On March 5th, Badlands will release new 11-song album Djinn under the RITE label. Both the moniker and the label are run by Swedish composer, producer, and sound designer Catharina Jaunviksna, who creates her own Electronic-driven compositions as well as working on commercial projects in film, tv, radio, and theater. Her projects all reflect her attention to the possibilities of texture and the ways in which sound can conjure otherwise inexpressible feelings in the audience.
Two Badlands singles with their accompanying videos are out now from Djinn, including “Hearts” and “Southbound Call”, both of which will ignite plenty of nostalgia for fans, with their analog sound and their looping low-fi video vibes. They bring us a good preview of more to come from Djinn, where we’ll find a classic pop atmosphere on some songs, more of an Electronic-inspired song structure on others, and several songs that combine those features. I caught up with Catharina Jaunviksna to talk about her plans for the RITE label, about her single “Hearts” in particularly, and about the relationships between the different types of music that she creates.
Hannah Means-Shannon: When did you set up the label RITE up and how does it help you with workflow and planning to have your own imprint?
Catharina Jaunviksna: I started it out properly in the summer, but the history of RITE as a thing dates from a time when I was in Dublin. I’m from Sweden and I live, full-time, in Sweden again, but I lived on and off in Dublin for years. There’s a cool, vivid, inspiring, and warm Electric community in Dublin, and around 2012 through 2015, me and a bunch of friends threw gigs and parties there. We released each other’s music, and four friends, including me, decided to create an art collective.
That became a kind of a loose umbrella for what we were doing. But it fizzled out with people having kids and moving around. Then, when I came back to Sweden full-time, I really missed the Electric vibe while in Sweden. There’s a great House community here, and Punk Rock, but we don’t really have that Electric, New Wave-inspired things that I live for. I’ve always lived for analog and synth sounds. Then I decided to use the name and the logo for RITE and build my own thing here. I associate it with helping each other and I really want to bring that here.
Since I’m also a sound technician and sound designer and do commissioned work as well, for film and plays, so I thought it would be cool to gather everything I do, including Badlands work, and radio work together, including releasing other peoples’ work down the line. I associate RITE with gritty analog sound, a warm sound from Electronic music, and I hope RITE will develop to be the base of a certain sound rather than just a label. I want it to be a platform and community as well.
HMS: That’s so wide-ranging. That’s really cool. What you’re saying reminds me a little of the way that Flying Lotus curates artists, with a whole community with similar interests.
CJ: Yes, exactly. That’s the kind of vision that I have for RITE. But I think the most important thing is that the products are there, and they are. I’m a big fan of Flying Lotus.
HMS: Your single and video for “Hearts” is out, and I understand that this is part of the album coming up in March, Djinn.
CJ: Yes, the album will be out in March, and the second single and video is “Southbound Call”, out January 21st. But “Hearts” was the beginning of spreading the word about Badlands, since I’ve been quiet for a while. The album is finished now.
HMS: Does the song “Hearts” give us an idea of the sound direction or the ideas on the album, or is more of a standalone project?
CJ: I’d say both. It’s part of an 11-song album. “Hearts” resembles a couple of songs on the album, but then there are some songs that are more Electro and Techno-inspired with loops, and drops, and things like that. “Hearts” is more of a classic Pop song. Then, there’s a third genre on the album, that’s somewhere in between the two. But the textures that you can hear in “Hearts”, the sophisticated low-fi song that I’m looking for, with lushness, and warm, analog grit, is going to be true throughout the record. You can hear that it’s all made as one piece even though the songs were written and made over a three-year period.
HMS: I read some descriptions of “Hearts” before I listened to it, and when I did listen, I was surprised by how warm, positive, and reflective it felt, since I thought it was probably an “anti-romantic” song in its realism about relationships. I knew that it wouldn’t be a love song in a traditional sense. It sounds very reassuring.
CJ: This song is about relationships, and commitment, more than anything, and about what commitment really means. It’s about not only saying words but taking something so far that you feel that it’s dead and can never awaken again. But it’s the idea that you can actually save something. At the same time, I’m not a romantic person and I’m quite realistic. I know what love is, and I’m not afraid of it, but if love is going to grow and stay, it takes a hell of a lot of work.
I guess love can be measured by how much you can take, how much it can endure. That’s really how you prove love, isn’t it? I’ve had some many questions around that subject throughout my life, since I had a difficult family situation when I was younger, and I’ve grown used to the feeling of being abandoned. But that can be difficult in a relationship situation where you have to trust that the other person won’t leave. It’s about facing really, really hard times together and surviving that.
HMS: I feel like that’s a much less common subject for music to take on rather than the moment of falling in love, or something like that. Some musicians do talk about the difficulties long-term relationships, and I always feel like applauding that.
CJ: I’ve never thought about that myself, but it’s true that I haven’t heard many songs about relationships that weren’t about falling in love or breakups. There isn’t much in between. But I really like contradictions, and “Hearts” is a dark song, in a way, with darker lyrics, because you really don’t know what is going to happen.
