tonefloat / where did the uplifting title to you new album come from?sand snowman / i seem to recall there being a james bond film from the mid 90’s called “the world is not enough” which - having not seen it - i imagine to concern the power-crazed antics of some arch villain, and the “world” referred to would be that of tyranny, dominance and mass recognition, as opposed to making a decent living, doing what you love and treasuring your brief tenure on this charming little blue planet. the former world, that of a sort of darwinian division of “winners” and “losers”, with its demand that one validates one’s existence by attaining influence and power over others - that world is certainly not worth it, to me and perhaps any artist who is more concerned with quietly honing their craft than with demanding recognition for its own sake. whilst art alone doesn’t pay the bills (well, not mine anyway), one should perhaps be satisfied with the opportunity of devoting as much of one’s life to one’s work as possible, with a modicum of peer recognition for encouragement, and not be overly concerned if “the world won’t listen” (the smiths/morrissey). after all, why should the world listen? nobody’s entitled to an audience and there is probably always someone more talented, worthy and overlooked than oneself.
tonefloat / you’ve managed to make arrangements even more complex and unpredictable, while actually working with a slimmer palette than on some of your previous albums. what were some of the considerations for these two new works in terms of composition, mood, colour and orchestration?
sand snowman / i think i was aiming for a bit more clarity. when one is working with material that moves slightly beyond the more instantly accessible or recognizable, it’s easy for it all to sound a bit of a muddle, with lines, harmonies and counterpoint getting lost under a mass of pure sound. whilst i love psychedelic swathes of sound, i’m ultimately following the dictate of what the music requires, rather than just letting rip or adding layers for the hell of it.
tonefloat / influences from the world of classical music seem to have become more explicit than ever.
sand snowman / as an untrained, illiterate musician, the world of classical/art music excites me with its formal/harmonic extension - and there is so much one can still do with melody, harmony and timbre - as well as being unsullied by fads and fashions. it’s generally unfashionable/uncool which is a plus for me. also, the late 19th century orchestra is still one of the richest sound palettes available to any music maker; if, like me, you have neither the resources or training to marshall such forces, you can re-imagine what you do have and aspire to a broader sense of dynamics and timbre. my musical holy trinity is probably ravel, debussy and scriabin and i, rather hopelessly if romantically uninhibited, am moved to approximate some of the otherworldy beauty and sensual richness i hear in their work.
tonefloat / how did these ideals manifest themselves in a track like „under the stares“?
sand snowman / i was indulging in a thought experiment of incongruous pairings, in this instance, what might happen if js bach bumped into messiaen - the track “system failure” on “vanished chapters” is another of these, with mwandishi- era herbie hancock jamming with the slits. for some time, i’ve been intoxicated with the insistent ostinatos and eastern-european folk inspired melodies of bartók and, to a lesser extent, prokofiev and shostakovitch. in “elemental temple” i’ve sought to wed these, as a concluding and somewhat manic ritual dance, to a passage of ethereal scriabin/messiaen-esque stillness. out of the temple, into the fields.
tonefloat / tell me a bit about the collaborations with steven wilson and amandine ferrari.
sand snowman / being, as i am, a non-singer, i always have to give some thought to both „singability“ and vocal suitability of my material. i’ve been very fortunate with the vocalists who have done me the honour of singing my songs. steven has a superb clear tone and an excellent range, but is capable of embuing so much feeling and suggestion, sometimes with an almost conversational quality, as if discoursing an inner dialogue. this is very much what i was after for the track „a life rehearsed“ where steven sounds distant, reserved and yet teetering on the brink of the abyss.
amandine is an incredibly talented singer, musician and writer, as well as a cherished friend and, like steven, has an excellent range and can inhabit so many different vocal characters. she can sound like a chorister, with haunting purity that seems to summon the angels, but then shift to an almost sinister elemental quality, leaving the listener in a strange and frightening landscape. this is precisely the kind of jump/stop juxtaposition that i’d be delighted to hear in my own instrumental domain.
tonefloat / what, from your perspective, makes the world’s not worth it the „official“ album and vanished chapters the „bonus“ record?
sand snowman / to return to the world of classical/art music; it was, i think, commonly accepted that a composer’s oeuvre would comprise of “outer” and “inner” works, with the former being inhabited by the large- scale “public” pieces (symphonies, ballets, opera) and the latter by more esoteric and specialized works, such as études and chamber pieces, for example. the world’s not worth it, with its occasionally defined song structures, vocals and guest players, is more outer than vanished chapters, which is, initially, for initiates but, one hopes, might someday make it’s quiet way along the little path forged by it’s marginally more extroverted sibling. if you actually play them back to back, they seem to merge quite well, with „the rebel’s rulebook“ leading into „transfigured forest“ - well, both are in the same key. they are related insofar as one looks out at aspects of the world before, with the other, withdrawing once again.
tonefloat / you hardly do any promotion for your albums, only release something when you feel the time is right rather than working towards official deadlines and collaborate with a small, but dedicated circle of musicians. is this your way of counterpointing the pervasive tendency of „easy accessibility“ and the cult of beauty?
sand snowman / well, i’d love to think i’m providing the listener with something that’s not readily available elsewhere, otherwise i wouldn’t bother releasing anything; there’s already a super-abundance of recorded music available, most of it for free and much of it quite wonderful. one could, concievably, spend the rest of one’s life hunting down great music and never running out. for the contemporary artist/musician there is the great liberation of cheaply available recording technology (no more dodgy demos recorded in dead studio time... oh happy day). and, with so many people making and distributing music there is, aesthetic considerations aside, little point in creatively confining oneself in the desperate hope of „making it“.
regarding promotion, i wouldn’t know where to begin, really. all i know is that one can expend all of one’s energy trying to draw attention to oneself - for which i’m too impractical, reticent and, most importantly, immersed in my work to do. moonswift and i plan to do more gigs (and plan to add percussion and electric guitar) as, in this day and age, it seems one has to play live in order to be heard, and if you are making music for anyone other than yourself, you have to get behind it. your albums are your babies and you must do as best to safely establish for them an existence independent from you. saying this, however, i’m not entirely comfortable with gigging, but remind myself of how much i enjoyed the tonefloat gigs - especially the last one with moonswift - and this acts as a spur.
tonefloat / there are bigger social topics running underneath this, aren’t there?
sand snowman / we seem to be living in an age of coarse desperation, whereby the „shock of the new“ is now as depressingly predictable as it is instantly forgettable, the law of diminishing returns meaning that the dosage (of volume, vulgarity, violence etc) must, has and will be upped to the point that real horror (genocide, famine etc..) have a sense of the numbly familiar, as if one is simply re-watching an old film. what this does to our humanity, let alone aesthetic or creative faculties, is disturbing and potentially debilitating- with one wondering why, and for whom, one bothers. however, one has a choice (turn off the tv, throw down the „newspaper“) and one can make a difference (any scale is valid). there have always been bad times and we, as a species, have always required, or aspired to, beauty. if, in any capacity, one can offer beauty or some kind of fightback against the tide of dullness, ugliness and cliche, one is perhaps duty-bound to act. if you ever feel like „not bothering“ or giving up, it’s worth calling to mind any artist you love and considering what your life, or the world, would be like had they not bothered.
