Liquid Music's Virtual Residency: Channy Leaneagh Interviews André de Ridder /  by Liquid Music

BY LAUREN MCNEE

Collaboration is at the heart of Liquid Music's 2015.16 season. Each show is unique and presents an avenue for unprecedented collaborations from rock meets contemporary classical to poetry and even puppetry. Nothing epitomizes the definition of collaboration more than Liquid Music's virtual residency with Poliça and s t a r g a z e. In order to enhance the collaborative nature of the residency, Liquid Music presents an interview series with the two ensembles. To kick it off, Poliça's lead singer Channy Leaneagh asks s t a r g a z e's founder André de Ridder a few questions about his favorite things, earliest influences, and the sounds he'd like to create with Poliça. 

Read on and stay tuned for de Ridder's interview with Leaneagh in October!

Poliça's Channy Leaneagh

Poliça's Channy Leaneagh

DISCOVER

In what space do you best form creative ideas?  
In any space really, if it’s ideas coming up, but mostly in transit, on trains especially, or walking down a road, and often while talking to people/friends. I then have to stop and apologize for taking a moment out to write something down.

Do you consider yourself an extrovert or introvert?
An introvert personally, extrovert musically

If not in music, what other fields can you imagine yourself working in?
Producing radio plays. And if that's too close to music... photography. And if that's too arty... classics/humanities.

One of your top favorite movies?
Le Mépris, Jean-Luc Godard

One of your top favorite books?
Recently 1Q84, Murakami, as a younger person: Stiller by Max Frisch (identity crisis!!)

One of your top favorite records?
Dinosaur Jr You're Living All Over Me

Favorite scent?
Oooh... Basil... mint?

Since both of your parents were involved in opera; do you have a favorite piece of opera?
Yup. Wozzeck

de Ridder conducting Lee Ranaldo's "Hurricane" with s t a r g a z e and Berlin's Kaleidoskop at the Holland Festival (2013)

de Ridder conducting Lee Ranaldo's "Hurricane" with s t a r g a z e and Berlin's Kaleidoskop at the Holland Festival (2013)

SPECULATE

You started your musical career as a violinist. Do you play any other instruments besides the violin? How did you become interested in conducting?
Playing in youth orchestras, becoming frustrated with our conductors and becoming obsessed by the medium/phenomenon orchestra and the repertoire

I read in an interview with the Goethe Institute that your entrance into popular music came about from a frustrating experience with a new violin teacher you had as a teen. How did that experience lead you to make music outside the box of classical music?
I simply started composing, playing guitar, and founded a band, as other means of expressing myself musically

What were some of your earliest influences in your bands as a kid? Are there any current musicians that inspire you in the way they blend pop (or rock, electronic, folk) with classical elements?
My initiation was British New Wave, New Order, Echo and the Bunnymen, The Cure then, when I started a band, the reason were Dinosaur Jr, Hüsker Dü, The Lemonheads and Fugazi. The artists inspiring our work today are the likes of Julia Holter, Tyondai Braxton (with and without/after Battles).

You have said, “Music takes the listener from one place to another, changing them, which is the mark of great art.”  I agree completely!  It changes me to perform for people and the truth of a performance is the exchange of energy and ideas between the people on stage and the people in the audience.  The back and forth. I am experimenting with being more focused on a taking the audience to a specific place and change.  Do you ever write with an intentional place or subject you want to take people to?  Do you ever try to control the feelings people leave with or do you let the music lead the way from the conception?
I haven't really 'written' as such creatively for a long time. But when I do, or when writing arrangements I am just trying to colour, to make audible what I hear as overtones, as resonances of the music. A kind of 3-D or 4-D version of what we're experiencing already (or what I am hearing walking down the street). Another dimension? And then, if people find themselves with me in that other dimension, wel.. anything can happen? Out of body experiences is what have glued me to music. No drugs involved I should add...

One of my hold quotes is from Ai Weiwei: “Everything is Art and everything is politics”.  Do you have any thoughts on that in relation to your own work?
I agree! If Art and Music is a means of communication it is all, or can become political. I travelled to Bamako in October 2013 and it heightened my sense of that, in my senses in general, incredibly. Music is community art. Music clubs are a place of political discourse.

