More about: Salami Rose Joe Louis

Made up of jazz-voiced microKORG synth melodies, Shuggie Otis-inspired vocals, trip-hop beats and the occasional spree of low end bass that Jah Wobble would be proud of, Zdenka 2080 by Salami Rose Joe Louis is inspired by some great things. But it also has its own charming lo-fi vibe, pushing the envelope and finding new ground. 

Part of the allure of this Bay Area-based artist's album is the unquestionably lucid expression of ideas from her fantastical, deep mind; one fascinated by the cosmos, science and ethics. The sci-fi theme is bizarre: Zdenka 2080 is written as a soundtrack to a dystopian film Salami (real name Linsay Olsen) has imagined about the earth in the year 2080. 

Olsen, who grew up in San Diego to a Czech mother and American father, signed to Flying Lotus' label Brainfeeder to make the album. And when I phone her up, the 28-year-old, who just got off tour opening for The Cinematic Orchestra, is in the midst of a tour with Flying Lotus as a support act. She's covering the whole of the US with a solo performance that sounds very much like the record and also expresses it in new ways. Being a fan of FlyLo most her adult life, she is understandably thrilled.

Catching her at this point where she's so excited about life makes the artist such a joy to meet and she opens up about the record's theme, technical trials and tribulations, her other bands in the Bay Area, her record deal, Ras G and much more.

Without further ado, here is Olsen in conversation with Gigwise:

Gigwise: Hi Lindsay, hope the tour is going well. Are you into the swing of your set? Was it a bit nerve wracking at first?

Lindsay Olsen: Definitely I was scared shitless. Back home I pay with a band so it’s super interesting stripping it down to a solo set. At first I was worried it was too narrow and intimate for the shows. I think it’s been going pretty well.

GW: You live up in the Bay Area, is there a good scene there?

LO: Yeah, I feel like I got extremely lucky up in the Bay Area and just sort of, over the years, found my favourite musicians to play with. And I feel really connected and they understand the weird vision. I feel like that’s something so special that I can’t even consider moving. We have three different bands together just because it’s so fun to play music with them.

GW: What bands?

LO: One called Science Band, it’s an eight-piece experimental jazz band where we have a panel of scientists each time we play that talk about current science facts while we play weird music behind it. And that is really fun. I also play in this band with a friend, and I have a band for my own solo music. Re-imagining it with the band is such a beautiful and fun experience.

GW: You currently play solo - would you like to bring the band on tour at some point?

LO: Definitely. I think, once the budget is there, I would love to start touring with the band. It’s all the same songs, but people bring it to life in a whole new way.

GW: I feel there’s more life in Zdenka 2080 than the previous album [Zlaty Sauce Nephew]. The previous album is more lo-fi, you hear the drum machine more, it’s more obviously bedroom built. This album is more orchestral, in a way.

LO: That means a lot. Thanks for saying that. For this project, because it’s a soundtrack to this movie that I wrote, I feel like I took a lot of time and there are a lot of songs that didn’t make the cut. And so it felt a lot more pre-meditated and calculated than in the past when I would make music, where I would just sort of make a vibe and add it to the album. And have everything that I liked on the album but there wasn’t a lot of going through it and really checking to see if it fitted... if it’s a vibe, if it’s a story. This album has a lot more intention to it, which was a really cool experience, and hard for me because I’m a little haphazard. I also think because it’s a soundtrack there’s a lot more instrumental pieces and a lot less drums than my past album. It’s a lot of just like piano, synth music. I wanted to tell a visual story.

N.B. The visual story in brief from the official press release: Zdenka 2080 describes a future dystopian Earth in the year 2080 that has been mis-managed by unethical governments and corporations. An initiative by greedy big business to capture solar energy to power a super-sized spaceship results in a rapidly cooling earth, and the elite escape via the spaceship to colonize another distant planet. The earthlings left behind find themselves fading with the cooling sun.

GW: There’s a lot of spoken word voice samples as narration. Whose voice is it?

LO:It’s me pitched down actually. There is one song with another vocalist. That’s the one that’s called ‘Diatoms and Dinoflagellates / Fifth Dimension’. That’s my friend, his vocals are pitched up.

GW: Is he a scientist?

LO: No but he is in Science Band. I don’t know if that makes you an official scientist?

GW: So on ‘Diatom’ (which is the sixteenth track) where about in this journey are we?

