GLEN 

une minutieuse simplicité 

Interview  

A conversation with Francois Alaouret

Rock'n Force June 17, 2021

Glen: 

une minutieuse simplicité 

[Interview]











A conversation with Francois Alaouret.




- We know that Berlin is a cosmopolitan cultural capital and GLEN with its international line-up is proof of this. How did you meet and on what bases and musical influences did you decide to build your repertoire?


WILHELM: Eleni and myself are long time collaborators in music as well as film. We were involved in various music projects before and have collaborated on multiple film projects, Eleni as a director and myself as a composer, long feature films, documentaries and experimental abstract films.   Brendan Dougherty was introduced to us through a friend. Brendan besides being a drummer works in theater as a sound artist and has collaborated with Meg Stuarts Dance Ensemble “Damaged Goods” and various other Dance and Performance Groups. Maria Zastrow we know for also quite a long time. She hosted a radio show at an independent radio station in Berlin and had invited us to present our previous album CRACK. She wondered, why we didn´t ask her to play the bass? As she was once involved in another music project of us. Well so we asked her.  


We knew right from the start that we want to concentrate on instrumental music. Eleni and myself were developing music ideas, mostly improvising to discover into which sound direction we want to proceed and from some point other musician joined and became involved shaping our sound further.  


Still in this process there has always been a common ground of what music we favor. There is a strong influence of the epic narrative element of cinematographic music, the creation of new sound spaces and open structures of experimental music and on the other hand the powerful dynamic and energy of contemporary developments in noise, drone and progressive rock as well. We do not want to limit ourselves in producing music that contributes to one specific genre, there is a constant transformation. Attending a performance of Peter Brötzmann and Keiji Haino leave their mark as well as a Russian Circles or Boris concert. 


- You just released “Pull! », your second album and this time it is entirely instrumental. The choice to go without vocals was a decision you made from the start, or did it come naturally? Are the pieces self-sufficient in the end?


As I mentioned before the choice to go without vocals was a choice we had in mind from the start. A human voice always opens up the space and creates an immediate connection to the listener. Instrumental music is more of a challenge to achieve this.  


Still the first album Crack had some vocals, but was already distancing from a typical “lead vocalist” in using different vocals, spoken word and a more choral approach.  We cannot imagine ourselves as a rock band with a typical lead vocalist, but we feel free to use the human voice like an additional instrument. On PULL! we did a cover version of John Cale´s Buffalo Ballet, which is a classic song but we changed the main emphasis and center of gravity.  Listening to an album that is entirely instrumental and then close to the end you hear the sound of human voices is like adding another “breathing” instrument. But still the main “language” of GLEN is the noise of electrified instruments. 


- Although instrumental, "Pull! is presented as a concept album. Can you go into detail to explain it to us, and does depriving yourself of texts complicate things on the narrative side?


ELENI: The main title PULL! as well as each title of the tracks of the album set the stage for purposeful ambiguity. 

The track AHAB and the artwork refer to Mocha Dick, a famed aggressive whale, first mentioned in 1839 in a story published in The Knickerbocker, New-York Monthly Magazine, which was likely an inspiration for Melville’s Moby Dick. 

Mono Mythical Characters of male dominance like AHAB, unbearable endeavours like KORINTH and the Rosebud like enigma of DAVOS, surrounded by Thomas Mann´s “Magic Mountain” hosting the World Economic Forum, as well as the BUFFALO BALLET witnessing the historic battles of urbanization are open to multiple interpretations.  A LECTURE on madness, bliss, obsession, greed and tragedy of mankind enveloped in an album cover that was shot in the abandoned offices of the Athen´s Stock Exchange.

As much as each one of these titles mean to us personally, without any additional lyrics they leave enough blank space to others for multiple associations and interpretations. This is what we intended. 

- Wilhelm, you who come from film music composition, you must have been more comfortable writing these new songs, right?


WILHELM: I came to film music first by being a fan of film music. I like the narrative aspects of film compositions and the sound scapes of composers like Ennio Morricone, Pierre Jansen,  Georges Delerue, Jerry Fielding, Michael Small, just to name a few. I like the images film music creates even without watching the film. Working as a film composer myself, is on one side a dream come true, but on the other side, you are a hired composer and you have to serve the images of the director, good or bad. Working on music without these limitations, I can serve and orchestrate my own personal images. Beyond that, working as a composer can be a lonely business. I enjoy to collaborate in a band context and give the music the breeze of different individuals.


- The fact that the new songs are long enough should also facilitate the installation of musical atmospheres thanks to greater freedom, especially for a concept album, right?


