Celer - Earth, Caresses and Tears

If there's one body of work that has managed to trace a thread connecting the original conception of ambient music, its concrete objectification, and the most spiritual interpretations of the genre, it is without doubt the one signed Celer. A project born, first and foremost, as the fruit of the love and mutual passion of two young people, Will Long and Danielle Bacquet, ready to turn into sound the bond between them and their shared passions for music, photography, nature and philosophy. This is what Celer was for about five years, until the tragic and sudden death of Danielle, which left a void in Will's life and heart but not in his inspiration or his drive to create. The staggering body of work released under the Celer name contains some of the most intense chapters in contemporary ambient music, places where the definition of sound-based landscape painting has been enriched with new meanings, decisively intersecting the two historic approaches that have defined the last thirty years of ambient music. On one hand, the objective description of landscape, called upon to reveal its sensory poetics through its sonic world rendered via field recordings; on the other, illustration and evocation through melodies, harmonies, layering and drones capable of conveying the observer's inner impression, of building self-contained abstract landscapes, or of generating in the listener their own personal sense of suggestion. All of this has found common ground in the works signed Celer, reaching, in one of its most recent offspring, "Sky Limits", an application in which the true protagonist, unfolding in every molecule of the soundscape, is nothing less than time itself – and, specifically, the moment. A few months ago we reached out to Will to have him tell us directly the genesis of what was then his latest masterpiece. With a guilty delay, we are finally publishing the results of that fascinating conversation.

First of all I'd like to ask you, thinking about the title of your latest album: do you really believe the sky has a limit?

If you take the meaning literally, obviously not, since everything that exists in space is potentially part of the sky. I've always associated the idea of sky with everything above us, regardless of its distance. I chose the title mostly as a form of irony toward that old phrase "the sky's the limit", which obviously makes no sense if you read it with the intention of attributing a limit to something that doesn't have one.

What relationship is there between the title and the music of the album?

I think the connection basically lies in the reading of it: although the title seems to suggest one meaning, it actually has a rather different one. In the same way, the music can have many meanings depending on the listener's perspective — I certainly don't expect listeners' point of view to be the same as mine. My reading is just one of many possible ones, a part of a much bigger story.

It seemed to me that time is a key element of the whole work. Even the alternation of the tracks seems to mirror the way time enters and exits a person's perception. The field recordings feel almost like photographs of moments seen from outside, with the perspective then shifting inward within the stretches of drone. Do you think I got that right, in some way?

Yes, it can be seen that way, as a kind of alternation between sleepwalking and half-wakefulness. A bit like walking toward a moving train, where in fact all you manage to see is the countryside before and after it passes. A bit like our memory, whose recollections are made up of scattered images here and there, which, pieced back together, reconstruct a story. In reality, as in the album, these fragments are out of order. I didn't include the field recordings assuming they were particularly original or extraordinary, but simply as snapshots of a given space at a given time, literal recordings of what happens. And the music is their negative.

So could we read "Sky Limits" as a sort of journey through time from inside and outside consciousness?

Yes, I think so. I'd say within the reality of the present, rather than within time in general.

What inspired this reflection on the uniqueness of the moment?

I almost always connect my projects with the activities and time of my life, sort of like articles in a newspaper of my experiences. That's nothing new for me. Maybe in other works these descriptions are harder to find and grasp, or omitted for some particular reason. I focus on certain things in different ways and at different times, so there isn't always a link to specific moments. Sometimes it's simply recordings of random situations, as was also the case with "Sky Limits" — various situations even unrelated to one another. In the case of this record, I simply happened to be about to move, and the thought of leaving the neighborhood where I lived heightened my focus on observing and listening to it, making me notice details, small things that would certainly change once I'd moved. I stopped seeing them as useless or fleeting details, and wanted to capture them forever.

And as for the sounds, is this something you generated and processed intentionally, or something spontaneous and self-generating, as in the case of process generation?

Sometimes with music everything depends on where I find myself at a given moment. I almost never have particular directions I want to stick to, and that actually makes it easier to "steer" the process. Generally I record very quickly and very instinctively.

