https://wickedspinsradio.org/wsr2012

Aidan Casserly & Kriistal Ann for Wicked Spins Radio

 

WSR – You both worked together previously, but what was the inspiration for you to come together for Muse?

Aidan: When my previous band, Empire State Human, signed to Werkstatt Recordings in 2014 for the album ‘The Dark’, I had the great pleasure of first hearing about and listening to Kriistal Ann and also her band Paradox Obscur. My first impression was immediate. She was someone I clicked with, as an artist from that first second. I knew she viewed music, art and creating, the same way as I did. The same vision and view point. She was like a gothic and poetic Marlene Dietrich.

In late 2014, I began recording new electronic based music, under the name Glass Dancer, and I invited Kriistal Ann to duet on two tracks (‘Slow’ & ‘Here Come The Dolls’). The reaction was unbelievable and the chemistry was intense. I was thrilled with the results and the dynamics.

In January 2015, I approached her about maybe doing a duets album of original songs, loosely based on The Nine Muses. I was nervous asking her to commit to the possible idea of a full album together, as I really value other people’s time and energy and I didn’t want to make her feel under any pressure. She was really excited and interested, which was a real proud moment for me, getting that kind of reaction and reassurance. Overly a short period of time, we narrowed the concept of the album down to us being each other’s muse, instead of writing about The Nine Muses. That was an inspired choice, as it gave us both the direction, to take the album and songs towards. I wanted us to have this creative love affair, a sensual world of passion and mystery, which would develop as the album did. The opening song ‘This Monument’ was the first song written and recorded and also the starting point lyrically. The journey had well and truly begun. Month by month we’d complete one song fully, through to the final song ‘Winter’s Eye’, which signals the breaking point and end game, for the characters we play on the album.

Kriistal: I remember that at that time we were working on new songs for Paradox Obscur, while trying to concentrate, my partner who happens to be the owner of Werkstatt Recordings, put on the new album from “Empire State Human”.

I shuddered … Τhe sensitivity of Aidan’s voice fascinated me. It is by itself an inspiration..

After that we came into contact, and through discussions we had, we realized that we shared the same beliefs and feelings in relation to art.

Without having to say it, I think we both felt that we could do something very unique together.

WSR – You describe Muse as a concept album, in what way is it a concept and how did you manage to make Muse so beautiful?

Aidan: Thank you for picking up on the beauty side of the album. Music for me, is about putting into form, what’s in your heart and soul. It’s about taking all your hopes, dreams, loves, passions, sexuality and sensuality and making them gel in song form. Artists need and require a starting point on a musical project. Sort of like that ‘light bulb turning on’ kind of moment. The love we shared for each other’s music was very strong and so was that understanding. Our friendship and trust really shines throughout the album. A song like ‘Spring Tide’, when I hear Kriistal’s voice deliver that powerful performance, that yearning and beauty, really melts my heart. I’ve been releasing music professionally since 2002, so to still get that reaction and that power in a song, from someone I admire, but I’ve never actually met in person is a magical thing.

I think we were both made to record this album to be honest, it’s an eclectic mix of orchestral, folk, darkwave, gothic, pop, rock, jazz, ambient, electronic, cinema and lyrical poetry. She brought a tear to my eye many, many times through the recording process. I really feel it’s an album I’ll listen to myself for many years to come with the same enthusiasm.

Kriistal: If someone refers to the origin of the word “Muses” will see that, the Muses in ancient Greek mythology, are nine ancient deities, all of them charmed by music.

In the figurative sense, “Muse” is a person who is the source of inspiration for a creator. From the very first moment I had so much in common with Aidan, this in itself was the source for the creation and thus the concept is fused with the term.

When there is mutual love, everything derived from it is beautiful.

WSR – You wrote and recorded Muse in both Dublin and Rhodes, both places are truly magical.  Do you feel any of that magic from either location managed to seep into Muse?

Aidan: Well the Greek inspiration for the album was there from day one, the natural talents of Kriistal Ann inspired me to write these songs. So for me, yes the magic of Rhodes certainly seeped into ‘Muse’. There’s a deep, emotional element at play within the songs too, it’s like delving into parts of your subconscious and then free falling in a recording studio to see what can be created.

Vocally, I tried to push myself too. It was easy to seek out a musical connection with Kriistal, when singing and recording my parts. When you create something like ‘Muse’, with a formidable talent such as she is, you have to raise your own game. To fall short in my own performance would have been a personal disappointment for me and wouldn’t deliver an album worthy of a release I feel. Thankfully, over the course of a year we can now look at the fruit of our labour with pride and satisfaction.

