Hans-Peter Lindstrøm’s output as an electronic music producer over the past ten plus years is usually encompassed by the words “space disco.” Though the classification does justice to the size and scope of the music Lindstrøm has made in that time, his expansive instrumental disco suites are only part of a much larger body of work of an artist who operates at the forefront of unconventional and groundbreaking electronic music.
While his original output, from his early collaborations with Prins Thomas to his first solo album, 2008’s Where You Go I Go Too, helped establish the core of his sound, his work ever since then has found him building on those elements, pushing his music further and further into the unknown.
In 2009 he paired with Norwegian-Mauritian vocalist Christabelle for Real Life Is No Cool, what would be a pop album in theory, but in typical Lindstrøm fashion was more of an effusive take on pop: A set of ten mercurial songs all tethered to one another that established him as a Scandinavian student of Moroder. His next solo outing, 2012’s Six Cups Of Rebel was such a wild carnivalesque excursion that he followed it with the more straight-faced Smallhans later that same year. In 2015 he partnered with Norwegian shoegazer Emil Nikolaisen and American rock powerhouse Todd Rundgren on Runddans, a thirty-nine minute improvisational collision of progressive rock and electronic.
His latest album, It’s Alright Between Us As It Is, boldly blends his penchants for a strong vocal with the vast, exploratory instrumental suites his solo work is known for. “Spire” and “Tensions” recall the opposing hemispheres of his 2012 output, while Grace Hall and Jenny Hval’s respective performances on “Shinin” and “Bungl (Like A Ghost)” push Lindstrøm’s material into more soulful and darker territory than he’s ever ventured.
Speaking to Lindstrøm via Skype from his summer home somewhere outside of Oslo, Norway, he reveals how It’s Alright Between Us As It Is was originally planned as a follow up to his work with Christabelle, how he’s been reconnecting with nature, and the influence of Ingmar Bergman’s films on his work.
You worked with the three vocalists, Frida Sundemo, Grace Hall and Jenny Hval, for It’s Alright Between Us As It Is. What is it about their vocals and what they bring to a song that appeals to you?
Well I already had worked with Grace Hall before for the track “Home Tonight” that I released a few years ago. I asked her for a contribution to this album and she gave me two, and both were brilliant. The track on this album is the best of the two she sent, in my opinion at least. I don’t know, there’s something about her soulfulness that I really enjoy. It’s a really nice, wide, deep soulful way of singing.
I got lots of contributions from a lot of great vocalists, but I was finding it was really hard to fit my music in with their vocals. Or the other way around. With Grace it was really easy. And also with Jenny Hval. I really love her latest album and I really love how she’s working with music. Her lyrics, her themes, everything about her music making and voice. I really like the kind of avant-garde style she has, which comes out on the track we did together. I sent her an idea of mine, and she sent a lot of vocals back and I more or less used everything because it was all amazing. She’s really really good. I love working with her.
With Frida, I got word via my manager three years ago a lot of different vocals from different artists. I was going to do a vocal album, lots of different vocalists, and her track, or her contribution, that’s more or less the track she sent me. The chords, the melodies and everything. There was something about that track that was really amazing. That is the only track on the album that is not my initial idea. But it fit really nicely with the album and I thought well this is too good to not include on the album.
Those three vocalists that I ended up keeping on the album, were the contributions that had that stood out to me the most.
How do you know which tracks need vocals, and which ones don’t? Are they written with that in mind or…?
If I decide that it would be nice to try a track with some vocals from somebody, that’s really really early in the process. I mean that’s probably after a few hours of sketching a very rough idea of a song in the studio. I’m not really making too many vocal tracks, so usually when I’m making music I’m not thinking about vocals at all. But I thought for this album, because I was really happy after working with Christabelle on the Real Life Is No Cool album, I wanted to do something similar but with a lot of different vocalists instead of only one. And I wanted to make it blend into my instrumental tracks. So I ended up with this.
So this is a kind of first for you then, trying to blend the pop vocal aspect of your career with the instrumental side.
