Pjusk - The Ice Age and the Thaw

Together with his partner in crime Jostein Dahl Gjelsvik, Rune Sagevik has given life to one of the most emblematic experiences in contemporary ambient music. For almost ten years now, the two members of Pjusk have been among the shining lights of Taylor Deupree's ever-more vital and remarkable 12k catalogue. Theirs is a path that has tracked, step by step, the ambient-ward evolution of experimental electronic music through the 2010s — a project that, curiously, was only born once the two of them met, following some early, quiet solo steps taken in the Scandinavian techno underground. After a couple of records of pure laptop music and a gradual move towards so-called environmental sounds, 2014 saw the definitive metamorphosis of the Pjusk sound, thanks to a chapter of pure drone conceived alongside Christopher Pegg, aka Sleep Orchestra, and to what is probably the absolute peak of their entire career, “Solstøv”. It was on the occasion of the release of this latter record that we reached Rune via email, to have him tell us the story of this duo firsthand in a long, detailed interview — one that also holds a few surprises for the near future.

What does Pjusk mean? I looked everywhere but it doesn't seem to be a Norwegian word…

But it is! It actually has several meanings: as a verb it's very widely used by teenage girls, expressing the need to be cuddled. You'll often find tweets from girls saying things like “Somebody please pjusk my back etc”. Then it's also used as an adjective, where it has a meaning close to “sad”. What we were really after was simply a word that didn't “reek” of electronics from the get-go, if you'll forgive the phrase. Nothing that referred to the usual things like space, technology, inventions. We wanted something open to free interpretation, even if Norwegians often smile when they hear the project's name. Visually it works just as well: short and precise. It also sounds fairly Eastern European, don't you think?

It immediately made me think of something cold, I have to say! By the way, I've read that you often use an invented language for song and album titles… is that true?

We always use Norwegian words, but there is actually one exception: the album with Sleep Orchestra. There the titles are a mix of anagrams and… I think you'd have to ask Christopher (Pegg, ed.) where certain words came from. But we really are quite stubborn about sticking to Norwegian, it's almost like it's an intrinsic part of the project.

2014 was a huge year for you, with two of the best records you've ever made, in my opinion. How did these two projects come about?

We met all the artists who collaborated on “Solstøv” at the Storung Festival in Barcelona, in 2012. Small as it was, that festival had an incredible line-up, full of musicians who inspired us a great deal. We really hit it off with Christopher, Yui Onodera and Eugenio Caria (who runs the project SaffronKeira, ed.), and we decided to try doing something together. Chris was insatiable and brought us as many as ten tracks to work on right from the start: we felt we had to respond in kind. We soon realized we had so much material that we needed a dedicated release for our collaboration, so that's what we did. What Chris brought to us was above all a strong focus on drones and shifting soundscapes, sometimes quite dark but full of great ideas to develop. We can't say we took too many risks on that record (“Drowning In The Sky”, ed.), but everything evolved very naturally and we're happy with the final result. As for “Solstøv“, the process was much longer, built around a great deal of trial and experimentation. We knew we wanted to use trumpet as a starting point, and as it happened, an experienced jazz trumpeter had recently become Jostein's new next-door neighbour. So we started sending him some early sketches of our tracks – I think there were three, no more – and he improvised extensively over them, giving several different interpretations even of the same track. By the end of the sessions we had to do a lot of work to pull everything together, and once it was finished we sent it all to Taylor (Deupree, ed.), who relied on his magic Kyma (audio software used here in post-production, ed.).

Given that the two records came out almost simultaneously, I imagine you worked on them in parallel, is that right?

Yes, though “Drowning In The Sky” actually came together quite quickly, almost in one go. It took us no more than a week to complete it, and most of the work was done during our stay at the cabin in Valldal. That said, it's also true that quite a few of the tracks were already nearly finished.

… and the first track on “Solstøv” is co-credited to Sleep Orchestra: does it come from the same sessions?

