Black Moon Tape interview
An ambitious new album about freedom recorded between Berlin and Liège.
Marcelin Willems was 17 when he created an early version of the album that would become Hello Ghost but he gave up on this project because it needed technical knowledge and financial resources he did not have. 20 years later, Marcelin adopted the stage name Will Z. and became an indie musician who applied the spirit of psychedelic rock (popularized by major bands like Pink Floyd, The Beatles, Beach Boys …) to his music. The crazy idea to re-record his early album was born. “Suddenly, I was the producer and the musician I would have liked to have met when I was a teenager.”, said Will Z., “I thought it was time to be at peace with myself by finishing and releasing this album.”
The 10 Hello Ghost songs are all about freedom. Will Z. decided to record the album away from his familiar environment: “I wanted to get out of my habits and go on an adventure because that’s what Hello Ghost was about.” In February 2018, Pierre Vancraenenbroeck and Will went to Berlin, to Lightning Recorders, a studio where time stopped in the 60s. “We recorded all the basic tracks on museum pieces, from drums to amp, console to tape recorder. This sound and our discovery of the town build our music and created a very special atmosphere, out of time.” said Will Z.
Back in Liège, Will Z. invited other musicians to Studio 5 to appear on his album: Éric Trillet, keyboardist who played on the original songs in the 90s, Fake Empire (a band composed of three sisters and a friend) and a string section led by violinist Anne-Claude Dejasse. The band teamed with filmmaker Caroline Poisson for videos of “Hello Ghost”.
The album will be released digitally with the help from Benjamin Schoos and his label Freaksville Records, and on vinyl by Los Angeles Nomad Eel Records label, which already released the first Black Moon Tape album in 2017 (chosen for USA Record Store Day 2018).
The sound of Black Moon Tape is a mix between vintage (analog takes) and contemporary (digital takes) with a use of classical instruments (strings, cello) and electronics(synthesizers, drum machines) in same songs.
In the past we talked about Cosmic Trip Machine and your collaboration on “Book Of Am”. What is Black Moon Tape about?
Black Moon Tape started when I found an old tape recorder with some cassettes I did when I was 16 years old, including a lot of forgotten early demos. I rerecorded some of these songs 20 years later with Pierre and I decided Black Moon Tape will be a band because our first sessions together were different from everything I did before.
It’s a completely different perspective. It would be difficult to compare it to Cosmic Trip Machine.
Totally. For the first time, with Black Moon Tape, I didn’t want to sound like a psychedelic heavy folk artist from the sixties or the seventies: I wanted to sound like me. I made a list of everything I always wanted to try musically but was afraid or not allowed to do before. The list began with “electric guitar, drum machines and new collaborations”.
“I became the producer and the musician with whom I dreamed of working when I was a teenager.”
Your upcoming album is actually re-recorded album of a demo from 20 years ago. How was to revisit your old material?
It’s accepting who I was and who I am now. I became the producer and the musician with whom I dreamed of working when I was a teenager. When I wrote these songs, nobody wanted to listen to that. It was the end of the 90s and suddenly rock was over, so I created a 60s bubble to escape from that reality. Hello Ghost, the new Black Moon Tape album, is related to these years as a young adult and my discovery of psychedelic rock but with the benefit of hindsight.
How was to work on old material now that you are much more experienced?
I wrote all new lyrics because they were very bad (I didn’t realise how important lyrics are until 2012 when I worked in Scotland with The Book Of AM team and Daevid Allen from Gong). I used some parts of different songs, adding new parts, new songs too… The idea was to betray “myself from the past” to be myself.
Would it sound differently if you had the financial resources at the time?
Yes. All I had in 1996 was two cassette recorders and a bad microphone. I remember I borrowed things from my keyboard player, Éric Trillet, like a Groovebox MC-303, a Lexicon and a couple of old synths. Now when I listen to these demos, nostalgia hits me. In a certain way, it defined the sound of my music. For example, I used Siel DK700 synth on every album I did including the last one, Hello Ghost. This Mighty synth died during the very last session of the new album with a very long F# and a big “Ploomph ffwiiiut”.
