Click Interview with The Allegorist: ‘For Each Release I’m Writing A New Script And Developing A Sound That Can Tell It The Best’
Living in Berlin (Germany) Anna Jordan is composing music as The Allegorist. The sound she’s dealing with resulted from multiple influences. Her work is for sure touched by Techno music but there also is a solid Ambient part running through the composition. Anna Jordan works in the DIY spirit her music being part of a wider artistic creation she describes as being holistic. Her newest work “Blind Emperor” has been composed in between 2019 and 2021. Released on Anna’s own label Awaken Chronicles the work is a fascinating exposure of her art but it first of all is a visionary and transcendental experience in sound. Welcome to the world of The Allegorist.
(Picture credits by Daniel Murtagh Photography – Interview courtesy by Inferno Sound Diaries)
Q: What means music to you and what incited you to compose your own music?
Anna: I find that music is a great language and medium to work with, for me, because it supports a sort of abstract communication also on a subconscious and spiritual level, and pursuing it can involve a transdisciplinary approach.
Electronic music is fascinating to me because it has the ability to create entire worlds by the involvement and dedication of only one person, like in the case of an author of a book, only that it can exceed the narrative that can be told with words of one language, as I personally perceive it.
I started to make music when I was 29 years old and it was a lifelong dream of mine.
Q: The Allegorist is your sonic alter-ego where you express deeper feelings and introspections. Tell us a bit more about it and what do you try to reflect?
Anna: I like to learn, to raise questions, explore possible answers, find hidden worlds, stories of others and to actually feel them too, to feel and share life. I have found that creative thinking and imagination is an amazing way to access all of those, to travel really far, to connect seemingly unrelated worlds and to express and share what is impossible otherwise.
This is how I became, The Allegorist, an explorer of meanings via speculative fiction and a creator of stories told through Electronic music and other media.
Q: The new concept has been transposed into “Blind Emperor”. What have been the triggers and influences to write this album and what did you try to express by this title and its theme?
Anna: The album “Blind Emperor” is about the journey, to fight for the truth of oneself, not to bend for the easy, and to find acceptance in the sacrifices and limitations. If you bend for the easy and give up your own truth, you might gain something out of it, but then you have also lost everything already. I think that you have to be in power to work towards your ideas, your truth while simultaneously letting yourself be guided by many elements like knowledge, feelings, and intuition. The right balance of all these elements will lead to the right thoughts, wisdom, and actions. I have explored and told these thoughts in an artistic work, the tale of the “Blind Emperor”, depicting the mysterious ways of life, musically in an Epic, Cinematic, Choral, and Ambient techno album.
The title “Blind Emperor” comes from the philosophical idea that sometimes you have to become blind to the realities of life in order to find the strength within you, to do what seems impossible.
My inspiration from a more practical perspective comes from playing live and my personal experience of Techno in Berlin.
I’m a fully independent artist and still don’t work with a booking agent. The invitations for live shows come directly to me from an organic interest. I live in Berlin, so perhaps naturally I was asked mainly to play Techno in some clubs. I was building my Techno live set over the years, looking for a way how I would like to approach presenting a Cinematic-Techno journey with a narrative and experimenting with what moved me and the audience, and connected us the most.
When I moved to Berlin in 2010 I experienced losing myself, and melting into one breathing entity of living energy in the scene of Electronic music. I didn’t do music back then, but I still could remember what I was feeling and wished for sonically, and in the storytelling in some moments of ecstasy. I have found that the experience of catharsis as in a dramatic act, which I was fond of in my childhood, was the way I wanted to create an epic, intense climax, as a form of ritualistic self-redemption. To get there I had to walk the road of a particular swirling and ambient build up.
All these played their role in how the concept of the symphonic, Cinematic-Techno-Ambient album “Blind Emperor” was born.
Q: Sound-wise The Allegorist has always been a true sonic enigma. I think it’s easier talking about the multiple influences running through your music instead of putting a label on your sound. How do you explain this eclectic approach and what kind of sound do you purchase?
Anna: I’ve seen all my releases as books or movies consisting of tracks as chapters or episodes, based on philosophical contemplation, illustrated with visuals and a narrative.
With each release, I’m exploring a new theme and I’m telling it in a new story. Every story has its own world, a new narrative, its own characters and its own sound. For each release I’m writing a new script and developing a sound that can tell it the best.
Q: What have been the different stages you’d to go through to compose “Blind Emperor”? What have been the main difficulties and challenges you encountered?
Anna: The cover artwork was the first element that I have created in 2017, although I didn’t know who she was. At the beginning I could see the colors and feel the tension and silence of this world. Then I’ve started to see some objects, hearing some sounds, mainly atmospheric sounds.
Throughout the years I’ve been eavesdropping and peering into the story deeper, writing the script in my head, making notes and developing the sound. I’ve started to smell the dirt, to hear and see the horses, the black carriage decorated with the black cormorants, the treasure they were carrying. I’ve seen the defeated protagonist who came back later as the Redwinged Phoenix and her growing army, the sweating and fierce Marching Crowds, and lastly the magicians, the War Priests on the top of the mountains, in the final battle.
Q: The Allegorist is much more than simply music but a kind of wider artistic creation. Can we call it a ‘total concept’? What fascinates you in different artistic exposures and how do you try to bring them together? Any idea what will be your next concept?
Anna: Yes, you can absolutely call it a total concept.
I’ve always been interested in ideas, concepts, questions, possible answers, have exercised creative thinking, and nurtured my intuitions. Also I’ve been painting over 10 years and was growing into digital visual arts before I started to make music, so it was important to me to keep my holistic interest with The Allegorist.
When I’m creating a release, with every element of different media I’m telling a little bit of the story, and with all elements together the full story manifests itself.
Yes, I’m already writing new scripts and developing new sounds for new releases. I’m really keen to finish and release them in the coming years.
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