Erik Lankin
Photo Credit: Jeff Shuh Photography

Erik Lankin shares “Aloft on Broken Wings” (Interview)

Neoclassical Composer Erik Lankin Shares Grief-Stricken Piece, “Aloft on Broken Wings,” off Upcoming The Icarus Album

The work of Montreal (Tiohtià:ke) neoclassical and new classical composer Erik Lankin is a testament to his talent, passion, courage, and dedication to forging new paths for classical music to be expressed in the world. His forthcoming debut full-length, The Icarus Album (out early 2025), hears Lankin reinterpreting the myth of Icarus and Daedalus as a metaphor for losing his father to mental illness.

Combining classical orchestration with contemporary sound design, he channels the full spectrum of emotion into instrumental soundscapes that are compellingly narrative and evocative. The latest single, “Aloft on Broken Wings,” is told from the perspective of Icarus who is in shock, having just witnessed his father’s death. His ears are ringing and he is plummeting downward, only to catch himself with a reflexive beat of his wings at the last moment. The cello enters alone over the sound design as Icarus, also alone, begins weeping. As the cello rises and descends, so does Icarus. He flies dangerously low and dangerously high.

In the second half of “Aloft on Broken Wings,” Icarus is joined by a comforting presence on the violin. It tells him “things are not okay right now but they will become okay again.” At the close of the piece, the violin teaches him the Icarus theme which will open the next track and shape the remainder of the album.

First off, care to introduce yourself to our readers?

I’m Erik Lankin, a creator of New Classical music here in Montreal. I get to work with people at the highest level of Canada’s music industry and classical music scenes to bring my creative visions to life. My music combines traditional classical with a large palette of sound design techniques borrowed from genres as diverse as hardcore, noise, and contemporary electro-acoustic.

I use these sounds to explore themes of grief, survival, and the personal transformation they can bring.

Your forthcoming debut album The Icarus Album is inspired by the myth of Icarus and Daedalus but also reflects your personal experience with the loss of your father to mental illness. How did this powerful metaphor come to life in your music?

The foundation of The Icarus Album was a theoretical exploration of reversing the sound of a piano to uncover different harmonic and timbral properties. I had received a research grant from the Canada Council for the Arts to undertake this work and halfway through the experiments, I lost my father to suicide. My grief and emotional turmoil quickly took the steering wheel of my creative process. The reversing of the piano was all done on music I had composed while my dad was alive and suddenly the digital reversals seemed like they were trying to turn back time as well.

The myth of Daedalus has always been close to me since Icarus is a common metaphor for living with bipolar, a condition that shapes much of my life and artistic process. However, in my version it is Daedalus who falls, leaving his son stranded aloft, grieving, and forced to find new ways to fly on the broken wings of his father’s legacy. The classical instrumentation is used to tell this narrative over top of the sound design.

In your latest single “Aloft on Broken Wings,” you blend classical orchestration with contemporary sound design to convey emotion. Can you walk us through how you approached merging these two worlds in this track?

Creating “Aloft on Broken Wings” was a collaboration with the incredible cellist Slivia Buttiglione and her partner on violin Mattia Berrini. I originally composed the solo and the duet to fit over the top of the sound design. However, it was clear almost right away that these sections needed to be expressed fully by these elite classical musicians with no attempt to constrain them to a click track. So we threw out the sound design and recomposed the piece to make sense as a purely acoustic exchange in the studio and then created a brand new electro-acoustic context to best accompany the result.

You’ve mentioned that the album blends classical orchestration with contemporary sound design. How do you navigate between these styles, and what are some of the challenges you face when combining them?

I am lucky enough to work with one of the best producers and sound designers in the world today; Devon Bate (Jeremy Dutcher, Common Holly, Jean-Michel Blais) takes my demos and breathes an incredible life and sophistication into the sonic ideas. As we’re passing drafts back and forth we also send inspirational examples from every kind of music you can think of. We both share a deep respect for the Classical repertoire including its Modern and Contemporary expressions so I always trust the integrity of what we come up with. With that said there is still a segment of traditional Classical which believes that adding any sort of synth or digital sound fundamentally erodes the legitimacy of an orchestra or ensemble. Thankfully those perspectives have yet to be directed too strongly towards my music. If they are, I will simply have to respectfully disagree.

Your work is often described as “narrative and evocative.” What role does storytelling play in your music, and how do you use instrumental soundscapes to communicate emotion and story without words?

Doing narrative without words is an interesting artistic process that comes with some challenges. The goal is to create something that evokes imagery when you are not familiar with the intended story and then gains additional layers of significance if you listen again, after learning it. The best example I always think of is Tchaikovsky, specifically Swan Lake, but really any of his ballets. I listened to that song a million times as a child before learning there was actually a story but I already knew without a doubt that one was being told as well as all the emotional places it was going. By the time I learned the story it was like meeting an old friend. My hope is that The Icarus Album can achieve even the smallest version of this for someone.

What was the most challenging part of creating The Icarus Album? And what are you most excited about for the album’s release in early 2025?

The most challenging part by far has been modifying Icarus, a conceptual LP and #Album in the truest sense, for the single track rollout demanded of new artists who want a chance at visibility in today’s distribution ecosystem. As happy as I am to see so many strangers from around the world engage with my creations, especially now as the tracks begin to roll over 10k streams on Spotify, the feeling is bittersweet. 

If you give yourself 33 minutes of alone time with a good set of headphones, I really believe The Icarus Album can transform feelings of hopelessness into ones of resilience and survival. So my greatest excitement is to enter into a time when everyone who hears my music at least has the opportunity to listen in full!

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