KYLE KNAPP OF DELILUH

Hi Kyle and thanks for taking the time out to speak with us at Musicology. Firstly congratulations on the new record. What were some of the challenges in putting this LP together and conversely what were some of the greatest surprises you experienced through the writing / recording process for Beneath The Floors?

Thanks. This record was challenging in weird ways because of how it came together. Julius (guitar/synth) is originally from Copenhagen and at the time he was waiting to hear back about a visa extension to prolong his stay in Canada. We all had doubts as to whether he’d get it, so we decided to cut an album in the short time frame he had left. Roughly half of the songs were written over a few weeks during the holidays before we tracked them in January. We have a friendly rapport with a veteran’s hall called Owls Club back home where we’d often throw shows, so after they offered us their space for the sessions we decided to track the beds there. It was our first time doing that kind of thing outside of our apartment. Setting up took about a day, and we borrowed a 16 track half-inch tape machine from a friend. A lot of firsts for us - we had only used 8 track reel-to-reels and cassette recorders up until that point. We tracked for four days, and the day after we threw a big fundraiser show for Owls Club so they could fix their roof. After all that, Julius got the visa extension about a week later. In hindsight though, it was well played; we wrote and recorded Oath Of Intent a few months later under similar circumstances.

In the opening track Incantessa you speak of being on the “wave of change”, can you elaborate the change you are speaking of and where you see yourself placed with the wave’s trajectory?

Incantessa is a fictional sort of utopia that the protagonist dreams of escaping to. He’s in a rut and dealing with a lot of anxiety that he feels is provoked by the unjust world around him. He decides to leave home, and the wave of change is his leap of faith. The album reconnects with him on the last song of the record, far away from home, haunted by his past and buckling under the weight of issues that were internal all along.

Your lead single Lickspittle (A Nut In The Paste) is one that for an Australian audience is a track that listeners can draw parallels to the iconic Ed Kuepper / Killing Joke. Notably for is haunting and off kilter use of horns. Was the integration of these an early and integral part of the song that formed its back bone or more of an organic development as the tune was fleshed out?

The sax came last. Lickspittle was one of the guitar riffs I stumbled on a few weeks before the session. We practiced it a few times in my apartment and gave it some structure, and then just recorded the bed without overthinking it. After we added vocals, I had this other sort of counter melody in my head, so I tried it with sax out of curiosity and it stuck.

There is a monologue style delivery in the vocals, tinged with some filters throughout the record. Is this what you find to be the most impactful approach and perfect accompaniment to the selection of tracks that made it onto the album?

That’s mostly just my style of vocals lately, so it’s not so much a decision as it is just trying to be myself and do what I think sounds right. That said, I think straight ahead monologue can be effective depending on the song and what you’re trying to convey. Most of this record is story based, and it’s easier sometimes to pick up on subtleties and inflections in speech, such that it helps guide the listener into what’s going on.

As a musician and lyricist, when writing are there words that pair themselves with a certain instrumentation and lend themselves to a certain sound that is conjured by the instrument and accentuated by the word?

There might be, but I would use that tactic more in an improv sense to workshop a song. Things can get pretty heady if you try to force words too hard, and for me it’s usually what sounds natural that should prevail in the end. If I write something ahead of time, and it isn’t meshing with the song when we give it a go at practice, it’s better to scrap it right there and start fresh than be attached to the words.

In writing for the record has there been examples in your work whereby the true lyrical meaning of what it was you were describing only became apparent much later and its inner meaning only revealing itself long after pen was put to paper?

I wrote the lyrics to each song at different points in time, and most of them are stories unto themselves. However, Incantessa’s lyrics were some of the last I wrote for the album, and I followed the thread of the character in Beneath The Floors to give more context to his story. We sort of knew Incantessa would be the opener on the album early on, so it was interesting to see that character come full circle with his story arc at the end of the record.

With such richly layered tracks and a masterful finesse in you compositional structures, by prising these layers apart can you elaborate on the technical nature of your production and piecemeal construction through the instruments and electronic equipment you used on Beneath The Floors?

I think our mixture of approaches probably benefited this record in an interesting way. Tracking a lot of it off the floor of an old hall without a strict or concrete understanding of the songs gave the beds a kind of comfortable swagger that sounds cool listening back now. Had we sat with the songs longer before recording, I think they would have likely changed dramatically. The beds and sound of the space influenced where we took the songs with overdubbing, almost all of which happened in my bedroom. In some songs, we would experiment with creating a new atmosphere, while in others we would commit to the space of the hall and try to fit the overdubs to match. Julius and I took turns working the tape machine and tracking synth or guitar or sax, dialling in the space echo, etc. Erika and Jude would stop by and lay something else down, and the overall goal was to find counterpoint that would allow the songs to breathe. That time after allowed us to experiment with a lot of different stuff too. In Master Keys, I buried a bunch of cassette audio from street interviews my friend conducted to dictaphone underneath a section of the song. The interviews were originally used for a weird variety/talk show we put together for a laugh, and it was just random people talking about what they were doing that day or how they were spending the weekend or whatever. I thought it could sound interesting in the song with all of these voices faintly coming in and out. Master Keys is about a security guard who’s scared shitless of his job, and I like to think all of these voices add a sense of paranoia to it.

Having meet and performed with so any different musicians and artists over the years, during that time, has there been any defining moments or words of wisdom that were spoken to you which really resonated with you and in turn altered the way you approach your craft?

Deliluh helped organize a reunion show for a band called Anagram last year. They were important for a lot of punk and rock musicians growing up in Toronto DIY communities during the early 2000s, and they are the best punk band I’ve ever seen live. Anagram is a good example of a band that never made it out of town, though they could have potentially ripped a hole through the world had they taken more risks. Matt their vocalist used to live half a block away from me and is a good friend. He’s a very kind, well mannered and soft spoken guy. He encouraged Deliluh to go for it when taking steps to tour Europe, explore possibilities, and take our band more seriously. Speaking with him was motivating, and helped me make the decision to move overseas and focus on a career in music. Also, last summer we played a festival in Meaford, Ontario called Electric Eclectics. It takes place in a farmer’s field and is a very friendly atmosphere with an experimental lineup. We played before Suzanne Ciani, and the vibe she gave was true class, on and off stage. Her set was a quadrophonic set-up and I remember the breeze picking up, blowing cool air into the field almost like it was planned in time for her performance that night. Her set was one of the most immersive musical experiences I’ve ever had. Julius is a huge fan of her buchla work and nervously went backstage to thank her afterwards - she was completely cool, speaking with anyone and everyone, without a drop of pretension or ego. It’s nice knowing there are people that have changed the foundations of music, and they are often just regular people at the end of the day.

Experimental in belief and practise, can you answer the philosophical question, what does music give you that nothing else does?

I can’t answer that. It’s difficult enough explaining what music even is, at all. All I know is I think it’s what I’m supposed to do, at least for the time being, and I don’t think I’m going to stop anytime soon.