Direct from the creative sector of Chicago's multidisciplinary scenes — composer/photographer Michael Vallera announces his third album Window In for the prestigious imprint Denovali Records arriving March 27 with the debut of the ambient “Blue Mind”. The artist’s work in both the mediums of music and photography embody spaces and places where there is a dialogue between the natural order and humanity’s own carbon footprint. Vallera’s photography depicts such examples like a perspective glancing out of a raindrop saturated window that obfuscates the view (complete with curtains that have been twisted so much that they are outside in the elements), to a field of thickets and trees where one tree has been cut down and reduced to simply a stump. Michael’s music is made with electronic instrumentation that interacts with organic passages of air and atmospheres that resemble everything from elaborate chambers of some kind of sci-fi design to abstract environs that emulate inner mind-scapes, thought zones and more that make a connection with their surrounding material world.

“Blue Mind” does a deep dive into these aforementioned palatial worlds of theater that are exquisitely set in the mind’s eye. An odyssey for the senses that clocks in at over ten minutes; Michael Vallera curates big waves of magnificent echoes that swell like tidal waves greeting the shore in congress from the vast seas. The tones are big, bold, menacing at moments to being forlorn or foreboding like the weeping wails of a crestfallen choir of melancholic angels. The subtle and ephemeral elements rise and fall on their own parabolic trajectories as they subside by what sounds like a sparse zapping mechanical processor. This electronic component hums, skips and buzzes as once again those stirring organic and airy breaths that built the base of “Blue Mind” return like specters to sweep the spirit and mind to dimensions and destinations unknown. You are invited to take a journey of discovery both about the self, the soul and the places that defy description or conventional designations

Michael Vallera took the time to chat about the new album, multidisciplinary arts and more in the following interview:

Describe your own connection and magnetic attraction toward both the mediums of photography and your work in music.

I use both to explore mood and create works that investigate formal aesthetic relationships. I like the idea of treating sound and photography as objects, or to shape them with the same concerns one might employ in sculpture or painting. Because sound and photography also involve the use of time as well, they can feel more elastic or ambiguous in their final delivery to the audience, which is also something I find interesting.

What places in your own influences and artistic production do you find both the visuals and audio diverging and intersecting?

They don’t feel separate in any way to me. Of course there are large differences in the technical methodology of working with one versus the other, but I would say the decisions I make in my visual work are mirrored in what am doing in the music.

Elaborate on some of the perspectives of perceptive influence that abounds on the ambient behemoth Window In.

This record feels like a very specific examination of my own mental space and how that intersects with the environment of where I live. The cover image of the record was shot very early morning on the lake overlooking the city in a particular place that I would go to often in the summer. Almost always it would be totally void of anyone else, and became a place for me to escape during the summer months. That moment of finding isolation in such a crowded setting is a big part of the energy of the record. It’s meant for those kinds of experiences, for listening by yourself on a walk or drive. It feels a bit anticlimactic to say that, but I think those small periods of time are really important, and can offer moments of intense realization. The record is sort of an attempt to score those kinds of experiences for the listener while also acting as a document of my own internal space.

Insights into the production aspect of bringing Window In into materialized existence.

I had finished the album last spring and in the process of beginning to mix the final tracks became really unhappy with the entire thing. It’s an experience I have never encountered before, and I was completely unsure how to proceed. I couldn’t articulate why I was displeased after working for the better part of a year on the material, but ultimately I couldn’t pass it forward to the label. Out of total frustration, one day I just started passing whole segments of tracks into an older Kurzweil sampler that I had just purchased. I was still learning the instrument and thought it might offer a new direction in the studio, or at the least a distraction from the stress of abandoning the record I had just made.  Instantly I became very inspired again, and essentially threw the finished record into that machine and manipulated those recordings into what Window In became. The outcome isn’t what I had expected many months before, but its something I am incredibly happy with, and think it’s the best full length I’ve made in my solo discography.

Fellow composers and photographers that the world needs in their life right now.

At the moment I’m really interested in the photography of Bill Jacobson, especially through the first part of the 1990’s. There is a sequence of images called Thought Series that is a particular favorite.  Music wise I’ve been listening to a lot of Philip Jeck and Morton Feldman in the past six months.

Thoughts on the future frontiers of mind expanding music mediums and the future of photography and capturing the aura of the present.

It feels like everything exists on a level plane at this moment. There is a lot of accessibility to technology in both music making and photography that previously felt out of reach in terms of cost. I’m not sure how to navigate all that is available or being fed into the worlds of music and visual art. I still make artwork because I feel compelled to and aim to develop my own vocabulary in the disciplines of sound and photography. As long as that feeling remains, I feel positive about continuing and hope others find something they can relate to in the images and records.

Michael Vallera’s new album Window In will be available March 27 via Denovali Records.