Getting Closer: Will Saul on CLOSE A/V

With the anticipation building steadily from the moment the very first bit of CLOSE tagged audio hit the web (via a remix of electronic outfit Little Dragon) the anonymity behind the project has since been dissolved when Aus Music boss, Will Saul was revealed as the driving force behind the highly conceptualised project packed full of high spec collaborations. Visually Saul has employed the Build Agency’s, Michael Place (also the designer behind Saul’s imprints Aus and Simple Records) who, through the project’s respective website and artwork, has created frontage of Saul’s latest audial vision which he himself describes as ‘future soul’. As such, the AV experience that is set to accompany the CLOSE live show is surely set to be unique: along with Place’s designs and incorporating the work of Silent Studios into the visual aspect of the show, Saul’s invited Al Tourettes to perform live and give a human aspect to the drums within the project. With the debut performance set to take place in Room Two next Saturday, we had to be the first to talk to Will Saul himself and get him to divulge a bit more on the intricacies behind the project. Can you talk us through the visual inspiration here, CLOSE already is being presented with a very strong aesthetic online and when you premier the show in Room Two next week it will be as a full AV experience? Well, the artwork for the web-site and physical products (CD/Vinyl) and the visual identity for CLOSE was created by Michael Place who founded the agency Build. He's a bit of legend in the design world and has been responsible for some amazing music related (and much more beyond music) artwork over the years - album covers such as Los Angeles by Flying Lotus is one that springs to mind - he also did a lot of the early Warp artwork - too much to mention but definitely go seek out his work. He's also been responsible for the majority of the artwork and the visual identity for both my labels Aus & Simple. The inspiration behind his artwork for CLOSE is obviously things that visually represent the word/meaning of ‘close’. Michael wanted to go down a photographic route with this. To be honest the visual possibilities of the word 'close' is the one of the primary reasons why I decided on this name for the act. 'Close' can imply physical intimacy and this is obviously the theme for the images on the web-site and will be for the album artwork but there will be some more abstract interpretations for the singles. The visual aspect of the live show is being developed by Silent Studios. I don't really want to give too much away about this yet but it will be based around beautiful/challenging/thought provoking visuals/lighting that will touch on what CLOSE means visually on many different levels. There will be an hours’ worth of exclusive footage and content filmed/shot especially for the show. Turning to the more audial aspects of the project, what is it about on a musical level? The feeling that I was aiming at capturing throughout the writing of the album was 'future soul'. I love the futuristic feeling of early Detroit techno - not just the fact that the music was all made on machines but the melancholic/introspective chord progressions combined with the machine driven funk created a quite a special end result and for me is the reason why this strain of dance music still retains its appeal. I wanted to capture this on the instrumental side of the productions but I also wanted to bring real human soul to the table with some songs and vocals. I also wanted to attempt to write an album that you could listen to as a whole and something that you kept discovering layers of details within on repeat listens. Whether I've achieved any of this is of course completely subjective but this was what I set out to achieve and perhaps why the album took best part of 3 years to finish. What’s the involvement of Al Tourettes in the project – he’s joining you in Room Two next month for your debut? Al plays the drums for the live show first and foremost. He also helped me get my head around using Ableton to reinterpret the album in a live context last year so has been really important in the early development of the show. We also wrote one of the tracks in the show together - which at this stage is exclusive to the show but we may try and release it at some point. !K7 are helping you present this project on their catalogue – what got you together with them? !k7 have always been one of my favourite labels and over the years have some released some amazing music so they were one of the few labels I sent the album to initially. Musically I think the album is a good fit with them. They were really into the album right from the word go and wanted to support me in developing the audio visual side of the project. I really got on well with the team at !k7 after some initial meetings and am loving working with them. So there’s an album release being planned, can you tell us more about it? Are there any more collaborators involved? There are lots of collaborations on the album (another reason for the name CLOSE) - I've worked with Scuba on the first single and October and Appleblim on a couple of tracks. My long suffering production partner and right hand man in the studio Tam Cooper must be mentioned at this stage as he's also the backbone of many of the tracks. I worked with Fink and his band at the early stages of development on a few tracks - getting together interesting live loops to send to the vocalists….Charlene Soraia on two tracks, Fink, Joe Dukie and Tikiman. It will be released in June on !k7 on CD/vinyl/digital. Will Saul will be both DJing and debuting his Close AV live set with Al Tourettes in Room Two this Saturday, for more info and tickets go here.