Artist Interviews

Q&A: Mothlite

By | Published on Tuesday 13 October 2009

Mothlite

Mothlite was brought into being by composer and multi-instrumentalist Daniel O’Sullivam, who also writes and performs with numerous other bands, including The Big Pink, Sunn O))), Ulver and Alexander Tucker’s Decomposed Orchestra, and producer Antti Uusimaki, who has worked with the likes of Brian Eno, Barry Adamson, Tindersticks, These New Puritans, Natasha Atlas and Klaxons and was formerly a member of industrial band Panic DHH with The Big Pink’s Robbie Furze. Their debut album, ‘The Flax Of Reverie’, was released in September and received rave reviews for its dark blend of folk, jazz and post-rock. On 14 Oct they play The Lexington in London, with support from fellow dark story spinners Esben And The Witch. We spoke to O’Sullivan to ask our Same Six Questions.

Q1 How did you start out making music?
Chronologically… Piano tuition, snooping through my uncle’s record collection, playing in hardcore bands, spectral composition, free (and not so free) improvisation, strange pop music, etc.

Q2 What inspired your latest album?
Love. Valis. Love.

Q3 What process do you go through in creating a track?
Depends on the context. For Mothlite, it’s about going with what feel flows and then building a temple around it. There is no one set discipline that I’m particularly attached to.

Q4 Which artists influence your work?
Philip K Dick, Magma, Mark Hollis, Coil, Rene Guenon, Popol Vuh, August Strindberg, David Sylvian, Henry Williamson, Jorge Luis Borges, CS Lewis, Kate Bush, This Heat, Stanislaw Lem, Slayer, Alejandro Jodorowsky, ad infinitum…

Q5 What would you say to someone experiencing your music for the first time?
Give it a minute.

Q6 What are your ambitions for your latest album, and for the future?
Internally, to match my own expectations. Externally, to bring a strong, undiluted and individualistic life-force back into pop music, free from the albatross of association and free from the devastating flood of past-mining mediocracy.

MORE>> www.myspace.com/mothlite



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