Update: 31th March 2022
Interview with
about
Puzzle
Music
Puzzle Music
Madalyn Merkey
2022
Artwork by Casey Leung
Vinyl mastered and lacquer cut by Kassian Troyer @ Dubplates and Mastering, Berlin.
Mana Records
Madalyn Merkey
2022
Artwork by Casey Leung
Vinyl mastered and lacquer cut by Kassian Troyer @ Dubplates and Mastering, Berlin.
Mana Records
Your new album Puzzle Music has been released, when did you start working on this album? What emotions and approaches did you take in the production process?I started working on the album in August 2019 at my apartment in Oakland, California. Since 2012 I have been focused mainly on computer music, but this album was about pulling equipment out of the closet to rebuild an analog practice. Part of the album takes on the mentality of “by any means necessary” to make music. I feel like this record is driven by an internal emotional response, like the need to keep moving. The emotions at work conjure a gut reaction. Metaphorically, I was thinking of a mechanical clock as the visual object of the album, with its gears and springs spinning at different rates but working in tandem to achieve a single external function.
Were all of the individual songs created with the intention of being included on the album? Also, how did you take into consideration the composition and balance of the songs, given the format of an album?I created perhaps twelve songs over the span of a year with a consistent process of staging each specific sound, then fading and muting them in and out to make room for adjoining elements. I was trying to find sounds that worked in conjunction, like teeth on a gear that fit together. The final song, Puzzle Music, is the most bare representation of this method. There are perhaps four tracks in all: two consist of a melody and inversion, one of filtered noise sweeps and one of a tone that acts as an abrupt punctuation to interrupt the slow passages. For me, there needed to be a conversation between the modes of short and long durations as the main focal point that ties everything together.
In a previous interview, you mentioned that this should be a return to mostly analog systems, much like your first album, Scent. Were those modular synths in the photos you shared earlier utilized in the production? What attracts you to modular synth expression?I only started using modular synths more recently at home after the album was finished. I first became attracted to them while at Mills College in 2012, where I learned how to use the Moog IIIP from Maggi Payne. She is one of the most amazing professors and musicians I’ve ever spent time with. I was in the Moog Studio every chance I had while at Mills, so I have fond memories of working with the system and Maggi.
As a tool, modular synths are great for quickly sketching out ideas off the cuff. It feels very good to be able to filter noise or create beating saw tones at a moment’s notice. The modules I am drawn to are simple mechanisms with deep limitations. Their simplicity forces me to be deliberate with my desires. I also enjoy the lack of permanence that comes with patching cables. It’s a soothing feeling to abandon what you are doing at the end of the day and start anew on the next.
What did you pursue throughout the creation of this album?Personally, this album was about making time to be creative on a regular basis. Part of it was a search to find peace and solitude through the work created and to allow time for that to happen organically. The other half was in the pursuit of melding and contrasting repetitive structures through experimentation.
The artwork on the sleeves is also impressive, who created that?Casey Leung is the designer I worked with on the sleeve. I asked her to listen to the tracks and she came back with individual visualizations for each song, taking cues from my past cover art with flat imagery. The original idea was to recreate a mechanical blueprint of a watch part, i.e. the balance spring, and then we stripped away the technical language so the spring stood alone on the cover.
Casey, along with Matt and Andrea at Mana, helped me steer away from being too literal with my imagery and color palette. By working together we were able to capture more of the ambiance of the music. I am a huge fan of Casey’s photography studies of stray objects drenched in sunlight on the streets of Hong Kong and San Francisco
Visualizations for each song
A-1. Pinion
A-2. Pallet fork
A-3. Hairspring
B-1. Clutch
B-2. Click
B-3. Escape wheel
B-43. Puzzle music
VR sounds visualizer installation
Sound: Escape Wheel from Puzzle Music by Madalyn Merkey
by Casey Leung
Do you have any upcoming shows or online performances planned?I hope to play a show in New York on March 30th at Ergot Records that will air on Montez Press Radio between 7 and 9 P.M. that night. Then on April 28th I will be playing at Stanford University at CCRMA, which will also be broadcasted on their website. In between, I’m being dragged on a trip to Australia. It might be too short of notice, but I hope to play at least one show while I am there.
As she mentioned in this interview, she has taken an experimental approach where parts of sound—each differing in shape, emotion and movement— have been delicately put together in this album. Yet, these richly varied sounds gently compose a wonderous space, endowed with an organic and flexible capacity in which the lister’s feelings and wavelengths are the kaleidoscope that transforms the imagery brought to mind. When liberated through immersion in music such as this, you may feel quiet nostalgia or even experience new emotions. This album allows us to feel the power of freedom that music possesses.
Madalyn Merkey: Puzzle Music
2022
Mana Records
Bandcamp
Madalyn Merkey
@oliveoyl8
Nigh Magazine Issue 3:
Interview 4: Madalyn Merkey
2022
Mana Records
Bandcamp
Madalyn Merkey
@oliveoyl8
Nigh Magazine Issue 3:
Interview 4: Madalyn Merkey