Interview: Joakim Westlund (The Giant's Dream)
Instead of me trying to explain the magic behind the latest IAT.MP3 netrelease, I decided to let the band speak for themselves. Joakim Westlund, one half of The Giant's Dream (and also bassist for noiserockers Aerial), was happy to oblige.
Tell me about the EP - is there a concept behind it?
Yes. The last year we've been working on an album, that actually now is finished. The songs on "Aeons bygone" were actually for the album. But somewhere in the chaos of rearranging and forming the album we saw an outgrowth with another and less serious theme. And the theme we saw was a pulp science-fiction theme. And I guess that is the concept behind the EP "Aeons bygone". In the music and atmosphere at large we have tried to capture the feeling you get from a magazine like "Astounding Stories" or a movie like "Humanoid Woman".
More "precise," the EP "Aeons bygone" tells the tale of the rise and decay of a universe in a kind of strange and implicit way. Overlaid on this and more explicit is a story about a party of people on some strange mission that takes them to other worlds were they encounter great deserts, war and death, but also find peace with themselves and the universe they live in. This is our interpretation of course, if someone comes up with their own it's just as valid - the music in itself is just music, nothing else. The concepts and interpretation we have imposed on it should not be seen as a rigid and final "this is what is," I hope there are room for alternative interpretations, that might or might not incorporate and maybe change what we think about the EP.
In the first song "Materialize out of nothingness" we hear the creator of this particular universe (i.e. the EP) talking. This might also be a briefing of some sort for the mission our party is about to venture on, if not, this we at least have a more definite briefing in the second song with an explicit mission.
The third song "The wastelands of Arrakis" is about a planet that our heroes visit. I think it's a cool sample, paints a great picture of a desert-planet and ends in an interesting and enigmatic way that makes me think of the play "Waiting for Godot" by Samuel Beckett. Has the same kind of mood in a way.
In the following song "Conjuror of war and watermelons" is where the action starts. I guess our party encounters war here for the first time. And also gets "a message from headquarters" which we have been told they would get if in trouble ("Materialize out of nothingness") "...you will be forewarned of disaster..." We have not been told they would get out of trouble though...
The fifth song is about death on a large scale, which I guess our heroes encountered in the war. In "Vision of the Necrobiosis" we/and our heroes see that decay, degeneration and death are a part of the universe and we can not escape it. Not on a personal scale, or a planetary as the sample suggests. This is what thermodynamics tells us, entropy is a not to optimistic fact. I guess the theme here turns kind of Philip K. Dick, a sci-fi author we both in The Giant's Dream enjoy reading. The last sample in this song is really sad I think, in the insight that, as all things in the universe sooner or later come to an end, stands a group of humans, our party of heroes.
"Maelstrom of madness and death" might be someone not willing to accept the facts of life and death which seems to lead to madness and death if we are to belive the title of the song.
But in the seventh song "Reverberation of the sun" I think a fundamental change has happened. I see the music here as an acceptance of death, and by this also a celebration for our short time in the sun. Instead of madness, our remaining hero (I think it was Emil's idea that all the others had died before this) faces the universe as it is, with its evils and bad things, but also and most importantly, with its good sides. He cannot change the universe in a fundamental way, but he can change the way he meets it. He might be asking himself, what if the universe in some ways are cold and hostile: "what can I do?". He can treat himself and the others around him in a way that tries to make life as enjoyable and pleasant as it can possibly be under the cold laws of physics which eventually will kill us. The last song sounds to me as if he, the last one remaining of our original party, passes out of existence in a peaceful and accepting way.
What's your composition process and what kinds of instruments/software/hardware do you use? Is there anything you wish you had to make it better or easier?
We use a free software right now, Buzz Tracker. You can find it at: http://www.buzzmachines.com/
It's old (but with loads of updates and new versions) and strange and takea much more time to work with than if you would use a new or purchased music program. In combination with this, we have two Casio synths from the Eighties, electric and acoustic guitar and electric bass. And of course all things around us to sample and make sounds with, old LP's, movies and coffemugs for example. We only have one microphone, so I guess more and different microphones would improve our studio situation. A new and better guitar amplifier would be nice also, oh, and a Juno-synth would be cool, but we have great fun with the stuff we use now so we are quite happy.
The composition process is often that I (Joakim) have some guitar idea or that Emil has some strange sound or synth-ideas. A lot of things start out as small loops made by Emil that I have some pointers on or make a guitar for. And we just go from there expanding and trying things until it sounds funny or interesting.
How does the The Giant's Dream differ from Aerial? Do you have a different mindset for working on either project? what's the best part about each band?
Well I guess the only thing they have in common is me, Joakim. I play bass in Aerial. I don't know if the mindset differs. The circumstances under which the music is made does. Aerial is a quartet and we rehearse and write songs in loud volumes and work on the songs, shaping them before recording. The Giant's Dream is a duo with low volume in a bedroom and we record and shape the songs in the same process. This is of course as it has been so far, the circumstances might change.
A good part about Aerial is the live performances. It is great fun to play music live at loud volume. Hopefully we might be able to do live shows with The Giant's Dream in the future also.
Tell me about the upcoming album - is there a theme to that as well?
The upcoming album is more strange both musically and conceptual to me. I guess the theme is quite philosophical and existential, and actually also a bit "religious" or spiritual. I think both me and Emil have a quite agnostic and relativistic point of view on the world and on life, so the few religious undertones should not be taken to literally. Let me try to explain. I mean, you can experience the sense of wonder that would constitute a religious or spiritual experience without having to put it in to a religious framework. Why not let the experience be what it is in itself? It might be hard to explain how it correlates to mundane reality but that don't mean that you have to take the first best explanation that comes along and make it a dogma. There are strange things we cannot explain completely and that will probably always be the case even if we continually keep expanding our horizons. And I guess that some of the themes on the album touch on this very much, making sense of the world and strange experiences. And I guess the conclusion is that you cannot completely make sense of the world and, by believing you have done so like dogmatic-religious people often think (that they have The Truth), can be quite dangerous. In other words, the album as the world is a strange and remarkable journey that you cannot completely understand, but at least you can understand some of it, and marvel and be amazed by the rest (instead of settling with a nitwit conclusion like: "YHWH or Allah made it all").
Musically the album is not as direct as "Aeons bygone". It's more noise and strange sounds. It got at least what I think, a more psychedelic feeling in many ways. Whatever that means. A bit more post-rock feeling too I guess. It's a lot longer than the EP, thats for sure. I'm bad at describing music...
Besides maybe playing live, is there anything else you'd like to see TGD attempt or accomplish? What are your goals for the band? Are you working to make any sort of definitive statement?
It would be nice to make a living from making music. But I don't see that ever happening right now. I guess a more realistic goal is too keep having fun and make music that we like, and hopefully get it out to as many people as possible.
So then, what's the future for TGD? What will happen over the next few months? And what about Aerial?
The future, well I hope we will continue to do free mp3 releases. Short EP's and stuff that anyone can download for free. I like the idea of this. It's a format that suits us I think. And of course get our album released by someone that likes it and wants to work on promoting it. It seems also right now as "Aeons bygone" might get a small Japanese release (50 copies), so we're hoping that this will work out. For Aerial, right now is our very first real tour. We're going to play in Denmark, Germany and Austria. This will probably be a strange and interesting experience. And we have also a finished album so we will get that and the new Giant's Dream album mastered as soon as we get home. We'll see what happens, hopefully both albums with get a lot of license deals in a lot of countries and a lot of people will listen and enjoy the music.