Metronome #044: JAUST

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.

How JAUST pulled off such a dynamic feat on his self-titled debut album feels like a mystery. After sitting through the 10-track album, though, it all makes complete sense. On JAUST, the New Zealand-born, Los Angeles-based producer follows an intelligent, sophisticated approach rarely heard in electronic music. It’s dramatic. It’s serious. It’s imaginative.

A true lover of the arts, JAUST took inspiration from various aspects of his surrounding creative world to present the album as a genuine multimedia experience. The art of storytelling takes the wheel throughout JAUST, as the producer crafted each individual song as highly visual pieces rather than traditional recordings. The ultimate outcome feels more like an art project rather than a standard album, an artistic skill he absorbed via his previous work composing music for film, video games, commercials, and art installations, as well as through the teachings of his father, a classical musician. Without genres attached, JAUST was his blank canvas to fill.

Take a stroll through the dreamland mind of JAUST via his Metronome mix, where, just like the album, nothing is predictable and everything is possible.

I’m interested in your focus—or should I say lack thereof—on creating a musical experience without genre restrictions. Could you tell us more about how you go about playing with so many different subgenres in one cohesive album?
It’s funny that the lack of genres on the album keeps coming up. I was actually trying to put something together I thought had a distinct personality. A person can have contradictions and oddities, but it all goes into making a unique individual. I was really trying to get that across, having songs that were different, but at the end of the day they all went together to make up one single idea. I guess the person I was trying to describe was myself and all these songs are just bits and pieces of what I genuinely like.

I read that you originally had quite a bit of trouble coming up with a sound that you felt truly reflected you. What was that process like, and how did you eventually become satisfied with the album?
I just got so pissed off with trying to do something that I stopped trying to do anything and just played things that sounded good. I ended up just making songs that I felt and liked to feel rather than doing some clever chord progression or some wicked bit of rhyming somewhere. The second verse on “Drop it Down” is an example. It just sounds satisfying to me; it doesn’t make sense, and it shouldn’t. But really loud, it’s something that makes me really happy.

You’ve put an emphasis on your music as being a highly visual medium. How do your music videos, “We Need a Life” and “Feel the Smoke Rise,” play into that idea? How did you come up with the concept of the two videos?
“We Need a New Life” and “Feel the Smoke Rise” were both directed by Rey Andrade and produced by Dan Ruth. They were also both behind the photos and images for JAUST. Their whole approach is very conceptual and acts as a side story to the music. They didn’t want anything that related directly to the songs, but ran as a companion narrative, almost like the other thought in your head when you’re doing something. It’s unrelated, but it’s still there and running parallel to what’s happening in your life.

I like the video for “Feel the Smoke Rise” in that the song is about dying and facing death. The video shows these suburban and urban facades with the details slowly coming away just to leave these empty boxes. I thought that was a nice parallel to the theme of the song. “We Need a New Life” was adventurous, with them telling a story of this subculture and then bringing a disruptive force into that. There’s nothing in the video that tells you if it’s a good, bad or neutral story. It’s really a story without a perspective; you’re just seeing this strange combination of people and events come together. “We Need a New Life” is a strong, but at the same time obscure, statement. The video reflected this ambiguity nicely.

Could you ever see yourself creating a longer film out of your tracks or album, one that spans multiple subplots to match your various musical styles?
I think to do a longer film with music to accompany it, you’d need to rethink how these things are done. I don’t like the rock opera way of doing things, multiple songs connected to create one plot. Pure hell. What about trying to create the visuals and the music at the same time in the same way you just make the songs? In the studio, you write parts and try out sounds and combinations that work. You could have an animator/director/flame artist sit with you while you write, and you could actually create the film as you developed the music. Rather than writing music you thought visuals could work with, why not have them as an inseparable piece of creation? They couldn’t exist without each other. I’d be into that.

Your roots are in New Zealand. What sparked the move to New York and then L.A.? Do you think moving from place to place has influenced your production style or creative perspective? What about your past projects in Europe?
New Zealand is pretty remote, and I’d been raised on American TV; all the shows I liked were set in NYC. I just wanted to eat a hot dog in Central Park and watch a guy do a sax solo from an apartment window. Seriously, it wasn’t that far off though. I loved that city, and it was such a cartoon character of itself, but in all the right ways. My music definitely got way bolder and I, in turn, got way into music as a lifestyle. All I’d do were go to vintage synth stores and record stores and scour flea markets for old instruments.

I moved to LA and started collaborating with more directors and becoming more involved in art projects as well as starting my album. Joshua Tree was one of those places that absolutely influenced my music. Going there galvanized the idea behind the album as being something about expression instead of concrete ideas. I’d say out of anywhere in the world, Joshua Tree has had the most profound effect on me musically.

What’s next for you? Do you see yourself going right back to producing, or perhaps exploring other media for a while? I read something about a potential art project you had in mind.
The EP is next. I’m really wanting to get a handle on working with vocalists to create better songs without them being sing-along things. I love the idea of writing an entire song and just keeping one or two words. It’s all about making lots of stuff and throwing most of it away. As long as I’m keeping the right stuff, I’ll be fine as long as those bits are strong enough for me to listen to a thousand times. I’d love to have more of my music played on the radio, but unfortunately I’m wanting to make things that are a little more obscure than the album. I’m seeing the EP as a chance for me to try something new, a wee, mini experiment in four songs. I’d like to try a different medium instead of video as well, or maybe it’s in combination with the video. A video is just a way to communicate an emotion to a lot of people; there must be a way I can do this differently.

JAUST from JAUST is available now via Human Label.

John Ochoa thinks you’ll be a smarter person after listening to JAUST. Follow him on Twitter.

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