Mirror World - a look at 9 Reflections with Golden Living Room + Bathroom Plants
by: maki
What do you see when you look into the mirror? Look closely, and focus. Is it just a reflection?
I got the opportunity to chat with Golden Living Room (GLR) and Bathroom Plants (BP) about their new album 9 Reflections, releasing on Virtual Dream Plaza on digital, cassette, and dream crystal.
M: maki | GLR: Golden Living Room | BP: Bathroom Plants
M: So to start out, the new album comes out in just a few days, on Halloween. I notice you two have a handful of collab tracks out there already. Was this album a result of working on those, or were you working on this album first? How did the collaboration come about / who approached who, and why?
BP: It probably makes the most sense to answer the second question first. After having some small amount of success with my first album last year, I decided I wanted to set my intent on something bigger and out of my comfort zone. I wrote up a list of vaporwave artists who first got me interested in the genre as well as newer artists that had caught my attention over the last year, and started cold emailing people. Golden Living Room was probably the third person I emailed and the first one to respond.
GLR: Yeah, and at the time I wasn't looking for a collaborator necessarily, but more for someone to help me finish an album (in whatever way that may have been). Once I formulated that intent and put it in writing he emailed me the next day. The connection was uncanny and magical.
M: Interesting - so GLR you had something in the works, and you two then worked together in finishing it? And the other collab tracks, were those byproducts of the cold call?
GLR: I had the majority of the songs already started but then BP finished them. From the beginning he was sending me tracks to add to as well and we continued the rest of the album as a full on collaboration.
M: So the tracks BP sent, did those become part of the new album, or are some of those the tracks out on other compilations?
GLR: The album consists of a combination of our songs, but I would say there are more songs from me on the album. We continued collaborating with more of his songs and I wish they would have ended up on the album! One of the songs is not even really my composition, though I recorded all of the core parts at one point, years ago. BP ended up putting the track together on his own—"Missing Dreams (I Can't Remember).” Maybe I'll let him elaborate on that one. It’s one of the highlights of the album I would say.
M: Oh nice! After bingeing through both your works in the past few days, I will say that I get a more organic/new-agey vibe from BP, and ambient/electronic vibe from GLR. 9 Reflections is a great balance of these elements, but it would also be interesting to see other tracks where those things are balanced differently.
BP: I think about five out of the thirteen tracks were WIPs of mine. Any non-album collaborations came after we had already started work on the album and were probably initiated by me in most cases. I'm always making music and always try to contribute to any compilation I find out about if I have time. I probably have a full albums worth of compilation tracks spread out already.
I definitely lean more heavily into the new age/organic sound pallet, which is both a result of the parameters I set for myself and the tools I use. Also whenever I have tried to go for something more ambient I end up hearing too many melodies in my mind, so the song ends up being way too active to really be called ambient in a traditional sense. Working with GLR was a great way to expand that sound pallet in different directions.
Oh yeah and “Missing Dreams” was interesting. In addition to the WIPs GLR had he also sent a bunch of little random bits. The beginnings of “Missing Dreams” was me taking three or so of those samples and putting them together to form a basic structure then adding my original parts to kind of glue it all together.
M: I've read some GLR interviews, and am aware of your formal schooling and current career in music education. BP, how did you get your start in music?
BP: The formal music training I did have was so little and so long ago I usually just say I'm self taught. I played saxophone in fifth grade for a few years, but they didn't really teach it well, so I lost interest and stopped playing. Several years later I decided to pick it up again and just wing it. From there my interest shifted to synthesizers, and basically it's just been fifteen or so years of playing, listening, and experimenting.
M: Synths and now especially the power of DAWs, give basically unlimited options. BP, you said you have parameters for yourself aside from the tools you use. Care to share any of these parameters, or your gear/ setup?
BP: I find parameters, rules, or restrictions helpful to the creative process and giving direction to a project. Some are physical parameters, like which synths I allow myself to use, while others are more conceptual. I restricted myself to synths from around 1987-1991 because I was very inspired by new age music from around that time. I also don't use drums, although I forgot why I decided that, and I kind of cheat sometimes, since I use some of the percussive patches on the Wavestation occasionally. Conceptually the aim is to create music that is inspired by the sounds of the past, but creates positive images for our future. Dystopian cyberpunk is our present, I want to create sounds for a tomorrow that's brighter and more hopeful.
I can talk about synths/my setup for days, but I'll try to keep it concise. I have a mostly hardware setup, I use my computer to record and to do my EQing, compressing, mixing, and that's about it. I do all my arranging on an MPC 1000, and my synths are the Korg M1, Wavestation, Yamaha TG77, TG33, and the Roland D05.
GLR: I have two different sets of gear I use depending on the setting. If I'm writing/composing/producing I use Reason 11 with a Roland D50, Roland SC-55MKii, Roland JV880, Roland U220 and various VST plugins/add on soft synths via the Reason store.