Kriistal: I have lived in several parts of Greece.. When I moved to Rhodes, I felt that this place had energy charged with the Midas touch. This means that it is the best place for reflection and inspiration.

I feel lucky because I live away from the data of the classical city. The light here is capable of changing your whole world view.

Few people know, that I was born in Prague to Greek parents.. The first years of my life I spent there, in a perfectly ambient environment, the mist and the cold.. This combination of Greek warmth and the cold bohemian beauty of Prague, were the ways to a different perception and culture of my mental status and expression of my creativity ..

WSR – You are both breath taking vocalists to say the least, both calming yet full of emotion.  But what is it you like about each other’s vocal styles?

Aidan: Thank you Phill for such a compliment. It is very much appreciated. For me, I love singers whom I feel are unique, honest and emotive and I have a spontaneous connection with. I feel very lucky, to have had this experience on this album. I was searching for such a connection, but until the point of realisation, I wasn’t aware of what or who I was searching for. I think for me as a singer, I never take writing an album for granted or the inspiration either. So, I will take this experience into the next album I eventually do for sure. It’s opened a new door within me and helped turn on a different kind of light. Kriistal taught me so much about reconnecting emotionally with myself, and with a song vocally, and the possibilities of that too. Looking back, I’ve always sought that kind of connection I suppose, with another singer that is, but failed to find it so far. When it did arrive, I wanted to bring it all together into an album format.
Another element why I love her so very much is that she doesn’t sound like any other female singer I have heard. She is most definitely unique. The strong and heavy reverbed vocal sound, she uses in her own music, adds a gothic element and an inner torment, which her writings really expand on. I feel that I don’t sound like a typical male vocalist either, range wise. So, in theory, together we bring an edge, a sexually ambiguous slant. We both are sort of hybrids, in that you can hear many people in our performances. That slant is something I’ve always loved in certain singers. David Bowie (my idol) is the main man in that area.

Kriistal: I was always charmed by particular voices. Aidan’s voice holds a feature. In some parts you are not sure if the singing is a man or a woman. For me, this is his charisma. The passage of the listener into a neutrality that is free from any defined aesthetic. Over there, everyone is free to feel everything, to builds his own dream.

WSR – Kriistal Ann, Aidan is not only a man I admire for his music but after many years of working together Aidan has become one of my closest friends.  Why do I mention this?  Well he knows I speak from my heart when I say something.  So to the question, well you see I am a vocalist and have been for most of my life.  You say you have imperfections in your voice but I will be honest and say your vocals are mystifying and beautiful.  You say Aidan made you feel safe; please tell us just how he made you safe when your voice to me sounds flawless?

Kriistal: Thank you very much for your kind words …

We live in a world where despite the barrage of information and freedom of knowledge, the majority of people are not able to accept diversity. Why do I mention this?

I know that I’m not out of tune of course, but from a technical point of view, however, my voice cannot reach the dynamics of a real singer.. I was insecure that collaborating with him, it might bring me face to face with the issue of comparisons between our two voices. All these fears Aidan managed to cancel in time, telling me: “You’re a singer of emotions, all the others have no importance” ..

I felt that I have a true friend here, who appreciates and understands my diversity, as I do with his own. This is the most beautiful feeling of safety that you can offer in a friendship.

WSR – You are both from different cultures, please tell our readers what those differences produced on a musical level?

Aidan: From my point of view, I feel and have always felt disassociated from my Irish Culture. I’ve never felt part of it. From early on, I’ve always looked to Europe and beyond for my connection artistically and emotionally.

Music, film, and poetry have always been a personal journey, that’s taken me away from my culture. I think that is why the loss of David Bowie, really tore me up emotionally. He was someone I felt a really close connection to, since being introduced to his amazing music and personality by my brother when I was merely 7 years old. He was a leader for the disconnected and an outsider, and his death made him an insider, by the way the world mourned him. A real cult figure, who gained both commercial and artistic success and recognition and someone we will never see the likes of again I’m sorry to say.

My own brother also died from cancer. He was only 50. That experience changed me forever and when David Bowie died from cancer, all those emotions came flooding back to me. I’ll never forget David Bowie and I thank him every day for his amazing legacy and inspiration and the trail blazing career he had.

Kriistal: I think in any country or culture where someone lives, art is a universal language, as its base is the expression of emotions, mixed with the influence of its education, culture, and tradition of that country. This sometimes can give us unique results, if the artists who belong to those different cultures, work by consensus and in doing so complement each other.

