Spaced Out Sounds
[Originally published in MILK Magazine Mar/Apr '15]
American-born, Vietnam-based electronic duo Space Panther (aka David Haimovich and Bryon Leonard-Ramsey) have been busy boys. After meeting in Saigon just short of two years ago, they have since performed all over the city, released their first EP Creature late last year (See Album Reviews) and are now working alongside local artists and musicians to produce Standpoint Theories, a live-performance animated novel, which tours across Vietnam in early 2015. We chatted to them about their experimental approach to production, the challenges of working within limitless confines, as well as the ups and downs of being an expat trying to crack, and simultaneously unite, the contemporary and traditional music scenes of a foreign country.
How would you describe your sound?
David: We refer to it as 'blissed out electronic music'. We just sort of go for making beautiful textures, sounds or structures that just make people feel this sense of bliss. In Asia especially, it gets pigeon-holed as ‘dance music’. Our music is not really danceable, but it could be in some sense...
Bryan: Its ‘pre-dance’… more like ‘sway’ music, you know? (laughs)
You use a lot of experimentation, but would you necessarily label it as ‘experimental’?
D. No, I wouldn’t call the music itself experimental, but the process of making it is. We both have a background in indie bands. Our tastes in music aren’t exclusively electronic so we’ve taken and put those indie influences and ideas more into the songwriting process. But then we take the idea of experimenting with sounds, samples and textures and apply it to how we create the sounds for the song, so it’s kind of like a mesh of a conventional songwriting and experimentation.
It seems like there is a bit of a pattern whereby people with indie/alternative music backgrounds later delve into experimental electronic music…
D: Yeh, I’ve thought about that too. I guess with alternative music, like metal or indie, if you get hooked on that at a young age, you always have that appreciation for the alternative. Then when you’re older, you’re more receptive towards some things that are potentially more experimental or ‘out there’.
Mainstream is like a defined sound of ‘now’. I know there’s always going to be exceptions to that rule, like I think Lorde is probably a good example of that. She emerged as a pop star but with an alternative sound. But that’s kind of alternative appropriation in a way as well – like, whatever alternative thing becomes the most successful will inevitably get filtered up and then watered down into the major pop sphere.
Is music labelling irrelevant then these days?
D: Yeah, I mean especially with how getting your own music out there works these days, how easy it is. You can completely define your own genre. And that’s what’s great about it – it’s sort of like, fuck definition – we’ll make our own definition and then define it through what we’re doing – it doesn’t matter!
B: Defining genres is slowly becoming outdated I think.
D: Yeah, Trends are moving faster than ever so the idea of defining stuff is becoming so transient, which in many ways is really refreshing. And how dominant culture is on the internet now, it’s shifting away from clear lines – everything’s becoming grey.
But then if music is that indefinable, and you can be that open in your stylistic approach, where do you draw the line with your own music?
D: Totally, that is actually a really tough point. Especially because we don’t use much analogue equipment. When using a computer programme it can be infinite. You can essentially never stop. I look at it like a learning process; when making electronic music, you're continuously learning how to do more things, so it’s hard, but really important to know when to step away from a piece. You need to realise when it’s good as it is, and it’s really in the audience’s hands as to how they perceive it from that point on. Then just kind of relinquish mental energy from it.
How would you describe your sound?
David: We refer to it as 'blissed out electronic music'. We just sort of go for making beautiful textures, sounds or structures that just make people feel this sense of bliss. In Asia especially, it gets pigeon-holed as ‘dance music’. Our music is not really danceable, but it could be in some sense...
Bryan: Its ‘pre-dance’… more like ‘sway’ music, you know? (laughs)
You use a lot of experimentation, but would you necessarily label it as ‘experimental’?
D. No, I wouldn’t call the music itself experimental, but the process of making it is. We both have a background in indie bands. Our tastes in music aren’t exclusively electronic so we’ve taken and put those indie influences and ideas more into the songwriting process. But then we take the idea of experimenting with sounds, samples and textures and apply it to how we create the sounds for the song, so it’s kind of like a mesh of a conventional songwriting and experimentation.
It seems like there is a bit of a pattern whereby people with indie/alternative music backgrounds later delve into experimental electronic music…
D: Yeh, I’ve thought about that too. I guess with alternative music, like metal or indie, if you get hooked on that at a young age, you always have that appreciation for the alternative. Then when you’re older, you’re more receptive towards some things that are potentially more experimental or ‘out there’.