WILHELM: You are absolutely right. Some effects music creates need time to develop and rise. For instance the repetitive beat of CAN´s “Yoo Doo Right” creates a hypnotic vortex, which lasts 20 minutes. CAN create this atmosphere in a way that reminds the trance of tribal drumming.  Sunn O))) create a sacred transcendental environment with their massive volume, feedback noise drones. For these compositions, time is an essential part of the music.  It is a completely different concept than a 3 min Pop Song.   




- Musically, GLEN's universe is quite large, even if you can be defined as a Post-Rock band. Is that a way of blurring the lines, of not restricting yourself to one style?


ELENI: As Wilhelm mentioned before, we do not want to contribute music to a specific genre. We never think about that. The label “Post-Rock” contains so many different music styles, that we feel quite comfortable that we are defined as a Post-Rock band, even if we would not label ourselves that way, as we do not like to label ourselves at all in anyway. 


- Surprisingly, “Pull!” is a very technical album musically and yet it is very approachable and does not present any apparent complexity when listening to it. Is it important for you to be as "readable" as possible?


WILHELM: Music is for meabove allan emotional expressionand notarepresentationof virtuosity and techniques. It isanotherform of communication, with a sender and areciever. It is wonderfulwhen thisemotionalcommunicationhappens. Soto be “readable”is

probably intendedby any musician, but we would never change a composition or a track to make it more“readable”or consumable.Listening to ourprevious record a friend wassurprised that hecouldevendance toourmusic. ...I said, well dance!On the otherhand MORRICONE,evenwithhismostexperimentalcompositions forfilm andwith the Avant-garde Composers Collective GRUPPO DI IMPROVVISAZIONE NUOVA CONSONANZAorTHE GROUPalwayssucceeded somehowto create“Hits”,at least for me.


- A final word also on your work with the great Reinhold Mack, who mixed the album. How was your collaboration and how did the contact take place?


WILHELM: To make a long story short, we grew up in the same hometown,  a small village in the deep south of Germany, …not exactly at the same time.  Our families where neighbours. His family had a piano shop next to my parent’s house. While I was a young kid he was already successful in the music biz. In the piano shop his parents had displayed a collection of his golden records and I was standing in front of the window as a young boy, thinking there is some kind of way out of here…

I just remember maybe seeing him once with my father when I was maybe 3 or so on the street wearing a long coat and long hair with another guy in the same style and I was pointing at them saying “Deatels” which was supposed to mean “Beatles”.

Many years later I got a surprising email from him. He just returned from a visit to our hometown to his home in Los Angeles, turned on the TV and watched a german movie discovering my name in the credits for the music… Calculating one plus one, …we once were neighbours… We then had sporadic contact, holiday greetings and so. 

When we worked on PULL! he contacted me with a question about an issue of our common social heritage. We talked a bit about music and the business and I told him about GLEN and that we work on a new record. 


Back in the studio Eleni and I were stuck somehow with one track by doing probably too much to the track. With the telephone call of him in mind I said to her “What would Mack have done?”, thinking of the perfect reduction of “Another One Bites the Dust”. We listened to the song and were flashed about his great production. I wrote him this and he answered “If you have a `problem child´, send it.” That’s how the collaboration began, which was a great experience and really a big pleasure! In the end he did the mixing of the entire album and we are very grateful for this! The funny thing is, we never met in person till now, except of the incident when I was a little boy, …maybe. 