What’s the story behind your debut album?
The Salvation Of Morgane is based on a book about the schema therapy by Jeffrey E. Young and stories of my life when I was 16, mainly when my parents told me they were getting a divorce. I put a lot of myself into this album.
“I think I found the good balance between psychedelic rock and pop with a touch of electronica.”
What can listeners expect from Hello Ghost, the new album? Are you going to attempt anything radically different with this album?
I think I found the good balance between psychedelic rock and pop with a touch of electronica. And, for the first time, I worked with a string section led by Anne-Claude Dejasse.
You went to a very special studio in Berlin. What kind of equipment did you use and who was the producer? How many hours did you spend in the studio?
Hello Ghost is an album about freedom. Every song is related to this concept. We needed to be free from our habits. Well… You’re in studio in your town, you keep an eye on the clock because your kids will come back from school later or you’ll have to go to supermarket or anything from your daily life, and you know exactly where you will plug the bass and what microphone you will use… I needed to be far away from home to experience freedom. People think Black Moon Tape went to Berlin because the town has an “artistic” reputation but they are wrong. We went to Berlin because we wanted to record our album in a studio with a concept. It was really funny to record our album with old microphones, on tape. Pierre became crazy with drums from 50s and 60s. The owners of studio had rockabilly look and glued pictures of Elvis on the wall. It was the physical incarnation of all I did when I composed Hello Ghost songs: to create a time capsule. The night, we explored the town with Hugues De Castillo (who took pictures and shoot the video from the trip). It was fun and all this freedom became a part of the project.
The whole analog process is way more delicate for various of reasons. It’s very time consuming…
We took more time to have a great sound than to record the songs. In fact, it’s time consuming before you go to the studio. You need to rehearse a lot and to know exactly how to play the song from beginning to the end and, if you do this, when you’re in studio, you need 2 or 3 takes, maybe 4 or 5, to reach a good result. It’s the way I like to work during recording process. Most of basic tracks (guitar/bass/drums) on every album I’m involved are recorded in one take. For overdubs and final mixes, I use a computer. I take the best of the two methods.
Please share your recollections of the sessions. What were the influences and inspirations for the songs recorded?
When I wrote the original demos, my influences were quite simple: Beatles, Pink Floyd, Syd Barrett, Beach Boys, The Who, Nirvana and Radiohead. For this rerecording, I was inspired by many others.
“Friends are gone, some are still there and some are new, you changed but you are still the same. Life.”
Would you share your insight on the albums’ tracks?
1/ “Are You Ready”: It’s an invitation to escape your boring daily routine. Stop eating the same no-taste cheese sandwich day after day!
2/ “Factories (Part 1)”: I received a lovely encouragement message from techno DJ producer Helena Hauff before Nomad Eel Records released The Salvation Of Morgane. She has a label half techno half psychedelic rock. I had this song called “Factories” but I wasn’t happy with the original acid folk demo. I recorded something like 10 different versions and it didn’t work. “Factories” was supposed to be the main theme of Hello Ghost: I needed to find a way to record this goddamn freakin’ song. So, I had the idea, thanks to Helena’s influence, to record “Factories” as a techno song which turn to a punk song because I used lots of fuzz guitar.
3/ “The Journey”: I was stuck at home during one month, recovering from surgery, feeling lonely, bored, so depressed. I read poetries by Paul Verlaine written in his Belgian prison cell and Voyage Around My Room by Xavier de Maistre. Oh yes, I was depressed. Freedom before everything.
4/ “Summer 97”: This song (about “feeling free when you’re a teenager”) was the first time since 2004 where Éric Trillet and I reunited and performed together. Éric was the keyboardist in my first band and that was great to play with him this song after all these years. He built a little studio in his toilet. He knows the original songs because he played on them and he helped me to record them. In fact, he was the first to believe in my music, even when I didn’t believe in myself.
