Though I think there are ideas on The Bermuda Triangle that could have been fleshed out further, there’s something about the solitary nature of the album I really like. High Watt Electrocutions is just Settee. There’s no filter of other opinions and nothing for him to fall back on. The entire mission of the band rests on his creative will, and on The Bermuda Triangle, just as on the moody debut, Night Songs, he proves that will can lead him anywhere at any time.

The album is comprised of smaller instrumental pieces — blips, some of them — that bleed and fade together and gradually emerge as an engulfing and hypnotic whole. It’s not an album you can skip through (literally or figuratively), but Settee‘s indulgences are the gain of those who would be as adventurous in their listening as he would in his writing. High Watt Electrocutions challenges drone and conventional definitions of “heavy” while also developing an identity all its own as a project. It winds up being as admirable in its mission as in its execution.

We covered generalities last time, so for this discussion, I wanted to get deeper into Settee‘s process as regards The Bermuda Triangle and see what in particular inspired him musically and conceptually for the album. He was forthcoming to say the least. If you consider yourself passionate about music on either end, just take a look at how much what Settee does obviously means to him. It bleeds into his every answer.

Full Q&A is after the jump. Please enjoy.

High Watt Electrocutions doesn’t seem shy about exploring different styles in the same project. Some people writing the songs would make it a new band each time. Is there something tying the three records, each with a different approach, together as High Watt Electrocutions for you? Does there need to be?

Ambition is probably the first thing that I consider. I like lots of different types of music and genres, but there’s always a few that I sort of want to narrow down to each record. On the first album, Night Songs, it was more probably like Spacemen 3/Suicide, on the second record, Desert Opuses, it was more maybe Godflesh/Velvet Underground, this one is probably more like a soundtrack to an unofficial movie about cool, bizarre, ambient and moody tracks on classic rock albums from the ‘60s and ‘70s… The ones that are maybe longer tracks at the end of side A or side B.

But ultimately, I don’t want to make the same album twice. I know that most artists say that, but it’s a bunch of lip service — most of the time one gets the impression that they’re saying that, but they’re really just kinda rehashing their previous stuff in a manner where it seems different. But I can respect that every band past their first record has some sort of expectations, and that those expectations can start to create an environment where you’re under an obligation to give the audience more of the same. Sometimes it’s really difficult for bands to branch out and really put an artistic statement out there, when they’re worried about shifting units and having it be a career or something like that. Though High Watt‘s stuff has been amazingly received in a critical sense, there’s something that goes over the majority of the audience’s head in the sense that it’s too cerebral, too out there — so why not run with it? Why not step out there and make the statement or record that you always wanted to make? We only have a certain period where we’re vital and able to create, so I’d hate to look back years from now and wonder what could have actually been.

I really want to step out of the boundaries and color outside the lines, but in a way that makes sense, spiritually, with what I’d done previously. The mellower tracks on Night Songs, if you take tracks like “Ascension,” “Into the Abyss” (without the heavy part), “Erosion” and “Sunrise,” they all sort of pointed to this one. It just so happened that the ethereal, sunnier songs got made for a whole record as opposed to it being one gear to shift to within a heavier and more mechanical backdrop that I’d probably emphasized on those last two ones. There was no room for stuff like this on Desert Opuses, because that was heavier and more consistently dark and the material didn’t fit in there, though I still liked it and wanted it to see released. This idea just seemed to have the right framework of doing that more cinematic, orchestral, stripped down album that I’d wanted to do.

I love drums, but there’s no drums on most of this record because once you put drums in there, there’s a tendency to make everything louder and more in your face, rather than just sort of gently making its entrance and exit. There’s often a comatose pace on this one, but it’s intended to at least be a consistently comatose pace in which it’s not just formless ambient soundscapes, while not being too overt or bombastic in a typical sense. That being said, it’s often still very bombastic in a quiet way. Instrumental music has typically been a hard sell for the longest time, but there’s always been some great instrumental bands — Earth‘s last few records, Dirty Three, Mogwai — all have a way of using music in a great way to suggest what you might feel like thinking.

What inspired you to work in this specific, pastoral feel for The Bermuda Triangle?

I really love soundtracks. I love the song behind the movie, I love the overall mood that’s created. When I’m watching movies, I’m usually paying attention to the directing and the music. Most of the time, there’s admittedly sort of a background music aspect to instrumental stuff, but I don’t think that music has to be that engaging in order to engage people, you know? Sometimes I like the music to just sort of be there without a real demand for vocals to tell you what to think and slam you over the head with visuals as described in an audio sense, but that being said, if you throw on the headphones with this one — like the last two — there’s another world that opens up, and it’s definitely not background music, because there’s literally layer upon layer where there’s 40-50 tracks on some of those parts.

But then there’s just an acoustic guitar or two at times, as well, and there’s a sense of build up, tension, release and plot flow. Plot flow to movies I really like, too — it’s cliché to have some sort of build up in a movie, but that’s for a reason — some sort of intro, rising action, apex, falling action, outro. The individual parts of The Bermuda Triangle taken as a smaller whole all sort of do that where things often build up on a central riff or melody and then add different textures and build up and down, but the whole pacing of the complete album is also following that arc, too. Or at least hopefully! A couple of people (even Jack Rabid of The Big Takeover, who likes the album too) have told me that either it’s put them to sleep, or they’ve fallen asleep to the record. And they pointed out that it wasn’t as an insult, and none was taken! It’s a sleepy album. If it lulls someone to sleep as some sort of aural hypnosis, that’s cool, too. It’s audio endorphination.

