Interview Andrew Broder

Fog’s Andrew Broder, a Minneapolis native, first made his name working turntable and guitar into collaged songs whose aesthetic roots were equal part hip-hop, slack-rock, and Dylan-esque folk. At least, that was Fog's self-titled debut, released on Ninja Tune in 2002. Over subsequent years, Broder followed his muse where it willed him, with Fog evolving from a one-man act to a heavier three-man combo over the course of the next three albums, resulting in the taut minimalism of Ether Teeth, the eclectic pop of 10th Avenue Freakout, and the dissonant rock of Ditherer. But Fog dissipated afterward, and 2009 found Broder launching a new chapter. Via e-mail, he began distributing his own improvised, instrumental albums (donation optional) inspired by ambient music and black metal. Since late January, he's recorded and self-released 10 of them, finishing with last week's Remaining. (He’s also recently completed his third similarly aligned HeatdeatH LP with Fog’s Tim Glenn, and is working on a still-unnamed project with Jesu’s Justin Broadrick.) Decider quizzed Broder about his latest work. (Also see our take on all 10 instrumental albums here, along with streaming audio of the whole set.)

Decider: You put out the 10 instrumental records under your own name, as opposed to Fog’s. What inspired this?

Andrew Broder: Something finally clicked with me. Fog got back from tour last fall, and there was a palpable sense that the band had stopped growing. It eventually became apparent that there was not a hell of a lot of motivation between us to be seriously committed to being in a band. When that sank in, a little light went off, and I decided to start making stuff and stop worrying about how I’d release it. For the past couple years, this is the type of music I’ve been playing out solo. I haven’t felt compelled to write a song in a while.

D: Did some of that discontent stem from dealing with the superfluous elements of making music—i.e. labels, press, etc.?

AB: Well, the thing I struggle with the most is creating a linear narrative around what I do. Every Fog album sounded different from one to the next, and everything was always kind of ambiguous: “Is this a band? Is this a one-man thing? What kind of music is this?” I was never good at solidifying any of that because I never wanted to think that it mattered, you know?

D: By contrast, these self-released records feel a bit more specific. Is there a musical tradition that you imagine this series belonging to?

AB: A couple of years ago, I saw Japanese guitarist Keiji Haino play, and the single-mindedness of his performance hit me pretty strongly. It was this lone guy creating massive sheets of sound, and he was fearless. That’s how I want this shit to come across: purposeful, but still very difficult to describe. I’m a big fan of Xasthur, too—his shit is amazing, capable of being pretty one second and totally harsh the next.

D: How would you describe your approach to your primary instruments on this project: turntables and guitar?

AB: I approach each the same way. As much as the Skratch Piklz stuff blows my mind to this day, I always felt my strength with the turntables was more textural—maybe because I play guitar and piano. It’s hard to create structure and melody on the turntable in any kind of meaningful way. It’s easy to cut up a beautiful saxophone riff, but moving beyond that point to create mood or a feeling… that’s the challenge.

D: Do you have a method you use when approaching these albums?

AB: Each successive record tries to expand on the previous one. So if one is super-heavy on guitar, I’ll start the next on turntables, then listen to that and decide I’d like to hear more rhythmic components, so I’ll add some kind of crashing percussive loops to the next one. If you listen to them all in succession, you can hear me getting impatient with myself. Aside from that, it’s pretty spur of the moment, followed by a lot of chopping. With quote-unquote "ambient" music, it’s good to be selective—you want it to be propulsive.

D: Making these records so quickly in succession seems almost monastic. Was that part of the appeal?

AB: Yeah, I wanted to be more disciplined after sitting around wondering what the hell was going to happen with Fog. I’d gotten a bit lazy—I function a lot better when I have a routine. For a while there I was on a pretty good clip of one release a week. I think it’s good for it to feel like a job.

D: Any plans for a physical release of the set at any point?

AB: I would totally love to pick two records' worth of the best stuff for a vinyl release, but I can’t afford to do that by myself right now. We’ll see what comes out of it. I think that’s sort of the goal, too—to will some of that shit to happen by putting the emphasis on the doing of the thing, and having the faith that if you’re dedicated and it’s good, something will happen. Hopefully. [Laughs.]

D: Are you still writing lyrics?

AB: Right now, I don’t feel like I have a way with words. I really liked the lyrics on Ditherer, but maybe it’s because I had help from other people. I get into these things where I’m convinced I don’t know how to write a song. For now, I’m just going to be okay with that rather than beat my head against a wall.

D: So is Fog finished then?

AB: Fog is done. Anything can happen, but if I start up another song-based project, it’ll be probably be under a different name. Mark Erickson [of Fog] and I will be joining the Why? band on tour in the fall, though, and the Broadrick album will have words and songs for the most part. That’s in its very embryonic stages, but I’m thinking it’ll get worked on over the summer. I still want to be in a band and do all that band stuff—I’ll get back to it at some point; I just don’t know when.