Are you a member of Sputnik? Are you also a musician? Drop a message here for a chance to get your name out there to the community!

---

BACKGROUND

Artist Bio: A one man ambient/experimental outfit from British Columbia.

Genres: Ambient/Dark Ambient/Noise

Band Lineup: Scott Krasman

Website: https://kannatama.bandcamp.com/

Most Recent Release: Hell Debris (LP, February 2022)

Sputnik User(s): Scoot

---

INTERVIEW

I caught up with Scott Krasman to discuss his ambient project Kannatama, and his debut LP “Hell Debris”.

You’ve been involved in a number of projects, from Dropped Flyer (Trip Hop) and Consumer Death Proposal (Hardcore/Thrash) now to Kannatama (Ambient). What is it like moving between genres with such widely varying aesthetics, and what ultimately led you to your most current project, Kannatama? Do you see one genre as more “you”, are you still searching for your preferred style, or are you just a musician who enjoys dabbling in as many musical landscapes as possible?

I’ve been officially making music since 2011, when Dropped Flyer grew from the influences of DJ Shadow’s Endtroducing. Those EPs were largely created using Audacity and some simple reversing/editing techniques – looking back now, a lot of it comes off as unpolished but ambitious. Some of the tracks on Lowlife are a glimpse into what Kannatama eventually became, especially the opening ambient track. Dropped Flyer ultimately became too much of a hassle to keep up with and, without a proper home studio, I abandoned the project. That said, I’d definitely like to explore making more trip-hop and I feel like it would be a more professional release now that it’s been a few years of making music again.

Consumer Death Proposal – that was born completely out of the lockdown in 2020. I was feeling a lot of resentment about my living situation and I finally had a home studio to tinker with. I’ve been playing guitar since I was 13 and figured out how to adequately program drum tracks by using Audacity, so I started writing off the cusp and ended up with Don’t Touch That Dial Now… Eventually, I do want to remaster it and properly release it, as I now have a bunch of different plugins and EQ modules I can use. It’s had some good responses – I’d say at the time I was listening to a lot of Pig Destroyer and it shows.

I’ve also dabbled in (but not released) everything from to heavy shoegaze to to trap emo in the vein of Bones. I try to be as open minded as possible when it comes to different genres, and I wouldn’t say any one genre in particular suits my writing style best, but it generally comes down to whenever I get writing blocks. ADHD is a pain in the ass.

 

For the sake of our readership who will likely be new to Kannatama, can you share who your primary influences are? In addition to artist names, can you perhaps also cite a few specific albums that might have inspired you?

Kannatama was actually conceived in a complete accident. I am a massive fan of Silent Hill’s PT, which was a playable teaser from 2015 that involved a storyline about a father that had murdered his entire family after being possessed by a demon. Unfortunately, the full game was cancelled, but PT remains a cult classic that still has new fans creating content and finding interesting bugs in the game. I had downloaded an OST sound-byte pack off YouTube and was listening to it in Reaper when I got the idea to add a few ambient keyboards overtop. One thing led to another, and 204863 was finished in about two months.

My main influences come from Tim Hecker and Boards of Canada. I have had people tell me that Hell Debris sounds like “the bastard child of Virgins and Geogaddi” – and if it’s even 1/10th as good as either of those albums, I am extremely humbled.

 

Hell Debris is one of my favorite album titles of the last few years. How did you come up with that name for your debut LP, and where did you get the creepy/oddly cozy artwork from?

I wanted to imagine what a discarded pile of electronic equipment, used pallets and old toys might sound like if it was set on fire. If that sounds pretentious, that’s because it is.

In all seriousness, the title came from the artwork. It’s a bunch of discarded debris being lit on fire and lost forever.

The artwork comes from a picture I took years back on an old friend’s farm – we had gathered a bunch of items from around the property and had just lit the trail of gasoline. I thought it was appropriate. It felt like a dream or like I was watching someone else’s life. I feel like the sensations of anticipation mixed with dread (as a kid, I had always been taught never to start a fire near an open field) are captured on the cover artwork. From there, it’s just a few spazzy filters and overlays to give it that hazy appearance.

 

I listened to Hell Debris right before this interview, and certain words came to mind: Barren. Hopeless. Apocalyptic. Ambient music — perhaps more than most genres — lends itself wide open to interpretation. Does your ambient music aim to evoke a certain response from listeners? Do you craft these soundscapes with a specific image in mind?

