Playground magazine

Chris Douglas has been moving around in the margins of music for twenty years, standing on the outside looking in, at the spectacular evolution of the experimental scene in the USA (he started his career in San Francisco) and Europe (he is currently based in Berlin). He's not only watching: he has also actively taken part in the process, releasing material on a regular basis that helped take genres like ambient, IDM and non-academic computer music (his sound adopts abstract forms, gelatinous consistencies, full of rugged textures, glitches and digital pollution, flashes of delicate noise and the odd techno concession) to a higher level, on labels like Phthalo, Isolate, Shitkatapult, iDEAL and, more recently, Highpoint Lowlife. In the late nineties and early noughties, his most-used alias was O.S.T.; today, the better part of his productions are released as Dalglish: the first LP under that name was 2004's “OtJohr”, on Highpoint Lowlife, and the most recent one 2011's “Benacah Drann Deachd”, which Leyland Kirby himself chose as album of the year on his Boomkat chart.

Dalglish combines a clinical technique when it comes to building atmospheres (between warm and cosy and tempestuous, cascades of digital material spit out seemingly randomly) with some flashes of rhythm and emotion, as if his style were the secret mix of “Confield”-era Autechre, some old Mille Plateaux records and the nostalgia of the present hauntology sound (if Leyland Kirby has him down as an important artist, it's because, among other things, the sonic link between the two musicians is stronger than one might think at first sight).

So it's with Chris Douglas that we pick up where we left off in our exclusive PlayGround Podcast series, in the wake of the CD release of “Benacah Drann Deachd” (it came out as a download last summer, while the physical format was released last autumn) and also “Venoyn”, an EP available on his bandcamp page since last December. For this occasion, Dalglish has constructed a lavish and colossal set of two and a half hours, which he presents as a sort of game: the track list is in code, and it's up to the listener to find out what they are and who the artists are – a pure 'track list ID' exercise, so to speak. We have recognised some of the pieces (for example, there are songs by Trisomie 21, Whitehouse, Popol Vuh, Autechre, etc.), but that's all we're going to give away. Now it's time for us to press play and for Dalglish to tell us one or two things about himself.

You have a long history as a music maker, always on the leftfield. Is that a comfortable place for you?

I would’ve answered yes to this before. But in the recent times, I would say no. It seems like everyone is “utilizing” this position, be it that they are genuinely there or not. It was a comfortable place at one time. Cunningly, the position I once occupied has been ransacked in order for it to be utilized for purposes that lie well outside the scope of an unforgiving approach to making music. The banality of the press coverage in this area is a mere reflection of this shameful appropriation. The music itself needn't be mentioned. I could always see what was happening and what was coming. Very little challenges, very little worry. Then I could easily accept why my work remains in an ignored state. Then it all changed, drastically and instantly. I now find my work in an underserved ignored place, since most that is getting credit these days is less than what I offered over ten or twenty years ago.

Do you see your progress as a continuum from the early 90s till now, or do you believe that there have been some relevant turning points that make you who you are as a musician at the moment?

I see my work as a well-documented display of evolution - of one work driven by exploration, risk and integrity, as in the beginning there were hints of where I would (and mostly) end up today. I took all that was around me and could always feel what the next logical step was - and do that instantly and never go back. Regardless of how little impact this has had in my own terms of success, popularity, the way things are now is enough proof to me that it was all worth the risks taken. Yet for so long I was alone and always questioning it. But I just did what came from me and continued to do so. Total experimentation is a back bone, of sorts, to progress. However, whether anything comes of experimentation and exploration is another thing. What is unfortunate is that an evaluation of my work can now be made based upon the negative aspect of new music today. In a sense, because of this situation, my recent work is on a trajectory that appears to be of a belligerent relation to my past work. At the most crucial level this is always present, so everything links, but it's covert and difficult.

Even though your output comes from ambient, computer music and something like a “dark zone”, is it easy to find some traces of techno, but never with a full-on 4/4 structure. What keeps you far from dance music?

Besides the fact that too many people are doing it in a very perverse second hand information way, I came up in a time when it was a challenge to make electronic music and to do it well. It was a special thing to do and not everyone was doing it yet. I grew up on early electronic/house/techno tracks, DJ’d when I was a teenager, lived in Detroit in the early 90s and this had a huge impact on me - as in the imagination and discipline that should go into music. For a while this was a standard that would always grow with each release you would be turned onto. Then eventually more people started making music, more money came into things and all lost this desire or need. With the internet starting to gain more momentum, everything got more open, Software companies starting to sprout up only to lessen the struggles and creativity of exploring sound. I wouldn't want to single dance music out though, simply because it is only one of many modes that for various reasons are incompatible with what I do.

Does environment affect the way you create? In other words, is it different to do your stuff in the US or in Germany?

There is no doubt that what you're asking is true. It's just that the kind of change which I'm guessing you want me to single out can equally take place between days, between circumstances, all within the same space, on the same block. Trust me, everything comes into it.