N.B. We ask about the ‘journey’ because the press release states that one earthling affected by the greed of the corporations on the dystopian world goes on an interdimensional journey to save her planet. She accesses the dimensions in an octagonal room with eight portals.

LO: That track, the story behind that one, as she is going through her dimensional travels she ends up underwater and these diatoms start talking to her and she ends up shapeshifting back to the big bang. She shapes through molecules, basically devolves to the big bang. And I think the idea more so in that moment was to express this scary part of the story where everything gets really chaotic and she’s experiencing this sense of complete unravelling of what she think being human is. But in the broader content I am trying to create it is something that relate to the whole theme of the story: that I think capitalism and greed is playing a big role in the unravelling of society.

GW: Half way through the album there seems to be a turn. The spacecraft that harvested the energy needs to turn around, realising if they don’t reconcile with earth there will be consequences. How is it there’s this moment they need to go back to sort the planet, yet there’s still darkness?

LO: I guess they’re turning around, for their own personal greed. Simultaneously, in the story, we find out that there’s an artist that’s painting the paintings and the corresponding acts of all this dimension and the earth creature. Basically all of existence is these thought of the earth creature. I guess what I was trying to say too is the painter [Zdenka] is influencing what’s going on with the metropolis space ship turning around. So she is manifesting it in a way. But the broader theme is imagery really affects people’s brains. If we have more positive imagery we might be able to help the situation we’re in right now.

GW: Why is she called Zdenka? It’s very enigmatic.

LO: To be honest, I love that name and I was searching for a name that I think is special. It is my mum’s name and at the same time I don’t want to... it doesn’t have anything to do with my mum.

GW: I love the track ‘The Artist / Seventh Dimension’…

LO: Cool, that one. Oh, I’m glad you like that one. That one… the idea is after she’s shapeshifting a bunch, she basically is unconscious and starts floating down the stream on front of her painter’s palate (this is the young Salami character). She’s floating down the stream and it’s very bucolic and there’s these beautiful hills around. She gets to this tiny house and it’s surrounded by flowers and it’s all beautiful and inside there’s this stormy vibe inside. And it’s the artist studio of Zdenka. It comes to light in the same song that Zdenka is basically drawing Salami to come into her world and to meet her and so we see her drawing Salami going down the stream and it looks like they’re about to meet. Basically, it’s a sad story about being inside your house and just wanting company but also being or feeling too bizarre and isolated to seek people out, which is something I relate to. This song originally was composed when I think I was definitely feeling kind of low. Just feeling isolated and strange and so that’s where the music came from.

GW: What is about the themes within this that you think are important to present for discussion? Whether it be power, oppression, docility, environmentalism. Why this particular story and why now and why go to this elaborate extent present it?

LO: I think a huge part of it is I have been thinking a lot about my own greed and the way I have been affected by the capitalist structure that we’re in. I question myself a lot about my instinctive need to put family first, which is valid; but thinking about that in the broader content: what does that mean? When we are closing off and only thinking about the people we love and protect. And thinking about the existential question, and the effects of that. The other theme of the story was about this imagery and the way it affects your brain. That’s been a question I’ve been having with my friends a lot. For example, for me as a female, the way I get presented has such a big ripple effect on like women growing up and how they think themselves. The ripple effect of imagery is interesting to me. And I definitely strive to be presented in a positive and strong way and I think if women are presented that way that further manifests them being that way. One reason the focus on imagery came up is because it’s the first year I’ve had a smart phone and I’ve noticed the way in which a flood of images that I’m constantly putting in my brain really has taken me out of nature and I feel really disconnected in a way I’ve never felt before.

GW: What do you think it is about this approach to writing music, starting with visuals and a tracklist first, that really suits you? Were you freewheeling after that, like, ‘yes I’ve got it'? This is you as the artist at full pelt.

LO: Yeah, I found, it was so much fun. I think for me, because I have a lot of ideas, but I have a hard time focusing, to have imagery as the guiding force gave me limitation and a focus and something to make everything have continuity and that was so cool. I felt it was the first time everything was gelling and everything made sense and I was really excited about it, and I had so much fun making it. The visuals contributed to the music and back and forth too and vice versa.

GW: So once you completed it was it a relief? Was it stressful? Did you feel you’d hit on something?

