Monday, December 9, 2013

EIC's 10Q's w/ Optic Nest

"..a unique peak into Post-Industrial Future (Retro) Pop-tronica.."


Optic Nest
Orchestrating Unusual Behavior

Optic Nest Bio*:
*Not much of a bio really, I had a hard time finding one, so here's this mini-review instead.. 'Ride On Silver' is Daniel Fagerströms' second album as Optic Nest. As on his debut album 'Entertainment' (Moptaco Dics, 2010) the flanged Optic Nest sound springs from a musical web born out of the late 60's obscure Electronic Pop music, through the '70s San Francisco Psychedelia and British 80th century Industrial music. But 'Ride On Silve'r also takes new turns and flirts with both Ethiopian-sounding melodies and musique concrete. On previous recordings Fagerström have acted entirely on his own as Optic Nest, but with 'Ride On Silver' his previously strictly electric grooves are mixed up with percussion (Pontus Langendorf, Kroumata), saxophone (Gustav Nygren, New Rose) and flute (Lina Langendorf, OK Star Orchestra). Daniel Fagerström is previously known as a member of the Drone/Rock band and The Skull Defekts and for his collaborations with Jenny Wilson.


Hello, how are you?
Hi, I’m just fine thanks.

What are you currently listening to?
I just finished going through my record collection and discovering some LPs that I got but actually never played. Steve Miller Band’s 'Fly Like An Eagle' LP is one of them. The track "Serenade" is such a great song. Apart from that I just got that new William Onyeabor re-release which is really fantastic. And I finally found the first Indoor Life 12” that I’m playing a lot these days.

Care to shed some light on your latest LP; theme, favorite track(s), etc?
Yeah, my new LP 'Ride On Silver' that just came out is my second album with Optic Nest. I worked with this album back and forth for almost three years. It definitely has the Optic Nest sound, but sure differs in the way that I really wanted to work with acoustic instruments this time. Something that I have never done with Optic Nest. So I got some good people that I know to play saxophone, flute, marimba and percussion on top of my electronic instruments. "Indigo Child" and "Two Moons" are two of my favorite tracks on the album I think. They really captured what I wanted to do with this album.

Will you be touring extensively for said release?
For 'Ride On Silver' I put together a band consisting of Max (of the band Famnen) and Lotti (of 29:90) to back me up. I have only played live by myself before, but I wanted to do it different this time. And I also wanted to be able to play the songs more like they are on the album. We did a release tour playing six places in six hours in our hometown Stockholm. That was a pretty wild experience. Apart from that we’re playing a couple of shows here and there. But no extensive touring.

Speaking of; what's your live set up like? Do you sample/program most sounds or do you have a lot of synthesizers, or is it both?
The brain in our live operations is an MPC sampler where we have some of the beats and sounds from the album. From there we sync Max’s drum machines and Lottis modular synth. Live I handle the MPC, sing, play my modular synth and a fantastic Roland XP10 synthesizer that I actually found in the trash. So yes, we do have a lot of synthesizers live.

Got any other projects we should know about?
I play guitar and sing in a band called The Skull Defekts, which is a kind of hypnotic Drone/Rock band. I also have an industrial project based around drum machines and tape loops called Cryme together with my friend Mattias who’s Altar Of Flies.

What movie would work best on mute while listening to you music?
I haven’t really thought about that. But thinking of it it’s hard not to say something of David Lynch’s. Maybe Blue Velvet or Inland Empire.

You can only keep/listen to ONE album for the rest of your life ..which album would it be?
It would have to be Brian Eno’s 'Another Green World'. That album really has everything you could ever need.

Are you living your dream?
Not quite, but close enough.

Thanx /D!

Optic Nest recently released a really terrific album that you will hate your self for missing out on..;]

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