Meditative Modulations: Polypores Interview

A regular visitor to Concrete Islands, Preston’s Stephen James Buckley is finally brought in for questioning, at the apex of a very productive year

Having begun his electronically-fashioned explorations as Polypores on the fringes, some fifteen odd years ago, Stephen James Buckley has been continuously nurturing his craft – with discerning label support from Concrète Tapes, Polytechnic Youth, Miracle Pond, Front & Follow and Castles in Space – to reach full-blooming potential in the last year. Now in the central core of the synth-centric world, Buckley has brought Polypores to a place where quantity goes plug-in-socket with quality.

Since unveiling the sublime natural-world framed Flora LP last summer, Polypores releases have come in thick and fast, with the full-length Radiance, Brainflowers, Piano: Dismantled and Universe B following in quick succession, interspersed with countless compilation contributions and the recent locked-down-live-at-home Isolation Jams series.

Throughout this recent career phase, against the backdrop of our tumultuous times, Buckley has steadily been exceeding the sum of his influences in terraforming thoughtful and moreish meditative soundscapes, with often transcendental gravitas. This summer’s latest long player comes in the shape of the studiously assured Azure (Castles in Space), an aquatically themed set piece that shrewdly draws and expands upon a remarkably fruitful body of work from the last twelve or so months.

Conversed with over email, the ever-effusive Buckley certainly had plenty to say about the pre-history, past, present and future of Polypores life… and plenty more besides.

How and when did your musical life begin? Were you active in bands or otherwise much before you established Polypores as your primary outlet?

I was about eleven years old. I was in hospital for two weeks with salmonella. I was really into Queen at the time, and my dad got me this double video set called Queen’s Greatest Flix, which had all of their music videos on. Seeing Roger Taylor play drums – it just set something off in me and I knew that’s what I wanted to do. So, I started lessons, and ended up playing in a few bands with friends and such.

My first attempt was playing for Quietus-favourite Daniel Patrick Quinn (we went to the same school) but he fired me because I didn’t like Suede. I played drums for a few years in bands with mates, but eventually gave that up in favour of making electronic music on my own. It was kind of industrial, NIN-sounding, with guitars and distorted vocals. After that I started playing guitar more, concentrating more on songwriting rather than production. I formed a glam-rock band which was a big hit with teenagers across the North West. There was a lot of eyeliner involved. But we got sick of that and grew up a bit. We reformed as a completely different band, which was very odd and very funny. It was more along the lines of Ween or Zappa. It taught me a lot about how the best thing about being in bands was the fun you have, rather than ‘making it’ or whatever. As soon as I stopped trying to be successful, I started enjoying music a lot more.

Whilst that band was active, I was always tinkering away with solo stuff, which was usually acoustic guitar-based singer/songwriter stuff, on which I played guitar, drums, keyboards, bass and sang. It was always very sad and personal. I was going through some tough times, mentally speaking, and it was an outlet for that really. Towards the end of 2014 a few things happened which shifted my perspective a bit, and I got sick of being trapped being this ‘sad lyrics’ guy. So, I started writing instrumental stuff, which was initially inspired by the instrumental tracks on albums by Eels and Sparklehorse. That led me down more of an electronic route again, and the first Polypores release.

Were there significant turning points for you in embracing electronic music, as a consumer as well as a creator?

As a consumer it really began with Jeff Wayne’s War of the Worlds. I was OBSESSED with that record as a child. I wasn’t aware of the difference between electronic and non-electronic music at the time – I just loved all the weird sounds. I think this is what set me off loving albums that had a narrative/concept. Later on, around sixteen years old, Marilyn Manson got me into a lot of different stuff. It sounds kind of corny, but he really did open my mind in terms of finding new music and listening to stuff outside of the rock genre. I barely listen to his music now as I’m no longer an angry teenager, but I think albums like Antichrist Superstar and Mechanical Animals went on to inform a lot of what I do, in some ways. As a creator, I think there have been a few turning points – moving away from guitar-based composition, moving away from computers to hardware, moving from fixed-architecture hardware to modular synths. There will no doubt be more. I hope.

It feels like you have taken Polypores through three broadly evolutionary phases to date – playful low-tech hauntology, sleek electro-noir and open-ended beats-free landscaping. Would you broadly accept such an assessment?

