INTERVIEW: Throwing Snow and his album ‘Dragons’

Throwing Snow’s fourth album is the audiovisually-augmented Dragons, a work that occupies the space between science and ancestral wisdom. It links music back to its prehistoric capacity for transmitting knowledge to new technology that can untangle the complexity of the contemporary world. Dragons’ ten tracks of heavy primal rhythmic productions incorporate the physicality of acoustic sources, from ancient ritual instruments to modern drum kit, and each track is accompanied by visuals generated by machine learning.

Throwing Snow, aka Ross Tones developed Dragons’ neural network with artist, designer and technologist Matt Woodham. The structures and changes in Tones’ music trigger corresponding changes in accompanying moving images, which combine life in three scales, from microscopic views of rocks to large scale maps. “Everything that happens musically triggers the algorithm to do something,” Tones explains. “This isn’t controlled or predictable, and the music becomes an instruction for the algorithm to make its own decisions about datasets, images, speed, movement and other manipulations.”

The tracks on Dragons match Tones’s ambitions for the album in weight but not complexity. They are intentionally dazzlingly simple in their means, for maximum effect, with repeating motifs, locked basslines, cosmic patterns and full-frequency mids. Often built from four or fewer elements, Tones allows sound to accumulate into his unique take on ritual music for the 21st century. Throbbing ritual dances contain half-remembered earworms revealing glittering night skies of synthesiser patterns – “Halos” stabs and stutters like a dance atop a longbarrow; “Purr” reverberates in silky vibrational motifs; the heavyweight “Brujita” is nu-metal for a past-future ceremony of uncertain purpose.

Tones says he often uses his music as allegory and container for the concepts and theories he’s immersed in – he studied astrophysics, and is fascinated by crafts, archeo-acoustics, history, evolution and psychology. In Dragons, he wanted to explore the purpose of music from the beginning of human history. “We have Palaeolithic minds but find ourselves in an increasingly complex and interconnected world,” Tones explains. “Music and art have always been ritualised as a tool for memory, knowledge and emotion, and humans make sense of existence by using tools. Songs were tools of understanding, passed down from our ancestors. Now, things are complex and interrelated, so we can’t use that ancestral knowledge, and need to invent new tools – that’s where machine learning comes into it.”

As is typical for Tones’ Throwing Snow project, the album contains a bold and eclectic mix of instruments, from a bodhrán and daf to cello, with their uses rooted in their inherent acoustic properties. Tones also essentially built his own sample pack for the percussion patterns, working with drummer Jack Baker (Bonobo, Kelis, Alice Russell, Planet Battagon) on an intensive two-day session.

Tones is a Houndstooth stalwart, and Dragons is his fourth full-length album on the label, along with a string of 12”s and EPs. His first album was Mosaic in 2014, followed by Embers in 2017, and Loma in 2018. Originally from the North Of England, for the last few years he has worked from The Castle, his studio an hour outside Bristol/Bath, where he can both forage his own food and find the headspace to make music and experiment with modern technology. He is currently recording a new album with his trio Snow Ghosts, and a soundtrack for a Netflix documentary.

Dragons is a new form of inter-disciplinary album, which is neither wholly electronic nor acoustic, sonic or visual, and pulls from an equally diverse range of inspirations, from texts such as Steven Mithin’s The Singing Neanderthals and Margo Neale and Lynn Kell’s Songlines to the 1982 animated film Flight of Dragons. “I’m into putting music back into history,” Tones explains. “I want to make you think about what music is, what its purpose has been. I’m asking about the scientific aspect to folklore and ancient knowledge, and looking at why it’s still useful. This album is a doorway – if you choose to listen like that.”

We caught up with Throwing Snow to talk about his latest album and what he’s got in store. Check out our interview with the prolific electronic music producer below.

How did you first get into producing music?

As a teenager, I played in a band with my brother and two friends, and luckily there was a community studio not far from my school. I used to go down there just to see how things were recorded. When I turned 21 my Grandma gave me £1000 that she had been saving for since I was born. This allowed me to buy a small amount of equipment and I just started writing music that was influenced by where I was at university in Bristol.

Your sound has evolved a lot across your catalogue. What were you trying to say with these new tracks on Dragons?

I tend to try and ‘say’ things in the theme of the album and the track names. ‘Dragons’ is about how humans use tools. In prehistory, a tool for passing down learnt knowledge about how to survive was music. It allowed knowledge to be remembered, preserved and passed down through the generations. The title comes from the 1982 animated film ‘Flight of Dragons’ which is all about the battle between mysticism and science, or in other words, the change from ancient encoding to modern knowledge. In the album, I’m trying to say that both are valid.

Were there any particular influences for this new material?

I suppose as the music is meant to be simple and ‘prehistoric’ (almost) I was referencing the punk and metal I listened to as a teenager. More broad stroke influences as oppose to individual bands or artists.

How has the pandemic affected you as an artist?

It’s definitely affected touring and playing music live. Luckily, however, I live in the countryside and quite self-sufficient, so had access to nature which made everything easier. If I had still been living in London, I would have been affected very differently.

What’s the perfect setting for listeners to enjoy your sound?

Most of my music is meant to inhabit the space between walking with headphones on and being in a loud club… I try to make it applicable to both.

What artist have you been listening to most recently?

Three very different artists that come to mind are Thabat, Smax and Richard Skelton… depends what mood I’m in.

What’s been your favourite live show so far?

It’s difficult to say, I’ve been lucky enough to experience some amazing places and venues over the years. One that springs to mind is playing in Beirut at Ballroom Blitz. It was part of some aid work I was doing for The Great Oven (www.greatoven.org). It was both rewarding and the vibe inside the club was amazing.

What’s the main thing you want people to get out of listening to your music?

I suppose it’s a mix between the message of the albums I write and the emotions I’m trying to create… the closest I’ve come is ‘epic melancholy’.

Is there any advice you could give a new artist wanting to follow in your footsteps?

Probably the first thing would be find similar musicians and producers and help each other out. Strong local scenes and being humble is the best advice I can give.

Finally, what do you have lined up for the near future?

I’ve got quite a few albums for other projects I’m involved in to finish this year. I’m also doing a lot of scoring and composing to picture which I really enjoy doing.

Listen to Dragons below