Foto-© Claryn Chong
Die Nacht ist für Wasia Project mehr als nur eine Tageszeit. Sie ist ein Ort für Gedanken, Gefühle und all die Dinge, für die der Alltag oft keinen Platz lässt. Genau dort findet Nocturne, das neue Album des Duos seine Heimat. Zwischen Introspektive und Euphorie, Einsamkeit und Nähe entsteht eine musikalische Welt, die sich genauso gut nach Mitternacht wie nach dem ersten Licht des Morgens anfühlt.
Inspiriert von der Natur, dem Mond, alten Mythen und der Atmosphäre nächtlicher Städte markiert Nocturne eine dunklere und immersivere Phase für Wasia Project. Im Gespräch erzählen sie von der Entstehung des Albums, den Erfahrungen einer Generation nach COVID, der emotionalen Bedeutung von Stay und davon, warum die Nacht für sie schon immer ein Ort war, an dem sie sich selbst am nächsten fühlen.
The album explores the mythology of the night. What does “the night” symbolize for you personally and creatively?
I’ve always been a very nocturnal person. I’ve always resonated with the feelings that seem unique to the timeframe of the night – from sunset to sunrise. All those many things that can happen within that and the surreality and like liminal spaces you can feel like you’re in or enter. Which I think is why it’s also a very creative time or a place where I can feel very in touch with my emotions and connected to something that feels more authentic to me. A place where I feel like nobody is watching or I can be completely myself and think about the bigger things as well. Think deeper about more existential things and I guess bigger emotions that the busyness of everyday life doesn’t allow room or time for.
Why did you choose the title Nocturne, and how does it capture the essence of the record?
We chose Nocturne because we knew by the end of the process that sonically and as a world the album was darker and grittier and explored those themes like liminality and the depth of emotion and those unique emotions you feel in the night and we knew by the end of the process that we wanted it to be something about the nighttime. We had a bunch of running titles during the night or next. And Nocturne just stuck because it’s I mean it literally means like a musical piece or like inspired by the night or it’s like an homage to the night in conjunction with the night and obviously was made famous by Chopin and that’s a link to like our classical background so it kind of all tied together nicely but it was a kind of working title near the end then we kind of just stuck with it because it felt like it just encapsulated the world of all the songs.
The album moves between introspection and euphoria. How did you approach balancing those contrasting emotions?
By making half the songs introspective and half euphoric – I think it wasn’t thought about at the time but when curating we were very keen about keeping the balance overall across the project. Balanced in terms of nuance of emotion and I think that came instinctually but we were talking about having the right balance of reflection in those deep and personal feelings and also the higher side of things. We talked about pH scale a lot in a way that we didn’t have too much of one thing because we wanted to have a balance of both and I think we were led by instinct and then the same for the ordering of the tracks.
Was there a particular song that became the emotional centerpiece of the album?
I think Stay felt the most real – it came near the end of the process and it just felt like an anchor point of vulnerability. And it had a lo-fi element which felt really raw and vulnerable and the final recording was the first take of the voice we got and it had literally been written as well in that time and it just flowed out – it became somewhat of a centrepiece. I would say the final three songs Stay, Nightingale and Wildfire in that order have the right kind of shot to the heart listening to those three in order. It’s very like a rollercoaster but they all are very deeply emotional I think.
The record reflects on post-COVID experiences, isolation and fragmented connections. How did those themes shape your songwriting?
Because we were living in them we were literally in school for the whole of COVID and it feels like real friendships are very hard to feel the same now because we’re all just semi-friends with everyone we know on social media and we know every tiny thing that’s going on in their life. But you have to really really put effort in to have meaningful discussions. All we see is Steve Lacy accompanying everyone on their stories looking amazing but it’s very fragmented. I’ve tried to be in third spaces with people I care about but it feels like a very different social world and it feels very lonely and isolating. And those themes shape the songwriting because that’s what we’re living in and that’s what we’re experiencing right now as young people.
The album explores loneliness and togetherness simultaneously. Why was it important to examine both sides of that spectrum?
