INNESTI
by Mister Mime
28th May 2021
"Filament and Place" by Innesti is, as described by the artist, an exploration of the emotional connections that exist between the places and people that exist in our lives. It is a meditative and cathartic transformation of ‘half-remembered dreams and a longing for places that no longer exist’, into sonic forms called ‘Ambient Sound Grafts’, by grafting them together with natural field recordings and organic synthesis. Innesti has a subliminal way of making listeners feel like they have travelled through time and space, all from the comfort of their own literal and metaphorical homes.
MM: Can you tell us how your alias "Innesti" came to be?
Innesti: In horticulture, there is a technique in which one takes parts of a living plant, such as a bud, and grafts them onto another such that they grow together and become something unique. The Italian word for this is "Innesti". The process is similar to the one I use when I create music: I take distinct sounds and morph them together in an effort to create novel textures and atmospheres: Ambient sound grafts.
MM: Why did you decide to call the album "Filament and Place"? Also, where did you capture the field recordings used in this album?
Innesti: Every Innesti album has been a mistake. That is, I begin with the goal of creating abstract or experimental ambient music. But, along the way, I find myself getting captivated by moods and atmospheres that oscillate between sorrow and hope. Thus, my albums always become more emotional than originally intended. Each track brings to mind a mood, a feeling, or a memory from the past.
In this case, many of the tracks reminded me of moments from long ago, and people I've known who were important to me in specific chapters of my life. Sometimes I pine for those moments. Sometimes I wonder how our lives would be now if the choices we had made then had been different. The title, "Filament and Place", reflects the emotional connections (i.e., filaments) that exist between the places and people that existed at different points in my life. It is an aural reflection on those memories and their significance: A soundtrack of reminiscence.
Innesti: Most of the field recordings I use come from the area in which I live. Although field recordings can often have a deep, personal meaning for many artists working in this genre, for me they are usually just a means to an end. For example, I love the incidental sounds that can be captured when I'm going for a walk. Sometimes those sounds add just the right amount of complexity to a track that, otherwise, might involve a few minimal loops. Sometimes I use the field recordings as impulse response files to give other sounds a new twist. Field recordings are an important part of Innesti, but they're used more for technical reasons rather than for the personal significance of the locations themselves.
MM: Can you tell us about your musical background, and how your journey began?
Innesti:: Although I'm not a professional musician, I've been creating music casually all my life. But, as is the case for many people, music fell to the wayside as I got busy with my career and family. However, a few years ago I decided that it would be fun to start making music again. The challenge was that the world of music production had evolved over the years in a way that I found intimidating and opaque. When I was younger, I worked with tape loops, guitars, and four-track recorders. I had no clue how to produce music in the digital era. Terms such as "DAWS," "plugins," and "LFOs" were foreign to me.
Thus, I kept shelving the idea of returning to music. I ultimately stumbled into the Innesti project by accident. I enjoy programming as a hobby, and, at some point, I began experimenting with ways to manipulate audio files, modulate frequency cut-offs, envelope shaping, etc., using generative methods. At some point, I realized that the methods I was exploring were similar to what those "modern synth people" were talking about. I finally put two and two together and discovered the contemporary world of audio synthesis, and have been exploring that world more systematically ever since.
MM: Who/what were your biggest influences (musical and non-musical) for this album and through your life?
Innesti: I'm not sure that this album, or Innesti in general, has explicit influences. But I've always been drawn to music that has an ethereal, drifting quality to it, and that is the kind of atmosphere I'm trying to create for myself when I record as Innesti.