There’s something solitary in the music, but true to the album’s title, you get lost in it. How much of the material was written before you came up with that title?

Thanks! Some of the material goes back right to basically the end of the Night Songs days, through the Desert Opuses days, to various drafts/incarnations of this album which had all differed slightly. One part actually goes back to about 10 years back as a demo and was redone for this record, it was this weird tribal part that surfaces later on in the record. I used to hate redoing songs, but I’ve come to appreciate a different perspective on things after doing this for so many years. Sometimes in the demos, things don’t come out quite right, but there’s something there that warrants a revisiting. So there was and is definitely some songs or riffs or demos that I’d remembered from some time ago that felt right for this.

It seemed like an interesting idea to sort of have the aural equivalent to the Bermuda Triangle area. I mean, obviously some parts of the album were written and recorded before the overall concept came together, but the other songs that were done in this vein were finished to complete this overall concept. And I’m still not totally sure if I necessarily like the term “concept album” as it sometimes conjures up the wrong references, but I do like working thematically and towards an overall vibe, even if it doesn’t fit 100 percent into every angle or parameter that may otherwise restrict it. Some people pointed out that on Desert Opuses that the harmonicas and glockenspiels weren’t that Middle Eastern sounding, but that’s the point. Instead of using a sitar, I’d use something like a glockenspiel to convey that overall mood. In the ‘60s, it’s somewhat forgotten now, but when the first guys started using fuzz guitars, they were supposed to mimic trumpets and violins or stringed instruments. Sometimes the “wrong” sounds can create a totally different effect.

The interesting thing is that I didn’t really know that much about the Bermuda Triangle before doing the research and reading up on it. Like probably everyone, I knew that planes and ships and people would disappear for no reason, but I think that I probably thought that it was pirates or something. But after I read about it, some interesting theories came up, namely that there’s almost this Hawking thing to it. With no trace of those vessels, no wreckage, what happened? It’s like they exploded into dust in some cosmic explosion, or got sucked into a black hole or something. There’s weird electromagnetic activity that’s been proven to mess with compasses and aircraft gauges and things like that, and it’s sort of approaching the unknown into sci-fi or cosmic oblivion. As I don’t like to write about the typical things — Tolkien, Lovecraft, outer space — I thought it was a cool way to allude to those things without being trapped by them. Without lyrics, the listener can let it take them wherever they want, I mean, how many different ways can you suggest cosmic oblivion in an album without turning into Robert Calvert (laughs)?

There’s also lots of volcanic activity and tectonic plates shifting in that area (as in the equivalent over by Japan, the Devil’s Triangle), and that if enough volcanic activity and those tectonic plates shifted enough… I mean, that’s pretty heavy metal right there, that’s the heavy metal spirit coming out in a non-heavy album. That could be one of the 60 million possible ways of the end of the world (laughs).

How did the idea come about for the painted covers? Do you do each one as the record sells, or did you do 500 to start with?

They’re made as they sell, yeah. I like the idea of music being something that extends beyond mere entertainment. I mean, it’s entertainment in the end, but I think that’s probably what’s ruining music these days to a certain extent. Back 10 years ago, having a pro-looking CD was really something special, but now it’s got to the point where everyone can do it, and there’s really nothing exciting about just releasing something on disc. Which is cool, but it’s become more assembly line even on an underground level. This was to bring back some of that individuality to the music, that it’s not just some assembly line thing that’s a shot at mass stardom. If someone shoots me an email and tells me a bit about themselves, what I do is I paint the color to match the personality, or as best as I think I can!

The song titles are listed on your website, but not anywhere on the disc itself. Was there a reason you wanted to keep them hidden, a kind of Easter egg for people willing to look?

Kind of, yeah. They’ll know exactly where each part stops and starts, and each file is labeled. The thing is that I still had to make shorter clips as a promotional device online, because I it’s just more convenient for the listener to get an idea of how some of the album goes, rather than put up a 40-minute stream, which would take forever to buffer online with anything resembling audio quality (320kbps is my usual go-to online audio quality).

If anyone thinks that it’s lazy to just cram all the songs together instead of track labeling them like is normally done on releases, it actually took way more time and effort to crossfade them all together, to get the fades right to match up. Some songs got lumped together, simply because they were in or ended or started in the same key as the song before or after it, so you’d have the songs fading in and out on the same note, and often on the same beat — which took a lot of editing and work to get things to synch up correctly. Sometimes there was a slight atonality when the notes would match up. That was alright, because there’s a certain element of disorientation that works on this release, anyways. Some songs had to be faded out quicker or slower, so that they’d ease into the next song into a certain way. I’d never tried that before as a producer, so I thought that it would be awesome to just run with that on the whole record. I’d never crossfaded anything as extremely as I did on this one.

Is there a narrative thread to the songs that plays out through the different instrumental sections? If so, what is the listener supposed to take from it?

