In the late 90s through the aughts the industrial scene saw a new trend of incorporating orchestral sounds into the genre. Ronan Harris via his VNV Nation project took hold of this orchestral-electro strain, infused it with trance and synthpop elements to develop a new genre: futurepop. The formula was a success and futurepop began to pop up in the music of projects such as Icon of Coil, Apoptygma Berzerk, Covenant, and others.
Concurrently with the development of futurepop, Ian Ross of Flesh Field was taking orchestral-electro in a completely different direction. Ross took the emerging aggrotech genre, tuned down the harshness that one would find in acts such as :wumpscut: and Suicide Commando, and incorporated orchestral elements to create a unique brand of industrialism, counter to futurepop.
Ross’s formula was also a success and Flesh Field dominated the club scene at the same time of VNV Nation and other futurepop acts. But like Roy Batty in Blade Runner, Flesh Field burned very bright yet very quick. Flesh Field only released three albums between 1999 and 2004 before Ross retired the project, abdicating his spot in the industrial pantheon that no successor act attempted to claim.
But, volcanos only stay dormant for so long. Nearly two decades later Flesh Field has unexpectedly exploded back into the industrial-electro scene with a brand new album, Voice of the Echo Chamber (VotEC). Released on November 3rdfrom Metropolis, Flesh Field’s new album is both familiar and new. The anger present in older Flesh Field tracks is focused in VotEC as Ross tackles gun violence, mass shootings, and what compels individuals to walk down this dark path of no return. It is a strong, complex album, and Ross has generously answered some questions about his new offering and comeback to the music scene.
For Voice of the Echo Chamber (VoeTC) were there any old lyrics or songs that you’ve had sitting in your repertoire that you were able to incorporate into the new album, or is the entire album built off song writing and composing done fairly recently?
In between albums I like to create new sounds, loops, samples, and drum kits. I had quite a few of these left over from the Tyranny of the Majority era that I had never used before, so some of them did end up on VotEC. Similarly, I used a melody from an unreleased track I wrote around 2008 called “In Perpetuity” in the beginning of “Rampage” on VotEC. I always liked the melody and wanted to make sure I used it somewhere. Other than that, everything else is entirely new. I started writing in March of this year and finished up in early August.
Your new album contains the Flesh Field trademark elements of electro and orchestral, but also contains quite a few samples of firearms: reloading, shooting, etc. This has a strong resonance of the film scores of Jóhann Jóhannsson, especially that of Sicario (2015). Are you a fan of Jóhannsson’s work?
I haven’t seen Sicario, but it’s totally possible that I have heard Johannsson’s work before and enjoyed it without knowing it was his. His is not a name I’m familiar with, but I did check out “The Beast” a bit ago based on your question, and I definitely thought it was cool. I’ll have to start listening to more! On VotEC, nearly all of the firearm samples are original. Michael Prince from Diet of Wires is a very good friend of mine, and when we were talking about what I was trying to do with the album, he offered to record some of the firearm samples using his own collection. There are samples from every weapon mentioned in the track “Arsenal” spread out through the album with the exception of the .38 revolver. We didn’t have one of those.
Since your last full album, Strain (2004), there’s been new waves of electro-industrial bands that have popped up. Have you heard your influence on newers acts in the past few years? Or, have any projects reached out to you to express your impact on them?
I haven’t really kept up with what’s happening in the genre at all in the last fifteen years or so. If there are newer bands that have taken influence from Flesh Field, that’s amazing. I know how important to me certain bands are that have influenced me, so it’s really humbling to me when I hear that Flesh Field has had the same impact on others. I’ve had a few artists tell me this recently. It really is an honor every time I hear it.
You had a working relationship with Metropolis who released Strain. How was it to reach back to them to see if they would be interested in releasing a new Flesh Field album? Since the passing of Dave Heckman last year, how has working with Metropolis changed?
Dave Heckman did so much for so many bands and for music fans in general. I really feel privileged to have known him and worked with him. Metropolis has always been great to me, so they were the first label I went to with VotEC. They have continued to be just as awesome under Gail. I sent them an email sometime in July I believe letting them know VotEC was coming and asking if they were interested, and they got back to me the next day saying they were. Everything has been great with them since. Nina has really helped me out with Spotify and social media, two things I really knew (know?) nothing about how to utilize properly.
It looks like you’ve maintained a lasting friendship with folks from Imperative Reaction, recently with them providing music and art for VotEC and you remixing their songs. How long do all of yall go back and how have you’ve supported each other over the years?
Imperative Reaction and Flesh Field go back a long way to the early aughts. We’ve toured together, we’ve remixed each other, and they have crashed at my place on two occasions during separate Imperative Reaction tours. There are fun stories! We’ve shared the stage during tracks (I sang along with him on “Rift” onstage during a show, and he of course performed “Voice of Dissent” with us onstage). Ted has always been like a kindred brother in music to me. It really has been awesome to get to know him.
Flesh Field has a legacy of remixes of other fellow industrial and synthpop acts music: SMP, Collide, The Azoic, Glis, many others. With a rejuvenated Flesh Field you’ve recently done remixes for GenCAB (“The Badge”) and System Syn (“The Light Was a Lie”). A three part question regarding your remix work; first, how do you get involved with remixing other artists? Are these brokered by labels or do the projects reach out to you (and you them)?
