Young Hunting

''DIFFICULT THINGS ARE HAPPENING.''

Interview with Marc Dall from Young Hunting, May 2012

To our listeners, who may not be familiar with your work – could you describe the music that is Young Hunting?

I don't think it's for us to describe. To simplify and consolidate our music using labels would be to negate its purpose and confine it to expectations. We're on a journey that has just begun. Our new LP sounds nothing like our last EP. Each recording acts as a definitive response to past material. The reason it's taken us three years to make our second LP is because we're very easily fed up and dissatisfied with what we create. We could have released 2 entire records worth of material that we have chosen to abandon. It just wasn't good enough. Each record should be a new platform, pushing your ideas through the threshold to new and exciting places. It's just too easy to go with whatever sounds instantly good, so we always try and let songs sink in over a period of time, to see if they still hold our interest.

Why did you start producing, and how did the process of making your first album look like? Why is it self-released, did you send it to anyone?

We started Young Hunting out of necessity. We were both frustrated creatively. It was our first musical project where we were fully in control. That's not to say, we knew what we wanted, we didn't and still don’t know what we're after. It's all an experiment. To go into an album knowing what you want would be a waste of time. It would be boring and contrived. We find that our records come about through exploration. If something comes to us naturally it usually develops into something obvious and transparent.

We did send it off to a few labels, but failing to hear back from anyone, we decided to release a limited number of copies ourselves. It’ll be a once only pressing, we don't plan to re-release. Kiran Sande (Blackest Ever Black) came across Attachment when he saw an online blog review and so began our involvement with his amazing label.

Listening to your music, it becomes very clear you aim for a heavy cinematic feel. Seeing the video for A List Of Indignities, I realized you are very knowledgeable in the field of cinema. Do you see your music as sound that needs imagery to confirm itself or do you want your music to invoke certain imagery? How do you see the relationship between the visual and the auditory?

Our music is cinematic in the sense that it stimulates the imagination. I don't think imaginative music needs a video per se, it can certainly help people to get into a track as visuals encourage the senses to communicate with one another. I sometimes find that music videos destroy a track for me, they can become too intrusive. Now when I listen to A List of Indignities, I can only think of a geriatric hospital, in the same way as music can destroy a film and emotionally rape its audience. Response to music is magical and unique, we're always interested in what the listener can take away from the music.

Have you composed music for films before? What films and soundtracks left a lasting impression?

We both collaborated on the soundtrack for a feature film I made a few years ago as well as on various other unreleased video projects. I personally watch more films than I listen to other people's music. There would be too many to name. Lodge Kerrigan’s Clean, Shaven has one of the best soundtracks I've ever heard. There's no conventional music really, just great sound design. The film is chilling. A favourite of mine.

I regret not hearing your first album, but in FACT they talk about its lyrical themes, and you also mention Kafka's writing. What is in words that cannot be said in music and what is in your music that cannot be heard through words?

Well, I have never written poetry, and I would be hard pressed to call my lyrics prose because I have to edit them down so much to tailor the words around the music. They don't tend to read so well on paper. The music always comes first and foremost. The words are merely signposts in which to guide you into a certain space.

Young Hunting's sound is drenched in morbidity and bleakness. The sound it produces invokes an image of a desolate, empty industrial landscape, devoid of life. Where does this need for such music come from? What can we learn from this darkness?

It all comes about from a curious fascination with the human body. There's so much to explore about our condition that’s generally never talked about. I'm personally focused on symmetrically tearing apart my own mental weavings to get to a purer, less morally restraint place to access unfamiliar states of perception. By darkness, you mean unexplored, then yeah, I'm transfixed by what the unconscious can offer me. There’s a whole current of moving recess stirring beneath the surface. It’s really exciting to go where is considered strange and dangerous. If nothing else, I’d like to think that our music could encourage the individual to fully embrace their inner most fantasies and take responsibility for the needs of their desires, regardless of the consequences such fierce intuition could have.

What is death?

To attempt to answer your question, I’d first have to consider the impossible task of summarising the nature of existence, from which an answer would be foolish!
I don’t think death is something that can be consciously known. I do however believe the mind has no place outside the body. The life of one is integral to the survival of the other.

