Clarian crafts a space opera

Mexican cults and missing writers found their way into Television Days

by Kate Wilson on August 15th, 2018 at 5:08 PM

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When ambient synth-pop producer Clarian North travelled down to Mexico, he didn’t expect to get roped into joining a cult.

“Just for the record, when I say ‘cult’, I mean cult,” he tells the Straight on the line from his Montreal home. “I felt like cult is just one of those words—people just use it. Some people say that organized religion is a really successful cult. There were a lot of weird things that happened—I don’t know whether I can get into it. It’s a long story. But I had to leave in February as a result, and I went to Berlin.”

The move proved fruitful for the musician, who performs under his first name. Fresh from a stint working as the A&R manager for tech-house giant Seth Troxler’s Soft Touch label—a position he clinched after impressing the producer with his work as part of electronica duo FootPrintz—North spent his days in Germany working on what would become his latest record, the 10-track Television Days. Living in a loft with a cohort of artists and environmentalists, he revelled in Germany’s accepting culture, and let loose on his smorgasbord of retro gear. A fan of sci-fi and surrealism, North decided that the LP would become a “synth space-opera concept album”, which would tell the story of a man named Kevin Jones.

“The idea was that Kevin Jones was a science-fiction television scriptwriter from Los Angeles, who was working in the late ’80s,” he says. “He disappeared in the ’90s at some point while working on a mysterious project in Mexico.

“Is Kevin Jones a real person?” he asks aloud. “I really don’t know.
I don’t know if I made it up, or what happened, but it [the tale] used to be at these street bonfires I would go to. These German street kids would throw them in abandoned parking lots, and people would bring boom boxes, and we’d have these bonfires and tell ridiculous stories. I was telling them about this cult situation we had in Mexico, and taking mushrooms in the ruins, and all the weird stuff I was doing over there. And they were telling me the story of this guy who lived in L.A. who was a sci-fi scriptwriter who went to Mexico, and nobody ever found him. I
decided to use that as the basis for the album.”

Despite its spacey, lo-fi vibe, North wanted to make sure the narrative of Television Days was accessible. Instead of opting for jarring breakdowns or musical twists, he chose to focus on constructing tracks that encapsulated the emotion of Jones’ journey at each point in his life, from the hazy, downtempo chords of “Under the Gun” to the frenetic, New Order–esque “Space Zap Forever”. Following the character from his arrival in Mexico to his disappearance, North aimed to build ambiguity into the story, asking whether the missing author was abducted by aliens because he got too close to the truth, or took too many psychedelics and was taken by the authorities.

“I had a whole narrative written down,” he says. “There was this part where Kevin Jones is down-and-out, he’s in this apartment, he’s got a drinking problem, and he’s on his meds, and it’s the bottom of the barrel, but not at the going-to-kill-himself level. If you’ve lived in L.A., you see there’s a lot of that. There are a lot of people who are lost in that shit.”

Now taking tracks from the record on the road, North will be coming to B.C. for the first time as part of British label Anjunadeep’s Open Air Boat Party.

“Touring is always a bit of a blur,” he says. “There are so many things that make me uncomfortable. But a few tracks in, when you’re DJing and you get into your groove, I’ll feel better again. The boat will be interesting. I haven’t been on a boat in a long time, and I’ve never been to British Columbia before, so I’m looking forward to that. I’m looking forward to hearing the other artists playing, feeling the vibe, and seeing what the community is like.”