Interview: The River (From ‘Blood Wedding’) - Arthur Brouns

Written by Marilù Ciabattoni

Discovered via Musosoup

A hobby originating from Fruity Loops, Arthur Brouns’s music ambitions have bloomed into a fully-formed musical project.

His latest track “The River” from his album Blood Wedding features seemingly wild sounds, which might be keyboard or wind improvisations, although it is not very clear.

As enigmatic as the cover art, Brouns’s work definitely requires a bit more explanation from the artist himself, which is why we asked him for an interview which he gladly accepted. Make sure to read through and let us know what you think!

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Introduce yourself: Who is Arthur Brouns? How and when was the project born?

I started making electronic music when I was 15, fooling around with Fruity Loops, that hobby quickly became an obsession/passion and I have been producing everyday ever since for 13 years now.

When I was 17 I started getting some recognition and I started playing on festivals Like Tomorrowland and started touring in Europe. Having two or three gigs (in clubs) every week while in high school.

However, it all went very fast for me, and being a teenager I knew that this was a blessing, but I also had a strong urge to develop myself outside of the 'clubscene' musically, and it took a toll on my personal life, since I was playing in clubs at night and attending school by day.

So, I took time to discover myself and I stopped my first project, I also had a manager back then that wasn't really in line with my creative vision, and he kind of wanted me to make commercial bullshit, so I decided against it.

I always wanted to become a composer and jazz pianist, so I took some lessons and tried to get into the conservatory for music production but was rejected twice. So, I taught myself music theory and went on to study photography.

After obtaining my masters I still had the feeling I wanted to become a composer and I needed to have an academic background to do so (haha), so I studied for a year and was FINALLY accepted in a prestigious conservatory of Belgium.

However, I couldn't start because of some lack of credits because I had already obtained a master in photography. So, I did some research and ended up spending all my savings to attend an MFA program in orchestral film music in Sofia, Bulgaria. And have been living and working there for the past 3 years and I am now professor in Music Technology in the school. (Film Scoring Academy of Europe).

How has your music changed in the past few years?

Well, it was quite the ride and the experience, I started out as a deep dubstep kid of 15 years old, playing vinyl only sets. When I took my break from that career at 18, I started exploring different genres, like Techno, House, but I really fell in love with Hip-Hop, Jazz but also Progressive Electronica in which I think there are really no limits and you can bring all these influences together. So, I had a couple of projects in all of those things and I would call this a period of great insecurity, haha. It took me ten years to find out what I wanted and release my first album. Which was all of the previously mentioned plus orchestral music. Now I try to find the crossing point or cross pollination between all those influences, but I would say bringing 'progressive' electronic music and orchestral music together, I love classical music because there are a lot of dynamics, fluidity of rhythm, contrasts and textures. And I think there are an incredible amount of parallels between progressive electronic music and orchestral music.

Additionally, when I moved to Sofia, Bulgaria, I was introduced to traditional Bulgarian music. Before that I worked in a record store for a year and I was always digging in the world music section, trying to discover all kinds of new instruments and musical traditions, but when I heard the Bulgarian Choirs and traditional dances using instruments like Kaval and Gadulka I instantly felt a connection I never felt before, like I had been looking for it for a long time. So, I started studying traditional Bulgarian folkloric arranging with a professor for a year and I was very lucky to meet the musicians of 'Le Mystere des Voix Bulgares' and to have had the privilege to work with them.

Who inspired your music? Who are your biggest influences?

One of my biggest earliest influences were J Dilla & Madlib, just because they were so open in terms of the music they sampled, they were a gateway to a lot of new music for me to discover as a teenager. Then I would say Flying Lotus, how he blended his electronic stuff with the string arrangements of Miguel Atwood Ferguson also opened a whole new world to me. I would say then Jonny Greenwood also showed me it is possible to make and blend absolutely every genre you want with a string ensemble, and the music of Maurice Ravel really opened up the door in terms of harmony and orchestration for me. In terms of electronic I would say people like Obsequies, Arca and Qebrus really showed me that electronic is not only about loops and rhythmical meters of 4/4 or 3/4, but there are the same possibilities as in classical music in terms of timbre, texture, rhythmical grid and dynamic expression.