Yes, exactly, although before turning to “Drowning In The Sky” we wanted to pick out from those sessions the tracks to use for “Solstøv”. Originally we wanted to include two, but then we decided to cut it down to one once the idea of a whole collaborative record took shape.

Even though “Drowning In The Sky” and “Solstøv” are quite different works, I think they share a much more organic approach compared to your past output… In what direction did you want to evolve?

I think you're at least partly right. Our first album, “Sart”, featured quite a few guitar parts across many tracks, played by our friend Tor Anders Voldsund. There were also other tracks with Erik Manshaus on flute, so I think the move away from organic sounds happened with “Sval” and “Tele“. On “Sart” we also used a lot of tape loops and vinyl effects, none of which had any digital origin, adding up to a deliberately noise-oriented intent – we probably had a bit of a crush on noise on that album! I remember recording while we were visiting New York, and especially a fan in my hotel room: it had an organic, almost human presence, and of course we sampled its sound on the record. The first track also had a lot of sounds recorded out on the city streets – the memory of us out there recording them is another vivid one.

Over the years your music has nonetheless evolved a great deal: on “Sval” and “Sart” you were true sculptors of electronic sound! How did you approach working with sound back then?

I actually think we've worked pretty much the same way on almost every record. The real change is happening now: we're pushing hard towards a way of making music that's more oriented towards the live dimension and centred on improvisation, because we want to build a genuine connection between our studio work and our live work. We're also recording a lot more than we used to, playing instruments and creating sounds in a way that might even seem a bit old-fashioned. The evolution you're referring to, I think, has more to do with our state of mind than with our working method! And our state of mind has obviously changed again and again over the years. In general, we've moved further and further into experimental territory, and we've come to understand what kind of sound we find most rewarding to work with – and, as a result, what kind of material is best suited to reaping what we've sown.

Who or what were your “models” when you started out?

We started out as huge fans of Biosphere and Future Sound Of London, even if today we're quite far removed from that kind of sound.

Within the “journey” you just described, what role did the focus on ice on “Tele” play?

When Alessandro's request came in (Tedeschi, ed.) to make an album for Glacial Movements, it fit in quite naturally. We had just finished “Sval”, an album focused on nature, particularly Norwegian nature, so “Tele” ended up being nothing more than a longer, deeper journey through places we already knew. It was as if we wanted to photograph details we'd only sketched out before, to look at them and reproduce them up close. We got a lot of beautiful analog sounds from an acquaintance in Oslo, the sound designer Frodebeats, and we should definitely also mention Joe Scarffe, who gave us a series of terrible, glacial sounds. That said, I don't think it was really a focus on ice itself, but rather on the conflict between man and nature.

Judging by the sound, I think your instrumentation has developed a lot from 2007 to today… Back then I imagine you working exclusively behind laptops, am I wrong? What other instruments do you use today?

Computers have always played a hugely important role in our music, and they still do. Neither of us has any particular skill playing instruments, so we get other musicians to help us get the sounds we need. We usually give them a sketch or a concept to develop and ask them to record something on their instrument, and then we use those recordings and turn them into something of our own. As I told you, on “Sart” we used a lot of guitar, and we also like piano and certain wind instruments. We think “Solstøv” shows really well how well the trumpet fits our sound…

You've also expanded your arsenal of samples and sampling techniques quite a bit – “Solstøv” offers plenty of examples of that. It's also a line of research that many artists on the 12k roster have pursued in recent years…

Sampling techniques are always evolving. We're always trying to come up with different solutions for capturing great sounds and noises: you can do it with traditional microphones, by putting them in contact with hydrophones, or by using other tools to generate sounds taken from the same situations, or the same objects. Pretty ordinary stuff for sound artists like us. We're also always looking for new techniques to filter sounds and create soundscapes that fit our music as well as possible. The sampler itself isn't particularly important, no more than anything else really: what matters is getting something that sounds exactly the way we think it should sound, regardless of the source that generates the sound. Sometimes we use simple hard disks hooked up to our DAW (Digital Audio Workstation, i.e. a set of software on a laptop for digital sound production, ed.), other times we choose the sampler because it lets us make the samples sound exactly the way we want them to.

