Étamine share their single, “Helicopter Takeoff at Night”
Inspired by early instrumental synthesizer music, Brock Geiger and Ian Jarvis are the collaborative duo, Étamine, creating immersive tracks that envelop listeners in a cinematic dream world. With their debut collection of music, lines blur between human and machine, between grounded and celestial, and between introspective-wandering and body-clutching grooves.
Their new song’s title, “Helicopter Takeoff at Night,” was directly inspired by Andreas Feninger’s long exposure photo of a helicopter in the dark. The centrifugal motion of the lights on the blades feels like a perfect representation of the propelled dizziness that this track induces.
This track, along with the rest of the record, was all written and produced by Brock and Ian remotely during the peak of travel restrictions. Étamine had archives of improvised jams with basic setups (a couple of synched drum machines and synthesizers) from messing around on the tail end of recording sessions they’d been doing with other bands. With so much time to explore, they dove into some of the sessions and started to realize these improvs might actually have something going on.
“When Ian sent the first bones of this track to me, it immediately elicited feelings and visuals analogous to a fast paced, high-action film sequence,” says Brock. “The way the main harmony sits against the odd time signature creates a strong forward momentum. When I was writing additional melodies I kept picturing it accompanying a chase scene with neon lights blurring or a Mortal Kombat fight.”
Watch the video for “Helicopter Takeoff at Night” below and learn more about Étamine via our Five Questions With segment.
Care to introduce yourself to our readers?
Étamine is a new collaborative electronic music duo featuring Ian Jarvis, and myself, Brock Geiger. We make synth-wave/ experimental electronic music.
Tell us a bit about your most recent release.
Our new single, “Helicopter Takeoff at Night,” is inspired by a long-exposure photograph by Andreas Feninger. We felt that the odd meter of this song created a centrifugal momentum and juxtaposed the ideas of slow and fast motion.
Where do you tend to pull inspiration from when writing?
With this project, we are musically inspired by such a broad range of styles. While building these tracks, a lot of the inspiration comes directly from experimentation and exploring sonic palettes. When we find ourselves in the zone of not knowing whether the part required a certain sound or if the sound inspired the part, is when we know we’re catching a vibe. We tend to discuss things visually, often referring to the scene we are creating or what image would be complementary to the song. Most of the songs on the finished record are very intentionally cinematic.
Do you have any upcoming shows or festivals you’d like to tell us about?
We don’t have anything we’re able to announce just yet! We just wrapped up a little run of shows opening for Preoccupations and No Joy, which were the very first shows Étamine played. Was really fun to bring this music to life in real-time.
What’s your goal for 2022?
The rest of 2022 might be a little quiet, but only because we have some big plans cooking for the release of our full-length record in the new year.