WSR – When you had the idea for the album at first what style did you envisage for the album and did that alter in any way through writing and recording of the album?

Aidan & Ann : The music was always going to have an acoustic bed, which we would expand and add more ambient, dark and acoustic vocal genres over sonically. There’s a Jazz edge as well as a pop and ballad influence. These musical roads so to speak, where the beginning points into the songs and then into this, we poured our own hearts and souls and our poetry into.

There was no pressure from either one of us to do this within a certain period of time. It could have taken two years. It was a very natural yet creative process, which in the end, took about a year. Since my last album ‘The Lazarus Effect’ (release January 2015 also in conjunction with Werkstatt Recording), I wanted to explore a different route on the follow up, and meeting and getting to know Kriistal, was the ultimate catalyst for that. This is my fourth album (‘White Soul’ & ‘The Naming Of Blue’ being the other two), so it’s steadily growing into something unique in my own musical journey.
The only change to the original idea was changing the themes from The Nine Muses to being each other’s muse instead. Altering that was the beginning point for that beauty to come through into the songs. The intense sensual world and introspective qualities came from that decision.

WSR – To you what is the language of the soul?

Aidan: ‘Soul’ music (I’m not referring to the American Soul Music when I say that) is something that has as many layers as you want to seek out. Poetry is the same. A poet like Pablo Neruda, is the ultimate soul poet for me. I like to approach music and song writing the same way. I want people to actually look and read between the lines. Look for different perspectives and even people within a song. In the past, I’ve put two sometimes three different people in a song. On the surface level, that is lost on most people but not to be. When I listen back, I hear ghosts and voices from my past. People I’ve met and loved/hated, or who let me down or who I’ve let down, singing through my voice and songs. This kind of depth and attention to detail is the language of the soul. I’ve only ever attempted it once before on an album, when working in electronic based music/electro pop, and that was on the Empire State Human album ‘Soul of the Machine’.

Kriistal: The soul is the conglomeration of all our memories. Often people tend to return in this labyrinthine refuge, to draw strength, inspiration, to fill in the gaps. An artist, when he is able to overcome his fear, of this arduous path and reach the inner layers, he manages to harmonize with each other’s soul, and to touch them. This is the language of the soul, “silent but so sonorous”.

WSR – In what aspect in what songs did one of you become the muse?

Aidan & Ann: The essence for this album is that on every song we are both muses to each other. That’s the starting point and the main component really. For instance, in the song ‘Spring Tide’, when Kriistal sings “I gave breath to the spring tide, into the waters of the dead” and I reply in the following verse, “You are my one inspiration. Into the void we are wed”. That is us both leading and inspiring the other as muses. We’re in harmony with the other, creating the sensual world or the light and shade. We touch and hold the other within song, and this grows deeper and deeper. That’s the magic for me for this album. Delving into yourself for your own solo album is one thing and it is a beautiful thing, but also delving in another person’s world and mind set as well, is an even powerful and addictive process.

WSR – What is your own perception of the meaning of the word muse?

Aidan: The obvious perception and understanding is that the muse is the inspirational one, by which the artist is inspired to create and they keep returning to that muse for more inspiration. It’s a one sided affair so to speak, where the muse (he or she) doesn’t create the art. Our version of the muse on this album is a two way thing, where we both become creator and vehicle, flipping and changing, sometimes in mid song. If you listen to each song, the person who begins the song, in theory is the creator and the person singing the next verse is the muse. That was something which became the process behind the lyric writing for me. But on the final song ‘Winter’s Eye’ (check out the amazing video Kriistal Ann created for this song on You Tube), we have both metamorphosed into one entity. We are broken, sad and empty entities, who maybe have burnt the other out by the journey together, over the course of the album.

Kriistal: Aidan describes this very nicely but I will fill in further: Any live or inanimate element which to attract you effortlessly. It keeps your spirit vigilant. Anything that makes you want to explain a riddle. To want to sink into it passions … create an acute need to leave traces behind you. To fight for beauty, is to conquer the impossible…

WSR – Drifting away from the amazing duet that you both have done, who has been your favourite musical duet and what is your favourite track by them?

