The Final On Vinyl
The Final On Vinyl Interviews Artists From All Over The World Covering New Age, Rock, Surf Instrumental, And Other Genres.
The Final On Vinyl
Alexander Sussman Interview -The Final on Vinyl Podcast
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An enjoyable conversation with an incredibly talented individual!
Keith "MuzikMan" Hannaleck
Hello everyone, this is Keith Music Man Hand like with the final vinyl podcast, and today we are with Alexander Sussman. And um I had the pleasure of c covering Alexander's music um not that long ago, actually, in in May, I believe it was SonicCom one, the first volume of his series that he has decided to put out. And now SonicCom 2 was just released September 27th of this year, and he is hailing all the way from Australia. Welcome, Alexander.
SPEAKER_00Hello, Keith, and um a pleasure to be here. Thank you very much.
SPEAKER_01Thank you. I appreciate you coming on board to talk. And um I suppose the first question I would have is um it sounds like that the first volume went so well that you decided to go ahead and create another one and um or you actually had that much material uh available. How how exactly did that whole thing unfold for you?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, great question. Um actually neither of the two. It was always planned on being two right from the very beginning. Um so when I had part one, it was literally called one because I knew there would be a two. Partly, Keith, one of the main reasons I did it was to push myself to keep going. Because you know, sometimes when you finish a project, there's that wonderful, oh thank goodness that's done, and then a bit of a lull. And I thought, no, I'll do one of two and with the specific intention of getting two done, and you know, being fairly driven, goal-oriented in a way, uh, it gave me a focus and a goal. Now, when I started preparing the compos the compositions, which was way back in October of 2024, um I always knew well, I knew from then that there was going to be two. Uh and I prepared a lot more material than I needed, uh, ended up with about 45, 46 pieces that went all the way through to production. And from those I chose the ones that resonated the most with me, and either kept them as they were or considerably worked on them to keep them going. But yes, that was always intended as two. And that's the end, by the way, there will be no three. It's that's we're done now.
SPEAKER_01Okay. So as far as um your process, do you begin writing on piano and take it from there? And um your you know, what what are the instruments that you are playing besides piano and were there any other significant contributors?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, yeah, yeah. Um I I always start with keyboard because first of all, I was a keyboard piano, I did piano conservatorium, so that was my major before I switched to composition. So it's a natural fit. I I do play brass instruments, but it's a natural fit to just it it's brass is not something that you can really compose harmony on. Because what I hear first more than anything else is the chords, it's the harmony. So I start with keyboard looking at harmony. Nothing unusual, nothing different. In fact, it's exactly as Maurice Ravel wrote about a hundred years ago, binding the pretty chords. And from there, I think of the textures in that harmony, and it lends itself from there. Now I've got a couple of good friends who are all vocalists because I do a lot of work as a musical director with vocalists on their one neck one-person show, so excuse me, um as a pianist, and none were available. So I didn't have them this time. I'm hoping that in the future they'll be actually available for it. But at this particular these this album set, it was just me.
SPEAKER_01I see. You know, I I do hear a lot of this music, and um what always comes up for me um from what I hear is like oh, you know, I think about you know, people and and who their influences are, and there's certain things that come up for me every single time. Uh tangerine dream, evangelism craft work, things of that nature. Were you influenced by all of that type of music, or was there something else that sparked your interest in doing this kind of music?
SPEAKER_00Oh, okay. Very much not the names that you mentioned. Uh my influences were formidable influences were and remain classical. So I'm very much in that mindset. It's much more um I have a deep love of the French classicists around the the turn of the century. I can't say it in French, but the Debussy, the Ravel, the Foray, that era, because of their beautiful use of harmony and their experimentation. Further on from that, I have a deep love of the minimalists, the American minimalists. So that's Philip Glass, Steve Reich, and um people of that elk. However, when you're going into new, when you then mix that in with new age music, my initial influences were people like Kitaro, because we're going back to the 1980s now. I mean, I was very young, but I still remember exploring that at the time. And to me, that to me that was already then a fusion between uh synthesized music that had an otherworldly feel to it, but with actually a fairly strong I won't say classical is the wrong word, but what we would now call classical crossover. It has that element to it, so there's strong harmonic structures in there. So anyway, Kitterot, Jean-Michel Jarre was an early influence. I actually didn't know about Van Gelistor later on, to be absolutely honest. And then when I came back to exploring New Age music, because I'd gone off for a number of years, I'd written a couple of operas and got involved with uh uh with uh a lot of music theatre. Just because that's where a lot of the work was. And when I came back to it, I started listening to um the people who are around now, like um there's uh I'm gonna get his name wrong, Arkenstone, I think, David Arkenstone and Diane Arkenstone, who I'm very, very, very taken with. And um oh, I'd have to look at my I have to look at my um uh library to have a look at the people. But it's more modern than it is looking back to the 80s. There's certainly that wonderful influence of that early analog synthesizer sound, which is very beautiful and quite different from our modern digital. But um, as I say, for me it was strongly a classical focus and going into uh a more modern focus looking at new age. Oh, and I will make one distinction here, Keith. The difference between what I consider to be, and this is just personal, obviously, new age and ambient music because ambient music's been around, but it's not necessarily new age music. To me, ambient music is often atonal and quite um experimental, but I don't necessarily find that always with new age music, which I find more uh grounded, if you like, in a first of all a tonal language, and also grounded in an element of spiritual, whatever that is for that person, because it's always unique.
SPEAKER_01Right. You know, and I hear all of that in your music though.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, yeah, you it wouldn't make sense. It would it wouldn't make sense.
SPEAKER_01And I heard you say I mean I wrote a piece of study.
SPEAKER_00Please go on.
SPEAKER_01I'm sorry. Uh I I was just thinking about Kataro, how much I've enjoyed that music and the the first time I heard it, I thought it was wonderful. So you've listened to a lot of Kataro over the years.
SPEAKER_00Uh yes, I've well he w mainly in the nineteen eighties because he himself had a bit of a lull period. I mean, he's released a few things lately, which has been wonderful to hear hear it again and hear how both he's evolved his own sound. But yes, it's that it's that modern it's that sorry, it's that um that 20th century synthetic synthesizer sound is different from 21st century because of their analog instruments as distinct from magic at all. So it has a different resonance to it, and I think that's what we're drawn to. At least it certainly is for me.
SPEAKER_02I see. I see.
SPEAKER_01So, you know, also with classical music, I I feel that everything I listen to is is grounded in that. I think that's where New Age music came from, to be perfectly honest. But you know, that's my opinion. What are your thoughts on that?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, I think you may be right. Um when you think uh oh the new age movement, and for me the new age movement started in the 1980s, and only because of my only because that's probably when I felt I was no longer uh living with my parents, you know, and I was living my own life. So that's when I s that's identified with that period. I could be wrong, it could be earlier, but it it probably will have more folk influences earlier. However, the New Age music of the nineteen eighties w and and its origin was certainly a lot to do with the proliferation of synthesizers and the ability to get one and get into a studio and record with them than the ease with which you could suddenly do that. That's the first thing. And secondly, the people who would have been composing that music probably had uh a more classical education, by classical, I don't mean classical music, I mean classical as instructed, a more formal or standard musical education. So they would have gravitated closer towards music as structure, music as form, music as harmony. So it would make sense. And also don't forget in the 1980s, um the American minimal minim minimalists, Philip Glass and Steve Ruck, etc. were also coming in big into their own, and they were really showing us that you could do a lot with just a very few elements. They had a profound and beautiful lasting influence on music.
SPEAKER_01Right. And also the the computer-generated sounds today uh emulating actual instruments are are it's just getting finer and finer and getting to the point where gee, was that really a violin or was that just you know produced by a synthesizer? It's pretty crazy.
SPEAKER_00No, that's fabulous. It opens up an awful lot of possibilities. I think the thing to be careful of, and it's it's something that um a friend of mine who's a conductor conducts um uh uh orchestras for opera, he conducts opera, and he was very clear with my music. He said what you've done correctly, and I didn't even realize I was doing it because it's just part part and parcel of natural training, is you didn't use everything all at once. You used restraint, used a bit here and a bit there. And I think with the ability of sampled instruments, the you still have to have that sense of um ensemble, what flows well together. Just because you've got it doesn't mean you should use it, you know, use it judiciously and use it in a way that um progresses your musical narrative, whatever that is.
SPEAKER_01Very insightful of your comments. Thank you for that.
SPEAKER_00No, I'm wondering if you're insightful at 7 a.m. without a coffee, but I'm trying my best.
SPEAKER_01Right. It's it's early there. That's right. Oh my god. Well, I appreciate you starting so early with this. So do you have a vinyl collection that you uh that you like to like to play uh vinyl on your your uh your equipment there? Do you have a special thing?
SPEAKER_00I love it if I had it, but I don't I don't have one or what what a you know maybe you shouldn't should have suggested that I might go out and get some. Oh wow enjoy vinyl because I enjoy that that um analogue feeling, but I don't have any truth. What I do have analog is of course keyboards and instruments, but they're they're analog. They'll have real real ones of those, but it's not vinyl.
SPEAKER_01So you don't have a stereo system that you actually enjoy, you just go into the studio and and listen to it that way and create their no, I'm a sort of embarrassed.
