Fox In Closure is a very ambiguous project rich in contrasts. While the beats and soundscapes generally may feel a bit retro, there’s also a subtle influx of contemporary elements. The texture of Quinten’s digitally warped, looped voice and the lyrics he uses clearly take their vibe from trap’s most recent developments. There’s a search for the sublime hidden underneath contemporary trivialities that marks one of EPs main traits. The four tracks on Fox In Closure, Plate De themselves nebulously state, were “written with a minimalist approach while trying to portray a glorified sentimentality.” Moritz Weizenegger tried to find out what that means exactly.
Moritz Weizenegger It seems that Fox In Closure could be understood as a manifesto for the inner spiritual experience. Do those moments still hold value in a materialistic culture?
Quinten Struyven and Dennis Vanderauwera We’re aware of a certain lack of transcendental experience on a societal level, but this is not necessarily what the pieces are about. Although it’s an interesting perspective to discuss, we wanted to avoid a critical attitude and rather build towards something. Society and culture are given. It’s about how we use these background elements to create new, potentially spiritual practices.
MW How does that work? Does one establish those practices aesthetically or discursively?
QS&DV Contemporary art has often become too political or academic. This has the potential to be interesting, but it often risks to boil things down to something merely descriptive, which unfortunately makes them superficial. Aesthetics by default touch the field of metaphysics and express something that is absent in language and other forms of direct communication. So aesthetics occupies a more important place for us.
MW In your musical practice, how does a ‚purely artistic‘ creation interlock with personal reflexion?
Q&D Personal reflection doesn’t play a big roll in our creative process. It could be in the future, but for now we mainly focus on exploring new forms to work with.
MW Tell me about your methodology, then. How do you work together?
Q&D We’re pretty much uneducated as musicians and saw this as an opportunity to let it shine through in our method. The democratization of music distribution via the internet has created a strongly developed amateur-aesthetic. To reproduce this, we had to be inconsistent in our method. We focused on reducing the quality overall. Half of the poetry is freestyled and recorded on the first try. The production is partly based on obscure youtube samples with standard effects and partly on more complex MIDI compositions. Dennis handles production and Quinten does the vocals and poetry. When we work, we exchange ideas on the spot until we come to something more or less coherent, but most of the time we work pretty intuitive and avoid putting much thought into our songs.
MW What place would you guide me to if I’d ask you for the perfect setting to listen to Fox In Closure?
Q&D Probably to a fake Louis store after closing time.
Plate De – Fox in Closure will be out on Slagwerk on July 25th.