Voice, Light, Breath, and Shadow // An Interview with Daniel Wohl and Máni Sigfússon
still from drift
The past couple of years haven't exactly felt conducive to new artistic collaborations, but composer Daniel Wohl and director/videomaker Máni Sigfússon’s new work might not have happened in any other circumstance. A fully “remote” music video commission from Silicon Valley-based girls choir iSing led to drift, a multilayered exploration of breath and air which will premiere outdoors in the crisp air of deep Minnesota winter via The Great Northern.
Daniel Wohl has received critical praise as one of his generation’s "imaginative, skillful creators" (New York Times) making music that is "beautiful and original" (Pitchfork) that blends electronics with acoustic instrumentation to often "surprising and provocative effect" (NPR). Máni Sigfússon is a Reykjavik-based video artist who has created work for artists such as Sigur Rós, the Rolling Stones, and Ólöf Arnalds. Even though Wohl and Sigfússon work in completely different mediums, their art seems to share a conceptual palette. There is an undeniable patience, attention to the most granular of details, and an affinity for visceral, organic textures, whether they be synthesized, recorded, or rendered.
Members of iSing Silicon Valley Choir
To create drift, each individual singer of iSing was recorded separately and then sculpted into a digital ensemble by Wohl along with string quartet, organ, saxophone, and electronics. Sigfússon created computer-generated renderings based on early demos of the composition, experimenting with the physics, lighting, and focus of the digitally modeled scenes. They were then able to respond and react to each other’s drafts, each aspect influencing the other until they arrived at the final iteration. The product is a starkly beautiful audiovisual work, where deeply immersive sonic and graphical elements blend into a synthetic amalgam. Sounds, textures, and motifs become more “real” than “the real:” a simulacrum of voice, light, breath, and shadow.
On Wednesday, January 26, drift will be projected onto Highlight Tower in Northeast Minneapolis. The work will also be available to stream from January 27 through Feb 6 on The Great Northern’s YouTube channel for those that are less interested in being made so explicitly aware of the temperature of the air entering their bodies as they breathe.
Before their premiere, Wohl and Sigfússon sat down with The Great Northern to talk about their collaborative process and the effects winter has on their creativity.
still from drift
Great Northern: Daniel and Máni, what was your initial impression of each other's work?
Daniel Wohl: I guess what struck me was the way Máni uses darkness and light and kind of illuminates things in his videos. There's just a sensibility that's very simple, but there's also a lot of detail in that simplicity. It knows what it's trying to say in some way.
Máni Sigfússon: I really liked Daniel’s work. It is kinda like most stuff I listen to these days — classical, ambient-ish stuff. So I was really glad that he got connected with me.
GN: How did the creation of drift come about?
DW: The impetus was actually a commission from a children's choir based in California called iSing. They wanted to commission a new piece along with a video. It was the height of the pandemic and they obviously couldn't get together so they were looking for ways to not only make music remotely but also get the children to find meaning in creating new work. Then they asked me who I'd want to work with for the video and I suggested Máni.
Daniel Wohl
GN: Can you talk about your collaborative process?
MS: We met up and Daniel had a pretty solid demo of the piece. Daniel decided to call it drift and it was all supposed to be about air and the movement of air. Out of that meeting, we started thinking a lot about air and how you can visualize it.
DW: That theme was suggested by the choir: breath — a meditation on the breath as the thing that was connecting us and giving us life, but also taking things away at the time.
GN: Was the process of composing different from that of your previous works?
DW: I mean, it's always different in the sense that there's no formula. This one feels a little bit like a song in a sense because there is a repeated chord progression. It feels a little hymnlike, or kind of religious because of the organ and the children's choir, and the subject matter. I don't know if that's different, but it's unique to what I've put out.
still from drift
GN: Máni, what was the process of creating the video like?
MS: A lot of trying things out — thinking about air and breath and, and just doing experiments. It fell together pretty nicely. Experimenting for something like this is mostly simulations in a computer. Making virtual studios and light setups, experimenting with simulations of air and plant textures. That took some time, building the sculpture itself. There was a lot of tinkering and just collecting interesting photographs basically.
GN: Was the overall form of the piece influenced by the breath or air theme?
DW: We did talk about the form. I remember our discussions were like, “oh, this, this has seven parts” or something like that. The form is actually really repetitive. It's this constant repetition of a set of chords. I manipulated the sound of the choir so it's kind of like this refracted choir thing throughout the piece. When you take away the scaffolding it can seem intuitive, but it's quite rigid…
MS: In the beginning, there were more parts, but it felt kind of rushed. It is nice to let the song and the video take its time.
Máni Sigfússon
GN: What is your relationship with winter and how does it affect you creatively?
MS: I kind of like it in a way. I kind of go into a shell. I used to have a studio that was in the basement. When it's winter and dark outside, there was this “working void” thing to it. In Iceland, half the year is just dark and the other half is really bright. I like creating more while it's dark. [laughs] Not sure why… There is a comfort to it.
DW: I definitely write better stuff at night and there's something about darkness that allows your imagination to go — it's like closing your eyes in some ways. The winter kind of dims everything so you can kind of let your imagination go. However, I live in LA where it's always bright, so I have to wait until nighttime to make music sometimes. Generally, I try to avoid winters [laughs]. But I really loved being in Iceland in early 2021. You wake up and it'll be dark until 11:00 am. And then it'll be a little bit bright until 3:00 pm and then dark again. It's just crazy. It's like a blanket — it's like what you want winter to be in some ways, you know? It's very cozy.