San Francisco musician Wes Willenbring is back with his sophomore effort, Close, But Not Too Close. The album is made up of organic sounds that are processed to morph and change shape. This is a really beautiful record, I have been listening to it a lot since I got it last month. It is being released today at various online retailers. My favorite track is Oh, Most, give it a listen below. I had a chance to ask Wes few questions about the new record:
Your music has become very organic with the instrumentation. What is your relationship with technology in the making of the new album? Are you inspired by technology in music, or is it a means to an end?
It is definitely a means to an end for me. I used to be a lot more interested in the technological aspect but once I found a way to work that I was comfortable with I really stopped paying attention and just tried to get the most out of the few things I had. For me it was a real distraction to being productive, since if you are constantly looking for the latest guitar pedal or compressor or plug-in or whatever it means you aren’t focusing on the important things. I eventually figured out that for my own working method technology is best used in order to simplify certain processes that would take much longer if done in other ways. The main piece of technology I use when writing music is recording and editing audio with Apple’s Logic Studio software. It’s an integral part of how I write music, because since I’ve been using it for so long I have a lot of little tricks I’ve accumulated that can give me certain sounds really quickly, mainly by using it in ways that it isn’t intended to be used.
Would you describe your compositions and how you achieve your sound?
I have a long list of ideas that I’ve kept for years that are triggered from many sources, anything from certain sounds to films to very specific colors or designs or from things just randomly popping into my head out of nowhere. I’ll choose a few ideas from this list and try to combine them. I’ll then write a few melodies on guitar and piano that I think will fit, and then record them and create some textures in Logic. I tend to see sound as colors so really I’m just trying to create a beautiful, intricate picture that has a certain mood to it. That is another reason I like Logic- I can treat it like a blank canvas and make drastic alterations very quickly. Eventually a song starts to form and bit by bit I start taking things out and try to eliminate everything I possibly can that isn’t necessary and that isn’t helping the song…sometimes I’ll have 80 tracks in a song that I’ll cut down to 10. I’m very interested in unique song structures and have always tried to avoid standard verse/chorus/verse formats, as I feel there are many ways to write a song and have never understood why people tried to force music into that format so much. I never intended to write “ambient” music, it just sort of comes out that way sometimes.
Ambient music can sometimes be far from the mainstream eye, and good ambient music can be hard to find. Do you have any artist’s in this genre that you would recommend?
Honestly I don’t listen to ambient music very much (though I think my definition of it would differ greatly from how most people would define it), but I would recommend the Nick Cave and Warren Ellis score for The Proposition which I thought was absolutely jaw-dropping the first time I heard it. Some others would be William Basinski, Low, Labradford, Zoviet France, The Dead Texan, The Refractors, Sleeping Me, Bats and Swallows, and Cerebellum.
You used to live in Chicago, has moving to the West Coast changed your music?
I think so, from an aesthetic standpoint it’s just so much more beautiful out here that it has definitely influenced me in some ways…being so close to the ocean, mountains, and Redwood forests, as well as the landscape of San Francisco, the architecture, the people and styles…there are days when it can feel like sensory overload and I think it’s made me better realize and define my own aesthetic. I think as long as you are aware new environments and situations will always trigger a lot of ideas.
What are some things that inspire you right now?
These days film inspires my music much more than other music does…right now specifically the directors Jean-Pierre Melville, Éric Rohmer, and Antonioni. I’m mostly influenced by visual things, which can range from anything to good industrial design (Dieter Rams, for example), to certain color schemes, architecture, lighting, or photography.
What can we expect from you next?
I’ve started sketching out some melodies for a new album that I think will be much more focused on guitar. I am going to try a different method of working and hope to spend a lot more time in the studio playing with some old broken tape machines. It will probably be a bunch of really short songs with a couple of long ones. I’d also like to do more collaborative work, especially in a realm outside of “ambient” music.
Patrón or Dom Pérignon?
Usually red wine, though I have been really into Courvoisier lately…
Preview the whole record on Wes Willenbring’s website