Emil Amos: A Vivid Reflection of the End of Our Evolution

Emil Amos, known for his work with Holy Sons, Grails, OM, and Lilacs & Champagne, talks to Ayşegül Doğan and Barış Yarsel of Futuristika in a conversation spanning the aesthetics of contemporary capitalism, the ethics of archiving, the cultural memory embedded in sampling, and the desire to escape the mechanical present.

It’s a timeless countercultural sentiment in a way.

Holy Sons has often been described as a one‑man, almost bedroom‑hermetic project where you do everything yourself. What does total control give you that a more “democratic” band setup can’t, and what do you lose in the process?

I think if you pursue this kind of extreme alone-ness in art, you’ll end up in a more important war with yourself than you would have been in with others anyway. There’s a special brand of madness and artistic integrity that comes from democracy and a special kind that comes from being isolated. It’s important to learn from both forms to gain an appreciation of the opposite method.

The lap steel textures on the new record feel like a kind of haunted Americana, almost like someone trying to escape the mechanical present through a half‑remembered past. When you use instruments like lap steel, are you chasing a specific memory or a more abstract “elsewhere”?

Your notion of a more ‘abstract elsewhere’ is very insightful. All art generally thrives on this magical nexus between something familiar and something new and strange. There’s a fascinating idea that ‘old timey-ness’ has always been a product we sell ourselves because nostalgia is big business. America has certainly always sold itself an imagined idea of how the ‘wild west’ was. There’s a kind of cultural memory the lap steel can access that feels Western, Hawaiian or even Indian with its sliding and bending. There’s a higher form of self-expression available in slide technique that comes a bit closer to the human voice.

You’ve said you want to escape today’s mechanical world but also use every tool it offers. How do you personally navigate that contradiction in your daily life and studio practice—where do you draw the line between healthy use and spiritual damage?

To worry about contaminating my approach too much could turn into a huge expenditure of time and energy that I could be using to compose. Worrying about methods can also tend to miss the point… and nothing has ever really spiritually damaged me in my view. It can be important to go with the world as much as it’s important to push against it. The artist has their own conscience about where that line is exactly.

I do think that the convenience-focused and device-driven culture that’s dominated art more recently is doing a grand disservice to the potential idiosyncrasies of expression… but I feel like I can work around most of that because I know what I want to say. I’m not just using music as a vehicle for sound alone… I have my eyes on a transcendent point. I’ve largely avoided using most of the MIDI equipment and grid-based programs that make everything easier, because they normalize everything in a really unsatisfying and un-psychedelic way… but I think the smarter kids now understand all of this instinctually.

It seems like younger people are more drawn to the recordings I did in the ’90’s, as that stuff was all made with cassettes and hand-held recorders and I think they can feel there’s more of a personal reward in that.

Do you think the “do‑it‑yourself in a room” myth has become its own kind of spectacle now, and if so, how do you avoid turning Holy Sons into a brand built on isolation?

I don’t seem at risk to any great popularity! I’ve been making things for so long now and never been pulled into the central music business narrative, so I don’t think I need to worry much about compromising what I do.

I got started early enough in my own development that I can still access a naive state while recording an idea without any paralyzing feelings of self-consciousness. In a way I’m running out of time so I need to hurry and document all these thoughts without worrying too much about their format. Sometimes people don’t seem to grasp the true sense of indifference you’re up against as an artist in the world… and because I’m acutely aware of it, it tends to fuel me.

They normalize everything in a really unsatisfying and un-psychedelic way.

There aren’t any cheat codes that can cook up timeless compositions.

You’ve spoken many times about how important Sun City Girls were for you. What did they give you that no other band or record ever did—was it a musical language, a kind of permission, or something more spiritual?

It was mostly that they denoted a special artistic permission and exuded the sense that following any current musical/cultural guidelines is a really bad idea if you’re trying to develop your own lasting statement. They also proved that a distorted, mutated copy of something from our past can be better than the “real thing”… and that the “real thing” was also a distorted copy in itself.

