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Name: A Winged Victory for the Sullen
Members: Dustin O'Halloran, Adam Wiltzie
Interviewee: Adam Wiltzie
Nationality: American
Occupation: Composers, producers
Current release: This interview, originally for German magazine “beat”, was conducted around the release of A Winged Victory for the Sullen's self-titled debut album. Their latest full-length Invisible Cities was published 2021 by Artificial Pinearch / Ninja Tune.

If you enjoyed this interview with A Winged Victory for the Sullen, the duo''s website is the best place to start your yourney into their music. They are also on Instagram, Facebook, twitter, and Soundcloud.

Or check out our previous A Winged Victory for the Sullen related interviews:

[Read our Dustin O'Halloran Interview]
[Read our Dustin O'Halloran Interview about his creative process]
[Read our Hildur Guðnadóttir Interview with one of their collaborators]
[Read our Nils Frahm Interview with another of their collaborators]
[Read our Christina Vantzou interview who provided the cover art of their debut]
[Read our Clarice Jensen interview]




Tell me a bit about your experiments in the first stages of the recording process, please: What were you working on and what conclusions did you draw from these processes?

The first encounter was in Berlin at Dustin’s studio.

We had done our very first collaboration some moths before on a version of his “Opus 43“. Just the the old tired format of my doing guitar treatments over his previously recorded piano. It was a challenge, but in the end it worked pretty well, and I like this version better that the one he released on lumiere. This endeavor led us to believe that maybe we should try to create something together, and in the same room.

The first song we wrote was “Requiem for the static king part 2“.



The whole process took about 30 minutes. It was quite overwhelming how quickly it came together. I created the main guitar loop, and we sat down at the piano, and just threw in almost a simple piano scale. It just totally clicked, I got that weird anxious feeling when you discover the meaning of life, and we knew from the first hour that we had something special.

Or at least special for us.

The press release mentioned you were specifically focussing on the lower-end frequencies at these early stages.

The low end we were initially seeking was accoustic. It was finding the right piano sound that could fit with all the layers of the guitar wash. the Bosendorfer, and especially later in the recording when we used the Fazioli were like finding the perfect color to match our knitted sweaters.

The bass on the Fazioli is so deep that it almost does not sound real. I can imagine some listeners will think we used a Moog or something?

The recording of acoustic instruments presents unique challenges. How did you record the instruments used on the album?

I never really saw recording music as a challenge. The challenge for me is the writing process. I have never had much reverence for details or the history of the recording process. I have no interest in gear talk / gear porn, so when I record I just kind of go for it, and I don’t care so much about what I am using. I only have a few good quality mics, and a couple pre-amps.

I remember when we recorded the initial piano in the grunewald church, Nils Frahm helped us book the church, and wanted to help with the recording. He put the mics up with Dustin, we were mostly using a pair of Schoeps mk4’s as the main pair plus some other room mics. Over the course of 2 hours they kept moving them around, and again and again, until one moment I became totally annoyed, because I thought it sounded better 2 horse before, and I just said leave it! And so he became annoyed with me too!

Of course you can argue for the rest of eternity about mic placement, and 98% of the time you can make the arguement that it sounds better. But I would pre-suppose that it does not necessarily sound better, it only sounds different. The most important thing for me is the take. as for as the extra musicians it kind of depended on the song. For the moments with Hildur it was just me and her in my studio in brussels. For the sessions with Peter [Broderick], Dustin recorded it at his studio in Berlin.

When we used string quartet we always recorded in a more professional environment with a big accoustic space, because the room sound is the most important thing for us, when you are dealing with multiple players.

How did the communication between you and the musicians work?

The other musicians we used were just the vessel to reach the end of the tunnel. We simply wrote parts, and they played. There was no magical collaborative moments, because they were just hired players, and sometimes that is best, because you can be more demanding for the perfect take.

But in the case of collaborating with Dustin for A Winged Victory for the Sullen, I would say as a whole it was the most evenly divided collaboration I have ever worked on. I am usually a very dominant control freak, and do almost everything my self.

Most people never know much about the inner workings of my recordings because I never put much in the liner notes. I really learned to step back and get away from the cozy comfines of my home studio. I always felt because of the snail pace at which I work, that being in a professional studio could be stifling, but it was the complete contrary. It was very inspiring, and just incredibly fun.

Already with Stars of the Lid, you've spoken about avoiding overly conscious composition. How would you describe the relationship between vision and intuition for this new album? In which way do deliberate actions and subconscious ones work together to create something artistically satisfying?

I am not sure about anything that you just rattled off except for the deliberate part. This word is something that Dustin and I talked about from the very begining of this endeavor. Every note on this record was deliberate.

I have heard so many poor collaborations lately that pit the piano juxtaposed with ambient textures. They all sound like one half played something and sent it to the other person to ad something to. And in the end it is so painfully obvious that there is no craft of song.

I have clearly been guilty of this in the past, as I have a long history with trading tapes through the mail. We took two years to create 45 minutes of music that was created by sitting down together at the piano or next to an amp, and drawing the map together that would lead us to the lost city of gold.

I suppose there is always something happening with our subconscious, and this is the obvious truth that is marveled at by all.

From your experience in various other projects as well as this one, what makes a good drone track?

I reckon one of the biggest misconeptions about minimal music through the years has been that it is too easy to create. Could not agree less. Unfortunately there is no guide book for this process. Only my ears and 20 years of failures in this department.

I believe I reached a momentary point of bliss around the time when I finished „Austin texas mental hostpital“ off of Stars Of the Lid’s Tired Sounds.



I am not one to generally blow smoke up my ass for what I am doing, but It is almost the pefect drone. It has the lift, the texture, the tone, and it’s in tune. Which for me ist he most important things. I have no love for any of this modern electronic atonal masturbation. Any tonedeaf clown can create somthing like that.

I have a tremendous respect and love for the pioneers of this artform like Prokofiev, Bartok, and Varese. They were my heros.

You mentioned that, thanks to the project, you “finally figured out what I am doing“. So what is that?  

I have a healthy disdain for artists that get lost in the notion that what they do is somehow more important than the rest.

I don't think that makes me some old fuck with an axe to grind, but who am I kidding? That is what it feels like most of the time. A Miss America contest. We have end of the year best of lists, which give some kind of evaluation of what is good and bad. Who cares what we think about their impact as it relates to the musical landscape?

Ultimately, we just make music. Our impact will not really be know until long after we are dead, and sadly for most of us, in less than 100 years or so it will be as if we never existed. So where am I going with this? I reckon I just have a really hard time taking myself seriously, and in the end music was never something I thought I was particularly good at. It always feels like a constant struggle?

Which maybe led me to say this, because in context to the Winged Victory record, it was such a joy and pleasure to create this. And there were times that I just completely knew where I was going with the writing, and structure. I am not sure if I have finally turned a corner. But I suppose I can only hope.