Hi all - welcome back after another extended break. I’ve not been idle by any means, but my music-making time has been extraordinarily limited recently. I’m hopeful to start strong in the new year with a couple of long-overdue studio diary entries, but more on that in a separate post.
Today is all about a new Sound Methods podcast with Atlanta-based Daniel DeWitt, AKA The Lifted Index, and Frankfurt-based Boris Potschubay, AKA Jogging House. Together they have just released a beautiful collaborative album called Whisper Glyphs. The album captured my attention right away, and it was a no-brainer to reach out and discuss the inner workings of this joint effort.
I’ve known Boris for some time now, not just as Jogging House but as the head of one of my favorite labels, Seil Records (of which I am a proud member thanks to my 2021 album, “Yesteryear” linked here). I love both his music and photography, so it was wonderful to finally have a chance to speak face-to-face (at least, through our computer screens). Daniel has been on my radar for a while now, too, thanks to his fantastic solo output on Seil. He’s also one of the most encouraging and positive people to interact with on the internet, and we’ve struck up a friendship thanks to our many common links including our bass-playing pasts and “dad of twins” status.
Here’s my interview with Daniel DeWitt and Boris Potschubay. We spoke over videoconference on the morning of October 28th, 2024.
You can support Daniel on Bandcamp and on Patreon.
Boris is also on Bandcamp and Patreon, and you can find the entire Seil Records discography on Bandcamp.
Sound Methods 010: The Lifted Index & Jogging House
Andrew: Dan, Boris, thanks so much for joining me here on Sound Methods. Lovely to have you on.
Dan: Thanks for having us.
Boris: Our pleasure.
Andrew: Absolutely. So I might sound a little bit out of breath right now, and that's because I was just out walking the dog. I had your album Whisper Glyphs playing in my ears during that whole time…I was walking really fast and listening to really slow music. It’s a beautiful fall day here in Philadelphia: really nice light, there's leaves falling everywhere, and it was a perfect album to be listening to. It's one of those “context enhancing” kinds of albums…it just makes everything a little nicer. So, first of all, congrats on a really beautiful album. It's a joy to listen to, and I wanted to dig into it a little more in a couple of different ways.
First of all, I just wanted to ask about the name, Whisper Glyphs. What does that signify? What's the story behind that? Is it just a random thing, or is there a deeper meaning behind that?
Boris: [laughs with long pause] Daniel?
Daniel: I don't know why you're looking at me. You came up with it. [laughs]
Boris: So, in Daniel's music, he has - at least from my point of view - very complex and also meaningful song titles, And I just mock them sometimes. When we started working together, because I was the one who rendered the tracks, I had to give them a file name. I made mock titles, and some were longer and some were shorter. One of them was Whisper Glyphs.
Immediately, when I just typed, [the idea came] - it was just like, the thing comes up and you have to enter some kind of file name so it can exist. I just typed something in. No, I didn't think about it before, but immediately I felt like this could actually be a cool album title. And, yeah, that turned out to be true.
So, the unofficial version is, it's just two words that sound cool together. But officially, we thought about it before, for decades almost [laughs]. And, yeah, it's basically about non-spoken languages that are within us and make us feel things, which we articulate through emotions.
Daniel: Yeah. The title came relatively early in the process, right? You came up with it, so I feel like I backed into the meaning of it. Once we had the title, it was like, “oh, yeah, okay. This is it.” It's vague enough that you can come up with your own interpretation of it. And so I had that kind of idea in my head for at least a half to two thirds of the record.
So this is clearly the difference - or one of the many differences - between the way that I work and the way Boris works, is that I concoct these elaborate meanings and things in my mind. Boris is like, “let's just make the music.” But yeah, there's something with pulling on threads from the past and feeling you're reaching for those things and bringing them into the now, and reaching for other things. And, the fact that it was a collaborative album and we live on other sides of an ocean sort of felt there was some sort of a “reaching for connection” thing that felt very appropriate to me once you came up with it. As soon as he said it, it was like, “oh yeah, clearly that's the name. We're not going to top that.”
