PHILIPPIC!

Our reporter, Lauren Sims, chats with Purchase artist Kevin Wulf about his latest album, PHILIPPIC!

By Lauren Sims

Photo by Emani B Perryman

What images do you see when you think of armadillos? Perhaps ideas of armor, protection, or maybe swimming in an amber glass? These are just a few of the questions you can expect to ponder when listening to Kevin Wulf’s new album, ‘PHILIPPIC!’. An album filled with psychedelic, progressive guitar based tracks, orchestral experimentation, and humorous intermissions. The Beat Magazine caught up with the composer and songwriter, and here’s what he had to say.

Congratulations on the album release, it’s a great listen. The opening track, ‘Philippic’ opens with a punchy guitar instrumental. Was it guitar music that got you into composition?

Thank you, I would say so. I started playing guitar at three, and [music] was something I gravitated towards as a kid. But I didn’t get a chance to write my own stuff until I joined a class called ‘New Music’ in high school. It was a small, tight knit group of composers, and the bug bit me- so to speak. I started out writing a lot of grungy music, but I was always really into prog rock, and that got me into writing classical music.

Here comes the typical ‘what are your influences’ question, I noticed elements of Black Country, New Road, Soundgarden, and Fugazi. Were there any I had missed?

I’d agree with those, I think the biggest influence for me was Frank Zappa, particularly his 1992 album Playground Psychotics. I kind of stole the interview idea from that album, that was where I got the idea of recording my friends from. When I heard it, I didn’t envision it as people talking, it was more ‘sound art, people as instruments. Another influence for me was Zang Tumb Tumb, which is a poem from 1914 by Filippo Tommaso Marinetti. It’s a poem that really focused on syllables, and I liked that idea for my own music. I would also say that Soft Machine were pretty influential for this album. I saw them a couple months ago, they’re great.

The third track on Philippic is titled ‘Self-Medication’. Do you think this is a significant concern for you and Purchase students?

I do think it’s a concern. I’m lucky enough to not have it consume me, but it consumed a lot of my friends. I wrote ‘Self-Medication’ at the start of the Covid pandemic when I was really getting into weed, as a kind of tongue in cheek song, with a ‘there's nothing to worry about’ tone, but it is something you should be worrying about, particularly in music. I feel like a lot of artists tend to glorify substance use, which is something that makes me feel very uncomfortable. It’s not cool.

I assume the second track, ‘Swimming in an Amber Glass’ is also a reference to alcohol?

Actually, well that’s the interesting thing… Every interview on the record was a series of five questions that were about armadillos. Odd I know, it was for an opera I was writing. I asked people to find a couple of words that rhyme with it, what do [armadillos] mean to you, et cetera. The ‘amber glass’ line came from my friend Hudson saying something random that popped into his head. What I liked about it was when you take away the context of the question, it could mean whatever you want. So, to you it meant it meant alcohol, to me it symbolized a pretty chalice, to him it probably meant something else. I like how open ended the interviews ended up, I wanted to leave it to the listener to decide. I recorded every song on the album myself, but I wanted to bring people in with their thoughts, to get a conversation going.

How do you think Purchase College has benefited or hindered your creativity?

Oh, it’s only been beneficial, certainly. Purchase really was my dream school from the get-go, but I went to Berkeley for my first year of college, and it was the worst environment I’ve ever been in. [Berkeley] was so pretentious, everyone was keen to network and talked about the quickest way to get big on Tik Tok. Coming here it's a totally open canvas, I can book a studio whenever I want, I'm around like-minded people, and the [students] aren’t here solely for the ‘music industry’. All my friends are great, forward-thinking musicians. I love this environment.

Do you think the music industry fails people?

Yeah, definitely. People tend to work backwards, focusing on what the ‘industry’ wants, and they end up trying to sell something they don’t have. I think its pretty funny. I think that the assumption of saying ‘oh I’m going to focus on the industry’ assumes that you already have the music, it will find its own audience if that’s an artist’s intention to work on.

Possum, the 10th song on ‘Philippic’ features Cadence Plenge, and it’s the only credited collaborative track on the album. Was it a coincidence that it’s sonically different from the rest of the album?

No not at all, I had the riff for a while, I knew I wanted a female voice and the sonic ‘vibe’ that ended up on the album. I was working this record when Cadence and I were getting close, we started dating, and I asked her to sing the lyrics I’d written. It was a very easy song to record, and it felt natural. Indiana, the 13th track is also about her.

What do you see yourself working on in the future?

Hmm, difficult to say. I’m still working on the Armadillo Opera, hopefully that will be out one day. In future, I would like to amalgamate clips like I did on ‘Philippic’, but maybe not as dialogue or interview based next time. I like the idea of using people as instruments, that’s definitely something I messed about with on this album. I’m trying to move away from singing as much, the previous record ‘Hearken’ had no vocals whatsoever, and that wasn’t received as well, but I liked it. I think I would want to write for other voices.

And finally, the question on everyone’s mind, who is Nick Paul?

Haha! He’s a very good friend of mine that I met at Purchase before he graduated, he’s an amazing visual artist and a member of the band ‘Me and My Grandma’. I wanted to dedicate the album to friends, and he is someone I very highly respect, so I wanted to dedicate [Nick Paul] to him. The song is about being alone on tour, and reminiscing about friends who are on their own journey through life, a kind of exploration of sonder.