The fictional quote on the back sort of guides it in the sense that it’s supposed to seem like it’s calm and inviting, then there’s stormy weather, then maybe it’s subsided, and BOOM! Thunderstorm at the end. That was recorded right outside my place one night, this really, really violent thunderstorm where the rain would speed up and slow down creating a natural hypnotism. It was this rolling, pulsing thunder. That was edited down from about seven minutes to just a couple on the record.

As music has got more convenient and digestible these days, a lot of it has gotten more anonymous. Just a random track on a random iPod on eternal random shuffle. Most of the tracks on this release were sequenced together in a manner that had a good plot flow, like I’d previously mentioned. It’s also sort of like reading a book in a way. You don’t come in at chapter five or read the ending first, though it’s tempting to just fast forward to the end or the “good parts,” but really, you miss all the smaller parts that make for excellent continuity — otherwise actors are just acting in random parts, saying random things that only pertain to the main events in the story. If people do fast forward through this to a certain part that they like, that’s cool. There’s no rules, really. If they only listen to the first 20 minutes because like the first 20 minutes, that’s cool too. People can sort of determine where certain parts end and what constitutes a smaller song within the bigger song, because a lot of passages are pretty similar to each other on this record, though they differ enough that there’s some sort of evolution within it that it’s not just rehashing the same ideas within itself.

But at least the idea is there that it’s part of a whole. Some programmers have played it in its entirety on the radio, which is really nice. I thought the concept would be interesting in theory, but that no one would take the challenge on radio. Thankfully some of them have!

Which comes first, the concept or the material?

A little bit of both. I usually record a whole bunch of things, most of which never makes it to the records because it just doesn’t fit in a certain way — too happy, too bleak, too aggressive, too non-descript, etc. At this point, there’s been a real need for a side-project for my other stuff, because that stuff is fairly different.

How much of the music on The Bermuda Triangle was born out of studio experimentation?

Lots. I still don’t use an outside producer and likely never will, because although there’s definitely something that they could impart to the music — and often for the better — I like the idea of 100 percent uninterrupted vision, that people are getting all of what that is, even if some of it is perceived as wrong or “difficult” or whatever. If you throw a bunch of paints onto a canvas and that’s all you can do, that’s cool too. Sometimes you just need to throw the chips out there and let ‘em fall where they may and then assemble something from that.

I’m in the middle of the punk rock versus the mainstream ethos — there’s a certain artistic expression that gets lost sometimes when you strip the rawness away from artists making their own records when you have producers come in, but as long as you have enough character in there, that’s what matters. But sometimes that character gets lost in the translation. And you know, I want to hear BIG-sounding records, but with maximum artistry, none of that lo-fi shit that passes for music these days. Some lo-fi can work well, but if it’s done a certain way. Other guys that try to do that just end up sounding like they’re recording on a Fisher Price boombox or something like that — there’s a way to get gritty right, and a way to get gritty wrong. It’s assumed that because it’s lo-fi, that it’s good lo-fi.

Most typically “big” records, if you listen to them, strip character away and sanitize things. In the ‘70s, you had these ultra-dry, choked-sounding records where there was no way that a snare drum sounded like that if you were in the band’s rehearsal room, and then in the ‘80s, producers swung the other way by overdoing all the bombast, but in a bad way — making things sound like they actually don’t.

Everything production-wise on this recording is clear and upfront and sparkling. But they’re all real, organic sounds, even when they’re effected. Even though the strings are synths, there’s a believability to them that they’re an old Mellotron or some weird, fucked up orchestra. Most people aren’t probably used to as many string section sounds from an independent album as there is on records like this — really cinematic and at least an attempt at grandeur. I’d got an old ‘70s synth called a Logan String Melody, and it’s basically a really great Mellotron-like faux string machine. I have some old ‘70s phasers, like a Maestro MP-1 — this huge pedal with a great sound. You can hear the old amps humming on the recording like they’re cranked up right next to you, you can hear those old synths buzz like they’re gonna die any given second. I like some discipline, but I like some element that’s out of control, some sort of legitimate chaos that happens when creative minds run wild. There’s really no wrong or right in a traditional sense, I just like the idea that the audience probably gets the sense that I’m pushing in all the chips, creatively, at the card table.

Do you see yourself being able to perform this material live? There are many layers in the music. Is it just a matter of setting up loops, or do you think something would be lost in a live setting?

It would be awesome to perform it live, but this one in particular would take a lot to do. It doesn’t sound that complicated, but it’s borderline prog at times. And some of the parts, I don’t even remember how to play (laughs)! Seriously, I’d have to go and relearn some of it, especially the multi-timbral guitar parts which are almost like orchestras in themselves. If it ever did go out live, it would have to be massive — maybe a big video screen with visuals, and some sort of event.

Do you know what’s next for the band yet? Any ideas for the next album?

