Kan Wakan Talks Balancing Mechanics and Emotion on Their Inaugural Record

Grace Morgan

Bulgarian-born composer, Gueorgui I. Linev may have set out to make only the minimalist, instrumental music that stirred his imagination, but just two years after forming Kan Wakan with guitarist and co-producer Peter Potyondy, the collaborators have produced a complex, layered post-rock album. Their music incorporates everything from orchestral acoustics, syncopated jazz beats, and modern electronica. Kristianne Bautista’s vocals blend right in to the diverse, atmospheric tones of the group’s first LP, “Moving On,” which they released in June 2014. The LP helped them to achieve acclaim and it gave them the ability to book stage time alongside notable acts such as fellow forward-thinking artists, Arctic Monkeys.

With just one full album down and their sound still on the rise, Kan Wakan has been hailed for their originality by local Los Angeles outlets such as KCRW‘s Morning Becomes Eclectic and the LA Weekly, which included Linev on its list of “10 Best Young L.A. Singer-Songwriters.” After deriving their name from a word in Tagalog, that connotes outer space or interstellar, the band’s galactic references might soon apply to their career trajectory in addition to their brand.

Linev explains that he is committed to taking an uncompromising approach to writing music. He reveals an extraordinary ability to capture an iridescent sound that encompasses both the mechanics and precision of his orchestral background, and the raw emotion of the band’s personality and human input. In an interview with Entertainment Voice, he sheds insight into how his influences helped him gain an appreciation for balancing science and sentiment. These are the lessons he learned from self-producing their first record and he explained where the band is headed in the future.

You’ve mentioned that Massive Attack, SBTRK, and Phillip Glass have all been influences. In what ways has each artist inspired your sound?

With Massive Attack and SBTRKT, it’s how they manage to fuse organic and synthetic elements in this sort of futuristic, moody, “human vs. computer” approach. It’s difficult to craft music that way while still retaining a human element, especially when you have multiple guest vocalists. That is also something we like to do — collaborate with other musicians. There is also a very clever use of space and dynamics in the arrangements, which I find really inspiring from a compositional standpoint. Phillip Glass, along with other minimalist composers like Steve Reich, makes music that sounds like a puzzle to me. The way in which a pattern or a phrase is layered upon rhythmically and melodically in repetition leaves you with something entirely different two minutes later, and it seems cerebral but emotive at the same time. That kind of tonal illusion is very fun to experiment with, especially within a more confined space like a three to five minute, vocally driven song.

You recently performed with the Arctic Monkeys. Did you learn anything from them? 

Definitely. I remember when they first came out with a record in 2006 they were really young and had immediate success within a genre that went against the grain at the time, especially in the United States. It was really refreshing to see that kind of raw, rock ‘n’ roll energy translate so well during a time when popular music felt sterile and generic to me. Since then, they have matured so much while still staying true to their character. That kind of consistency and sticking-to-your-guns when it comes to the integrity of the music is so rare, especially today in a world where content is king, and some artists get distracted by certain internet trends or whatever the gate keeper thinks is cool at the moment, which usually changes weekly. When music gets made with the purpose of who will premiere it online, what the best “look” and association is, and how many plays on Soundcloud it’s going to get, that’s completely backwards. It’s great to see a band like the Arctic Monkeys that doesn’t give a shit, and continues to make great music without compromising. When you see them live, you really get the sense that there is no veil there. It’s raw, it’s dangerous and it’s in your face. It was a real honor to share the stage with them.

What was the inspiration for your latest video, “Are We Saying Goodbye?” 

Our friends Breana McDow and Matt Helders came to us with the idea of doing a video for the band and shooting it themselves on film. Up to that point, most of our videos were very traditional in the way they were organized. We always had a director, producer, crew, multiple cameras, locations, actors and all of the planning that went into it, including the editing process. With that many variables, it’s easy to get distracted from the root of the emotion that is supposed to drive it all. It has been challenging for us to create visuals for dense, heavily orchestrated music because our natural instinct is to overemphasize, and in the process, we sensed that simplifying things gave way to the imagination and helped make the story feel more personal. It was refreshing to try something new that would allow Breana and Matt to be creative without any expectations. In turn, they made a video that we felt was honest, raw and powerful in a way that opens a subtle glimpse into their personal dynamic and naturally gives in to the emotion of the song without feeling forced. We really love it.

What themes did you explore in your album, “Moving On?” 

Personally, to me it feels like a bipolar, contradictory and self-deceptive outlook on the way we see ourselves in the world we create around us. I wanted to write lyrics from my own perspective, but often they ended up being an imagined, romanticized idea of what it would be like to be this fictional, emotionally complex female character. In retrospect though, I think a lot of it was not fictional; instead, it was inspired by a couple of ladies I have been very fortunate to have in my life. The words took on an entirely different life when eventually performed by a female vocalist, since some of the songs previously had male vocalists singing on early demos. Overall, rumination, expressive suppression, and vulnerability are some of the pillar themes that encapsulate the mood of the album, and the idea of “Moving On” is more or less the depth of self-delusion.

Who did you work with to produce and mix the album? Who was the most rewarding for you to work with?

The album was self-produced, and we learned a lot in the process since it was our first attempt at making a full-length release. Even though we were not professionals and knew very little about recording, we felt it would be the best way to really understand each other, learn as we went and create something that truly reflected all of us. I used the moniker Crooked Waters and our guitarist Peter Potyondy co-produced along with me. Peter and I also produce other projects together and individually, and we’re excited to share some of that work in the coming year. We were very fortunate and grateful to have help in the process of making “Moving On,” and to work with some incredible people, like our engineer/co-producer Darrell Thorp, mix-engineer Tom Elmhirst, mixing- assistant Ben Baptie and mastering engineer Bob Ludwig. The whole experience has been very rewarding for us, and we look forward to doing it again.

While you have a show at the Troubadour, when can we expect a tour for the album?

We’ve been touring and playing select shows this year. Although we will have more dates announced for next year, our priority will be to get back in the studio and work on a new record. There is so much music we want to make and share. That’s definitely the most exciting part of the process for us.