Music Mondays - Alexander Panos Interview

Alexander Panos Interview

In this exclusive Music Mondays interview we got the chance to sit down with Alexander Panos. We discussed everything from recent projects, workflow, inspirations and much more.

9/1/2024

1. What is your relationship like with “Nascent” since you released it two years ago?

My relationship with Nascent is always changing; there have been many ups and downs since its release. I’ve spent a lot of time trying to reconcile whether the artistic choices I made on that album are still a part of me. The short answer is yes, but the fact it was ever called into question left me with a lot of confusion. I also haven’t written much music that reaches as deep as Nascent did. There’s a tinge of sadness when I come back to that album because I miss writing music from my heart. I want to lay it all out there, but I don’t know what “it” is right now. I’m figuring it out.

2. In another interview you bring up your physical creative space as an environment that inspires you, “turn the right way” and “paper blinds” being some references to it. How does your environment, as well as the outdoors, help you create?

I often feel like I’m in touch with the best version of myself when I’m out in nature. I try to bring some of that feeling with me when I come back home to write. I’m also very sensitive to my environment and how it changes throughout the seasons. It has a massive influence on how I feel, and by extension, what I write.

3. “Nascent”, as I understand it, is a kind of a Künstlerroman - a coming of age story of an artist struggling with themselves. How did this album push your growth as a person?

Wow, German really does have a word for everything. After a quick search on “Künstlerroman,” I’m inclined to agree with you. As much as Nascent helped me grow, writing the album was damaging. I became reclusive and subservient to my own shame; a lot of personal relationships suffered as a result. This compelled me to confront several of my own flaws, some of which were a direct outcome of my choice to write the album. Admittedly, I can still struggle with those things to this day. That said, I don’t regret any of it. I’m making progress, albeit slowly. I believe living through writing that album was necessary.

4. Your newest song, “aperture, for meadow” is composed non-traditionally. It’s not on the grid and there’s no tying melody or structure beyond moments in time. Karlheinz Stockhausen experimented with moment form, as did the New York School in the 50s. Do you draw on or relate to this lineage of composers, or is this something you discovered in parallel?

Love Stockhausen. I can see many overlapping ideas between moment form and my approach to writing electronic music, but I believe there are important differences—especially in the use of narrative, which I'll delve into later. While subtle, "aperture, for meadow" does have an overarching structure, with many motivic elements that develop and help tie the piece together.

I’ve always appreciated the enduring lineage of composers exploring electronic music. 20th & 21st century western art music has inspired me for some time and continues to do so. In the past couple years, I’ve become increasingly interested in acousmatic music, a subset of electroacoustic music. Composers working within this practice emphasize the perception of sound, traditionally separating the listening experience from the visual, physical, or causal context of the sound's origin, though this stipulation has evolved over time. The acousmatic approach makes me feel seen in a world that tends to weight performance (and a flawed notion of musical “authenticity”) over the musical material itself. Unsurprisingly, the best acousmatic works have some of the freshest sound design I’ve ever heard, and some of these pieces were written decades ago.

I believe electroacoustic music in general offers unmatched freedom. As acousmatic composer Daniel Teruggi explains in his 2021 lecture, Can Sounds be Considered Objects?

What are the characteristics of electroacoustic music? [...] Any kind of musical work where sound is produced by technological devices. Composers invent the sound of their music. [...] It's probably the largest practicing musical community, growing from techno to contemporary music. Technology covers all the fields of music today. The musical information is merged with the sound.

I find this interpretation especially valuable as someone who struggles to succinctly describe their sound or identify with any one genre.

5. Why has moment form become your go-to way of writing music?

Once again, I can’t fully endorse this claim. What I can say is that I love to utilize “gesture” as a compositional unit (perhaps analogous to Stockhausen’s “moment”). In this mode of thinking, other more well-defined parameters like rhythm, pitch, timbre, envelope, etc. are all intertwined. Sometimes when constructing a gesture, these parameters are merely emergent rather than expressly considered. Creating a dynamic foreground of gestures is exciting to me—the sound design is really able to shine. As mentioned earlier, in contrast to moment form, I actively try to create a narrative. I consider my most successful pieces the ones that do this best. I think that’s what helps people, myself included, connect with my music. Without a narrative, I’d probably need a program note to explain my work. And why do that when I have the music itself? To be clear, I adore much of the technically-oriented music that may lack a narrative or could be described as having moment form. My music however? I want more than just moments.