The next one is a return to a more rock based sound, I guess, but with the vocals not in the background like they were on the first two records — quite upfront. There’s about a half an album’s worth of tracks done, most still instrumental, but with vocals to be added later. It’s still drone-based a bit, but a bit more straightforward and psychedelic blues, with lots of wah and fuzz again. When I’ve turned up the amps for awhile, eventually I want to turn them down and get more reflective, and once there’s been too much reflection, then it’s time to create music from that’s more physical where things aren’t over-thought too much. For this one there was a ton of coordination that I hadn’t really done before, where most of the ideas were thought out in advance, so it took a lot of pre-planning, even if there was looser guidelines in the individual, smaller parts that were based on a particular mood, key, or idea. Most of the leads on the first two records were improvised, whereas on this one, they were almost always rehearsed. When things get too scripted, I eventually have to burn the script. That keeps it fresh.

High Watt Electrocutions’ website

High Watt Electrocutions on Last.FM

The album is available in a limited CD pressing of 500 with hand-painted covers. The songs — or parts, anyway — are presented as one long track topping out at just under 39 minutes. I listened through the album several times, ripped it to see the wav form, and came up with a list of 14 different parts. Settee, as I’d later see on the High Watt Electrocutions website, notes 16, and if you look at the file names for the audio samples there-listed, you can see he gives the parts titles such as “Optimism,” “Inevitability,” and “Washed Out to Sea.” The progression of titles and their occasional interrelation makes it seem likely Settee is forming some narrative that plays out musically on The Bermuda Triangle, but as the track is instrumental save for a small section of non-verbal vocalizing and there’s nothing about it anywhere either on the packaging or the website, that’s merely an assumption on my part. If you want to put a story to it, certainly the music Settee provides on acoustic and electric guitar, synths and swirls is plenty open to interpretation.

More than arc, however, what The Bermuda Triangle is about is the feel and atmosphere it creates. It is a tropical album for sure, with ringing notes of Americana similar to Earth’s The Bees Made Honey in the Lion’s Skull and psychedelic backwards guitar that seems to make your place no place at all, similar, I imagine, to how you might feel watching the needle of your compass spin uncontrollably as a result of some magnetic disturbance. Settee reinterprets Black Sabbath’s “Flufff” à la Citay before the first 10 minutes of The Bermuda Triangle have passed, progressing to a Beatles-type bouncing rhythm shortly before a longer section evokes the aforementioned dronier feel. Later, a country rhythm line plays out acoustically under a fuzzy lead, making for one of the album’s least serene but ultimately most satisfying moments, and when the synths announce the coming of The Bermuda Triangle’s final movement, you definitely get a sense of arrival at your destination. You made it.

If there’s incongruity anywhere on High Watt Electrocutions’ new offering, it’s in the final minute or two, when a sample of a thunderstorm gradually brings the album to its close. After the peaceful ambience of the preceding music, it seemed a curious choice, but I suppose you can’t have a record called The Bermuda Triangle without a sense of foreboding somewhere on there. This is only a small inconsistency, though, and it hardly pulls you out of the hypnotic spell the rest of the album puts you in, so it’s not a problem. Settee’s movement into new sonic territory with High Watt Electrocutions succeeds in what it sets out to do, capturing a previously-unseen side of his musical personality while still maintaining the quality of execution those familiar with the project have come to expect of it. If he’s taking dares, I’d like to see Settee develop a bridge somehow between his previous work and this style of writing, but for now, The Bermuda Triangle is a pretty good way to lose yourself.

High Watt Electrocutions website

High Watt Electrocutions on Last.FM

It’s August in the valley, and aside from the haze that blocks out the blueness of the daytime sky, the unbearable heat and the moths seeking refuge in my office/den, I can tell because the wood of my bedroom door has swollen to the point that I need to throw my shoulder into it to force it open. The air conditioner is a constant electric hum — I can’t sleep without it by now. I sweat for no reason. This is my least favorite time of the year, and thus far, where July was over before I could realize how miserable it was, August seems to be lagging like stale desert air. Living in it is a confrontation I keep losing, and there’s only so far one can retreat.

My usual methods for maintaining livable temperatures — chewing ice, going pantsless, fans, spray cans of water, immobility, etc. — have all abandoned me. I idle my car against the advice of the back of the inspection sticker that says, “Breathe easy, no idling.” I survive on iced tea and contempt. It’s summer. And even though I know better logically and would rather spend my time in nihilistic freon ecstasy, occasionally I need to leave the house.

Such was the instance the other night; a drive out and a drive back a few hours later by myself. I made the trip with the handy typewriter case in which I keep CDs I may need on the go and, on the return journey, the inspiration struck to break out the copy of High Watt Electrocutions‘ Night Songs that band founder/lone member Ryan Settee was kind enough to send me following our interview. I was speeding along Rt. 80 leaning forward toward the windshield to see in a sudden downpour, and it was just the right combination of circumstances to make for what I supposed to be the ideal listen to the record, which I hadn’t yet heard.

Each track on Night Songs is given a time stamp, starting with opener “Sonic Maelstrom” at 9:30pm and going to “Sunrise” at 6:00am (bonus track “Radiance” is untimed), and each cut in between is meant to symbolize the experience of a sleepless exploration. I won’t say that in my car, driving at top speed through flash flood conditions, every single track connected on a transcendent level, but the moody, isolated psychedelia of “Ascention (11:00pm)” and the whispering acoustic atmosphere of “The Thief is Caught (2:00am)” moved me to the point that, even as I swerved speeding between lanes, I maintained a sense of aurally-induced serenity one can only achieve in solitary nighttime. I regret nothing in the listening.