What relationship do you see between this work and the sheer bulk of your previous records? I think this is in any case a very different step compared to “Zig Zag“, its predecessor.

Stylistically yes, it's far from that album, but not so distant from things I've done in the past. In any case, I tried to make it as accessible and compact as possible - I could easily have filled 20 or 30 minutes with those loops, but it didn't seem necessary. If anything, I think I pushed hard on the mixing process, meticulously trying to extract the perfect sound. Usually I work up different versions of each piece and listen to them in different situations and spaces to choose the one I feel is most complete; this time the process dragged on even longer than usual.

More generally, it seems to me your sonic range has broadened a lot in recent years. Are you pursuing several paths in parallel?

Yes, often some of these "directions" exist for just a couple of experiments, while others tend to need more time and have more room to evolve. I think I have several strands I work on and that I often return to (always trying to improve, hopefully!), and I also think this is very important, because it lets you understand as clearly as possible what works and what doesn't, what deserves space and excites you and what doesn't. Sometimes it's hard to manage to express exactly what you want to express, but I think I've managed well enough, and over time it's certainly become easier and easier.

This might also partly explain the incredible number of albums you've produced over all these years... What drives this prolificacy of yours?

In the early years I basically released everything, absolutely everything I made, and I think that was part of a process of growth and learning for me. In recent years, though, I think I've increasingly learned to control the directions I follow, rather than carrying on tons of things in parallel. As for why there were and are so many, I can only say that I simply follow my inspiration spontaneously. Recently, though, I've tried to cut back on the prolificacy and focus even more on individual projects, concentrating on quality rather than quantity. I'd say it's much harder, but it also pays off far more.

I've always particularly loved your more landscape-oriented works, like “Without Retrospect, The Morning” and “Capri“, where, better than almost anyone else, you've managed to convey the spirit and the suggestions that landscapes and images transmit to you, rather than objectively describing their physical existence. Is there a particular process behind this approach?

I'll tell you, I'm not sure. Or rather, what I am sure of is that I've never forced something to sound "a certain way". Obviously I shape the sound so that it reflects a given idea, a feeling or an image, but in the end what comes out is simply what I do, nothing more. The moods and atmospheres, for instance, are a consequence of the result and are certainly not planned or thought out beforehand. A lot of people tell me my music sounds "a certain way", but they don't realize that's probably how it sounds to their ears, and not necessarily to mine or to anyone else's. I try to let everyone form their own interpretation, even if their personal circumstances might be quite different and distant from it.

Have you ever had a particular relationship with your homeland, its landscapes, its reality? Do you think this sometimes comes through in your music?

I grew up in a rural area of the American South, where there's a lot of history (good and less good), nature, and countless small things. My family and the nature around us have always been important sources of inspiration, as have various memories of trips to other parts of America, for example. That said, I've now been living in Japan for four years, and I think I made the right decision in leaving the States. That's another topic I plan to explore further, particularly regarding my relationship with America.

In any case, it seems to me you've always paid a lot of attention to everything surrounding your work. Besides the concept, the artwork has also always been extremely carefully done...

Yes. The artwork, the packaging, and everything connected to an album makes a huge difference. I'd say all of that is at least as important as the music itself. Only once did I deliberately avoid using artwork for my work, and that was the black vinyl series, five LPs with liner notes printed in black and black covers. Otherwise, without the right artwork and the right packaging, it's just not the same. Sometimes I've chosen images and shapes that worked well, and sometimes they haven't, but in any case I was always trying to give my music the best possible circumstances to exist in.

What instruments do you use to make music? Do you still happen to use any physical instruments, like synthesizers or workstations?

I use a lot of tape, FM synths and keyboards, and a lot of simple effects. I've never been interested in buying too many expensive instruments; I'd rather have a few things and use them respectfully. I'd never buy something I already know I don't need or would barely use. A lot of the gear I have is cheap, but it works well. I'm not interested in having a particularly well-equipped studio either - I don't use any monitors, and since I have no formal musical training, I'd say I don't even really know how to play an instrument.

How do you view this sort of battle between analog and digital in electronic music?

I think I grew up in a period when hands-on craft still mattered, which is why I prefer having jacks, cables, keys, knobs, selectors and faders — I don't feel comfortable with digital production techniques. I generally only use the computer for mastering and mixing, and even then I keep working with old software that's considered outdated by most people today. I just find software and plugins rather boring, honestly.

I've never had the chance to see you live — I don't think you've ever actually come to Europe. How do you find playing live?

When I lived in the United States, I tried a lot of different ways of building sets, and none of them gave me what I was looking for. I realized it was impossible to bring the spontaneous, direct approach I wanted onto the stage using a computer, but also that without a computer it was impossible to bring my sounds to the stage at all. When I moved to Japan, though, I started using portable players and cassettes, and since then things have gone a lot better for me. I try to build sets that are a bit like looking out of a window for thirty minutes: the scenery stays the same, but some elements within it keep changing.

Do you think this tendency of yours toward sonic contemplation can work live too?

A lot depends on the audience. In Japan, where I mostly perform now, the audience is always dead silent and completely absorbed, whereas the only memory I have of a performance in the United States is of the audience staying outside the glass greenhouse the whole time to smoke, while I played inside. I was there supporting another band — these things happen. But I do think a live show only works if the audience is in the right frame of mind. That can express itself in different ways: many people close their eyes, others lie down on the floor, others sort of "lose themselves," almost as if they were meditating. Other times I've wanted to add an extra element to the experience through projections: footage of a single scene, which ties in with that idea of looking out of a window that I mentioned earlier.

What will you be working on between now and the end of the year?

I think I basically have all the albums I'm releasing this year ready to go, so I'll mainly need to focus on actually putting them out. Then there are a few projects I'm wrapping up. First of all, a project built around CV (controlled voltage, an interface protocol between electronic instruments that predates the better-known MIDI, ed.) using the Roland MC4 sequencer. Using the MC4 as the sound source, I've been visiting some friends who work with CV to put something together together. Then there's an album for my label planned for 2016, again centered on loops and field recordings. I used that material in a show in Niigata, Japan, a few years ago, using cassettes and creating an incredible vortex of noise. Running it through my EQ, it felt like standing behind a waterfall. Finally, there's an album based on sound collage, dedicated to a Swedish town that was entirely buried by an avalanche.

My last question is quite personal, and I'd understand if you didn't want to answer. The Celer adventure began with you alongside Danielle, whose sudden and undoubtedly traumatic passing changed everything. How did you recover from that, and where did you find the strength to make music again?

I think continuing with music was actually one of the things that helped me get through those difficult months. When you experience the death of someone so dear to you, someone you shared something so big with, the only thing you can do is move forward on your own. Otherwise you risk getting lost in the past and losing sight of the future altogether. There are several reasons why I wanted to keep the project going. First of all, after her death we already had a few albums ready for release, albums we'd both poured so much into, and they didn't deserve to be lost. Also, from the very first minute, it never felt right to treat music as something that belonged to my past and could simply be abandoned. I still felt I had so much to express through it, and I was actually able to leave the past behind while keeping music in my present. You should always cherish and remember the past, but the past can't be allowed to dictate the future. Today, five years on, I'm married, I live in another country, and I have an eleven-month-old son. Things change, and everything always happens for a reason.

One last curiosity: you've never dropped the Celer name. Is there a particular reason for that choice?

We chose the name back then pretty much at random, but it fit. I don't think anyone expected at the time that it would become more than a fleeting project. Since then, I've almost never used any other name, and at this point, after ten years and having kept making music stylistically similar to what we made together, I saw no reason to change it. If I'd decided to start making acoustic music or deep house, I probably would have changed the project's name too. Even though it doesn't really mean anything in itself, it's a matter of consistency.

Ride the wave of great music

Add OndaRock to your favorite sources on Google Discover. Don't miss our reviews, milestones and latest news straight in your feed.

Follow on Google

Share on

This article is an English translation of the original Italian text by Matteo Meda, published on OndaRock.it. It was translated with the help of artificial intelligence, under the editorial responsibility of OndaRock's editor-in-chief, Claudio Fabretti.

Read the original in Italian · About the English edition