6. Yuki’s “rut” was sampled in “aperture, for meadow.” How has their music influenced your own?

Yuki Kaneko’s high-end detail is incredible—there are entire compositions hidden above 10 kHz! He’s able to synthesize remarkably physical textures reminiscent of glass and water and carefully place them atop of a bed of lush guitars. What I love most is how these sounds come together to create such an intimate environment; you really feel like you’re sitting in his apartment when listening to tracks like “room,” “cu,” or “sii.” I tried my best to explore these ideas in my own way on “aperture, for meadow.”

8. The harmonizer has been a staple in your production, drawing comparisons to Bon Iver and Imogen Heap. What about that tool do you find so compelling?

It is the most direct way to access or heighten my emotional state when writing. Your voice is you, and the harmonizer magnifies this ten-fold. Every time I let someone use it, this magnification immediately overtakes them. You can see them opening up in real-time, completely losing themselves to what they’re creating as they sing. The vulnerability, the viscerality—it can’t help but pour out. It’s transcendent.

9. Your Max/MSP devices, Color Transfer, have made quite a splash in the music production community. Were you surprised at the reception?

Yes, absolutely. I knew there would be some interest, but after seeing the reaction to the first demonstration I posted of the Timbre Resynth, I was shocked. Many musicians I look up to were openly displaying their excitement.

10. Were the Color Transfer devices packaged patches you already had been using, or were they developed from the ground up?

I’ve been fascinated by the technical concepts that gave rise to Color Transfer for ages. I finally started exploring them seriously while writing Nascent. All the devices emerged during that writing process, but I initially had no intent to distribute them. It was only in the beginning of 2023 that I decided to turn them into a real product. It was quite the challenge but a very rewarding experience no less.

11. I’ve been reading a book, Code Musicology, which claims that code is culture- the decisions we make when deciding parameters, ranges, and algorithms are all cultural artifacts. What was your decision making process like in designing the devices from an aesthetic and cultural standpoint?

I think it would be accurate to say that the music I’ve written and the music that inspires me had an influence on the development of Color Transfer. If I’m being honest, I just tuned the devices to best suit my own musical practices and aesthetic interests. Beyond its name, there wasn’t much intentional consideration of culture. That said, I’m a novice in this field so maybe these things will become more clear to me as time goes on.

12. Why do you include environmental foley in your music juxtaposed to glitch?

I’ve always been an electronic musician. Glitches are part of my lexicon for self-expression. Field recordings of places I care about and homemade foley are very literal ways to inject pieces of my personal life into my music. “aperture, for meadow” ends with the sound of the wind blowing through my nylon guitar and exciting the strings. I went to the very meadow the song references to make that recording. When you listen to it, I’ve brought you there.

13. Do Hiroshi Yoshimura or other environmental musicians inspire you?

Of course! I’m not sure if they all would fall into that category but artists & groups like Shuta Hasunuma, Asa-Chang & Junray, Haruka Nakamura, U-zhaan, Visible Cloaks, Ichiko Aoba, and many, many others have had a significant impact on me. It’s so easy to commune with nature while listening to their work.

14. What are your artistic plans for the future?

Live a little bit more.

15. Your aesthetic has been bundled in with the budding botanica genre. Is this a group or genre of artists you feel a kinship with?

This is not a question I can answer concisely. I’ve had many conversations about Botanica with other artists, including those who associate themselves with the term. My opinion on the whole phenomenon updates week to week. It will probably change as I write this. Be aware that this is not an exhaustive history but only my personal experience with Botanica so far.

In late 2022, an artist named phritz proposed the term Botanica to describe a new wave of folktronica/pop overtaking the SoundCloud scene at the time. The term was lifted from his Spotify playlist of the same title and was meant to reflect the abstract qualities that were shared between the songs it contained. His intent with this proposition was to move away from the flood of reductive comparisons to Porter Robinson’s Nurture that had been plaguing the scene. What may not have been anticipated was that a majority of artists who went on to adopt the term were in fact inspired by Nurture and were actively trying to make music that sounded like it. Perhaps adding to the confusion, phritz has ties to Nurture through his cover of “Look at the Sky” and a few songs from Nurture are included in the Botanica playlist. For a short while, my music was also featured on this playlist. Consequently, I've had a difficult relationship with Botanica.