Are you comfortable with the term ambient to define your music, especially now that you've completed an album of pure environmental sound?

Yes, why not. We're clearly rooted in ambient music, even if we like to think we're helping to enrich that definition with new meanings. But yes, ambient is the common thread running through everything we do.

As I mentioned earlier, a lot of musicians who experimented with microsound or digital experimentation in the past seem to have moved closer and closer to, almost “converted” to, organic sounds. Do you think there's a particular reason behind this evolution?

That's a particularly interesting question, because you're absolutely right, and it's happened to us too, in fact. We have several explanations that might make sense: maybe the first and most important one is that organic sounds tend to communicate a genuinely authentic palette of emotions: in the interpretation, in the performance, in the ability to convey organic qualities, pure feelings… We're very fond of synthesizers and their very particular expressive capacity, but organic sounds let us frame different angles within our creative process. And obviously we've only just started down that road – our next album will feature many more guest musicians and just as many instruments: drums, percussion, piano and a whole new set of brass instruments. So maybe we'll end up making country & western one of these days, who knows?

Talking a bit about your history, where and how were Pjusk born?

We started Pjusk in Bergen, Norway. In the very earliest phase of the project we had a third member, Stig Bø, a visual designer we'd brought on board because we wanted to work extensively on audiovisual performances, and who's also the author of our terrible logo. But that collaboration soon turned out to be rather empty and boring, so we decided to focus on the music and think about the visual side of things later. And actually it's only now that we're slowly starting to look at that area again, probably in a desperate attempt to create something live that goes beyond just showing our faces on big screens.

I know that in the past you tried your hand at music quite different from what you make today – I'm thinking especially of a couple of Jostein's projects, Circular and Neural Network. Is there a connection between those projects and what you are today?

We tried to put these projects aside, really. But obviously there are musical and artistic ties between that past and our present. Circular still exists and keeps producing ambient music records for the French label Ultimae... let's say "more commercial" ones.

And nowadays are you working individually on any solo projects?

Well, actually right now we're focusing on a brand new collaborative project, Jester Union – an anagram of our two names – which will be more rhythmic and percussive. We haven't fossilized our style yet, thankfully, and in fact we think it's really important to keep exploring as unique and personal a range of sounds and genres as possible. On the other hand, though, we intend to keep putting maximum focus on Pjusk.

12k has put out some of the finest experimental electronic works since the 2000s. In recent years it's arguably been going through one of its best periods, thanks in large part to the "ambient turn" we mentioned earlier. What do you think, especially in light of your long relationship with the label?

We're extremely proud of Taylor and his label. He's a true professional, and for us 12k is like a kind of home, whose music constantly inspires us.

What about two other wonderful labels you've worked with, namely Dronarivm and Glacial Movements?

There's not really much to say: great labels run by great people. Truth be told, before releasing for them we didn't even know them. We'd already collaborated on a few tracks with Bartosz Dziadosz (Pleq, Dronarivm's artistic director, ed.), and it was he who introduced us to the Russian label, asking us to work on a track for the "Aquarius" compilation. Glacial Movements was also unknown to us when Alessandro contacted us to ask us to release what would become "Tele". As soon as we realized that releasing for him would mean sharing a catalogue with people like Loscil and Bvdub, we didn't hesitate for a second to accept.

How do you build your live sets, especially with regard to the visual element we discussed earlier?

We have a fairly basic set-up, built around two laptops, or a laptop and an iPad, which hold the "skeletons" of each of our tracks, over which we improvise with a bunch of sounds and loops. We're planning a lot more improvisation for the future, maybe with other musicians playing alongside us. We did actually use some visuals in that very early phase I mentioned before, but these days we're not that interested in it.

Finally, what projects are you working on at the moment?

No projects other than the ones I've already mentioned, we're focusing on lots of collaborations with other artists from all over the world, some quite well-known and others less so – what matters is the quality of our dialogue with them. And well, that's about it. Oh wait, actually, there's Jester Union: something will be coming next year, in the summer!

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