One of the things we love to see in the music industry is artists who love to push their boundaries. Larch accomplishes that in several unique ways from creating exhibition sound pieces to composing live sets focussed on Europe’s past.
Their latest release, The World Is Dangerous, Go Outside EP explores the struggle of self-realisation in a decaying environment. Prior to releasing the EP, Larch released the single, ‘A Mirror in Ultraviolence’ which explored the interaction of beauty and decay.
Knowing that we were bound to find something interesting within the dark recesses of Kai and Matt’s minds, we jumped at the opportunity to sit down with the two for an interview.
What inspired you to start making the experimental electronic music that you are now?
Kai: We have been making music independently since we were children. We actually met each other through music when we were in university. I was in a post-hardcore band at the time, and Matt was in a noise-punk band. When you love to create, and have people you love to create cool things with, you naturally seek to push your ideas as far as you can.
Matt:We were both super inspired by artists like Tim Hecker, Oneothrix Point Never and Laurel Halo. We’ve been super lucky in that that the electronic music scene over the last 10 years has been amazingly giving. There have been loads of artists seeking to recontextualise sound in new and interesting ways, and that’s really at the heart of why we love to experiment with ideas.
What key pieces of gear/software are you using to define your sound?
Matt: We are currently using a Waldorf Blofeld, which I absolutely love, a Novation Nova, Moog Minitaur and a Korg Electribe for our hardware set-up.
Kai: But there are some plug-ins and processes that we could not live without. We absolutely rinse the Redux Sampler and NI Replika Delay.
Has your arsenal of equipment changed much since you first started?
Matt: We started using a lot more hardware on this EP rather than when making our first record, Unknown Neural Pathways, which was almost exclusively from sample manipulation.
What, in your opinion would be the perfect genre fusion?
Kai: That’s a tough question! Every genre is an offshoot of some other genre. What would be the perfect new fusion…? When we know, we’ll start writing it and promise you’ll be the first to hear!
Your new EP ‘The World Is Dangerous; Go Outside’ explores the struggle for self-actualisation in a decaying world. Tell us how you would like to see the world grow in the future.
Matt: Before we see the world grow, we need to first prevent further decay. Without going into too much detail around what we consider to be the major factors that are responsible for this, it seems obvious that if we don’t change our behaviour and reconnect with both the world and people around us, then nothing can change.
Kai: The polarisation of groups and the treatment of certain classes of individuals is a real issue. There is a chronic lack of empathy in much of the mainstream discourse and action.
What do you want to accomplish with your music?
For us, we want to keep pushing ourselves to be as creative as possible.
We hope that for the people that listen to our music, that it can provide some kind of opportunity for reflection. Perhaps a new perspective. We hope that it moves people, whatever it is that they get out if it…
What are your personal favourite tracks on the EP?
Every time we think we have one we change our mind…
What can we expect from you in the near future? Any upcoming projects or releases in the pipeline that you would like to tell us about?
We are currently working on an album which we think is shaping up well. Most of the major compositional work has been completed, and now it’s time to render and really nail the sound design. We hope to get that out in some shape or form in 2020. We also have hundreds of unfinished ideas which don’t really fit in with what we’re working towards as Larch, but that we would like to push out to the world at some point.
Famous last words?
The World is Dangerous; Go Outside
Follow Larch:
Facebook – Soundcloud – Twitter – Instagram (Kai) – Instagram (Matt) – Spotify
By Sarah Britton