This isn’t a review, just a simple note that Night Songs provided me with a moment of worthy companionship, whatever my later relationship with the album may or may not become. Maybe you’ll have a similar experience, maybe you won’t. It’s a big world.

Settee, a Winnipeg native who recorded Desert Opuses over the course of a year in his hometown, centered the album around a Middle Eastern theme that sits well on the layered guitars, vocals and percussion. As a follow-up to 2007′s Night Songs, Desert Opuses‘ distant echoes somehow find cohesion as if they’re holding onto each other to make the whole end product work, and though many records claim the mantle of “being a journey” or “taking you somewhere,” if you sit back and let it, Settee‘s latest actually will.

As he prepares to congeal another High Watt Electrocutions release, Ryan Settee took some time out to prepare thoughtful A’s to my nagging Q’s, resulting in an extended interview about his motivations, life in Winnipeg and where his progressive desert artistry goes from here. As always, the interview is after the jump. Enjoy.

How did spreading the recording out over a year affect the album? Was it easier to put something to tape because you were recording yourself and not at the mercy of other people?s schedules?

From a musician or band standpoint, it’s great to have more time to work on things, because you have more time to work on things to see what’s working, and what’s not. That’s the absolute best thing about the quality of home recording gear these days, that you can spend a certain amount of money and have things sound great, if you know what you want to hear and develop your ear to arrive at a decent facsimile of what’s inspired you. I would say that it would be hard for a big producer or engineer to give you something that you don’t already exactly know that you want, sonically. I still love big studios and there’s a lot of merit in paying the big reputable guys to do things, but now it’s to the point where I think that if you have enough trial and error, that you’re bound to get close to how you think it should sound. That’s sort of my mindset on how I do it.

But it does take a lot of time and a lot of frustration — sometimes I feel like the guy on Sesame Street that bangs his head on the piano when nothing’s going right (laughs). Then you know that it’s time to walk away and do something else until your head is in it, so to speak. There’s nothing worse than forcing something that’s not happening or flowing right, or maybe one’s just in a bad mood that day. When you’re paying per hour, that’s a little more difficult to do, you’ve got to work endlessly at something whether or not your spirit or mind is in it. Some producers and studio guys recommend that bands don’t go more than eight to 12 hours a day in the studio, otherwise they’re fatigued and worn out from the guitarist tracking a solo all day or whatever. With High Watt, there’s no pressure to release anything. It’s ideal to have something to release, but I only release it after it’s something that I think stands up really well.

How much was planned in advance?

Some is planned in advance with certain ideas or mood or direction, but there’s a lot that is sort of constantly shifting and evolving and I like the element of surprise, when things happen differently than you planned. Sometimes that doesn’t work and the ideas fall flat, but the theory is that one is trying a whole bunch of things and seeing what works and what doesn’t. A lot of the songs are faded in or faded out because they start earlier or go on longer, and I sort of decided that it was edited down to the best part(s), kind of like a director has different angles to make a bigger movie, or edits out certain dialogue or scenes to make it flow well or retain plotline.

Some of the songs are jam-based, meaning that there was some improvisation. The solo at the end of “Headphone Opus” is one, “Tut Will Have His Revenge,? the solos were all improvised. Usually I?ll do a take or maybe a few more, and just let loose in the key that the song is in and see what happens. I think that you can’t always be worried that there’s a safety net to catch you, you’ve got to be able to fall on your face at times and get better at spontaneity. And let me tell you, the recording device does not lie — I?ve learned a lot about timing and phrasing and other things, because you can’t deny what it is once you hit the record button, so you’d best get better at what you put into it. When I listen back to those improvised parts, it’s new to me as well, because half the time I don’t remember that I played that part (laughs).

My friend Chris [Nelson] played harmonica on “The Ruins of the Pyramids,? and that was second take, and he was just giving it everything, he was completely out of breath at the end. The first take was as good, we just didn’t hit record. So it has this off the cuff, bluesy psych edge to it, with a few bum or sharp notes in there, but I think that those add character. There was another harmonica line that was done first take, and it was mixed into “Stripped Ruins” at the end of the album. I was going to have both the harmonica solos in there, but thought it may have been too active sounding.
I throw out probably more than I keep, so even though I still have lots of unreleased material, the released stuff ends up sort of being a bit of a “greatest hits” from those sessions, where it’s something that I think still moves me at the end of it. There’s a lot of stuff where it seems like a great idea on paper, and then either just doesn’t pan out or doesn’t materialize. It’s important to know when to move on.

How did the Middle Eastern theme develop for the album? What specifically are you looking to express musically?

Some songs early on in the record were taking on a heavy Egyptian thing, and then I sort of ran with it and thought that it would make a cool concept album. There’s lyrics here and there about tombs and pharaohs and golden scarabs and whatnot. Some of the lyrics on the album are stream of consciousness — which is sort of writer speak for, “Hey I?m lazy, come to your own conclusion” (laughs). But I like the fact that they weren’t specifically laboured over in those instances, because not even I?m sure what they’re about, but they have a cryptic quality to them in that they always seem to come out being centered around greed or apathy or something like that, even if that’s not the intention. “Light at the Speed of Sound” is one, it’s not Middle Eastern influenced in the lyrics, but the music is. Something like “Obliteration” or “Ode to Snake Charming” is just really psychotic, fuzzed out harmonic scale guitar lead type stuff without lyrics, it fits into that musical theme even if there’s no lyrics or vocals.