SPEAKER_00No, I should have one. But no, Keith, at the moment I don't have one. Um sorry, I'm I I'm not trying to stop the conversation. No, I don't have any vinyl vinyl equipment. I mean, as I as I pointed out, it would be nice. It's not something I've really thought of. Well one of the issues that I probably the only issue I can think of offhand quickly uh with vinyl is that at least here it tended to be associated with EDM or electronic dance music. And you had vinyl when you went to clubs and you did electronic dance music that way. So there's not necessarily a great scope for getting non-EDM, non-electronic dance music on vinyl for your own listening pleasure or for your own um education purposes. It's not necessarily that easy to get a hold of either. It's it's it's also that that's also part of the mix.
SPEAKER_01Right. So when did you first start playing uh growing up? You must have been in the house that you had parents that were playing music all the time and you decide uh you want to play the piano. Is that how it happened?
SPEAKER_00No, not at all. No. I I I know everyone's story is the same and different in a kind of way. Um no one in my mu house uh had music, uh was interested in music. My father used to sing to us um always Buccini operas, um, because he was Italian and with the wrong words, uh, which was kind of funny when I grew up and realized. But I just literally I was uh what we call preschool kindergarten, so it was preschool, and they had all these keyboards, and I was told, because I do not remember, that I would take everyone's keyboard and I would have all the pianos around me and no one was allowed to touch them except for me. And that I took my mother thinking, well, maybe you've got something with the keyboard. You know, if you believe at all in in rebirth or anything like that, you'd think, oh, this person's on a mission, okay? Um I started key piano when I was six, I think. Um by the time I was eight, I'd given my first recital of the Greek piano concerto in A minor. So I took like it to a duck to water. I mean, I absolutely took to it. And I was practicing hours a day by the time I was seven because I just loved it. And you know, if you think about it, besides the fact that we're the one that has the technical proficiency, it's nothing to do with that. Music is itself an abstract. It it it it allows the development of abstract concepts in the brain, which is why it's very good for children to learn, even if they parents don't intend to become musicians. It it develops a side of the brain that is either developed in mathematics or in music, but it's not developed in other ways. And it and the abstract development of um mind is particularly good and relevant. So that's how I came to it. I really took to it, and then I went through all the the standard grade system, it'll be different in each country, but you know, it's the same things. I did the um exams also for the Trinity College of London, and then I got a scholarship into the conservatorium. So I really just took to it. It was yeah, I was the one that wanted it, no one else knew anything, no one else cared. It was absolutely just uh a one person's journey.
SPEAKER_01Interesting. I think that's funny how you just gathered all those pianos that's like, you know, these are mine, nobody touches, this is me. So you knew right away.
SPEAKER_00Yep, yeah, I knew apparently I knew it right away from kindergarten. This was it. And you know, I was waiting for you know get me started. And as soon as I started, it took about a month and I was already doing two hand compositions, and I was you know, I was right there. I got it. Make perfect sense.
SPEAKER_01You're a phenom. That's what you were. You were a phenom. Definitely.
SPEAKER_00I I don't know what that is, but it sounds good.
SPEAKER_01Well well, let's put it this way, you were a very special child with uh with a gift, and you were I don't know, you were connected in such a way that you just knew what to do. I was ready to do it. Like like like you said, you you you you were reincarnate in some way. You were here before and you knew exactly what to do, right? I mean exactly.
SPEAKER_00That's how I see it too. I'd come back to the mission, was ready.
SPEAKER_01Very interesting. Well, it's been wonderful to connect with you this way and talk to you. It was a very interesting conversation and uh certainly appreciate your time, and I do hope that um you've decided to go back into the studio and record again that I hear from you so we I can hear your music and perhaps we can talk again.
SPEAKER_00Oh Keith, I've already started on the sketches for the next album. Oh great. I mean, I've actually just come, I'm tired this morning because I came yesterday, was the opening of a show for which I did 45 minutes of music, which was done concurrently with the album. But you know, that's now that's done. It's what's next. And I've already started in the sketches.
SPEAKER_01Well, make sure you rest too, because you you know you're doing an awful lot. You got a lot in your plate, my friend.
SPEAKER_00I've got I've got a retreat for December, I've planned for the whole month, so I'm looking forward to that.
SPEAKER_01Oh, good for you. That's good. Gotta take care of yourself.
SPEAKER_00Absolutely. It's been an absolute pleasure talking to you, Keith. Thank you for the opportunity and thank you for the experience.
SPEAKER_01You too, Alexander. Feeling commissionable. Take care. Bye bye now.
SPEAKER_00Bye bye now.