Mainstream is like a defined sound of ‘now’. I know there’s always going to be exceptions to that rule, like I think Lorde is probably a good example of that. She emerged as a pop star but with an alternative sound. But that’s kind of alternative appropriation in a way as well – like, whatever alternative thing becomes the most successful will inevitably get filtered up and then watered down into the major pop sphere.
Is music labelling irrelevant then these days?
D: Yeah, I mean especially with how getting your own music out there works these days, how easy it is. You can completely define your own genre. And that’s what’s great about it – it’s sort of like, fuck definition – we’ll make our own definition and then define it through what we’re doing – it doesn’t matter!
B: Defining genres is slowly becoming outdated I think.
D: Yeah, Trends are moving faster than ever so the idea of defining stuff is becoming so transient, which in many ways is really refreshing. And how dominant culture is on the internet now, it’s shifting away from clear lines – everything’s becoming grey.
But then if music is that indefinable, and you can be that open in your stylistic approach, where do you draw the line with your own music?
D: Totally, that is actually a really tough point. Especially because we don’t use much analogue equipment. When using a computer programme it can be infinite. You can essentially never stop. I look at it like a learning process; when making electronic music, you're continuously learning how to do more things, so it’s hard, but really important to know when to step away from a piece. You need to realise when it’s good as it is, and it’s really in the audience’s hands as to how they perceive it from that point on. Then just kind of relinquish mental energy from it.
And how does the audience perceive electronic/alternative music? What’s the music culture like in Saigon and Vietnam in general?
D: Something that Bryon and I have been aware of is that a little more cohesion between Hanoi and Saigon could be a very good thing for Vietnam, because there’s lots of great things happening up here and down there, which together could be something huge. Of course, logistically, there are a few barriers: distance, plus culturally, they are quite different.
Bridging the divide between the more transient expat crowd and the more permanent Vietnamese crowd who are interested in new and interesting cultural happenings would also be a big step. Collaboration is always a good start. Again, barriers, like language barrier, plus the addition of cultural barrier is always a bit of a difficulty: the fact that expat communities often aren’t here for an extended amount of time and just different approaches as to what the end goal would be for certain projects. But I think more and more people are becoming a lot more open to collaboration.
Standpoint Theories is perhaps a good example of that. Can you explain more about that project to me?
B: Space Panther and Vietnamese folk singer, Le cat Trong Ly, are collaborating to write the music to an animated live performance of six traditional myths. Then we have two other musicians doing the transitional music between the stories. Emily, the director, is going to be dancing as the main character, and then we’ve got the animated story that a Vietnamese person illustrated and a French person is animating, which will be used as a centrepiece projected onto other screens all around it. So it’s going to be a sensory overload!
D: It’s pretty cool. We’re reworking these six Vietnamese folktales that are told to children since childhood, reworking them in a very modern sense and it’s this full collaboration of Vietnamese and expats that live in Saigon. At the end of the day, the music we’re making, we’re making it for us, but then we’re sharing it and other people are getting it. All the Vietnamese knows these stories here already so it’s not like were giving them anything new. It’s just a fresh perspective, a new way to appreciate something that’s very respected in their culture.
B: Hopefully that’s okay. Emily said maybe we’d want to apologise before the show, saying that this is just our interpretation, because they don’t really like you taking something that’s old and…not that we’re changing the story at all…just telling it in a different way.
D: I guess in a meta sense it’s sort of just really where Saigon is right now. Our illustrator is this super young guy who initially started out doing illustrations for video games. He heard the music for this and chose all these beautiful bright colours – and he’s colour blind! He just felt it.
B: It’s been a really heart-warming experience and educational as well. It’s been nice to have a new appreciation of the country I’ve been living in for the last few years and understand it a bit more.
At the same time, you alluded earlier to some conflict met by the expat, perhaps seen as coming in and trying to ‘change’ the culture that already exists there…
D: Yeah, even if it’s not super apparent I think what we’re doing here is not a fully accepted part of the culture yet. Vietnam is also rapidly coming into more and more wealth, so young people are being pushed towards going into business which means I guess that the arts aren’t seen to be so important – there’s no super negative stigma towards them, it’s just they’re not as important as becoming a powerful businessman and creating more wealth for the country.