Is it a lyrical concept as well as musical?

I was also reading about King Tut and some of that stuff. There was actually the theory that Tut was murdered, as he was the last in line for his bloodline to the throne, and there was speculation that there were common people vying for the throne, so it got to be a pretty crazy period. It’s a really deep topic, but the song “Tut Will Have His Revenge” deals with that, that other tombs were robbed, and that his was one of the few that was left untouched throughout all these years, that the curse got or scared away looters. The lyrics are hard to hear, but they were sort of meant to sound like they were being announced down a tomb or something — veiled and weird.

The “revenge” was also that his name and history has survived, whereas the people surrounding him aren’t remembered. In a weird way, it sort of deals with a time when monarchy was the original rock stars… gold, riches, looked up to by millions, godlike. In a way, pop music filled that void when royalty/monarchy no longer really ruled. To put it in perspective, when someone like Michael Jackson dies, you have all of these people who are lost, you know? When people look back at our civilization, they’ll see pictures of Anna Nicole and Elvis and Michael Jackson, Cobain, Hendrix and people like that (laughs). The hieroglyphs will be the National Enquirer or something. I?m sure that MJ‘s got a gold lined coffin (laughs). James Brown probably did. In a way, we’re seeing a lot of deaths of major rock stars, and we’re seeing a lot of mortality in something that seems immortal. The creators eventually die, but rock and roll never dies, you know? Totally clich?, but true.

What defines an ?opus? for you?

Something epic, grand, far out, risky. I like songs that are titled the way that they sound, too. I think that a certain overall sense of mood or key, combined with the right art and album jacket can still make a difference.

Compare Desert Opuses to Night Songs. Sound-wise, how do you feel your approach to High Watt Electrocutions changed from record to record?

Night Songs was about seven years of sessions, so that was another greatest hits kind of thing in a way. As a result, there was a lot of different sessions and frames of mind that I was working under, and there was no real intention to release anything, but it ended up sounding pretty good, so I thought that it would be of interest to the obscurist, non-mainstream music types. I was originally working on some mellow instrumentals at first, and then decided to turn the fuzz and amps up and do something that I didn’t hear in my record collection — a more metallic version of Spacemen 3; less garage-y, more metal, more paranoid. Loop sort of did that, but not as apocalyptic, I think. Night Songs was way in between genres, and it took more patience, it was more demanding. Desert Opuses is shorter by about 30 minutes, and did away with some of the more friendly psych stuff for something that’s more continuously haunting and dark. I also sort of wanted something that was a little more immediate.

What is Winnipeg like to live in? Is there something in the landscape or the area in general that inspires you to create music like this?

Hmm. Winnipeg is cool, but the thing is, we’re so isolated from every other major city. It’s an 8 hour drive to Minneapolis, and it’s a day’s drive east to Toronto. Here, you sort of have to create what you want to hear or see, because we’re so out of the way for touring bands. We still get quite a few bands through the clubs, but from the US, most bands skip us and play Fargo or Minneapolis and then head back towards Chicago. I?ve seen a lot of bands live and die by trends here, too. The cool thing about here is that, being so far away from most of the other big cities or the hubs of activity, is that by the time trends hit here, you know that they’re on the way out in whatever bigger city or area. We’re usually the last to pick up on big selling trends in music or fashion or whatever… you know, the kids I went to school with only got into the cutting edge bands when they were on the majors, not when they were on Sub Pop or SST or whatever.

Another thing about the scene from here is that for this sort of music, it’s nearly nonexistent. Even around here, High Watt is an anomaly, because I didn’t do it to fit in with any sound or scene or what was popular here. I’d like to tell you that there’s this big wave of weird heavy psych here, but the artists that I think I have the most in common with, are the ones that I still feel different from. But there’s a few bands here that are really great that are doing different things. Bands like Suicide got buried in the New York punk explosion, and to me, they were probably the most punk, but they’re also one of the most enduring, too, and had a longevity that didn’t come from being courted in the big signings or hype amongst the underground bands of that time. Not fitting in has its advantages, too. As well, we’ve always had a good arts scene here — or enough government grants to sustain non-mainstream arts.