Andrew: I was just looking it up in the background here. A glyph is any kind of “purposeful mark.” So it's very ambiguous. I guess it can mean a lot of different things, which is pretty appropriate for an album like this.
And you just said something there, Dan, that I resonate with. There are so many ways to go about making this kind of music. I'm one of those people, too: to get my mind going and focused on something, and to even feel motivated a little bit, I have to have a theme, or a story, or some kind of thing to hold on to, to guide the rest of the process. Some people are great at just jumping right in. I do that sometimes too, but more often than not, I'm working towards an objective or a goal. Like a word that I came up with, or something to describe the work that I'm doing.
I'd love to hear more about you guys talk about the process of collaboration and the melding of those two styles together. How did this collaboration come about, and how did you find yourselves working differently than you normally do throughout the process? What made this special and unique?
Boris: I have a Patreon page and a Discord there, where we have a “Collab” channel that is there for trying to get members together and making music together. A while ago - I don't know, maybe two months now, a bit more than three months ago - I basically wanted to spark up this channel within the Discord, so I made a collaboration initiative to get people to work together, but also be a bit pragmatic about it and give them some tips - like a template. Just so people could try to start working together, but also not be super precious about every little detail in order to actually get stuff done. But that wasn't just to bring others together. I felt, “hey, I should join too.” And I made some tracks with a couple of guys and Daniel was the…I think the second track that I made, and it just felt like a really fun process, where it was done very effortlessly, I don't know…it just worked. And so I asked him if we wanted to just keep doing that.
Daniel: Yeah, we did one, and we shared it in the Discord, and we enjoyed it. So we did another one, and then I think it was after the second one, Boris was like, “we’re just going to make an album, right?” [I was like] “okay, yeah, sure. Yes, please. I have no complaints about that.”
The process for me was really different [from my solo work]. Andrew, like you said, I have pages and pages of notes and I do research and things for my albums, usually, and I tend to have track name ideas. I'm reaching for things, like “here's the general picture and here's what I'm working toward.” I love that stuff. It motivates me, and whether or not it comes across in the music is irrelevant because it's primarily a motivational tool for myself. It just gets me excited about making music, and therefore I will go and sit down and make music. But I didn't need that for this album, because I was just excited to work with Boris. It's very exciting to hear your piddly little sounds that you make [be transformed]. Boris is a wizard with samples and doing all this stuff, and he's a great arranger. And he works quickly, so to be able to record something when I first wake up in the morning, get a few ideas down that I like and feel good about, send them to him, go to work, and then the next morning I wake up to a finished track…there's nothing that's more motivating than that. So I didn't feel particularly like I missed the whole “conceptual” phase at all, because I was just excited.
For me, the concept was, “how can I get Boris excited to make tracks?” That was the concept, it was like, “I just want to impress Boris.” That was the goal, which is not always the best way to make music - you want to make music for yourself, I understand that - but Boris has been my first listener for just about every Lifted Index track for almost the entire four years that I've been doing this. That part is very familiar. I know his taste. Boris, you would agree, probably, that maybe we have a lot of overlap in what we like, but your taste is much narrower…
Boris: Yes.
Daniel: …so I know there's there's a sweet spot that I need to hit, and it was very focusing for me. He's given me enough feedback on tracks of my own where I could hear him telling me, before I sent anything over to him, “he's not going to be excited about this, so let me try this.” That was really fun, to think about what I was doing a little bit more outside of myself. But then I also didn't have the pressure of, “I’ve got to finish this track,” which was super freeing.
I think even the stuff that maybe…I don't know, it worked out even with some of the stuff that maybe wasn't really a slam dunk for you, Boris. You still made it work. There was only one time where he was like, “I can't work with this.” But everything else, if it wasn't immediate…there are some tracks where I sent over two or three stereo layers of just long four or five minute things, and he didn't touch any of that and just added to it. And then there were other ones where he chopped stuff up, and so it all just depended on whatever Boris was feeling. But I started all the tracks. I sent kind of “starter” things, and then I don't think I added to anything after I sent [him] stuff. So it was like a handoff.
