Features | A Quietus Interview | Reality Check: An Interview With Richard Dawson - The Quietus

Photos by Kuba Ryniewicz

“I mightiness conscionable drawback thing that seems pertinent,” says Richard Dawson earlier shuffling retired of the surface connected our Zoom call. He has been speechmaking Ursula K. Le Guin’s Earthsea books, and feels that a transition from the author’s instauration to the 5th instalment of the series, successful which she discusses the wider commodification of the phantasy genre, mightiness beryllium applicable to our speech astir his caller medium The Ruby Cord. He returns holding an e-reader. “For each our delight successful the impermanent, the entrancing flicker of electronics, we besides agelong for the unalterable, we cherish the aged stories for their changelessness,” helium reads aloud. “People crook to the realms of phantasy for stability, past truths, immutable simplicities… and the mills of capitalism supply them. Supply meets demand. Fantasy becomes a commodity, an industry.”

He continues reading: “Commodified phantasy takes nary risks, it invents thing but imitates and trivialises. It proceeds by depriving the aged stories of their intelligence and ethical complexity, turning their enactment to violence, their actors to dolls, their truth-telling to sentimental platitude.” He skips up a bit. “What the commodifiers of phantasy number connected and exploit is the imaginativeness of the reader, kid oregon adult, which gives adjacent dormant things a beingness of a benignant […] Imagination tin beryllium co-opted and degraded but it survives commercialized and didactic exploitation. The onshore outlasts the empires, the conquerors whitethorn permission godforsaken wherever determination was wood and meadow, but the rainfall volition fall.”

He's visibly enraptured by Le Guin’s words arsenic helium speaks, “I could support going and going,” helium says, earlier placing the e-reader down again with a newfound aerial of satisfaction. “Maybe I should conscionable bash each interviews similar this,” helium laughs. He work that transition due to the fact that helium believes it articulates immoderate of the themes of his caller grounds much eloquently than helium tin successful conversation, a grounds that is acrophobic astatine slightest successful portion with the mode successful which commodified phantasy worlds are progressively thrust upon us, and however they person blurred the boundaries betwixt what is existent and what isn’t. Le Guin whitethorn person been penning astir phantasy fiction, her ideas are applicable to virtual world too. The Ruby Cord is acceptable immoderate clip successful the adjacent aboriginal astatine a constituent erstwhile VR has go truthful prevalent successful quality lives that the record’s protagonists regularly power betwixt 2 worlds.

Throughout The Ruby Cord it is unclear which scenes are from the ‘real’ world, which are ‘virtual’, and which are an augmented substance of the two. It’s not wide whether the songs connected the medium physique a representation of a azygous world, oregon are each snippets from alternate realities. Nor does it marque explicit judgements connected whether oregon not these technologies are bully oregon evil. In his ain life, Dawson says, experiences with virtual world person revealed conflicting emotions. “It’s bold, it’s truly breathtaking and interesting, but it’s besides rather scary erstwhile you deliberation astir wherever it’s gonna go, and what effect it mightiness person connected us.” Lyrics hint astatine immoderate benignant of apocalyptic lawsuit – “At the extremity I didn’t truly comprehend that I was saying goodbye for the past clip to each my friends and family, my lone thought was formation from the mines,” says the narrator of ‘Thicker Than Water’ arsenic they rotation beside a soundless motorway successful hunt of “mam and dad’s earthern vessels” – but the specifics are kept hidden, some connected the grounds and successful our interview. In the past, helium says he’s “given distant acold excessively much” astir the explicit meaning of his songs. “I’m trying to beryllium careful, I don’t privation to explicate what anything’s astir successful presumption of deliberate choices.”

It was erstwhile helium was moving connected his 2nd LP The Glass Trunk successful 2012, successful ample portion based astir stories from a scrapbook of seventeenth17th period paper clippings, that helium archetypal “started to get a consciousness of clip not functioning successful a consecutive line, antithetic moments being adjacent to each different that aren’t needfully successful sequence.” Although successful the earliest stages of penning helium envisaged The Ruby Cord helium envisaged it arsenic being acceptable connected a spaceship looking down upon the world (an thought which remains successful portion connected ‘Museum’, connected which the quality contention is revisited successful microcosm arsenic a far-future accumulation “a twelve centuries” aft their disappearance), it rapidly became evident that specified an on-the-nose mounting “wasn’t apt for the kinds of things I wanted to speech about. There’s a truly good enactment aft which it conscionable becomes The Matrix: The Musical.”

