Cover Photo Credit: Pasqual Dominic Amade
Amsterdam based electronic duo Weval (Harm Coolen and Merijn Scholte Albers) will release their new album CHOROPHOBIA on September 5. We listened to the record beforehand and talked to Coolen about it.
I listened to your upcoming album CHOROPHOBIA and I really liked it. It’s banger after banger after banger.
Harm Coolen: Super nice to hear, man.
The title means “the fear of dancing.” Can you explain for our readers what that signifies exactly?
We realized that we always were in between dancing and not dancing. We always chased purely our feelings. And I think that’s important when doing music, you know, just chasing your intuition and your feelings. At some point we realized, hey, but that feeling is also a certain comfort zone, where you are almost not brave enough to step it up a notch and go a bit more extreme on a certain spectrum of your feeling. We were always a bit scared to really go bold in the studio and go a bit more towards that dancy direction, while for the live show, it’s pretty clear what we want. It always was way more banging and way more bold moves. Back in the studio, it felt like we’re almost a bit scared to throw in certain elements really loud or build a bigger drop. We realized we were always also experiencing a tiny bit of stage fright, and that when we were young we were a bit scared to dance. But we love it. So that’s why we realized that this record is a tool for us to try to go for it, to really go for the dance stuff.
When you are not performing but are among the audience, are you more chill types or the dancer types?
Honestly, I’m not the boldest dancer. (laughs) When I was a bit young, like 10 years ago, when I went to like indie bands, for example, I always wanted to move to music, even for a band like Beach House, which is a bit more vibey stuff. That always surprised me. But it is super groovy as well, I think. When I was in the audience back then, -I’m not sure how it is now with their audiences- they were listening and I thought I wanted to move. I think even in electronic music 10 years ago, people danced less, right? Nowadays people are dancing a bit more. And I really, really love that. So yeah, I think we’re moving, but we don’t own the dance floor. (laughs) We’re a bit minimal, I would say.
You also mentioned in the liner notes that this is your most extroverted collection to date. Do you think you are introverts or extroverts?
Yeah, that’s a funny one. I never knew this about myself until someone told me that we are introverts. I have a bit of both sides in me, but then I realized, yeah, we’re super introverted, actually. I think Merijn even a bit more than me. And when I’m extroverted, I still come from a place of introverts. That’s the thing that I learned: You can be an extroverted introvert. In the end, yeah, that’s what this whole record is all about: An introvert trying to go to the extrovert part of themselves.
It’s like finding the courage from within you to push the boundaries and then going forward from that inner peace foundation.
Exactly. Yeah.
You just mentioned how everyone is more open to dancing now, and I think that to a degree relates to there being less gatekeeping in terms of “cool attitudes” to demonstrate in public performance places. Every genre is becoming more and more intersectional with the others as well. There is less judgement in terms of how you express yourself, both as an artist and as an audience.
Yeah, 100%. And I think it’s sometimes hard to generalise because every scene is different. Within the electronic scene, you’ve got so many niches. I had an impression that the music is a bit more small and minimal and it got a bit more extroverted. I think a big part of that is indeed the judgement. I guess in the 80s, there were more people who were dressed up and there was a really posh environment in the dance scene. The 90’s blew that all away and it was like one big awesome jungle, I guess. Yeah, we are in this new wave where people are trying to let go of that judgement element and just have a good time.
When you think back to the production process of this album, are there two songs that come to your mind, one easiest and one hardest to put together?
A good question. I think the track “DOPAMINE” came together really quickly. We did some stuff on the mix, went back to the initial project and then again, some stuff at the mix, but we basically had a couple of mixing days where we realized, “Wait, we were pretty close at the start!” We changed that back a bit. So that was a cool one In terms of composition,
“OPEN UP THE DOOR” was a tricky one. The initial ID went pretty quickly. Then it felt like it needed some type of journey or something. We didn’t exactly know where to place that track. So I think compositionwise, it was really just us searching and thinking, “What is this?” It doesn’t have like a four-four base in the beginning, and it is pretty tough. Then you have to take a break. It was a very interesting one, how we could finish that. It was a bit more like searching.
You have two collaborations on this record, one with Nsanshi and one with KILIMANJARO. You have been working together as two people for quite a while now. Does making collaborations also feel like taking a huge step out of your comfort zone?