Yeah it is actually. I think me and Prins Thomas had one vocal track on our first album together, but other than that, a few years ago me and Emil Nikolaisen did an album with Todd Rundgren, other than that I haven’t really. Usually, with my own solo albums, it’s usually with instrumentals or some of my own vocals, but I never really blended it together. I thought maybe that would be fun to do.
You said of “Bungl” that the album might not have happened without it. Were you having creative difficulties?
Well initially after releasing Smallhans, almost five years ago, I immediately started working on what would become my next album, this vocal album idea with lots of different vocalists. I worked on it for a year or maybe two. I got some really good tracks. I was working really slow. But because I was not finishing stuff, some of the artists were getting really big and it was impossible for me to keep those songs. It was a shame because there was some really good stuff there. So I had to rethink everything. After that I was like maybe I should just do an EP, single or just one off tracks. Which I more or less did last year with the Windings EP.
I never really had a plan to do a new album. But I was listening to some whole ideas and sketches and I was slowly realizing that there was lots of good stuff there. Slowly sequence these tracks in specific ways was sounding really interesting. Also for me, I think the stamp of approval when I revisit old ideas from four to five years ago and realize it’s still really good. Last week I realized a track I did in 2005 or something is something I’d keep on working on for something on my next album. It’s interesting to revisit old songs and ideas and finding it’s still good after ten years. That’s how this album came together more or less. Even though I didn’t initially plan to do an album, it all sounds pretty good together so I decided to do it anyway.
So that happened after you’d’ put “Bungl” together?
Well If I didn’t have her approval, I was thinking that if she said no, then I would probably not release the album because it was like the glue. If that track was missing it wouldn’t really sound the same. The album would be missing a big part. It’s just one out of ten tracks or something, still, that track was really really important.
Are there songs on here that date back a while?
The second one, “Spire,” is an idea i’ve been working on for quite a few years. Sometimes it’s not a whole track that dates back but a chord change or melody line or whatever.
Does that mean you’re writing and revising music constantly?
Yes I do. That’s the reason why I’m in the music business. I mean, it’s impossible for me to be away or travel for more than five days. My maximum is five days away from home. If i’m away longer than that I just go crazy [laughs]. I really need to go to the studio and write. Even though I haven’t released a record in five years, I’m not really making that much music, but releasing music is not the reason why I enjoy being in the studio. It’s not that important to release music for me anymore. Not as much as it was for me in the beginning. Now it’s like some kind of mental recreation for me. That’s been something that’s changed for me over the years.
Right, because releasing music is something completely removed from the creative process.
Yeah it is.
It doesn’t seem like it comes from the same impulse. Once you’ve made it, you can move on, but do you find that releasing music and doing album promotion or touring interrupts your creative flow?
Yeah, actually I do [laughs]. I guess I’m not alone in feeling that. I’m in the middle of working on something new and different now, and like releasing this album and doing the promotion and doing touring after the release… I mean it can be a good thing as well. I think I’ve been working on this new project for two to three months now, and if you get too deep into something, it can sometimes be like going too far down the rabbit hole, but I think even though I’d rather focus on my new project, it’s probably good to have a break. When I come back whenever I’m ready, it’s a good thing.
Could you talk about the record’s structure? It’s hard enough to sequence an album, but you’ve also made sure songs flow into one another continuously. Why was it important for you for the music to be uninterrupted?
Well even though I’m not a DJ, all my life I’ve had a more or less DJ structure to my records. Everything flows together. At least three of the previous solo albums, even the Christabelle album, were more or less structured together with transitions between songs. That’s the way I enjoy putting the songs together. For me, it’s like glueing everything together. I wouldn’t say it’s like telling a story, though it kind of is, like a musical story, for me an album is a way to do that. If it’s an EP or single,then just do tracks, but I just like that way of structuring songs on an album. I really like listening to albums that have that structure as well.
You can lose yourself in it.
That’s probably it. It fits in with how I perform it too. Everything is like a continuous mix.