Aidan: That’s an interesting question Phill. I’ve always preferred duets when I know a little more of the back story to them. Ones which also have an element of surprise with either the song they perform or the pairing of the couple. I’ve broken them down into sections, as I couldn’t leave out certain ones. For Male/Male duets, I still love David Bowie & Bing Crosby singing ‘Peace On Earth/The Little Drummer Boy’ or when Elvis Presley sung with Frank Sinatra for ‘Witchcraft/Love Me Tender’, when he returned from his time in the Army. For Male/Female, the weirdness of Nancy Sinatra singing ‘Something Stupid’ with her Dad tickles me and Prince & Sheena Easton singing ‘Arms of Orion’ (from the Batman Soundtrack) is stunning, but I think Peter Gabriel and Kate Bush singing ‘Don’t Give Up’ is really sublime. For Female/Female, I’d choose Barbra Streisand and Kim Carnes, ‘Make No Mistake, He’s Mine’.

Kriistal: I will also say Frank Sinatra and Nancy Sinatra “Something Stupid”.

As well I love duets of Nick Cave & Pj Harvey in song “Henry Lee”.

Nick Cave & Kylie Minogue – “Where The Wild Roses Grow”.

Placebo & David Bowie – “Without you I’m nothing”.

WSR – OK fun time, Aidan you may know of my favourite comedian Dylan Moran.  My favourite comedy duo is when Dylan teams up with Bill Bailey in the series Black Books.  So who is your favourite comedian or comedy duo and why do they make you laugh?

Aidan: Laurel & Hardy, for their love of each other, their innocence and beauty on display, the professionalism and their ability to still be funny in 2016. I play their films to my children. They love ‘Brats’. So do I, it’s hilarious. In 1927 they first appeared together in the silent short film ‘Putting Pants on Philip’. In the 1950’s their stars dwindled and they began to do small Tours (coming to Ireland and the UK). My Uncle was singing in a tour in the UK in the 1950s, and was lucky enough to meet them and see them rehearse. He said they were amazing men, utterly professional and loved by everyone who met and worked with them. That’s high praise and worthy of the choice.

Kriistal: Maybe I disappoint you, but I do not have a favourite comedian or comedy.. Almost always when I decide to see a movie, I choose it to be drama or a social political direction..

Who’s films and roles I really appreciate is Charlie Chaplin.. Because through his unique “funny” way, facing the dramatic life situations.

WSR – What is the easiest way to put a smile one your face?

Aidan: Essentially to feel loved, cared for, feel contentment and have a sense of being at ease.

Kriistal: A good word, a look of both comprehension and understanding. A team effort that will achieve results..

WSR – What’s the most embarrassing thing you have done that has made other people laugh?

Aidan: I love making people laugh. I think I may prefer it at times to making music.
I remember dressing up as the Joker for the Dublin premier to Batman (Michael Keating’s first film). There was a real buzz about the film and the Prince Soundtrack, which of course is incredible. I put on the whole white make up, twisted lipstick and my friend bought from the US an original copy of the Batman suit. We chased each other up and down the cinema before the premier, and got interviewed for our trouble. That was embarrassing in hindsight but worthy of praise too I suppose.

Kriistal: It may not show, but I love the self-sarcasm… to conjure up stories and make people laugh, unannounced, when they don’t expect it.

WSR – Thank you so much for telling us about Muse and other things, any final thoughts?

Aidan: Just to thank you for such amazing questions, to which I hope we did you proud with our answers. Also, thank you for being so supportive of this release and for understanding the content of the album and what makes it tick. Thank you to Kostas Stavropoulos at Werkstatt Recordings for releasing this album. Thank you to Pete Maher for mastering the album so well. Thank you to Azenoire, for creating the amazing artwork. It’s been another wonderful collaboration working with him on this cover design. The visual has been the final icing on the cake of a very memorable and inspirational album.

If people want to check out the album, here’s our Soundcloud link:

To see the amazing video to ‘Winter’s Eye’, created by Kriistal Ann, here’s the link:

To purchase a physical copy from Werkstatt Recordings, here’s the link:
https://synthesizer.bandcamp.com/album/247-aidan-casserly-kriistal-ann-muse

To purchase ‘Muse’ from iTunes, here’s the link:

https://itunes.apple.com/us/album/muse/id1080416808

 

Kriistal: I would like to thank you for the opportunity to have a joint interview with dear Aidan, about this unique album, which was created with so much love. Many thanks to dear friend Dimitri (Azenoire) who always makes valuable assistance in relation to visualisation of the artwork on albums covers. He is a truly excellent and talented artist and its worth visited his pages on the web, to admire these gems of images he creates. Special thanks to Werkstatt Recordings for supporting this album.

 

https://www.facebook.com/Azenoire-206761436172658/

 

 

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