Together DJ Dan Solo and Evangelos Typist are Sanctums, an electronic duo based out of Calgary. Modern Math 001, their newest album, features six tracks that are spectral, ornate and sprawling without ever passing beyond the edge of control. These are songs that leave stains beneath your skin; that are only as dark as they are engrossing. Functioning as a unit rather than individuals, Sanctums agreed to answer a few questions in the present tense.
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Sanctums is…
- Sanctums: …a space of unadulterated collaboration.
Sports are…
- Sanctums: …propaganda and kinetic truth.
Pets are…
- Sanctums: …only as good as their masters.
Canada is…
- Sanctums: …a humbling environment due to its vast space of extreme nature.
War is…
- Sanctums: …sacrificial and deeply saddening. We are against violence of such a grotesque nature however we recognize that such things are part of the evolutionary flux. The balance between dark/light, masculine/feminine and destructive/creative forces.
Making music is…
- Sanctums: …an act we both enjoy sharing in a collaborative space. It’s an experimental process for us, something that changes every day depending on our individual moods and where our inspiration is coming from.
Selling music is…
- Sanctums: …not on our mind when we are making it.
Performing is…
- Sanctums: …getting lost in the moment.
Modern Math Recordings -our new label, in which Dan Solo is a co-founder- is…
- Sanctums: …a curated installation of sound and vision based in western Canada. Modern Math started as an event series in Calgary in 2009. That event played an important role in transforming the landscapes of our separated creative regions – the underground music and digital art scenes. We have recently shifted our attention from the event into a label that will release music that we feel suits the Modern Math palate.
Modern Math 001 –our most recent album- is…
- Sanctums: …something we made quite a while back that represents a nice learning curve in our process. We’re working on several future releases/projects at the moment that we’re really excited about and beginning to conceptualize ideas for a full-length album that we want to create.
Privacy is…
- Sanctums: …one thing in the real world and another in the digital realm.
Guns are…
- Sanctums: …helpful when hunting large game although we personally enjoy throwing axes and other large medieval weapons.
Our best choice was…
- Sanctums: …starting this project completely without an audience or musical context in mind. We started in the vein of experimental expressionism and continue to allow that to guide our project no matter where it goes.
Calgary is at its best when…
- Sanctums: …it’s a mild twenty-two degree Celsius day and there are good people to enjoy time outside with…our winters are long…Calgarians do a good job of making the most of pleasant weather.
The problem with Calgary is…
- Sanctums: …the city’s overall movement towards corporatization in nearly every aspect of social and cultural life. We have, at times, felt the draw to move further underground or even out of the city in order to maintain the independence that we feel is integral to our creative fields; so that our art cannot be swallowed by commodification and homogenized in the process.
My first concert was…
- Sanctums: …the He-Man: Masters Of the Universe musical in Vancouver in 1987 for Dan. Yanni in Calgary in 1994 for Evangelos.
The most underrated album of all time is…
- Sanctums: …Amnesiac by Radiohead.
The most underrated movie of all time is…
- Sanctums: …La Bamba.
The one thing that everybody needs to do before they go to bed tonight is…
- Sanctums: …make a promise to start looking every person, including oneself, in the eye. Eye contact is the easiest and most basic acknowledgement you can give another human.
The difference between Elvis Costello and Elvis Presley is…
- Sanctums: …sustainability vs. excess.
Autumn is…
- Sanctums: …a process of letting go, going inward with lessons from the prior seasons in preparation for an unforgiving winter and making the most of layering one’s outfits.
Happiness is…
- Sanctums: …a personal journey.
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Modern Math 001 is available on iTunes. You can learn more about Sanctums by visiting sanctums.bandcamp.com or soundcloud.com/sanctums.
Theodore Wiebe is a writer living in Calgary. You can follow more of his important nonsense on Twitter (@TheodoreWiebe) or Tumblr (writingafterdark.tumblr.com).
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