The experimental wanderer returns…
After a year of exceptional, far-out escapades on Inspected, a cameo on Billain’s debut album, and a crucial remix of Haywyre just before Christmas, yung Vorso roams back into Pilot town like some wayward freaky cosmic drifter.
He barges through the saloon bar doors, slams his 20 gallon hat down on the bar, demands a glass of good old Kentucky red-eye and proceeds to tell a triumphant tale of interdimensional derring-do. It’s a yarn he’s been spinning since last week’s premier Constellation and will continue to spin until its full release concludes next week.
Five chapters deep, Wanderer is arguably his most elastic narrative to date. The scattergun ideas and springy sense of surprise he’s made his signature in recent years are more evident than ever, but the highs are more bombastic than ever and the lows go much deeper than he’s gone before. It’s another benchmark EP. As always, it runs smoothly which each track melting into the next and little sounds and themes appearing in each chapter. This particular touch hasn’t gone unnoticed among a few of his fans (even each EP has a link to each other) and it’s also a touch that once again reminds you this freaky drifter is in the same league as KOAN, Culprate and Opiuo in terms of his inventiveness, his turn of sonic phrase and ability to create entire universes within EPs.
Feb 3 will see the full universe revealed. Then, and only then, will our wayward cosmic campaigner pick up his hat, down the rest of the red eye, make some strange profound but unintelligible comments and drift back out of town… We grabbed him while we had the time.
Wanderer, eh?
Yeah I like a wander. Maybe more of a rambler. I do love a good walk.
Where was the last place you rambled?
I went to Swanage. I used to go climbing on the cliffs there when I was younger.
Oh what like free climbing? Daredevil, eh?
No I’m not that brave! All on ropes. It’s weird; I’m shit at heights up to where the fall would kill me but after that I’m quite calm.
That is a bit weird…
Totally, when it’s three or four metres high, I’m pissing myself. But when get into the splatter zone I’m fine!
Your music takes me to the splatter zone. Your EPs are like mini suites, they blend together and take from the same palette…
I do like lining things up and joining the tracks together, yeah. Actually the end of the last EP does flow into the trailer of this EP. There’s been remixes in between but you can listen to all the EPs sequentially. The two singles before the EP also do that too. I’ve had people start to notice it and it’s been cool to hear that people have taken the time to listen to my stuff in and do it in a sequential way.
Yeah man. Do you limit your tools to create that cohesion?
Normally I don’t create a theme, but all these tunes create a spacey sci-fi feel so I did actually theme things on this one. When I’m working on a project, once it gets to about 70% I tend to group things together and decide some sounds between them which gives it that continuity. Also I tend to write the tracks on the EP all the same time and bounce between them, so ideas kinda bleed across the project a little which gives that sensation.
That must help with writers block?
It does. If I’m working on one tune and I quickly switch between, all the ideas I had for the other tune will end up in the one I’ve switched to.
Brain hack!
Yeah man. I had that with a tune on the EP called Mire because it’s a deeper one and all the rest were heavy.
That’s a key track because it lulls you into a false sense of security before the triumphant finale title track…
Yeah that’s what I had in mind. That idea actually started as a 140 tune but went into this kinda Memtrix-y, Noisia – Could This Be style vibe which I’d never felt I’d really done before so I wanted the tracks to build up to that.
So you knew where you needed to get to, but had to work out how to get there?
Yeah. There’s a loose narrative to it all. Constellations is about finding or discovering something, Skytrace is piecing it together, Heat Shimmer and Mire are travelling to it and Wanderer is arriving at it. So that’s the overarching theme to it. I’ve never really formed things to a storyline before, I’ve usually just gone off feelings but with this I had quite a clear plan.
You’re a visual man though, right?
Absolutely. I got into this music through film music. I love what Billain does with his tracks where each EP has so much information on each track. It’s incredible. The amount of detail he goes into. When I hear a new track of his I wonder what story he’s created behind it and when you find out it’s like a thesis.
You were on his album last year, Nomad’s Revenge. How did you link?
I was a fan of his before I’d even heard of Noisia! Fiber Twist and Total Darkness. They really grabbed me. Just properly evil, malevolent music. I’d never heard anything as powerful as that in drum & bass before. So I’d wanted to work with him for years. When we worked on the collab, the first thing I was doing when I was making my stems, with every division I’d think ‘what would Billain do?’ I thought what I had in the version sounded heavy and angry but what he sent back was fucking unbelievable.
Nice! So you’ve got a space EP, you’ve mentioned films. If you were going to space and you could only take three films, what would you take?
Oh man…. Well definitely Burn After Reading. Cohen Brothers. That’s my guilty pleasure film. I love the slow ramping up of ridiculousness in the way these characters interact. Unfortunate interactions between these idiots leads up to up such an amazing ending. It’s just incredible and the soundtrack is great. In the film they create these epic sounding build ups during very mundane moments. I love that contrast. Like someone signing up to a gym and this big brash soundtrack.
My second film would be Inception. Mainly because of the soundtrack. Again that was another film that got me into electronic music. it’s so intense. Hans Zimmer. I’ve watched that film so many times. It was part of that series of psychological surreal thrillers at the time, this one was the best.
Finally I’d take Interstellar. The soundtrack is just fucking amazing again. Funny thing is, when I first sat down to watch this I was like ‘wow space stuff and Hans Zimmer soundtrack, cool!’ The second time I watched it I was on the verge of tears because I’d missed so much of the emotional content of the film. I can watch this over and over again.
Great choices. It’s a pretty long trip so you can bring a series too…
Oh that’s easy. Mr Robot. I’ve just finished watching it and you can tell everything in the plot that changes has been planned from the start. Rami Malek is an incredible actor and, again, the music is sick. I’d definitely take this to space.
Sorted. So Wanderer is out fully next week. Then what?
I’ve got a collaboration with Clockvice up next month. Catastrophe on the new Inspected album. We wanted to create this post-apocalyptic ‘oh fuck!’ type of moment and went at it and threw everything at it. It ends with some big angry major chord action. We’re really happy with that. So that’s coming, then my next EP, Full Tilt will follow…
Vorso – Wanderer is out Feb 3 on Pilot
Wander with Vorso: Facebook / Soundcloud / Twitter
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