There Are Places I Remember | 2026.16

TMODM: When we first talked in 2020, you described what you were making during the pandemic as “pandemic rock,” and by 2023 Électrons libres du Québec had pushed further into funk, jazz and heavy psych. Gimmicks makes another sharp turn, this time toward synthesizers, keyboards and drum machines. What made you want to go in this direction?

Population II: In 2025, we put out Maintenant Jamais.

This album made us think differently about textures, sound exploration and vintage synths/keyboards.

Songs from Maintenant Jamais like “13 1 3 1” & “Macavélique Rock” are what inspired us to push the direction in Gimmicks. Purely to write music with an emphasis on textures and sounds that inspire us.

Imagine Tangerine Dream being stuck in LA in ’78 and they decide to go hang with Shuggie Otis (Inspiration Information) and see The Screamers live.

TMODM: On “Magouilleux” the keyboards and bass synth create a slightly ominous atmosphere instead of relying on the kind of guitar attack people might expect from you. How did that song come together, and how did you decide how much tension to build without letting it completely explode?

Population II: Tristan and Sébastien had the main groove for a while.

Sébastien came with this, like you said, slightly ominous atmosphere with his old Kee Bass. That bassline feels complete with the floating, dream-like Farfisa from Tristan. A feverishly ominous dream state!

We wanted it to loop around until the drum break with the Kee Bass riff, the bridge, and so just before the song ends. It retains the loop and tension in a way that we’ve dealt with before, like “Beau Baptême,” let’s say.

One thing that is really important on that song is that Pierre-Luc plays the drums, the lead synth just before the pre-chorus/chorus, the one that cuts through, and he sings. He does it all at the same time live! One hand on the snare, one hand on the synth and the voice of an angel to his mic!

TMODM: The lyrics to “Magouilleux” are full of shady connections, prête-noms, money changing hands, disappearing memories and people looking the other way. Is the song about some specific act of corruption or were you trying to create something more broadly about how power protects itself?

Population II: Pierre-Luc wrote all of the lyrics and the concept is all around the man Marc Bibeau. He’s basically a crook in our province of Québec and Pierre-Luc wanted to sing about how bad we as Québécois trust people at the power… which many nations and humans have to deal with the same situation, you know?

You can look into him if you want, fun reading about the meals and nights he would organize to “finance” the Parti Libéral du Québec.

TMODM: Computer Rebirth is full of digital imagery (“Installer Wizard,” “Motherboard,” “Daemon Hijack,” “Torn Page Deleted File”) and you describe the album in terms of “reclaimed digital space” and “a world abstract & binary.” What drew you to focus on that? Is there a larger idea connecting the songs?

Sorcerer: What drew me was seeing people’s creativity and communally building things online, especially handcrafted and imperfect in a digital sense. With technology being so monetized and streamlined, I wanted to reconnect with stumbling into pockets of the internet and tech as a mode of expression rather than consumption. All the songs touch on this tension of excitement and weariness in some way.

TMODM: “Torn Page Deleted File” brings together something physical with something digital. What was behind that title, and how does it relate to the music of the track?

Sorcerer: “Torn Page” is about iteration, difficulty getting started or worrying about messing up. So there is a relief of copy/undo/etc. for pushing through without dwelling too long. The production, like much of the album, combines drum machines/synthesizers with acoustic guitar and drumming to sound both electronic and organic.

TMODM: The album is coming out through Urthwork Recordings, who describe themselves as “psych, ambient, electronic & more.” What musical influences went into creating the sound of Sorcerer, and how conscious are you of genre when you’re making the music?

Sorcerer: I tried not to plan that out too much and see where recording takes me, which was more a focus on instrumentation and rhythm. I listen to a lot of psych rock and hip hop, but I don’t think it sounds too much like either one. I’ll leave that up to the listener!

TMODM: You describe “Lightning Sun” as being about the idea that we’re all continual works in progress, always trying to become more whole. Was that idea already there when you started writing the song, or did it emerge as you went along?

The Striped Bananas: The idea of being a work in progress and trying to be more whole emerged when I was writing the lyrics. The melody for the verse came into my head and then the words began flowing shortly afterwards. The chorus accentuates hopefulness, which I was consciously thinking of.

TMODM: The Striped Bananas have always had a strong connection to ’60s psychedelia, but “Lightning Sun” feels less like revivalism and more personal. Has your relationship to those early influences changed as the band has gone on?