Another thing is that the landscape here is pretty much green open prairie fields in the summer and a really desolate and cold place in the winter. Apparently, it’s the coldest place in the world that has a population over 600,000. There is some bitterly frozen winter days and nights where you have to find creative ways to evade boredom… watch movies, paint, listen to music, create music, etc. We have nice summers where you can just walk down the street or go to a park or whatever, but on the coldest days here in winter, no one in their right mind really wants to be outside. On those days, there’s usually even barely anyone out skating on the hockey rinks, it’s too cold for them to be out and being active, because. I’d sing about wheat fields, but The Guess Who have already done that (laughs), so I?m singing about the desert and believe it or not, not too far out of Winnipeg, we’ve got this desert in the middle of the Canadian Shield. You’d think that it’s just about mounties and hosers and igloos, but there’s a desert, the Carberry Desert. Look it up or Google it. I used to go there as a kid, and literally, it’s this big sandy area in the middle of what’s otherwise corn fields and whatnot. So in Manitoba, you’ve got deserts, white sand beaches, and other stuff that’s kind of like different places in one place in the spring, summer and fall, and then this barren white wasteland in the winter, which provides a change of scenery and mood, I think. The winter definitely affects people’s moods. Maybe some of those changes in seasons influence the record. We have a lot of open space around here.

How is it writing by yourself as opposed to with a band? Do you find it more satisfying to create on your own? Would you ever be able to work with contributions from others?

Writing with others can be awesome, if you’re on the same page and you’re pulling together towards a common goal. I?ve been in various local unknown bands throughout the years. But they can also self sabotage by not taking it seriously. One thing that I always had trouble finding, was people willing enough to at least believe in their music to get it out there and tour and release records. Some guys have awesome skills but don’t get along well with others. Other guys are the best guys you could imagine, personality-wise, but they can’t play well. Some guys have the skills and personality, but no gear or transportation. Other guys have great skills and personality, but don’t take the music thing seriously. Everyone moves at a different pace, and not everyone is exactly the same, and you have to find a good common middle ground to agree on most of the time.

For me, High Watt has been more about creative freedom rather than just a one person type vision — it’s always been meant for a group (hence it being named like a group instead of one person) — but the thing is, I?m always recording and pushing ahead and putting in insane amounts of time into it, where it ends up being my stuff, anyways, where it inevitably feels like a cover band to other potential members. It’s pretty much a full-time job away from my day job, if you factor in all the smaller things too — label stuff, promoting, etc. It would probably get boring to some members to sit through as much recording and mixing that I do, but I do it because at the end of the day, I?ve accomplished something and there’s something tangible there. I?m slightly uncomfortable with the role of leader, having to tell people no or be the bad guy sometimes (laughs). Ultimately, someone has to lead though.

That being said, there’s a few guests on Desert Opuses here and there, and I love what they did. Collaborations can be great. The right musicians can push you further, and I?m all for that. I?ve learned a lot of cool things off of other players through the years, techniques, riffs, style, etc.

Of all the effects used on Desert Opuses, do you have a favorite particular sound? What on your pedal board could you absolutely not live without?

Good question. I like fuzz pedals a lot, there were a whole bunch used on the record. I think that out of all of the pedals, the ones that I couldn’t live without would maybe be reverb or fuzz. Or maybe a good overdrive/ boost. I like my Keeley Time Machine a lot.

Describe your writing process. In writing, how are the songs expanded? Once everything was done, did you have a specific album structure in mind?

Different songs are written in different ways — some revolve around a drum riff, others a guitar riff and so on. Oddly enough, some of Desert Opuses is partly inspired by urban sounds, or noises in every day city life, you know, sometimes there’s a conglomerate of noise or cars honking that creates some sort of noise or bigger rhythm or something.

Is it a matter of building and adding elements as you go?

Definitely. Usually the vocals are added last after I try to put into lyrics what the song is maybe saying, instrumentally. That’s why about half the record is instrumental, I love instrumental music and don’t think that vocals always have to be on everything. Most rock lyrics and vocals are just kind of about making noises that fit. Once that’s done, I?ll usually come up with a few composite albums when I have enough songs — I?ll sequence them in a manner that flows well, and a lot of times, it’s back to the drawing board. I?m my own worst critic. Creatively, it’s safe to say that for most artists, they get attached to a certain song, it becomes your baby for awhile and like every parent, you become blind to some of its flaws. I go through a lot of remixing, a lot of re-sequencing. It’s important to let it sit for a bit, maybe a day, maybe a week, and then come back to it with a fresh mind. It’s easy to focus in on certain things when you’ve been at something for a while — listening fatigue, etc — and there’s been tons of things where it became super obvious that I wasn’t paying attention to it at the time.

I write and record super fast, most songs have the basics of the drums, bass and guitars written and recorded in an hour or two, which has its downsides, but more often than not, I like the spontaneity and it keeps the performances a bit loose and with an error or two here and there. Then I build layers on top of that either at the time, or later. Some songs like “Headphone Opus” have, I think, 37or 38 tracks — layers and sublayers of things that are all there, but not necessarily discernable. I like the music to be kind of overactive and cluttered at times — things trying to compete for dominance. It sometimes is hard to figure out what to focus on because there’s tons of parts. In that sense, the mixing and remixing works great because I?ll try different things and different textures and choose a mix to put on the record that best sums up what I think the song is trying to accomplish or convey.

How do you know when a song is finished?

