Tony Rolando’s music has always taken me on trips. His use of synthesis combined with complex and surprising narratives creates unexpected worlds. Emotive spells offer intrigue, pulling us further into the spaces his music creates, sending thoughts racing into accidental corridors. Nothing in these tonal patterns is random, though. Rolando pulls the strings to hold our focus while textural rhythmic elements and unique timbres send our periphery spiraling. This comes through with fragmented clarity on his recent album, Absent From the Void.
To heighten the moods and explorations of the album, Rolando worked with animator Lewis Dahm to create a 15-minute journey into mindholes we can’t remember or didn’t even know existed. Familiar imagery clashes in bizarre combos, intersecting with the sonic landscape and the ideas behind it to just absolutely send us beyond the rails and into another realm. It’s absolutely stellar.
So, along with premiering one of 2024’s best videos, I chatted briefly with Tony and Lewis about the album, the video, and the void. Absent From the Void is out now on Ceremony of Seasons.
Before getting into the video, I want to ask a little about Absent From The Void itself. What was it like writing and recording this record for this specific project and creating something with this connection to the Spring equinox? Did it change your approach at all?
Tony: There was a limited amount of time to work on the record, so I had to work quickly. Knowing that the record was for the Spring equinox had some impact, but the name of the wine, Absent in the Void, had much more impact. I meditated on the phrase “absent in the void” each day while working on the record.
And building on that, with it being part of Ceremony of Seasons and the awesome VISUALS Wine’s Ritual of Senses Wine Club, did you think about that aspect of it – the wine pairing – and how this music would connect to the themes of the club and the experience that VISUALS is trying to create with it?
Tony: Yes, I was excited to begin the record with a track that utilized common, even mundane non-musical sounds, Void Drone. I hoped it would promote conversation amongst the people sharing the bottle of wine, the ritual. I imagined they might try to guess the sounds and how they all fit together into a piece of music.
When you think about the void, or the concept of the void, what comes to mind? Does the void scare you? Or entice you?
Tony: The void is most of our time. All the tasks we must do to make it through the day. Important, but somehow unmemorable events. All the moments we swim through in order to make memories. To be Absent in the Void, as the wine is called, is to daydream. To be Absent from the Void, as the album is titled, is to be fully engaged in a moment that is anything but mundane and usually memorable. It could be overwhelming joy or devastating tragedy. A state of flow that allows you to produce your most wonderful work. A moment of self-awareness that allows you to understand yourself or somebody you love in a way you never imagined.
What was the most surprising aspect of making this record?
Tony: I was surprised I was able to make the record so quickly and still feel happy with the results. For me, it encapsulates a brief moment in time. I remember the final day of mixing the record so well… I came home from Drop of Sun studios, elated about having finished the project. I heard my partner upstairs crying. I went up to see what was so upsetting and that was the moment I learned that she had been diagnosed with stage 3 cancer. It was not a void moment. It was tragically memorable and now inseparable from this music project.
Okay, let’s move to the video. First, can you all talk about how you met and started working together on this incredible video for the record?
Tony: Lewis works at the synthesizer company I founded, Make Noise. We hired him for production, but he showed a creative spark for video, so we moved him to our media team.
Can you talk through some of the conceptual ideas and frameworks of the video and what kinds of challenges you all dealt with in creating something that captures the spirit of this music? Are there particular narratives you were working with or aiming for with it?
Tony: As a testament to Lewis’ creative and technological skills, I simply handed him the music and a minimal “script” which is short enough that I could reprint it here:
Start with sleep, “The Best Part of Dreaming in the Void.” An alarm transitions the listener to the waking hours, “Void Drone.” All the things we do to prepare for each day in the bathroom, the kitchen, garage and etc… eventually you leave the home in a car, bus, plane and you travel to the city, to the streets, elevators and offices, but instead of stopping there and going to work, you keep walking further into and out of the city and finally into the wilderness and you keep going until you reach the coastline and you walk straight into the water and you keep going…
The listener is leaving the Void. “I’ve Come to Retrieve You” is more of that soothing, endless nothing until a voice announces that they’ve “…come to retrieve you from the void…you’ve been in here, for far too long, and there’s so much, I need to show you, so from now on, you’ll be absent from the void…” and the video closes.
There’s something so engaging and almost hypnotic about this combination of hypnotic surrealism and banal imagery that I can’t look away from, and, for me, it adds so many new layers to the music itself. It’s even got me thinking differently about the idea of the void. How do the imagery and general flow of the video connect to the concepts of the music itself?
Lewis: I think repetition is an important part of it. To be stuck in the Void is to be stuck in repetitive routines, so I tried to juxtapose repetition (the Void) with moments of clarity and action (escape!). As for what is repeating, it wasn’t hard to come up with imagery. Tony’s script was good, and it was easy for my cartoon brain to connect with the music. His stuff is always active and vibrant, and I think this release especially lends itself to Visuals (get it?). There are these great moments of catharsis, but I think there is also a sense of humor present that is just as important. Tragedy and comedy!
From a technical standpoint, and as a layperson when it comes to this, I’m curious what kinds of tools were used in creating the video.
Lewis: I use an open-source 3D modeling and animation program called Blender. Lots of modeling for this project, lots of different objects. I would look up the dimensions of, say, a toaster, and then make a 3d shape to match. Then I used Photoshop to make a skin, or “texture,” for the shape. I kind of just did that over and over again, then figured out how to make all the objects move how I wanted.
What were some of the challenges you had to deal with in making this video?
Lewis: I’d say the biggest challenge was working out the physics for the Void Drone, the scene with all of the objects drifting towards the screen and colliding. I hadn’t ever worked with physics simulations before, I normally just manually tell shapes where to move. Once you turn the physics simulation on, there are all sorts of unpredictable things that can happen. My computer also couldn’t really keep up, so I was just making adjustments and hoping for the best. I ended up being happy with the unpredictable messiness of that scene though. The objects collide in an abrupt and ugly way that, I think, is another metaphor for life in the void.
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