Exclusive: Stream the knotty new EP from the elusive Warp Records signee
The last time we spoke to mysterious electronic pioneer patten back in 2011, he had just released his debut EP, GLAQJO XACCSO on No Pain In Pop. Responding only in urls, our cryptic interview with the producer known only as 'D' gave little away, leaving us to decipher his coded answers alongside his music's dense, fractured strains. Now, after a two year recording silence, he's signed to Warp and back with the brain-meltingly good five-track EOLIAN INSTATE EP. Sputtering to life with opener "Aviary", it picks up where GLAQJO left off on its noodling trajectory of psychedelic beats. Next month patten is set to perform a live AV show at Tate Britain as part of Warp's new installation series with Jeremy Deller, joining Oneohtrix Point Never and Hudson Mohawke.
Dazed Digital: What's been happening since your last release in 2011? When did you start working on EOLIAN INSTATE?
patten: Too much to list. It is an interesting time to be alive. Life's a fleeting thing. EOLIAN INSTATE was never started and can never end.
DD: You've said live performance is a big part of your approach to composition in the past – is that still the case? Did you come at the EP with a different angle to GLAQJO XAACSSO?
patten: The live environment is a key site for exploring all sorts of ideas for every person there. A relatively open territory. So precious for that reason. The material that ended up in a temporarily fixed state on the EP is entirely part of the same continuum - reaching past way before the last LP existed and stretching out far into the future to times distant from all of our eventual deaths. Further forward than can be conceived of at this moment.
DD: What's the meaning behind the title EOLIAN INSTATE?
patten: It's an anagram of another title. So there's that and then the words themselves individually and combined. Plural semantic avenues within a causally-entangled range.
DD: How do you think your sound has progressed since GLAQJO?
patten: Vibrational disturbances move forwards in time, and outward in physical location.
DD: What were you listening to during the making of the EP and what were the main inspirations behind it?
patten: It wasn't made in that way really. It is the result of an ongoing sequence of unpredictable operations. It continues here – word by word, every moment.
DD: You've said in the past that you're interested in the psychological effects of music – what kind of effect are you hoping to engender through EOLIAN INSTATE?
patten: There are some that will be apparent on first listen – almost immediately, felt in less than seconds – others a little later. Then there are some that may never reach conscious realisation, if at all. That's not to say they won't be apparent elsewhere.
DD: Tell us a bit more about the AV Warp x Tate show next month?
patten: Energy.
DD: Any favourite producers or artists that have been huge for you this year?
patten: Everything on Kaleidoscope.
EOLIAN INSTATE is released on November 26 on Warp. A launch party will take place at The Shacklewell Arms on November 30.