This music acknowledges the deeper harmony of opposites, of nature's ingrained impulse to destroy as well as create.  At the bottom, it is the idea that nothing stays still and nothing stays the same. There is a constant essence of flux and diluting change within our thoughts, emotions, bodies, and memories. Out of this inherent contradiction of change and perceived permanence one finds a continual longing and unsatisfactoriness - like a dream gone unfulfilled or potential never realized. The inherent decay and entropy that come with creativity and life are beautiful in their way, as they precede the space for new birth and creation.  This general line of thinking lies at the foundation of this release -  it can be seen in the play with extremes and nuance within these tracks.

The theme is reflected as well in the surface of the album artwork - a strangely organic, acid-tinged assemblage of vibrant yet decidedly dark hyper-focused photography of Jakub Pohlodek.  The imagery possesses the cold and calculated eye of a camera but also at the same time a certain open, lightness and sense of not clinging too tightly - as though it’s only capturing a glimpse of some ephemeral essence which lies fundamentally beyond the scope of our complete comprehension.

Including collaborations from Floret Loret and Grey Code, as well as an ethereal vocals of Babi on the opening single ‘Closure’ -‘Alter’ offers the complete vision of Malcuth & Facutum at this stage in their career.  Utilizing their skills in film, cinematography and music altogether and allowing themselves to bring their philosophically driven project to life.

It's a pleasure to chat with Jiří and Filip about their latest project, and get all the behind-the-scenes insights and inspirations one could ask for.

Hey guys, thanks for taking the time to chat.  Firstly where are you guys right now as we do this interview?  Aren’t you in the middle of your tour?

Hey Frank, thank you for having us.  We are in the studio right now in Prague, we moved to a new nicer spot since our last album.  The tour is ongoing, the next stop will be on this weekend in Brno. Fun times with the gang there, they’re very open minded in Brno when it comes to music.

How do you guys usually work together?  Can you briefly tell me what you do you used to produce this record?

We work in different daws and we bounce audio a lot. We both are able to operate both daws though.  We are on macs and airdrop is our friend when it comes to exchanging projects. There is also an option where we both connect to the same speaker setup, it depends. We bounce audio in-between sessions and work together in the studio as well. We often give eachother tasks to do and then mix it together.

In this way it really means something when you bounce a file, makes it more permanent and also easy to manipulate.

Our daws are Ableton and FL Studio.  Some of our favorite plugins include: Serum, Phaseplant, RC-20, Izotope Trash, Portal, Thermal, Texture, Shaperbox, Kontakt Libraries.  I use Ableton Push a lot, Komplete keys from NI and we use Korg Minilogue XD for some analog goodiness.

Nice one, thank you for the breakdown.  Can you tell me about how your album Alter came to find its home on VALE ?

This is very simple. We had a few suggestions for different labels and definitely wanted to target more of a UK and US crowd. We've been following VALE for quite some time and it was one of the frontrunners for release. Originally we were only going to release an EP, but VALE gave us feedback which resulted in an LP. We really appreciate the fact that we are releasing with them, because we are personally very big fans of the US sound.  We hope the audience enjoys!

When did you begin thinking about your next LP release?  When did you start making the tracks which ended up becoming songs on Alter?

It was a continuous process.  We didn't really plan a new album, it ended up growing quite organicaly.  It's interesting because even though we weren't really limiting ourselves in experimentation when creating the music, we somehow found a common theme emerge among the all of the tracks on its own.  We do a lot of ‘diving’ in our songwriting.  Going into ideas deeply and seeing what we return to the surface with.    At first we planned an EP to showcase diversity and started accumulating some tracks - we had other releases in the process.  But the ideas started to fit together for a larger release, which became the Alter LP.

What was the first track that indicated you had something special?

Giants is probably the oldest track we made that ended up making it onto Alter but it really started with Closure, we knew we had something special there.

I see. How was working with the Babi vocal?  Did you know them personally or did you get the vocal sample somewhere?

Marek (Mark Sin from Sinful Maze) actually recommended Martina (Babi) to us because we were looking for something more for the track, we felt it was missing something - a vocal. It was a perfect collaboration to be honest.  We met with Martina in person and had a recording session with her.

That explains why the track works so well altogether - you all were recording together, thats perfect.

We didn’t really have any ideas set in stone before we recorded, it was like a jam session. Martina had ideas and outlined the vocals.  She was pitching melodies and we were just like “This one - that one.” She is very talented.

And how about the lyrics?

The lyrics were there before, but we rearranged the thing on the spot.  Martina’s vocals brought a new depth to the track and allowed us to see it in a different light.

