For this Q&A, we catch up with Anthony Baldino around the release of CONVEYOR, his deeply personal
new album out on US label BLK_Noise, exploring loss, time, memory and the feeling of being carried
forward by forces beyond our control.
Alongside the album, Baldino has also prepared a special mix for Dirty Epic, bringing together selections
from CONVEYOR, his debut Twelve Twenty Two, remixes for artists including Valance Drakes and Roel
Funcken, as well as previously unreleased live recordings.
We spoke with Anthony about the ideas behind CONVEYOR, his relationship with modular synthesis, the
role of sound in processing memory and emotion, and the different sides of his musical practice.
Dirty Epic: The title CONVEYOR comes from this image of your mother moving toward death on a
conveyor belt and being powerless to stop it. When did that image become music for you rather than
simply an expression of fear ?
Anthony Baldino: I think when I stopped forcing CONVEYOR to be what I wanted it to be and allowed it
to be what it needed to be. I originally wanted this record to be really beat heavy and to dig way deeper
into insane sound design than my previous record, Twelve Twenty Two. It wasn’t until I was collaborating
on an audio visual project with Tom Hall (a staple of the LA electronic music and noise scene who you
should absolutely check out) that I really found the sound that was needing to come out of me. Tom had
made this visual in Max / MSP of morphing spherical objects. To me, they looked like black holes
morphing into these vast, overwhelmingly huge caverns you could exist in. Watching this, mixed with
processing some emotional stuff inherently pulled something darker and heavier out of me than
expected. The concept of “spaces to exist in” just felt like a safe starting point to process the anxiety
through music.
Dirty Epic: The album seems to be less about death itself than our inability to control time. Did making
this record change your relationship with the inevitable fate of mortality ?
Anthony Baldino: You are spot on. I don’t know that I feel any less anxious about the inevitable fate of
mortality as much as I now fully recognize the importance of channeling these fears and anxieties into a
body of work. Being on the other side of this record, it has really become an audible space that I can step
into and visit those I’ve lost, communities that once were, even former versions of myself. It’s a space
where I can continue to process loss and waiting for loss.
Dirty Epic: Modular synthesis introduces randomness and unpredictability into the creative process.
Did you find something comforting in surrendering a degree of control to the machines ?
Anthony Baldino: Oh absolutely. Introducing random into just about everything is part of my everyday
approach to music but on something like the morphing melodic gesture in ‘Leave The Reminder’, having
random sources introduce variation into envelope shapes, tempo and pitch was like having someone
helping you find the words to express grief when you’re too deep in it fully verbalize what you’re
experiencing. Same thing on ‘Holding, Waiting’.
Dirty Epic: You’ve described the record as coming from a period of loss, anxiety and uncertainty. Was
the modular system a tool for composition or did it become a kind of psychological space where you
could process things you couldn’t articulate otherwise ?
Anthony Baldino: Very much both. I have my modular system dialed in to be as much a composition tool
as it is an endless source of sound design and sonic ideas. Since it’s become such a foundation of
everything I make, I think like most artists and their preferred medium or vessel for creativity, it’s become
like a second language. A way to say something that I’m unable to with spoken words.
Dirty Epic: Your work exists between two very different worlds: the enormous machinery of Hollywood
productions and the intimate DIY environment of your studio. Do these two sides of your practice actually
have more in common than they appear to ?
Anthony Baldino: 1,000%. You’d be shocked at some of the insanity I’ve delivered for a major film that
becomes the sonic foundation of the music for it. Scores for films like Tenet, Venom and even Forgotten
Island, a Dreamworks film, have some of the most left field sounds included in their palette. All of this
stems from years of making electronic music and creating things that could’ve come out on Warp or
Schematic in the early 2000s. From glitchy IDM modular drums to wild DSP with software from the late
90s, I use all those techniques in film. And in return, the film world gives back with new perspectives on
pacing, mixing, space for different elements to live within. For me, it’s all one giant feedback loop of
inspiration for sound design heavy music.
DIRTY EPIC: The final track is called “Live Forever.” After spending the album confronting mortality and
with imagery and samples from your late dog and grandfather, is that title a statement of hope, irony, or
something else entirely ?
Anthony Baldino: That title comes from equal parts hope and anger. Live Forever was written in an
attempt to fight against having to prepare for an upcoming loss. Knowing that I’d be without them soon
would stop me dead in my tracks at times, breathless, and I kept looking for a way to fight death. Like
many tracks on this record, it started out fairly minimal but I really struggled leaving it that way and kept
building it up to be these massive gestures and at times, as abrasive as possible almost in an effort to
push back against the inevitable. Like if I could confront death violently enough, it might buy more time. I
was just sad and angry and the only way I could cope was to start making everything abrasive whether
that was through insane distortion methods, making things way out of tune or all the way up to injecting
straight up granular white noise into the track. But at the same time, juxtaposing all the abrasive parts
with a tinge of hope melodically as a musical plea to “live forever” felt like hope. Felt like a chance that
might actually happen.
A deeply personal Amplify Series deserves a conversation that goes beyond the technicalities. In our
Q&A, Anthony Baldino takes us inside CONVEYOR while reflecting on machines, experiences and
emotions that shaped the album as well as moving between material from CONVEYOR, his debut
Twelve Twenty Two, remixes, and previously unreleased live recordings.
Dive in two different ways into the same world: one through words, the other through sound.
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