Angles Of Anhedral: The Ambient Producer Takes You Through His Labyrinth

Slip into the introspective, ambient routes of Anhedral (Credit: Courtesy of Anhedral)

If you could compose a soundtrack to your life, what would it be like? For local ambient producer, Anhedral, he digs up fossilised memories from his growing vault of experiences and encounters; an evergreen journey of retrospection that pieces his identity together like a fragmented jigsaw. Humbly, he allows himself to be a protagonist primed for scrutiny, anchored as the vague yet vulnerable core of his instrumental anecdotes. You might relate to his nebulous musicality, or you might feel like a foreign windowgazer searching for answers. Either way, Anhedral doesn’t wish to dictate how you absorb his compositions, but to let you know that it’s coming from deep within his psyche.

Earlier this year, Anhedral released his Hiraeth EP, a follow-up album to his Maiden Jaunt debut in 2020. Welsh for “a longing feeling of home”, Hiraeth sees Anhedral reminiscing about his layered past, dwelling on themes like validation, evolution and insomnia. He assembles tracks that leave room for interpretation, much like the auditory versions of Rorschach inkblots that trigger subjective reactions. He elicits this trance state using an ecosystem of sound, experimenting with dense synth pads that echo on for eternity, electronic accents that cut through the fog, and even heavenly strings that add a tier of orchestral grandeur. These are theatrical expeditions that linger and meander, weaving through highs and lows to tell a riveting tale.

Anhedral is the ambient alias of Singaporean musician, Roystan Tan, and it represents a chapter that’s worlds apart from his previous projects. Prior to his transformation, Roystan was active in the scene as a lead guitarist for over a decade, making his mark in rock outfits like Ellipsis and Sapporo Safaris. From these endeavours, he’s channelled his adoration for complex textures and natural inclination towards passive melodies into the foundation of Anhedral, and it’s a conscious culmination that’s enabled him to make his most honest craft yet.

Through the mystifying labyrinth of his sound, I chat with Anhedral to decipher what this project truly means for him.

Anhedral is the moniker of veteran musician, Roystan Tan (Credit: Courtesy of Anhedral)

Hey Roy. Since embarking on your Anhedral project, do you feel more grounded and content with your musical expression?

Hi! True indeed. I believe Anhedral has always been setting foot in the roots of ambient and drone sounds. This second journey sets forth the exploration of many other instrumental channels and expressions. You may hear subtle orchestration behind massive drone actions. This combination might be weird, but with the intent of experimenting music and sounds, who decides the pass/fail criteria of such an experiment? I believe it is purely subjective to every individual listener.

What made you go down this ambient rabbit hole in the first place?

Anhedral was initially just a private or personal avenue for my deep inner thoughts, as well as an alternate supplement to cope with my battle against the mind’s inner demon(s). Back in 2019 when I had a minor ENT surgery, I couldn’t talk nor eat well for weeks, and this pretty much explains the non-vocal vibes for Anhedral. I explored the aforementioned rabbit hole and I discovered that the absence of human voices and vocals in a track brings out more spaces for sounds.

P.S. You can do a little experiment by yourself. Pick any instrumental track (movie OST, orchestra, etc.), and listen with their intended visual (MVs, videos etc.) comfortably. Now listen again with your eyes closed, sitting as still as possible and focus on the sounds coming onto you. Trust me, there’s a difference.

Was your transition into the realm of ambient a steep learning curve? How was your journey into production?  

I wouldn’t deny that my true mentors of Anhedral were Google and YouTube. It was gruelling and hard for me as I was groggy all the time back then from constant medication, but I believe that once you set yourself straight on a certain purpose, you will definitely derive your own way to achieve your desired destination, no matter the time spent. I’m pretty thankful for my bed rest after my surgery. My bed rest turned into tutorials and e-learning.

When you make ambient music, is it more an exercise of minimalism where you choose the precise elements selectively, or one of maximalism where it’s about making a beautiful and dense mass of sound?

 

The perception of ambient and drone music usually presents itself with a tint of biasness towards minimalism, with a single note throughout an entire 15-minute piece, for instance. However, I truly believe we shouldn’t always conform to the stigma created by past and historical ambient pieces, deeming whether was it a minimalism or a maximal approach. I would rather interpret what that producer was trying to get listeners to feel. For Anhedral, a very good comparison of minimalism vs. maximalism will be between the first album Maiden Jaunt and current EP Hiraeth. I have much feedback from curators and listeners having trouble to label what Anhedral really is. In the first place, is categorisation and labelling that important? I think ambient music should be an exercise of each individual’s mind and thoughts.

