The Mag
Trentemoller: Into the Great Wide Yonder
We speak to Anders Trentemoller ahead of the release of his second full length album, Into The Great Wide Yonder.
His debut, The Last Resort, was, and still is, essential listening - like Leftfield's Leftism it showed once again what can be achieved on a dance full length. The album was a complete home-listening experience but also one which could be dissected at whim and used by DJs to inject dark energy into any needing dance floor (in much the same way as could the 12"s 'Polar Shift' and 'Physical Fraction' which preceded it). Off the back off that album - albeit 4 years later - comes this new album, and it's one which departs a long way from the last, but one which will surely prove just as successful.
As the title suggests, the shackles are off this time round and Into The Great Wide Yonder sees Trentemoller stride onwards towards new territory. From plump, slow bouncing dub to high tension and pounding guitar riffs, delicate string melodies and licks of things as diverse as The Fall, The Prodigy and Jeff Buckley - it's all hidden in there somewhere.
Into The Great Wide Yonder is an album which will last long past the end of the summer and on into the cold winter months, so we thought we should get the back story about something which is going to play such a big part in everyone's lives this year...
So it’s been a while since The Last Resort?
Yeah, well the first album came out in 2006 but then we did a big world tour including all over Europe, the States and Australia, so really 18 months passed with that album. So I was actually starting on this about 18 months ago so even though it’s nearly 4 years since the first one, I’ve only been working on it for the 18 months or so.
And were you at home when you wrote it?
Yeah I was really trying to work on the tour bus but I really needed some space and quiet around me – I don’t like it with the telephone ringing disturbing me like it does when I'm away, and I wasn’t being inspired so it was all done at home in Copenhagen.
There's a typically Scandinavian, haunting and hymnal feel to the album...
Yeah its funny you say because many artists from Scandinavia have this kind of blue vibe to their music you know – Sigur Ros, Fever Ray – they have this, I don’t know if it’s sadness, but maybe they have this melancholic vibe. I was of course also inspired by the Nordic nature around me at home but a sort of sadness also lays in the whole of [Scandinavian] culture – the folk music which is 300 years old still has a blue vibe.
What were you listening to when you wrote the album?
Actually, I was not listening to that much other music because often when I go into the writing process I am totally in my own world; my own space, so I try not to listen to that much music because it takes a lot of time and it’s distracting. When I make music I want to clear my head and mind. But of course this album was inspired by a lot of different artists even if I wasn’t listening to them at the time. I have quite broad music tastes I think so everything from electronica to hardcore to 60s punk music all inspired me.
So it’s definitely less dance-y than the last album…
Yes well it’s inspired by things around me at home and walks in the parks so it’s quite natural for me that the album sounds more organic and warm maybe compared to the first album which was more electronic based. It was fun to play some instruments again as well.
So with so many ideas, moods and emotions, how do you make them work together? Is it planned or seat-of-your-pants stuff?
Actually, you know, when I start making music I don’t really have a specific plan of where I’ m going. I would rather the music take me somewhere I maybe wouldn’t have thought of at the start. It’s very hard to say I started with a plan to make it more organic but I thought ‘OK this is a cool vibe, let’s try to follow it’ so it was not a big plan before I started that I wanted to make something less electronic.
So do you think you’ll ever go back to making dance records like ‘Polar Shift’ again?
No I don’t see myself doing more dance 12s, but I think maybe more electronic albums in full. For me it’s not so important if it’s electronic or not electronic. All these genres it’s more just other people and music journos putting things into categories. I work just to, well I see myself as someone who makes music and it can just be… whatever [laughs]
And when you wrote it did you write it so it could be played live?
No, I wasn’t actually thinking about that when I was writing the album, but I conceded later in the process that maybe this album would be more fun to play live as there are more chord progressions and melodies. I play drums and guitar on the album (instead of them being from a drum machine) so there are a lot more possibilities.
On the tour we’ll do in October we will be a much bigger band than with the last album – there will be six or seven of us because the music needs loads of guitarists and so many different people to play it all, so yeah.
So it’s more like composing than producing, then, if you’re writing for all those different parts?
Yeah, this is also what I really like about doing albums compared to making just 12”s because you try to tell a story; to try to take the listener on some sort of journey. To do that you need all these many layers but dance tracks are all 3 minutes 20 seconds or whatever for the radio. They’re too short to do that with. Tracks which you can maybe go back to and hear new details for the 3rd or 4th time – now that sort of music I really love. Also it was fun for me to work with some vocalists because that didn’t really happen on the first album.
How did you pick vocalists to work with – was it all people you knew already?
Yeah, they’re all actually friends of mine from Copenhagen. Not the main singer - Fyfe Dangerfield from the Guillemot’s - he actually wrote to me on MySpace saying he really liked the first album and wanted to do something together and I was really up for that so he ended up on the album like that. But I was actually writing the other tracks with a female singer in my mind so I already knew what they could do with their voices so that was a big help.
I understand you were in a rock band before you got into electronic music? Is that love of real instruments and rock something that’s never gone away? Does it explain this return to more compositional and instrument based music?
Yeah but also while I was doing the dance singles and more electronic music I was still doing the stuff I’ve done on this album it was just never released. Because I have this background in playing bass I wanted to use those very poor [laughs] skills I have more on this new album.
So the tour doesn’t start until October you said – why aren’t you doing any summer festivals?
I said no I didn’t want to tour the album at festivals this summer. It’s a more demanding listen than the last album. It really needs some more listening than the last one –when you hear the album for the 4th or 5th time its starts unfolding and opening. So I didn’t know if it would fit so well with the vibe at summer festivals – maybe it’s a bit dark and heavy for summer. Instead, we’ll play 21 shows all over Europe in October, with one at the Roundhouse in London.
It’s interesting you say you didn’t want to tour this album in the summer and instead wanted to do it in the autumn/winter because you think the moods on it are more suited to the colder, darker seasons?
Yes, that’s true. I was actually also a little bit in doubt whether this album should come out now or maybe wait and release it in October because it is darker and has more of a [The] Fall vibe going on. But then, you know, I was finished with this album 3 or 4 months ago. For me it would simply be too long until it was out if delayed until October. It’s a personal thing - I prefer to get the music out of my system, not to sit on it for too long. So I thought let’s get it out, then we can tour it in the autumn and at least then the live shows will have the darker, moodier feel that comes with the month of October.
So we agree it’s a moody album – are you a moody person?
I’m not sitting about crying everyday but I think that, you know, I think that I would be more moody if I didn’t make the music I do. For me, it’s a big cliché, but it’s a way for me to express something which would be hard to express otherwise. The music for me is my own space where I can be, yeah.. [tails off sounding like he ‘s realising he’s revealed too much]
Well it may be moody but I think when you listen to it a few times, there is beauty hidden in there as well as all the dark, tense stuff….
Yeah I was also very much aware I didn’t just want to make a dark moody album. There should definitely also be some kind of light in the music. I also wanted to work with more of a contrast so you could have something that was maybe quite beautiful; not heavy but beautiful, and then something just under the surface, something a bit more disturbing or smoky. Something that takes the music the other way - those multilayers are always a big inspiration for me.
Yeah, that’s what makes music last - something that has layers. So do you think you’ll remix all the tracks like last time?
Yeah you know a few years ago I was only doing remixes and it’s fun and great but my heart really lies in doing my own stuff so I said no to many artists. However, then the remix stuff with Franz Ferdinand and Dépêche Mode was really cool to do so I did that, then I needed space for my own album. Remixes now are something I do quite rarely – they’re good because they let me step back a bit and not focus so closely on my own stuff, but I didn’t just want to become a remixer.
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