Experimental artist SANTIPREECHA has been around for sometime now, releasing not one but two album's, with more material expected in different forms. Thus, he hopes to continue his explorations and bring his music and much more to a greater reach with lots more in-store. He chats of these matters all below.
1. Please tell us about the history of your band and its members.
Santipreecha is my beginnings as a solo artist, having come from a history of performing as a pianist and composing for film and fashion previously. Coming from a world where you served another’s vision, whether it was the composer whose work you were performing, or a filmmaker or fashion designer whose world you were creating music for, as well as wrestling with my own personal history, it took a long time for me to truly find a voice and figure out what I wanted to express on my own terms. This came together on my first solo album In a Forest Dark in 2019.
2. What’s the origin of the band’s name?
Santi, comes from my first name which means ‘peace’ in Thai, and Preecha was actually my uncle’s name on my mother’s side. He died in infancy so neither she nor I ever knew him but his story really moved me so I wanted to honor him in this endeavor as well. It means ‘to have the ability’ which, combined with Santi, carries quite a personal meaning for me.
3. Where is the band based out of and what is your music scene like there? Are there any local bands you could recommend?
I’m based in Los Angeles and as you can imagine there are a number of musical scenes here. For many years having worked as a film composer under another name, I’ve been more familiar with musicians and composers from that world but I’ve been immersing myself more in the electronic music scene here as well which of course hasn’t been too easy during this pandemic. There are a number of wonderful artists and musicians here, some of the ones I particularly love are the composer Katya Richardson, Deru, Trovarsi and of course the more known artists like Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross, Bobby Krlic (a.k.a. The Haxan Cloak).
4. How would you describe your style?
I would describe my style as somewhere between experimental electronic and underground techno, existing somewhere in between different poles, between my own Thai cultural heritage and growing up with English as a first language and studying Western classical music, between exploring music that is not routed in traditional scales and rhythms and the musical traditions we are familiar with today. I feel today especially we exist in between a multitude of influences and times and places and we fluctuate constantly between all of this as we grow and learn and change, so it feels only natural that I find myself most comfortable in this space in between.
5. What have you released so far and what can someone expect from your works?
My first album, In a Forest Dark, came out back in 2019 and it took several years of exploration and introspection to arrive here with my second album Round a Roo which comes out February 2nd. I released two singles from it a few weeks ago, Down the Path Laid With Petals and Rose-Tinted Spiral. I think the best way I’d describe my music is experiential, although of course all art is. But I mean it in the sense that my pieces tend to not follow traditional structures and forms but rather its own inner logic in the way dreams and memories do. When we dream for instance, or at least when I dream, there tends to be these juxtapositions of people and places from various points in my life that co-exist seamlessly in one singular moment and of course it all feels real and all follows its own logic until you wake up and realize they were all jumbled together like a mosaic. Music especially of all the artforms for me most resembles dreams and memory, which I believe are some of the few things that structure our lives internally, and I’m most drawn to exploring this in my music.
6. Do you have any new music in the works?
Yes, my next release after this second album will be an original score I created for filmmaker Guy Longstreet’s upcoming psychological thriller Black Jade. I’m also experimenting with some music which may end up being a new album or an EP or several singles, we’ll see.
7. How about playing shows and touring, have anything planned out?
No immediate plans of yet but I’ve been experimenting with creating a workflow that would best suit how I’d want to perform live and configuring a set based on what I’ve already released as well as what I’m working on now.
8. What plans do you have for the future as a band?
I’m hoping to continue my explorations and bring it into a space like an exhibit or performance space as I’m very interested in the spaces we all inhabit today simultaneously from the space on this screen, to our phones to this room, this city and how all these spaces exist simultaneously in a cut-up way; we’re constantly shifting spaces all the time it’s become second nature to us. I think there is a lot still to explore with how that affects music and 2 our perception of time which of course is integral to music and also how we experience it both singularly and collectively. I also have several collaborations in the works and am excited to be able to share and have a dialogue with other fellow musicians, artists and filmmakers.
9. Where can we listen to your band and where can we buy your stuff?
My music is out on all major platforms (Apple Music, Spotify, Tidal, Amazon Music etc.) and I plan to post upcoming previews and works-in-progress on my Soundcloud as well.
10. What is it you’d like a listener to remember the most when hearing your music for the first time?
I hope that they’ll be taken on a journey that is both visceral and emotional, though maybe not in the way they had experienced emotions before. That’s something I’ve always loved about art; that ability to feel something in a way you never thought you’d feel. I encounter this constantly with new and old music alike as well as other artforms and I hope that a listener might have a similar experience with my music.
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