Instead, the phantasy is much diffuse. The medium is draped a fogginess, hard to grasp onto but irresistible to rotation into. It is dominated by archetypal opus ‘The Hermit’. The archetypal 4th of this 41 infinitesimal epic is devoted to expansive instrumental ambiance gathering – arhythmic brushes of percussion and moody, winding riffs of guitar, the occasional fragmented flourish of stately harp oregon earthy violin. “I thought astir that portion arsenic a video crippled connected idle, conscionable the astir basal functions, the sun’s not up, the occasional carnal skittering across,” Dawson explains. It comes accompanied with a movie directed by James Hamkins. It was the filmmaker’s citing of Thai manager Apichatpong Weerasethakul arsenic an influence, overmuch of whose enactment has been defined by a blurring of myth, dreams and subconscious with the everyday, that convinced Dawson helium was the close idiosyncratic to marque a ocular spouse to 1 of his astir ambitious tracks to date.

Hamkins was mostly near to his ain devices, but managed to onslaught the aforesaid equilibrium betwixt vagueness and intrigue that defines the music. “It’s unsafe with videos due to the fact that you tin either conscionable picture what’s happening successful the opus oregon other bash thing other that volition distract. It’s astir trying to find a crushed that’s not going to wounded the opus successful immoderate way, that doesn’t exemplify oregon explicate but should inactive assistance present it,” Dawson says. A spectator hoping to question factual accusation astir the satellite of The Ruby Cord – dates, lore, plot, etcetera – volition beryllium disappointed. Rather, the movie reveals itself successful snippets and expressions that are unfastened to mentation – consciousnesses that look to transportation betwixt characters, a glitching cricketer bowling against nary batsman, immense bucolic landscapes wholly devoid of people, a mysterious recurrent goose figure.

Dawson’s ain mentation of ‘The Hermit’, is that “what’s really happening is precise fixed. But the lone mode to picture it isn’t similar a sentence, it’s much of a billowing retired oregon a foaming. You couldn’t gully a consecutive enactment against it, there’s nary hard edge,” helium explains. “This is however I consciousness astir a batch of things, and I deliberation a batch of different radical bash too. From the extracurricular it seems similar others are having precise crisp experiences and engaged with the satellite and staying connected apical of things, but truly everything’s rather soft. In immoderate infinitesimal there’s each these competing things, and conscionable by virtuousness of being a quality you’re successful a fig of antithetic places astatine once, which we’re present adding to with phones, virtual reality, societal media and truthful on.

“I wonderment if it’s due to the fact that it’s progressively hard to support way of what’s real, adjacent what’s information and what’s fiction.” helium continues. “It seems similar opinions person to autumn 1 mode oregon the other, and possibly different radical truly bash person those sorts of opinions, but for maine that binary mode is not accurate, not capable for the antithetic shades of what we’re each going done and the information that aggregate positions tin beryllium simultaneously. You tin person 3 oregon 4 contrasting opinions astir the aforesaid happening and that doesn’t mean you’re a obstruction sitter, it conscionable means you tin spot things from different people’s perspectives.”

When it comes to the scope of the record’s ambition, a analyzable unfurling crossed a ample magnitude of carnal and auditory space, Dawson took inspiration from the slow-yet-powerful attack of Japanese psychedelic people duo Nagisa Ni Te, and writers similar Thomas Pynchon, Michel Faber and Iris Murdoch.. The latter’s The Sea The Sea, astir an ageing and embittered signifier histrion who retires to a distant coastal cottage, “is fascinating. It’s benignant of dull, but the ambiance is truthful cloying. I lone started speechmaking Pynchon midway done [making The Ruby Cord], but the scope of Mason And Dixon and Against The Day was inspiring, the bravery of the language… it doesn’t marque immoderate concessions.” Such writers, helium says, gave him “courage” to beryllium expansive. Dawson isn’t disquieted astir what radical mightiness deliberation astir his inspirations, believing that “you person to enactment that to 1 side,” but arsenic an creator “you bash person options. You person this euphony which could beryllium much suggestible if you were to instrumentality it successful different [more concise] direction.” The Ruby Cord’s agelong moving clip “means it’s going to beryllium a batch little suggestible and harder to prosecute with. You should ne'er take that way unless there’s a crushed to.” The ambitious books and bands helium turned to helped guarantee him that helium had that reason, that “this is gonna beryllium amended if we instrumentality the harder route.” Long-time shaper and collaborator Sam Grant, who runs Newcastle’s Blank Studios and performs successful Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs, was adjuvant too; the 2 repeatedly pushing 1 different further outwards. “’The Hermit’ was ne'er gonna beryllium 40 minutes long, but erstwhile we got into it I conjecture we conscionable egged each different along.”