When I wrote this, I sat down for a period of two hours a night and just fired away. No thought went into exactly how I was going to structure it. I just found interesting synth patterns and weird effects and spattered them all together. “In The Air III” by Tim Hecker redefined what ambient music could accomplish, for me. Not since “String Loop Manufactured During Downpour” by GY!BE had I heard anything so absent of vocals that could evoke such raw emotions out of me. I used that song as the inspiration to write simple tones and progressions that played off one another. The goal is to leave the listener feeling unsettled, yet comforted by knowing that you’re supposed to be feeling unsettled. It’s okay to not be okay.

 

I try not to display too much bias when asking these questions, but ‘Unfurling’ is an absolutely amazing cut from Hell Debris. I found myself both excited and terrified, and I say that as someone who doesn’t typically get roused by much of anything ambient. Can you provide us with a slightly deeper dive into what went into making that song, both emotionally and literally?

Funny you should mention that – “Unfurling” was the first track I wrote for Hell Debris and it was entirely different from the version that ended up on the album. It had vocals and no distortion on the mid-level strings, but I wasn’t happy with how it turned out. Before I put a bow on the album, this was the last track that was completed. I felt like it needed a certain punch that wasn’t really present on the rest of the album. Following “Beneath Static Fields”, which is a pretty repressed track, there needed to be a jolt.

I compare it to the feeling you get when you know you are about to fall, but you can’t do anything to stop it.

 
Which song from Hell Debris do you personally view as your biggest triumph, and why?

“Sear” is supposed to set the tone for what’s to come, and at the end of writing that track I knew I was going to have something worth putting out there. I can’t even tell you how much music I have partially written and discarded over the last two years. The rest of the album flowed off of that track and within two weeks, I was finished.

 

Last year, you dropped a PT-themed EP titled 204863 which is currently available for name your price on Bandcamp. What can you tell us about that venture, and can we expect any more video game themed works in the future?

I didn’t feel right charging money for an EP that was so heavily sampled (legally or morally). The ambient soundscapes are mine but they’re a lot more disjoined and more horror-based than Hell Debris ended up. All soundbytes and quoted lines are from PT and not my property – it’s meant as nothing more than a tribute to a work of art that never saw the true light of day.

I’d love to explore more Silent Hill-based ambient in the future, but I haven’t thought that far ahead quite yet. The legalities of that are tricky.

 

You’ve been on Sputnik since 2005. Please tell us a little bit about how the site has changed in that time — in terms of the userbase, popular genres, site aesthetic, etc. What are your favorite Sput memories?

I created my account when I was 15 years old. Sputnikmusic wasn’t even a thing yet. It was still MXTabs – Jeremy Ferwerda was still at the helm even during the site’s infancy. I was obsessed with guitar (particularly Children of Bodom) and I stumbled upon MXTabs’ Musician Forums. Right away, I was hooked. I blame Jeremy for countless hours of my youth that went down the drain, but I have a lot of great memories.

Around 2009/2010, there was a select group of Sputnikers that would host Tinychat sessions to discuss new album releases. Some of those sessions were absolutely hilarious – I recall John Hanson (Iluvatar) reading a Led Zeppelin II review that had me sweating from laughing so hard. That eventually became The Mezzanine Crew on Facebook, and I am still in contact with many of those guys and gals a whole 12 years later.

My best contribution to Sputnik was a series of parodies called The Sputnikmusic Chronicles that were created using a text-to-video site. Those videos are still live today and the Deviant one was probably the best example of the site’s culture at the time.

 

Since you’ve been a member of this site for 17 years, I can safely assume that you’re old enough to have witnessed the music industry’s transition from physical media to streaming and subscription-based platforms. How, if at all, has this helped you get your music out to people? Do you consider yourself a starving artist? How would you define success for Kannatama, and do you have your sights set on anything specific for the future?

I remember being 10 years old and downloading “The Red” by Chevelle off of bloody Kazaa. My, how times have changed.

Since I don’t need music to make a living, I can’t really consider myself a starving artist. I’m making ambient music among a sea of other ambient artists, and I have zero expectations of success. I’ve used Bandcamp for a while now and that’s been the easiest platform to use, but I might use Spotify going forward.

I plan on releasing a fully defined LP with 15-20 tracks at some point in late 2022, early 2023.

 

Please leave our readers with any parting words or advice that you wish to share.

Don’t quit your day job. Find something you don’t hate that will buy you the studio equipment you need and the time to write.