8Sided Blog

a zine about sound, culture, and the punk rock dream

Felix Laband: Sine Waves in Heaven

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I’ve always held a fascination for musical artists that started as painters — Brian Eno and Captain Beefheart come to mind — but it’s often impossible to find a key to their music through their visual expressions. Not so with Felix Laband. The South African recording artist’s sonic output stands side-by-side with his collage art, with his pieces adorning the covers of his albums from the very first, 2001’s Thin Shoes In June. The subjects of Felix’s collages are fractured, spare, and dramatically chopped. You might find animal life, anguished faces, African imagery, drab buildings, vague slogans, and pervy goings-on. And the collages, intentionally or not, accompany and unlock Felix’s music, especially his latest album, The Soft White Hand. 

Supported by a canvas of bright pigments in tone and melody, the citizens of Felix’s collages reside in his songs. Field recordings, animated dialogues, newsreel announcements, and undefinable intonations twist and bend in context — the mundane becoming bizarre, the bitter becoming joyous, the pleasant turning ominous. Felix’s label, Compost Records, delves into this aspect in the album’s press release:

“My music is always about collage, as is my art,” [Felix] affirms. “Everything I do is collage. It is a medium I find very interesting because you are taking history and distorting it and changing its meaning and turning it upside down and back to front.” In her book Recollections of My Non-Existence, Rebecca Solnit calls collage “literally a border art”; it is “an art of what happens when two things confront each other or spill onto each other.”

The music on The Soft White Hand can exist and satisfy without the insertion of collage. But the collage and the nature of its sample-play transform the album into personal reflection. With some attention, one can grasp Felix’s reservations and struggles — as a South African in a powder keg, as a sufferer of substance abuse, and of feeling abandoned and rejected in a world that’s lost control of itself. But despite the turmoil, the construction of The Soft White Hand has a deliberateness and a lightness. The album is sonically crisp — the melodies tend to sparkle, the rhythms can’t help but gyrate, and the low end is tough and resolute. Felix is an electronic music producer’s producer (like someone deemed “a DJ’s DJ or a writer’s writer”). The stereo spread is full and cosmic, open for study and ready to yield surprises on repeated listens. The Soft White Hand can’t be easily defined but feels close to something we already know.

Some months back, I interviewed David Sanborn (alongside his crafty wife, Jennifer Huber) for an expose on the extreme mischief of their Kraftwerk fandom. I was also aware that David is a devoted fan of Felix Laband’s art and music. In 2017, David bought one of Felix’s collage works and had it shipped from South Africa at a not-insignificant expense. The piece is fantastic, and I’ve admired it on David and Jennifer’s wall many times. This purchase inspired a correspondence between David and Felix, and they became regular internet acquaintances. So, when Felix appeared on my radar as an 8sided interview subject, I immediately thought of David. Who better to talk to this enigmatic artist? 

My instinct paid off. As you’ll hear in the interview audio below, these two had a mutually generous and strikingly personal conversation about life, Felix’s music, the state of the world, South Africa, and much more — along with many humorous asides. Here’s what David wants you to know about this interview: 

My pal Michael asked me if I was interested in interviewing Felix Laband, a South African composer of sublime electronic music I’ve long admired, to which I replied with a hard YES and an emphatic affirmative. I spent days relistening to Felix’s back catalog, making notes, and hoping to create a dialog complementary to his aspirations. In short, I was dedicated and thrilled about the opportunity. In retrospect, I may have over-delivered as Felix was a charming and fascinating man who shared some unique interests and opinions with me, so the sprawling recording I handed Michael to prune down to something manageable exceeded two hours. Michael: I’m sorry. Had I not asked every question and lifted every rug, I wouldn’t have stumbled on our shared loathing of dubstep, a shared loving of the film Withnail & I, and the dirt on Die Antwoord. I hope this interview shines a spotlight on an artist who deserves so much more than he’s received. 

I managed to edit this fascinating chat down to one tight hour, and I threw in a few interludes using music from The Soft White Hand. In addition to what David mentions in his paragraph, the two discuss the perils of addiction, why you shouldn’t ask your elders to translate Einstürzende Neubauten lyrics, the meanings behind some of the album’s samples, finding lewd photos for salacious collage art, and why David would rather interview Felix than Ralf Hütter of Kraftwerk. 

A big thanks to David Sanborn for conducting this interview (here’s his blog, which he should update more often, nudge nudge). What follows is a transcripted excerpt from the conversation, which begins with Felix wondering if he should leave South Africa as he and David explore a frequent artistic malady: self-doubt. If all this piques your interest, please enjoy the entire conversation in the handy audio player. It’s a good one.

