With song titles like “Symmetry Slice,” “Together,” and “Anthem,” Chilly Gonzales and Boys Noize (real name Alexander Ridha) reach for loaded, big-screen signifiers in their collaboration as Octave Minds. Both artists confirmed that the project has an explicit cinematic bent: “A lot of the music we do has that cinematic feeling to it," Ridha explained over the phone. "I think it is important to get images or to visualize things while you listen to our music." Gonzales added in an e-mail, “Who doesn't love Morricone and Hermann and Moroder and Carpenter? Soundtracks have always been a source of inspiration for us, because the structure of the music doesn't hew to pop, classical or club traditions—it's open-ended, it follows the story. Making ‘cinematic music’ just breaks us out of the formal straitjacket and lets the music do what it wants to do.”
Octave Minds carry the cinematic spirit of their music over to into its multimedia presentation: the video for the track “Symmetry Slice,” embedded above, is the first in a series of videos directed by Berlin-based filmmaker Rolf Bremer. Making the most of leaving things out, the clip sets emotional parameters for the viewer, offering a dream-like sequence that suggests formative experience and mortality, but lets us draw our own verbalized narrative from the proceedings. Pre-order "Symmetry Slice" on iTunes here.