Because I think you can’t have one without the other. I think loneliness is when I’m lonely I crave to be together with people and I crave closeness. I think not even together it’s like I think. Like proximity in closeness to people is what I miss in terms of when I’m lonely and I think it’s important to examine both of that because there’s also a celebration of what it means to be together and I think even in like part of the process we found it really difficult to be isolated and like making this music alone essentially then we played a bunch of live shows and live festivals and I saw live music during the summer of that year that we were making the album. And it felt amazing and it reminded me why we were doing what we’re doing and I think Vogue and the more club-inspired elements and the electronic world even though it’s very icy I think it encourages music that you can share with other people and I think overall the live experience sharing it with fans and being with other people and friends listening to music attending concerts I guess goes together even if a song like 2515 which is about kind of feeling lonely or isolated in a relationship I can imagine it being very amazing live so I think I don’t know it just goes together – you can’t have one without the other really.
What conversations or emotions do you hope listeners take away from the album?
I hope they can feel less lonely if they are and that they can take what they want away from it. I think it’s just appreciating it and listening to it with keen ears and taking away what they want from the emotions that are in the songs and the sentiments expressed. And it’s just allowing themselves to feel while they listen to the music so for me that would look like listening at night – it’s Nocturne! I do think a lot of the emotions are magnified or as I said particular to the night so just immersing themselves is what I hope people do and I hope they appreciate it.
Your sound on Nocturne feels darker and more immersive than your previous work. What inspired this sonic evolution?
Honestly playing songs we’ve written when we were like fourteen for three years consecutively it makes you want to change and switch it up a little bit. And I think it was instinctually after touring old music a lot and as we’ve grown as people our taste had evolved – it just felt natural to who we were. A lot of the stuff we wrote when we were younger felt a lot sweeter and a lot more simple and I think we wanted to explore nuanced emotions sounds and experimentation and I think that’s what naturally came out of that. We played live for a long time and I think getting into the swing of live things and being able to experiment within live environments was also inspiring to bring it up a notch and wanting to elevate it. We knew we wanted it to be grand though and just feel big and impressive and a statement and like we’re putting a footprint in the sand.
Were there any artists, films, books, or cultural influences that inspired the album’s atmosphere?
I would say that for me weirdly for this entire album, it was there, before it was even made and this isn’t cultural it’s literally nature. I think the natural world was such an accompaniment to the making of this album for me especially like the moon and natural elements like feeling immersed in being in nature and appreciating the grandeur and uniqueness of things like the moon and the ocean and wind. I think you can tell that the moon inspired a lot of the songs and like the mythical elements. But the atmosphere was so real in nature at night was such a big thing and also atmosphere in the city at night but it was like more like just real life and living in these moods and the seasons and autumn fog and all these specific natural elements that were so prominent during the making. I think fed the writing in the creative process. It was like constantly thinking about those atmospheres made by the natural world. There was also a lot of art but I think the art again would reflect those natural moods. There are direct homages to Massive Attack, Radiohead and with Vogue Donna Summer even but I don’t even think we got it directly from I Feel Love – I think it was sampled through even Beyoncé. There were so many different references artistically and musically especially but I would say in terms of atmosphere it was very much the natural world. Obviously the mythology like moon goddess and the Chinese myth and then also biblical references and Strike Me Down and In Sunken Key. I’ve always associated that with for some reason with the River Styx from Greek mythology which is the river to the underworld and the grandeur of that so these kind of I guess like natural elements in these ancient myths that felt like it matched the grandeur of these big feelings.
Did working on Nocturne challenge you in ways your previous releases did not?
Yes, it was very very difficult. We wanted it to be very good and we were not aligned. At the beginning of the process I was putting a lot of pressure on the final outcome before we’d even sewn the seeds and I was very harsh – everything about it like hairpins – I was closing it and William was opening up and then we were on different wavelengths. We worked in a very different way to how we’d done before and it was the first time I think we’d both dedicated our full-time to making music together whereas before we’d always had something else in our life counterbalancing it so it was the first time we’re both like gone into the same project like wholeheartedly and it felt kind of different. But we slowly aligned after a bunch of different reasons and conversations and going away and feeling inspired and coming back and it helped a lot to flow into something something different.
Do you feel this album represents who you are right now or is it more a reflection on a past version of yourselves?
I mean by now it’s already a bit past because it’s like a year ago now but overall I think it’s the most up-to-date to our taste. It’s weird because 12 songs in our career feels like a lot maybe compared to what we’ve put out before but it’s so minimal to all of the songs and all of the ideas that we have had over a course of this time and they’re constantly flowing so it feels already like a past version but it’s also a project that feels up-to-date so there’s like a subtle lag and it can’t possibly reflect all of the things that feel like a version of ourselves artistically but it will suffice right now. But it definitely feels a lot more up-to-date than previous releases obviously.
Wasia Project live:
25.11.26 Berlin, Astra
