Colin Morrison spoke to Archie Ingram/Stone Anthem in May 2023.
CM: Hello Archie. How are you?
AI: I’m not too bad thank you, buzzing from the weekend!
CM: More about the weekend in a few minutes. Where are you now?
AI: At home in Coventry at the moment, teachers were on strike at my school today, so I’ve been studying at home, whilst doing the odd bit of music here and there. I tend to keep as musically and artistically productive as possible.
CM: Your new album is called Between the Bliss?
AI: Yes. The album is constructed from a mix of old and new tracks. Some dating back to 2021, when I was just 13 years old, I’m 16 now. The album follows a sine wave type structure, where at its peak crest points it is heavily melodic, loud and experimental, and for its troughs it is slow, emotional and meditative at times. I created it using various old tape recorders and machines, mixed with modern recording technology, to create an analogue sound with digital feel. Texture is always a primary focus and to have a sense of physical touch through sound is what inspired me on a few tracks, especially ‘When The Light Falls’, and ‘Waves Crash In’, which is what I open up most of my live shows with. ‘Waves Crash In’ is a fun one to play live, it was recorded with swells of electronics, to symbolise the sound of the ocean and its waves. I layered 110 individual synth notes on top of each other with various milliseconds of delay to create a synthetic sound of rainfall on the ocean’s surface. I tend to use a wall of guitar feedback on that track live. It gets noisy! The album begins with a track called ‘Becoming Nobody’, the name was taken from a film, documenting the core arc of Ram Dass’ life and teachings. He was a particularly influential figure in my life. The album closes with a sentimental, entrancing guitar based track titled ‘Lapis Lazuli’.
The album was an immense trip to record. I have a pretty experimental approach to documenting sound. For example, on the under 2 minute track ‘The Ballroom’, I recorded a piano piece to a standard cassette tape, and unscrewed the case, spliced it and left the tape on my windowsill during the heatwave last summer for a few days. When I came back to it, and stuck it together in a tape loop and played it back, it had degraded to the point where it was difficult to distinguish what instrument it is.
CM: That’s the stuff. OK, back to the weekend. You supported Sonic Boom and Panda Bear at a big gig in Coventry. How did that happen and what was it like?
IA: I have admired Spacemen 3, Spectrum, E.A.R, for as long as I can remember, so I sent Sonic Boom some of my music a while ago not expecting to hear anything back. He helped me out and gave me a bunch of advice and we keep in touch on Instragram. I’ve been a huge fan of Panda Bear and Animal Collective’s music for years now, but had just never had the opportunity to meet Noah, or even watch him perform live. A venue called ‘The Tin’ here in Coventry, alongside the festival ‘Deliaphonic’ put on the show. I was rehearsing in my home-studio everyday for 2 hours after school. The show went well. It was the best show I’ve played in terms of response and feedback from the audience. The energy I could feel onstage from the crowd was incredible. Definitely the biggest show of my career to date, and I’m forever grateful for the people who arranged it for me. It was a special night.
CM: You didn’t seem at all nervous. I was more nervous than you! What else do we need to know about Stone Anthem?
IA: I try to explore the human spirit and its environments with the use of sound, pushing it to the outer limits. I try to pull together atmospheres and distant lands, through different mediums as a means to make an experimental journey feel somewhat blissful and beautiful. Using a combination of analogue and digital synthesis, cassette tape loops, reel to reel tape manipulation and guitars, I want to make a stratosphere of bliss, hence the debut album title.
CM: What have you got coming up? Have you made plans for afther the album is released?
IA: For the immediate future, my focus is on successfully finishing and getting out of school. Longer term, all I can think about is striving to create and write more. New music through new life experiences, furthering my artistic development. I want to let the music speak for itself. I’m planning on continuing to experiment with new instruments, samples and rhythms to make my music sound more authentic, fresh and unique to Stone Anthem.
I don’t categorise the sounds I create, I let the listener decide where it lies and settles within them.