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Inner space cadet >>
Sam Shalabi invokes a trippy trilogy
Mirror:
I noticed that the new Shalabi Effect CD has far less of the obvious
Floydisms and overt space-rock elements that were present on the first
one. It’s more of a trip through some creepy funhouse, room by
room, than a voyage to the Horsehead Nebula. Sam Shalabi:
In some ways, the second album is a mirror image of the first. It’s
another voyage to invite listeners on, but the mood of it is darker
and more difficult. There aren’t as many signposts. When people
think of psychedelic music and prog rock, they think of them as taking
you someplace that is cosmic and untainted by anything bad. This second
album has this element of something frightening going on, something
creepy. The intent was different, but that was our headspace at the
time. We wanted to do psychedelic music that didn’t take you someplace
easy, but rather someplace difficult and uncanny. There’s psychedelic
music that’s tranquil and inviting, that’s meant to be balm
and enhance a good trip, to take you on a positive voyage. This second
album, at least partially, focused on darker psychedelic music—and
we had particular people in mind, like the horror film music of Dario
Argento, Ennio Morricone and even Xenakis, a modern classical composer
who sounds to me like psychedelic horror music, very dark and foreboding. M: What
does the word “psychedelic” mean to you? SS: It’s material and immaterial. When you say “psychedelic,” half the population thinks there’s a certain amount of irony and cheesiness—“By the way, this is psychedelic. You’re supposed to blow your mind right here.” There’s strong historical and cultural associations—LSD, hippie chicks. If we use a wah-wah pedal and sing about smiling teacups, then people will go, “Oh, that’s psychedelic.” Which isn’t always the case. But if you listen to some modern classical music, like Xenakis for instance, it’s also psychedelic. To me, it refers to a process, to what the music is supposed to do, and that could be anything. It’s almost programmatic music, but the parameters are much bigger than, say, music intended for the coronation of a queen or something. It’s doing something that’s very specific, but the materials it uses are wide open.
Groovy garbage M: I was
disappointed by your other recent release on Alien8, On Hashish. I expected
ambient recordings of you giggling like a girl, telling jokes and forgetting
the punchlines, looking for your car keys and so on. SS: Oh,
that’s all in there. M: It’s
the most abstract of the three albums we’re talking about, the
most out-there but the least overt in its psychedelic intentions. I
understand it’s based on the work of this German guy, Walter Benjamin. SS: He wrote a book called On Hashish, actually a collection of writings, that came out in the ’20s. They were basically protocols for taking hashish, mescaline and opium. He wrote down his impressions while under the drugs. Being who he was, a historian and a pseudo-Marxist critic, his whole thing was the urban landscapes. He was a materialist, but at the same time was taking these drugs and recording his impressions. But not in a touching-the-face-of-God way. They were very urban and material impressions. I found it interesting that the writing itself is extremely psychedelic, very poetic, colourful and otherworldly writing, coming from a materialist who doesn’t have the usual drug model of going on some cosmic voyage. Benjamin wrote a lot about montage, stringing pieces of trivial materials together and seeing what patterns emerge. He was fascinated with the trivial, or garbage. The patterns of garbage—how did garbage speak to people in a culture? So the idea with the record was to do stuff that was very referential, yet somehow twist or blur it in some way that it becomes unfamiliar—unheimlich, I think he called it.
Invoking the
elder gods M: This
forthcoming Poseidon Council CD is the most openly prog-rock of the
three, what with your collaborator Billy Mavreas going on about manticores
and druids and shit in a fake British accent. SS: It’s
sort of a homage to that music, but almost a love/hate homage. Billy
knows that music very well, and has great affection for it. I don’t
really know it, I didn’t grow up with prog rock, but I’ve
always found it hysterically funny. At the same time, I don’t hate
it. When we started working on this, that’s what it was—a
very funny, playful thing, because we kind of took it very seriously,
but at the same time saw the ridiculous, humorous elements in it. We
wanted to go to extremes in both directions. M: I hesitate to call it a gag album—it comes close to parody, but at the same time, musically, you don’t necessarily go for corny reference points. SS: I don’t know prog rock, the tricks and signposts and gestures. If I did, we wouldn’t have got the same results. I was working on an idea of what I thought prog rock was. There are elements that, on paper, are really good and really bad. The good side is the huge scope. It depends on how seriously you take it. If you think the idea of invoking the elder gods is completely silly, then there’s a whole range of human history and experience that is equally silly. People have done it for thousands of years, and continue to. That’s what was appealing for me, the serious element. Yet at the same time, it allows humour in. Nobody is going to take invoking the tree gods completely seriously, but wouldn’t it be nice to invoke a tree god and have him dance around in the woods with flutes and maidens and unicorns, with little felt boots and bells and all that? : Shalabi Effect
CD launch, with guest
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The
last thing local guitarist/composer Sam Shalabi tells me, as I leave
his Mile-End apartment upon concluding this interview, is that I should
make it clear to all of you that he doesn’t do drugs. This is actually
relevant, because Shalabi’s currently responsible for not one but
three CDs of unusually freaked-out, psychedelic music.