Do you have any visions for the sounds you’d like to make with Poliça?  Fast and abrasive textures or slow and calm sounds, ect...?  What sort of musical feelings or sounds are you drawn to these days?
Ah now we're talking!! Both!! I am interested in s t a r g a z e being a punk-noir version of the Ensemble Modern (contemporary classical, who play a lot of Zappa though as well), or a contemporary classical version of Godspeed! I am excited in the challenge and possibilities of playing with two drummers. I think if they play full-on (which I hope) we have to use a more broader, or harder brush stroke, but in the cracks or liminals there can be more lyrical calm and experimental sounds. I cannot wait, Channy!!!

de Ridder conducting s t a r g a z e

de Ridder conducting s t a r g a z e

LISTEN

stargaze presents 2014 - the ( short ) video from s t a r g a z e on Vimeo.

s t a r g a z e 2014.15 season trailer 

"Chain my Name" from Schulamith (2013) Feat. in Liquid Music's 2015.16 trailer 

Spiritual America: Interview with William Brittelle /  by Liquid Music

By Lauren McNee

Liquid Music's season opener is t-minus 23 days away. On October 14, Liquid Music will present Spiritual America featuring composer William Brittelle and the indie rock duo Wye Oak, with special guest violinist, composer, arranger and songwriter Michi Wiancko. Spiritual America features a series of new electro-acoustic art songs that explore themes of secular spirituality in American culture through the personal lens of love, loss, youth and longing.

As we're gearing up for what is sure to be an electrifying first show of the season, Brittelle had time to answer a few questions about post-genre electro-acoustic music, American spirituality and road tripping across the U.S. 

"Spiritual America is conceptually very human—beautiful, haunting, sad and seeking—and the musical component moves you to these emotional places."                                                            —Kate Nordstrum, Liquid Music Curator on Spiritual America                                                                                                                                                                                        
photo by Stephen Taylor

photo by Stephen Taylor

Tell us your story. How did you get interested in contemporary music and how did that lead to composing post electro-acoustic works?

I’ve always been drawn to different kinds of music. While studying music in school, I was very interested in contemporary compositional ideas - things that were happening that very moment, which, at the time, included kind of the tale end of Fluxus, free-jazz, etc. Growing up in a small southern town, I felt fairly alienated from my environment, and that continued to a certain extent into my collegiate and post-collegiate studies. Connecting with experimental music was a way of connecting with a world outside of the conservative dome I was living in. After dropping out of graduate school, however, I found myself very attracted to pop, hip-hop, and punk music, I think as a way of reconnecting with society and railing against my training. This led to me starting a punk band and touring, booking rock clubs, etc, but I soon found that the rock world is equally, if not more constricting that the world of classical conservatories. So, in my late 20’s, I began the quest to unite my influences and write music true to my background, interests, and abilities.

You describe your work as post electro acoustic music. Do you consider your music to be a reaction to electro acoustic music versus a new form of a pre-existing genre, as implied by the term "neo"? How does this fit in with the ideology of the label you co-founded, New Amsterdam Records?

The term I usually use (at least for now) is post-genre electro-acoustic music. Post-genre is meant to signify that the music isn’t actively participating in any kind of genre tradition and shouldn’t be viewed as some kind of reaction against or for classical, rock, etc. I feel like, at this point, using genre information to understand certain kinds of music is misleading and ineffective. So, in that sense, post-genre is the absence of genre, a call for viewing music in more individualistic terms. I see a parallel actually in the post-gender movement, a tendency towards wanting to see things as they are, as being truly unique, and resisting the urge to use shorthand or past experiences to come to the table with certain biases or expectations. It certainly doesn’t mean that there aren’t shades of rock or classical or experimental music in what I’m doing, but I don’t think the story of the music are those shades, the story is something more personal, more emotional.

NewAm’s core objective is representing music that doesn’t fall cleanly into existing genre-bounds, so, in that sense, this music certainly fits the bill.

