Interview: Álvaro Domene
The full interview
Back in February's The Black Market, we ran a profile of Álvaro Domene. I thought the conversation with the multi-hyphenate musician was so intriguing, I wanted to post the full interview transcript.
Before that, though, let me point you towards Standards, the new album from Domene and frequent collaborator Álvaro Pérez. It's out now via Iluso Records, and, in typical Domene fashion, it's an absolute brain-buster. If you're into the truly avant-garde side of jazz and guitar music, it’s well worth your time. We get into it a little bit in the interview, but the take on Mancini’s “Days of Wine and Roses” is one of those sublime moments when experimental music also hits you straight in the heart.
Domene on the release:
We are donating 100% of the sales of the record to fundraisers through Operation Olive Branch @operationolivebranch, which are organized to directly support Palestinian families victims of the ongoing genocide.
Have a listen, buy the album and/or donate to the fundraisers directly and send us a screenshot of your donation. The higher your donation the more download codes for high resolution audio files we’ll send you of Iluso releases of your choice.
OK. Interview time. And, if you want to stick around, I've got some news below.
In an interview with Guitar Moderne, you discuss your background on guitar. Your mother and grandfather played while you were growing up in Carabanchel. You picked up the instrument at around 10 and focused on it at 14. You started writing music and forming bands. A few questions from this period:
In a different interview with El Intruso, you talked about how the guitar first made you feel when you were 5 or 6. Do you still get that same feeling? How has it changed over time?
Yes, I still get that feeling. The sensory experience that I mentioned in that interview has naturally evolved and matured throughout the years but retained the same core center. When I was a child, the vibrations transmitted from the guitar itself onto my body, and later, the addition of the amplifier pushing air in the room felt soothing, really exciting, and incredibly mysterious, which made me fully committed to it and obsessed right away.
My brain still processes the sensory input in the same manner; however, now, as an adult with 25 years of dedication to the craft, those sensations have deepened. Now, the connection to the instrument and sound, in general, feels as both an extension of my central nervous system and, without intending to be pretentious, as transcendental as the universe using my being in a state of flow as a vessel to organize sound, space, and time.
You list an impressively varied set of early influences. How did you come across these artists?
I was driven by my own relentless curiosity and obsession with different musics and gained awareness through a combination of a friend from high school who was older than me, people from different scenes in Madrid [where I grew up and went to lots of concerts, festivals, etc.], music/guitar magazines, late night MTV [remember that? Good music on…MTV?], early online forums, etc. I was a sponge and wanted to hear everything that I could find, so I would always be following the serotonin trail left for me by art that shook me to my core at an emotional and intellectual level.
Regarding the early bands that you formed, did any of them record? Is any of that available?
Not the early metal bands. We were not ready to record, so I'm really glad we didn't. There's some music from my time in London when I was a music student that I believe might be on Bandcamp, and it's an interesting document of a time that was important to me as I was developing as a musician and young adult. I made a record with BigRedYellowTruck, which was an avant-jazz ensemble led by trumpeter-composer Geoff Bartholomew, and also with Big Sur, which was a jazz metal trio I had with Dan Mays on saxophone and Chris Packham on drums, both also friends and members of Geoff's band. I think I was…21-22 years old when we made those. We were quite green, still in school, but super eager, serious, and committed. There are some good compositional ideas in those, and I have good memories of fun times gigging around the London scene in 2007-2011. Right after that, Gran Masa would be the first record worth mentioning, which was in 2012 and featured Mike Caratti on drums, Álvaro Pérez on alto, Sergio Mena on bass, and myself. That was our first release on Iluso Records.
You mention that you "needed some direction," which led to finding your first teacher. What were some important takeaways when you were just starting to get serious on guitar?
