‘I’m a bit tired of the less is more, more is less point of view’

New Zealand-born/Berlin-based producer Fis (Olly Peryman) discusses his unsettling new album, From Patterns To Details.

This is part of a regular series called Verse Chorus Verse which sees local artists break down the stories behind their music. For more, click here.

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Root Collars

Root Collars sets the tone I wanted for the record. To me it’s a miniature version of the whole thing. I’d say all these tracks cross-pollinate from loosely distinguishable identities, but the meat of the album is the space it holds as a whole. Like the rest of my material it’s probably best heard in a moment where you’re able to fall into it. There’s also a big PA or soundsystem aspect to this; I love performing up loud in the dark.

In terms of topic, this one is a meditation on the root collar (where roots become stem) of a tree as an element of an endless universe. From this vantage point, the tree has no top or bottom, and neither does anything else, including us. So the intention here is to affirm the continuous, omnidirectional and metaphysical aspects of the structure we live in and share a moment in the frequency of that understanding.

I guess what I love about sound is its capacity to pass on what a perspective feels like in the body, so this is just offering a room for that. And I wanna say, anyone is free to meet it however they want, and even call bullshit on me! It is just music after all...

SeaPR

My work gets called maximalist sometimes. I can see where that’s coming from, but it still feels slightly off. To play with that a little, I wanted to let a lonely snare tell as much of a story as other tracks I’ve made. Maybe I’m a bit tired of the less is more, more is less point of view – it feels like a conservative binary that’s done its dash. Like, what if there’s no such thing as more or less and everything just is? That feels more calm and open. I wanted this topic in there with the rest of the album’s offerings, as part of the energetic furniture so to speak.

Treat Inner Eris

This year seems to have churned out an extra dose of misery and ugliness, right? It’s hard to find a country that isn’t in some kind of crisis or at least politically vom-worthy. But in the face of all that, I think there’s not just emotional fresh air but genuine transformative impetus in remembering there’s a cosmic backstory to even the most hurtful things.

This one’s about bringing an inside-to-out perspective to all the dread from the internet/media. The reference to Eris comes from the Judgement of Paris story. I like its point that outward backlash to a shit-stirrer (as understandable as it is) only tightens the bond with that archetype. To me that’s saying bullshit is only structurally possible when people deny and reject their own personal stake in the mess. Actual change in the “outside world” starts from inward love and unconditional acceptance, because the nearest piece of the totality is your own being...

Independently Together

So for this one I should note that the seven tracks on this album were cut from a pool of about 15 or so which formed a roughly identifiable work cycle that started around February 2015. This was the kind of median piece in that cycle so it sits well as a middle hinge for the album. It revisits a 6/8ish time structure I used to play around with. In terms of a vibrational topic, it’s trying to offer a location where every living being is both their own entity and the totality at the same time. So I guess there’s another challenge to binary; this time it’s distinctions like me/you, us/them, self/other. Here the “I” is also the “we”…

CMB Inna

This one is partly why the album is only seven tracks long. It got way longer than first thought, and I appreciate that it’s quite a demanding behemoth of a thing! It’s a close cousin of much of the material Rob Thorne and I are rounding off right now, with an overriding theme of meditative work on ancestral lines, and retrospective (trans-present) healing work. It’s quite a feeling to reach down those tunnels and nudge some things back into their slots.

Sieve Stack

I called this one Sieve Stack as I had a sense of endless porous layers in vertical sequence, where something could just fall indefinitely. Of all the tracks, this is probably the only one that came from a preconceived concept. I wanted to build an entity that kind of generated its own content, but instead of using auto-writing I wanted to be there in person while it suggested its own development.

With coded auto-writing I don’t know if you’re able to jump in the process during the render and affect its outcome as it’s precomputed. Someone please correct me if I’m wrong there. So yeah, you may notice within the track that a reverb space – a kind of secondary element to begin with – is bounced out and then worked back into the track as a lead element, which is then subjected to the same treatment again and so it goes on etc. I wanted to create an impression of non-linear time, a cyclic musical phrase that is constantly collapsing down into its own creation.

Heart Wash

I appreciate that the album asks a lot of the listener up until now, so we needed a gentle conclusion. In keeping with the rest of the record, I’m hoping this one can be a kind of living room, which can always meet a listener wherever they’re at and respond accordingly. Music probably does that anyway intentionally or not, right?

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