‘I Enjoyed Playing With Darkness’ An Interview with The Musician MALTHUS
GATA recently sat down to chat with MALTHUS: a musician, producer and composer from the West of England. From a young age, this multifaceted artist grew-up surrounded by piano melodies, a bond that would become a profound influence on his future , forming the artist he is today.
After University, Malthus got serious with creating. Tired and broken from attempting to mainting two careers, he decided to leave everything and dedicate himself full-time to his passion: musicproduction. Despite the natural talent, Malthus' defines music as his way of living, a go-to form of relief, an intrinsic need.
Each song is a part of him, a pathway into the depths of his inner self being. His impetus, purity, strong visuals and unique way of placing note after note to create his own emotionaly-charged, distinctive style has caught the attention of fashion industry creatives Charles Jeffrey and Heliot Emil.
Most recently Malthus teamed-up with talented photographer Moritz Tibes to collaborate on an editorial exclusively for GATA Magazine.
With sounds that remind us of Cocorosie, Arca and James Blake; MALTHUS’ career has just begun.
Do not take your eyes off him.
GATA: Can you tell us a little bit more about yourself?
MALTHUS: My name is Malthus – I’m a composer, producer and director originally from North-West England, currently based in London. My family are Swedish by blood, but I was raised near Liverpool in the United Kingdom.
It feels weird to say it, but I’m a full-time artist now. It still feels a bit surreal because I never saw myself on this path when I was younger – I studied politics and economics and always thought I would end up doing something very quiet and traditional for my work.
I’d say I occupy a slightly odd place in the music world – I create music under my name and I also run a music production studio, Littledoom, that creates music for film, runway and dance. The two feel very separate to me, though most of the work I have created this year feels as though it is in the same world. The inspiration has been coming from the same place.
GATA: How did you start your love for music? What does music mean for you?
MALTHUS: I was surrounded by a lot of music as a kid.
My Mum was a piano teacher and she semi-taught me how to play classical piano – I hated it at the time and wasn’t so open to learning music theory. Music has always been present in my life, but I don’t think I started taking it seriously until
I moved out of my hometown to Manchester for University when I was nineteen.
I remember going to class all day and studying maths and then coming home and spending all night sat on Logic trying to teach myself how to produce. It felt like I was trying to be two different people at the same time. I’d go to these open jazz free-for-alls in Manchester on my own and try to develop my singing voice and then come home and try to study some intense statistics or something – the duality was very real.
“I’m trying to hide away less. I think you can really hear that in all of this new music, too. ”
Eventually I became surrounded by more queer people and artists - everyone was super talented and studied at music or art schools, so I soaked up a lot of knowledge from them. I knew I wanted to open myself up creatively but there was definitely some fear that went hand-in-hand with starting to explore artistry. It felt as though I was looking outwards more than inwards and, looking back now, that’s definitely true. I think learning how to unpack your own mind and translate it into something tangible is a real skill that only comes with a lot of practice that I hadn’t had at the time. It felt like I was learning the tools how how to be a musician and an artist without actually producing anything artistically meaningful to myself.
I was loosely pursuing music alongside my “real world” work for quite a few years from when I was twenty-one – I ended up working as a researcher and would take sick days to go and perform at shows or leave early to get home and start composing. It was pretty odd wearing my professional face 9-5pm and then changing it out for some stupidly tall platform boots and going and howling on stage, but it felt right at the time. I don’t know though - something about placing energy in what felt like two completely separate worlds somehow held me back from properly devoting myself to either of them. I woke up one day this year, just before the first UK lockdown in April, and decided that I wasn’t going to split myself between worlds anymore. It just felt like something I needed to do – a bit of a now or never moment that felt like if I didn’t start trusting that I could pursue music seriously right there and then, then I probably never would.
That said, the love I have for music shifts a lot. Some days it is all I can think about and I get into an amazing flow, others it feels like a pit that I’m trapped in. I think there is a big difference between performing and writing as a passion compared to doing the same thing as actual work. I wouldn’t say it drains the love completely, but I definitely approach it all a lot more seriously than I did when it was more of a hobby. I’m quite competitive with myself and that can be a little intense and frustrating at times when the competition is my own creative limitations.
I guess that music for me is the translation of feeling into sound. People tell me a lot of what I make is very emotive and direct – I’m not sure I know how else to create. I used to struggle to talk about my thoughts and feelings sometimes, so music felt like the healthiest outlet for my mind. Having people listen to it actually does scare me a little bit… I think if I could be sustainable as an artist without anyone ever hearing what I had made then I think I would. There’s only a handful of people I share unpublished music with and even then, I get quite tense when I know my thoughts are being heard.
To be honest, I think that’s why I went quiet for a while. I released some music last year and had finished an album, and then I got a bit scared by it all. I think the whole state of the world and the feeling of being lost got the better of me and I kind of just stopped creating for myself. I was writing music, sure, but it felt like I was on autopilot. Nothing was really breaking through and I didn’t feel as though I was getting any better, or really developing at all. I was just unsatisfied - I had a lot of trouble processing my own and other people’s expectations of myself and I think I was very caught up in trying to function as a composer and producer around people that felt much better than me. I was untrained, and I felt messy. It was some combination of other people underestimating me while I was expecting too much of myself.
