streaming for the first time, the label have also laid out plans for a vinyl pressing, both as a highly limited four-LP box set, titled ‘Slowly Arranged: 2016-19’, and as separate albums.
Set to play a one-off show in London venue King’s Place on October 27th, William Doyle spoke to Clash about his ambient excursions.
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You’ve long been a fan of ambient music – has making it been a part of your creative practise for a while now?
It has. Although not with any degree of seriousness! I’m always making things, there’s never a fallow period. To a lot of people, ‘Your Wilderness Revisited’ (in 2019) was a sort of comeback after East India Youth, but I never stopped creating. Actually, I’d been making ambient music, and putting it out discretely on Bandcamp. I just think it was nice to have an outlet that wasn’t under scrutiny. Once you start playing with lyrics and song structures people want to dissect it a bit more, but with instrumental stuff… it is what it is, basically. And making it just proved to be really enriching.
You’ve spoken about the benefits of meditation in your life, does creating ambient music have a similar quality? Does it feel like a reset, perhaps?
Well, the way I make it isn’t like, oh here’s the opening section, here’s the bridge… it’s more of a continuum. It’s not really composed per se. And now all this stuff has finally come out, you can see it’s different from each other. But the ways in which it has come about is quite similar. You create the sound world, work with the software, and get it in motion. I would just sit around for days listening to the different permutations that come out of them. I’m not the only person doing this – it’s a pretty well-trodden path – but it felt interesting for me to be able to do it.
It sounds like that old Kraftwerk phrase – we don’t play the machines, they play us!
Exactly. I try to shy away from the actual term ambient – I prefer instrumental. We’ve become very used to this idea that anything without drums and vocals must be ambient, and that’s not it. Obviously, people have been making orchestral music that meets that criteria for hundreds and hundreds of years, but nobody calls that ambient! I think this music exists in a functional way.
Also, what we’ll be doing with the show coming up… it’s billed as an ambient show, but there won’t be joss sticks or yoga mats. I want the sound and space to feel uncomfortable at times as well. And you don’t necessarily associate those things with the term ‘ambient’.
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Will the concert see you re-visit this material, or is it an artwork in its own right?
Well, it seemed like a fool’s errand to transpose old material and play it exactly at it was written. We aren’t going to replicate anything, but it will be in the spirit of the original music. It’ll be flying-by-the-seat-of-your-pants style stuff – I’ve never done anything like this before!
It’ll have to have an emotional hook, though. There’s no point doing something spiky and brilliant and technically amazing if there’s no emotional hook. It’ll be a failure if that happens. I want there to be a heart to this.
How does it relate to the rest of your catalogue? Do these techniques crossover, or is like two separate streams?
You carry the lessons learned over. I’ve been listening to some of the masters for my next record, which is very much mainstream William Doyle, and I can definitely hear elements of this stuff in there. I’ve been ploughing that field for a bit, so it’s nice to add to the depths of sound. And instead of keeping it private, I’ve made it all hideously public!
And you’re moving from Manchester to Margate, is that right?
It is! I actually made the record in Margate, alongside Mike Lindsay (from Tunng, and LUMP). I started writing it in London, moved to Manchester for two years, and then recorded it in Margate. It’s more melody-focussed, and probably the most up-front my voice has ever been. Mike’s got some amazing equipment at his studio – I’m mostly software based, so that in itself was really different.
Will this ambient performance be a one-off, do you think?
I think so, yes. I don’t think this is gonna happen again. Not for a long time, anyway. I’ve never re-issued anything before, it’s always been the next thing, and the next, and the next. So even looking back… is quite weird for me. But I’ve really enjoyed doing it, and the box set itself is really beautiful.
I’m focussed on my new album, so I won’t be making anything like this for a while. I want to go back into that song world. This release is kind of drawing a line under it all. Not indefinitely, of course, it’s more that: here’s what I learned, I want to share it with you, now let’s move on!
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Catch William Doyle at London venue King’s Place on October 27th – find all ticket details online.
