R.M. Hendrix On the Making Of ‘YUKS’
Can you share any interesting or unique stories or perspectives in 'YUKS?'
I started writing ‘YUKS’ about two years ago in Reykjavík before moving here. I was staying in an apartment and would record a Sonic diary from each day… just sounds or compositions that captured a feeling or situation I saw. At the time I didn’t know that any of those experiments would become an album. I ended up with about 40 of them. Later I released about half as a mixtape for friends in Iceland. Then some as an ep called Blindur. But the most crazy stuff I held onto and they became the foundation for ‘YUKS.’
How did you work with the producer or engineers to bring your vision for this album to life?
Valgeir Sigurðsson coproduced half the album. The songs he worked on were primarily those wild experiments like the mid-section of “Thing Fellow” or the ending of “Cult that Eats the World” or the closing track, “Will the Sun Rise?”. He has a great ability to shape noise into interesting shapes. His own records, like “Dissonance,” are beautiful examples of this and you can also hear this on early Ben Frost records. He also brought a critical ear to the compositions and helped me know when to cut or extend songs. Valgeir mixed and mastered the record too at his studio, Greenhouse.
Can you talk about any standout tracks on 'YUKS' and what makes them special to you?
I’m really happy with the two tracks “Moderate Rain Warning / Murder of Crows” which are really a single song split up for streaming. They sound unlike anything I’ve heard before. I think I’m often looking for that in my music now. Trying to surprise myself. It’s why I’ve embraced improv songwriting and experimenting with instruments I don’t understand!
Valgeir helped me bring several experimental sessions together to form the song. The drum loops from Spencer Tweedy became the glue. We chose to turn the most chaotic fills into the beat. Then the lyrics came weeks later as I improvised lyrics over them. The vocoder was another new approach for me. It needed the effect to make the storyteller more distant and detached. Once the lyrics came together I researched vintage films from the US. Department of Defense about atomic bombs and used samples from them to fill out the song.
Can you tell us more about you as an artist?
Moving to Iceland has helped me become much more free in my writing and creative risk-taking. I had to let go of any expectations about genre or instruments or even kinds of songs. In some ways, it’s been like starting over, but with the benefit of experience.
How do you approach creating something new and different?
I think you have to learn to withhold judgment as you’re creating. And be willing to recognize that an experiment or even a failure is only relevant in certain moments of time. So something that doesn’t make sense today could make sense tomorrow or a year from now. You have to hold onto it and revisit it. The opposite is true as well. Sometimes you make something you love and realize the next day that it isn’t right for the moment. Thinking this way has freed me up to try a lot of new things.
The other thing is to learn to surrender to the process. Many things will reveal themselves as you create. They are often unintentional and if you embrace them, even mistakes, they will take you in new, unexplored directions. Many of the songs on this record are made from this philosophy.