Rock’n Force June 17, 2021

Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit. Aliquam tincidunt lorem enim, eget fringilla turpis congue vitae. Phasellus aliquam nisi ut lorem vestibulum eleifend. Nulla ut arcu non nisi congue venenatis vitae ut ante. Nam iaculis sem nec ultrices dapibus. Phasellus eu ultrices turpis. Vivamus non mollis lacus, non ullamcorper nisl. Pellentesque habitant morbi tristique senectus et netus et malesuada fames ac turpis egestas. Phasellus sit amet scelerisque ipsum. Morbi nulla dolor, adipiscing non convallis rhoncus, ornare sed risus.
Sed adipiscing eget nibh at convallis. Curabitur eu gravida mauris, sit amet dictum metus. Sed a elementum arcu. Proin consectetur eros vitae odio sagittis, vitae dignissim justo sollicitudin. Phasellus non varius lacus, aliquet feugiat mauris. Phasellus fringilla commodo sem vel pellentesque. Ut porttitor tincidunt risus a pharetra. Cras nec vestibulum massa. Mauris sagittis leo a libero convallis accumsan. Aenean ut mollis ipsum. Donec aliquam egestas convallis. Fusce dapibus, neque sed mattis consectetur, erat nibh vulputate sapien, ac accumsan arcu sem quis nibh. Etiam et mi sed mauris commodo tristique. Proin mollis elementum purus, a porta quam vehicula et.
Quisque ullamcorper, sapien ut egestas faucibus, tortor mauris tempor odio, sed pretium risus dui sit amet lectus. Sed ligula mi, tincidunt nec porttitor vel, aliquet sit amet libero. Nulla sagittis ultricies sem, non pretium augue bibendum vitae. Nunc luctus tristique urna eu tincidunt. Etiam ultricies neque ante, ut placerat dolor iaculis dapibus. Curabitur luctus orci et gravida laoreet. Sed ultrices id nulla id mollis. Donec tempor dapibus sem, a convallis felis elementum sed. Aenean nisi tortor, dictum ac massa non, rhoncus sagittis leo. Interdum et malesuada fames ac ante ipsum primis in faucibus. Proin id justo sit amet mi euismod lobortis. Morbi at mauris condimentum, vestibulum risus eu, laoreet elit. Aenean posuere risus vel hendrerit dignissim. In leo tellus, feugiat sit amet purus laoreet, consequat tincidunt orci. Integer sit amet justo in mi rhoncus commodo. Duis sagittis augue nisi, in fringilla tortor iaculis id.
Aenean luctus sodales tempus. Sed tincidunt nisl in nisl congue, at facilisis lorem posuere. Donec id erat vel lectus volutpat pellentesque a quis magna. Praesent bibendum orci in lobortis porta. Suspendisse eget odio a ligula ornare mollis. Maecenas eleifend urna ac feugiat posuere. Donec turpis ipsum, rhoncus eu laoreet eu, viverra tristique urna. Aliquam euismod velit mi, et pharetra libero gravida vitae. Praesent ligula lorem, hendrerit ut laoreet a, porta ut diam. Cras tellus lacus, mattis quis rhoncus id, interdum eget mi. Sed ac aliquet ligula, suscipit malesuada dui. Fusce eu nibh eget diam aliquet feugiat. Nam orci neque, volutpat ac metus id, fermentum tristique sapien. Phasellus ac ultricies risus.
Aenean vitae blandit nibh. Vestibulum a justo non lorem malesuada commodo. Suspendisse ac mi sit amet neque molestie interdum in at eros. Proin ac suscipit arcu, non suscipit felis. Donec accumsan, quam non pulvinar venenatis, sapien nulla venenatis neque, sit amet pulvinar turpis ipsum id elit. Donec interdum tellus ut dolor placerat, faucibus accumsan enim consectetur. Aenean dolor magna, condimentum eget interdum eget, dictum id tortor. Proin commodo risus vitae purus laoreet, sed malesuada massa congue.
Ut imperdiet sit amet turpis in elementum. Fusce at bibendum sapien, et convallis justo. Aenean lacinia ligula quis fringilla rutrum. Aenean eu ultricies nibh. Quisque ultrices suscipit dui ut mattis. Morbi pretium mattis tortor non tempor. Donec mattis pharetra justo, nec commodo velit placerat ut. Fusce vitae porta magna, in tristique nulla. Fusce accumsan erat quis tellus pellentesque, ut facilisis velit vulputate. Pellentesque habitant morbi tristique senectus et netus et malesuada fames ac turpis egestas. Suspendisse potenti.
Praesent rutrum neque neque, et sodales est blandit ac. Class aptent taciti sociosqu ad litora torquent per conubia nostra, per inceptos himenaeos. Aliquam viverra, augue non sollicitudin porttitor, mi lectus malesuada augue, id fringilla sapien lectus at ipsum. Quisque vel lacus luctus, suscipit eros a, iaculis ipsum. Maecenas viverra accumsan felis, sit amet consequat quam viverra aliquam. Sed sodales sem nec lectus molestie, eu commodo est fermentum. Donec accumsan tempor viverra. Cras non nibh porttitor, pharetra nibh a, aliquet velit. Fusce vel fringilla mauris. Nulla facilisi.
