Exploring Music Through Environment With Henry Saiz
Back in June, Spanish house maestro Henry Saiz revealed to his fans he’d be embarking on an ambitious musical project of a very different kind—one that examined the relationship between location and sound and explored how the environment around us inspires the music we make.
“10 Places. 10 Songs. A musical journey across the world.”
That’s how Saiz pitched the new album project to his fans, launching a Kickstarter campaign that succeeded with flying colors and raised more than $80,000 by the time it closed in July. It was the ambitious scale of the project, however, that necessitated the budget, with Saiz planning to take an entire team along with him to global destinations, as well as film an accompanying cinematic component crucial to the creative concept.
The international adventures on the travel agenda? How about recording within an Egyptian pyramid; embarking on a psychotropic trip to the Joshua Tree desert; creating lush sounds among the Maasai tribes; or venturing inside the volcanic caves of Lanzarote?
Just like Saiz, we’re fascinated by the idea of how environment and sound are interconnected, so we spoke to the DJ/producer to find out more about his concept.
Henry Saiz:
The basic concept of this album was to materialize the essence of each place into a song. I’ve always been fascinated by how our environment can influence our creative choices. I want to explore how an artist can channel everything around them as an inspiration, and then in turn convert this energy into music. In my case personally, the environment really influences how I feel, so I always love to write music in these different places where I can feel inspired.
I’ve always been [intrigued] by how certain musical genres are so deeply coherent with the environment [surrounding] them—Scandinavian black metal, Hawaiian music. These kinds of styles are heavily influenced by weather, culture and history, so it’s obvious they are the product of a specific environment. This is what I want to explore in my album.
My debut album back in 2013 was called Reality Is for Those Who Are Not Strong Enough to Confront Their Dreams, and part of it was recorded in several different locations. I know I would have found it impossible to write that in the comfort zone of my studio. With this new album, I wanted to really dive deep and explore this notion further. It will involve me traveling to these places to get inspired by their landscapes, their people, their culture, and so on. I’ll be trying to discover what makes that specific place so special and translate that into a song.
Distilling the essence of a location into sound isn’t just about collecting ethnic sounds and putting them on record. I want to catch the real essence of the place, without taking any shortcuts. I want to understand the place, to extract its essence, and turn it into a song. For example, if you’re creating music in Dubai, it would be so easy to just add an Arabic melody and say it represents the essence of the place, but for me there’s far more to it than that. That city in particular represents how mankind is able to achieve the most amazing technical wonders—to build a mirage in the middle of the desert—but at the same time, it’s arguably been done with a questionable purpose; there’s a dangerous duality to it.
The actual process of distilling a destination into sound will be different everywhere. It involves field recordings, working with local musicians, creating music in locations with unique acoustics, and all kinds of techniques to really situate the listener in that environment in an immersive fashion.
I’ve already completed one of the songs in the Canary Islands, and it was an unforgettable experience. We recorded synths in amazing natural places: We did a jam session inside a cave, recreated some of the old rituals of the island’s indigenous inhabitants, and composed the main melody of the song while staring at a volcano. [I’m] trying to do something that really fits the landscape and the feeling I get when I’m there.
In terms of the other locations I’ll visit for the album, so far the list includes Tokyo, Dubai, Mexico, Argentina, Australia and New Zealand, Joshua Tree in California, and it also seems Sweden just got added to that list.
As far as the logistics involved in writing the album goes, it depends on what we’re doing in each place, but it’s a huge amount of work, so I’ll have a big team working with me. I’m counting on my live band members Eloy and Luis for help with composing and recording the music. This album is not about me working in the intimacy of my studio; it’s going to be a collaborative band effort.
In terms of the cinematic element, I’ll count on my brother and his partner; they are great wildlife filmmakers, and their help is going be essential. It’ll be totally interlinked so people can see how the album was done and gain a clearer understanding of the concept by watching the film. I can’t talk much more about that aspect at this point, but the format of the film will be very unique as well, as we’re going to mix real experiences with fiction and music videos. Hopefully it will be something very interesting and entertaining to watch.
Follow Henry Saiz on Facebook | Twitter | SoundCloud