I began writing Nascent in early 2019 following an arduous year of self-discovery. With 9 of the 10 tracks on Nascent already in progress, Porter Robinson’s Nurture was announced in 2020. I quickly realized that our overlapping visual languages (both inspired by Bon Iver) and his much larger platform would lead many people to incorrectly judge my work as derivative. I’ve faced these comparisons for years now, sometimes even being accused of theft. This reaction persists and it’s disheartening to see something I essentially killed myself for viewed in that light. To be honest, it wears on me. This context is important because it is not a unique experience. Many other artists have faced similar situations and, in turn, reject any association with Nurture, including the term Botanica. I did for a long time as well, but I’ve recently decided to try and put this bitterness to rest. As a result, I’ve gotten to know many talented, young artists who are part of a collective called "Novel."

In 2021, a few friends and I started a SoundCloud account called “e-veryday.” The idea was to upload compositions no longer than 15 seconds every single day. This was the only constraint—the music itself and your reason for uploading could be anything. For me, it was about staying engaged with my creative process as I worked to finish my album. I began uploading my own micro-compositions, many of which were written in the style of Nascent for the aforementioned reason. Surprisingly, the account gained some traction and many were interested in taking on the daily challenge themselves. From those inspired by e-veryday came Novel in 2023. The premise of their account was the same, but much of what was uploaded pulled from the specific kind of electroacoustic music that was a hallmark of Nascent. Some of the artists in Novel, many of whom are also fans of Nurture, embraced the term Botanica (sometimes “petalcore”) to describe what they were creating. This decision, combined with their keen use of social media, further fueled the term’s popularity and led to an explosion of short-form content showcasing saccharine, electroacoustic micro-compositions. I would argue that Novel is largely responsible for how people view and consume Botanica as of this moment. One interesting thing I’ve learned is that a few of these artists now feel a similar cognitive dissonance about their association with Botanica as I do. Despite my rough time with the term, I’m immensely privileged to have played an influencing role here. Now more than ever, young musicians are exploring gestural composition and writing music free from the grid—I couldn’t be happier to see this.

So, we find ourselves at a crossroads, with two different types of music labeled as Botanica. One branch understands Botanica as the folktronica/pop music linked to phritz. Another branch uses it to describe the kind of sentimental electroacoustic music popularized by Novel. Some even see these branches as two ends of a spectrum. Yet, all of us still cannot escape the inevitable “nurture vibes.” I think this comes down to a discrepancy in how we define genres. Especially within electronic music, genres are primarily defined by shared musical characteristics—compositional techniques and tendencies that connect songs. As we've seen with Botanica, this is not well-defined. Instead, all the music labeled Botanica is unified via its unique emotional impact rather than by its musical material. This is the thread that causes people to connect Novel to Nascent to phritz to Nurture to all of the music in the Botanica playlist. I encourage those interested to explore that playlist; it features a wide variety of music—from Bruce Hornsby to Baths, Ichiko Aoba to The 1975—somehow it all makes sense together. Does this mean I think Botanica is a useful category? Is it really a genre? Right now, I would say no. It’s simultaneously too broad and too narrow in all the wrong ways. It may work as a title for a playlist, but not much else. However, Botanica points to something more important.

For many young electronic musicians, half their life is lived online, and the other half is spent trying to find meaning in a messy world. It’s no wonder the current state of electronic music in the scene reflects this dichotomy: organic sound design, an emphasis on songwriting, and a return to nature and community. It’s the same reason The 1975’s Brief Inquiry into Online Relationships and Bon Iver’s 22, A Million and i,i have had such an impact—they were on the front lines of this zeitgeist. The effects of this dichotomy are evident in many spaces, both within and beyond electronic music. I want the scene to understand that what we’re all doing, and where I think we’re headed as a whole, is more and will be so much more than just Botanica as it stands today. This is likely a stepping-stone to bigger and better things. Until then, I challenge people intent on “making Botanica” to really try and say something with their music. There’s more to this thing than flashy sound design, spectral plug-ins, and LABS piano (despite what the recent influx of YouTube tutorials might have you believe). Filter your influences through your own artistic lens. Learn where they all intersect. Write about your life. This is how you’ll find your voice.