Fun fact. The first name of the song was Pied Piper *laughs*

Can you tell me how you came to working with your other collaborators, Grey Code and Floret Loret?

We can start with Fernando aka Floret Loret. He is a G and Instagram bro, we were following each other for a while. Eventually we exchanged some messages and had the same taste in weird beats.  We are big fans of his production, and thankfully the feeling was mutual and we decided to start a collab!

So how did the track begin?  Did you guys send over the first versions?

The main riff is Floret's. We were actually choosing a few tracks to pick from - this one was by far the heaviest so we went with that.  We added the more melodic elements and the jazzy intro/interludes and lots of glitch stuff and stop-effects to make the track breathe more.

Then something happened along the way which made the whole song really click.

The ideas came later, but we were actually very obsessed with the Backroom lore at the time. If you know that stuff.  You should check out Kane Pixels, he’s a big inspiration to the track and the lo-fi aesthetic.  The story behind the introduction is kind of this broken tape player in a liminal space empty mall feeling.  Thats why it´s so wishy-washy reverbed like its coming from distance then hiting you in the face.

Alter is really built on element of surprise like switching a channel in an oldchool radio. Suddenly interupted from your everyday brainwash.  The vibe at the heart of the record is that this kind of change can occur in a sudden or gradual way.  Changing of a state to better or worse, who knows.

The theme of change and transmutation seems like the key to this whole record.

That´s actually true. Finding the "key" to the record might really help to enjoy listening to the themes underneath a bit more.  Alter means constant change. Transformation of ourselves and our creativity over time.  Life is fluid you know, and this album really reminds us of that.

So this is where the title Alter came from?

Yes.  The title came about because we were honestly just looking for a different, more profound word for change. There was a point where we really struggled making this album, but that was actually the whole point, the struggle is part of the process for creation.  Our previous album Pentiment was also about change, but the vision was about painting something over and over again continually.  It was more centered on the art-making process, which was the experience we felt while making the tracks.  Alter is a bit more mature philosophically, its about seeing change as a constant within everything we do and accepting it.  At the same time, change moves us forward in life.

Instead of being located only in the private, secluded, creative process like on Pentiment, it takes on a more worldview sort of outlook on Alter.  What of your personal views, are you optimistic or pessimistic when it comes to your outlook on life?

It´s always about finding the light at the end of the tunnel.  There is prevalent melancholy in our music, but we kind of kick it in the ass at the right moment.

For instance, when you hear the track Solitude, you may feel an inner peace and sense of acceptance.  Accepting the state you are in and the journey you did. With this track, we were working on it for more than a year, so it makes sense that this is the sort of feeling of acceptance concludes the album.

How did Grey Code get involved with this track?

Spencer (Grey Code) actually approached us after Pentiment for collaboration. We were blown away.  We sent him a few demos and he picked the most mellow one.  We were so happy he did. The introduction of the DNB element was his idea, we didn’t mind it. ‘Solitude I’ is closer to the original demo.  It was originally supposed to be one track, but it's good that we separated it.  Initially we wanted the first drop in the song to be at a slower tempo and then go into second drop with dnb, but it was too different and there wasnt enough time in one track for all the ideas.

Spencer also brought the saxophone/horns which totally corresponded with the title track ‘Alter’, it felt oddly fated. The core idea of the tracks came from Nine Inch Nails / Silent Hill crossover of samples believe it or not *laughs*  We messed around with the feeling of going out alone in the November fog and feeling content.  The base and soul of the track are the same. It's interesting how they work with each other.

We think these two really made the record into an full fledged album.

Its a nice balance to some of the crazy bangers earlier on in the album *laughs*

Yeah in the middle of the album we went HARD for a bit, got lost in the sauce.  So fun.

Something which one of you have told me is a signature of yours are divergences into different bpms and ‘crazy’ moments in your tracks.  Some parts of this album are absolutely ravenous.

In the past I’ve been tempted to describe your sound as some sort of variety of 'cinematic halftime' but then you have all these crazy divergences into rapid and insane rhythms - its impossible to limit it to that alone.  Is that for the clubs/dancefloors?

We consider tracks like Mimic, Betrayal and Allure as the main stabilizing pillars of the album I think.  It makes the record into a cohesive work. These tracks are for the dance clubs and they are the newest tracks on the record.

Halftime is definitely a genre we appreciate but it is a bit behind us now. We feel like ‘Speed Drill’ is fun at the moment or whatever you call this genre we’ve been playing with.  We used to do different BPMs and combine genres a lot but on this release time we wanted to try focusing on a different one. Something that would resonate and keep your feet on the dance floor, and this speed drill vibe is what we’ve centered a lot of the album on.