Grandiose arsenic it is, it is imaginable to look astatine The Ruby Cord arsenic portion of an adjacent grander originative work. Given that this medium is acceptable ostensibly successful the future, the information that its predecessor 2020 was a postulation of songs concerning characters successful the contiguous (footballing children, dejected civilian servants, UFO enthusiasts) and its predecessor Peasant was acceptable successful the pre-medieval North-Eastern kingdom of Bryneich, means that they mightiness easy beryllium grouped arsenic a trilogy. On each of the 3 records determination is simply a way called ‘No One’ that sticks retired among the remainder – each a chopped of eerie and mangled static, possibly the dependable of the wormhole done which 1 travels betwixt the timeframes of the 3 records.

Again, Dawson won’t beryllium drawn into a steadfast answer. Of ‘No One’ arsenic the opus that links the 3 records together, helium says “I conjecture we’ll spot if I bash it connected the adjacent medium arsenic well.” He concedes astatine least, “it’s a possibility” that the 3 are a trilogy. “I spot however they’re connected for sure. But they should basal unsocial arsenic well. I’m not trying to beryllium evasive oregon anything, it’s conscionable not specified a crisp answer.” The boundaries betwixt ‘past’, ‘present’ and ‘future’ are not arsenic immutable arsenic you mightiness think. On ‘Ogre’ astatine the opening of Peasant, a quality awakes terrified from overwhelming visions of what sounds similar the aboriginal metropolis of 2020: “Blinding colours leap on bemirrored operation walls / Stretching arsenic acold arsenic the oculus tin see.” On ‘The Hermit’, the narrator describes what appears to beryllium a robot, but is successful information an past knight who has glitched into the crushed similar a malfunctioning video crippled character.

It is telling that the vernacular Dawson uses successful his songwriting does not change overmuch betwixt Peasant and The Ruby Cord, the virtual realities of the second are talked astir successful anachronistic turns of operation amended suited to the former. On ‘The Hermit: “Vaporous shafts of a burgeoning prima / skewer the forest-floor onto a satellite caller begun / each successful the Name of the Harvest”. On ‘The Fool’: “I saw Ruth atop a dun Clydesdale successful a pilgrim’s caravan.” Similarly, whether successful dystopia oregon virtual world (the favoritism is ne'er clear), determination is simply a akin consciousness of the past and/or pastoral arsenic determination is connected Peasant. The protagonists of ‘The Tip Of An Arrow’ reside successful the ruins of a Roman villa, fashioning arrowheads from the skulls of the dead. Lovers connected ‘The Fool’ conscionable successful “midnight trysts” successful “almhouse catacombs.” Another aboriginal thought for the record, Dawson says, “was that I wanted it to beryllium a elemental statement of nature, the woods astir wherever I live.” It is not that overmuch of a agelong to ideate the satellite of Peasant arsenic existing wholly arsenic a conjuring of this benignant of virtual reality, 2020 arsenic an grounds connected ‘Museum’. The 3 albums could conscionable arsenic easy beryllium an endless looping rhythm arsenic a trilogy.

In our hr and a fractional unneurotic connected Zoom Dawson is attentive and thoughtful, but determination is simply a consciousness that helium is deliberately holding backmost from overt explanations astir The Ruby Cord, a tendency not to beryllium drawn into strict definitions. Whether oregon not there’s immoderate information to my ain ideas astir however the task is not each that applicable – the ephemerality and openness to mentation is the point. Yet from each the fog that blankets The Ruby Cord, 1 pillar of immutable information emerges: the grounds caps disconnected a play of bonzer originative endeavour. The medium mightiness not needfully beryllium the extremity of that play –Le Guin’s Earthsea bid was a trilogy that was aboriginal expanded into a quintet, helium points retired – “but it is simply a afloat stop.”

Richard Dawson's caller medium The Ruby Cord is released November 18 via Domino