Andrew: That's interesting.
Boris: I really liked the challenge of working with whatever I had there. Sampling is…I love synths and all that stuff, but sampling is my main love. I just added to it. It's not just that I messed with the sounds that Daniel sent - I made [some parts] on top, basically, but still I like to work with what is there and try to incorporate basically everything. I think aside from that one track that you mentioned, every file that he sent me is also in those tracks, be it in the original version or in a highly altered one where I took out single notes and made a new melody or rhythm or whatever.
I just enjoy working with a finite set of [sounds]. I added bass, except for one track, I think. The bass is my [Korg] MS20. But it didn't change [the existing material]. It just enhanced the sounds that I had, or that I altered or whatever. I really like that challenge. There's nothing to win, but I like to have that challenge with myself, basically. I enjoyed that.
Andrew: I love that. I'm so on board with the way you described that. I grew up playing bass, and I dabbled in synthesizers. I can play guitar, do a little bit of piano, and all this other stuff. But at the end of the day, I always come back to sampling. Everything I do is driven by that: taking what was made elsewhere and then reshaping it into something that couldn't be made by any “real” instrument elsewhere. That, to me, is just very exciting. Sample-based processes…I was talking about this with Scott Campbell, another Seil Records artist - this is just turning into the Seil podcast - but he and I were talking about that. There's a certainty about the material that's in front of you and that you have available to work with, and there's something just very personally motivating about that and it helps me focus, for sure. So I totally resonate.
And on that note, I'd love to hear you guys talk about the instrumentation that was involved with this. I know you just brought up samplers, Boris, and Dan, I know you play guitar. Was that the primary basis of this?
Daniel: Yeah. just about everything that I sent to Boris was guitar. I think there was one track that had a processed analog synthesizer part in there, but just about everything else was guitar processed through pedals. And then I had a fair amount of stuff that I also sampled in the Digitakt and messed with there, too. I'm not quite the wizard with sampling as Boris is.
The downside to playing guitar is that I have to actually play guitar, and I can't be thinking about the other things. So to be able to capture something in a loop, or to record something in a sample, and then I can just sit there and focus on what I'm doing with it without having my hands busy…I can't imagine doing it any other way anymore, even though same as you, Andrew, I grew up playing in bands. We played live music and, for many years - maybe not consciously - but we looked down a little bit on [people who didn’t]. “Why aren't you guys playing your instruments?” But it opens up so many other possibilities that aren't there when you're just doing stuff on the fly. It works for my brain, and it's fun.
Andrew: Yeah, and this is something I come back to a good bit. I love hearing other people talk about this particular question that I'll put to you guys, too, but I guess when we're making this kind of music, if you're just listening to it in a vacuum, it's so devoid of context and familiarity. When I listened to Whisper Glyphs I could hear - because I know both of your music quite well at this point, I've been listening to it for a while now - I could very distinctly pick out, “Oh, that sounds like Dan clearly coming in to the picture here. That sounds like a Boris bass line.” I could hear your distinct personalities throughout all that. But I guess at the end of the day, how do you describe to other people what you do? What is your “style?” What is your “thing?”
Like I said, I grew up playing bass guitar, and for a long time, I identified as a bass player. I don't anymore; I barely touch the bass, which is depressing and a whole other topic to talk about, but all those experiences have shaped who I am. I'm still not quite able to describe how I work or what I do, or who I am as a musician. That's an ever-changing thing at this point.
I'm curious if you guys have any clarity: how would you describe what you do?
Daniel: No clarity whatsoever.
Boris: When I talk to “non music people,” I just tell them that I make calm electronic music. And then if they are like, below boomer age, then I say “without drums.” [laughs]
But other than that, I don't know. I guess my sounds are a bit noisy, usually, on my music, but that just happens. And I like to think that there's a kind of emotion, or even a nostalgic memory buried in them. But that is obviously just my taste, and decisions that I make while making the music. I shy away from these kind of conversations. If you haven't listened [to my music], what are we even talking about?
Daniel: Yeah. On the one hand, it’s really not for us to say, because ultimately it's up to whoever's listening to it to put their own meaning on there. But, on the other hand, I will obsessively think about this topic, because I do find it very interesting since I think about it a lot with other people. I think about the things that I like in other people's music, and the times that I try to emulate what somebody else is doing, it really doesn't feel [right].
For my own music, I think the two adjectives that I come back to a lot for whatever feels right to me is “density” and “texture.” I love a lot of music that has tons of space and it's very minimal, but every time I try to do that, I don't know…it doesn't work for me. And so it feels the most like me when there's a lot of relatively simple things happening on top of each other, that have that kind of undefined texture, noise…I think like Velcro or something that you can grab hold of. That's the way that I think about it. Beyond that, I don't really know how to describe it.
Go ahead [Boris]. You probably can do it better than I can. You put my music out on your label.
Boris: You have a wonderful clean guitar sound that I think is not that common, even if it's like, on paper, the most normal one of all the guitar sounds. But usually, in our kind of music - not in all music - usually it's drowned in all kinds of things, and you have those “crickety,” small chirpy layers. I think your music's “crickety.”
But usually somewhere along the track, there's this very pure guitar that is very open, and it's very…you can love it or hate it or whatever, but it's very disarming. It's very pure and sweet and gentle. Humble, clean guitar. Yeah, I think that is your thing.
And I would say, just to add, I think one thing that is a bit of my thing is rhythm or groove. I think groove is a better word. Not necessarily for all the albums that I’ve made, but I think if you wanted to - not that it completely grabs hold of your body - but if you wanted to, I think you could listen to my music and make a slow head bob, and I don't think that is true for all ambient music. So I would say that might be a bit of my thing.
Andrew: I totally get that. Yeah. I think it's the second track, “Paper Maché.” I gotta pull up the track listing to confirm…
but yeah, there's that little click that enters in pretty soon and it stays with you the whole time. I would associate that with your music, Boris. There is a rhythmic pulse to it, definitely, which is why I think it stands out.
Daniel: When I was first getting into Boris's music, I was firmly of the mind that I needed drums or some kind of rhythm to enjoy music. And so ambient was not a thing for me. But I latched onto Boris's music for that reason. My first thought was like, “I want to hear a drummer play underneath this. I want to hear a remix or something, because it suggests a lot of rhythm that may not even be there.” I think that's groove, right? Where you're feeling the space rhythmically in some way.
Andrew: That takes me to another question I wanted to ask you guys, was how you got into this music to begin with. Call it ambient, call it electronic, whatever we want to label it here.
I think about my entry point, and again, going back to that topic about how all these different experiences shape you and direct your path down this road, I was playing in bands, playing bass with loud - like very loud - post rock bands, and even had experience playing in jazz and funk stuff. I think I've talked to people about this before, but the music that we make as Hotel Neon, for instance, it's extremely dense. Like you said, Dan, I love that word “dense.” Extremely dense and full. I think we were trying to replicate [the post-rock bands we played in]…”ah, so our drummer can't play anymore and we’ve got to give that up. But how can we maintain that real heavy, meaty presence in the music?” And so, that was a direct path from the post rock stuff into loud, heavy ambient. And then I progressed from there.
But how did you guys get into this space? What inspired you to try your hand at making it?
Daniel: I got frustrated trying to make a rock album on my own. I was doing the band thing too. I made a number of solo albums after I stopped playing in bands, and got gradually more and more pushed towards [the realization that] “I don't have a drummer.” I paid a drummer to record some stuff, but then you gotta get studio time and then you gotta mix the drums, which is frustrating in and of itself. So then it was like, “oh, I'll just get a drum machine, and then I don't have to worry about that,” so you get progressively more and more electronic. But I spent two or three years working on an album, and finally was like, “I can't do this anymore.” And while that was happening, I was getting more and more into beat-less music, and getting more into ambient.
Jogging House, honestly, was the first…Boris's music is like the perfect intro into ambient because it does have that rhythm and groove, and so if you like more like beat-focused electronic music with atmosphere, that's like the next level down if you want to start removing drums from the equation. The more you listen to that, you get more and more influenced by it. And then you're like, “can I do this?” And for a long time, the answer was “no, absolutely not. I cannot do this.” I tried and it was not good.
You surround yourself with this music, and the music, like Boris was saying, is…there's not necessarily a defined instrument that you're hearing, things are heavily processed, and that's a skill that I didn't necessarily have. And so I would try to do that, and it wasn't really until I stopped trying so much and I was just like, “you know what, I play guitar, and I'm going to have guitar in my music, and it's going to sound like a guitar” that it was like, “oh, here's the formula. It's not a formula, but here's the sound that feels honest to me. I don't feel like I'm like trying to sound like somebody else.” And it felt different enough to where I didn't think I was re-treading or nothing was new. It felt like I had my own little niche there, and then it went from there.
Boris: I got into ambient late. I never learned music and I never played in a band. I don't know how that works. I also can't play an instrument…so not a big advantage.
Daniel: Or is it the biggest advantage? Maybe. Rick Rubin can't play an instrument either. I know how much you love Rick Rubin, Boris.
Boris: I still have my hair. [laughs] I initially made beats, like Rick Rubin. Rap beats, stuff like that. I didn't [publish them], they aren't anywhere. They sucked, but I made them. And then, I don't know if you're familiar with my pre-ambient music, but I made a couple of albums or EPs that are like…I don't know what you would call it. Lo-fi R&B? Just because it sounded good. I used a lot of vocal chops, samples, I don't know…what [genre] is Burial? What kind of music is that? Not that mine was as good as his, that's not what I'm saying, but just that electronic, “beats but kind of ambient-ish” sound. Stuff like that.
So I made that for a couple of years. I really enjoyed making that, actually. But I’ve always listened to Mark McGuire, the guitarist from Emeralds. I also really dig Emeralds, but especially his solo work. He had a bunch of tapes out in the late [2000s], I guess. They were just prolific. He had these tapes that were usually just three, four tracks. It was basically a bit of jam music where I think he just played into very long delays with his guitar and layered it and layered it, and stuff like that. It just became this hypnotic music, and I always loved that.
I don't get very inspired by music at all to make my music, but this I just really loved. I still do. But I couldn't play guitar, so it was hard for me to figure out how that even worked. I remember then I made a Eurorack case, like a very small one - 42 HP, basically the tiniest case that I messed around with on my sofa. I didn't take music very seriously back then. I just had these bursts. At that point, I think I was close to quitting and I made this one rhythm or whatever with Rings, that module that everyone had that became a cliche. It sounded like a guitar, which was cool for me because it was the first thing that I had that I could basically play a guitar-ish sound…
Andrew: And Clouds, right?
Boris: I didn't even have Clouds back then. I made this one thing, and I recorded it into the OP-1 and then I made like three other tracks, that I also recorded, on top of it. I was like, “Hey, it works and there's no drums in it,” because I didn't know what to do when you don't have drums. I didn't even…usually my tracks have quite a full bass, but that wasn't even a thing for me back then. I figured out how to make a melody and rhythm thing, basically a bunch of short, repeating phrases that didn’t suck, and also didn’t get old super fast - that you can basically play for a couple of minutes and have things changing around it. And, at least it had my attention. And that track, I remember it very clearly how the thought was like, “I got it. This is how it works.” Before that, when I made [music] and jammed around with my modular system or something, I usually had at least a kick drum running, or maybe like a bit of percussion, but usually at least a kick. Something that I used to start out and then I added to it. But this was like a melody born out of nothing, and I basically just stuck with that approach.
I made various interpretations of that approach, but I'm still…this was the moment where I felt like, “ah, I can.” I didn't even care if it was “ambient” music. I actually got that through Instagram later on, when I just noticed that people use that hashtag. I personally don't care very much about what it's called. I guess the music that we make doesn’t even fit that label, if you stick to what it actually means. For me, it just means electronic music that doesn't have drums. That's all.
Andrew: Anything's ambient if you play it softly enough and ignore it.
Daniel: Which is very easy to do these days.
Boris: Exactly. Most music is ignored. I have zero intention to make anything that is there to be ignored. I get why you would make that if all the airports [didn’t] have their music already. I don't need to contribute to that. I imagine a very engaged listener because otherwise it would be very demotivating, I think.
Andrew: Yeah, absolutely. On that topic of inspiration, I'd love to hear you guys talk about what you might have brought to this collaboration. Where were you at the point in time when you both started working on this? What were you listening to? What were you inspired by?
Boris, you mentioned you're not typically inspired and motivated by music, per se, but I know you're big into photography. I'd imagine that informs a lot of your work. I'd love to hear what you guys were both thinking about at the time that this came together.
Boris: It's not that long ago, so I think we're both still the same persons that made this album. I don't even know. I don't want to sound too “non-arty,” but my brain doesn't really…I love taking photos, but nothing informs my music other than the act of making music. I enjoy booting up or powering these machines and then have pretty lights and stuff like that. I just enjoy using them, and I enjoy sitting down with the task of making an album and then making an album, and succeeding.
That goal is all I need. There are many things that I really enjoy outside of music, but they don't really influence me. Everything you do, basically, even if you do a lot of cooking or whatever, it influences you as a living, breathing entity, and that will then also influence the music that you make, but that is a bit far, maybe.
I just wanted to make that album, basically, because Daniel sent me sounds. That meant that I had to multitrack, which I usually don't do - usually I just record to stereo. So that was a new challenge, too, and, I just felt, “hey, it could be cool to actually have EQs and stuff on each track, and clean out that mud a bit easier,” and stuff like that. I just wanted to do it.
That's the heartwarming tale of how it came together.
Andrew: [laughs] I love it.
Daniel: I love it too. I love just how we're so completely different in that regard, and somehow we come to somewhat similar ends with our music, and we're able to stylistically gel. I really do think about music a lot. I think about it a whole lot, and I think a lot about the metaphysical, so music is very…which is like the complete opposite of Boris. I think you're very much concrete, like “things are here. I'm going to worry about the things that are here,” even just the way that you talked about making the album.
I guess it's the meditative aspect of making these sounds and sitting with them and thinking; it helps to get me outside of myself, which I like, and I don't necessarily feel like there's any sort of…a lot of people, particularly in the ambient world, I think, make ambient music as a form of therapy. I don't really think of it like that at all. I suppose it does help me sometimes process emotion, but it's more about just getting outside of myself, not having to think about what is going on in my life or what's going on in my head, but just give myself another task to accomplish.
And then, like Boris said, you make something and it sounds good. That's reinforcing. That makes you feel good. In my solo work, that's really what it is. I feel motivated to complete albums. I don't understand people who can sit and make music and just [be like], “I spent a really great two hours with this machine, and I just played it and I listened to it for myself.” I don't get that. More power to you if that's how you can unwind or whatever, but I need to record, I need to have a product, and I need to release it. Props to the people who can make their own music and it's good enough for just for [them] to have it. I need to share it. It doesn't necessarily mean that I need lots and lots of people to listen to it. But, Boris, we have talked about that a lot, that it doesn't feel like it's done until you've released it. We're very much the same in that regard.
Boris: Certainly, yeah.
Daniel: Not release the music, but like, physically released it from your possession and from your thoughts, because before you do that, you can always go back and change it. And I don't need that. I need it to be done.
Boris: Yeah. I don't think I would even play with any of these instruments if I couldn't record them. It's totally about the recording. I loved making mixtapes as a child. Just watching the spool spinning and then capturing what I want…the audio is secondary, almost.
Daniel: My dad is very handy. He’s a woodworker, and before that, he could fix anything around the house. He built stuff all the time. I can't do that, but I can build songs, and that's where the recording process [comes in]…there's that drive to make something that I guess maybe I did get from him, but it's just not anything that you can hold in your hands. But it's there for sure.
Andrew: Yeah. I totally resonate with a lot of what you guys are saying. I'm probably the middle ground between you, if I'm thinking about just the pure love of the process and working with the tools and the machines and the joy of that - if that's Boris on one end, and then a little more of the - to your use your word, Dan - the metaphysical aspect, and the thinking about it on the other end, I'm probably in the middle there.
And yeah, I think about this [aspect of recording] a lot too. I also don't really understand how people can go through all the process and the expense and the time and the effort that's involved with accumulating the gear, learning the gear, taking the time to sit down and make music…and then not have a document of it. I think that for me, I love the process of documentation, whether that's taking photographs, whether that's making and recording music…I'm a perpetual note-scribbler. I have at least three pocket notebooks on my person at any given time, and 50 different pens. That's just the kind of person that I am. I like to observe and notate and document, and preserve that memory, I think, at the end of the day. So I totally agree with [the statement that] once something is released and out into the world, that, to me, is the signal of the end.
And that's also why I think…because I love the process so much, and I love the act of documenting things, once it's out there I don't really like to revisit anything. What's done is done, and then I'm already on to the next act or task. I'm wondering if you guys resonate with that. And since this has been released now, where your mind is going at this point? Have you - I'm sure you're both already onto the next piece of work at this point.
Boris: Almost finished.
Daniel: I'm moving much slower than I used to. I was actually already halfway through an album when we started this one, and so I'm trying to find my way back into that. But much, much more slowly.
But this record for me, I have no problem revisiting it because I have been such a fan of Boris's for a while. That's mostly what I can hear, and it's still fun for me to go back and listen to it and hear my contribution there, but also just enjoy it as a Jogging House fan. It's a very weird…it's mentally strange, but I enjoy the strangeness. I am not listening to it every day or anything like that, but I hadn't listened to it in a while and I put it on this morning because I figured I should probably reacquaint myself a little bit with it [ahead of this interview]. And I was like, “yeah, I still really like this. I'm very happy with it.” That's a good feeling, for sure.
Boris: Yeah. I have to admit, I do not listen to my music usually after it's done, but this one I can play and not feel awkward.
But I'm close to being done with a new album at the moment. We had a release [on Seil recently], so that usually throws off my recording routine because I have to pack all these packages and do shipping labels and horrible stuff like that. And if I do that for a couple of hours, it kills all my energy. But today I brought the last big pile away, and now it will go back to normal levels hopefully. I made a lot of other bunch of “homeworky”things today. And I feel like tomorrow should be a day where I can finally record something. I hope that maybe by the end of the week, I get that album done.
Andrew: Awesome. And that brings me to where my mind was going next on this, hearing you both talk about solo work. One of the things that I personally love the most about collaborating musically with other people is just seeing how other people work. Inevitably I learn something from that. I take away something that contributes to my own work, whether it's tangible or not. I end up learning something from that experience.
I'd love to hear if anything happened during this process of collaboration for both of you - things that you'll take away for future work, if anything. What did you learn or take away from this experience?
Daniel: I did put a kick drum on the first track I finished after we finished the collab album. So there's that. It was probably the most “Jogging House” I think I can get.
But yeah, I might be able to give you a better answer in six months or something, if I can look back on it a little bit more. There's a confidence, I guess, that comes with it. I can make these sounds and they can work in other contexts with other people who I respect, so that is motivating to me. It's probably not a confidence boost because I never have great confidence in my own abilities, but it is motivating. Yeah, I cannot be boosted, but it does inform that aspect of just…I think because I'm not an ambient “old school” guy, I'm pretty new. I guess I've been doing it for four years, which is not a very long time. There's a little bit of that imposter syndrome, which I already had before, but I still feel like, “is it okay that I'm here, everyone? I'm doing this, is everybody okay with this still?” So anytime I can be involved with people who I respect, it helps me feel like, “yeah. Okay. You're good. You can keep going.”
Andrew: Yeah. Totally. We're all welcome in this ambient party. Don't worry, Dan.