Who are you influenced by, musically? I've read about comparisons with Coil, I also hear a bit of Swans there, and you also included some Scandinavian improv and post-rock on your mixtape. That's quite a broad range.

Were not really influenced by much musically. We do try to listen to other people's work, but our busy studio schedule makes it pretty difficult to take anything else in. Inspiration is a brutal and often mistaken word. It can be taken in the wrong way, especially in relation to music. The driving force behind our music is the need to explore. I get a great deal out of films. Directors such as Michael Hanneke, Ken Russell, Lodge Kerrigan, Gaspar Noe, Ingrid Bergman (to name a few that I haven’t mentioned already) greatly appeal to my tastes in cinema. To consciously copy or imitate others people’s work is foolish. What's the point? It has to come from a very personally experienced place from which inspiration will spawn.

Who, among your current peers, would be an inspiration for you? You've released on Blackest Ever Black which obviously treds this terrain, but is there anyone else who you see doing a similar sound?

We are currently really getting into work from Modern Love, in particular Demidike Stare and Andy Stott. They've made some really exciting records. I can't rate them enough. Truly brilliant.

I also find anything by Swedish artist Martin Bladh fascinating; we share a lot of the same interests. His work across all mediums is outstanding. I'm glad I discovered him.

There's been a long trail of industrial in British music. The guys that used techno matrix to carry the industrial feeling have been very open about their past influences. Have you ever considered producing dance-oriented music?

We have no interest in creating music purely for the body. We want something that acknowledges the presence and mysterious qualities of the mind. Our new LP has grown into a kinetic labyrinth of pulsating rhythm. I'm not sure if that would make for much of a dance record though… I wouldn't like the thought of people dancing to our music.

Using the Young Hunting perspective, how do you see pop culture? How does dance or pop music translate in your universe?

I have little or no interest in popular culture. A lot of it makes me feel ill and generates a great deal of contempt for the people who follow its banality. It stands to reinforce a stale generic nature where dreams are obsolete. It doesn’t give the individual credit for his or her individuality. It's hard, but I try my best to stray away from mediocrity.

Tell us something about your upcoming album on Blackest Ever Black.

Each record is a conscious reaction to the last. We don't want to adhere to a sound. We don’t want to abide by a genre or a particular style of music. We don’t want a formula or a familiar process. Whenever I feel like we’re getting too comfortable, I purposely stick a wrench in the works to destroy its familiarity, and out of the disorientation, we surface to find ourselves with new and exciting variables. I don’t want to get into a habit of doing things in a particular way. I hate the term Industrial music. It's so limiting. I don't even like or listen too much so called 'industrial music'. To me, the term is best credited to people who actually used industrialised sounds in their recordings, it categorized a time and a place, it was almost a political act, famously popularised by acts like Throbbing Gristle, SPK and Einstürzende Neubauten. They were people who the label was created by and deserve mention to contextualise the era in which those groups began. I'm glad those bands moved on to explore new areas, and didn’t just rehash the same sound over and over. It doesn’t influence our work whatsoever. Each record needs to challenge the last. No one should expect anything from us. We will only disappoint. We are not one thing or another. Our shape is forever changing. I feel To Tear Apart Living Structures will for the first time reveal the vastness of our on-going artistic scope and hopefully destroy the Industrial labels lazily attached to our music.

The mixtape you've prepared for Radio Student is called 'Difficult things are happening’. What is it that difficult and should we be afraid of it?

It is a reference to the process of making our current LP. We've been extremely hard on ourselves more so than ever to push further and further, deeper and deeper down into the base level of our material. It's not to say that difficult is in any way bad or negative, it's a good term. Overcoming difficult things is a challenge and can ultimately be rewarding.

More info at:

http://younghunting.co.uk/

Tracklist:

1. Howard Shore - Crash (Crash OST)
2. Tangerine Dream - Eva and Glaeken Overlook The Keep (The Keep OST)
3. John Greenwood - Moontrills (Bodysong OST)
4. Chew Lips - Karen (Young Hunting remix)
5. Raskolnikov - Danse Avec Le Cannibal
6. Martin Bladh - Cord 2
7. The Body Lovers - Track 7
8. Young Hunting - Extrauterine Life
10. Godspeed You Black! Emperor - Moya
11. The Body Lovers - Track 2

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