That’s kind of a tough one, because different songs require different things, and unless every song sounds exactly the same, there’s some variation that has to be treated separately from the other songs. Sometimes it’s like, “Fuck, this is just missing something and I don’t know what it is,” and I?ll step out for a coffee or read or do something else until I figure out what it is, and most of the time, I figure out what it is or create something that fits. Then there’s the problem sometimes of adding a bit too much to something, and I have to be honest with myself as to what I?m looking for and what the song needs. Sometimes it’s way too paranoid sounding, or too optimistic or too, you know, it makes you feel something that you didn’t expect, and sometimes that works and sometimes it doesn’t. You need some flaws and things that aren’t absolutely perfect — the trick is to be satisfied enough with some of the flaws, but not unaware of them enough so that everything becomes good, just because you did it or thought of it or whatever. I know guys who never release stuff, and the important thing to realize is that eventually, you are going to need listener feedback and a reaction to your art, so that you can react to that. If it’s even just crappy demos, it at least gives you something for people to opine on and for you to improve on.

A lot of times, I think that the song is finished after I mix it, but there’s been times where in the master, it just doesn’t translate — drums are too loud, guitar part isn’t loud enough or whatever. I?ve learned a lot more about how good mixes and good masters coincide with each other, because the balances of things sometimes seem right until you get to the master stage.

What do headphones have that speakers don?t?

Headphones, well, you can turn ‘em up really loud and not offend your neighbours (laughs)! It’s a great way to get acquainted with a recording, because one thing that I noticed when I started really listening to recordings on headphones, is that there’s a lot of stuff that I was missing. The thing is about your regular stereos and especially boomboxes with speakers that are a foot apart or whatever, there’s no separation. It’s one big conglomerate of sound. If you go back and listen to your favorite ?60s and ?70s recordings — Sgt. Pepper?s, Led Zeppelin stuff, Stooges, Floyd, etc. — there’s all this crazy stuff happening in specific speakers, maybe a drum is in one speaker and the vocals are in one and they’ve got the reverb on the vocals in the other speaker channel. Having weird spatial panning was one of those things that I wanted to find out how they did it. It’s not a huge revelation in one way, but in another way, it is — everyone pretty much pans everything up the middle channel nowadays, because it will sound the best on radio and it will have the most power. But using the stereo field, you can sort of have sex with people’s ears (laughs). The music industry tried quadraphonic sound, but that was too complicated and too expensive of a setup for people. But two channels still allows a lot of possibilities.

Do you have plans for the next album? Have you started writing yet or are there general ideas of what you?d like to do conceptually?

Yeah, the next one is pretty much loosely done. There’s a few albums done, but as is the case when I get down to really analyzing what I like and don’t like about the stuff, some of it will make the cut, some of it won’t. The idea for it is to be a concept album about the Bermuda Triangle, as I?ve been reading about some of the craziness that’s happened around that area. It’s another perfectly chaotic, mysterious thing to write about (laughs).

High Watt Electrocutions on MySpace

Official Page

Sure enough, as Settee promised, a listen to Desert Opuses (Introspection Records) — the second release from the Winnipeg songwriter/multi-instrumentalist/producer under the High Watt Electrocutions moniker following 2007?s Night Songs — through even the dingiest of headphones proved that the tonal richness and layered density is best experienced at close range and ridiculous volume. The ringing guitars of ?Slow March? that follow the distinctly Middle Eastern tones of ?Ode to Snakecharming? feel like they could eat your head whole and launch you on some psychedelic journey into the rainbow colored belly of a giant lizard. Like a scene out of some acid cartoon. Like Queens of the Stone Age gone spiritual.

Desert Opuses delivers what the title offers, which might be its greatest accomplishment. Not being familiar with the landscape in Winnipeg, I?m assuming it?s not the same as Death Valley, but Settee (with a host of guests) harnesses a dune-climbing aesthetic that knows it?s best to travel by night. Layers of acoustic guitar, vocals, Moog and other noise shift in and out, producing a wash that is positively engulfing. Even on the instrumental ?Obliteration,? which is one of Desert Opuses? most down to earth moments, the vibe of moonlit psychedelia is palpable and one can dig a tunnel into the sound itself and come out somewhere different each time.

Of course, ?Headphone Opus? is an appropriately rich listening experience that lends credibility to Settee?s liner notes suggestion and the feeling of just how well planned Desert Opuses was to begin with. A highlight of side B, Settee brings the bass up front and lets it ride shotgun for a big sky trip down the empty road ahead. Piano, keys, moaning vocals and more make it so that there?s so much life in the recording it?s hard to think of it as an homage to a place so desolate, but the affected musical ecosystem is nonetheless impeccably pulled off. The minor chords throughout keep a consistent exoticism and Middle Eastern spice in the sound, and even as ?Tut Will Have His Revenge? launches into its noisy and chaotic finish, the overwhelming calmness is left unbothered. Settee fades into the riff-then-organ excursion ?Evilution? and closes with three minutes of Moog and harmonica interplay on ?Stripped Ruins.?

His pairing of elements gives Desert Opuses a fresh sound in an otherwise well-established genre, and while the album is mostly unconcerned with the traditional songwriting tactics to which much of desert rock strictly adheres, an engaging balance between high artistry and worldly tact is struck that remains unblemished no matter how far out Settee goes sonically. And to be fair, he goes pretty far out. Desert Opuses will have a sound too complex for some, but plenty of heads will find their minds willing to be expanded by its journeying tones and unfolding grandeur. Here?s to it.

High Watt Electrocutions on MySpace

Official Page