How did you enter into a collaboration with Wye Oak? What attracted you to their sound and how do you think it fits with the theme of secular spirituality in America?

The initial impetus for the project came from a discussion with the North Carolina Symphony about creating a work exploring my background, the fact that I was raised in a small town in an extremely religious environment. I’d always been extremely attracted to Jenn’s voice, and as the project developed, I became more and more certain that Wye Oak was a perfect match for this project. Getting to know Andy and Jenn has been wonderful and their ability to bring in elements that aren’t on the page is vital to this kind of project.

In terms of fitting in with the theme, I think Jenn’s voice embodies a sense of longing . Her singing has this magical effect, something my son would call “sad happiness”. I think the core of the project is that “sad happy” sense of emotional longing, the sense that there is something out there, beyond the walls of what’s immediately available to you, something are both intensely attracted to and scared shitless of - which basically describes my emotions upon first coming to New York!

photo by Stephen Taylor

photo by Stephen Taylor

Composer/violinist Michi Wiancko is also featured as a special guest in this program. Tell us about Michi and why you wanted to work with her on this project. How is her music complimentary to Spiritual America?

Michi is a dear friend, and we worked together previously on a collaborative show. Not only is she a world class violinist, but she’s a wonderful composer/arranger as well, and her ability to create on the fly and work with musicians of non-classical backgrounds is really unique.

Talk to us about the cultural aesthetics behind Spiritual America. What inspired you to develop this project and how does the music embody your vision?

Yes, so, as I mentioned, this project started with a discussion with the North Carolina Symphony. I’ve been getting increasingly interested in experimental and aggressive music as of late, and this project felt, in part, like a way to balance that out. A way to connect with something intensely personal, and, hopefully, universal. I spent the first 15 years of my life in the south, and, to a certain extent, I think I’ve lived my adult life walled off from that experience. I never see the people I grew up with, I never go back there. It feels like a different universe, like a past life, especially the religious dogma I was fed as a child and am now repelled by. It occurred to me about a year ago that there was an element missing from my life, a sense of grounding, a sense of having roots, and I think that’s due in large part to the denial of my youth. There were a lot of wonderful and meaningful things about growing up the way I did, and my experience certainly wasn’t unique. So the project is, in a sense, a way for me to connect the kid me with the adult me, to round things out, to break down the wall and reintegrate my youth into my general emotional being.

The Liquid Music/Walker Art Center presentation of Spiritual America is one of four offerings this season, along with the Alabama Symphony, North Carolina Symphony and Baltimore Symphony. What makes this show unique?

This is the first and only chamber version of this project, and will include some new material. Since the other shows are orchestral-based, this show will be much more “band” oriented and feature more improv. Because we only have 8 musicians on stage (versus upwards of forty or fifty for the full orchestra version) everyone, including me, will be called on to do a lot more!

What projects are you working on post Spiritual America?

Well Spiritual America is ongoing, and will probably be in development for another year or two. I’m also working on an experimental electronic album called “Alive in the Electric Snow Dream” which will be paired with my first book of poetry called “Spectral Peaks”, a new piece about the electronic musician Arca for the Seattle Symphony, and a project about LSD with my friend Elia Rediger for the Basel Sinfonietta.

And lastly, in the vein of Spiritual America, if you were going on a cross country road trip across the US, what three things would you need with you, and why?

Let’s see, good food because I can’t eat at Arby’s, my wife because I’d be super bored without her, and an atlas so I didn’t have to bring my ****** phone:)

Spiritual America Trailer

The Show

Wye Oak and William Brittelle: Spiritual America with special guest Michi Wiancko
Sponsored by First & First                            
Co-presented with the Walker Art Center

Wed Oct 14, 2015
Doors at 6:30p | Music at 7:30p         
Aria, Minneapolis                        

Tickets:
Order online or call the SPCO Ticket Office at 651.291.1144
$25 ($22 for LM subscribers and Walker members) 

