Jaime Fennelly is a Chicago-based musician, composer and one-man band, whose project Mind Over Mirrors has continued to evolve since its inception in 2007. It was originally a solo endeavor, born out of Fennelly’s experience of living for three years on a small, isolated island in Washington State, but has now brought fellow Chicagoan songwriter Haley Fohr of Circuit des Yeux within its fold for a new album titled “The Voice Calling”. These latest recordings combine Fennelly’s astral soundscapes, created on his uniquely modified Indian pedal harmonium and augmented by oscillators, tape delays, and synthesizing processors, with Fohr’s booming invocative vocals. The result is stirring, introspective music that sounds like something plucked out of an Andrei Tarkovsky film, or produced by mapping the orbits of celestial bodies on an LP record.“The Voice Calling” is out on Immune Recordings on September 18, 2015. Blouin Artinfo chats with Jaime Fennelly about the album, the inspiration and his instrument of choice.You play a version of the harmonium. It is interesting to see the harmonium create these new sounds. It’s mostly associated with a very devotional form of music. What made you pick this instrument over others? I’ve listened to a lot of devotional music over the years, which has been hugely inspiring to me. Some of it devotional in the classic(al) sense, but also some which I find to be meditative or prayer-like, and part of maybe even imaginary or fictitious rituals (i.e. Sun City Girls). For me, my own music is very devotional, and I have a personal relationship to it in that way; also, for example, the way I feel when I perform, but I don’t expect anyone else to have that same (or similar) experience. The drone helps steady concentration and can create focus, and therefore whether it’s a group of oscillators (as in my synthesizers) or multiple sets of brass reeds (as found in my harmonium), they help create a focal point – like a dot on the wall used to help one meditate. What I’m able to do with that dot however – or in the case of my music, the sound coming out of my harmonium – is activate that dot in a three-dimensional sonic/architectural space. The harmonium reeds have a richness and dimensionality to them, which is unparalleled in terms of any synth I’ve played. Also the physical/gestural and performative nature of it where you have to work to get sound out of the instrument – like with any acoustic instrument – I feel, also changes the shape and movement of those dots in space.Where did you get it custom-made to match your requirements?After purchasing a couple of other traditional Indian harmoniums over the last decade, I reached out to a harmonium dealer in New Delhi, in India, after seeing a photo of a pedal harmonium with four sets of brass reeds on their website, and inquired as to how easily available they were. It took about a year from the time of inquiry to actually receiving the pedal harmonium, and it was built by a man named Anil who lives in a remote area of Haryana, about 100 kilometers outside Delhi. I was told it was the worst monsoon season in 15 years that year, so I think that’s maybe why it took so long. I’ve since modified it and have had to make a number of repairs, usually while on the road. It’s not a very forgiving instrument to tour with.What experiences and ideas inspired this album?When I first started working on this record last summer, after several months of intense solo touring, I was feeling burnt out working by myself, which I had been doing since I started Mind Over Mirrors. The project itself was initially spurred by living on a small remote island in Washington State for three years; so the solitariness has been built into it from the get-go. I wanted to challenge that idea; many times previously in my life I’ve been very drawn to intense collaborations. I also felt like I was interested musically in opening the ideas of the project to incorporate instruments that I don’t play. I can create a lot of sound with the harmonium, processed through various electronics and accompanied with synthesizers. So it wasn’t that I wanted to go from a small format to a large format, for example how a solo acoustic guitarist might do when they start working with a full electric band; it was more about textural depth and emphasizing certain sounds I was already hearing. So I set out to create what would become about three quarters of the material, which turned into the album, and Haley Fohr’s voice (and personality) felt like a really suitable match, as I often envision voices - like a choir - within my own music (even when there are no human voices present).Has any kind of Indian music also inspired you?I’m very deeply inspired by a lot of music from India, but particularly moved by Pandit Pran Nath’s masterful voice and especially by his sense of time. He taught La Monte Young, Terry Riley, Henry Flynt, amongst various other sonic luminaries, and was instrumental in how their music developed. I go in and out of phases where I might listen every day to a morning raga by Pandit Pran Nath.What or who would you say have influenced your musical vision generally?In terms of personal experience, my instrumental trajectory (starting to play the piano when I was eight and then getting into electronic instruments, double-bass, laptop, no-input mixer, sine wave oscillators, harmonium, return to synthesizers, to very quickly summarize the graduation) and the various types of music I’ve gotten into (often through the recommendations of friends) and explored have certainly made a huge impact. It’s been a very organic progression. I grew up in the 1980s, listening to a lot of early Pink Floyd, thanks to my dad, so for me it kind of starts there.Do you imagine your listener (of say “The Voice Calling”) in a particular setting? Any music can be heard at any time in any setting etc. of course but as the creator of this music, you might have a vague notion of what setting your music might be most enjoyed in? When I think of people listening to my music, I immediately think of an audience’s physical presence surrounding me, like when I play live on the floor of a music hall/club/venue, with the audience radiating outwards with me at the center of a room. I haven’t thought much about the personal experience of listening to the album, except to maybe hope earphones are not part of the equation!If you weren’t a musician what do you think you might have been?From a young age I’ve been a musician so it’s hard to imagine something different, as I feel like that experience has informed a lot of other things that I do, outside of music. That being said, when I was 18 and went to college, I enrolled in this engineering program in Washington DC that had tight affiliations with Goddard Space Center, as I was convinced I wanted to be an astronaut. I soon realized my jib wasn’t cut out in that way, so approaching space travel in the mind through music was perhaps more suitable to my personality.What are you working on next?Percussionist Jon Mueller (Volcano Choir) and I have a new project together called Spirit Writing and we’re in the process of recording currently. And my long-standing duo with dancer/choreographer/artist Miguel Gutierrez, Storing the Winter, will be performing several times in the US.What are you listening to in your free time? Also, what are your interests outside of music? Records currently in rotation are (in no particular order): Kenny Knight (and generally a lot of the Paradise of Bachelor’s catalog), that double Ariel Kalma LP on RVNG, a Steve Gunn live bootleg that’s ripping, the new Eleventh Dream Day on Thrill Jockey, J.B. Smith recordings that Dust-to-Digital recently put out which is pretty devastating, the Native North America Vol 1 triple LP collection on Light In the Attic, the entire Indian Records Archive collection of 23 LPs (which is for some reason is available direct from the label for $44!), the new Bitchin’ Bajas on Hands in the Dark, the Jordan De La Sierra piano collection that Numero Group released, and lots of Popol Vuh. We have a big vegetable and native perennial garden (big by Chicago standards) in which it’s easy for me to get lost in. Listening to those records while working outside is a bonus. Paddling on the Wisconsin River with our dog Mabel and friends has also been great this summer.Mind Over Mirrors – “The Voice Calling” Tracklist:1. Motioning2. Regular Step on Snake River3. Whose Turn is Next4. Strange(r) Work5. Senses Scattered6. Body Gains7. Calling Your Name Follow @ARTINFOIndia
↧