AUN - From the Heart of the Cosmos

We'd been waiting for this moment for quite a while, as if something suggested that, sooner or later, Martin Dumais would manage to pull off a masterpiece. A milestone he had, in truth, come close to more than once before, probably without ever really trying: too eager was he to keep up his surprising level of prolificacy, which had him working on four albums at once. Then came, one after another, two pieces of news: a secure, exclusive deal with Denovali, and Julie Leblanc, his life partner, who had long since been sniffing out musical territory with her voice and who has now become, in every sense, the second member of what is by now a duo — so much so that Martin refers to it as “AUN”, plural. The fruit of this union took two years to arrive, materializing in that “Alpha Heaven” which places their names in the pantheon of ambient music of the new millennium, and of the 2010s in particular. Its release is the perfect occasion for a chat with Dumais about the upward arc of his career.

The word AUN has an origin, from French, but no real translation into English. I chose it because I felt it fit very well with what I wanted people to discover about my music right away, being a bit mysterious and not very descriptive. It's important that this mystery remains, so I don't think we'll ever reveal its origin…

So can we consider AUN your musical soul?

I live and breathe for music, and AUN is the vehicle through which I explore all the musical terrain I choose to. But in the meantime, it's as if it has started to live a life of its own and now possesses a soul all its own, which is why I feel that lately it's as if it were guiding itself, letting me sit back and enjoy the ride. Also, from record to record Julie's contribution has become ever more decisive, so much so that I feel I can say that “Alpha Heaven” is the child of two minds in equal measure.

Talking about your latest album, I'd say it's the most complete and elaborate of your career, but also the most serene and relaxed. Could it represent the culmination of a process that began with your move to Denovali?

Our albums for Denovali are made with a fairly wide palette, but never to satisfy the label's wishes or requests. Our music is gradually becoming more serene and relaxed because that's the direction we're moving in.

Can you tell us something about how it came together?

It's definitely the record that took us the longest, over eighteen months. Partly because we traveled a lot, and partly because we wanted to make it with a more direct approach, so it took longer than usual to have enough material.

With the music on "Alpha Heaven", did you want to aim for particular scenarios?

If you push past the drones and distortions, most of the tracks have a pulsing heart of pure melody: that's because I wanted the music to shine in its purity while also being surrounded by effects and noise. That was definitely the hardest part, because I really like to "darken" sounds...

Usually I let the music suggest the titles, and this time some of them came to me in Italian and Spanish, but they all come from my favorite Seventies sci-fi TV series, above all Space: 1999, which I watched a lot while we were recording.

Do you see your music as a language that transcends barriers and definitions?

We don't aim to transcend anyone or anything, we just want to create new things without imposing particular expressive or musical limits. That's definitely at the root of why our music often seems to come from other worlds and has a certain extra-terrestrial quality.

How did you get from the dark, almost drone-metal sounds of your early work to the mysterious, cosmic ambient of "Alpha Heaven"?

It's all tied to personal reasons, to the fact that when I started AUN I wasn't going through a particularly happy time, and that weighed on the dark character of the early records. But from album to album I began cutting back more and more on the guitar distortion I used, and widening the range of my electronic sounds, which led my music to explore far broader universes.

As Sun Ra said, "Space Is the Place". Some time ago I was watching a wonderful BBC documentary on the origins of kraut-rock, and one of the German musicians interviewed explained how, in order to create something new, they didn't look at English or American rock, but at the sky. That's something that holds true for me too, since most of my inspiration comes from dimensions that are neither tangible nor visible.

After your experience with Oral and a period working with several labels, Denovali has become the hub of all your recording activity. How did you end up bringing your music into their catalogue?

In 2010 I released material with several labels, but what happened afterward certainly wasn't planned: suddenly the number of labels available to release AUN's music shrank, so I sent some material to Denovali, who responded positively right away.

Has this new "marriage" influenced your music?

No, not at all, the changes have happened in an extremely organic way.

What equipment do you use to produce your music? And has your gear changed along with the atmosphere of your music?

Lately we've been using more and more virtual and electronic instruments rather than guitars, and for the first time on our latest record, even a drum machine.

Brian Eno, Edgar Froese, Chris Carter, and currently a lot of artists and releases from Blackest Ever Black, plus a few English acts like Emptyset.

How do you usually put together your live shows?

Over the last six years we've come up with at least a dozen different live sets, so it's hard to sum up. Certainly the interests and mood of a given moment are decisive factors in shaping a show.

Visuals play an important role. What's the relationship between them and the music?

Watching a concert of electronic musicians twiddling knobs can be pretty boring, so I think it's great to be able to offer a full audiovisual experience. Julie is the author of most of the videos, and just like with the song titles, she lets the music dictate the images to reproduce, in a process that ends up shaping a genuine sculpture of sound and images. We recently played in the United States with the video placed in front of us, letting ourselves be guided by the images instead — it's an interesting experience that we'll definitely try again in the future. For quite a while, incidentally, I was the art director of a magazine, and I apply part of that experience to our artwork and visuals. I try to stay artistically close to a form of minimalism, so that everything is clear and simple.

What plans do you have for bringing "Alpha Heaven" to the stage?

Well, it's a pretty difficult record to reproduce live, but we'll be working some parts of it into the shows on our upcoming tour.

Yes, we'll definitely be in Rome and Quarrata, but we also have other dates not yet confirmed. We'll know more soon...

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