In what ways did Sun City Girls change your understanding of “what a band can be”—especially the idea that a band can be a research project, a prank, a ritual and a political act all at once?

They helped expose that the more you ignore the overall ascension plan that most bands follow, the better the immediate rewards are for the art itself. It’s crucial for some of us to forego the polite world of wanting to be liked by others to pursue our destiny as artists.

In one interview you said “it’s our religion now to dig it up.” For those of us who grew up digging through cassettes and vinyl before streaming, that sentence hits very hard. What does “digging” mean to you in an era where nearly everything is a search bar away?

I spend a bizarre amount of time communing with dead people through my record collection. Every record I own has become a visceral reminder of a particular era of my life and the place I got it. I was trying deep breathing exercises before bed recently and a lot of distant memories of faraway places we’ve toured suddenly appeared in my mind… it was so visceral that we’d created these amazing memories over all these years of traveling that I could sort of be inside of them. Physical records bring a very concrete piece of the world back to me quickly in the same way.

Maintaining a personal library can create a kind of religious environment.

Mixing is a necessary state of insanity that I tolerate regularly.

As a devoted 70’s fan, which scenes or countries still make you go “whoa” when you dig deeper—are there specific regional histories that feel criminally under‑acknowledged?

I love every little hovel of the 70’s… but digging for abstract avant-garde music from back then is particularly gratifying because it’s odd to think there was any audience for records that pushed the bounds of sounding like ‘music’ at all. Extreme record hunters have always been trying to find artists that worked in isolation. We’re continually excited by the idea that great leaps are made in evolution when we abandon all previous traditions. I’m also just a fan of the state of technology in that era too… I love the way everything sounds and feels.

How do you personally keep curiosity alive when the algorithm is constantly offering you “more of the same”? Do you have rituals or constraints for discovering new/old music?

There are so many different, incredible eras of record production that I never run out of research. I was blasting this song while crossing a beautiful island bridge on the coast in the middle of the night recently and marveling at its production.

Brian Eno once said that sampling from the past can be as profound as creating something “original.” With Lilacs and Champagne relying more openly on samples, how do you personally measure profundity in a sample‑based piece versus a “played” one?

L&C is a special kind of playground project… I quarantine it to a part of my brain that’s reserved for a kind of anthropological hedonism. I love that Brian Eno quote SO much, but I think his personal approach sometimes limits him from exposing even more about himself than he does. He said something once about how music may not really come from inside of you… and that the world and external factors tend to put him in positions that bring sounds out of him. I really love that idea and he’s done so much more than just about anyone… but his understanding of where art comes from doesn’t totally describe my motivations. He inspires me to see new avenues, but he ultimately personifies just one kind of ‘approach’ instead of the whole God’s Eye View to me.

Maintaining a personal library can create a kind of religious environment.

When you sample, do you feel more like an archivist, a thief, a composer, or a collage artist—and does that role change from track to track?

Definitely all of those for sure. I like to think that I make up for the thievery with my other projects… but we aren’t making L&C records for the money. The aspect of hip hop that’s focused on making money is the bit that I relate to the least. Sampling is more of a celebration of culture to me.

What ethical lines do you draw with sampling—are there records, voices, or contexts you refuse to touch even if they would sound incredible in a track?

If you have killer style then nothing else really matters because great style will generally guide the way. I’m always deep in the task of finding something my brain hasn’t heard before though… so I would have trouble enjoying the development of generic sounds. I want to go somewhere I haven’t been, so I’m not interested in sampling things that make you feel too comfortable with their familiarity.

Has working in a sample‑heavy project changed the way you write “straight” songs for Holy Sons or Grails?

Definitely… Once I began to write with samples, I was able to break more rules and make things happen that weren’t supposed to occur within specific genre bounds. But in the end, great melodies and messages really have to be grasped personally and written out on your own… there aren’t any cheat codes that can cook up timeless compositions.

