For this week’s Cultural Connection, KALTBLUT caught up with Corin Ileto ahead of the release of her sophomore album, “Lux Aeterna”, out July 14 via Lee Gamble’s UIQ. On “Lux Aterna”, Ileto explores the idea of sound as a sentient being. The album is named after a choral work by composer György Ligeti, which appears in the movie 2001:Space Odyssey during monolith’s discovery on the moon. Ileto is inspired by Ligeti’s use of micropolyphony – a tool whereby clusters of sound slowly merge creating amorphous cloud-like formations.
KALTBLUT caught up with the producer ahead of her release to discuss her love for science fiction and her upcoming album.
KALTBLUT: Tell me about your latest release.
CORIN: Lux Aeterna is an album that I wrote between 2020 to early 2022. It’s my second full length album, and also my second release with Lee Gamble’s label UIQ. I named the album after a composition that appears in Space Odyssey 2001 by Hungarian-Austrian 20th century composer Gyorgi Ligeti. I work as a composer for dance and experimental performance art works. The album was created during a time when I was experimenting with sound spatialisation, pitch bending and granular synthesis in theatre based works.
KALTBLUT: With your album you want to portray sound as a sentient being. Can you tell me a little more about that and what do you imagine “sound” to look like?
CORIN: I was thinking about futurism in music and what would be the final stage of a sound’s life force if it was a sentient being. In my interpretation, it would be the ability to take a sound and crush it, obliterating into tiny pieces, disappearing into the abyss. Inspired by sound design and architecture, I was interested in how sound might be imagined along multiple axises, levitating and disintegrating into a void.
Obviously it’s important to understand your position in relation to that culture and figure out a way to create something in a way that it respectful, and authentic to your practice and identity.
KALTBLUT: What impact does culture have on your production- and creative process?
CORIN: I think culture is always inherently in music whether conscious or unconscious. When I’m making an album I try to think about the cultural influences that might weigh heavily in a release whether that be science fiction themes, particular music subcultures or themes derived from my filipino cultural heritage. Obviously it’s important to understand your position in relation to that culture and figure out a way to create something in a way that it respectful, and authentic to your practice and identity.
KALTBLUT: What made you decide to combine your love for science fiction with music?
CORIN: My releases always have had some sort of science fiction angle. I generally like science fiction because of the interplay between human and non-human, organic and inorganic forms. The displacement of time and decentering of humanness can be a powerful way to explore what it actually means to be human.
My first album Manifest (2019) was a sort of cyberpunk narrative in terms of the music and visuals created by ongoing collaborator Tristan Jalleh. I’ve always enjoyed sci-fi films, and am always collecting music from soundtracks to play on the OST special of my monthly NTS show. I tried to construct Lux Aeterna – both the album and accompanying live performance – in a way that reads like an OST for a sci-fi film. If Lux Aeterna was movie it would exist somewhere in between a celestial space opera and a psychological thriller.
Also I was thinking specifically about compositional modes that felt like they could be derived from a sci-fi narrative, for example the idea of gravity within physics – how might that concept be re-imagined in sound? Or the idea of sound being in a cycle of constant mutation in order to achieve a certain level of alienation. Sunta, one of the last songs written for the album was constructed by remixing from samples from earlier demos – the samples mutated to the point that the source becomes unrecognisable.
Pre-save “Lux Aeterna” here and follow @corin.ileto to keep up with upcoming releases and shows.
Photo credits
Creative Direction & Styling – Vy Nguyen @ynvynyty
Photography – Joshua Hourigan @jo51ua
Make up – Moochi @moochimade
Hair – Jay Blitsas @harrypottersbf
Lighting Assistant – @jothwi
You can revisit all Cultural Connection interviews at #TheCulturalConnection here.