Yeah, 100%. Even riding with friends is like that, but also with other artists. It’s so scary because you start with nothing and you literally don’t know what the vibe will be. If you produce for yourself, I can make music for three hours and it might be pretty awesome, or it might be horrible. It doesn’t matter. With someone in the room, it’s complicated. I wrote with quite some friends or music lovers who came in the studio and I thought I wanted to practice it almost like, “OK, they have some musician skills. Let’s create something.” But when you go in the room with another artist, the stakes are even higher. “Oh f.ck, what’s going on?” That’s a complete rush of 2, 3, 4 hours with someone else. It feels like starting a marathon game. You just start to run and you don’t know exactly when the end is there. And that was also a way to open up and go out of the comfort zone indeed.
I’ve been thinking about this. In theory, everyone has a lot of artists they would like to collaborate with. Who wouldn’t want to collaborate with The Cure, right? In actual practice, though, it’s all about how you will form a connection and how your languages of working might work or not work with someone.
100%. I had really cool moments with friends that really inspired me, because they came from such a music loving experience. It pushes you to get a bit from that. We had really cool experiences with other artists as well, all coming from the love of music, no snobbiness, they were just there for the love of making stuff. And in the end, you don’t know what you will have, but yeah, I didn’t have a bad experience. I’m really happy about that. I like how once you’re in the room, you have to forget about the rest of the world. I was never in the studio with the Cure. I would love to, and I would love to work with other amazing artists as well. But in a way, you’re all a bit f.cked when you’re there. You need to see and go, “Oh, f.ck. Now what?” when you’re in the studio.
For the record, I would also love to see a Weval and The Cure collaboration.
(laughs) I would definitely be in.
The opening track “CHOROPHOBIA”, as you already mention in your notes, sounds like a 70’s horror film soundtrack. How are you with horror films?
I like the vibe of it. I like the B movie. I like the fact that it’s so free. Often those genres are pretty non judgmental, like, “Oh, we’ll do a scary moment!” It’s a bit ridiculous. That’s what I really love about it. I’m a big movie fan in general, but I didn’t really dive into any specific horror.
Were there any current films that you really liked?
One of the more modern horror movies is maybe Get Out. Have you seen it?
Yeah. Awesome.
Yeah, it’s almost hyperreal and very real at the same time. I think that for me was a perfect example of modern horror combined with all kinds of interesting society topics. But I must also admit, a month ago, I was looking at Midsommar. Have you heard about that movie?
Yeah. Again, great film.
It’s a sick film, but I couldn’t watch it, to be honest. It was too brutal for me.
It’s sort of a tough watch.
Yeah, it’s really tough. I never really had this one out. It is something new for me. It was too explicit in terms of the violence and I guess I couldn’t handle it.
If I were to make a suggestion, Get Out’s director Jordan Peele has a film called Nope, which is also great.
Out. Oh, sick. Yeah, I’m gonna watch it tonight. It’s on schedule.
It’s more of a Spielberg-type action adventure flick with some horror elements.
Oh, that sounds sick. I heard of it. (checks out his phone) Oh, it’s on my watch list already! Yeah, I’m going to watch this tonight 100%.
Cool. When you check your streaming platform’s history, what are the last three tracks that pop up?
Sure, let me check. I have been listening to Kilimanjaro’s last single, I was curious about it and it was cool to see what he did.
Recently I was watching a romcom called 13 Going on 30, and it had “Speaking in Tongues” by Talking Heads, and I thought, “Oh, I forgot about this track!”, so I was listening to that.
The third track is not really a track. I never listen to playlists on Spotify, but I did this time. It was an alternative 90s playlist. I just put that on and there was Air’s “Sexy Boy”, and there was some Björk and other cool stuff as well.
Let’s imagine we’re at a Musicians Theme Park 100 years from now, where every artist or band featured has their own memorial stone with a certain lyric by them written on it. Which one of the lyrics would you like to see written on Weval’s stone?
We have this track called “Are You Even Real.” We wrote it more with the mindset of ‘are you honest to yourself or to me’, but with the whole AI development, when we performed it for the last couple of weeks on tour, I was realizing, “Hey, wait a second, these lyrics almost got a new meaning, and I could imagine that question is going to be more and more important in the future.
You can check out Weval’s Bandcamp profile here.