Yes, I think that’s accurate! From the beginning I didn’t want Polypores to be defined as one thing. I’m quite an intense and obsessive person, and I do get bored of things easily. I will be intensely into something, do it to death, then get to a point where something else takes my interest so I move on. I wanted Polypores to be an umbrella under which I could do that. I hate the idea of being forced into making a particular kind of music due to success or expectations. I want the freedom to move around according to my own interests. I’m really grateful that a lot of people have stayed on board from the beginning, despite the fact that I no longer produce anything which could be labelled as ‘hauntology’ anymore! I don’t like being boxed or labelled too much. If you attach yourself to a genre it can be very limiting, and become boring. Both for the artist and the listener.

Dropping most of the percussive elements of Polypores after 2017’s The Impossibility LP feels like a particularly pivotal shift that has truly liberated and paradoxically accelerated your productivity ever since. Would you agree and can you explain what led to this transition?

I agree, and yet have no way to explain it! As with a lot of Polypores-related things, it’s more about intuition than any kind of pre-planned thing. I’ve learned that it’s best to just let things happen and follow whatever it is that I subconsciously want to do.

You’ve had particularly high-quality and prolific run of releases over the last twelve or so months. Do you ever worry that you’ve been too copious in your creativity and that some of your lower-key digital/cassette sets like Radiance and Brainflowers haven’t had the same level of attention as say Flora received or are you just happy that it all finds its way out there one way or another?

I do worry that I release too much and people will get sick of it. But it’s just so hard not to! I just get excited by what I’ve done and need to put it out there. I’m an irritatingly enthusiastic person, to the point where I think a lot of people struggle to be around me for extended periods because I’m exhausting. And that enthusiasm is reflected in the amount of work I put out into the world. I just love it.

I’m completely comfortable with some of my smaller releases getting less attention. That doesn’t bother me at all. It’s like little hidden gems that are a bit harder to find. Something with the backing of a label like Castles in Space is bound to get more attention than something I put out myself. They are all equally valid. A lot of the artists I love do smaller releases between bigger label stuff, and a lot of those smaller releases end up being my favourite thing they’ve done.

Piano: Dismantled, your self-released album made with several guest piano players, was an interesting detour. Has that experience encouraged you to consider hooking up with more outside musicians in future? Is there anyone that you would particularly like to collaborate with to extend the reach of Polypores?

I loved doing that album, and I think it’s one of the best things I’ve ever done. I do however struggle with collaboration. I think Piano: Dismantled was my ideal form of collaboration – one where I have ultimate control over everything! I think I do very much tend towards the producer role. It’s something I’ve done for a long time. I’ve recorded and produced tracks/albums by dozens of bands over the years, I think I’ve got a pretty good instinct for how things fit together as a musical whole. With Piano: Dismantled it was a lot like that. I was taking the raw material I had from musicians far more talented than myself, and putting it together in such a way that turned it into something new. When I was in bands/singing etc, I wasn’t particularly proficient at any one particular instrument. My skills were more about arrangement and production as a whole. With electronic music I guess I get to do that without other people! But for some ideas, I require people with talents way beyond my own. Which is what happened with this album.

How much kinship and community spirit do you feel with other contemporary electronically-versed fellow travellers, including on/off labelmates, in what you are exploring with Polypores both in a musical and business operations sense?

I think I seem to get on with other likeminded musicians, for the most part – aside from the aforementioned ‘irritatingly enthusiastic’ thing (sorry guys). I’ve met some really really cool and interesting people through this. A particular highlight was the Delaware Road festival last year, where I met a lot of the people I’d previously only spoken to online. And they were all, without exception, really nice. Musicians, labels, artists – a really sound bunch. I can get very anxious prior to gigs, which can sometimes make me come off as demanding or something, but it’s more to do with me wanting to make sure everything goes well so I can perform as well as I can. I think most people realize that and accommodate me accordingly!

Like some likeminded home-recording musicians, our recent lockdown living existence led to you recording and self-releasing the Universe B album and your Isolation Jams series within the space of a few weeks. How has enforced staying-at-home-life impacted upon you, as someone who seems to bob between highly social situations and intensely solitary ones?

As an introvert, lockdown didn’t bother me as much as it did other people. However, it was very difficult not being able to be with my partner, as we lived apart. Luckily now she’s moved in with me for a while, so after nine weeks apart things are a lot better. She fully understands that I can’t give her all of my time and attention, and that I need to spend a significant amount of time making music.

I’m very lucky in that my job (I work in audio production) can be done largely from home, so I still have a lot of work on. And obviously lucky in that I’m healthy and relatively young. I worry immensely about my parents, and friends who are nurses, care workers, postal workers etc. I try not to complain about the situation because there are people FAR worse off than me. And far braver.

