Sounds from underground/File N°016

<<Queelum>> is an avant-grade project that will bring you to the far psychedelic lands. a trip into the space. very far away


0. name of the band
Queelum is my experimental composition project with 7 albums and is studio based. I also have Umbah which is avant industrial/cybermetal project.

1. where are you from?
Sunny Scotland, place called Aberdeen. 

2. what kind of instruments/equipment you use?
Queelum has a mix of live instruments like classical guitar and some  sounds like piano which are virtual. I design and build avant VST machines which i can either play from a keyboard or trigger via midi, most of them are generative, and i program them with formulas derived from chaos and automate all parameters so they can also auto-compose.

3. what do you think about the music context nowadays and how you place yourself in? do you feel a part of any scene?
Mainstreams and the artists/labels involved of any genre are with few exceptions nothing but a joke. An elborate con very well executed. I admire the tenacity of those involved to  have pulled of one of the greatest heists of our age, but little else. Queelem is never gonna be a part of their portfolios or scenes. He will remain underground and for now tag on as part of the underground metal scene, metal heads  are not scared off by the complex or heavy parts. Thanks to Umbah i have earnt enough kudos on underground that listeners of Umbah now expect something awesome from my side projects, but it might be difficult or new and need a few listens to appreciate.
So I view Queelum as pioneering a new virtual sub-genre of the classical scene. One that doesn't exist yet, one that has no limits, it evolves and embraces technology, takes the art of recording seriously, maximizes sound design and automation etc... 

4. which is your method of composition?
Queelum combines a lot of wild techniques, fractals, generative chaos, infinite modulation, progressive mutation, live recording, sampling  + decomposing + normal composing. even microtonal sometimes.
From this perspective Queelum is light years ahead of most traditional composers, Queelum's score is code and formulas, and the performance hybrid human/artificial, the sounds are synthesized, the borders blur and the frontiers open up.

5. how is your recording approach? do you use some particular record technique?
The latest release 'Outer Circuitry'  has half the material generated by machines the rest live. Before on 'StarCluster'  it was mainly fractal and lots of sampling. Before that on 'Multi-Versum Central' its another combo with all multiple techniques together to create hyper-complexity. I still enjoy just plotting out notes one by one, but to make these bigger Queelm works in short spaces of time its necessary to use the other techniques in combo just so they can exist.
So each album has a different approach and a different sound. The latest is a mix of chilled galactic spaces and then towards the close becomes a lot smaller and intricate and kicks out some really fast complexity on the violins. its like a double album. 

6. do you play live? how public react to your music?
no live shows

7. Genesis P-Orridge said "Our records were documents of attitudes and experiences and observations by us and other determinedly individual outsiders. Fashion was an enemy, style irrelevant.". What do your records represent to you?

yes very true. these Queelum albums are documents. somewhere coded in the notes are reflections of an outsider observing.
there will always be enemies. but to rise above these obscurities like fashion and make something great and original is the only solution. Just doing your own thing is the only way. Its pointless to dwell on all the negative aspects that have crushed music to be very dumb and homogonous. its more fun to ridicule the mainstream products by producing something that is 1000 times cooler than they can ever dream up. then you can stay chill, confident and laugh from the other side back. The Queelum albums represent a search for something more, something greater, something different, something never experienced. A space to escape and think or just chill and get lost in. A voyage to the edge of the Universe to find a new world... and to realize some amazing dreams.