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Dorian Concept on the 'Beautiful Failures' Within His Excellent New Album

The Austrian talks limitation, imitation, and chatting with FlyLo on Myspace.

This is, undoubtedly, a fruitful time for artists that flit between organic and electronic in that dance-adjacent space. Acts like Bonobo, Caribou, Tycho and DARKSIDE have garnered acclaim as raver tastes develop beyond drop-jockeying and immediate gratification.

Prepare to add another name to that list. Dorian Concept is no nascent project, his When Planets Explode was released in 2009, but his forthcoming Joined Ends, put out on Ninja Tune, is poised to elevate him to the level of the names above. The album forays everywhere from folk to post-rock to house, all tinged with a melancholia and Oliver Johnson's love for hardware synths. It's like sadboy pop for the secretly dosed.

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The slow build and steady, hypnotic melodies of "Ann River, MN" are early highlights on the Joined Ends

The tracks on the album often give the illusion of lushness, but there's a sparsity to the instrumentation that is masked by Johnson's deft arrangements. That contrast is a definite aspect of the Dorian Concept ethos. "Software-wise, I've always been very limited," he tells THUMP. "Because of my keyboardist background, playing piano as a kid, I've always needed to have an actual connection to an instrument. I've always loved the fact that there are certain limitations. I've never actually worked with a soft synth. Once you have MIDI notes and just skip through sounds, it's always so overwhelming to me that I tend to go back to something that's more limited."

In an era where the Pandora's box of production has been opened, Johnson revels in limitation and the brain's reaction to it. He explains, "For me, having too much to work with has never been a plus. It really comes down to how you get into that creative flow. Even with the MicroKorg that I play with now, just through traveling, has gotten busted up pretty badly. It's missing keys on it and that's made me improvise on it differently. I'll compensate for the notes that are missing by jumping octaves - Limitations always made me think differently."

He goes on, "When you grow up, you learn through imitation. Nowadays with soft synths and Abtleton tutorials, you can imitate something way too quickly and directly. But when you have this busted up keyboard and you're trying to imitate the sound of an orchestra, it's gonna make you, somehow, beautifully fail in that. You'll get as close as possible, but because you can't actually do it, it's gonna make you unique at the same time. It's that failure in imitation that i've always been fond of."

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His relationship with the inimitable Ninja Tune began officially in 2009, but it was way earlier that the label piqued his ear. "The first ever live show that I ever went to when I was 15, 16, was Kid Koala and Bullfrog," he says. Even now, his contemporaries on the label are the guys who have influenced him. "Simon [Green, Bonobo] and I have similar ways of working. I've always looked up to him, that there's little people that can make a record sound as warm and as beautiful from just being there in their own studio. Machinedrum, Travis, is a good friend of mine. The label is a good mix of people."

"Draft Culture" is half a remix away from being a dancefloor stormer.

If you think you're quick on the draw, though, you're not. FlyLo was all up on Dorian Concept in 2008. "We basically linked over Myspace a long time ago," Johnson explains. "Back when it was still relevant, 2008 I think. He played a track of mine in his Essential Mix. When he came over to Europe, that was the first time he tried to elaborate his live show, and he got me and this drummer Richard Spaven to do 10 dates with him. It was hard because his solo show is so strong already and productions are already so dense that there was a pressure to keep up the energy. It was a challenge for me as a keyboardist. Every single night, he totally switched up the set. He's always been very fond of jazz tradition, it's something that he wants the crowd to see - That improvisation is still an art form that alive and relevant."

An improvisational flair has always been a part of Dorian Concept's live shows, but the touring for Joined Ends will feature his most ambitious live set-up yet: "Up until now I've also always had Ableton and MicroKorg shows, basically me just improvising over my own tracks, taking care of different elements. For this album, I'm working on getting a three-piece together. In my life, playing in bands as a teenager, my mind always goes back and forth between being in the studio and realizing it doesn't make me happy and then wanting to play with musicians, doing that, and noticing that it's really frustrating and going back into the studio. It's always a cycle. The good thing is, the two people I play with are really good friends of mine!"

Read more:
Dreams and Astral Projection with Flying Lotus
MIXED BY Bonobo
Nicolas Jaar and Dave Harrington Bring DARKSIDE to a Close

Jemayel Khawaja is THUMP's Associate Editor in Los Angeles - @JemayelK