I don’t believe in happily ever after, but I look at humanity through reassuring eyes, and I try to reflect that in Badlands music. I want to say, “It’s fine”, because I think we are fine. Negativity is not inspiring to me. Reassurance inspires me, and it creates that tingle that enables you to move on after hard times. If you don’t have some kind of hope, you might as well lie down and die. It’s more fun to see what’s out there. Even if it’s shit, it’s something.
HMS: Definitely, it’s accepting something is possible rather than nothing. How did the video for “Hearts” come about? Did you help make it?
CJ: Yes, I got this reel from a friend with really old footage from the 60s, I think. It was 35 millimeter film. He knew that I loved old, cosmic footage. I think of “Hearts” as quite cosmic. Back in the club days, I made visuals for shows, so I still have that in me and I like doing that sometimes. I won’t take credit for the actual footage, but I made the video from the reels that I got from my friend.
HMS: Wow! Those are vintage reels of footage that we’re seeing in the video? That’s incredible. I love it.
CJ: Yes. I don’t know the particular year. It’s all analog. I love it, too. You can never fake that.
HMS: It has a great looping feel to it, like the song, cycling through possibilities. You mentioned working on commissioned projects. How does that type of work relate to your more personal projects? When you’re writing for those commissioned pieces, are you mainly focused on them, or is there more overlap?
CJ: It’s very separate in my mind. If I get a gig to make original music and sound design for the theater, then it’s two or three months of quite intense work where you have to be focused on that. 80% of that work I make in my studio, but I work pretty closely with the director and light designer, for example. There’s not much room to indulge in your own feelings. But what feels the same when I make my own music as well as making commissioned work is that I love to communicate and manipulate feelings. I think that stays the same.
Of course, sometimes there is material that is left over and never used, and sometimes I can bring that into Badlands. I think you can definitely hear a “Catharina sound” in my commissioned work. They aren’t two completely different things. People tend to contact me when they see a project that they think would work for me. That’s part of why I want to bring all my work under RITE because then people know what to associate with the brand.
HMS: When you are approached to do commissioned work, do you choose the projects based on the themes that appeal to you, or genre, or do you try to stay open-minded about it?
CJ: I wish I could do that. I’m not really at a place in my career where I can choose. I’m just really grateful that I can live off music and sound design, running my own thing, and being my own boss. But hopefully I’ll get there one day where I can be more selective. In my personal life, I overthink things, but in music, I don’t really think, so it’s my sanctuary. With my commissioned projects, and Badlands, I don’t really think, I just feel, and I just do, in a hyper-focused way. It’s not until afterwards that I realize what it was about.
As I said before, I love to manipulate feelings, though not in a calculating way. That’s why sound textures have always meant more to me than lyrics. I use lyrics as more of an instrument to communicate with the other instruments. I want to reach those things that we can’t really talk about, and we can only do that through feeling things. There’s no better way to reach out to people in that way than through music.
HMS: I had meant to ask you about the relationship between music and lyrics for you because it’s clear from your work that lyrics are not more important than the music. That varies a lot between composers, but lyrics are not the lead element here.
CJ: Yes, they are more made up along the way, and fall into place, but the melodies and the textures are the things that I really need to get out there. That’s where my passion is. That’s where my inspiration is.
HMS: I noticed that some time ago on Instagram, you mentioned that you were listening to Kris Kristofferson. He’s a wonderful and influential songwriter but it seems to show that your tastes in music are very broad. Do you wander around looking for interesting things in music?
CJ: Yes, I love the simplicity of Kris Kristofferson. But I listen to all kinds of music and all kinds of genres. I’m such a music lover. I don’t think there’s any genre that hasn’t spoken to me in some way. I was devastated when MF Doom died. Everything from Hip-Hop to Country music, to New Wave, to House. I don’t know any genre where I haven’t found something that’s meaningful to me. I could never stick with just Electronic music. Here, people often look at me as an Electronic person, but many people know that there’s so much more than that to me.
HMS: I came across some music on your Bandcamp page called “Phantasma I” and “Phantasma II”, which I understand will also be on the new album. It seemed like they could fit soundtrack work or album work. Where does that kind of work come from, creatively speaking?
CJ: I think I’ve always been like that. I think it has to do with sounds, pictures, melodies, and rhythms being more important than writing a classical song. Almost everybody tells me that my songs are like soundtrack and they can see a film when they hear it. I also have a background in film sound design. I was educated in Copenhagen at The Danish Film School. They have one of the most prestigious sound design programs in the world, and I learned a lot there. I work a lot in film sound design as well. I worked on Game of Thrones, mixing effects. So it’s no coincidence.
However, what I don’t enjoy about the film world is that you’re just a tool in someone’s toolbox. That’s why I left that world before I built my own career, because I didn’t want to be a tool in a toolbox but work creatively. I’d much rather work on a smaller scale where you have a say and some kind of freedom in what you’re doing. I’d rather work for my own dreams than someone else’s dreams.