What is fresh to us right now is a big Techno/Rave feeling.  This genre for is can be condensed into frantic hihats, fast basses, and trap/dubstep beats.  We heard Deft first explore these sorts of frequencies and we were hooked.  He’s definitely a big influence on us at the moment but we definietly think our style is different.  One of the ways of distinguishing our sound is the sprinkle of cinematic which is something we always try to keep prominent in our music.

Can you tell me dark, almost tribal, almost ceremonial sort of vibe on some of these tracks?

Dance music to us comes from very primal origins and we try to acknowledge that in our approach to making music you can dance to.  Penumbra really captures that essence the most.  At the time we started working on this single, we were pretty much surrounded by songs of this type.  Muadeep for example.  This track has a ceremony feel for sure, its certainly one of the more cinematic tracks on the album. Dune had also come out at the time we were making this, so it has a lot of Zimmer influence in there.  Jiří studied film sound design in school, so that sort of stuff is a big inspiration we can’t really separate from.

Let me ask you about that, and the music video as well.  Whats your film background like?  How do you know these folks who you worked with?  The production on this project is crazy!

I (Malcuth) studied Sound Design at Academy of Perfoming Arts (Film & TV). I met Faraz the director of our music video during my studies there. We worked on some projects together including my graduation films. We always had a similar taste and vision so he was my first choice when I was thinking about realising a music video. We even talked about it more than 5 years earlier for a different track of mine but never followed through with it, so Closure felt like we were coming back to the old plan. The rest of the crew was a mix of talented people we got through our contacts in the industry. We had to pull all the strings we had, call in all the favors. I'm really glad we finished it, that was a huge project.

I (Filip) personally have no professional experience in film, I have only studied music pedagogy as such and music management. I helped the whole project more personally on the project side, because I make my living as a project manager. Deadlines are a daily routine for me and I was able to oversee and assist the entire production in a lot of different ways.  We all had to do our share.

Who scripted the film?  Did you guys play much of a role in the films production?

We had this idea of having a theme of memories that were represented by current AI video generating technologies. Somebody even called these AI videos machine dreamscapes. We wanted it to alter the footage in an unexpected way, like breaking down the reality a little and making subtle changes, that suggest that the singer remembers and dreams it in a way, that's not necessarily akin to reality of what happened. Faraz then took this and fused the idea more with the lyrics and came up with a story. There were some more twists and turn along the way. It took half a year to have a really working script, that we can bring to life. It took some compromises, but in the end we settled on a vision.

Who scripted the film?  Did you guys play much of a role in the films production?

Yeah we helped wherever we could. Everybody was doing everything. There was location scouting, producing, securing equipment, driving a van, supervising script, artworks, managing extras, signing contracts... tons of things. Both of us had a lot of baggage to take care of and pushed the tasks around between us, the production manager and our friends that were helping out. The actors were driven around in our car, a friend lent us a van for the huge amount of equipment, someone else cooked for the crew and so on.

The special effects are crazy on this! The flames, the glitchy faces/people, the window with all 4 faces together.  Can you tell me about some of this stuff?

Yeah that was on the biggest challenges of the whole project. Even securing a postproduction studio that wouldn't just instantly financially ruin us was extremely difficult. In the end we worked with QQ Studios Ostrava and we are so happy we picked them. Jan Tegláš (VFX Artist) went above and beyond for us and Robert Černý (head executive) allowed for a lot of extra headspace which we are very grateful for.  We mustn't forget about the visualization of the set design, because Luciana Kvapilova's drawings were crucial for the whole project of the music video.

Care to elucidate the meaning behind the ending scene?  The woman at the restaurant alone?

Yeah it's best if people find their own meaning in the video. It's just a representation, a metaphor. But if you dissect a little - well, it's her birthday and she is finally able to smile. It took time, but she got there in the end. No more running away from the past. It's about the fragility and alteration of memory and coming to terms with the past - she found Closure.

Did you know Closure was going to receive a music video treatment when making it?

We knew we wanted to go for a music video and Closure was the most fitting candidate from the album. Mainly for accessibility to a wider audience, which was thanks to the amazing vocal from Martina Monsportová (Babi).  It resonated with us the most and we think it will resonate with our listeners as well.

Right on.  What a fantastic release from you two.  Thank you for taking the time to chat.

We appreciate your interest and support, bigups to the Rendah Crew.

Alter by Malcuth & Facutum is out now on VALE.  Available on all streaming platforms.  Be sure to check out the full length music video, as it is truly something special.

Grab the Alter LP here.