‘The Vanishing’ is a captivating listen. How have you been feeling since the release of the new album?
Invictus Hi-Fi: “After three years working on the album and receiving a great response from critics listeners alike, I feel pretty good and well-charged to work on album number three. I’ve also been doing some livestream sets on Instagram recently in support of the album, and that’s been an interesting experience as it allows me to rework tracks in a more freeform way. I’m planning to release the best tracks from those livestream sessions later in the year.”
What are the concepts you explore in ‘The Vanishing’ and how did you sync these with the music?
Invictus Hi-Fi: “‘The Vanishing’ is essentially an album about the loss of ideas and identities over time, and I feel like that’s represented in the sonic landscape of the album tracks. I focused on keeping things sounding natural and organic, with both analog synthesis and manipulated instrument parts. Modular synthesis, both analog and digital, played a huge role in making things feel organic as I’d often have modulations spinning out of control on these tracks. I have a real obsession with making the digital sound natural and vice versa.”
How did you first become interested in making electronic music?
Invictus Hi-Fi: “After a few false starts, I really got started with making electronic when I lived in Manchester years ago. However, it has taken me until Invictus Hi-Fi to develop a defined and original sound that captures everything I’m trying to express. My interest in experimental electronic music has always been rooted in its capacity to create original soundscapes and tell more left-field stories, something that most other genres offer less opportunity for.”
You’ve mentioned watching 20th-century documentaries as a source of inspiration for your music. Can you tell us more about this?
Invictus Hi-Fi: “I’m a bit of a mid to late 20th-century history obsessive, maybe because I’m often trying to make sense of the state the world is in right now, and it is fair to say the roots of most of our issues are firmly planted there. As such, many of the ideas for ‘The Market Deities’ and ‘The Vanishing’ were inspired by documentaries about that era.”
You talked of some artist inspirations. Is there one particular artist you could see yourself working with?
Invictus Hi-Fi: “While I’ve collaborated with other musicians and producers in the past, for Invictus Hi-Fi, I think I’d be more interested in collaborating with visual artists or filmmakers. It has often been remarked that there is a soundtrack-esque element to what I’m creating here, so if any filmmakers want to reach out, then I’m open to discussing potential projects!”
How does ‘The Vanishing’ differ from your last project ‘The Market Deities’?
Invictus Hi-Fi: “It differs a fair bit both sonically and conceptually. ‘The Market Deities’ was inspired by the idea of the financial sector essentially being the modern religion and sought to portray through music the kinds of gods that religion would worship, such as ‘The Alpha’, a term often used as an ideal in the financial space, or ‘Fates & Futures’, which repositions traditional Greek gods as modern deities. So yeah, that’s weird high-concept stuff. ‘The Vanishing’ is much more directly human and, on many levels, a much more personal one. It focuses on emotional experiences, whereas ‘The Market Deities’ feels generally colder, more technological, and scientific.”
Do you have a track you found most interesting to produce on ‘The Vanishing’?
Invictus Hi-Fi: “I work very hard to keep things interesting in the studio as I feel that always results in the best creative outcome, but I’d say that ‘Time, Burning Over’ was, in many ways, the most fulfilling track as I’ve been working on that in some form or other for years. Finally recording the version you hear on the album was like exorcising a form of personal ghost.”
You can listen to Invictus Hi-Fi’s music here:
The Vanishing | Invictus Hi-Fi (bandcamp.com)
And here: