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How History’s Most Famous Occultist Inspired Alex Smoke’s New Album

The Glaswegian producer's 'Love Over Will' bridges technology and mysticism.
Florence To

"People think that because we have the Large Hadron Collider that we know what's going on. Really, when you get down to it, nobody has a clue."

Fresh off a trip to IKEA, Alex Smoke is on a roll. Having survived the mundanely Nordic gauntlet of Billy bookcases, Balkarp sofa beds, and Förvara drawers, the Glaswegian producer with releases on notable record labels like R&S and Soma has plenty to say.

Within mere minutes of speaking to him, he's brought up English occultist Aleister Crowley, musician Genesis P-Orridge, and particle physics, before his cup of tea's even had time to grow cold. At one point, he cites comic book writer Alan Moore on the power of the creator to use one's consciousness to affect that of other people. "Putting magical ideas into your music is a cool idea," he says—and it is one that evidently informs his latest album Love Over Will.

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You see, Alex Smoke really does believe in magic. No, not that groovy gunk mucking up the works in The Lovin' Spoonful's 1965 saccharine psych pop hit or, for that matter, anything involving a boy wizard and his beloved franchise.

Casually profane and more than a little modest, he sure as hell isn't some self-proclaimed techno shaman or smarmy Wiccan crystal shop owner. His musical output has now delved into topics of occult spirituality, and let there be no doubt, he believes in magic's pervasive and almost banal existence in our daily lives.

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"A hundred years ago, if you said you could talk to someone walking down the street in Melbourne when you're out in the ocean on your phone, they would be flabbergasted," Smoke says. To him, much of what people call science could be explained away in more mystical terms; we can't walk around solely accepting what we can see and touch. "That's neanderthal thinking."

Whether or not you subscribe to his particular point of view, it's hard not to look at electronic music as some form of sorcery, what with such strange and wondrous sounds summoned from otherwise unmusical boxes and intangible software.

But, while the remarkable Love Over Will both references and slickly inverts Crowley's 1904 tome The Book of the Law—the central text of the long departed magician's philosophical religion known as Thelema—Smoke hardly seems the type to browbeat a listener with a hymnal, literally or figuratively. "When you play it backwards, it doesn't tell you anything," he assures, cognizant of how P-Orridge and others have often taken very literal approaches to incorporating Thelemite ideas into their music.

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Instead, the album draws more subtly from these supernatural influences, ascribing an abundantly gothic morosity to Smoke's sharp looping productions. His beats and textures wiggle around the nexus of ritual music and club music, all sturm und drang on tracks like "Astar Mara" and "Dire Need." Adding to the proverbial cauldron, his own voice plays a prominent role across most of Love Over Will's tracks.

"Singing is a very natural way to impart emotion or impart thinking," he says. "It's something we humans just naturally pick up on." Though there are lyrics and sung melodies on the album, they aren't completely clean—an intentional move on Smoke's part. "[Voice] responds really well to effects, and fucking it up in the computer." He's not particularly concerned if the words are lost on the listener, provided the vibe and intention come across.

With a number of albums under his belt, including a song-oriented, self-titled LP under his Wraetlic alias for Convex in 2013, Smoke freely admits his process isn't purely a creative one. "There's also always a little bit of compromise working with a label," he says. "You've always got to find that middle ground of what's gonna make them happy, what's gonna make you happy."

Then there's the matter of Love Over Will's album cover, with its simultaneously artsy and explicit depiction of pansexuality and gender duality. Smoke insists the piece isn't meant to titillate, dismissing would-be naysayers who would dare call it pornographic. "It is about sexuality, of course, but it's not sexy. It's not trying to exploit you."

But people like to talk, to complain, and at the end of day, the artist isn't some simpering people pleaser. "By now, I think I've alienated most of the people I'm going to alienate."

Alex Smoke's Love Over Will is out January 22 on R&S Records.

Alex Smoke is on Twitter // Facebook // SoundCloud

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