Has music always been a part of your life? How does it connect to your painting and installation practices today?
Landon Metz– I grew up playing music. I played the violin from age 6; then when I was a little older, I played trumpet and trombone, and piano for a bit in high school. But I was also in the punk scene since the age of 12. I mean, when I graduated, there was a moment where I thought I would pursue it as a career. When I started making more visual art it just seemed to feel right at that moment. So I stopped playing music more or less all together after age 19. Through all of that though, I had learned how to share my creative impulse. Reading sheet music was a language I picked up in early childhood and reflecting further, I understood it as a way of articulating silence.
Using duration and tone, music breaks silence in an organized way that communicates emotion. But ultimately, the foundation for that communication is silence. That really translates seamlessly into the way I make visual work as an artist. What I’m often dealing with is the breaking up of emptiness. With sound, I try to keep that integrity — the perfection and infiniteness that comes when silence remains intact. So the question now is, how do I articulate a gesture or movement in that silence. This is exactly what inspires my installations too.
Would you say that your music now is a continuation of this conversation that you've been exploring with painting or is it a different language?
My aim is to exist as a real, authentic and genuine version of myself in this life so, whether it's music or visual art or whatever, it all emanates from the same place. Music was my first expression of creativity, where I learned to share an internal world. Later I turned to painting and used the knowledge I had gathered from music. Now I’m doing that again, in a way. These two bodies of work have very different relationships with time. There’s a presence in painting that I’m hoping to instill in the music.
A painting can be experienced in a moment, the viewer then chooses whether to linger and sit with a work or simply walk away. We don't hear songs in an instant—they take time to unfold. We tend to give music our attention for a longer period of time. There's an act of generosity required on behalf of the listener. It’s a vulnerable and intimate exchange between the artist and the audience. I feel responsible to handle this generosity with care.
What was the process like with the tracks on the album? How long did it all take to come together?
I had a son a few years ago, and then my dad passed away last summer. Crossing those two monumental life thresholds, I recognized that in the midst of great joy, there could also be really intense pain. Both were so close to one another. On the same day, I could feel celebratory and also be hit with a wall of grief. Love can surprise you. What I held onto was the gratitude that emanates from moments spent with those you love, whether it's the family you once knew or the family that you are creating. A large part of my practice is very much about holding my feelings in a safe space. I brought a lot of that to the table when I got to Copenhagen, where I recorded the album. I wanted to communicate that story intuitively.
One thing I take away when I listen to the tracks on the album is how the entire body of work presents emotions and experiences as something that is circular — and cyclical — as opposed to something that is polarizing. Every song starts in the middle of a moment as opposed to the beginning or end of one.
That was very intentional, and I'm so happy to hear you picked up on that. In a way it’s one work in six parts. This is reflected in the titles. The song titles are all honest interpretations of the day they were recorded. I was writing these poems with whatever came to mind from the day and each started to bleed into the next to tell this larger story. I’m interested in making space for myself to feel whatever I feel, without casting any sort of value or judgment on those feelings – to allow them to be whatever they are. My poems are a way of looking at life with a sort of neutrality.
Oftentimes when we're met with conflict or turmoil we want to hide from it. We don't want to deal with it because we think it might take too much of us to pass through those feelings. But the reality is we have to feel something wholly in order to move through it. I find it helpful to write these poems as a means of recasting my daily experiences as equal and without hierarchy. So the really hard or really beautiful or really mundane parts of life all occupy the same space. My point is that, all these aspects of the human experience could be met in the same manner, with curiosity and understanding, with love. So when life brings a good wave, I'm happy to revel in it, but when the tide changes and adversity arrives, I hold it all the same. It’s beyond my control. I am still me — still whole.
How did the juxtaposition of the birth of your son — something anticipated — and the death of your father — typically abrupt and unexpected — influence your subject matter in the album?
I mean it gave me a lot of humility to experience both of those things so close to each other. I think as a creative person, I used to hold onto this idea of perfection — that eventually I would make a work that reached some conclusive end to communicate everything I wanted to say all at once. I now know that’s impossible. I understand that no single gesture can be fully representative of who I am as a person or an artist — it's just me showing up and doing my best. This removed the idea of a “goal” all together and my practice became just that, a daily practice, a journey.
This realization gave me so much freedom. If you feel inspired by something, you can just fucking do it and see where it goes. What I learned from both of those experiences is that I just want to show up, for myself, for the people in my life, for my practice, for life itself and see where it goes.