Program:                           
World Premiere - Michi Wiancko           
Shriek Suite - Wye Oak, arr. by Wiancko and Brittelle
     Before
     Shriek
     The Tower
     I Know the Law
     Sick Talk
Selections from Spiritual America - Brittelle
     We are not Ancient
     Spiritual America
     Canyons Curved Burgundy/Acid Rain on the Mirrored Dome
     Pink Jail
     Topaz Were the Waves

FIRST LOOK: Liquid Music's Virtual Residency with Poliça & s t a r g a z e /  by Liquid Music

By Lauren McNee

What will the future hold for our year long virtual residency with Poliça and s ta r g a z e? If we were to ask a magic eight ball that question, the answer would most likely be "cannot predict now". With a project of this scope, there are a lot of unknowns. What we do know is that the collaboration between Poliça and s t a r g a z e will be bold, cutting-edge, really cool, and will produce sounds that you won’t be able to get out of your head.

I feel privileged to have played matchmaker to these two incredible groups, who are creatively and spiritually so compatible. As collaborators, Poliça and s t a r g a z e will find a common musical language that will allow them both to share equally in the process of creating new work together. My job was of course the easy part. The terrific challenge for the musicians will be collaborating primarily virtually, with a few hoped-for visits between now and next fall. As always, the inherent risk is lighting a fire under us all.  
                                                                     -Kate Nordstrum, Liquid Music Curator
 
LM curator Kate Nordstrum with s t a r g a z e's André de Ridder (conductor/founder) and Merle Scheske (managing director) in Berlin

LM curator Kate Nordstrum with s t a r g a z e's André de Ridder (conductor/founder) and Merle Scheske (managing director) in Berlin

The Liquid Music blog is a virtual platform for audiences to follow the collaboration all the way from the early stages of development to the live performance in the fall of 2016. Liquid Music offers audience members a VIP pass to enter into the creative process behind staging an artistic project. Join us for the ride!

Snapshot of Poliça 

Described as “the best band I’ve ever heard” by Bon Iver’s founder Justin Vernon in Rolling Stone Magazine
Promoted in Jay-Z’s  Life + Times

Homebase: Minneapolis, MN

The Make-up:

  • Chris Bierden (bass)
  • Drew Christopherson (drums)
  • Ben Ivascu (drums)
  • Channy Leaneagh (vocals)
  • Ryan Olson (production)

POLICY
The name Poliça was inspired by the polish word “polisa”, which means “policy”. It refers to the band’s mutual values and rapport when they play together.  

INSTANTANEOUS
Poliça came together as a band just as quickly as they experienced instantaneous success in the Minneapolis music scene. The band was formed in 2011 as an experiment between Leaneagh and Olson. Formerly a singer with the indie collective Gayngs (also founded by Olson), Leaneagh recorded tracks with Olson’s synth-driven beats with enhancement by Bierden, Christopherson, and Ivascu. Just within the space of two weeks, Poliça’s debut album, Give You the Ghost, was born. Following their live debut in 2011 at Nick and Eddie’s in Minneapolis, Poliça rocketed in popularity.  

SYNTHESIS
Poliça’s sound is a synthesis of R&B, synth pop, hip hop, and alternative rock. Leaneagh’s soulful voice is distorted through Autotune, which manipulates the pitch and in live performances, a Helicon pedal that adds layers of reverb and delay. The use of vocal processors creates an ethereal effect and provides the voice with the flexibility to blend with the texture of each song.

Snapshot of s t a r g a z e

"Orchestral support can often feel self-indulgent and egotistical with the orchestra often only there to serve the band. But here it feels entirely equal; two like-minded musical entities fluidly playing and communicating with each other."
                                  – Huffington Post on the work and philosophy of s t a r g a z e

Home Base: Berlin, Germany

The Make-up:

  • Founded by conductor André de Ridder in 2013. Click here to read a cool article on de Ridder in the Herald Scotland (2015)

  • Collective of artistically compatible musicians who support the creation and performance of current music

FLUID
s t a r g a z e is an unfixed ensemble, a musical chameleon that finds the right musicians for the right project. The shape of the ensemble is malleable and takes on a new character for each collaboration. The flexible composition of the ensemble allows s t a r g a z e to pursue artistic projects that flow organically.