Experimental music has always been a zone for minorities in electronic music, but it seems it was harder to survive in the 90s, and “easier” now that the internet allows more exposure to the work. Do you see it that way? Is the internet an ally to your music?

It's tricky to say something on this. The internet has undoubtedly accelerated some process in which experimental music takes part. I hesitate to say anything other than something that music simply takes part in, because the concerns of experimental music are entirely different from those of the internet itself. It seems that many people have been drawn into the concerns of experimental music by engaging with its partial presence, or skewed character, on the internet. Now that the controls for marketing and general product-pushing are placed in front of artists and labels as an inherent feature of the internet, the elements that once facilitated a previous kind of existence have to be altered in order to meet the expectations of survival online. With this change, the concerns of experimental music are falsely refurbished in order to include the new superfluous matter. Hence, you have someone like A, B or C (new blood), for whom this superfluity constitutes space to work in. The infinite availability of spotlights online ensures that it is also hard to survive in that environment. In this sense the internet is no ally, and furthermore, I have learnt to survive on a different diet.

Do you make a living out of music?

From time to time, not in any exaggerated sense though.

Prior to become Dalglish, your main output was signed with the OST alias. What connects them, and what make them different?

I suppose that O.S.T. was more of the “experiments” while coming up. I was given this name in the early 90s. It was more of a placeholder than anything else I reckon now. When forms of this music became more popular in the states, and everyone started doing “beat experiments” circa late 90s-2001, I took a sabbatical from beats for almost ten years, due to the overabundance of hyped music from that time originating from the States. With the introduction of Dalglish, it was my attempt to overcome and face this dreaded feeling.

The titles in “Benacah Drann Deachd” seem to be dates, spanning from 2001 until now. Are these like notes on a diary, do they tell a story, or is it just an abstract numeration of the pieces?

They are the actual dates of being created and finished. A selection of work spanning a decade will always tell a story. We shall hope.

What does the title of the album mean?

It is roughly a cut up of “farewell cursed decade” in Scots Gaelic. It is exactly intended to be what it feels to be, a hopeful coming to terms with a difficult time, and to carry on with less weight.

What’s your ideal listener? How would you like your music to be consumed, perceived and metabolized afterwards?

I have no expectations of the listener. I don't idealize listeners either. The music requires full attention, yet it demands nothing of anyone.

At which place do you think you belong in today’s map of ambient music?

A strange one, if any. I don’t come from today’s anything; I feel it is all very superficial and exaggerated, over sensationalized. Time has passed and many things have disappeared or been buried. I’d be one of them, I guess. To unnaturally not accept things to change is not the case I refer to, but the one when things change by an unnatural progression - caused by the things becoming easily accessible not to mention easily exploitable - is one I steer far away from. Things are lazy in this time, and it seems many people lost interest or their integrity. The work ethic is definitely missing and it obviously shows.

Are you interested in notions such as memory and nostalgia?

I feel that in my experience, an early loss and difficult life will always have you orbiting in nostalgia, and burdened by distorted memories. Half way here and present, yet no real tie to what is actually happening or has: out of time, somewhere else. Memory of course is always distorted in recall. Did this actually happen, did it happen like this or is this just a hopeful intention and it has distorted the actual moment?

There’s a 90s feel in your sound, similar to that in ambient albums such as “Selected Ambient Works II” or that Seefeel album on Warp. Having lived through that golden era for electronic music, what do you make of the current revival / revision / retro interest on early British techno? Is that something you may support or something you feel is like a profanation?

As mentioned above, I see this time as the most hyped of all, in the short life of all this. Yet it is an exact projection of the course all things have gone in the “entertainment” machine. With the easy accessibility there has been laziness, which in some ways is unavoidable. Yet the attitudes you feel from those you can see through their work, intentions and lack of experience, makes it all an insult to digest. Yet they get their confidence from the press and other minds less experienced then theirs, yet equally arrogant: strange days, indeed. Don’t be such pompous dicks; your instant, blown-up importance is only as strong as your experience in accepting the opposite. All things fall eventually.

The sounds in the album don’t seem optimistic at all. Are they connected to your current mood, the man you actually are outside the studio?

I wouldn’t say that they belong to a more pessimistic outlook. Then again, there is more of a dissection as to what is seen and felt daily. The work has always just come with no intention, just flow.

The track list you’ve sent us is like a puzzle, the clues are there but it’s difficult to read it in full, or properly. If this is a game, how should it be played?

A game called interest and effort, played as explained. Ha ha.

Track lists are a tricky thing: on the one hand, they help people to browse through music; on the other, make people lazy because almost all the research work is done. Which side are you?

As you may see, I am against laziness. Especially when everything anyone might have searched out before - important information on music rarities - can be so easily accessed that it gets confused as actual musical experience and dedication. Again it’s the attitudes. Please don’t get this confused with some elite superiority; I feel the work is what should be the most important. And that includes exposure to new music. Look at what an ego platform last fm is. If anyone needs it, of course send me an email, I will supply. Cheers.