Composing Textures: A Chat With Frinla
(Credit: Frinla)
The more audacious your vision, the larger the payoff in your output. Unapologetically, Axel Serik is doing just that under his Frinla moniker. No stranger to the scene with over a decade of experience – you might’ve seen him on bass duties in experimental rock bands, Sphaeras and T-REX; or his solo dabblings as Navire Creux – Serik still finds a way to sound fresh and unprecedented.
As Frinla, he defies genre designations by fiddling with a multitude at once. Electronically, you’ll stumble upon the smoky pads of ambient and disruptive broken beats often present in bass music. Yet organically, Serik is fond of injecting live samples into the mix, ranging from industrial clanks and clunks to subtle riffs on his guitar. The resultant creation is a brooding, capricious soundtrack that has put this producer on the radar of imprints like Brighton’s Smallprint Recordings, which released his two-track Leaning EP.
In this interview, I unravel Serik’s serpentine approach when it comes to his Frinla brainchild. What he reveals is just as fascinating.
Hey Axel. Let’s start with a lighthearted one. Your music under Frinla is atmospheric and evocative; instrumental mood-setters that wouldn’t be out of place in a film soundtrack. If you could dream up a film synopsis that would suit Frinla’s music, what would it be like?
It would be a film score for a movie on the fall of humanity and the problems humans have created and now live with, to the uprising of the collective consciousness. Or, a video illustration of mechanical insects and animals moving through the complexities of their daily lives underground and in the crevices of this world that humans have no access to. Something weird and newly imagined.
This chapter of Frinla isn’t your first rodeo in music. What spurred on this latest development for you?
It started when I met Kain, a producer who formerly lived in Kuala Lumpur. We started working on some tracks together where I played string instruments to fuse with electronic music. From then on, I got really curious about Ableton Live and got hooked on it since. I’ve been experimenting almost every day – with samples, foleys and manipulating my guitar – which led me to my current project.
Each song is like a little, jumbled box of tricks, teasing with elements derived from post-dubstep to IDM, with trickles of organic guitar licks here and there. It’s baffling, but how do you even approach a song under this guise?
I’ve always been intrigued by sounds, and also dabble in different genres which naturally expands the library of my sonic playground. These are sounds, atmospheres and textures that would invite listeners into a space of freedom, to explore the entire spectrum of human emotions and hopefully translate that into a full body experience; just like the feeling of getting tickled in the middle of your brain by crispy textures. Hence, I continuously experiment and find new sounds that would keep me and my listeners intrigued, keeping it genuinely refreshing and unexpected.
Frinla is a project that uses foley recordings as well. Can you share more about this? What sort of sounds have you recorded?
Since I started getting deeper into the electronic world, I got curious as to how I could implicate some sounds that I recorded on my phone and manipulate them into something more and something unfamiliar. I’ve recorded sounds from playing with pots and pans, staplers, keys, water bottles, pens, chaotic nuances from construction sites, poops blooping into the water, urine trickling into the bowl and sometimes toys or instruments in retail shops, all with an iPhone 7.
One of your tracks, “Mercurial”, was signed onto Smallprint Recordings in Brighton; an achievement that’s not shabby at all for a nascent project. How did you manage to land that milestone?
I found an artist called LUO who I loved so much, and so I started looking for similar artists under Smallprint Recordings, which LUO was under, and that led me to a whole world of similar artists. I immediately knew that I wanted to be part of the collective, so dropped them a message and they asked me to send them a track. It was the right timing as they were working on a compilation with 32 artists (SmallPrint Vol. 3) and asked if I wanted to be part of it.
Have you already figured out how you’re gonna pull off live shows for Frinla?
Yes, I’m continuously flirting with ideas on how the framework of playing live would look and feel like. It was a struggle at first, trying to dissect the songs to be played live. I’m taking my time to craft this vision carefully, but am really looking forward to sharing my music with people in this way. I’m curious to see how it resonates.
(Credit: Frinla)
As a live performer, you are no stranger to the scene; having performed with bands like Sphaeras, T-REX, and of course, your very own Navire Creux. How have all these experiences shaped you today as a musician and performer?
Dabbling into all these different genres and techniques of playing has allowed me to imagine electronic music in an interesting way, which I myself didn’t see forming until more songs were written in the journey of exploring and fine-tuning what I actually hear in my brain.
Navire Creux, your personal project, started in 2009 I believe. Has it taken a bow and departed for good? And why?
Navire Creux, as a project in itself, has departed and taken a humble bow. However, the essence carries on; it has rebirthed and evolved into what Frinla is today. What remains is the cathartic exploration into the same honest realms, but with brighter clarity in a much deeper state of consciousness and euphoria. With technicality in mind, I still do weave some of the textures, sounds and manipulation of string instruments from Navire Creux into new tracks. However, with that being said, I do still welcome it if ever it feels the need to surface in all its glory… For now, though, I’m done with it.
How do you manage to juggle it all? Please crack the mystery.
Giving no excuses. The passion and drive I bring towards my craft gives me no room to slack off. There is no back-up plan, because when you believe that this is the one big plan that presently needs your unfaltering dedication, you just do all you can with all you have to work towards it. If you want to get somewhere with your music, you have to keep doing it almost everyday and adapt to whatever struggles come with it, such as financial woes or self-doubt. Secondly, when I started to get deeper into improving my health and healing some conditions I was facing, like chronic pains and insomnia, I realised I was starting to get sharper, with better focus, which translated into what I was creating.
(Credit: Frinla)
Being in the scene for so long, what’s your personal take on it and how has it grown over the years?
From my perspective, music has evolved so much to the point that most are now behind the screens, which has led to an opening of a whole new world of music genres and possibilities of executing an idea on your own. However, from what it seems, it’s like there’s not much attention to live bands playing nowadays. Back then, it wasn’t too hard to pack a place with high energy, mosh pits and sing-a-longs. I feel like we live in too much of a digital age and the focus is now placed on what sells to the general public. I would love to see more frequent live sets take the stage.
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