The Striped Bananas: I’d say we’ve pushed and explored more of our own sound on this EP, although we definitely still wear influences on our sleeves and are always inspired by ’60s psych groups. These songs are an extension of our 2025 LP Eternity Forest, where I feel we further cultivated our own sound. Retro yet modern, but wholly us.

TMODM: You describe the EP as a “haunted train” heading toward a mysterious horizon, and there’s a real tension throughout it between the melodic surface and darker ideas underneath. Is that contrast something you consciously look for when you write, or is it simply where the songs tend to lead you?

The Striped Bananas: The tension and darkness come out as we’re working on material. Whether the lyrics are a little darker than the music or the music has flairs of minor keys, that contrast is something we embrace.

When recording the instruments beyond the basic drums and guitars, the tapestry of contrast becomes more apparent. Tel’s organ part on “You Whisper in Sunshine” is a great example of that. Also the Mellotron I played on “Lightning Sun.”

TMODM: “Canopy” first appeared on Boat Trip back in 2008, and you’ve returned to it in different live releases over the years. What is it about that piece that has kept it alive for you, and how do you approach it differently now than when you first recorded it?

Cameron Stallones: You know, the answer is probably a little dull, which is that there are some tunes in my catalog that are just better platforms for improv than others. We used to play “Canopy” a lot. It’s pretty indicative of the early Sun Araw sound and ethos, but I think I stopped playing it around 2012, post-Belomancie. It’s a pretty bonehead progression, and it sorta just builds in one direction, so I think the thrill was gone, as they say.

I was getting ready for the first full-band show (the TIME SQUARE gig) in about a year this summer and I started riffing on it again, and I stumbled onto a reharmonization of it that kinda held my interest. I am not a highly trained musician, so I sorta have to find my way to these things with trial and error.

TMODM: On Time Square, S. Araw Trio XV has a distinctive setup:

C. Stallones – Yamaha DX7, Ensoniq SQ80, MIDI-Guitar, Vocals
M. Riordan – Yamaha Portasound PSS-470, Bass Synthesizer
J. Leland – Digital Percussion

How much have the particular instruments and musicians involved shaped the performances, and how much is determined by ideas you bring into the room beforehand?

Cameron Stallones: We think about the gear selection pretty carefully. This exact trio has been together for about six years now, so one of the easiest ways to keep things fresh is just to select a limited palette before we start. Sort of like everyone gets assigned a few colors and then we try to make the painting with those.

It’s like maybe you learned a dance, and then someone is like, “OK, here you have to do it with these stilts on.” It makes you adapt your feels and technique. Those limitations are more interesting and provocative to me as a player than the idea of recreating the textures on the recorded version.

TMODM: You describe Sun Araw as an attempt to create “psychotropic music,” psychedelic music as a “method of discontinuous experience” rather than simply an aesthetic. Does playing live make that idea easier to realize, since the musicians and audience are sharing the experience at that moment?

Cameron Stallones: I think it’s possible in both scenarios, but the methods are different. In a recorded piece, you can sit with it and find ways to sorta disrupt or create the discontinuity. Like more of a chessmaster strategy, fine-tuning the thing. Live, definitely there are more chaotic factors, more in-the-moment turns and quick reactions. Both of those things can lead to this idea.

My main point with that statement is that “psychedelic” can sometimes be reduced to mean, like, a phaser pedal or some wah-wah guitar solo to people colloquially. Some aesthetic or nostalgic “retro” texture. I feel like this moment has passed, but you used to be able to go to a “Psych Fest” in many major cities and see a bunch of bands with identical gear and outfits playing vintage-sounding music.

I’m not against that or anything. I like some of that music, but personally, when I thought of what I was trying to do, it was very different from that.

TMODM: You told me before that when you’re mixing you sometimes ask yourself, “what would King Tubby do?” On Electrisol, dub feels even more central to the way the music flows. Has your approach to the studio itself become more dub-like over time?

Bhajan Bhoy: I would say that the approach to mixing songs constantly changes, just because you want the songs to jump out of the speakers and grab you. The key to it all is to keep the dynamics flowing and keep it interesting for a listener. But the first person who has to be thrilled is yourself…the person who has made the music/mixed it.

The dub elements on this album aren’t, per se, deliberate, but dub music is something I love to listen to, and I can marvel at the space created within a very full sound.

TMODM: You’ve described Soundation Studio as your playground or laboratory, and Electrisol sounds like a record where the act of experimenting is part of the composition. With a track like “Palidena,” did you have a clear idea of where you wanted it to go, or did that track emerge through layering and mixing?

