“The insects are the sounds; they live inside me, and I am the vessel, their host.”
Over the years, Dana Schechter’s band, Insect Ark, has nestled into forms of varying propulsion, sometimes direct, sometimes hidden. With Future Fossils EP, released September 24 through Consouling Sounds, gravity is the illusion. Sound is more of a physical object than a peripheral aura. It’s a time capsule, and one that has no beginning, and no end.
“The sounds themselves largely defined the direction,” Schechter says. “The process was new to me and definitely informed the final result. I intentionally did not develop the music into ‘songs,’ wanting to re-explore composition in a much more abstract way. It took a conscious effort to resist adding more layers, chords, and melody.”
The resulting construction pulses as if heading towards some direction, but there is no pure cosmos there, simply an unknown. You can hear Zen.
“I’m not after building tracks with a specific effect in mind,” Schechter explains. “Whatever way it moves me is also the intention, in its purest form.”
A sense of movement is the best way to describe the experience of the new EP. Part of it is interaction with something new. Part of it is continuous intuition, something that has served Schechter well through her varying Insect Ark incarnations. It was the Buchla 200 Synth that was her partner on the latest. Which she utilized as part of a guest composer residency at the Elektronmusikstudion EMS in Stockholm in 2018.
“This record was very different than others I’ve made,” she relays. “The processes were entirely new to me. For the EMS tracks (Side A) the synth sounds were collected as raw audio files, and then compiled as basic sketches. Until very recently, they sat untouched. Once they were alive again I warped and re-pitched, then further edited the pieces into their final shape, with the addition of some extra tracks as finishing touches. The sonic quality of the Buchla 200 tracks has a specific character. I collected throbs, scratches, howls, beeps, and warbles.”
As compositions, there is the darkness that is familiar, but there is newfound stillness too (check out “Anopsian Volta”). The willingness to explore is what has always made Insect Ark a dynamic project, a working document. There is never anything static. Side A contains three abstract pieces recorded solely by Schechter at EMS, and Side B is one long, live noise set with collaborator Ashley Spungin. While different, the two sections overlap and blend, creating a rich garden out of the grey horizon.
“The unifying factor is their departure from a sense of normalcy,” Schechter explains. “I think some listeners have been surprised, based on certain associations of the ‘normal’ duo band format. I’ve always been interested in abstraction, noise, texture, and this detour felt healthy. I feel the four tracks are related, even though on a piece-by-piece basis, they don’t resemblance each other.”
Check out the track “Oral Thrush” from Future Fossils here:
For more from Insect Ark, find them on their official website.
Photo courtesy of Insect Ark and Nikos Giakoudakis