Thank you for this question. The first thought that popped into my head after reading it was the crucial aspect of becoming aware of WHAT it is that I should practice and study based upon my goals, preferences, and taste, then learning HOW to proceed with my practice once the materials were laid out based on my LEARNING STYLE and natural abilities or lack thereof. Now thinking of this, I recognize that I arrived at these realizations on my own, though, because most music teachers and institutions, in my experience, simply attempted to force the material onto me with little to no regard for what I just stated. When those questions clicked for me, the path and methods forward became extremely clear, at least when it came to furthering my dedication to the instrument and music creation, though the same method is applied to any area of my interest, whether it is getting better at mixing records or studying the history of political struggle, for example.
At the moment, I'm not teaching music as much as I used to, but still share these ideas with students as the very first things that they should consider for themselves, as I truly believe that self-awareness, artistic and otherwise, can provide the tools to build the path that helps you cut through institutionalized oppressive practices and other awful dogmatic habits and trends in music education that can really alienate music students to the point of quitting, or worse.
Do you consider your music experimental, or is it just a natural exploration of sound based on your influences?
When I started composing music in what would be considered a "disciplined" way [which for me started at the end of my time in London and after I had written about 50 pieces in a couple of months], there was definitely an experimental component to it as a lot of the works that I wrote had in their inception, as a premise, the questions "What if I did THIS? Could THIS be interesting?" In more recent years, I would say since I made The Compass, I abandoned that as the main part of the process since my method evolved pretty drastically as I grew musically, technically, and as a human being. From starting with those questions, my process evolved to hearing the majority of the piece or concept in my head and working on turning that into sound and extending it when necessary. Hearing music in my head was not new for me, but I don't think my confidence was strong enough, nor were my skills at the level they needed to be to transmit it outside of my mind in a way that I considered successful.
All that to say now, I would tend to say that my work is not experimental because I am not actively testing a process or concept to then evaluate an output and judge whether or not it works. That might be a byproduct of the work that can be analyzed after the piece or record is done, but I tend to hear compositions and sounds in my head at a high level of completion and detail, so the challenge is to transfer those into sound waves so that I can share them and, by doing so, also make room in my mind for whatever comes next. Something that I love is that during the process of recording a piece that requires me to learn new skills, whether it is working with granular micro-sampling techniques or intricate melodic work on the guitar, I always discover new sounds and strategies that I hadn't heard nor considered, so that is when the experimental side takes a more prominent role, as I make sure that I explore those happy "accidents" to the best of my abilities since, sometimes, they can blow my mind even more than what I had heard in the first place. Then, all those newly discovered spaces or techniques become part of my language and sonic imagination, and this accumulative cycle repeats.
Because this is ostensibly a metal column, I have to ask: How does metal factor into the music you're making?
I never really considered myself a "metal head," but the music of certain metal bands was really important to me, especially growing up, and through listening and learning some of that music, I acquired certain sensibilities, both abstract [attitude, risk, conviction] and material [specific techniques on the instrument, sound considerations, gear, etc.] that became a part of my musical personality and which are applied to everything that I do, whether it's a metal-derived project or not.
There are certain aspects of performing ultra-intense, loud, and highly technical music that I think are likely only achievable, as an instrumentalist, if you spend time working in metal music that features those elements. Incidentally, I think that's why most "jazz rock" or "jazz metal" groups out there sound like cheesy '80s fusion to me, because the performers tend to be jazz musicians who are attempting to play loud and tricky material, but they, in my opinion, and for the most part, are not even remotely aware of the macro and micro strategies inherently applied in great metal and which make that music blast you in the face and punch your heart in total catharsis, like the many nuances that the picking hand of a competent metal guitarist has, for example, which can turn a flat riff into a chainsaw or freight train. All this to say that metal and punk, not as styles per se but more so as an ethos, are part of my vocabulary, so when music requires a certain level of intensity and sonic insurrection, that part of me is pleased to come out and burn it all down, I just never think of it as "oh well, time to play some metal riffs now," I actually never think of this, it's well-ingrained.
What was the impetus for founding Iluso Records with Mike Caratti?
It had always been an aspiration for the both of us to have our own label, given that we were inspired by artist-run labels like Incus, Screwgun, Tzadik, Skirl, Ipecac, etc., and the artistic autonomy that their artists appeared to be able to retain in their process.
