Former Het Bos residents One Frame Movement give us a glimpse inside their working process. We have a talk with Marijn about their inspiration, their residency, hopes and dreams. A fresh talent to discover!
WAV: Hi guys! Let’s get to know you. Who or what is One Frame Movement?
M: “We are an instrumental trio consisting of piano (and other keys/synth), double bass and drums. We write colorful, rather unconventional compositions by stirring up the conscious and the subconscious mind and by puzzling together what comes out. In the past we have been asked to write music for live soundtracks in cinemas, and for contemporary dance performance. This has definitely colored some of our writing processes for our concert setting as well.”
WAV: How did One Frame Movement start.
M: As many bands start, some friends coming together and trying out new things in my parents’ living room, back in the days. Not by trying to make a certain kind or genre of music, but rather from an interest in what new things we can do together with our instruments. When our former bass player was planning on traveling the world for more than a year, Anton joined the band and brought with him the double bass. Needless to say, this changed the sound of the band completely and brought a somewhat more refined approach to the music.
WAV: You were residing in Het Bos, what have you been working on?
M: We worked on and wrote some new compositions that needed some fleshing out and puzzling. We searched for some new sound qualities; I brought in my synth, for an occasional gritty contrast with the more acoustic setup. In the meantime, we tried out incorporating interactive visuals in our live shows. We started with some random self-made footage, which would interact with our live sounds through the digital programming environment of MaxMSP. Thanks to Het Bos we could use some technical material to mic all the instruments properly and let them interact with what’s being projected. We had some interesting and useful results, but this visual aspect is still a work in progress and we’ll continue to develop it more.
WAV: What inspires you on a daily basis?
M: Just the coming together for the sake of music, whether it is making music or experiencing it as a group of listeners, is a marvelous human invention. Too often, I’m in my own head, where melodical and rhythmical themes pop up out of nowhere, haunt me all day and disappear before it could grow as a song. It’s really fulfilling when you can bounce off your musical ideas with your bandmates, or others, and watching it grow in unexpected ways.
WAV: Where do you want to be as a band in 1 year?
M: We’re very grateful for the chances we got since the release of our first EP, the residency in Het Bos has been a really great opportunity to reassess possible future plans. We want to release some new music we’re working on right now in the course of next year. And we definitely want to keep playing and reconnecting with audiences when the health crisis is coming to an end.
WAV: Which musicians/bands are you really into at the moment?
M: Actually, lately I’m listening a lot of Belgian bands, like John Ghost, Bandler Ching or Nabou for example, I think the Belgian music scene is really exciting these days.
WAV: What is your dream venue/event to play at?
We’d love to play at the Belgian jazz festivals like Jazz Middelheim and Gent Jazz.
WAV: What is something not-musical that inspires your music?
M: We wrote live soundtracks for silent expressionistic films like Das Cabinet des Dr. Caligari and others, which is a really interesting way of working because you really want to catch emotions or other affects from the images in the music. And it is very quick, pressured working process with a lot of free improvisation. Traces of that process are still there in our live concert sets. Writing for dance is also a very inspirational process because it’s all about the interaction and the attention for the other, in a completely different way than when you communicate with fellow musicians. But really, we find inspiration in everything; happy moments in our personal lives often bring new musical ideas to the conscious mind. Those moments are electrifying.
WAV: How has this year changed the way you make music? Has it changed the way you listen to music?
M: This year we had to work more on our own, and eventually bring more already developed ideas to the group. We also started more with mailing scores to each other instead of weekly bringing new motives to the table instantaneously. It had its advantages, but we are very happy to go back to the more spontaneous and interactive working method form before.
WAV: Best song to listen to on a rainy day?
M: The Lung from Hiatus Kaiyote? Or maybe Delta Rain Dream by Jon Hassell and Brian Eno.
More One Frame Movement inspiration here!