Melody and Melancholia: Recondite Explores His Hinterland
From field recordings to video games via Metallica, we get to know what informs the sparse, seasonal sounds of Hinterland, the sophomore album from German techno head Recondite
Back in the 17th century, melancholia was kind of a big deal. Frowning became a favourite pastime among poets, playwrights and painters. Well-known works of art began to document depression and the potential lack of any real physical meaning. Take Hamlet, for example, the sensitive bastard. He’s not exactly a barrel of laughs, and yet the audience of the time would have been truly captivated by his sour-faced monologues. Why? Because he showed us then that melancholia is an introverted and essential process; hidden away, it lies dormant until we begin the impossible challenge of considering our own mortality.
Meet Lorenz Brunner. He’s another fan of melancholia. Indeed, his alias Recondite is even synonymous with words such as 'difficult' and 'mysterious'. Brunner first began gaining attention as a producer a few years ago following a series of EPs via his own Plangent imprint. Since then, he’s been pushing the darker side of his techno capabilities for quality labels like Dystopian and Hotflush. Brighter elements began to emerge last year when he cracked out the 303 for his first full-length On Acid (for Absurd Recordings sub-label Acid Test), a record of gentle quasi-acid house – and his debut LP for Ghostly International, Hinterland, lands on 11 November, the latest weighty release in the label's impressive catalogue. As far as reflective homages to the German countryside go, we’re in for a right treat.
“The region where I grew up is called Lower Bavaria,” Brunner says, calm when he talks and happy to help with geographical formalities. “Southeast Germany, between the Bavarian forest and the Alps. It’s remote but settled, so there’s more than enough room to build audio and visual sensitivity. Hinterland is about looking at where I come from and using it as an inspiration. Not just regarding natural aspects; rivers, lakes, forests, yes, but also the character of the people who live there. I tried to recreate the hidden atmosphere with all its fragile shapes and shades.
“There’s a definite intention of seasonal progression within the tracks, too,” he continues. “Leafs is a spring track; it has that early morning, dewy feel. Stems is for summer; quite dry but also quite heavy. Rise is summer, too – uplifting and upbeat. I’ve got a track called Floe, which is beatless and definitely represents winter. For that, I actually recorded a sample of myself walking through the snow on my phone. It might seem unspectacular but I only need a raw copy of the sound itself to then modify it through a sampler. The footsteps turned into this atmospheric, crackling soundscape; like the slow motion of a frozen river.”
Brunner goes on to explain how Hinterland was originally intended to be a concept album entitled Seasons. He, along with the head of Ghostly, Sam Valenti, debated the idea for some time before deciding that it might be considered an exhausted concept. (Nobody wants the pissed-off ghost of Vivaldi on their back.)
“My parents, auntie and uncle still go out to Godspeed You! Black Emperor gigs, which is pretty uncommon for 60-year olds living in Bavaria” – Lorenz Brunner
Field recordings played a significant role in giving the album its brooding tone and formidable depth – helpfully, you don’t have to spend hundreds on equipment to execute the organic idea of capturing a specific element of a natural environment and using it to create an audio equivalent, and, as Brunner notes, “people can relate to certain sounds because they subconsciously hear them every day. They become ingrained. Things like wind blowing or footsteps are really fun to sample, because you can do so many crazy things with the audio and it still seems familiar.
“One synth on the album is actually made out of crackling dry leaves together,” he continues. “I played it really slow on a narrow loop, added some filter and oscillation and ended up with a trance pad.”
When asked about the rest of his studio setup, Brunner admits that he “ended up using Ableton Live for the album and nothing else.” His decision to step away from hardware may anger the more pedantic of purists, but the guy has a few good reasons why he chose to go down a newfangled software-only route. “I’ve used outboard gear for years, that’s how I learned the basic technique of synthesis,” he says. “I wanted to make Hinterland with as few hindrances as possible, in the most efficient and comfortable way for me. I got tired of finding loose cables and invasive sounds all the time. I’m also very drawn to the idea of losing the physicality of music production. For me, it is all about the result, the feeling, the emotion. I’m not the type of guy who gets pleasure from twisting knobs all day,” he chuckles. “Pleasure comes when I can step away from the session and feel relieved when listening back to what I have done.
“Also, when I sit down to make a track,” he quickly adds, “I try not to be too aware of what mood I am trying to emulate. I really wanted to tap into the way I subconsciously make music to make the album flow naturally, organically. It’s a lot like playing the Playstation; I just sit down and play and then what actually happens is another story.”
On the release front, Brunner confirms that the decision to go with Ghostly was an easy one to make. “I got into the label early on but it was Lawrence’s Spark EP that blew me away,” he enthuses. “I really connected with that track and it actually made me dive deeper in my own productions. I thought about releasing the record on Plangent but it made sense to have a group of skilled people, who can do a much better job than just me on my own, to help facilitate the vision I had for it.”
Hinterland is certainly not intended for the dancefloor, but, as its creator points out, “it is something you can use carefully.” Dixon has been hammering lead track Abscondence in recent mixes, and we have it on good faith that Scuba’s taken quite a shine to Stems, using it as an atmospheric tool. The album is tremendously versatile and reflective in that way – able to draw out the listener’s hidden emotions in order to establish a mindset that, like the seasons, is both fragile and completely transient. But where exactly does Lorenz’s passion for musical melancholia stem from?
“Growing up, my family listened to a lot of strange rock music,” he laughs. “My parents, auntie and uncle still go out to Godspeed You! Black Emperor gigs, which is pretty uncommon for 60-year olds living in Bavaria. Alice In Chains, Overkill and Megadeath were part of everyday life. Those types of bands were a little too aggressive for my taste and I started to connect more with the progressive, anthemic tunes. I loved Metallica’s Black Album, especially The Unforgiven. It had that layered, mournful side that I could really relate to.”
By the end of our chat, it is clear that years of influence and thought have gone into making Hinterland, an album that documents an entire vista of emotional nuances, blending them together to tremendously sombre effect. In it, Brunner has succeeded in his dissection of human sentimentality – and his resulting, instinctual monologue is easy and engaging. But where can he go from here? That is the only question.