Claude Speeed - R U Sorry?

Claude Speeed is swiftly following up 2014's LuckyMe album 'My Skeleton' with a new EP for Planet Mu.

R U Sorry? is a new cut from the ambient musician's 'Sun Czar Temple' EP, a song that gradually develops into a wall of fuzz and digital distortion across its seven minute running time before a final, cathartic release. Its video is a collage of abstracted images and colours.

We caught up with Speeed over email to hear more about the release.

When we first spoke to you in 2013, you talked about the different directions that your records with LuckyMe and Planet Mu were starting to take. Musically, how does 'Sun Czar Temple' differ to 'My Skeleton'?

Claude Speeed: "The orchestral instrumentation is almost entirely gone, apart from some harp right at the end. I was pretty exhausted with the limits of sampled acoustic instruments, particularly the constant awareness that they're not sounding 'real' enough. I was inspired by Sevendeaths' 'no guitars, no guitar pedals' approach to making noise/drone – just honest-to-God VSTs, clipping like fuck."

Much of 'My Skeleton' was made on your travels, something that you could – literally – hear across the album. Was the new EP a product of a different environment?

Claude Speeed: "Yes, definitely. Apart from Dr. Liz Wilson, the bones of which might have been made at the same time as Washaa [off 'My Skeleton'], it was written in the tiny room/studio I was living in here in Berlin. It was ground floor, facing the courtyard, no sunlight, broken heating. And the environment being Europe, post-travels, and post-'honeymoon period' of living in a new city – so in some senses actually looking back on a long period spent away and escaping into that somewhat. I think that's why I put field recordings on VIN – it was some sort of blunt teleportation."

We hear you're working on an album for Planet Mu, too. What should we expect from that?

Claude Speeed: "It's hard to say, actually. A lot of tracks are in contention, so it could lean in a few different directions in the end. And I haven't really finished anything for it yet. I was in Tokyo with work for six weeks last autumn and saw a few great noise shows, especially this guy Black Telephone 666. I'm trying to resist the temptation to prioritise all-out noise given the obvious limits of digital and my own attention span for anything that's not at least somewhat melodic. Guess I'm missing playing loud in a band. Also, the thing I've been into the most recently in terms of music is just playing guitar – I have millions of these guitar loop demos saved on my phone and desktop and would love to try and incorporate loads of those. But why don't I just pretend and say 'psychedelic drone'?"

Name three environments, real or otherwise, that the EP is best heard in.

Claude Speeed: "The International Space Station. In the grey rain at the soviet monument in Treptower Park. Inside lazer insect predator god's LSD lair."

Planet Mu release the 'Sun Czar Temple' EP on January 26th 2015 (pre-order).