Since they came from disparate ideas was it at all difficult to sequence these songs in a way that made sense?
Not really, because that’s part of the songwriting. Everything is finished at the same time. The songs are only finished once the transitions are finished. In a way the transitions between the songs are made in the end of the process, but for me it’s one of the more fun things about putting it together. After I do all the tracks, I bring in all the transitions in the end, in the last week of recording and it’s like giving the album something fresh and new. After working on ten tracks, mixing ten tracks — I spend too much time mixing, three months mixing the tracks — bringing in some new elements in in the final days gives me some excitement after getting really tired of everything. So usually it’s a good thing for me to do that so I don’t end up hating the album after working with it.
Were you intending for this album to be a kind of culmination of everything you’ve done? Do you ever look back? You said you look back at things you haven’t released, but do you look back at your catalog?
Um, I guess because I perform some of my old tracks, I look back on those and I have to relate to them. Some of the tracks are twelve, thirteen, fourteen years old. I never listen to my old tracks outside of that, I’d rather listen to someone else’s music than my own. I really like to revisit older unreleased tracks. The fact that I’m bringing together vocal tracks and instrumental tracks is maybe a way of combining what I’ve done before, but that wasn’t the intention when I started. I don’t think it’s a good thing to overthink things too much. I just try to do what feels natural for me and follow the gut feeling as opposed to thinking about what is or isn’t smart to do.
When you say “It’s Alright Between Us As It Is” suggests a kind of stasis that could be interpreted in a number of ways. Not wanting things to change, which depending on the situation, could be seen as good or bad. Where does the phrase come from and what does it mean to the material?
I really like titles that are telling a little story in a single sentence. In the tradition of Real Life Is No Cool and Where You Go I Go Too. Usually when I’m making music, the music comes first. Because I’m not writing lyrics, weeks before I give everything to mastering is when I realize I have to come up with lots of titles and the title of the record, and everything gets stressy for me. Since the last three to four years, I’ve been watching a lot of movies and I’ve been inspired by everything from quotes from the movies, the music, everything. This specific album title comes from an Ingmar Bergman movie, Wild Strawberries. It’s an amazing movie. I just like the quote.
The main character was old, unmarried guy at the end of his life and realizing he hasn’t been the most kind person, and he was thinking maybe he could be kind in his last days or years of his life. At some point he asked the lady he lived together with, who was more or less his wife but they were never married. It was never formalized. At one point he says “shouldn’t we call each other by our first names and not our surnames” and she said “no, it’s alright between us as it is” [laughs]. Like you said, it can have several meanings and that’s what I really liked about it. It’s something you can think about in all kinds of relations between people. So that’s the only thing I can tell you about it.
I got a sense of that ambiguity or uncertainty of the title creeping its way through the record as well, like on “Bungl (Like A Ghost),” ghosts are these liminal beings between two different worlds, “Under Trees” is a much darker song than we’re used to hearing from you and ends on a kind of dark, uncertain note. It seems like there’s a relationship there between the album title and how these songs actually sound.
The last track, yeah you’re right, even the guy from Smalltown Supersound, my label, he wasn’t really sure about “Under Trees” because he said he hadn’t really heard anything that dark from me. I guess that’s right, but I don’t know. Maybe there’s some dark sides I’ve wanted to express [laughs]. That one was also more or less inspired by Bergman. His films from the late ’70s have lots of great photography of trees, and I’ve been walking a lot here in our neighbourhood in Oslo, and started to enjoy nature more and more. I really enjoy walking under trees, looking up, and it just struck me that it could be a good title for a track. But I’m making music, so it’s the music that’s the main focus for me, not the titles. It’s not what people should focus on, still it’s something I have to do.
It all seems to come together. Regardless of the title, the song is pretty melancholic and contemplative, which does evoke that feeling of what you’re saying.
And I think it’s a good thing to not really reveal too much about my music. Maybe if you’re writing lyrics or stories, but for me, I really want everyone to find their own meaning.
It’s Alright Between Us As It Is is out now via Smalltown Supersound. Get it here.
