Acclaimed Berlin ambient duo A Winged Victory for the Sullen are currently preparing for their first tour of Australia, which includes an intimate show in Sydney’s The Basement and a performance as part of Melbourne Music Week. We caught up with Dustin, one half of the duo, to talk about their latest album, their origins, how they approach composition, and more.
How did A Winged Victory for the Sullen come about?
Adam and I met in 2007 in Bologna at a Sparklehorse concert. At the time Adam was playing guitar with Sparklehorse and my good friend and sound engineer Francesco Donadello from Gardini Di Miro invited me to the show. We ended up meeting back stage and talked mostly about being Americans living in Europe , but later shared music with each other and became fans of each others music.
I was working on my solo album ‘Lumiere’ at the time and I asked if he would do some guitar work on it. The track came out beautiful, but it was apparent that he needed more space to work with his sound, so we decided to get together and try writing some music. He came out to Berlin to my studio for a few days, and in that short time the seeds were planted for our first album.
How do you approach the composing/songwriting? Do you start with a particular theme or melody?
It can start with so many different things. Sometimes it’s a conversation about an idea as abstract as a black hole, or it can start with an experiment of putting mics inside the piano through 5 tape delays and then re-recording it again through an amp in a church. But sometimes its as simple as sitting at the piano and working on a melody.
How do you share out the workload? Do you take it in turns to compose songs?
We decided from the beginning that we would always work together in the same room and not pass files back and forth. So everything we do is a culmination of us being in the same room working out the music. So in this way its all equally shared and worked on. There and moments in real time that cant be replaced and being in the same place working on it, is when magical things happen. If we work alone..its the same as working on our solo projects and would completely defuse the point of making a collaboration.
Where do you draw your inspiration?
From everything. Paintings, music, love, nature, sadness, sculture, the time in our lives, food we ate. Its all in the there.
Atomos was composed and recorded over the course of a summer, what changed that enabled you to finish the album so quickly compared to your first?
Our first album happened slowly over the course of 2 years, working on it bit by bit. We didn’t have the luxury of time this time around as before we ever wrote a note of music the premiere concerts where booked. There was no extra time. So we literlaly had to dive into it and treat everyday like a proper work day. Working morning till dinner time. It was an immense project of 70 minutes of music we needed to deliver and the most liberating part of it was not second guessing your self. There just was not time! We honestly didn’t know if we would have something worthy of a release at the end of it. But around the second night of the premiere we released we where feeling really good about it and we thought we should record and release it as our next album.
Did the knowledge that the piece was a dance piece, influence the writing or composition?
Wayne Mcgregor was definitely an influence. His concepts for the dance piece revolving around atoms, the formations of atoms, time and space and the relationship all this has to the human body was the catalyst for the new record. He was a wonderful collaborator in the sense that he inspired us, but never got into the nuts and bolts of what we do..he really left us to our own devices and gave us an incredible amount of trust.
You recorded the album across a number of different studios, do you feel the different locations added something different to the songs?
Well there is something about every acoustic space that makes its unique…and we seek out large acoustic space usually to record our piano and strings. But in regards to the writing it does not change much. We sort of find our own worlds where ever we are.
You’ve played the new tracks a couple of times now including some shows in London, what has the reaction to the new material been like?
We just finished playing 2 sold out nights at the Barbican in London and the reaction has been amazing. People really seem to enjoy the live versions. With music like this you never know if it will work live or not, but we have worked hard to try to translate it all to a live experience. And we enjoy performing it. Both Adam and I have a long history of playing in bands before we started composing so its part of who we are..and we are pleased the response has been so good.
How do you devise your set-lists, are your shows plotted thematically?
We always switch things up…but it depends. As always we like playing more of the new stuff as its fresher…but then its nice coming back to the older material.Now that we have a new album we have a lot of music we can play which keeps things fresh.
You’re playing two shows in Australia on this current tour, are there plans for a longer return visit soon?
We hope so!
————————–
A Winged Victory for the Sullen Australian Tour
Saturday 15th November – Elisabeth Murdoch Hall, Melbourne Recital Centre
Tickets: HERE
Sunday 16th November – The Basement, Sydney
Tickets: HERE
———-