For my live performances I use a Yamaha DX7 run through various pedals such as the Boss RC30 Loop Station, Boss RV-6 reverb pedal and a Boss DD-6 delay pedal. I will also use a Roland GR-20 guitar synth simultaneously with those pedals. I used that set up with the guitar synth at Electronicon 1 & 2.
M: I am bummed that I missed your set at Electronicon 1!
GLR: Yeah many people missed my set because of my travel issues and not being there at my scheduled time. But I did play after Death's Dynamic Shroud on the rooftop, though as far as I know there are no recordings of the set in any way. Someone said that a recording exists but it’s been over a year and I haven't heard anything.
M: Moving on to the new album, 9 Reflections. You've already both talked a bit about the way the collaborative process went. Were there any specific influences at the front of your minds when building the album?
GLR: The main concept came from me, based around shadow work through the use of the obsidian mirror. More or less contemplating all the garbage that is in the subconscious mind and coming to terms with it, healing and moving on.
M: There's so much to be said about the subconscious, and I like that you brought up the idea of the "shadow self." I know you're a fan of video games, and I think of when you have to fight, for example "Shadow Link" at the end of Zelda II. It's an effective tool in games, as it does deal with a very real, existential struggle. How to overcome the part of you that knows you best.
As an aside, the album name is 9 Reflections but there are thirteen tracks...
GLR: The million-dollar question!
There are thirteen levels/reflections of the shadow self, not all of them are negative. Some of them are positive but become tainted by trauma. The four remaining levels (songs) are dedicated to people that helped me along my way to doing this work. So, the 9 Reflections is in reference to the negative aspects of nine of the levels, and the four remaining are more positive.
M: Can you explain a bit more about "shadow work?”
GLR: I'm sort of new to the concept as of the last two years. The definition of the shadow is: "In Jungian psychology, the shadow, (also known as id, shadow aspect, or shadow archetype) is either an unconscious aspect of the personality that the conscious ego does not identify in itself; or the entirety of the unconscious, i.e., everything of which a person is not fully conscious."
The particular "style" or "tradition" that I learned it from has a slightly different feel to it but it's more or less the same. Working with the hidden parts of your psyche that you would normally repress in order to reintegrate that "energy" back into yourself with awareness.
The whole album is based on my experience practicing that re-integration for months at a time. It's not as dark as you would think, but it's definitely not easy to do.
M: BP, do you share interest in this aspect of the album? Does this play into how you approached the collaboration?
BP: While I haven't done shadow work myself, we definitely have a shared interest in the mystical. I think that's part of what brought us together, it was palpable while working on the album, and there's certainly power imbued in the music as a result. I dabble more in Chaos Magic and the use of sigils. Since working together I've been motivated to dive deeper into that; meditating more regularly again, setting intent, forming/practicing new rituals, stuff like that.
M: GLR, regarding the thirteen tracks, with the other four representing people who helped along the way, is it too personal to divulge who those people are?
GLR: They are teachers who helped me learn about this work and about the art of lucid dreaming.
M: I remember seeing Waking Life, which got me interested in the topic of lucid dreaming, though I haven't spent too much time experimenting there. It's so hard to keep a consistent schedule!
GLR: The main person is a man named Sergio Magana who more or less shared everything with the other three teachers.
To your comment, Waking Life was huge for me as well. I started intentionally practicing lucid dreaming in 2006 but have done it my whole life before I knew what was happening.
M: It definitely feels appropriate that this album is releasing on Halloween. It's one of those albums where I think you really need to sit down with it intently, as a complete listen, versus an album where you want to maybe play a couple tracks.
By the time the album wraps with "Catharsis," I'm left with the feeling that we've taken a journey together.
BP: I always listen to albums in their entirety, maybe I'm in the minority on that, but this album is absolutely intended as a full experience. I encourage everyone to listen from start to finish to receive its full impact. GLR can tell you more about Virtual Dream Plaza (VDP), all I can say is that a year ago I never would have imagined I'd have an album on one of my favorite labels with one of my favorite artists.
GLR: It's funny that you mention the necessity to sit down with the album intently, as a complete listen. BP and I were just chatting about how we wanted that message to be broadcast to the listeners.
M: VDP does seem to be a natural home for the album, and being released on a dream crystal must feel like quite an honor. Who had the idea to release on crystal (and was it before Lovers Entwined was planned on crystal)? How did the album come to be released with VDP?
GLR: Well, I have been friends with Luke for years now and I have acted somewhat as an advisor/confidant to his creative endeavors. He came to me with the ideas for dream crystals in July of 2019 and his idea about future VDP releases being on dream crystals. We worked together and I put him in contact with "The Curator" to help him make it a reality. The first album to be on Dream Crystal was always going to be The Way by Lovers Entwined. Since the start of the label in 2018, Luke has made the label available to me to release my music as Golden Living Room.
