
Originally posted at www.thesilentballet.com
How do you go about composing your music, do you get just an idea that you work with, or do you get it all at once and build from there?
It’s probably more a feeling, usually when I hear a particular song I rearrange it in my head. It can be any song, from Lionel Richie to Fleetwood Mac...but I don’t know if I should say that in case I get sued!
I’m sure Lionel Richie won’t be reading this! But it can be any track then?
Yes, every time it’s a track that I have some kind of special connection to, or means something to me.
Has there been anything recently that’s caught your attention?
No, not really, I’ve been really dried out. I’ve just been playing so much, I haven’t really had time. We’ve been touring since last summer, more or less every weekend, but I just play weekends then go back home. Especially when you’re playing in Europe it’s so easy to get home, so I’m always back home on Monday.
That must be hard though.
Yeah, it is, but I’ve had a couple of breaks now where I haven’t really played at all.
Do you have to plan out time then for when you want to compose new songs?
Yeah, I try to, but I think we’re still going to do the rest of summer, perhaps a bit in the autumn, then I’m going to take a break for a bit from playing live at all, and just try to focus on making new music.
So will you be touring just across Europe, or will you be moving across to America?
We’ll be going to the States hopefully, and we’re working on visas and stuff, but they are really, really strict. We’ve had some problems with them before, but it’s really urgent as the tour is supposed to be happening at the end of May, as we’re going to Mutek in Canada and that’s no problem. But then we’re supposed to go on an East Coast tour, but it’s just the embassy interviews left now.
A live set featuring you and !!! !!! !!! recently made an appearance on Pitchfork TV, how did this collaboration come about? Do you hope to collaborate again with any other artists?
Well, it’s like that now, I’m not playing by myself anymore, I now have a band, but with the Pitchfork thing we were talking about it on the bus and then they asked if we’d like to do it. I was really satisfied with it, I was kind of dreaming of playing with musicians again and not playing by myself, because it’s much more fun for me and the audience and everyone. So we started playing with live instrumentation and no computer, trying to be more like a band than a DJ.
Yes, it must be hard to keep the listener interested in you’re just running off a laptop.
Absolutely, especially when you’re playing in the States where they haven’t really had it taken to them; they still very much like watching, and to watch a guy with a laptop is really, really boring. Europe is so ahead of the U.S.A really, like they’re ten years afterwards, so here you’re used to a guy with a laptop...but they’re still like “why isn’t he sweating on stage? He should have that laptop between his legs” [Axel imitates air guitar, but with laptop].
So what instruments do you now use live?
Synthesisers and bass and acoustic and electronic drums. And it’s now a sampler instead of a laptop, there’s no computer in it. It’s really nice.
How did you translate it from a record to a live show? How did you know which parts to play?
The last record is somewhat in between both the living room and the dancefloor, and since I’ve been playing a lot by myself I’ve been figuring out which parts work on the dancefloor, so it was already taken care of in a way. We’re basically doing the same tracks I used to play, but rearranged them and added stuff.
Do you ever get a vibe off the audience, sort of like “we want to dance” or “we want to stand around”?
Yeah, but I don’t know, I think I just keep on playing, regardless of what expressions they may have in their face, it’s like take it or leave it. We’re really much more free now, I guess, before I was more like a slave under my laptop, now we can do whatever and we can just improvise and jam.
Do you think you’ll include a band in your next record?
I don’t know, I think it’s probably going to be me making the music, perhaps inviting the band to play on some tracks; we haven’t really recorded stuff. I think we could do something but I don’t know if it would be under The Field’s name or something else, we’ll see.I’m interested in the Sound of Light EP you composed for The Nordic Light Hotel, can you tell me more about that and were you ever worried you would be making lift music?
It’s really strange, the hotel contacted me and asked if I could do music for the hotel environment, and you have these thoughts “is it going to be lift music”, but they had it in every room, you could stream it directly by just pressing a button. Then they had this...like, a postcard with a CD, that you could buy after a visit, but then they started selling it on Kompakt and other stores, so I don’t know what happened, but I don’t think it exists anymore.
It is odd though that a hotel would be like “oh, make some music for us”?
It’s really strange, I was there for two nights and on the first night I got sick, I had a fever and started puking, and that kind of set the standard for the thing, because I couldn’t really work with it and I didn’t know what to do. For me it was really chaotic and I don’t really like it, there’s only one track that I’m happy with. It was more like a job, you know, kind of a commercial thing, “this is what we ordered from you”. It’s not a follow-up, some people think it’s like a follow-up EP, but it’s not, it was just for the hotel and I don’t even know why it got out, but people tend to forget why I did it.
This is quite a cheeky question, but do you think of members of an audience use drugs they’re more open to your music?
Yes! There’s a total difference, you can see with what towns you’re playing in and there’s a lot of drugs, the audience is totally different.
So are you expecting that from Minehead?
No, I think everyone’s going to be drunk on beer, but that works as well, intoxicated either way. But there’s a big difference between Barcelona and Stockholm, or Berlin and Stockholm; Barcelona’s pretty liberal but Stockholm is quite conservative.
Where has been the place where you’ve thought “these people really get it” then?
I think Berlin is always Berlin, it’s a really nice place and the people are very friendly. Everyone in this kind of scene more or less moved there a few years ago from all over, from the states, Sweden, everywhere. Berlin gets to be the capital of techno. It’s so cheap to live there compared to other capitals.
Is there anyone you’ll be checking out at ATP?
I want to see Dinosaur Jr, Battles and we’ve just been watching A Hawk and a Hacksaw, De La Soul as well maybe, we saw Explosions in the Sky last night and Four Tet as well. Oh, and Stars of the Lid. I think Adam, the guy with Stars of the Lid, is living in Brussells.
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