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FL: Obviously [I could emigrate] to Europe because my record label, [Compost Records], is there. Probably Berlin to start with, just because it’s central and I have a lot of friends there. But this war is making everything quite difficult. I’m quite nervous.

DS: Yeah, the whole world feels destabilized, and a lot depends on the outcome. But that brings us to a catch-22. What is Felix Laband without South Africa? I think for a lot of artists, the struggles they experience make their music possible. I want to see you live somewhere where you’re safe, and you’re happy. But does that mean the music will continue, or will you give a big sigh of relief and just try to live your life happily? 

FL: I think the music will continue. But perhaps, and this might sound a bit odd, what I think about a lot is studying music [abroad] now that I’m a bit older and more mature. Perhaps I would take it seriously, like maybe classical music or, in particular, chamber music, which is what I’m really into. I don’t have any formal training. I feel like I’ve reached the point where my ideas are getting boring, and I’m not capable of thinking in terms of big chords and stuff like that. I feel like that might open a whole new chapter in my experience with music.

DS: I don’t want to come across as pandering, but you know I’m a big fan. I think The Soft White Hand is brilliant. It’s a cracking album. My wife and I went to the UK for the last three weeks and rented a car. We drove from Scotland all the way down to the Isle of Wight, and we listened to your album like half the time. 

FL: Beautiful. 

DS: And you talk about expanding your musical palette with some formal training. But I’ve got to say that this album is as close as electronic music gets to chamber music. There are elements to that album that remind me of the French composer Johann Pachelbel, for example. There are melodic elements that remind me of Philip Glass. And yet here you are saying you don’t feel that you’re as good as you could be. And I’m sure that there’s probably some truth to that in your mind, but I think you might also be a little, um … what’s the word I’m looking for? A lack of ego, perhaps.

FL: I appreciate you saying that. It means so much to me because I do feel like this album is a lot closer to where I want to be. I’ve been banging away trying to make this album for about six or seven years. And it only came together in terms of a concept, of something I was feeling confident about, maybe in the last year. That was after I was in a weird relationship with somebody a lot younger than me. It was quite a traumatic relationship, with a lot of fighting and stuff, but she helped me have a proper look at what I’m doing. She was right about a lot of stuff, and it pushed me a bit. That led to a bit more confidence in what it is that I actually want to do.

DS: Would you like to attend a university, or is there somebody you would like to work with who could impart knowledge? 

FL: I’m told that, because of my experience [as a recording artist], if I had to apply to a university, I might have some way in even though I don’t have any training. But I don’t even know what’s out there. I just think it might be quite interesting and push me to embrace that style of thinking.

DS: A common element of this album — and in most of your music — is a purity of sound. You use bells and other things that have a pure tone. There’s no distortion. When I listen to how hard you work on your music to make it perfect, it’s telling that you feel you could be a better musician. I know this isn’t news to you, but you don’t ever use the same drum break twice. You’re never just cutting and pasting four-bar loops. What causes that need for perfection? What makes you go for this particular sound?

FL: That’s such an interesting question. You know, if I were going to heaven, I would be on a sine wave. (laughs) I’ve always loved that tone. It speaks to me, that sort of sine wave tone. And I do love bell sounds and things like that. It’s interesting because distortion was something that I was super into at a certain point in my life. But I do find it quite difficult these days, especially in electronic music.

DS: There’s such purity in your music. There’s no distortion at all. It’s some of the clearest, cleanest stuff I’ve heard.

FL: I suppose it feels right to me. I mean, some tracks evolve over a long time. They might have started as something completely the opposite. I tend to work with things that I’ve done previously when I realize that it fits with something I’m working on now. I’ll merge them together. But when I feel it’s perfectly married and finished, it’s often clean in tone. Although, that’s not a conscious idea. It’s interesting that you brought that up, as I haven’t thought about it. You’re right.

→ Felix Laband’s The Soft White Hand is out now on Compost Records. You can find the album on Bandcamp, as well as all the streaming spots. To check out some of Felix’s collage art, visit his Instagram page.

Too Drummy for Ambient

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Grooving to Amapiano → Prodded by Awesome Tapes From Africa, today I’m immersing myself in the South African genre of amapiano, defined as “a township-developed style that fuses elements from a number of different club-ready genres from across the decades.” This DJ mix by Teno Afrika is an overview of what amapiano is all about:

But Uwami, a fantastic new album by DJ Black Low, is really connecting me to this sound. Some of the production flourishes — especially the in-your-face percussive electronics — are especially provocative and attention-grabbing. I haven’t listened to a tune and remarked, “oh, shit!” to myself in a while. I did that a couple of times within the first few songs.