5/ “Park”: This song was written as a duet since the beginning. That’s how I discovered Fake Empire, an all-female rock band, who appears in this album. I saw an advertisement they placed on a musical website: they were looking for concerts. They were great, rehearsing not very far from us and they had a cello player. I wanted to have cello on a couple of songs. I asked them to join me for a complete song and for some appearances.
6/ “Secret Language”: One day, a friend of mine told me I had the bad habit of “closing the door to have the last word but waiting for people to open the door right after anyway”. I’m so happy she had the courage to tell me that because she was right. I wrote this song to remember her nice help. Some of the lyrics are inspired too by a conversation I had with Lynnea aka Ego Sensation from White Hills after a gig. She told me about solitude she felt when she came back home after touring, in her flat, looking out the window. Her words touched me very deeply. The last part of the song is inspired by the news of two Facebook chat bots creating their own language.
7/ “Mountain”: I hope I will reach the stars before I hit the ground. I had hit rock bottom when I wrote this song. It’s the most personal song of the album. Me naked.
8/ “Social Network”: In 2016, I had more than 3000 friends I didn’t know on Facebook. I deleted my account but before I wrote down status from my “friends”. Some status were funny, horrible, tragic… and I organised all these words to create lyrics for this song. Because these words weren’t really mine, I asked Fake Empire to play this song. Definitely one of the highlights of the album.
9/ “Grandiosity Secret Schema”: It was a song originally intended for The Salvation Of Morgane but previously unreleased based on drums loops and tape experiences, including fragments from my 90s original demos.
10/ “Cards”: It began with sounds recorded in 1999. It’s me leaving my Dad’s flat, taking the elevator, walking the streets to go to school, then the song goes off and we are in Berlin in 2018, near Alexanderplatz. Friends are gone, some are still there and some are new, you changed but you are still the same. Life.
On Bandcamp you have a wide selection of albums your recorded during the past 10 years or so. From Lord Space Devil by Cosmic Trip Machine to the The Book Of AM and your solo albums under the moniker of Will Z. Would you mind commenting each of the albums with a few words? It would give us a nice picture of who you are musically wise.
My work is categorized into three periods.
Period 1: Cosmic Trip Machine (2008-2012)
Lord Space Devil is two solo projects melted together. The 10 songs I wrote paid homage to 60s and 70s psychedelic artists I loved since forever. With Vampyros Roussos and The Curse Of Lord Space Devil, Cosmic Trip Machine became a band. After that, it was very nebulous. The Woman Who Took A Flying Leap was co-written with oG and based on a dream I made. I felt like going backwards with our last effort, Golden Horus Name. I was out of the confines of Cosmic Trip Machine.
Period 2: Book Of AM and solo works (2012-2015)
It was my folk years. It was a very experimental period with highlights like my collaboration with Book Of AM team and Daevid Allen in Scotland or the end of New Start tour with Sharron Kraus. It was very exhausting. I put a lot of energy in all that. I had enough and stopped all that, adding the fact I became a Father in 2014 discovering the most beautiful adventure of my life. I needed a break.
Period 3: Black Moon Tape (2016-?)
Black Moon Tape was a fresh start. A new name. A new band. New partners. Now, after almost 5 years, I’ll make a concert to celebrate the release of Hello Ghost. I take only the fun of everything in music now.
What are some future plans?
Black Moon Tape is a trilogy. We’ll work on the last part, the conclusion of all that. We’ll see how the release concert at Le Hangar in Liège, Belgium, will go this 30 November but maybe we’ll make other gigs next year.
Thank you. Last word is yours.
I remember 10 years ago when you offered an interview here to support Cosmic Trip Machine and you’re still here supporting Black Moon Tape. Thanks a lot Klemen. Thanks for all you did for Psychedelia and Alternative scene. Thaaaannnk yoouuuu!
– Klemen Breznikar
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