Spotlight On: Hauntology

1. What inspired the album ‘Hauntology’ and did you have any influence when creating the sound and style of the music?

 

Nick Evans: “The album has a few different inspiration points, but the word ‘Hauntology' was coined by the writer Mark Fisher who wrote extensively about this subject. It is a portmanteau of haunting and ontology. It’s the theory of not being able to escape elements from the social or cultural past, so in essence, we’re always being haunted by our history - culturally, mentally etc. It sounds kind of grandiose but simply I just liked the idea of constantly being pursued by things you can never escape from and tried to use this as a method of composition.

Hauntology is actually its own genre of music - made popular by artists like Burial or The Caretaker. The word became a kind of mantra that wormed its way into the songs and seemed to fit what we were doing. 

Musically, there were a lot of inspiration, but some notable mentions would be the following film scores - It Follows by Disasterpeace, Saint Maud by Adam Bzowski, All Quiet on The Western Front by Volker Bertelmann, Tenet by Ludwig Görannsson and a large general helping of A24 films, Gazelle Twin, John Carpenter & Trent Reznor/Atticus Ross”.

 

2. Can you describe your creative process when composing and producing the tracks?

 

Nick Evans: “The creative process for this album took us in a lot of different directions. What worked for some tracks didn’t work for others, which kept things fresh. Trying to create a haunting sound world with these tracks was the most important thing, so I relied a lot on using modular synths and plugins/FX that were more unreliable and unpredictable - so things always feel a little ‘off’.

In the initial stages, we would create a sonic scenario with a riff or motif, and the titles came quickly after that, which gave us a clear concept to work on.  For example, the opening track ‘Haunted by The Past’ started with this group of 3 synth sounds, all created separately and then edited into this riff that repeats throughout the track. It starts reasonably unthreatening but as the track progresses it begins to feel like it’s stalking its prey and gaining ground on the listener until you feel like you’re trying to outrun it.

Some of the songs are more musical in their approach (Unknown Beyond, Behind the Veil). The process with these was similar but a little subtler. We enjoyed playing with the idea of facades, in that something can feel reasonably predictable and almost soothing, but if you dig below the surface and look a bit deeper it can be completely not what you expect and quite terrifying. David Lynch did this visually in Blue Velvet and the score of Gone Girl is a great example of playing with the idea of facade in musical terms.”

 

3. Did you experience any challenges creating this album?

 

Nick Evans: “Quite a few! Hauntology was so much fun but at times very musically challenging because it is so easy to fall into the trap of regurgitating classic horror music tropes, and as much as I love them, this album was about trying to do something different! 

As producers and writers, we felt like we were constantly being pushed to the very limits of our capabilities, which I always think is a good sign that you are doing some interesting and (hopefully) good. The music is quite intense and sometimes it was easy to get overwhelmed and lose perspective - like being in a kind of horror sound design blizzard! 

Fortunately, Neil Pollard at Nova was extremely supportive and if we sent demos to him, he would always call us up and get us back on track with some amazing ideas. There was a busy cutting room floor with some tracks and definitely a few ‘back and forths’ to really shape them. 

The tracks morphed and changed several times throughout the months, but Neil really helped us make it the best it could be and it’s one of the albums that I can listen back to and feel extremely proud of.”

4. What do you think is most important when creating dark and unnerving music e.g. is it the instruments being used, the rhythm or pace of the music or something else? 

 

Nick Evans: “All of the above really! I think it depends what you’re trying to achieve but for me the most important thing is making the listener uncomfortable in subtle ways. You can do this in a musical way - for example, the Halloween theme by John Carpenter is in 5/4, so the average listener is subconsciously on edge as soon as that starts doing its thing. 

Or you can do it with sound design - making weird unpredictable sounds, slightly modulating things so they go out of tune and organising them in a way that gradually gnaws away at the listener until they feel, to quote Super Hans in Peep Show ‘a powerful sense of dread’.”

 

5. How important is the role of music when creating moments of fear and tension in film, TV and media?

 

Nick Evans: “So important. Music is such a powerful force and I feel it has the ability to creep into people’s consciousness through the back door. The right music and sound design can provide the sonic conditions required for a director’s vision of hell to truly come alive.”