"..takes you back to a time when ambient music was still fresh and inviting like an enchanting neurosis sweeping you out to the comfort of a docile yet perplexed sea.."
Syntaks
Oceanic Anodic Romance
Syntaks Bio:
Syntaks’ music evokes an infinitely expanding landscape of papery beats, sighing voices, and hills of sublime noise. In Syntaks’ world, dreams and reality blur into ... (more) a melodic haze, and nothing is as it seems.
Copenhagen, Denmark-based Jakob Skott has been making music as Syntaks for years, releasing a handful of solo albums on Darla and Benbecula Records, and collaborating with Jonas Munk (his bandmate in psych/krautrock band Causa Sui) as Limp, on Morr Music. In April of 2006, Skott began making music with Anna Cecilia, first adding her vocals to a track on his 2006 album Awakes, and eventually integrating her as a full-time partner. With the addition of Cecilia, a new era of Syntaks was born, fusing
Skott’s densely textured beats and production with Cecilia’s airy, wordless soprano and intuitive songwriting.
Syntaks take their cues from the ambient experiments of Brian Eno and Popol Vuh, the film scores of Ennio Morricone and John Carpenter, and the tonal depth of ‘90s shoegaze bands and early 4AD records. Each sound—from the tinkling of a piano to the snap of a snare drum—has been electronically treated, conjuring an air of unreality that belies the music’s organic construction. Syntaks’ newest record on Ghostly International, 2009’s Ylajali, is a romantic fever dream, a post-rock paean to the transportative, transformative power of sound. Syntaks wraps the couple up like a shroud, absorbing their identities in the pursuit of a heart-stoppingly beautiful vision.
Syntaks’ music evokes an infinitely expanding landscape of papery beats, sighing voices, and hills of sublime noise. In Syntaks’ world, dreams and reality blur into ... (more) a melodic haze, and nothing is as it seems.
Copenhagen, Denmark-based Jakob Skott has been making music as Syntaks for years, releasing a handful of solo albums on Darla and Benbecula Records, and collaborating with Jonas Munk (his bandmate in psych/krautrock band Causa Sui) as Limp, on Morr Music. In April of 2006, Skott began making music with Anna Cecilia, first adding her vocals to a track on his 2006 album Awakes, and eventually integrating her as a full-time partner. With the addition of Cecilia, a new era of Syntaks was born, fusing
Skott’s densely textured beats and production with Cecilia’s airy, wordless soprano and intuitive songwriting.
Syntaks take their cues from the ambient experiments of Brian Eno and Popol Vuh, the film scores of Ennio Morricone and John Carpenter, and the tonal depth of ‘90s shoegaze bands and early 4AD records. Each sound—from the tinkling of a piano to the snap of a snare drum—has been electronically treated, conjuring an air of unreality that belies the music’s organic construction. Syntaks’ newest record on Ghostly International, 2009’s Ylajali, is a romantic fever dream, a post-rock paean to the transportative, transformative power of sound. Syntaks wraps the couple up like a shroud, absorbing their identities in the pursuit of a heart-stoppingly beautiful vision.
Hello, how are you?
Great, thanks.
What are you currently listening to?
Right now one of the early Freescha EPs is playing. Other than that at the moment: tons of Celer, Windy & Carl and Brian Eno - ambient stuff that fits the season.
Where does the name Syntaks come from?
It's completely picked out of some free association. But now when I think about it, it makes sense in relation with this new album as well. After all there is a literary theme to it, and with this album somehow we're adding another word to what we're trying to say.
You recently signed with Ghostly Records, did they find you or did you “find” them?
We sent them some of our new material over a year ago. But that was before Anna was really integrated in the production, it was something else. I didn't label it Syntaks. They got back to us a while later out of the blue, asking for an update, and by then our collaboration had matured. From there it all just merged together and made sense in it's own way. It took a while, but it was worth the wait and work.
Will there be a large scale tour in conjunction with the release of “Ylajali”?
No.
Did the writing/recording process for “Ylajali” go smoothly or..?
Like I said, it took a while to figure out how to get the best from Anna's piano and vocals. There have been many songs in progress - but it was necessary. Once we figured it out, she became an increasingly bigger part of the whole process. On some songs I just did the production and beats. All the melodies and harmonies are her contribution on many tracks. Often she improvises for 30 minutes, completely free-form. And I cut parts out and try to make them work together, composing from there. There's a lot of improvisation on the album - it's just edited really well...
I really love the split album you did with Manual. How did that idea ever come about?