When I remix other artists or other artists remix Flesh Field, it’s usually one of four ways: because we know each other somehow (The Azoic, Assemblage 23, Dubok, Imperative Reaction, for example), we’re label-mates (Project-X, Individual Totem, L’ame Immortelle for example), the label had organized them, or the bands reach out directly to me or I to them. The remix I just did for System Syn happened because Clint and I go way back, and I wanted to do something for him to say “thank you” for the artwork he did for Voice of the Echo Chamber. Plus, I really dig the track “The Light Was a Lie” and had ideas for remixing it the very first time I heard it. With GenCAB, Jim at Metropolis put David Dutton and me in contact since we were both inquiring about remixes after finishing our respective albums. He’s a really cool guy, and really talented. I chose to remix “The Badge” and he chose to remix “Catalyst,” which turned out awesome. I’m hoping to put out the GenCAB mix out along with some other stuff as a follow-up to Voice of the Echo Chamber. Still trying to figure out what that looks like.
Secondly, what is your philosophy when remixing another artist’s song? Is it to Flesh Field-ify their song? Or is this a chance to step out of the Flesh Field box and do something else?
I like to start from scratch and rebuild the track as if it were Flesh Field. The majority of the time, I only ask the artist for the track BPM and the vocals. No MIDI files, no samples, no loops. I figure if the artist or a label wants a mix from Flesh Field, it should sound “Flesh Field-y,” so I don’t really use remixes to experiment any more than I use Flesh Field to experiment.
And finally, in your canon of remixes is there a specific one you’re especially proud of?
Tough one. There are a few that I’m really happy with, but might sound dated today, like the remixes I did for Croc Shop, or Individual Totem, or Cesium 137. I think the one I had the most fun with out of any remix I’ve ever done was the remix I just did for GenCAB, and I think it’s musically evident from the very beginning of the remix how much fun I had. I love the way David does vocals, and they gave me all kinds of ideas, particularly for the chorus. Listening to the new GenCAB album Signature Flaws really inspired me to up my game when it comes to vocals on anything I do post VotEC. The amount of thought and effort he put into those vocals makes me want to try harder on mine.
A technical question regarding creating music in the 2000s to creating music now. You mentioned in a different interview (DiscoveringBands) that you had to procure new, modern equipment. How does this impact old samples and music composed back in the day? Are you able to salvage some of your library from back then to use on new equipment, or is there versioning and compatibility issues? If Flesh Field decides to play live and decide to dig into some old classics, will you have to re-create your songs anew?
I do think I have some backups on digital audio tape of some of the old tracks for live performances, so if I ever needed them, I should be ok as long as my DAT player still works. It’s almost a quarter century old now, though. I don’t know how playing old tracks would go over though without Rian or Wendy performing onstage, so if I ever did play live again, that would be something to consider. I did revamp “My Savior,” “Overload,” and “Cyberchrist” for live performances only right after Belief Control was released to try to update the sound on them a bit. Those versions have only ever been played live.
Flesh Field music has been featured in films, TV shows, and video games. For example, years ago you appeared with other industrial acts in the xbox 360 game Crackdown (2007). In your interview with We Have a Technical you talk about sounds in games and how to realize them as music. When you have downtime, are you yourself a gamer? If so, any particular genres of games you’re drawn to?
I definitely USED to be a gamer, but I rarely ever play video games anymore. I used to be very into online FPS games (PC only – I can’t hit anything on console). The last game I got really into was Ark: Survival Evolved. My children loved watching me tame dinosaurs in that game. The problem was that the children got attached to the pets. I had four tamed dodo birds that my kids loved, and one night while they were in bed and I was playing, I accidentally punched a triceratops, and the triceratops killed all my dodos. So, I had to stay up for another few hours re-taming four new dodos and naming them with the same names as the dead ones just so my children wouldn’t be traumatized. I will play Battlefront with my son from time to time.
KMFDM was one of the bands that had to deal directly with mass shootings (Columbine), and many years later responded to gun violence very, very, very tongue in cheek with their song “Me and My Gun” on their album Blitz(2009). VotEC has a gun centric song with “Arsenal” that lyrically recalls “Me and My Gun.” However, your song doesn’t go the route of KMFDM irony and instead goes with a scary, dark, sinister perspective. How do you juggle such subject matter, making sure your message is that of condemnation and not endorsement?
“Arsenal” was the second track I wrote for the album, and the first track I wrote lyrics for, and I had that exact concern, particularly on that track. With this type of subject matter, I didn’t think it was enough to just hope that people understood from the context of the entire album what I was actually trying to say, especially since people will likely be buying one track at a time instead of the whole album, which means that they won’t have the full context. I included a statement in the liner notes explaining the context due to that fear, but I don’t know if that will be enough since that statement isn’t included with the downloads. I don’t want to explain everything on the album too much, since that might ruin the experience of it for some, but I do try to talk about the overall point of the album as much as I can during interviews.
VotEC has been out for a week and some change. Fans have been excited on social media and places like Reddit for your new album and now it has dropped. What has been the feedback so far? Are you feeling reinvigorated for your next endeavor?
The response has been amazing. I really didn’t expect it to land as well as it has, at least so far. I’ve received a number of messages telling me how great it is to have Flesh Field back, and the same is true for me. I feel whole again.
Sincere appreciation and gratitude to Ian Ross for his time in doing this interview. For more information about Voice of the Echo Chamber and Flesh Field’s resurrection check out these other interviews:
Voice of the Echo Chamber can be purchased online at a variety of locations: