Artist Spotlight: Meet The Primary Phase Principle
Can you talk about any specific themes or motifs that run throughout 'Collapse Of The Sightless Age?'
'Collapse Of The Sightless Age' is the second concept album in my ‘subterranean future history’ series, in which all of humanity lives underground and has grown fully dependent on a giant mechanical machine whose origins and purpose now eludes them. Each track is like an episode in the overarching story. Given that the music is instrumental, the story is conveyed by the sounds and musical structures rather than through words. The general themes are that of uncertainty, rediscovery, followed by dismay and hopelessness. Without spoiling too much, I’ll just say that the story does not exactly have a happy ending!
Can you share any interesting or unique musical elements or production techniques used in this album?
The album was created entirely in Reason 12. Many of the percussive sounds come from Reason’s drum library, but I avoided the use of presets or samples for the melodic or atmospheric sounds since I wanted to put a lot of focus on sound design. I wanted to create a sonic palette that felt like a slightly alien world, and I figured that was more likely to succeed if I created my own sounds from scratch. I used mainly the Europa and Thor synths for that. For some of the more ‘natural’ sounding instruments, I used the Objekt synth a lot, which uses physical modelling to create amazingly life-like ‘acoustic’ sounds which are not real instruments at all.
Can you talk about any standout tracks on the album and what makes them special to you?
My favourite track from the album is probably #3, “The Unheeded Prophet,” really only for the way that it feels. I had a very particular type of sound and feel in mind for this album as a whole, and this track is the one that captured it most accurately.
I also really like the opening track, “Unearthing The Core,” because it is the one that is the most literal in its storytelling, with many of its sounds being those of the actual environment in which its events take place. And its middle section features probably the weirdest time signature I’ve used yet!
Was there a pivotal moment in your life when you decided to follow your path as a musician?
I guess that would be when my guitar teacher introduced me to Metallica. I was taking classical guitar lessons, which mostly follow a particular repertoire, but he would also teach the occasional ‘fun song’. Two of these were “Nothing Else Matters” and “The Unforgiven.” He made me a copy of the songs on tape (it was the 90’s), but ‘accidentally’ left the tape running so that “Wherever I May Roam” also got on there. I was probably 10 or 11 at the time, and my mind was blown. Thinking back, I’m not so sure it was an accident, I think he wanted me to hear the heavy stuff!
How do you approach the creative process when working on a new project? What steps do you typically take from start to finish?
This album had a different process than what I’ve done in the past, since I had the overall concept and storyline planned out before making any of the music. So from the start, I knew there would be 6 tracks and what each one of them should convey, and I had some general structures in mind. Some of them took more exploration than others before coming to something concrete that I thought fit the storyline. I worked in order of whatever I had the clearest picture of first, which helped with providing more context in creating the parts that I did not have clear ideas for yet. So for example, the first track I did was track 5, “As Foretold.” It is very simple musically, and I was able to knock it out pretty quickly. But track 4, “Death Of The Machine,” was much more difficult. I wanted it to convey a gradual but disastrous disintegration of the Machine (which provides for all of the needs of the people). It was the last track I did for the album, and there were 2 or 3 previous attempts at it that I scrapped because they weren’t hitting the right mood - and I think I needed to have the context of all the other tracks in place in order to know what the ‘right mood’ was in the first place.
For other projects, if I’m not necessarily trying to fit a particular concept or story, often a new piece will come about just from messing around with sounds. Some of my favourite sounds that I’ve created are those that were happy accidents, and those very often immediately inspire some sort of melody or progression, which then serve as the basis for an entire track.
