Everyone has their own way of connecting with others. For some it is using words, for others it is through visual representation, and then there are the music makers: the ones who make the soundtracks of our lives. It has been said that artists have the ability to give voice to what we feel and help us better understand ourselves. We feel connected to them but do not often know what is behind the music: the source of the inspiration, the process, what it took to create the record.
That’s what I wanted to know when I caught up with Christoffer Franzén aka Lights & Motion about his new release The World I Remember.
You said that your inspiration started from one guitar. How did your storyline evolve for the album? Is this album ultimately your biography?
Yes, that’s right. I went and grabbed my old Fender Stratocaster, which I probably bought 15 years ago or so, but I have never once used it in the studio to record with. I just began strumming and playing on it without thinking too much, and that very first day I wrote the intro to what would become the title-track of the album, ”The World I Remember”. It was almost like it was just sitting there, waiting to be discovered, because it happened so instantaneously. I think it’s pretty fitting that the first song I wrote for this record became the title track that acted as the foundation on which everything else was built, and it is also the song that opens the album. It really provided a spark, creatively and conceptually, in that I wanted to more or less limit myself to writing on the guitar, and not go for the piano as much as I had on my previous two LPs.
Writing and recording in this way made me reflect back a lot on where I was when I wrote my first couple of albums, my debut Reanimation came out in early 2013, and in an abstract sense I felt connected to my younger self.
Do you use visual inspiration as well? Do written works inspire you?
I am very visual in how I think of music, and I tend to see and hear it as different colors. It sounds very abstract, and I guess it is, but it’s pretty clear for me. I also read a lot, but I’m not sure that it affects or influences my creativity, more than just giving your mind a rest from all the other things that are constantly trying to get our attention.
In your creative process, do you write everything before you go to the studio or do you write in the studio?
I write almost everything in the studio, and I’m recording at the same time as I move forward. So for me there is never any pre-production or demos; what you hear on my albums are the songs as they’ve been written in realtime more or less. That means that the guitar-parts or melodies probably didn’t exist for more then 10 minutes before I recorded them. I think that’s important for me in my process, because it keeps the creativity feeling fresh and alive in a way.
I understand that you record and mix as you go, but do you record one song at a time and maintain the same suite of parts or do you shift sounds around across different songs in the album?
I really prefer to go one song at a time. I find it very difficult to leave something unfinished, because it is then constantly on my mind as I’m trying to solve this songwriting or production puzzle. But it always happens that I get a song to be 90% finished, and then I will go back-and-forth and tweak the mix for weeks or sometimes months before I’m satisfied, and by that point I will switch between the different songs. That has to do with getting the album to have a cohesive sound.
Do you have one sound that you refer back to almost always? One effect that is a favorite? At what point do you add a vocal layer?
That’s a good question. I don’t have a sound that I go back to per se, and I don’t work with production templates. Every song starts off with a blank canvas, which can be equally terrifying and healthy I think. But I’ve come to realize that somehow I will always imprint my sensibilities on whatever it is that I’m working on, and it is unavoidable. It is just how I hear music and how I will sonically paint a production I guess.
As for vocal layers, sometimes that will come very early, or as one of the last elements I’m adding. But I am more or less singing a lot of harmonies on each and every song on this new album, and that’s just something I like to add because it adds something specific that I can’t get anywhere else.
Usually I will listen or play the song I’m working on and I will just start to hum a melody that pops up in my head, and I instantly know that it is a vocal melody by that point. For several of these new songs I invited the amazingly talented artist Adna to join me on vocal harmonies, and I think our voices created a nice ethereal blend.
Which track was your first? What was your last? Did they remain in that order? Was there a story you were creating or was it intended to be ordered by the listener into a story of their own? Is the album supposed to be heard as a progression or as individual tracks?
