Artistic Taste: The Qualia’s Lars Casteen

The influences behind the infectious synth pop of The Qualia will surprise you at some turns, since images of New Order dance in your head — or at least through your feet — when spinning their latest release, Memorial Gore. In our latest round of Artistic Taste, front man Lars Casteen talks about the personal nature of Aimee Mann and the brutality of Swans.

What album that you own is too painful or uncomfortably personal to listen to on a regular basis?

Aimee Mann – The Forgotten Arm
I fell in love with this record basically as soon as it came out. I was living in Chicago, in a stage of my life where I didn’t really know what I wanted to do with it. This record is a pretty straightforward narrative about a relationship as it is tested and reshaped by addiction and recovery from substance abuse. If I’m reading it correctly, the record ends on a pretty uplifting note, but the tracks that lead up to that happy ending have always felt emotionally grueling to me, in part because they remind me of an aimless year in a city where I had no friends.

What album is a favorite for the way it prominently features your instrument of choice?

Kraftwerk – Computer World
I feel like the general rock crit line on this record is that it’s the moment when Kraftwerk moved out of the driving seat of innovation in electronic music, but for me, Computer World is by far their best record, largely due to the emotional power of the synthesizers the band uses throughout. In my opinion, on “Computer Love,” Kraftwerk runs a clinic on the evocative powers of analog synths. People tend to use words like “cold” and “detached” for synthesizer tones, but the emotional sincerity and the absolute warmth of the synths on “Computer Love” are airtight examples of everything I love about them as instruments.

What album is not considered a classic that you believe warrants consideration as such?

The Pixies – Bossanova
People are so up on Doolittle, but this is the record by The Pixies that I feel has the most connective and adventurous songs. Maybe it’s just that I’m a sucker for reverb, which Bossanova makes beautiful use of, but the twists and turns in the melodies of tracks like “Velouria” and “Ana” do more for me than the raw intensity of the tracks that tend to get called out as The Pixies’ best. “Havalina” is also one of my favorite last tracks on any record – it’s an only slightly unsettled finish to a record that feels like a great pop record, with just a little bit of a swerve built into it.

What is the funniest non-comedy album you own?

Snog – Buy Me… I’ll Change Your Life
Well, it’s dark humor. This record is the third one made by the Australian songwriter/producer/mega-genius David Thrussell under the name Snog. The first two had a more aggro industrial feel, but he peeled the aggression and a lot of the tech back for this record, which is largely inspired by Lee Hazlewood and other outsider country artists. The rhymes are all vaguely Seussian, and are extremely self-conscious, and each track features black political commentary in the vein of John Carpenter’s They Live. It’s a weird combination of pessimism and whimsy that I find hilarious. And awesome.

What album is way too long to listen to on a regular basis?

Swans – Soundtracks For The Blind
This record is brutal and exhausting, but somewhere in all of the punishment and queasiness is a sentiment that I find to be really beautiful. According to wikipedia, it’s 2 hours and 21 minutes long, but honestly, it feels a lot longer than that. Some tracks crawl along at the same uneasy simmer for ten-plus minutes. Some feature staggering loud / soft dynamics — and are also over ten minutes, naturally. It’s my favorite post-rock record, my favorite goth-rock record, and my favorite tape-collage record, all rolled into one, but I’ve only been able to listen through it in its entirety about five times over the decade or so that I’ve loved it.