“I woke up one day this year, just before the first UK lockdown in April, and decided that I wasn’t going to split myself between worlds anymore. ”
I look back now and realise how much I was hiding behind an image, or a tone of voice, or a writing style. It’s such a strange sensation. Somehow that’s changed – I’m somewhere else as a musician entirely. I have a different, much more positive relationship with music and generally with myself now that I have taken the time to refine what I’m trying to do and to try to understand music more. I think I needed to grow up a little more before I could really take ownership of what I was doing. The next hurdle feels like learning to trust myself as a visual artist as much as I have learned to trust myself as a musician – there’s not a whole lot of validation there yet but I’m slowly building it up.
I started to find the love for it all again by just really trying to understand why I was being so hard on myself. I think it comes down to having to open up and feel exposed – whether it’s to friends or to complete strangers who hear your music on the internet. It felt rooted in the feeling of exposure, which is why I think I was hiding behind quite an indirect character, in paintings, or heavily distorted images, or prosthetics. The image of the character is still present, but there is very much a soul behind the mask now – I’m trying to hide away less. I think you can really hear that in all of this new music, too.
The whole process of change over this past year for me has been really surreal. I went back and read over some old interviews of mine before I started this interview and it’s just crazy. I think that period of my life was driven by anxiety more than anything else, and that’s really reflected in how much I was shying away from myself in the music and the visuals and the interviews. It’s like I started to believe my own lie a little – that I was this hardened, semi-fictional character that wasn’t actually doing any of the then-terrifying things I was doing, like put myself out there as an artist. I don’t know what it is, but I just don’t feel that way anymore. I’m at peace with myself now way more than I was then.
GATA: What have you been working on lately?
MALTHUS: I have been collaborating with a few really cool designers over the past few months to create music for campaign films. I was really honoured to score the Loverboy Campaign – I met Charles last year and he’s been supportive since the get-go. I wrote this piece of music that really felt like a step forward for me – I collaborated with my friend Magnus Westwell who wrote the violin over some piano that I’d written, and then I built up this surreal-feeling sonic palette that tried to emulate the ancient vibe of the collection. It’s been really nice to get to write as myself again and publish something like this – I feel like I have buried myself in the process of writing and producing so much this year that I kind of forgot I had a voice too.
Charles, Heliot Emil, IOANNES, Carlota Barrera and even a few commercial brands have been super supportive of me and have let me write music for them – it’s been a really fun experience and I’m really grateful to the designers for believing in me like that. It gave me a shot of confidence just when I really needed it, I think.
I’ve also been working on developing a few moving image and dance film projects with my friends. Right now, I feel like most of my energy is going towards physical training and learning more about composing for dance. It’s been so, so enjoyable to delve into it. Working with a choreographer has really pushed me to approach music in a different way and that’s been a great learning curve so far. I also started to produce and host a monthly radio show called Malthus: Lonely Hour that I’ve been using as a research platform – I normally invite guests to chat with me about things I’m really interested in and then I create a mix from the conversations we are having.
Outside of that, I’ve been working on writing my first visual album. I started working on it during the lockdown earlier this year and now it’s really starting to blossom – I’m super proud of where it’s at, though I keep saying it’s ready then I go and gut it and rerecord it again. I’m not sure when I’ll finally be able to let go of it and put it out, but it’ll happen soon. I’m definitely in my third trimester.
“I don’t find myself scrolling endlessly like I did when I was a teenager – It fills me with too much dread now. It’s so easy to compare yourself to people online and you need to remember that all of these images and reels are pretty much fiction. They are not a reality that somehow exists more beautifully than your own, they are just projections of one specific person’s ideal.”
GATA: Your work, images, and style are very visual, where do you get your inspirations from?
I’m not sure exactly what it is that has always drawn me towards visuals as well as sound. Most of my early musical influence came from films like American Beauty, Requiem for a Dream, and Alien. I really was obsessed with them. Like, every night obsessed. The scoring was so beautiful, and I wanted to be just like the composers – I’d sit and listen to the music and pretend I was a part of the film’s narrative. There was a very direct connection between sound and moving image that I was appreciating for its novelty.
Before this year, I think my inspiration mainly came from dark and unromantic things – I enjoyed playing with darkness sonically and visually and was leaving everything very sparse and indirect. To be honest, I think this was less of an artistic expression and more of a hesitation put myself in a brighter light. Shrouding this whole Malthus character in darkness felt like a way to keep It private. It really has only been since I allowed myself to be more collaborative and open with my work and myself that I’ve allowed the tone of the music to change.
I’m actually pretty soft and mushy and that normally shocks people - I built up this image of some brutal, bloody character and I had to spend some time picking it apart before I could move on from it. I wanted to understand why I had done it that way – now I do, and I think I’ve healed.