And yeah, it’s a tough spot to be in as an expat too. I don’t want to feel like I’m culturally imposing in any way. But it has changed and expanded a lot, I think, because people have become more open to that idea of collaboration. It’s beginning to happen and younger, more forward-thinking Vietnamese are in the mind-set of collaboration and making their perspective be a little more global. It’s really cool to have been in an area long enough to see it developing in that way. That’s why we’re both really excited to see what the reception ofStandpoint Theories will be. We’re incredibly nervous because we know a lot of the time Vietnamese can be very set in their ways about the way things are meant to be done so it’s a bit of a gamble …
Bryan: Yeah, but life is a gamble!
Learn more about Standpoint Theories: gemdartiste32.wix.com/standpointtheoriesvn // Listen to Space Panther: soundcloud.com/space-panther-1
D: Something that Bryon and I have been aware of is that a little more cohesion between Hanoi and Saigon could be a very good thing for Vietnam, because there’s lots of great things happening up here and down there, which together could be something huge. Of course, logistically, there are a few barriers: distance, plus culturally, they are quite different.
Bridging the divide between the more transient expat crowd and the more permanent Vietnamese crowd who are interested in new and interesting cultural happenings would also be a big step. Collaboration is always a good start. Again, barriers, like language barrier, plus the addition of cultural barrier is always a bit of a difficulty: the fact that expat communities often aren’t here for an extended amount of time and just different approaches as to what the end goal would be for certain projects. But I think more and more people are becoming a lot more open to collaboration.
Standpoint Theories is perhaps a good example of that. Can you explain more about that project to me?
B: Space Panther and Vietnamese folk singer, Le cat Trong Ly, are collaborating to write the music to an animated live performance of six traditional myths. Then we have two other musicians doing the transitional music between the stories. Emily, the director, is going to be dancing as the main character, and then we’ve got the animated story that a Vietnamese person illustrated and a French person is animating, which will be used as a centrepiece projected onto other screens all around it. So it’s going to be a sensory overload!
D: It’s pretty cool. We’re reworking these six Vietnamese folktales that are told to children since childhood, reworking them in a very modern sense and it’s this full collaboration of Vietnamese and expats that live in Saigon. At the end of the day, the music we’re making, we’re making it for us, but then we’re sharing it and other people are getting it. All the Vietnamese knows these stories here already so it’s not like were giving them anything new. It’s just a fresh perspective, a new way to appreciate something that’s very respected in their culture.
B: Hopefully that’s okay. Emily said maybe we’d want to apologise before the show, saying that this is just our interpretation, because they don’t really like you taking something that’s old and…not that we’re changing the story at all…just telling it in a different way.
D: I guess in a meta sense it’s sort of just really where Saigon is right now. Our illustrator is this super young guy who initially started out doing illustrations for video games. He heard the music for this and chose all these beautiful bright colours – and he’s colour blind! He just felt it.
B: It’s been a really heart-warming experience and educational as well. It’s been nice to have a new appreciation of the country I’ve been living in for the last few years and understand it a bit more.
At the same time, you alluded earlier to some conflict met by the expat, perhaps seen as coming in and trying to ‘change’ the culture that already exists there…
D: Yeah, even if it’s not super apparent I think what we’re doing here is not a fully accepted part of the culture yet. Vietnam is also rapidly coming into more and more wealth, so young people are being pushed towards going into business which means I guess that the arts aren’t seen to be so important – there’s no super negative stigma towards them, it’s just they’re not as important as becoming a powerful businessman and creating more wealth for the country.
And yeah, it’s a tough spot to be in as an expat too. I don’t want to feel like I’m culturally imposing in any way. But it has changed and expanded a lot, I think, because people have become more open to that idea of collaboration. It’s beginning to happen and younger, more forward-thinking Vietnamese are in the mind-set of collaboration and making their perspective be a little more global. It’s really cool to have been in an area long enough to see it developing in that way. That’s why we’re both really excited to see what the reception ofStandpoint Theories will be. We’re incredibly nervous because we know a lot of the time Vietnamese can be very set in their ways about the way things are meant to be done so it’s a bit of a gamble …
Bryan: Yeah, but life is a gamble!
Learn more about Standpoint Theories: gemdartiste32.wix.com/standpointtheoriesvn // Listen to Space Panther: soundcloud.com/space-panther-1