Metronome #041: Varien

Insommiac’s Metronome series features mixes from some of today’s fastest-rising electronic stars, as well as championed legends. It takes listeners deep across a wide range of genres, movements, cultures, producers, artists and sounds that make up the diverse world of electronic music.

It’s not the volume but the variance exhibited in his body of work that keeps kids coming back for more. Nick Pittsinger, who operates under the alias Varien, is easily one of the most virtuosic names on Monstercat’s well-endowed roster, let alone in the entire electronic music sphere. His productions are narrative in nature, penning the sonic storyline occurring inside his head. Because of this compelling cinematic quality, he has landed credits on projects including Furious 7, The Walking Dead, 300: Rise of an Empire and more.

With a gift for arcing across various genres, Varien has finally taken the leap to issue his debut full-length, The Ancient & Arcane. The eight-track effort shows Pittsinger shoving aside any and all expectations to curate a transcendental listening experience that flows from an intercultural origin where electronic synthesis lives freely alongside organic instrumentation.

In this installment of Metronome, we dive into the protean power of Varien.

Your album was mostly written in a 10-day period. During this process, did you bang out one track at a time or hop around between musical ideas?
I finished one track at a time, at least structurally, before moving onto the next. This worked out great because if I wanted a vocal, I could ship it off to the vocalist, forget about the track, come back a week later, and fine-tune it and fully finish it. The short of it is, I did both.

The instrumentalists and vocalists you featured on the album were given free rein to cowrite the pieces they were part of. How much did this open-ended collaboration style affect the direction of your creative vision you had in your mind before the ball started rolling?
I knew that the people I was working with fully understood the project and the concepts behind them, so it was a no-brainer to let people jam on the tracks. I like to be in control of my tracks, so to let other people do what they wanted was new and interesting.

“Growing up with video games gave me that sort of ‘storytelling’ ability and a natural understanding of how to integrate sound with narrative.”

What’s the most meaningful track to you from the release?
“Ghost Spores.” I’m known for really dark and brooding tracks, which is great, but this track goes to a very refined sort of dark. Grey, but with light greens. It’s the misty-morning sort of feeling, the same colors as “Whispers in the Mist,” which is another one of my all-time favorite tracks of mine. Laura is an angel with her vocals; what you hear on the album was her first take. I was blown away, and when everything came together it was majestic. I’m already knee-deep in my next projects, but looking back at “Ghost Spores,” I say to myself, “Man, I am really fucking glad that happened.”

Aside from amalgamating genres into a melting pot of music on the album, you also incorporated Latin American and Asian influences into the mix. Did your background in anthropology play a significant role in your interest of wanting to probe sounds from other cultures?
I was already an armchair anthropologist before I knew what anthropology was. I love the cultures of the world, and not just the music: language, food, architecture and art. These are all things that I’ve appreciated since I can remember, regardless of what country it came out of.

Which culture do you find the most fascinating?
Japan. I love the language and speak it conversationally. The music is always fresh, the media coming out of there has always set standards, and I believe growing up with Sony and Nintendo really shaped how I feel about Japan. The traditional aspect really resonates with me. I was in Japan earlier this year and visited many shrines and temples, all which inspired me and teleported me to hundreds of years ago. I would never live there, though, because I disagree heavily with a lot of societal norms and modes of operation there. Wonderful to visit, though.

Your Nintendo sleeve is all kinds of rad. Obviously, video games are a huge part of your identity. Which titles have had the biggest impact on your music?
Jesus, man, what a hard question. I would say JRPGs like Chrono Trigger, Final Fantasy series, Shin Megami Tensei series, etc. played the biggest role, since they had the deepest storylines. I also have a major love for the UK company Rare and their contributions to the gaming world during the ‘90s: Banjo Kazooie, Diddy Kong Racing, Killer Instinct, Conker’s Bad Fur Day, Donkey Kong Country, DK64, etc.—all fantastic games. You can hear a lot of my influence in any one of those soundtracks.

Your productions have a cinematic quality that really jumps out at the listener. Did your work in the film/TV industry help you hone this ability, or was it a precursor that helped to open the door and make these side projects possible?
I can remember being in eighth grade, keyboard in hand, making up stories about random bullshit while “scoring” it. Whenever the story got to a climax, I’d switch to a string patch and play sad chords, and it had us all in stitches. Growing up with video games gave me that sort of “storytelling” ability and a natural understanding of how to integrate sound with narrative.

Tell us about your live setup and how it will translate into your growth as a performing artist.
Right now, I’m in-between stages. My music does not fit in mixes or a club format, so I believe the only way for people to have a true Varien live experience is when I can afford a full band—or a setup like Amon Tobin or Tipper, with the projected images on these crazy installations.

Track List:: Chelsea Wolfe “After the Fall”
Kuma “Reason in Madness”
Ekali “Unfaith”
Izzard “Port Town”
Evil Needle “Gliding in the Mist”
Varien ft. Aloma Steele “Beyond the Surface”
Varien “Snowlight”
RefraQ “Witching Hour”
Varien ft. Miyoki “Kamisama”
Varien ft. Veela “Supercell” x Nobuo Uematsu “Besaid Island” (from Final Fantasy X)
Emma Ruth Rundle “Arms I Know So Well”