A year after releasing Sew Me To You and I’m like, wow. I’ve really changed my tone. My understanding of music and film and changed so much that it makes my skin crawl to look at my old work. It was really enjoyable at the time and I still resonate with the story I tried to tell, it just doesn’t feel like I told it properly.
I see so much potential in the connection between music and image, though – I don’t think either functions as well without the other. They complement each other so much when executed right and I’m itching to produce a full world around this new sound I’ve been developing. I think that’s where the real fun lies for me – creating a score for a character in a film. That sums it up really, everything just feels fun again.
GATA: Do you create something else than music and film?
I recently started learning to dance which has definitely opened up a whole new world for me. My friends Max and Magnus are a dancer/choreographer couple that have taught me a lot about the dance world - I think being guided by people I trust with it has allowed me to explore movement without worrying too much about looking like a total disaster. I’m really grateful to them for that. My roommate Scout has also been like the Ballet Mom I never knew I needed. They have put up with countless nights of me practicing twirls and turns in my bedroom – critiquing me and helping fix my crazy, uncontrolled limbs.
Now I’m finding myself heading to the dance studio at random times through the night because I just want to do it more. It’s strange because I tend to get really into these things with no intention to ever create work from them, but it feels like starting to dance as a function of music happened very organically.
I’ve quietly been working on more videos and building up a universe around the new music. I’m at a point now where I’m practiced and much more confident – It feels like I’ve taken off the training wheels and that I’m creating with direction as opposed to just hoping for the best. This whole project has felt like learning how to become more physical and grounded – I don’t want to say too much now but I’m gassed for 2021 to roll around so I can really show what I’ve been working towards this whole year.
I’m really interested to see how these next few years go – who knows, maybe Littledoom Studio will move into visuals too. I had the idea for it to be this Studio Ghibli-type cult production Studio that created alternative advertisements and films as well as the classical-industrial music that I have been putting out up to this point. It feels like a way off right now but…I don’t know. I’m excited to see how this all pans out. At this point I feel like I’m just riding it all out and seeing where it takes me.
GATA: What does social media mean for you and your creativity? In general, do you think is helping people’s creativity or rather the opposite?
MALTHUS: It’s an interesting debate - I think there are a lot of caveats to it. For me personally, I have found social media to be really beneficial. I’ve met so many incredible creatives and connected with people that have become close friends, or work partners, or both. It’s done mostly good things for my work so far, though I can’t see myself having it forever.
There is a deep toxicity to it all that I think people need to be mindful of. I stopped valuing myself based on my follower count a long time ago and I find it difficult to connect with people who do find a lot of meaning in that stuff. Social Media is useful but not imperative – I think a good rule of thumb is to use socials to elevate yourself, not to validate yourself. Even then, the line is thin.
I don’t find myself scrolling endlessly like I did when I was a teenager – It fills me with too much dread now. It’s so easy to compare yourself to people online and you need to remember that all of these images and reels are pretty much fiction. They are not a reality that somehow exists more beautifully than your own, they are just projections of one specific person’s ideal. Knowing this feels like the key to using these platforms in a healthy way without them taking over your life.
In terms of creativity, I think we are all susceptible to indirect referencing and unintended influence. We are exposed to so many images and so much information every second of every day via our constant notifications that I think the human brain has trouble processing it. I’ve definitely produced something and then realised it is similar to something I had no idea I was referencing – I’m sure a lot of artists can relate. Personally, I think being honest and open about referencing is a good starting point, though I’m not sure there is a quick fix for the subliminal referencing that social media can cause. It’s like the equivalent of fast fashion but for art – the information flow is so vast that it can be difficult to narrow down where and what influenced you to do certain things if you are not rigorously vigilant. I’ve scrapped a lot of music because of it!
GATA: What do you do to relax/unwind?
MALTHUS: It totally depends on how stressful the day was. Sometimes dancing helps, sometimes I need to escape to the countryside and forget about the world in London. I also just go full throttle into airplane mode as soon as it hits like 8pm.
GATA: Who is your biggest inspiration?
MALTHUS: Honestly, it’s so fluid. Vocally, I think it’s Amy Winehouse; visually it’s Gaspar Noé; spiritually, I’m like 99% sure it’s Dolly Parton. I think I find it easier to think of inspiration as coming from things rather than people, though. Small romances, friendships, sculptural bodies, memory and the loss of memory – they’re all huge inspirations to me right now in terms of context and themes.
Being real though I think my friends have a huge creative impact on me – they all inspire me so much. I’ve been working a lot with Magnus and Sid Quirk, a good friend of mine from Manchester, on the recent fashion collaborations and on the record. It’s been a real turning point for me since I started allowing myself to loosen the reigns a little and just allow myself the chance to prioritise the music over the more egotistic desires to have complete control. Working with Douglas Dare and Sid earlier in the year on the first Littledoom release really showed me how much better I was at making music when I had somebody pushing me to be. I think the fun of the collaboration is what inspires me the most right now.
Can you tell us your 3 favourite movies?
Alien, Climax, and Bridget Jones’ Dairy. xxxxxxxx