The first song I wrote was the title-track, ”The World I Remember”, which was the album’s first single. The very last song I wrote was ”From Dust”, which I actually wrote after the album was supposed to have been done and handed in. That happens sometimes where I will just get one final idea, and pursue it. That song became the second single funnily enough, and we shot a studio-video for it as well.
There isn’t supposed to be any specific story to this album; you can listen to it anyway you’d like. We do however always discuss track listing and spend time on the sequence, so I think that’s a great way to hear it, as one long and cohesive listen.
What is your final album editing process? Do you find yourself having to cut out tracks or instead do you build the space within the album for all of your creations?
That is the tweaking of all the mixes, going over them with a magnifying glass to make sure that it is sonically just as I want to present it. Then we send it to be mastered, and for the past four albums I’ve had Dave Cooley at Elysian Masters in LA work on it.
Sometimes there are songs that will be cut from the sequence if they ultimately don’t fit in, or if the album is getting too long. But I would say that most of the time I will have done those decisions earlier on, because creating these songs take so much time that I want to know early on if it is something that I will want to finish and present to the world.
Can you describe how the instrumentation on this album is different from your previous work? How does this explain your evolution as an artist?
In a way, it is a return to how I began writing for Lights & Motion back 10+ years ago. Most of it is based around a palette of electric guitars, bass and drums, and in restricting myself to using mainly those instruments as writing tools, a felt like a whole world opened up creatively.
Then there are of course a ton of synthesizers, vocals, orchestration and other instruments that fill out the sonic landscape and hopefully manages to create a cinematic and widescreen listening experiences, to use a film reference. I also worked really hard on the production and mixing of this album, to try my best to come up with a new sound for a lot of the instruments; to invest in new studio gear and just try to reimagine what I could do and how it could sound.
Do you still have trouble sleeping? Do you still work overnight?
I still have my troubles with sleeping for sure, but it is much better then how it used to be back when I worked all night, every night. Now I try not to do that anymore because it really takes a toll on you. Still, there is something to be said for being up and working during the night when everyone else is asleep. It’s a special feeling, and sometimes you need that.
Why is “Panic Attack” your most personal? Is it cathartic to share a song that is so personal or is it also frightening?
I was trying to put a very specific emotion into a musical language, which is kind of hard. I think that anyone who have ever experienced panic attacks can relate to what a terrible and scary feeling that is, and it felt important to try and manifest it into something concrete.
I’m not sure how other people are going to hear and react to that song, but that feeling is in there for me. It was just my way of dealing with some difficult circumstances last year. Sharing music is always personal, and always scary, because how can it not be? You put so much of yourself into it, and I think that if you don’t feel that way, then maybe you need to re-examine what you’re doing as an artist.
How do you feel about collaborating?
I actually like it. Doing everything yourself gets kind of draining after so much time, and that isolation can be very hard. At the same time it gives you complete control over how everything is being presented. But in addition to writing this album I also composed the original score for an upcoming feature-length documentary last year called Making a Killing, and working as a film composer is nothing but collaboration with the director and producers. Doing both my own music and films kind of give me the best of both worlds, and its nice to go back-and-forth between the two.
What was the first album that you owned? Do you still reference it in your work?
Great question. I’m somewhat ashamed to say that I really can’t remember. One of the most influential albums for me, just as a music lover, was when Metallica played with the San Francisco symphony in 1999. It opened up a whole new world where you could cross genres, and it is just so good still.
What are your top five favorite tracks of all time?
In no particular order:
Hans Zimmer & Lisa Gerrard – “Now We Are Free”
Metallica – “No Leaf Clover”
Thomas Newman – “So Was Red”
Jónsi – “Grow Till Tall”
Coldplay – “Fix You”
What is next for you?
I’m not sure. I will keep on writing new music, always. But I have put so much of myself into this new album that I’m kind of anxious to get it out into the world, and then I will have to see what projects will take up my time in 2022. Hopefully it will be something creatively and musically full-filling!
Lights & Motion’s The World I Remember is out now on Deep Elm Records.