When I was younger, the sounds of Dead Can Dance, the Cocteau Twins, and This Mortal Coil really resonated with me. A lot of those early 4AD recordings were ideal for capturing a sense of mystery, and I would often listen to the beatless tracks on repeat; I found them mesmerizing. I was also captivated by some early game soundtracks, such as the one Robyn Miller created for Myst and Riven. Those games were unusual because they were not typical "shoot them up" games. Those games presented new worlds that were there to be explored and understood. They were immersive environments, and those environments naturally included ambient sounds and music. My friends thought I spent too much time playing these games, but, in fact, what I was doing was just allowing the game to sit in the background because I wanted to absorb the sounds as I read, studied, drew, or whatever. I eventually discovered the ambient music of Steve Roach, Vidna Obmana, and Alio Die and, today, continue to listen to and be inspired by all of these, including contemporary ambient.
MM : What inspires you outside of music and what do you like to do apart from making music?
Innesti:: As you can probably infer from my previous answers, I enjoy programming and video games! I also love visual art, both painting and photography. One of my friends introduced me to the world of bread baking a few years ago, and now baking is something I love to do several times a week. (I've sampled the sound of cooling bread, fresh from the oven, on an Innesti track!) I'm trying to create the perfect bagel, and I'm close to perfecting my pizza technique. I'm a vegetarian and love exploring new vegetarian recipes too.
MM: Can you tell us about the album artwork?
Innesti: The photograph was taken by Natalia Drepina, a photographer whose work I greatly admire (https://www.instagram.com/yourschizophrenia/). Her art exists in a space between the dark and the ethereal, which is partly how I think about the music of Innesti. Natalia also created a brief video for the Innesti album, Parenthetical, which can be seen here:
MM: For one slightly technical question, I’d like to ask you about your ‘organic synthesis’ and sound design process. By ‘organic synthesis', do you mean digitally processing organic sounds field recordings etc.? Or synthesizing organic sounding sounds and textures electronically . . . or both?
Innesti: I include "organic synthesis" in the description in all of my albums; it is a signature of sorts. But when I first used the expression on "Formless" (https://innesti.bandcamp.com/album/formless), it was an explicit reference to a synthesizer I was using called "Synplant". The premise of this synth is fascinating: You begin a patch with random assignments for oscillators, filter cutoffs, envelopes, etc. Then, as you explore the sounds, you can randomly nudge those parameters up and down and select the patches that resonate with you. And then you repeat that randomize-and-select process over and over again.
The process itself resembles evolution by natural selection, but in the digital world of sound rather than the physical world of life. It struck me as being an "organic form of synthesis" because it had more in common with the way stochastic way in which nature works rather than the deliberate way in which an artisan works. It is compatible with my general approach to most things: I like to explore and experiment and see what happens. I rarely "design" a sound from scratch with a clear vision of how it should be. I'm a curator.
But, you're correct, the term can also refer to the processing of organic sounds. I love natural sounds. Sometimes I go for walks with no intention other than to "hear" the world around me. Sometimes those sounds sometimes remain "as is," but they sometimes become part of the synthesis process itself.
Innesti:What are some of the tools, techniques, plugins, workflows, etc. that you use to get your signature sound? Anything that you would care to share that you believe is unique to your production process.
I don't think there is anything unique about my process or workflow, partly because it is continuously evolving. I'm always trying to learn new things, and, once I feel that I have some mastery over a new technique, I tend to move on. That's not because I'm fickle per se. But, for me, the creative spark emerges when I'm exploring something new. I need to be trying something different in order for that to happen: There need to be moments that I can't anticipate easily.
I do believe, however, there is continuity in the Innesti sound, even if there isn't much continuity in the methods. The Innesti sound is bound by a common theme: minimal, ethereal, ambient soundscapes that have an introspective, nostalgic quality. I want the music to transport people to a different world, one that is mysterious and unfamiliar. I label the music "dark ambient", but I do so to denote that the music is saturated with saudade and melancholy, not because Innesti is the soundtrack for Cthulhu's dreams.
Follow Innesti on:
https://dronarivm.bandcamp.com/album/filament-and-place
https://open.spotify.com/artist/6vjQzIlQxwDP0miO2oGoXE
https://music.apple.com/us/artist/innesti/1448068100
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCIRpWrhTvxlKyiwXQBS5nBQ
All Images courtesy of Innesti