Vestibulum libero arcu, aliquet in sapien posuere, vestibulum lobortis mauris. Quisque congue cursus commodo. Nulla et dolor ultrices, gravida tortor vitae, adipiscing nibh. In in lorem ut diam ultrices faucibus. Ut nec nulla a dui molestie luctus. Nulla et risus pharetra, fringilla risus faucibus, fermentum mauris. Pellentesque habitant morbi tristique senectus et netus et malesuada fames ac turpis egestas. Nunc luctus, risus non pretium elementum, ante leo imperdiet neque, a elementum ante magna in nisl.
Maecenas in lobortis turpis. Aliquam et sapien nec arcu faucibus accumsan in ac metus. Donec ut hendrerit tortor. Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit. Ut massa elit, viverra et egestas non, pellentesque a nulla. Pellentesque enim nunc, volutpat eu nibh eu, consequat tincidunt sem. Ut varius feugiat risus et hendrerit.
Donec quis feugiat dolor, ac ornare diam. Morbi volutpat viverra mauris et condimentum. Pellentesque tincidunt, ipsum non faucibus tincidunt, leo lacus hendrerit felis, nec mollis magna nisl vel urna. Etiam semper, purus sed hendrerit mollis, nunc lectus pulvinar magna, vel suscipit nunc sapien non leo. Donec id purus sit amet turpis tempor mollis et eu lorem. Nam tortor justo, sagittis nec hendrerit nec, adipiscing at ipsum. Aliquam erat volutpat. Etiam lobortis mauris eget tellus eleifend, vel tincidunt metus adipiscing. Integer semper elementum ligula a convallis. Ut tristique metus ultrices luctus varius. Sed posuere lacus velit, vel placerat justo viverra mattis. Morbi vehicula ipsum id placerat condimentum. Vestibulum tortor quam, convallis sit amet convallis sed, ultrices a neque. Cras eu vehicula dui. Vestibulum varius eleifend lorem, id lobortis sapien. Pellentesque at vulputate ligula.
Aliquam erat volutpat. Aenean sit amet leo libero. Morbi vitae tellus at neque porta imperdiet. Nunc tellus nisl, tempus eget vestibulum convallis, convallis in sapien. Nulla nec metus nec nunc lacinia molestie non a magna. Phasellus sit amet tincidunt est. Etiam a ipsum volutpat, congue dui vel, aliquam felis.
Phasellus a diam mi. Vestibulum ante ipsum primis in faucibus orci luctus et ultrices posuere cubilia Curae; Donec libero velit, sollicitudin eget sem eu, porta tempor lacus. Phasellus a metus nec odio tempor dapibus. Sed pulvinar tortor mi, dictum mattis felis sollicitudin a. Duis odio purus, lobortis et volutpat ut, porttitor nec arcu. Sed vel ipsum mollis, ultricies massa eget, tincidunt turpis. Etiam suscipit sapien ac odio tempor, nec mollis purus tempor. Nunc bibendum dolor vel commodo convallis. Morbi nulla nisi, commodo ut lectus a, aliquam pretium sapien. Proin tempus ornare tincidunt. Vivamus luctus ac enim eget ornare. Nam eget blandit velit, sit amet blandit justo.
Maecenas feugiat aliquet ligula quis aliquet. Sed a massa at turpis posuere malesuada quis sit amet magna. Vestibulum ante ipsum primis in faucibus orci luctus et ultrices posuere cubilia Curae; Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit. Nullam sagittis lacus eget vehicula gravida. Nulla mattis justo ut nisi pulvinar, vitae consequat diam tincidunt. Nam quis ante nec purus malesuada tincidunt vel imperdiet metus. Proin id risus sapien. Duis porttitor urna non nulla sagittis aliquet.
Morbi pretium feugiat tortor. Duis posuere neque sed orci fringilla dictum. Etiam at purus in nibh placerat mattis nec sit amet ipsum. Curabitur at faucibus felis, quis pulvinar purus. Quisque bibendum diam id sem iaculis, et condimentum orci scelerisque. Phasellus tincidunt, est sed aliquam dignissim, risus odio aliquam quam, in facilisis lacus tortor eget elit. Nunc viverra risus sit amet iaculis gravida. Sed tincidunt sit amet neque a placerat.
Cras a mattis quam. Suspendisse urna metus, pretium eu nisi a, facilisis laoreet arcu. Nullam ut ornare lectus, sit amet porttitor nibh. Praesent nec accumsan tellus. Fusce aliquet aliquet rutrum. Fusce nunc nibh, faucibus sit amet fermentum ac, blandit eget velit. Pellentesque tempor iaculis pulvinar. Phasellus sed tellus imperdiet, semper dolor vitae, blandit ipsum. Donec et nibh eu libero lacinia consectetur eu ac lacus. Aenean luctus, nisi ac tempus volutpat, tortor magna vulputate dui, non sollicitudin elit purus in lacus. Praesent dignissim nisl velit, in molestie sem pellentesque quis. Fusce enim sem, faucibus ac sollicitudin sed, sagittis vitae ipsum. Proin pellentesque mauris eget diam cursus, in molestie nibh gravida.

Mit freundlicher Unterstützung von:

Diese Website verwendet Cookies. Bitte lesen Sie unsere Datenschutzerklärung für Details.

Verweigern

OK