INTERVIEW: The Laconic shares new record

Chicago-based The Laconic is an aptly named artist making his own unique instrumental music using an innovative array of sonic equipment. Playing the U8 Touch guitar, bass guitars and multiple different synths – many of which he’s made himself – he crafts an original style of progressive rock music unlike anything else.

Humble in his outlook, he considers himself not a virtuoso of musicianship talent, yet his visionary approach allows him to stand out from the crowd with his compositions that rely more on intricate arrangement, engaging rhythm and harmonic construction rather than extravagant technique or showboatery.

Making his artistic entrance in March of this year, he released his debut single “Strider” and now brings us his latest work with his new album titled Integrals. The eight-track debut record sees The Laconic weave a fantastical musical journey of stunning originality to deliver a hypnotising sound of dynamic and kaleidoscopic sonic tapestries.

Now already working on his follow up sophomore LP, we caught up with The Laconic to find out about his inspirations, the making of his album and what he’s got in store for 2023. Check out our interview with The Laconic below.

Hi there, thanks for taking the time to speak to us, how’s things?

I’m exhausted at the moment. I just took a week off to prepare audio files for the new album to be mixed. I spent a large part of nine or ten days in Ableton Live, bouncing tracks, checking them, and making corrections. It was almost a relief to get back to my regular job.

How did you first get into making your own music?

Almost by accident, although in truth it was a long time coming. I was taking lessons in touch guitar from Markus Reuter, and at some point I got interested in learning to use a DAW – I tried Logic but quickly gravitated toward Live. And when you have a hammer, you start to look for nails, so I started recording a cover of “Veteran of the Psychic Wars” just for practice. Soon I was recording something I’d made up, just for fun, and by then the process had its own momentum.

Which artist do you draw most inspiration from?

It’s awfully hard to name one, because I draw inspiration for different things from different artists. I guess I’ll go with Trevor Rabin; even though I’m not a “normal” guitarist like him, I adore his songwriting and his guitar tones. Ask me on another day and I’ll say Chris Squire or Tony Banks.

What would you say is the perfect setting for listeners to enjoy your sound?

At dusk, on a balmy evening, with a second margarita. Which is the perfect setting to enjoy anything.

When making instrumental music, how do you manage to convey emotion in your sound?

That is the central question. In fact I don’t think it’s possible to convey emotion through instrumental music. Maybe you just mean that as a metaphor – that it is as if music conveyed emotion – but everyone talks this way and it’s confusing if you’re trying to understand what is going on. Music itself does not have emotional content. If music simply transmitted emotion, everyone would respond in the same way to a particular song, and they obviously do not. It is possible to evoke emotion though. In other words, music brings out something that’s already in you; it doesn’t put emotion into you. This explains why many people can and do have similar emotional reactions to a piece of music – they have a shared context for the music, some rich set of associations that they have developed over time between emotions and elements of music.

So how do I manage to evoke emotion using my sound? It’s not that difficult really: I know what music brings out different emotions in me, so I use that as a guide. A certain kind of melodic line that soars, or a certain kind of complex pattern that enthrals my brain, or a certain timbre that makes me sentimental. I assume that there are enough other people like me, having had similar experiences with music, that my music will have a similar effect on them and on me.

What artist have you been listening to most recently?

According to Spotify, it’s Mike Oldfield, and that sounds about right. Mike Oldfield was never as popular in the US as in the UK or Europe, and so I was never really exposed to his music before. I was aware of Tubular Bells and “Magic Touch”, and that’s it. My Danish friend Erik [Emil Eskildsen] was like “come on, you know ‘Moonlight Shadow’! [sings chorus]” and I insisted that I did not. It hit number one in several countries but never charted in the US. Mike Oldfield has a substantial discography and it’s not like anything else. I have a lot of listening to do.

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

Goosebumps.

This year you dropped your album Integrals, how did you find the writing and production of the record?

It seemed like a massive amount of work at the time. I started writing in earnest in July 2021, with the goal of turning out a song each month until I felt I had enough. To put some structure around it so that I wouldn’t be faced with a “blank page”, I had associated each month with a general tempo, a time signature, and a few concepts. That mostly worked out. The exception was the song “DBS”, which was the first real song I had ever written, and so it was already done.

Production was relatively easy, and educational, at least for me. I handed it over to Markus for mixing, and we met periodically via Zoom to go over what he’d done. Erik then did the mastering. The awkward part, for me, was doing the CD layout. That was educational too, but it’s not my strength, and for the new album I’m using a graphic designer. So much better. And I have enough to worry about already.

What’s been your favourite live show so far?

Devin Townsend, on the Addicted! tour. I’m a huge fan of Devin, I had never seen him live before, and the show at a small venue about five minutes’ walk from my house. He’s such a great showman, epic and hilarious and awesome and fun in turns. Worst hangover I’d had in years though. I was going to see him again in March 2020, but you can guess what happened.

Who would be 3 artists to headline your dream festival? And where would it be?

Devin Townsend, obviously; Frost*, because I love them but I’ve never seen them live; and Anchor & Burden, because anything could happen, sonically speaking. Echolyn could substitute for Frost* if needed. For the venue, I have a soft spot for Reggie’s in Chicago. It’s small, fun, there’s a separate bar area with food, and there are seating options. I’m getting too old to stand for a whole show, let alone a festival!

Do you have any advice for a new artist wanting to follow your footsteps?

First, find the best possible mentor/teacher/advisor. Second, keep pushing yourself to where you’re a little uncomfortable and feeling out of your depth. Bowie gave that latter advice, but by the time I’d heard that from him (in a recorded interview from the 80’s), I was already doing it. Fortunately. Third, forget about making money and just play what you want to hear. Ideally, get the money issue out of the way by accumulating a small personal fortune before making an album.

Finally, what do you have lined up for in 2023?

I’ll be spending the first week and a half in Italy, watching my second album Amor Fati be mixed, and hopefully learning a ton. I will continue my current phase of gear consolidation, selling off what doesn’t work, and spending the proceeds on what does work. I’m currently expanding a four-voice modular poly synth that I put together, building some modules and buying others to create the ultimate synthesiser for me.

Longer term, I hope to contribute to some other people’s albums. It would be a relief to make music without having sole responsibility for it. Kind of like being a grandfather – you get to have fun with your grandchildren, but when they start getting troublesome you can hand them back to their parents. I also plan to take lessons in sound design from a friend. And practice touch guitar again. Toward the end of making Amor Fati, I started to feel constrained by my (lack of) technique, so I’d like to actually get better at it. Finally, I’m going to get better acquainted with the gear I have, which is wonderful stuff, mostly synths and pedals, but I also have a new touch guitar being made. It seems inevitable that once I start playing with all that gear, new songs will come out of it.

Listen to Integrals below