Could you introduce your favorite singles you've released so far?

I would say the one that is coming up is 'Zhetvata Ide' which is an original choir arrangement I wrote for Eva Quartet of Les Mystere des Voix Bulgares, and 'The Moon Speaks' and 'The River'.

How did you develop this style? Will you experiment with other genres in the future?

Well I have been running around with this idea of really trying to make music where electronic and orchestral music come together, rather just being a sum on top of each other, but really trying to implement idiosyncrasies of each other and try to make them intertwine/weave as much as possible, but it is an ongoing research. It is kind of this idea I have that electronic music is the 'folk music' of today, and in this case specifically the album is the soundtrack to a play: Wim Vandekeybus' adaptation of Federico Garcia Lorca's 'Blood Wedding' and the sonic palette we came up with was: progressive electronic music, bulgarian folklore and orchestral music, so this was a bit on the crossing point of these, I guess.

Let's talk about "The River:" What inspired it and how did it come to life?

I was lucky to have met Winne Clement, the flautist who designed and played the flute that you can hear in "The River". I was looking to buy a Slovenian flute called 'Fujara' which are not easy to find. Turns out this guy from my home country actually designs and plays them! So, I sent him an email, we had a call and we connected. He told me about these other 'overtone flutes' he had been making (that he made and are used in the soundtrack of Darren Aronofsky's Oscar winning 'The Whale').

He ended up doing some improvisations to soundscapes I had sent him which I then processed. Later I adjusted the soundscapes to the recordings. It's really Winne that does all the magic here, when I heard his improvisations I thought: 'Okay, I really have to stay out of the way here and just give him a small bed of sound to improvise over". Really an amazing artist.

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Review: namaskar - Rees Hagedorn

Written by Marilù Ciabattoni

Discovered via Musosoup

Rees Hagedorn is a visual artist whose music is primarily based on an ensemble of ambient sounds, and his latest track “namaskar” is no exception.

The perfect track to meditate to, it conveys tranquillity and peace or, as the artist himself conceptualizes his work, it’s an “exploration of internal reflection and turmoil, an obscure journey into the attributes of consciousness.”

Although the turmoil part isn’t that clear, Hagedorn’s sonic landscapes are definitely mysterious and quiet. I would compare them to an impressionist painting created by William Turner or some other British artist whose art was primarily inspired by the peacefulness of nature.

Excited to see what else this enigmatic artist will release next.

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Review: The iLLEST - POINT3NINE

Written by Marilù Ciabattoni

Discovered via Musosoup

Dystopic and mysterious, POINT3NINE’s latest EP The iLLEST reminds me of another album I recently reviewed on Lost in the Manor (you can find my review of Left To Our Own Devices by Bloomfield Machine here).

The project is composed of traditional-sounding instrumentals (driven by a guitar, bass and drum ensemble) with the addition of recordings that seem to be references to indie movies and TV series, kind of like the intro of Welcome to the Jungle by Guns N’ Roses. Featuring 13 medium-length songs, The iLLEST is the perfect album to breeze by.

“Vita Est Morte Est Vita” surprised me because it takes the same words as Melanie Martinez’s whispered intro in her song “DEATH” which makes me wonder where this expression comes from in the first place.

“GT” features a more aggressive electric guitar which sounds like it’s trying to speak to you, while the enigmatic “3:33am (part 4)” features chill guitar harmonies and recordings related to the world of the police like alarms.

The title track features a sound that reminds me of a fire alarm and voices that might be coming from a horror movie. After a very chill and uneventful track like “ill street,” the percussions pick up again with “The Machine,” though not too much.

“3:33am (part 5),” probably a reprise to the previous track but without the police-related sounds; the title makes us understand that the story narrated in this concept album is probably happening at night. “Diamond Street” features more aggressive and distorted beats, which make us feel like we’re in a Blade Runner movie, wandering in a solitary land characterized by dunes and sand.

“He Shot the Sheriff” might represent the first plot twist of the album, and it features very thematic gun sounds and people shouting through radio recorders. Some guitar riffs and arpeggios remind me of the psychedelic flavour of Pink Floyd’s The Wall, especially towards the end of The iLLEST, as the same mysterious voice we heard throughout admits, “The truth is nowhere to be seen.”

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