Universe B suggests an interest in alternative realities, could you explain the thinking behind that album title and its gestation?

As with most Polypores music nowadays, it wasn’t planned out as some kind of concept or whatever. It was more intuitive. I just get in the zone and start making stuff, and eventually something coherent starts to take shape. After that it’s my job to interpret what that means. I wrote a few tracks and noticed there was something a bit ‘off’ about them – they sounded colder, more brittle than previous releases. I was experimenting with a lot of FM and granular synthesis. Moments of dissonance here and there. It led me down some different paths. I think at the time (the beginning of lockdown) everything seemed a bit weird. There was something uncanny about the atmosphere. Everywhere being quiet and empty, despite the sunny weather. Plus, all the conspiracy theories – I think the album was my reaction to that environment and atmosphere. It felt like an alternate reality. I love (and do not believe) all the theories about the Large Hadron Collider sending us into a different timeline, which resulted in the Mandela Effect. A lot of people have said they find it quite relaxing, which is interesting, as I don’t really get that from it. But that’s a good thing, having some ambiguity. It means I’ve achieved something subtle.

What were your intentions with the Isolation Jams experiment, which initially appeared as YouTube videos and are being anthologised on Bandcamp? Are they partly intended to give insight into your compositional processes?

I think it was more a case of not being able to do gigs, so trying to do something close to that. I did look into live streaming but I think my music loses a lot when it isn’t heard in decent stereo quality. I spent hours crafting these sounds, so I’d like them to be heard as intended. I very much enjoyed the process, so kept doing more of them. People kept asking me to put them on Bandcamp, so I eventually did. They are a largely relaxing affair. There’s a slight ASMR quality to watching someone slowly plug cables into a little bleepy machine. I think a lot of people who wouldn’t otherwise listen to that kind of music enjoyed it. Including my mum!

As lockdown life eases – at least for now – your ‘official’ sequel to Flora is arriving in the form of Azure via Castles in Space. If the former was your earthy woodlands-infused venture, then is the latter your oceanic concept LP?

I guess so yeah. It’s not really a sequel as such, but I did want there to be some continuity there. I think the two complement each other well. I may end up doing a third, make some kind of environmental triptych. But it’s hard to tell what will happen at this stage, I can’t really predict where I will end up, musically.

Besides watery themes, what else do inspired you directly and indirectly? How much, for instance, are the likes of Tangerine Dream and Brian Eno’s Ambient series an influence, consciously or unconsciously?

There’s a definite influence from New Age music in Azure. I started with some of the excellent compilations on Light in the Attic records, then went from there. I was listening to it a lot around the time of writing, and I consciously used some of those sounds to create that world. I think one of the tracks (“Fathoms Down”) was sort of Eno-inspired but I wasn’t listening to any Eno at the time. I just did something that might be similar, from vague memory. Other stuff I was digging at the time included Light Pipe by M Geddes Gengras, and a lot of the music I’d hear on the Golden Ratio Frequencies radio show, which is always beautifully curated. A lot of the influence came from experimenting musically too. For instance, making tuned-percussion sounds, or weird choirs. Sometimes the music comes before the concept.

How did you construct the ululating choral effects on “Temples” and “Coral Palaces”? Are they sampled and treated from real vocalists?

These were created using granular synthesis. Which is sort of like sampling, but you’re only sampling a tiny amount of sound. I used a module by Mutable Instruments called Clouds, which samples one second of a sound you play into it, and then splits it into tiny little ‘grains’, which you can then manipulate, smear, and stretch, to turn into totally different textures. I’m not going to tell you exactly what I put into Clouds to create these sounds. I don’t want to spoil it for everyone. You’d be surprised at what you can use to create these weird Polynesian choirs….

Like Flora, you appear to bring in a lot of field recordings into the mix, alongside the dominant modular synths. Where did you gather them from this time around?

I used a lot of liquid sounds. Recordings of streams, ponds, taps, a bubbling pot of chilli – even the ocean at one point. The album has a very ‘Pacific’ vibe to it, but obviously getting out there proved difficult given my budget, so I had to make do with sources a bit closer to home. There’s a lot layered in there, if you listen carefully.

How vital is it for you to keep blurring the sonic lines between the organic and the synthetic?