M: Getting back to the album itself, it sounds like the path you two walk the listener down is fairly personal. Are the nine “levels” in 9 Reflections related to nine specific events, or more general?
GLR: In the tradition of dreaming that I study, the number nine represents many things, including the subconscious mind, the shadow, the dream state, the moon and other hidden aspects of the human being. When you tune yourself with the number nine, which represents those states, it helps hone and focus the intent behind a concept or goal. My intent with this album was to express my experience with shadow work through the medium of music.
M: Keeping with the number nine, I did notice nine bubbles on the album artwork, which as a whole is very striking. I picture a man walking to a nearby lake or stream, holding this black mirror, and looking into it opens up this whole world - the album.
Did you want to speak on the album art at all?
GLR: I thought you'd never ask! The whole idea of pulling off this album came after I met the artist August River on Instagram. I literally just found his account because it has beautiful artwork in a collage style similar to Johnmoproductions, the artist who made the WELCOME HOME and NEW NOSTALGIA album covers. I was in the middle of doing shadow work when we met. I told him about some concepts I wanted to work with.
August would literally cook something up minutes after we chatted about it. His artistic sensibility matches my mind’s eye, or something like that. Deep down, I'm an artist at heart without the technical skills to create my vision. Luckily, August was able to create my vision exactly the way I described it to him. If I suggested an edit he would make it right away. There are probably 20 edits of the main cover. The idea to use bubbles came from me but it was August’s idea to put nine of them on the cover.
The bubbles represent a lot of things, but mainly a concept explained by Carlos Castaneda about the nature of perception and how it's like a bubble from his book "Tales of Power."
M: The way it sounds, this collaboration was a perfect confluence of talent around this idea. Is there anything else you'd like to share about the process? Was it different that collaborations either of you have done in the past?
GLR: Yes, the collaboration was "meant to be" it seems. The collaborative process was the most involved and detailed work I have done with another person. I have done collaborations before but nothing this extensive. I was lucky that BP had all of the skills in areas that I lacked. His technical know-how and eye for detail really helped me. I'm more up in the clouds with lots of ideas and BP is the man who makes it happen.
BP: This was a first for me, I've never collaborated with someone long distance before. From a technical standpoint there were challenges of keeping everything in sync and coherent while sending stems back and forth. I've become way more organized in my recording process than I was previously. Often I'd have nothing labeled, files for the same project in different folders, and projects named differently on my MPC than on my computer. I knew I couldn't subject someone else to that kind of mess and expect it to go smoothly, and wouldn't you know it, taking a few minutes to organize and label things makes production go faster in the long run.
We also had some trial and error figuring out the best way to work between my MPC and GLR using Reason. I remember there was one song we got about halfway through and suddenly it was all off tempo somehow. We tried multiple times to fix it, but every time I'd pull the new stems in it would be wrong. I thought we were going to have to fully start over and re-record everything. There were like three or four different versions of the stems from our attempts to solve the problem. We figured it out eventually and thankfully since we'd been so meticulous with labeling and organizing we didn't have to dig through a folder full of 'untitled file_120' to find the correct stems.
On the creative end it was a new and exciting way to approach composing a song. I'd think about where to dial things back and leave space for GLR. It was exciting seeing what he would add and where I could expand. It made me push myself creatively to generate the same kind of surprise with my contributions. GLR would send back a crazy solo that would blow me away and I'd make a solo on another song to try to wow him in the same way. Then the process of balancing everything in the mixing stage and hearing everything fall into place was always an exciting challenge.
GLR: Each blowing each other’s minds with solos literally all throughout the album! The solos were one of the most fun parts of the whole collaboration.
M: To be honest, I don't even want to ask who did what parts, or anything like that - I prefer to leave it and view it as a whole product, which wouldn't have existed without the collaboration. I've listened to the album a few times now, and I am excited to see how it's received. One of my prevailing thoughts about music is that some of the best of it doesn't even sound like "people made it," it sounds like some unearthed audio artifact from other times, something that always was. That’s how I feel about this album.
BP: When I'm deep in the creative process I feel less like I'm 'making' music and more like it's passing through me. I like to think the music is unearthed from the future and hopefully we are worthy conduits to pass its power onto the listeners.
GLR: I'm just grateful to get to work with all of the talented people who manifested for this album to happen. This has been a multifaceted collaboration with a lot of different people including BP, VDP and August River.
HUGE thanks to Golden Living Room and Bathroom Plants for the interview!
9 Reflections is out on Virtual Dream Plaza on October 31, 2020.
Golden Living Room | @VDP | bandcamp | Twitter
Bathroom Plants | bandcamp
