Sohn - Past the Limit of Your Mind

Sohn‘s music is a lot more desolate and brooding than it comes off as. The music fits into the same post-dubstep classification as James Blake and the like, but goes beyond it in interesting ways that blend darker elements of chillwave with the organic but electronic feel of west coaster, Tycho. Though he likes to maintain relative secrecy (he doesn’t like giving personal details about his life), he’s very upbeat, contrasting with his music. Like a lot of artists who blow up quickly on the blogs, his quick rise to indie fame hasn’t gotten to his head and may never. At the moment, he’s perfectly grounded and seemed legitimately happy just to talk about the art that he produces as we spoke on his forthcoming album, music writing tools, and inspirations.

There aren’t a lot of interviews with you yet on the internet. What would you want to say about yourself to shape your own image as it starts to take form?
The scarcity of information is more of a by-product of the way that this happened. We put a song online to see how it would go and by the time we got to interviews, it was just a case of less everything, music, interviews, being out there. I think the thing is that it’s important to me to sit inside the music, and as soon as you learn the character of the person making it, it overrides the actual music itself and you lose control of how people are looking at what you’re doing.

You’ve said that you don’t make songs without vocals and that you don’t make vocals without songs. Why do you see the two as so integral and necessary for each other in the work that you do?
I don’t think that it even is necessary or integral. It’s just the way that my brain is wired. I would love to make some instrumental tracks but sooner or later, my brain just says, “Where’s the vocals?” I love other people’s instrumental tracks. It’s not like for me that it’s a necessary thing to have vocals, it just that my brain doesn’t let me not do it somehow.

Your music seems to be really dark, but you seem like a jovial guy. Does the inspiration come from a different side of you, or a past side of you?
I think it’s the only side of me that needs expressing in any other way than just life. The thing is, it’s very easy to express when you’re happy in life. When you’re frustrated with something, or when you have worries about something, it’s much easier to put it in a song than it is in your normal life, somehow. I don’t know, I guess it’s like when you write a diary. You wouldn’t say, “I had a really wicked day and everything was brilliant.” You wouldn’t write in the diary that day, because you’d already be happy.

Does making music and art about the difficulty and sadness serve as catharsis, or does it re-entrench you in the feeling and make it worse?
Sometimes it connects you with it in the first place. Sometimes I’m not even aware I’m feeling something until I’ve done a track. I can’t really construct lyrics in terms of planning anything. It’s that kind of stream of consciousness style of writing lyrics. So in the end, when it all comes out, you hold it up and say, “Ah, that’s interesting, I didn’t even know I was thinking that at the time.

Things are going to pretty good for you right now. It seems possible that you could be happy for awhile. Do you see yourself not making music if that sadness doesn’t come back for a while or does the music change?
There’s always going to be some huge amount of worry involved in doing what I’m doing. The more successful that it gets, the more pressure you have to keep doing what you’re doing. That pressure is something itself that keeps it a little bit crazy. I don’t think my brain ever lets me relax, and say, “Yeah, I’ve achieved it,” because at the moment, any success that I’ve had so far, is not really a real thing to me. There’s nothing to hold in you’re hand and say it’s successful. It’s this kind of abstract idea that’s thought of as successful. To me, nothings changed, so I’m still making music, the same way I make music. My life hasn’t changed yet. I guess there will always be that thing, where you’re worried about keeping successful. When I don’t have those fears and worries. I don’t write.

What are the plans for the album?
I don’t have things planned yet. The label has suggestions as to when they would think it’s a good time to do one. It depends on if the album gets made. You can’t put out an album if you don’t have one. In some way it’s strike while the irons hot, and do an album while everyone’s talking about it and at the same time, it’s like there’s a part of me that says if you don’t have an album in you, then don’t do the album. There’s a healthy amount of stress involved.

You’re from London. You moved to Vienna. Why did you make the switch?
It was a lifestyle choice. I’ve been making music in London for quite a few years, and not really feeling like I was getting anywhere. The opportunity came up. I ended up in Vienna by accident. I got to know a couple of bands and people out there. It was really simple. I was sick of London, so I was like, “Let’s get out.” I just lived in Vienna instead. You’re in a privileged position as an artist in some ways, because you can do it wherever you want. Even so, success could never come directly from Vienna. I have a team in London.

Could you see your self most past Vienna and living somewhere else?
I could. At this point in time, a lot of interest is right now is coming from the states, so I could see myself living there for awhile. I would never put an end on something like that, because who knows within a year.

What kind of music were you producing before Sohn?
It was like throwing paint at walls, man. I have roots in singer-songwriter stuff. It was only really now that I settled on the idea of what I am in music terms. Having someone like a tour-manager and someone to talk it over with really helped the process, because suddenly I knew what I was doing and what I was doing not so well, and strengthening the areas which make you feel like you’re getting to the root of it quick enough.

Outside of music, who were you before all of this. Everyone knows of you as Sohn, but no one really knows much beyond that. Is that intentional?
Yeah, kind of. Not because there’s anything to hide, they’re nothing interesting.

Do you have like a favorite football team or anything, then?
I’m an Arsenal fan. That’s like the most information anyone’s got out in terms of personal information. Shit, that just crept up on me. That was good [laughs].

You started playing live for the first time in January. Are you still getting your whole footing on it?
Yeah. It sounds bad, but I’m already really happy with the way the live show is. The best thing about it is that it’s so human. It’s the opposite of what you’d think of electronic music. With two guys onstage who are real pros as well, we create this wall of synths and it feels amazing onstage.

David Byrne of the Talking Heads writes about the constraints of music and how a lot of has been developed not just artistically but also in response to the limitations of instruments and recording technologies over the years. Artists like you who make electronic music don’t have to deal with that. Are there other constraints you have to deal with?
There are. I’m working less and less with computers, actually. Since I’ve been doing these songs, I’m not really producing on the computer straight. It’s more like, I use it to do the vocal chops and things like that. I use it to record everything, but I’m actually doing a lot of hands on stuff. Using a lot of live drum machines and synths, mainly to stay away from that. To stay away from the limitations of your own mind. If you’re producing on a computer, you’re limited by your knowledge and your imagination. If you’re working with instruments sometimes things just happen and then a mistake you make goes in the song because it was great. It’s like an exercise to force myself to hit the record button and just make stuff.