INNOVATIVE
The pursuit of innovative projects that initiate unprecedented and unique collaborations is at the core of s t a r g a z e’s mission. s t a r g a z e has presented projects all over the world with a multitude of international artists. While perusing s t a r g a z e’s long list of past programs, Liquid Music fans will recognize quite a few artists from the 2014.15 season including Bryce Dessner, Julia Holter, Richard Reed Parry and Nils Frahm.  

FUSE
s t a r g a z e represents a fusion of classical and contemporary. As a conductor, de Ridder’s career exists between the past and present. He is known as an “astute interpreter of core classical repertoire” and “the go-to orchestral conductor for indie bands, experimental pop artists and composers whose music straddles the spheres of classical and, well, whatever” (Herald Scotland). The ensemble is made up of musicians who are trained in classical and contemporary music and are excited to work with artists whose music exists in the popular and genreless sphere. s t a r g a z e seeks to bridge the dichotomy between the classical and contemporary sound worlds.

Sounds

New album 'Shulamith' coming 10/22 on Mom+Pop (US), 10/21 on Memphis Industries (UK), and 10/18 on Inertia (Aus). Pre-order now at: www.thisispolica.com www.facebook.com/thisispolica twitter.com/thisispolica

"Chain My Name" from Poliça’s sophomore album Shulamith (2013). Also feat. in Liquid Music’s 2015.16 trailer

“Lay Your Cards Out” From Poliça’s’s debut album Give You The Ghost (2011)

Interpretation of “In C” by Terry Riley (2014) in collaboration with Nils Frahm (Liquid Music artist 2014.15 season) at Berlin’s Volksbühne

“Relief” by The Dodos featuring s t a r g a z e orchestra at the Kilkenny Arts Festival in Ireland (2014)

Social
 

Poliça
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s t a r g a z e
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Vimeo

 

 

Dessner, Friends and Spaces /  by Liquid Music

BY VIDEO PRODUCER/DIRECTOR/EDITOR NATE MATSON                                                                                                                              

I don’t know of another program quite like Liquid Music. It’s fresh. It’s edgy. It pushes creative boundaries. It challenges artists—and sometimes audiences.

When Kate Nordstrum, the curator and producer of Liquid Music, approached me about creating video content for its series, I didn’t have to put much thought to it.

Drummer Glenn Kotche’s excellent show last year sealed the deal. I went as a Wilco fan, but as the evening progressed, and the songs were performed—using household items and tools—I gained a new perspective on his artistry. About midway through the show, as I took in the eclectic repertoire and visuals, I realized what I was experiencing was not an everyday concert. It was chance for an artist, in this case Mr. Kotche, to showcase a different side of his creativity. I left feeling like I’d just eaten a gourmet meal by an award-winning chef. And in Saint Paul, Minnesota, no less!

I was a fan then. I’m a fan now. 

Very rarely is someone in my position—a videographer with a musical background, hungry for artistic pursuits—given such intimate access to such a wide caliber of talented and respected artists. Although Liquid Music focuses on orchestral music, it’s much bigger than that. Nearly every musical genre is represented, from Indie Rock to World Music.

Yet there is always a twist.

More recently, Bryce Dessner’s show at the Walker Art Center is a perfect example. Known as the guitar player for the Grammy nominated band The National, Dessner brought along so many friends with so much content, he booked 2 concerts with completely different programs. Night 1 focused on strings. Night 2 focused on percussion. Dessner allowed his friends—notably Richard Reed Parry of Arcade Fire and vocalist Caroline Shaw—to try new things, debut new music, and in one case, debut new music on invented instruments.

Again, this is a rare opportunity.

My team, Spaces, and I will be present for many performances, watching as fans with the audience, and filming from the shadows on stage. But we’ll also be behind the scenes capturing conversations, tearing down walls traditionally built between the artist and the fans, and exposing the creative underbelly of artists and the passion driving them beyond their norm.

So, needless to say, I am pleased as punch to help out Liquid Music for the 2015-16 season.

Please enjoy the Bryce Dessner highlights video and keep an eye out for more of Spaces’ work on the Liquid Music blog and on social media.