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1. Hi Steve, welcome to VENTS! How have you been?
Busy! I’ve been doing quite a bit of experimenting, getting ready to play the music on the new CD live. It’s not easy, because my tendency is to create pretty elaborate pieces that are often almost impossible to reproduce in a live setting. But I think I’ve managed to work out a system. I suppose the audience and I will find out together. Ha!
2. So you do a great job balancing two rather different musical worlds: working as a classical DJ at Minnesota Public Radio and creating instrumental ambient music as Dismantlists. How do these two sides of your life influence one another, and does your work with classical music change the way you approach your own compositions?
I actually grew up listening to both rock and classical music, and I still listen to both constantly – both genres are part of my life. So, Dismantlists is very much a bi-product of that. I’m a rock musician myself without any formal musical training, and for me, the electric guitar is the perfect musical instrument. But aesthetically, my brain often thinks in an orchestral language, with long phrases, with big swells like a string section. I also love both experimental rock and minimalist classical music. So all those things get put into the musical cauldron.
3. Your third album, Evidence, continues your exploration of ambient rock and post-rock, with seven tracks ranging from hauntingly evocative to radiantly warm. What was the central idea behind this collection, and what made you feel these pieces belonged together as an album?
The selection of tracks was informed partly by what pieces came together and felt finished at the moment — I’m always working on new pieces and have got tons of half-finished tracks. But if there was a logic to these selections, it was that they simply felt right. The grand irony to me is that life itself felt much darker in the year leading up to finishing this album, but there’s actually a bit more warmth on it — I think as a result of the connections I feel in my life personally and also here in this community. Life is very ugly right now, but wow — I find myself in this loving place where people are taking care of one another.
4. Listening to Dismantlists, there’s a remarkably cinematic quality to the music. The compositions seem to create entire landscapes and emotional narratives without needing a single lyric. Do you consciously imagine visual scenes or stories while composing, and have you ever pictured one of your tracks accompanying a particular film?
My process of creating is usually quite open — I’ll play around with sounds until I hit on something and go, “that’s a keeper” — but there are two exceptions on this record. The first track was inspired by a piece by composer Gavin Bryars that’s made up of a single repeating phrase that goes on for an hour and only changes very slightly over time, and the second track was — no joke — a reaction to re-watching “The Truman Show,” which is a movie that just destroys me every time I watch it. I would absolutely love to score a film at some point!
5. Artists like Brian Eno, Fripp & Eno, Stars of the Lid, and Eluvium come to mind when exploring your sound, alongside modern classical composers such as Jóhann Jóhannsson and Gavin Bryars. What initially drew you to these artists, and which aspects of their work have had the most lasting impact on your musical development?
I began listening to Robert Fripp and Brian Eno when I was a teenager, and like a lot of nerds in the 70s and 80s, became quite hooked on their stuff and influenced by them. For me, they were inspiring because they were rock musicians who were approaching sound in a very unusual, artistic, thoughtful way — it was proof that rock could be more. And while I heard classical music in my family growing up, finding modern classical artists who in turn seemed to think more like rock artists was just as exciting! Johann Johannsson and Gavin Bryars were prime examples.
6. You describe your creative process as a combination of “meticulous construction and accident.” How much of a Dismantlists composition is carefully planned, and how often do unexpected sounds or happy accidents end up steering a piece somewhere you hadn’t anticipated?
Truthfully, very little is carefully planned. Often, the original germ of an idea that begins a composition will arise from something that happened serendipitously with an effects pedal or a looper, but then I tend to get very methodical with what I subsequently do with those initial sounds and how I elaborate on them.
7. Your guitar canvases are built through looping pedals and recording, allowing you to transform a relatively simple instrument into intricate layers of sound. What does your setup look like, and how has your relationship with technology and experimentation evolved across your three albums?
I have a few different approaches for how I create the sound or sounds that begin a composition — I’ll either start by creating a single loop in a looping pedal and then build a broader piece around that, or I’ll go straight into multi-tracking software and record individual notes or phrases and then work on combining and re-combining those smaller bits into something larger. While my methods of composing have stayed largely the same, I suppose my expertise on how to record those sounds has gotten a bit more refined over the years; when I first started out, I didn’t know how to properly record or mix to save my life, so those early tracks sound a bit grungy. But maybe that’s part of the charm?
8. Instrumental music leaves a great deal of room for listeners to bring their own experiences and interpretations to what they hear. Do you prefer allowing audiences to create their own emotional connections to your music, or do you have specific feelings or images in mind that you hope the compositions communicate?
I don’t have any specific hopes for a particular reaction on the part of the listener, other than, I hope, that it’s rewarding in some way.
9. Ambient music can sometimes be associated with stillness and atmosphere, but your description of Evidence suggests a dynamic range between darker, haunting passages and warmer, more radiant moments. How do you approach creating that emotional movement while maintaining the immersive quality of the music?
I genuinely just let the piece take me where it seems to want to go. One of the great things about producing sounds through improvisation and accident is that you can then step back and try to listen to what the sounds are saying. Is this dark? Is it hopeful? And then I respond to those impressions. It’s like I’m discovering the pieces as I’m making them. The music reveals itself, really.
10. Having now released three albums as Dismantlists, do you feel your approach to composition has changed significantly since the beginning? Is there something you can accomplish musically today that might have been beyond your reach when you first started this project?
I suppose the only thing that might be changing is that I’m just allowing myself to be even less self-conscious about the music. The pieces genuinely tell me where they need to go — even if they suggest sounds that aren’t “cool” or are perhaps “too pretty.” I’m really just a romantic at heart aesthetically, and I’ve stopped fighting against that.
11. With Evidence expanding your contribution to the ambient and post-rock tradition, where would you like to take Dismantlists next? Would you be interested in exploring collaborations, live audiovisual performances, or perhaps composing specifically for film and other visual mediums?
I’d not only be open to all of those things, I’d actively welcome them! I hope to connect with other artists who want to explore similar spaces like this.
Website & Socials:
Website: https://www.dismantlists.com/
Bandcamp: https://dismantlists.bandcamp.com/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/dismantlists/?hl=en
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/dismantlists
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC_6ReEmbGuXjss2AchtBJLg
Tital: https://tidal.com/artist/9705910
Apple: https://music.apple.com/us/artist/dismantlists/1365265212
Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/artist/0JBl7NxAAwrFWgK5GM3Sup