Dan: That's just my own pathology.
Boris: I think it's the least “gatekeepy” community.
Andrew: Absolutely true.
Boris: I just learned that I want to do that again, with Daniel but also with others. I really like his music. Otherwise, we wouldn't have done this one and he also wouldn't be on the label. So that’s no surprise.
But I don't do too many collaborations. It's something I want to work on, because I never played in a band and stuff like that. I know that I'm a musician, because I make music, but I don't think of myself as a musician, and [music] came so late in my life. I don't know. It's strange.
I did one collab album with Benoît Pioulard a couple of years ago that also went very smoothly, but this was - aside from a very few single tracks - this was the second one, and again, it worked very well and it's something I want to do more in general, because it’s fun.
Ideally, in my mind, I would like to make a “normal” album - I’m finger quoting - and then maybe a collaborative album, and then solo album again, and stuff like bouncing back and forth between this just to take a bit of the pressure away. But if I work with someone, I like if they don't use the same sounds that I do. I have very little interest in someone who uses a lot of analog synths in their music. I most likely will like their music, but it's the same kind of [territory], frequency wise and sonically. There's no space for that stuff here. And I don't want to mimic it. I really like some guitars, the non-metal kind, and things like that. Or acoustic instruments, things that I don't know how to operate. Even though I could theoretically learn some of them, I know that I would never will.
So this is something that I didn't learn [from the collaboration] - I had that information, but it was more like reassuring that, “yeah, I should try to find ways to get cool foreign instruments into my studio by working with people who know how to play them.” And it's a very easy thought, but it only crossed my mind twice in so many years. So yeah, I should try to make it stick.
Daniel: I think it really helps to have some kind of an established relationship with that person, too, because you have to know how you're going to work together, and you have to know there's a level of comfort and confidence to say, “I'm sharing something with you that is clearly not complete. I'm sharing something with you that I would not share with other people. I wouldn't release this as it is, but I'm sharing it with you,” and that's vulnerable, first off, and then, “how are we going to divide the labor up for this music? Who's going to do what?” And you don't want to step on anybody's toes by saying “I don't like this sound,” or saying that in a way that is going to make somebody feel bad versus making somebody feel motivated. And I think for our situation, I said before, he's listened to so much of my music before it was ready, and already given me notes. So I know what his criticism style is…
Boris: To the point.
Daniel: …in a pleasantly German way that I don't feel offended by. And if anybody was going to feel offended by it, it would probably be me, because that's just the way I roll. But we've done it enough so that's not a problem for me, and it worked out really well. And I've actually been thinking about it a lot. “Why does this work so well?” Other times, trying to work with other people can be…it's not that they’re bad, it’s not that the music is necessarily bad, but it feels more like work, versus whatever this was, which was just purely exploration and fun and, “Hey, I tried this thing out and it worked out pretty cool. See if you can do something with it.” If you can find that with other people, then Boris, like you said, it's easier to share it, and more fun in a lot of ways. There's something really gratifying about having a vision for your own solo thing and then executing it and sharing it with people is pretty great.
Andrew: Yeah, absolutely. Especially these days. I think just having like minds, having community, having other people to share with and to work with is…I don't need to re-litigate the last couple of years and everything that's happened, but yeah, these days that's more important than ever.
Daniel: That goes back to releasing things and why we do that, because we want to make those connections with other people and you've got to start conversations.
Boris: And that ambient tape money.
Daniel: Yeah. And the money.
Andrew: For sure. Can't ignore the money because there's just so much of it in this space.
Daniel: You’ve gotta get those sponsorships.
Andrew: Yeah. Oh man.
This was a fun hour of conversation guys. I can't believe an hour has already passed, but it has. Thank you for taking time out of your busy lives to make it happen. I really loved hearing more about the process here. It's a really beautiful album…I highly encourage everyone to go check that out and make it next on your “to listen to” list.
So, Dan and Boris, thanks again for taking the time. This was great.
Boris: Thank you.
Daniel: Thanks Andrew.
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