You’ve worked with labels like Thrill Jockey, Mexican Summer and Temporary Residence—three labels that many listeners see as pillars of a certain independent sensibility. When you “shake hands” with a label, what is your number‑one, non‑negotiable priority?

Strangely enough, we never really talk about the business much with these labels because we’ve always just typically co-existed with them as our friends.

For young underground artists today, what warning would you give about label contracts that you wish someone had given you earlier?

To be honest, labels are a bit less important now because the funnel of social media brings everyone their information instead. So the new goal seems to be centered around establishing an audience and then releasing your own records. If a label can truly help you gain visibility then that’s a great device, but for better or worse, the old process has been somewhat disassembled these days.

Human history seems guided by a dark destiny overall.

Your lyrics are full of references that feel both literary and street‑level at the same time. Do you consciously hide “keys” in the lyrics for obsessive listeners, or are these references more like a private notebook that just happens to be audible?

There are hidden references shoved into all these songs for sure! They began as private jokes but certain listeners have figured out where specific lines came from over the years which is great because it gives the joke a second life. There were eras where I was feverishly bored and would try to and entertain myself with improbable combinations of sounds and lyrics that really shouldn’t really work. And its odd that, as time goes on, those concoctions have started to feel more expected or somehow inevitable.

Has a fan ever decoded one of your references so precisely that it surprised or even unsettled you in a good way?

I’ve been blown away with people’s research at times. An example that comes to mind is a very old song called ‘Festering Mind Energy’ that begins “I gravitate to the most holy alone, I feel lured by the supra heights… such is the life of gods.” Some kid found the exact passage of the early Greek philosopher I must have been reading in college when I stole those lines while recording in my dorm room!… It was amazing to me because I’d forgotten about the source completely and after they mentioned it, I remembered how excited I had been about that passage at the time.

You’re often both the musician and the producer, which means you’re also the person who has to live with the mix forever. How do you keep your ego in check in the mixing stage so that the song, not the player, wins? Are there specific “rules” you follow when mixing your own voice or guitar—like things you forbid yourself from doing because they feel dishonest or too flattering?

Songs should always feel somewhat stoned and optimistic… like the way you feel when you’re 16 and quickly jotting down one last song before Christmas dinner in the backroom of the house while the family is gathering and it feels like you’re getting away with something. Recordings should reflect that kind of just-woke-up feeling when there’s an endless sense of potential for the day and you aren’t too worried about the ramifications of the world yet.

When you get stuck or frustrated in the mix, what breaks the deadlock for you—silence, walking away, or doubling down on some new, risky decision?

All of those!… you read my mind. I can get caught in a spiral of doom when a mix isn’t going right and often have to go outside to get away from my fixation on mixing, because I’m constantly tied to my computer. I can’t really help my dependence on them because computers offer me the fastest way I can manipulate my ideas and get them out into the world efficiently.

If someone listens to Puritan Themes on good headphones, is there a hidden mixing decision or small detail you secretly hope they notice?

I went crazy developing those mixes so you could really feel like you’re inside of them. Mixing is a necessary state of insanity that I tolerate regularly just to force into being what I really want to hear. But no matter how many rules I break along the way, these records probably just play as totally cohesive events for people later on. With Puritan Themes, the biggest challenge was to bring back the feeling of early folk/protest music and make it feel impressionistic and alive now. It was a maddening process but now that it’s behind me, I feel good that I put in the extra work to make it what it wanted to be.

You once said that when you fell in love with Turkish music and started weaving its influence into your work, you never imagined Turkish listeners would recognize that influence and build a relationship with the band over time. What did it feel like when that recognition actually started happening?

It was very surreal because it sometimes feels like there’s not much of a community left concerning the underground music cult I was born of. So in that sense our connection with Turkey is very rare. We try to stay an extra week there before we play which we generally don’t do anywhere else in the world. It’s an important relationship to us. ✪