Music: Questions and Answers with Ludus
Oliver Cheyne (he/him)
As the recent lockdown kept me inside my bedroom, I found myself turning to the depths of Bandcamp to find some soothing and focused tunes. It turned out I did not need to look too far from home, as I dived into the world of Ludus, the project of Emma Bernard, which explores downbeat and ambient electronica.
Emma joined me from home in Whanganui over Zoom for a yarn about the dance and electronic scene, experimentation in music, and the pathways that have shaped Ludus.
You are quite heavily involved with Strange Behaviour, how did that start up and where is this taking you?
It’s a record label, event planner, and radio show, and I first got involved by doing a guest mix on their radio show. One of their co-hosts left and they asked me if I wanted to come in and host so I did. You come in and do a mix every week, and you can choose whoever you want, get some crazy people in and play their music. From there I started playing some live gigs (some really terrible live gigs!) with them when I was first starting to make dance music, but they kept me on! My first album, ^Two of the Same^, was the first release on the label. I’ve been doing the mastering with the label and helping to find different artists. It’s called Strange Behaviour so anything goes, you know. We can find some really interesting people to bring on board and put out some new stuff!
*The Ambient Maladies compilation came out in July this year, what was working on that like?
So I mastered that whole album, and put a track in there as well. There are so many amazing electronic artists here so I think something like an ambient compilation gave us an opportunity to try something different as an electronic artist. Some of the artists we have known for a long time, and some others, like Japes, I went to uni with. Others we don’t know personally but it’s a real pleasure to work with a diverse range of people and get to know them through their music. Most artists on the album are from Wellington but there are some from up and down the country.
*What was your pathway into making electronic and dance music?*
The dance music came later. Ludus used to just be ambient music, and I’d get asked to play a dance gig here and there, so I just kept at it and got better at mixing for those types of gigs. Originally I’m a pianist; I’m super obsessed with piano music from people like Nils Frahm and Hania Rani, and NZ artists and collectives like Kerosene Comic Book and Kedu Carlo were pretty inspiring. Being a pianist and listening to these artists made the crossover into electronic quite easily. All the software is set up like a keyboard, and I got really interested in exploring sound—what you can do with it and building things up from top to bottom. I struggled a bit with what a song could be, so that’s what I love about ambient music, and I can think more conceptually with stuff like that. The piece I have on ^Ambient Maladies^ was originally from a contemporary dance show. The whole idea was about a woman being underground, and I loved the idea of following that concept to show her slowly breaking through to the surface and portraying that sonically.
With your approach to dance and ambient music, is it a mindset you need to switch between?
I have no idea! I try so hard to make some absolute stonkers and in my head everyone is vibing, but it’s more me just playing around seeing what it can do. Some people can just get it and it works straight away, but it’s kinda trippy! It’s quite exciting to have a purpose to write tracks with a live performance in mind and imagine what it would look like live. Anything goes and it’s about experimenting on the fly, and from that you get more confidence playing live and stretching the boundaries a bit more, which I love.
How do you see yourself and your music fitting within the electronic scene in Wellington and NZ?
When I was starting out I would be playing some gigs and it would be me and like four cis white guys, and it would seem like that was all there was. I didn’t align with that but now there are lots of amazing collectives that are putting on gigs with lots of different people that are doing really cool and diverse things with their music. There are so many good groups, DJs, and artists that are up and coming and doing amazing things, like Filth, Frills, Practice, and MESH, so having these inclusive and diverse groups and gigs are key to growing these scenes.
What’s next for you?
I’m on the lineup for the Sound Valley Festival with some legends like King Kapisi and Pātea Māori Club, playing on the Runners Club stage. Runners Club is this party set up by a woman called Coco. She wants to bring Berlin to Whanganui so has been putting on crazy shows in abandoned buildings and big warehouses filled with art so it’s amazing playing shows like that. I’ve got a new project coming up that is more of a harsh electronic sound with live drums which is pretty fun, but there are always things happening up here and lots of good creative energy. Moving to Whanganui has been good to focus on making stuff and changing my headspace in order to slow down and get involved in more projects that I’ve wanted to be doing for a while.
You can tune in and drop out to Ludus’ debut album, Two of the Same, and the Ambient Maladies compilation on Bandcamp at strangebehaviour.bandcamp.com and explore her work at ludus-music.bandcamp.com.