Back in 2012, Mike and I put together and recorded this quartet in Madrid called Gran Masa, which I mentioned before. After it was done, we contacted a huge list of labels and basically ended up deciding to release it ourselves through our own brand-new label given the mediocre nature of the offers that we got. We put together a website and started working on the distribution and promotion of that release. Eleven years or so later, we are planning our 46th or so release. We are a very small label but have a loyal and supportive audience.
For those unfamiliar with Iluso, the catalog focuses on exploratory, creative new music derived and informed mainly by the fertile traditions of jazz, avant-garde metal, free-improvisation, Western contemporary classical, and electronic music. Our process always starts with the question, "Does this need to be out in the world?" If we are in agreement, we will do our best to put it out.
The Compass, recorded with Colin Marston, became your breakout album. Why do you think that album connected with people?
My guess is that, at the time, very few people had attempted to make that type of record at that level of consistency and focus among its moving parts. I'm talking about a live and mostly loud atmospheric metal-sounding solo distorted guitar album containing the abstraction and risk-taking of free improvisation and noise plus the harmonic and rhythmic sensibilities of jazz and modern composition, and a soundscape spontaneously established by the creative use of delays and live looping devices. There are precedents, of course, but they don't sound nearly as monolithic, in my opinion. Colin did a phenomenal job capturing it. Of course, I also got lucky to get some favorable reviews from popular media sites/magazines that helped spread the word, which was and still is undeniably important as I am pretty obscure and have no publicist.
Regarding The Compass's composition, you said to El Intruso [this is via Google Translate], "Part of my vision for this album was the application of certain serial composition techniques in real-time, which allow me to produce and generate a whole piece spontaneously. I practiced the process so much that when it came time to record, I closed my eyes and didn't open them until I felt like I had enough material. It was the most organic album I've ever recorded to date. All the sounds of the album were generated by me in real time. People ask me, and no, there's no overdubs, it was all live." Is that still your general process? How has it changed over the past five years?
It is. It has been evolving, refining, and expanding every time I've made a new album, but the same core process remains. I could go on for hours about this, but will give you a couple of examples.
One aspect that has been augmented and furthered forward significantly is the emphasis on time linearity manipulation as it relates to form. I often hear melodies and other musical events simultaneously happening at different tempi, range, direction, stereo location, and correlation to each other at both the micro and the macro level, resembling the self-replicating nature of fractal maths at different magnitudes of perspectives. What this entails, for instance, is that the same melody might take the form of a full five-minute piece but also occur in one single instance and anything in between, and also be manipulated in different ways [pitch transposition of many kinds, tempo, retrograde, granular, rhythmic displacement and mutation, etc.] while retaining the structural codependency of all the iterations of said line and its inner cells. Melodies can become a web of decentralized musical cells that have an interdependent logic and structure.
Another example is my focus on the orchestral aspect of my solo work, specifically the aim of perceived size, impact, and dimension of the music as you listen to it live or through speakers. I work really hard on crafting a sound that comes across as huge as it possibly can be while retaining crystalline detail, making full use of the stereo field as much as possible, aiming for three-dimensionality in my guitar sound by creatively using several types of delays, LFOs, and mid-side processing, deep mixing, among other techniques, which contribute to a listening experience through which the audience might distinguish the width, depth, movement and height of the guitar as if it was some kind of electric and synthetic orchestra.
I was absolutely floored by 2022's Not Arbitrary, especially just how extreme and in my face it was. The liner notes describe it as "sonic mayhem," which, yes, totally. I think you describe it as "AI Derek Bailey meets death metal machine guitar," which, again, totally. But what pushed you in that direction?
I appreciate the question. I'm very glad to hear that Not Arbitrary left that impression on you. The "AI Derek meets death metal machine guitar" was kind of a quick joke description that I sent as a text to my friend Ed Keller [who wrote the liner notes and has also designed some of our recent and most stunning album covers] when I talked to him about the record and it was a funny oversimplification though it makes sense, so he added it to the liner notes. I would now take back the AI aspect of it since there are technically no machine learning models there. It was all done with a few guitar pedals.
What pushed me in that direction was, in short, a sensorial need for contrast. I had just finished mixing and mastering the second Zodos album [duo with the great Álvaro Pérez on saxophone, and more of a contemporary classical/chamber music/avant-garde jazz project] and Torsion [the first record I made of guitar and drum computer-sampler and which had some, what for me are, mellow and ethereal soundscapes] and immediately after I was done with them I started hearing this dry and intense sound in complete aesthetic opposition to those records, and it needed to come out. Extreme rhythmic and pitch angularity without sacrificing precision, emphasis on sonic proximity effect, momentum manipulation, deliberate fracture, and a process of robotifying my guitar sound were the ingredients that my subconscious mind put in the front of me as an itch that needed scratching. Once I managed to get the sound the way I wanted, I recorded the album in one hour in my home studio, sometime during the holiday break in December of 2021. No overdubs and very minimal editing took place. I'm quite proud of it.
What motivates you to keep pushing the boundaries of your music in general? Is there any fatigue involved with fostering that kind of creative restlessness?
Thank you for these questions; they are thought-provoking, and we could discuss them for hours, so I will try to be as concise as I can. I will begin by saying that, as someone who has been battling depression and anxiety for over 20 years, this music is the magic that keeps me alive, almost literally. I don't need motivation nor inspiration to continue making music, never have, as this is not only much more than what I love and I've trained my mind and body to do, but also, I experience music as a constant presence and flow of ideas, always in my mind whether it's in the front as the main process with which I'm engaging or whether it is in the back of my conscious mind, where my brain seems to continue problem-solving and coming up with new things to explore for me to transfer into sound and develop further.
The fact is that I do this work because I simply love it; it's who I am, and I must do it. If I weren't able to create, play, and document music, I would suffer such a level of emotional dysregulation that it would likely end me.
On a lighter note, I also get bored of music really quickly, and I'm musically self-indulgent but hate the idea of repeating myself, so once I document something in what I consider a satisfactory way, I move on to the next project and rarely look back.
The real fatigue [besides actual physical fatigue that I still deal with thanks to Long Covid] and frustration that I experience comes due to the socio-economic pressures of being forced to exist in a ruthless capitalist nation-state that doesn't value life, human and otherwise. Under that premise, how will music and the other arts be valued? I staunchly reject the notion that art is a mere market commodity and encourage everyone to reclaim its true purpose, which is to challenge, inspire, and help catalyze the necessary moral transformation of society as a whole.
Let's talk about these new albums. Collisions, as the title implies, has these sections where skittering beats crash into chunky, almost chuggy guitars. What was the background of the composition process?
Collisions and Contradictions represent the natural evolution of the concepts documented on Rapid Influx [2023]. The main difference is that while on Rapid Influx I worked with guitar and drum computer at once, as one instrument, on these two the process was altered. I recorded the guitar parts in their entirety as full takes and then recorded the drum computer afterward. Compositionally, Collisions is quite influenced by death metal but actively avoids as many cliches as possible, and I'm not talking only about the drum computer. Instrumental roles, flexibility of time, and multi-directionality of gestures, melodies and modular motivic blocks that get manipulated through the piece are some of the compositional elements documented in it.
I hate to phrase this question so tritely, but what were you trying to pull off with this album?
That thought doesn't spend much time in my mind when I'm approaching making an album, but I will say that I simply wanted to make the instrumental death-jazz-metal-inspired record that I wanted to hear at the time. Also, something that comes to mind after listening to the finished record and receiving feedback from those close to me is that I believe it might provide a different perspective and set of possibilities to those interested in approaching metal orchestration and arranging, especially guitar parts, and also as a take on the expansion of the possibilities of guitar and percussion-centric sound design in a death metal inspired context. Avoiding fast blast beats altogether seems scary but I suggest that you try. Sound can really open up and make room for other types of interplay amongst the instruments, like a hocket-based counterpoint, while retaining the ferocity implied by that type of classic drum figure.