Bhajan Bhoy: “Palidena” started with the guitar motif at the start and then I layered it with instruments based on ideas I had, and I would keep what worked and leave out whatever didn’t work. The mixing side of things can change things again…but if the initial feel is good, then you know you’re on to something good.

TMODM: Earlier this year, Meditations was more contemplative, but Electrisol feels much more rhythmic. What drew you toward such a different approach this time?

Bhajan Bhoy: I started experimenting with rhythms in the studio because I wanted to try something different and see where I could go with the music on these. It was actually a lot of fun to see how the songs would shape out, as you have no preconceived ideas of how the whole thing will turn out.

Obviously I wasn’t going to be writing jaunty pop songs, so the music carries a different weight to it when there is any form of a rhythm underneath. I think it turned out really well.

TMODM: You’ve said that Rabbit Ears and Wave Field came from the same sessions, but that Rabbit Ears contains the more meditative material while Wave Field was more on the rocking side. When you were actually playing these pieces, was that distinction clear early on, or did it emerge later when you listened back?

Drew Gardner: When I was planning and recording the session, the idea was to cover a fairly broad range of different sounds and approaches. I then went back and grouped together the songs that seemed to fit best in a series of suites on the different records.

TMODM: You’ve described your solo compositions as using a kind of “latticework” that gives the musicians structure while still leaving the music open. On a piece like “Holmdel Horn Antenna,” what are the things you establish beforehand, and what do you deliberately leave unresolved for the band to discover together?

Drew Gardner: With a song like “Holmdel Horn Antenna,” what I establish beforehand is key, mode, time signature, rhythm, and tempo. Everything else is improvised.

TMODM: You grew up in New Jersey, and “Holmdel Horn Antenna” references one of the more interesting landmarks in the state, the antenna associated with the discovery of cosmic microwave background radiation. What drew you to that image/place as a title?

Drew Gardner: As a musician, I’m broadly interested in waveforms. Music and other kinds of wave phenomena are interrelated. In the area of NJ where I grew up, there are still remains of the old Bell Labs stuff around.

The Holmdel Horn Antenna was a radio telescope that was like a big ear listening to the universe. The cosmic background radiation it discovered is like drone music being broadcast from the beginning of the universe.

TMODM: When we talked a few years ago, just as you were leaving London for the Czech Republic, you said you were curious to see what would come to the surface creatively in a completely different setting. Now that you’ve made several records there, can you hear what that change of place has actually done for The Oscillation?

The Oscillation: When I first moved out of London to here, I felt that the change of environment to the countryside gave me more peace of mind, which had a direct effect on the music I was making.

Now I’d say that the studio is more like its own micro-environment that I can lose myself in and separate myself from my surroundings, so maybe the direct effect wore off a bit, ha ha.

TMODM: You’ve described Interference as “a painting of sound rather than music,” and much of it grew from fragments, abandoned ideas, intros and outros that gradually became more important than the songs they originally belonged to. What tells you that a stray piece of sound has a life of its own and is worth following?

The Oscillation: Nothing in particular. I just found myself going off on unexpected tangents a lot, or after completing tracks that didn’t feel strong enough. I began most of the tracks this way, layers of feedback or drones.

It gives me some kind of sonic security blanket to get a bit lost in. Feels like looking for something in the fog or images in a Rothko painting. It’s probably the least constructive way to write a song, ha ha, but it was a direction I decided to pursue. If I was in doubt, I just added more feedback, so it ended up with quite an insane amount of things going on.

Which then made this album much harder for me to mix, and find the balance between abstract and some clarity with the drums/melodic ideas that were kind of unrelated to each other, sometimes working on almost two or three totally different tracks that came from the same initial idea.

For example, with “La Alusión,” I ended up asking Tim Weller to record basically the same track to three different ideas (different basslines) at the same tempo, and I ended up using parts from all of them, including the final version he played on, which was double-tracked and also has a drum machine.

The same with my guitars and synths and vocals, which was the last thing to come together.

By the end I felt like all the tracks were on the verge of disappearing into chaos or abstraction. But if I tried to tame it too much, it sounded too normal and boring. I think it really drove me quite crazy. I’m not particularly sure I got it right, but you have to stop at some point, and I felt like it could have gone on for another year and never end if I didn’t just accept the imperfections, and my limitations with mixing.

Some other tracks also came to me at the end of completed songs, where I just messed around at the end, or felt like it would be a follow-on section.

On the From Tomorrow album it opens with “Corridors” (Pt. 1) and then (Pt. 2).