That’s an interesting point, I think I do try to get organic sounds in there to make it all seem a bit more alive. And it gives it a sense of place. Having said that, I’ve not done that for a lot of the tracks I’ve been working on recently. I think as I’m getting more confident and proficient with my modular synth, I’m finding different ways to bring that into the music. I do always strive for something that sounds like it’s living and breathing though.

I’m particularly taken with the twelve-minute digital-only bonus track “Mysticeti”. Was that set aside for reasons other than just vinyl space constraints? It’s quite a ghostly postscript…

It was a live jam which I did whilst making the album. I knew full well it wasn’t going to fit on there, but it was very much part of the same sound-world. I discussed it with Colin (Castles in Space) and we agreed that it should be included somehow. And yes, like you say, it works well as a postscript. I’m not usually keen on bonus tracks as I feel they disrupt the flow of an album which has a definite narrative ending. But in this case, I think it works really well. It’s like a scene after the credits or something.

Azure once again comes encased in some awesome artwork from the ever-reliable Nick Taylor. How important to you has his work been in the visual presentation of many recent Polypores wares?

Very important! He nails it every time. I usually go to him with some vague ideas and a finished album. He comes back with a masterpiece. I sometimes feel like I make music to soundtrack artwork that Nick Taylor hasn’t created yet.

It’s hard to describe much of your recent output without referring to its meditative qualities. Gauging things from your Twitter postings and given the fact that 2018’s extended digital-only Glo album was specifically recorded for meditation practice, has your music increasingly become merged with your own self-care regime?

Yes, that is something that has been important to me over the past year or two. I think Sacred Drift came out when I first started meditating. I try to do once a day for 10-15 minutes, but then also include other mindful practice in my life, particularly when out walking. Being around nature and focussing on that is also really helpful. It took me a while to get into because I was trying too hard, I guess. What really helped me was a book called Ten Percent Happier by Dan Harris, which kind of eased me into it. I’d recommend that to anyone.

I think the way I make music became part of my mindfulness practice as well. I’ve stopped thinking about things beforehand, stopped planning so much or trying to force myself to write to a certain concept or whatever. I just get myself into ‘the zone’ by playing around and experimenting. Before I know it, a few hours have passed and I’ve created a track.

It has certainly made me appreciate (and therefore create) music which is slower, with elements being introduced very gradually over time. I don’t always do that (as I said, always changing) but mediation helped me unlock the ability to do that.

Glo actually came about after the suicide of a friend a few weeks before. I wanted to do something to help somehow. I saw that there were donations being made after the funeral to a local mental health charity for young people, so I thought the least I could do would be to make some music that was inherently relaxing and calming, with the money going towards them. It felt like the only way I could properly express things and actually do something that was perhaps useful.

You’ve also posted a lot about the films and TV series – like Lost, The Leftovers, The OA and Twin Peaks – that you’re heavily into as well as sci-fi and fantasy literature. Are these other significant stimuli to your music and your visual presentations?

Oh absolutely! I think Lost definitely had a subconscious influence on Azure, particularly the ‘mystical Pacific Island’ vibe. I never intentionally set out to write a record that’s influenced by a film or TV show (at least not any more) but it’s all part of the input. Part of the recipe. I feel like everything I read/watch goes in and somehow comes out as part of the process, whether it’s obvious or not. Although I can only aspire to making music as powerfully moving as Max Richter’s score for The Leftovers. That show was a true work of multi-faceted art, and I’m still processing it, months after watching.

Given the abundance of Polypores material that you have put out via compilations and split-releases – in addition to your album-sized affairs – might you one day attempt to round them up in a neat bundle for Bandcamp or elsewhere?

No, to be honest I’m coming up with new stuff constantly so I’d rather focus on things that are closer to where my mind/creative muse is at right now.

Once the campaign around the launch of Azure is wrapped up, what are your plans for the rest of 2020 and beyond?

Next up there will be a tape out via Golden Ratio Frequencies, which was recorded after Azure. It’s mainly longer tracks, deep, blissful reflections upon the joys of wonder and curiosity. After that – I don’t want to go into much detail for now, but there are a few releases before the end of the year with other labels.

I’m about to start the process of working on a new album using some different methods. I have some new modules and techniques that I want to explore to see what comes from that. I don’t really have anything specific planned or a pre-conceived idea of how it will sound, I’m just going to let it happen as it needs to. I certainly think there will be more music for music’s sake, rather than relying on the crutch of a concept. More along the lines of Piano: Dismantled. But really, I don’t want to try and predict. The music will write itself, I’m just the vessel which channels it.

polypores.bandcamp.com