Kangding Ray + Barry Burns (Mogwai) = Sums

usagi · August 24, 2015

just discovered this. David Letellier aka Kangding Ray, and Barry Burns of Mogwai, have teamed up to make some music recently. mainly for the Berlin Atonal show, but they may possibly release their stuff as well.

I love KR and Mogwai, so this was exciting to find out about.

a snippet of the show:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mkBTMIbYp4Y

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At Berlin Atonal 2015, Kangding Ray and Barry Burns (from Mogwai) will showcase their new collaborative work under the name of Sums. They shared a few words with us about the project.

– How did you meet each other and how the idea of a collaboration started?

KR : I was commissioned by Atonal to create a new piece for this year’s edition of the festival. I saw this as a great opportunity to collaborate with someone evolving outside my usual context.

I used to play guitar in some rock bands before i started producing electronic music, bands like Mogwai were big influences, because they were doing instrumental music and deconstructing the usual rock song structures.

I felt collaborating with Barry would be a very interesting and natural move, a way to acknowledge these influences in my music, but also to explore new horizons, and where to go from there. Barry and i have a friend in common, so i knew how to catch him.

BB : A mutual friend of ours introduced us in Berlin.

– So your live will be premiered at Atonal. Would your collaboration have seen the lights without Atonal?

BB : I doubt it. My wife had already let me hear Kangding Ray in our apartment months before meeting David. His music was playing on our stereo/computer and I didn’t actually realise it was him until weeks later when I looked at iTunes.

KR : Probably not, the impulse was made by the Atonal team, they have been totally implicated since the beginning in the creation process.

– What will you present to us at Atonal ? Will you use the the amazing space offered by Kraftwerk building to show something you could not show elsewhere?

BB : We’re hoping to use the space as best we can without actually rehearsing there much, if at all. It will be a little experiment in a big space. To play somewhere like this is going to be a challenge and a lot of fun hopefully.

KR : The space is definitely a source of inspiration, we’ve been trying to find spaces in the music to let the sound breathe and listen to the Kraftwerk hall resonate, the Natural Reverb in that space is unreal.

We’re not trying to write and perform classical music : we use strings, guitars and percussion for their sound, the same way we use synthesisers, trying to blend them together into a single organic texture.

Our aim is to create some strong contrasts : the piece will be filigrane and emotional in some parts, and very heavy, loud and noisy in some other parts…

– Your musical background, even if we can find common elements in both of your work, is pretty different. Will this project be a mix of your two musical identities or a reasearch for a completely new sound?

BB : I think it will be a mix of our different disciplines but we’ll see when it’s completed. You never really know until everything is over.

KR : It will be a mix of course, but we’re also both trying to go somewhere new, towards the unknown.

We take this opportunity to try things out : sound-processing will occur in real-time and will be part of the composition : Strings will be saturated and grainy, guitars will go through tube compressors, and side-chained to the drum-machines for example…

– Mogwai is a group and Kangding Ray is a solo project. Is it the first duo experience for both of you ?

KR : For me, Yes, I think Barry has more experience with collaborations, right ?

BB : I did something a very long time ago but it never really took off due to us both having separate touring bands that worked constantly. I still have the demos and they’re actually not bad.

– Is it especially stimulating for you to play with someone else ?

BB : It’s great to work with someone like David. I enjoy the way he explains what he wants to do or how it should turn out. I guess that’s his skill in being a visual artist too….the ability to visualise. I’m very much trial and error.

KR : I tend to be a bit of a control freak, because i’m used to do everything on my own. Working with Barry forces me to think differently, to learn to listen, and accept the instability. But so far it’s been running very smoothly, we’re both very laid-back characters, we’re pretty easy, we just like good music.

We’ll see how it goes in the next weeks leading to Atonal, hopefully we don’t end up punching each other!

-How do you work together in the studio and how do you plan to interact during the performance ?

BB : We work mostly over internet, the way that Mogwai has done for years and we get together occasionally, more often towards the final months before the concert and then with other members of the small band.

KR : We have this shared server that we use to put the things we compose, bits and pieces, sketches, then from there we slowly build the composition.

On stage, this should feel like a normal band, everyone is playing together, Barry and i are composing, be we are not conducting, we’ll just play. Everything will be performed live, synthesisers, guitars, drums, strings… we brought some additional musicians with us. For now we have Merlin Ettore on the Drums and Percussions, and Robert Lucaciu on the bowed Double Bass.

– Are you planning to realease your work as Sums?

BB : I don’t know. If anyone likes it, why not?

KR : I guess we will record the first couple of shows, and if it’s good enough, we might release it in case someone wants it, but for now we’re concentrating on making a good live show, whether it’s gonna make a good record or not is still unclear.

– After Atonal, will you be touring with Sums? What are your upcoming projects?

KR : I don’t know too much about this side, i know there are some discussions for some shows in Europe, and maybe beyond. I think we have one other show in Italy confirmed. More will probably come, but this will be mostly selected, special events, we won’t embark on a 3 months tour on a bus, we’re both too busy with our other stuff for that.