I've played with Jonas since we were kids. We're still playing together - currently working on a folk record as a band. But we're leaving Manual & Syntaks as our private projects now - at the time of Golden Sun I hadn't really released anything, and had a hard time finalizing my tracks. It was a nice push. But it makes more sense to collaborate as a band, rather than pick each others things apart. We're a group of people who play together exclusively, but in lots of different ways. We still join each other on stage more often than not. Rasmus Rasmussen (Aerosol) is another part of this group. The thing we have done that is closest to Syntaks is probably Limp: Orion on Morr Music in 2002, or the live album September on Benbecula in 2007.
Is there anything on your MP3/media player currently that you are embarrassed to say you own?
You don't really hang on to bad mp3s, do you? We probably have some LPs which some people would call embarrassing, but throwing away vinyl or CDs seem like a sacrilege towards music in general. We have a lot of popular 80s music, like Yazoo, Howard Jones, A-ha, Duran Duran, Simple Minds, Tears for Fears, etc. Loving every bit of it. Not really embarrassed, though.
You can only keep/listen to ONE album for the rest of your life ..which album would it be?
Harold Budd & Brian Eno: The Pearl - it never grows tired, we listen to it all the time.
Are you living your dream?
With this album, it seems like we're living a small part of someone else's dream - since the title refers to recurring dreams in Knut Hamsun's novel Hunger. The album is a celebration of what books and music does alike. It lets you peak inside a different kind of dreams than your own, without leaving yourself and your thoughts behind. We're hoping that people will catch a glimpse of our dreams through it and put it into their own lives for a while.
Great, thanks.
What are you currently listening to?
Right now one of the early Freescha EPs is playing. Other than that at the moment: tons of Celer, Windy & Carl and Brian Eno - ambient stuff that fits the season.
Where does the name Syntaks come from?
It's completely picked out of some free association. But now when I think about it, it makes sense in relation with this new album as well. After all there is a literary theme to it, and with this album somehow we're adding another word to what we're trying to say.
You recently signed with Ghostly Records, did they find you or did you “find” them?
We sent them some of our new material over a year ago. But that was before Anna was really integrated in the production, it was something else. I didn't label it Syntaks. They got back to us a while later out of the blue, asking for an update, and by then our collaboration had matured. From there it all just merged together and made sense in it's own way. It took a while, but it was worth the wait and work.
Will there be a large scale tour in conjunction with the release of “Ylajali”?
No.
Did the writing/recording process for “Ylajali” go smoothly or..?
Like I said, it took a while to figure out how to get the best from Anna's piano and vocals. There have been many songs in progress - but it was necessary. Once we figured it out, she became an increasingly bigger part of the whole process. On some songs I just did the production and beats. All the melodies and harmonies are her contribution on many tracks. Often she improvises for 30 minutes, completely free-form. And I cut parts out and try to make them work together, composing from there. There's a lot of improvisation on the album - it's just edited really well...
I really love the split album you did with Manual. How did that idea ever come about?
I've played with Jonas since we were kids. We're still playing together - currently working on a folk record as a band. But we're leaving Manual & Syntaks as our private projects now - at the time of Golden Sun I hadn't really released anything, and had a hard time finalizing my tracks. It was a nice push. But it makes more sense to collaborate as a band, rather than pick each others things apart. We're a group of people who play together exclusively, but in lots of different ways. We still join each other on stage more often than not. Rasmus Rasmussen (Aerosol) is another part of this group. The thing we have done that is closest to Syntaks is probably Limp: Orion on Morr Music in 2002, or the live album September on Benbecula in 2007.
Is there anything on your MP3/media player currently that you are embarrassed to say you own?
You don't really hang on to bad mp3s, do you? We probably have some LPs which some people would call embarrassing, but throwing away vinyl or CDs seem like a sacrilege towards music in general. We have a lot of popular 80s music, like Yazoo, Howard Jones, A-ha, Duran Duran, Simple Minds, Tears for Fears, etc. Loving every bit of it. Not really embarrassed, though.
You can only keep/listen to ONE album for the rest of your life ..which album would it be?
Harold Budd & Brian Eno: The Pearl - it never grows tired, we listen to it all the time.
Are you living your dream?
With this album, it seems like we're living a small part of someone else's dream - since the title refers to recurring dreams in Knut Hamsun's novel Hunger. The album is a celebration of what books and music does alike. It lets you peak inside a different kind of dreams than your own, without leaving yourself and your thoughts behind. We're hoping that people will catch a glimpse of our dreams through it and put it into their own lives for a while.
Thanx Jakob!
Syntaks just released an amazing album you should go get that, and get hyped/ready for their next release...
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