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ZZT Records in 1982 → This eight-minute ‘documentary’ on Zang Tumb Tuum (more commonly known as ZTT Records) is a fascinating time capsule. What a find! I’ve written about my ‘80s obsession with producer Trevor Horn, and ZTT is commonly known as his label. But, as the video shows, co-runners Jill Sinclair (also Horn’s wife) and music writer Paul Morley played a part, too. I love when professional units (labels, bands, companies) consist of distinctive personalities, each taking on a unique role. In ZTT’s case, Sinclair is the grounded business mind, Horn is the producer and resident nerd, and Morley is the prankster and creative spirit. Morley seems relegated to the background in this video, but he was crucial to the look and feel of ZTT. The Dada and futurist-influenced aesthetic and winking pseudo-corporate speak filling liner notes, label press releases, and manifestos were all Morley’s doing, no doubt. All of this conflicting but complementary energy created a classic record label that’s worthy of study and admiration. 

Also: I wonder if Rod Stewart was aware of what Horn said about him here when Horn was hired to produce a Rod Stewart album.

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Ausklang – Chronos → Soaring spaciousness abounds on Chronos, an album from the Berlin-based trio Ausklang. The band’s not quite moody enough for post-rock, a bit too drummy for ambient, and way too heady for indie-rock. They’re somewhere in the middle of all of that, probably closer to what I hesitate to call “soundtrack rock.” Ausklang are like a Popol Vuh for the drone-footage age, replacing the ecstatic mysticism with shoegazey optimism. 

The pieces are primarily improvised, the best bits edited together, and then overdubs added — a songwriting process pioneered by fellow German space cadets CAN. But while CAN gloriously sprawled and looped, Ausklang build and erupt. The title track, for instance, is a subdued slow-end jam that blasts itself into reverb-drenched guitar lines and cymbal crashes near the five-minute mark. And then there’s the gorgeous “Future Memories,” lulling the listener with a beatific guitar-then-piano melody before a Slowdive-like upward swell washes everything away.

The band performs a two-hour improvised ambient set every week at The Zionskirche, a 19th-century neo-romantic church. This aspect of Ausklang closes out Chronos via two beatless tracks that combine light drones, guitar atmospherics, and hopeful piano. Thus the album’s sequence mirrors the band’s dynamic sense — the tracklist progressively glides and thickens before floating down to a gentle landing. The album is so satisfying upon reaching the end, it’s tempting to replay Chronos from track one and fly again.

Hitting the Links: Talk Talk, a Package from Felix Laband, and Hippie Architecture

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Talk Talk – 10 of the Best:

Engineer Phill Brown, speaking to the Guardian in 2012, recalled “an endlessly blacked-out studio, an oil projector in the control room, strobe lighting and five 24-track tape-machines synced together. Twelve hours a day in the dark listening to the same six songs for eight months became pretty intense.”



Felix Laband – A Life In Collage:

Hailing from Johannesburg South Africa, Felix hasn’t exactly become a household name here in the States. His obscurity made legitimate purchases of his music difficult, so like any rabid fan I resorted in the early 00s to piracy and felt the pain of having shorted an artist that has contributed so much to our well being. But now more than a decade later it’s easier than ever to patronize the artists we love. And so we did, with the largest music-related purchase we’ve ever made.



Psychedelic Supersonic Silicon Space Age: Photos Of The Radical Hippie Design Sense:

In the 1910s, the horrors of the First World War had pushed disillusioned creatives to invent new ‘modernist’ modes of expression. Fifty years later, Vietnam, civil rights, and their political backlash had radical thinkers again refusing to get in line. We all know well the profound musical heritage of this period. But the influence of countercultural aesthetics on the graphic design and architecture of the era is far less recognized, even as its impact continues to ripple some half a century on.



Why Time Seems To Speed Up As We Get Older:

If our memories can trick us into thinking time is moving quickly, then maybe there are ways to trick our brains into thinking that time is slowing down — such as committing to breaking routines and learning new things. You’re more likely to remember learning how to skydive than watching another hour of mindless television.



There’s a Replica of the Otherworldly Bedroom from 2001: A Space Odyssey in a DTLA Warehouse:

{Simon} Birch, a Hong Kong-based British artist, has transformed the space into a series of micro-exhibitions meant to take viewers on a “hero’s journey,” a reference to Joseph Campbell’s Monomyth. The various large-scale immersions feature projections, paintings, sculptures, and, in one instance, a lush patch of real grass. But the most Instagram-worthy is a bedroom—one that happens to be an exact replica of the one in Stanley Kubrick’s Oscar-winning film 2001: A Space Odyssey.