A Winged Victory For The Sullen

Comprising Adam Wiltzie (founding member of other ambient acts like Stars Of The Lid, The Dead Texan, Aix Em Klemm and Sleepingdog) and Dustin O’Halloran (post-classical composer and pianist, best known for his original film scores inMarie Antoinette,Remember The Daze,The Other Dream Teamand more), the pair met in 2007 in Bologna, Italy, and have gone on to pen some of the most seminal ambient works of the past decade.

In early 2013, Wiltzie and O’Halloran were approached by contemporary dance choreographer Wayne McGregor and asked to create an original score for his latest work, Atomos. “We went into it really not knowing anything about the dance world,” saysO’Halloran. “Wayne was a really great collaborator – he gave us a lot of freedom. A few of our friends had also worked with him in the past so we had a lot of trust in him.”

“Before Wayne contacted us we actually had a lot of new music that we’d previously been working on,” adds Wiltzie. “After Wayne contacted us we completely dropped everything, we didn’t want to bring anything over to this project. We wanted to start totally fresh and create something completely new.”

“Before we had even begun writing, all four of the premiere shows had been booked. There was no greater fire under our arses,” laughs O’Halloran. “We had to come up with 70 minutes’ worth of music in four months. There was no going back.”

Fast-forward to October 2013 and Atomos had its world premiere at London’s historic Sadler’s Wells Theatre. “At the premiere, we finally got to watch the piece come to life,” says Wiltzie. “It was then that we just stared at each other in the orchestra pit and realised that this should be our next album. It sounds clichО, but we had no idea that this was going to happen. When you’re working on something so intensely over four months you’re not really thinking to yourself that this is something that could stand alone by itself. We just wanted to create something that worked as a score for the dance – not something that was its own separate entity. We were really lucky that it turned out as well as it did.”

Following this orchestral epiphany, Wiltzie and O’Halloran began the process of recording the follow-up to their self-titled 2011 debut. The Atomos album was released last month on Kranky and Erased Tapes. “The process was pretty much a reverse of anything that we’ve done before,” says O’Halloran. “When we were working on the piece we were playing things almost immediately after we wrote them. That never happens. Generally you always write something, you record it, then you figure out the live process. Everything happened so fast. We didn’t even have anything recorded until after the premiere. It was a very interesting process, but it worked.”

While Wiltzie was in Australia earlier this year for an Adelaide-exclusive performance with Stars Of The Lid at Unsound Festival, this weekend will mark the debut appearances Down Under by A Winged Victory For The Sullen, at which they’ll perform Atomos accompanied by a string quartet. “Performing the piece live comes very easily these days,” says O’Halloran. “We played it so often with the orchestra at the Wayne McGregor Random Dance Company. But as it’s the very first time we’ve ever performed together in Australia, alongside Atomos we’ll also be playing a few tracks from our first record.”