Sendai are Peter Van Hoesen and Yves De Mey, two of Belgium’s most venerated and exciting contemporary techno artists. In the half decade that the duo have been collaborating, the Sendai project has emerged as an outpost for rugged experimentation and innovative sound design. Whilst their solo work can been characterised as hard, floor-orientated techno, as Sendai they’ve explored an audio palette that has expanded far beyond dancefloor functionality.
Their 2012 debut album ‘Geotope’ was a head turning moment. Whilst the EPs that preceded the album had teased towards a creative vision, the LP was a robust manifesto of intent and execution. An eight-track cycle of dark ambience, intense techno and abrasive noise, it was a unnervingly direct approach that didn’t so much split as galvanise opinion. Followed by a handful of live shows, the duo’s stark and uncompromised sound manipulation became something of an underground sensation.
As such, the chance to interview the duo prior to the release of their forthcoming second album ‘A Smaller Divide’ was an opportunity not to be missed. The record, which is coming out on their own self-run label Archives Intérieures, finds the duo exploring fresh territory.
From the harsh opening of ‘Capstan’ to the droning synth work of ‘Norms Of A True Behaviour’ and the menacing machine-funk of ‘Sequential Convex’ the album is both a consolidation of previous statements and a step into the unknown. Recorded for the most part remotely (Van Hoesen is now based in Berlin, De Mey in Antwerp), it is a record that treads a thin line between sounding like the work of cynical automatons and that of wonderfully mad scientists. A Smaller Divide is not intended to be easy listening music. It's 100% uncompromised and devoid of any reflection regarding how people might react. It's impossible to predict something like that anyway, every listener will have his or her own way of how to deal with it...That, by the way, is a metaphor that the duo will probably hate. When I Voice got in touch with them, they refused to answer questions about the origins of their friendship, why they chose the name Sendai, whether they’re going to tour together again, or indeed any line of query which probed beyond the music itself. This, quite clearly, is a project which is not about the personalities of its creators. It’s about the raw, all-immersive auricular experience of being there in the moment of listening.
Both of you have been making music for a good amount of time now and must have certain ideas about what you like and, perhaps more importantly, what you don’t like. How do you handle creative disputes when you’re working together?
We have a very simple system for that, which is basically to ignore the idea of consensus. If one of us does not like something we don't do it. And that goes as far as not even trying to convince the other of the validity of one's own idea or concept. If one of us is not happy with something it's trashed. So there are never any disputes. Life's too short to get into a creative democracy, because that usually means having long discussions to arrive at a solution that is watered down compared to the original idea.
The first record that came out under the Sendai name was ‘System Policy’ in 2009. Would it be fair to say that your work together has become increasingly experimental since then? What’s informed that?
We seem to be more comfortable together in the experimental zone, that's something that is very obvious now. It took us some time to work that out but it's very clear now.
In terms of your experimentation, can you shed some light on your composition process. Do your tracks usually originate with a single idea, such as a manipulated sound or sample, or are you thinking in conceptual terms, such as what happens if we add ‘x’ to ‘y’?
It can be any of the above, or it can be just a spontaneous live jam during one of those occasions when we find ourselves in a studio together. From time to time we set out a technical concept or limitations of tools, which leads to a better understanding of what you do and to a pure dialogue. Adding stuff is an easy thing to do, and in most cases it's more a matter of leaving things out.
Tell me about your recording process. The press notes tell me you work remotely. Are you constantly sending each other pieces and samples? How does it work?
There's no strict methodology. The things we send to each other can be anything, from a basic sound to an almost finished piece, and everything in between. Usually, the decisive moment to exchange something is when there is room for input from the other one. And we both know each other's strength, so we can work individually with the other one's contribution in mind.
Your first album ‘Geotope’ came out in 2012. How happy were you with that record and how it was received?
Obviously we were happy with it, else it would not have been released. The more challenging question would be to ask ourselves if we are still happy with it now. As we're still playing certain parts of it in our live set it seems to be the case [that we are happy with it]. But it's definitely a fact that we did not want to make a second ‘Geotope’. As for the reception of ‘Geotope’, people can read the reviews and make up for themselves if critical reception is anything worth going by. But most people we interacted with seemed to like it a lot.
And now ‘A Smaller Divide’ is about to come out. How do you think your second album differs from what you were trying to do with your first?
For a start, we didn't really try to do something specific with ‘Geotope’. We set out to record our first album, and the degree of success or appreciation of the final result [was] not really in our hands.
‘For A Smaller Divide’, we've used some things we've learned from the ‘Geotope’ live sets. This clearly shows in the intensity and energy of the new tracks. Another thing is that we deliberately stayed away from [producing] something that could belong to a certain genre, and this goes for the album as a whole.
Feel free to disagree with me, but album opener ‘Capstan’ is the most difficult track on the record. I was intrigued why you decided to open with that track.
We did this because we are both bored with album intro tracks that are usually meaningless. With ‘Capstan’ the listener is immediately made aware of what is going to happen [during] the rest of the album. There's no beating around the bush or faux artistic ambient intro or what have you.
The album is not compromised in its sound, from techno to noise. It's provocative and engaging music, and certainly not always easy listening. This is music that requires your full attention. Would you agree with those statement and were you thinking about how a listener might respond to what you're doing whilst you are in the process of making the album?
We totally agree with those statements. ‘A Smaller Divide’ is not intended to be easy listening music. It's 100% uncompromised and devoid of any reflection regarding how people might react. It's impossible to predict something like that anyway, every listener will have his or her own way of how to deal with it. Therefore it's meaningless to try and factor this in during the creation process. It's 100% us, and that's as far as we can go. The rest we leave up to the listener.
Do you think the album has a narrative or over-arching theme?
No, not really....
The album’s coming out on your new(ish) label Archives Intérieures. How’s the imprint going? What have you got planned for the year with it?
The imprint is going very well, thank you. We've got exciting things planned such as a CD re-issue of ‘The Path of Spectrolite’ by Imaginary Softwoods. That same artist is also doing a completely new album for us. Outside of that there are two other projects in embryonic stage, we will put the news out when we're ready for it.
Finally, two albums down, what’s the future for Sendai? Is this going to be a partnership that keeps on going and going?
Right now we're having a lot of fun so why not keep a good thing going?
A Smaller Divide is out on Archives Intérieures now.
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