Contradictions is a different side of the same coin. How does this album intersect and differ from Collisions?
While Collisions is, to me, a metal album, Contradictions has a different set of aesthetic choices when it comes to sound design, orchestration, and general mood. I think it's a bit brighter, there is more focus on melodic and harmonic development, there are a few tracks featuring a clean guitar sound, so I might also say it's "jazzier" than Collisions, and the percussion is really featured. I worked quite hard on that aspect.
Both albums come out of the same compositional and performance processes but the production choices are a bit different. Collisions is more unapologetically metallic, and Contradictions has more elements from so-called IDM and other experimental electronic musics, and of course jazz. They intersect at the point where I strive to expand on the possibilities of guitar and percussion-centric sound design using a lexicon derived from years of deep study and practice of jazz, metal, and classical music.
I'm fascinated by "Extinguish the Blaze." Can you tell me how this song came together?
Thank you, I'm quite happy with that piece, too. Besides guitar picks, fingers, springs, screws, reeds, and any other small objects that I can find worth using, I have been using a cello bow for over 10 years as I love string instruments, and approximating that sonority on the electric guitar, especially when distorted, can yield really interesting results as a LOT of otherwise unused harmonics are produced that way. It had been a while since I had used it on a record, and one day, I heard myself humming what became the main melody of the piece. I started singing it and asking myself which way would be the best for me to play that melody on the guitar and honor the haunting and melancholic atmosphere that it sets. It decided itself; it was time to get the bow out.
I recorded the guitar part through three delay lines. Two really short delays [Haas effect] provided an extra thickness to the core tone, which then ran into a long delay that I manipulated live while I played to create counter melodies. Then, I put together the drum computer-synth track and performed it live to the guitar track. The result is quite dark, hypnotic, and mysterious, and I really like it.
You also have Standards with Álvaro Pérez. How did you two connect?
We met in Madrid in 2011 right after I returned to Madrid from London, where I had spent some years studying music. I knew I wanted to work with him the moment I heard him play at a gig where a mutual friend had brought me to meet him. After that show, we set up a session to play and connected immediately. At the end of that session, it was evident that something special had happened in that room. It was magic. You probably know what I mean by this; it's much rarer than people think. Since then, we have been honoring, evolving, polishing, transmutating, documenting, and furthering that experience to the best of our abilities and possibilities.
We have released nine albums together so far and have seven more coming up, three of which I just finished mastering, including this one. The rest are in different stages of their production.
Besides being an extraordinary improviser and saxophonist, he is also a Kung-Fu medalist, which shapes his musical choices in very interesting ways, and I am very fortunate to collaborate with him so often. I highly recommend his new record, For Three Altos, which I produced. Absolutely stunning release which can be found on Iluso's Bandcamp.
I am also fascinated by "The Days of Wine and Roses," which feels like a unification of everything you're doing while connecting with the past. This might be a weird comparison, but Tyshawn Sorey said his standards album, Mesmerism, intended to "document my lifelong connection to the 'straight-ahead' continuum of this music." Do you feel like Standards is the next step in the continuum of this music, like this is just the next evolutionary step of these songs?
I'm happy that you felt that. Also, not a weird comparison at all. I have enjoyed Tyshawn's work for over 15 years and can definitely relate to that quote. Whether I feel that this album is the next evolutionary step of these songs, I will say that to me, it definitely is, or we wouldn't be releasing it into the world.
I have no idea how the jazz police will receive it, but honestly, I could not care less, especially given the fact that we are both really satisfied with it and, speaking for myself, even though I've been working on that music for 20 years, now is the very first time that I feel a genuine emotional connection to it, a fact that has opened a vortex of possibilities for this specific project. I'm very much looking forward to making the next one as well as performing live.
To Guitar Moderne, you said, "Interestingly enough, I find it quite challenging to find musicians who manage to successfully simultaneously utilize both refined improvisation skills and the said ferocity of heavy music." With the rise of bands like Encenathrakh, Kurushimi, and the extremely hard bop of Effluence/Tantric Bile, do you feel like that's changing? If so, what do you think is driving that change?
I do think it's changing a bit, for which I'm chuffed. As far as the reasons for that change, I think there are more metal musicians getting interested in jazz and improvised music than probably ever before, and they tend to be studious and committed people who are really hungry for challenging music that blurs the line between the strict intricate technical side of some metal music with the more live, spontaneous and usually freer time feel and abstraction of improvised music. I think there are also more open-minded teachers who see the value and welcome the idea of trying this way of approaching loud improvised music. It can be really really fun and unique to work in this area.
Encenathrakh are friends, and they're phenomenal improvisers. Kurushimi are a lot of fun; I like the record they made last year that Colin mixed. I will check out the other names you mentioned. I would also humbly recommend checking out Phonon's record Alloy [with Elliott Sharp, Colin Marston, Weasel Walter, myself], Catatonic Effigy [Colin Marston, Mike Caratti, myself], ADAPAR [Álvaro Pérez and myself], and dMu's Synaptic Self [Josh Sinton, Mike Caratti, myself], for those who are not familiar.
How do you feel about metal's current state? People complain that some genres, like death metal, are reaching stylistic dead ends, but I think those people aren't looking hard enough for new music.
To be honest, I haven't paid close attention in a while because I've been more focused on making music rather than consuming it, so I'm not qualified to give you a worthy opinion. I do agree with you and think that there is lots of incredible music being made today; it's just under the underground, so it can be a bit daunting to find the exceptional stuff among so much mediocre and self-referential music that is void of soul and authenticity. It's also always worth remembering that music and the rest of the arts, like any other fields in this society, are not a meritocracy, and lots of great artists never quite gain the exposure we might feel they deserve, while shit has the tendency to float, particularly so when backed by financial privilege.
This is a weird question, but is being out on the fringes of music ever lonely?
Not for me. I'm out on the fringes of other aspects of my life, too, so I'm quite used to it.
What's ahead for you?
I will be preparing for some shows with The Effects of Gravity [we are headlining at The Egg in Albany, NY, in April, which is quite exciting for us], continuing working on new music, also finishing a few recording projects with very special people like vocalist Sage Pbbbt, saxophonist Álvaro Pérez, drummer Scott Amendola, guitarist Ryan Miller, guitarist/designer Ed Keller, and electronic music producer User Friendly; also mixing and mastering records, and if things work out, Mike Caratti and I will be hosting some shows and workshops in Australia next year, which is very exciting.
One More
In the time it took me to put this newsletter together, the Iluso discography expanded with the release of Warning Bells, a collaboration between Domene and Tom Law.
Is it heady? Of course it is. The lead stream, “Stigmergic,” merges spider-esque guitar skittering with ‘photons spinning around your head’-style electronics à la Iannis Xenakis’s electroacoustic works. When the more legato leads kick in, you’re either all aboard this train or not. Naturally, I’m all aboard. It’s one of my favorite albums of the year so far. You can see the others here:
Other Stuff
If you’re looking for a quick rundown on some of the best live sets I’ve seen so far this year, you can find that here:
You also still have a ton of time to vote for the Metal Song of the Summer. You can find the form here: https://forms.gle/57sDtMKkagVL5DU66.
The form will be open until August 23.
If you’re looking for an overview of the concept, you can find that here: https://www.stereogum.com/2234654/metals-song-of-the-summer/columns/the-black-market/.
As you can tell from me sitting on the Domene interview since February, I’m still working my way through the backlog. Here’s what’s ahead:
Ophanim/Hunter Petersen profile
Vmthanaachth convo
Twenty best brutal death metal albums of the last 10 years
Another interview I can’t divulge yet running at the end of the month
Thanks for hanging out. See you soon.
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