LO: I was so excited I immediately wanted to write the sequel. I just kept writing. The hardest part for me was going back to mix I because I wanted to keep writing. I think it was such a fun project I didn’t want it to be over.

GW: The label didn’t have anything to do with the mixing?Was there feedback from the people who were going to sell it?

LO: When I submitted the LP they liked it which I thought was awesome and then they were going to have it mixed by Daddy Kev but he said that he liked the way I mixed it which I thought was really cool. Maybe because it’s such a different, so sort of still lo-fi and warm, he thought it had a particular charm to it and he didn’t want to put his hi-fi stamp on it. We decided to keep my mixing, which was really flattering and exciting. I hope it sounds good.

GW: Was it a lot of sleepless nights. Every inch of your music is under a microscope?

LO: I would say so because mostly because I use an analog mixing tool, my favourite thing in the world, but it’s also incredibly slow. I think the slowest part for me was bouncing all the stems. I think mostly because I was so excited and intimidated by sending it to Brainfeeder, I wanted it to be the greatest music in the world, so I put a lot of pressure on myself to make something.

GW: When you wanted to find the soundtrack, was there anything really key in terms of tech?

LO: You know I will say I'd been listening to a lot of Shuggie Otis, the way he records his vocal, I was particularly drawn to for this record. I was trying to create a similar sense of warmth and harmony. And there was some synth sounds that I use a lot. Someone leant me a microKORG, so you’ll hear a lot of that on this one.

GW: A tiny little synth?

LO: Yeah, I do think I have an affinity towards tiny instruments.

GW: Did you write this on one room?

LO: Yeah, I live in this basement and I set up a little studio in my room, that’s where I wrote most of it. For this one, what was cool, I did a lot of composing on piano first, which I used to do it that way always. But once I started making beats I would just compose on the fly and sample myself.

GW: I read somewhere that you approached composition in a way you hadn’t before in terms of matching chords and melodies. Can you explain what you did there?

LO: Anytime I make a weird melody I would normally make and try to fit chords to it, I end up writing chord progressions that I wouldn’t write, which I think is helpful for me to stretch and expand. It’s easy to go back to chords that you love to play and I think my ears often pick similar harmonies. The first three songs in particular, for the chord progressions I made the melody first and fit the chords to it; but not using the keyboard, using the notes instead of using my ear. Usually I use my ear as a guide. I think it taught me new ways of playing piano, which was really fun.

GW: The moment when you signed to Brainfeeder was the first time many people outside of your scene will have heard of you. They really embraced you - it’s not like they signed you and thought they’d just see what happens. You've had the big Cinematic Orchestra tour and Flying Lotus tour in what seems like quick succession. So have they surpassed your expectation in terms of what an indie label should provide?

LO: Yeah, it’s been such a dream. I feel completely loved and taken care of and couldn’t be happier. Not to mention, for me Flying Lotus was one of the main reasons I started making beats and so it’s just such a mind fuck. I’m still not over it. I’m still like, ‘is this real!?’

GW: Of course the tragic loss of Ras G is massive loss to Brainfeeder. I’m interested to know your perception of his legacy…

LO: Oh, good question. I think he left a beautiful legacy of community, he had a way of communing with the cosmos and bass. And I think that it’s been really cool to see how many people have come together to celebrate such a beautiful life and person. And I’m so bummed I never got to see him live. But I think that his music lives on so hardcore. Any time you listen to it, it throws you up and it really is like a full body musical thing, because the bass is reverberating. It definitely transports your whole being. He was – and still is, he’s probably still up there in the cosmos – a powerful presence.

GW: You talked about going through dark things. Have you any point during the writing of this album had a renewal, a feeling of the spectacle of the earth that you may have had earlier in life and you’ve come back to it, sort of spiritually? Maybe not god exactly, but how you perceive the world?

LO: Yeah, totally. It’s funny you say that. This year I had a pretty big low and a very big renewal. I actually had this really magical and powerful dream one night that put everything into perspective. Yeah, there are a lot of moments here of trying to get back to a self that I felt was more connected and more present. And I think that I found it, so that’s great.

GW: Good stuff. You seem in a good place and the album is fantastic. Thanks for your time.

LO: Thank you.
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Zdenka 2080 is truly one of the most exciting albums released in 2019. Stream it in full here.

Grab your copy of the Gigwise print magazine here.

More about: Salami Rose Joe Louis