Do you use live elements or hardware in your composition process? Or are the majority of your sounds ‘in the box’?

 

Yes, majority are ‘in the box’, making the basis for most of the song. However, there are a few small clips that I record externally, usually the atmospheric sounds or simple situations like jangling chains and subtle water drips.

You come from a rock background with past bands including Ellipsis and Sapporo Safaris. How did your time spent in those projects influence the musician you are today?

A great influence! I’m truly glad that I once embarked on these journeys with great friends and musicians. I wouldn’t be myself today without these great people. The music that we played and the songs that we shared are the basis for who I am and what have I have for Anhedral. You guys know who you are.

“Anhedral was initially just a private or personal avenue for my deep inner thoughts, as well as an alternate supplement to cope with my battle against the mind’s inner demon(s).” (Credit: Courtesy of Anhedral)

Do you think the worlds of ambient and rock music are vastly different, or do you think there are some commonalities that most people aren’t aware of?

There’s always been some existence of ambient within rock music. As niche as it gets, albums from various bands have the tendency to introduce several subtle intros and outros to let listeners holistically understand a story of the album, and that was pretty prominent during the ‘CD’ years. Recently, I have noticed bands coming up with B-sides with a wholesome array of ambient sounds and music. Rock music never dies, but sometimes, it might need rest.

Let’s talk about your latest EP, Hiraeth. Its title is Welsh for a longing feeling of home. What was your headspace in choosing this for the theme of your EP?

Indeed, the term Hiraeth holds deep meaning of longing of home, a place or space. Most of the tracks in Hiraeth were some past memories of mine; they could be a usual daily situation, a glimpse of visuals I’d watched before, or even some personal situation I’d encountered. People always say you’ve got to move on with your life, but it doesn’t hurt to turn back for one last time to the histories, to help you move ahead.

Ambient generally provides plenty of room for interpretation, but you’ve added some visual stimuli with the tracks’ titles, exploring imagery like the blooming of an ocean and the inertia of falling asleep. Can you walk us through these narratives?

“Hiraeth” represents a portal discovered in the middle of one’s journey; a seafarer looking back to the docks he or she once sailed.

“The Morning of An Emperor’s Coronation” is heavily influenced by scenes from The Last Emperor. This song aims to express what that young emperor would’ve been thinking when the entire country affirmed his presence.

Anhedral gives you a track-by-track analysis of his Hiraeth EP (Credit: Courtesy of Anhedral)

“Even Before The Ocean Blooms” is a Radiohead pun. It depicts the journey of how the whole universe started. Someone recently told me that all of us here in this realm came from single-celled organisms by a series of coincidences.

“I Stole A Forest For You” is about a one-sided relationship; the yearn for that particular person who will not be moved. Nevertheless, the giver still gives the given, unrequited.

And “Should I Fall Asleep” exhibits the constant contradicting reason of why some people are fighting to fall asleep to forget everything in an instant, yet very afraid of never waking up ever again.

How was the construction and ideation of Hiraeth different from your previous releases?

 

The construction for Hiraeth was just my personal exploration into wider, broader sounds with the experiment of putting them into the ambient spectrum. This is also the main difference from other releases like Maiden Jaunt; that album gave a ‘do first, talk later’ vibe as Anhedral was still trying to construct its baseline. Hiraeth comes forth pretty much with affirmed ideas and interpretation.

Would you say the songs you make are a soundtrack to your life, as opposed to detached fictional fragments?

Anhedral has always been something very dear and personal to me. These songs are a mix of fragmented memories, situations, experiences from the mind’s imagination, dreams and thoughts. To really answer this question, these songs are me – my life, my imagination, my mind. As morbid as it may seem, I’m personally creating a playlist for myself when I finally reach my end. 

Anhedral is a welcome addition to the growing ambient community in Singapore (Credit: Courtesy of Anhedral)

And to end off, what kind of impact would you like your music to make amongst your listeners and the scene?

Commercially-driven music is always pretty direct in both sounds and lyrics. By doing this project, I do hope that projects like Anhedral will give listeners their own space to discover their own method of music interpretation, and devise their own unique way of music appreciation and representation.

You can listen to Hiraeth by Anhedral on Bandcamp and Spotify. Follow his Instagram page to stay updated with his activities.