So with this album, a few tracks are the Pt. 2 of another track.

But they all started with layered drones and feedback that I then built upon, with a lot of ideas replacing earlier ones. It was quite a weird process.

TMODM: You’ve described “Bring It On” as being about drifting toward an uncertain destination, but with hope rather than despair at its center. You told me in 2024 that you wanted to make more uplifting music without losing the noise, energy, light and shade. Is “Bring It On” an example of what you meant by that?

The Oscillation: Yeah, I guess it is. Actually, the reason I ditched the first song — apart from the noise/drones — is because after completing the track I just found it a bit of a depressing dirge. I didn’t like the message it put out lyrically.

Some ideas seemed to keep me too stuck in a certain mindset lyrically (which is also something that takes me a long time to do), so the only way to get out of that was to change the main ideas. I’ve never liked the idea of putting out something that doesn’t kind of resolve itself somehow. I guess I feel some kind of responsibility in some way.

I’ve heard quite a few musicians I respect say the same thing, so I try my best to make an assessment on that, as once something is out there you can’t take it back and music can affect your mood so much. I’m quite hyper-conscious of it, maybe too much.

But anyway, I really wanted this track (and the entire album) to be uplifting without sacrificing this kind of lost feeling. Like not pretending to be happy but also not sinking into despair.

It was great that Lorena’s (J. Zunz/Lorelle Meets The Obsolete) input with her vocals, which she wrote, ended up having the exact kind of feeling I wanted to put into the album, not just the beautiful melody and sound. That really brought the album together for me.

TMODM: Honey Venom is your third album in less than a year. What’s driving this burst of creativity, and do you already have more music taking shape?

Wade Easy: I’m restless and music eases my mind. Right now I’m working on some songs for another project.

TMODM: You’ve said that Morgantown’s rivers, hills, fog and winding roads get into your songs quietly. What part of West Virginia do you hear most clearly in Honey Venom?

Wade Easy: Rust. Things left behind, lost among the trees. Being consumed by something beautiful.

TMODM: How often do you play live these days? When you do, are there particular musicians you like to bring in or is Wade Easy mostly a solo performance?

Wade Easy: Not often. I haven’t played live since I quit drinking. These days I prefer disappearing into records. And I never have to play the same song twice.

TMODM: Umma is a long-distance collaboration with Chino Burga and Pepe Abad, while Øresund Space Collective and Dr Space Mad Elf Mess grew out of musicians getting together in a room to improvise. How does distance change the way you approach improvisation and collaboration?

Scott Heller: With UMMA, Chino and Pepe had created the track for me to then improvise on the top. It is quite different than when all the musicians are in the live room of the studio and we jam. For one, then I can make different takes if I like on UMMA. Both are quite fun challenges and you never know what you will come up with.

TMODM: “Zephyr in Orbit” was the 16th jam from the Øresund Space Collective session in Stockholm. When you record that much improvised music, what makes you recognize a particular jam as something that should become a finished track?

Scott Heller: In this session, we made a lot of small improvised pieces, but I usually like the longer ones as you get to go on a bit of a musical journey with the band. How do you decide or recognize one as special? It usually comes down to how everyone plays together and the general feel and flow of the piece. We sometimes remove instruments but we rarely add stuff. I like the longer pieces the best, usually.

TMODM: “Dr Space Mad Elf Mess” came from two days of jamming in Portugal with members of Madmess and It Was the Elf, along with Jonathan Segel. What do you listen for in musicians you haven't improvised with before, and how quickly can you tell when a group has found the right chemistry?

Scott Heller: The key to improvisation is being a good listener and being able to find your place in the music. Experience helps as well, but the most skilled musicians are not always good at just jamming, so I look for good listeners and guitar players that like to do solos!! As for recognising the right chemistry, you figure it out pretty fast, if people seem lost or unable to find inspiration.

TMODM: “Monts,” “Zephyr in Orbit,” and “Dr Space Mad Elf Mess” come from three different groups of musicians, but your electronics and synthesizers provide a thread running through all of them. Do you approach each collaboration in a similar way or does each one require a different approach?

Scott Heller: I have a lot of synthesizers that I can use in my studio and played different ones in the studio in Stockholm, which was fun. For UMMA, it was clear it had to be spaced-out sounds, so I used certain ones like the Monotron and modular synth the most.

For the Mad Elf Mess sessions, Jonathan was using a bass synth and the Fender Rhodes piano, so I did not play many of the keyboard synths, mostly others. So they are all a bit different.