The exalted & liberated states of Absolutely Free

Reflections of unrestrained, untethered and unfettered liberation — Absolutely Free; press photo courtesy of Darren Rigo.

Sometimes there is a creative group that changes the game and captivates the world's attention. Sometimes there is a collective that taps into the psychic framework of the universe to create luminous bright beams of incandescent, nearly incomprehensible rays and blazes of artistic light that strikes the spirit and mind with visions that soar through the stratospheres and cosmos that straddle the demarcation lines between the tangible and the estates of the ineffable, sublime and iridescent. These are the aesthetes that blossom from the transformative vestiges of the chrysalis into new forms that adhere and embrace the time honored cycles of change that evolve from nascent beginnings and into astounding new echelons of aesthetic breakthroughs worthy of their subsequent honors and accolades.

Extoling and edifying these aforementioned values and virtues are Toronto’s own psych pop power house Absolutely Free who just announced their much anticipated new album Aftertouch with a first look and listen at the visual for “How to Paint Clouds”. Created and aided by an AI algorithm that sourced through 2000 cloud paintings to craft new animated visuals of cirrus, cumulus, stratus, nimbus creations; Matt King, Michael Claxton, Moshe Fisher-Rozenberg and company enter into the brave new dimensions that breaks beyond the bounds of the physical realm and into the spaces between the digital, analogue, emotive, physical and the unknown expanses of the spiritual realm. From their humble beginnings as DD/MM/YYYY, a Polaris Music Prize nomination in 2014, working with the inimitable Meg Remy of U.S. Girls and inspiring legions of next generation luminaries with their prolific output — Absolutely Free live up to their moniker in continuing to seek new stratospheres of truths, progress, societal advancements and more by developing and contributing to the ever-weaving fabrics of new artistic fascinations and fancies that extend beyond the expanses of our global imagination.

"How to Paint Clouds" is an ascent into the strange of the present and now with intonations and overtures of the new creative worlds soon to follow. Visually created with RunwayML, Absolutely Free entrances and inspires with moving portraits and mercurial skies that blend, blur and bend like the psychotropic tides of nature imbued by the artificial and human helmed orchestration of psychedelic mind and perception morphing alterations of new celestial skies. Lyrically entertaining the ongoing historical and creative trajectories and discourse of constant repainting that blends the modern and post-modern dialogues with worlds both imagined and realized. "Paint Clouds" plays into the concepts of creative worlds in flux, the organic and natural orders, the contrivances of human innovation and the engines of emergent tech that shape and reshape the sciences and realities that advances the shifts in our perception and our malleable consciousness. Absolutely Free investigates the revisionist push to refashion our scope of aesthetic continuity, the purposes of the past/present/future, empirical conceits and the insights of the what and why that influences the core of our identities, outlook on life, others and all that has yet to follow in the unfolding narratives and surveys of the peoples’ histories of life on earth (and all the universes that we have yet to discover).

In the band’s own introductory words:

[“How to Paint Clouds” is ] a song about how great lengths are taken to develop artwork that carries a deeply considered intention, but once it is met by an audience, who come from their own unique set of experiences, this clear idea is laid open for reinterpretation in a way that ultimately negates this labor. A video developed by using machine learning to interpret 2000 paintings of clouds found on the internet to teach an algorithm to create it's own original cloud paintings. This means that every image in the video has been created by a computer program.

The closed captions were created by feeding the vocals through a speech detection program and laid over the video using YouTube's closed captioning system. In this, the immateriality of the paintings subject matter reflects the songs dissection of the nature of art and ideas and exposes the tension found in the correlation between futility and necessity of intention. Although there are unimaginable forces at play in developing a cloud, or in creating art, however, all we are able to look for is another face in the sky, a mirror looking back at us.

[We] wanted to create an album that wasn’t bound by a physical ability to perform it live, to not only expand our palette, but also to consider the live performance as something completely separate.

Single art for “How to Paint Clouds”; courtesy of the band.

We had the opportunity to catch up with Absolutely Free in the following long distance exchange of inquisitive thoughts:

Reflections on “How to Paint Clouds” and the tangible challenges and quests of creating/recreating the intangible and ephemeral.

This album was an experiment to consciously move our music away from physical limitations of us performing as musicians and to focus on writing music as listeners and using digital cut/paste to tweak the music to perfection. By creating in a digital instead of physical context, we realized how paralyzing it can be to face unlimited options. “How To Paint Clouds” is about this impossibility of capturing something intangible and ever-changing and trying to represent it with finality and conviction.

This song is about how the reading of art or music is heavily influenced by one's own experiences or contexts and how these things continue to change over time. How will our music be perceived in 500 years?

Cover art for Aftertouch courtesy of Matt King.

Insights on creative and personal growth from 2012 to 2021.

Our artistic goals haven't changed from when we first started playing together. We still want to challenge ourselves and our listeners and create music that's relatable and easy to enjoy, while having an undercurrent of the esoteric.

Sometimes, we will still nerd out on the music business side of things, but try not to let that mindset guide how/what we create because there are so many forces outside our control.

For example, Matt and Moshe's old post-emo band (Newfound Interest In Connecticut) has serendipitously been more popular in recent years. The album was just re-released on vinyl and immediately sold out. So we understand that these things are not in our control at all. 

Things that have shifted and changed for Absolutely Free over the years.

We have learned that we need to be responsible with the space we take up in our cultural landscape and how to be thoughtful with the influence we do have. Over the years, we've learned how opportunities are not equally available to marginalized people. We have tried to be openly vocal about human rights issues we feel are important to support and to be willing to stay firm on our convictions. We've also tried to be better informed about issues around cultural appropriation in music and have been openly critical of bands like Khruangbin and Yin Yin.

Absolutely Free’s new album Aftertouch, produced by Jorge Elbrecht, will be available September 24 via Boiled.