Larum is the collaboration of Brooklyn musicians Micah Frank and Chet Doxas. Their latest record, The Music of Hildegard von Bingen Part Two, is out now.
Micah Frank and Chet Doxas are Brooklyn-based musicians who perform and record together as Larum. They recently put out The Music of Hildegard von Bingen Part Two — the follow up to 2022’s The Music of Hildegard von Bingen — their recorded exploration of the work of the medieval composer. Here, they discuss Hildegard and how the project came to be.
— Annie Fell, Editor-in-chief, Talkhouse Music
Micah Frank: I think from my memory, bringing Hildegard into our work was originally your idea.
Chet Doxas: Oh, really? [Laughs.] Cool.
Micah: I mean, I’d heard of Hildegard when I was in music school. And when you brought it up originally, way back in 2020 maybe, I had this vague memory of who she was. I guess I’d heard of her from time-to-time, but it was never really something that made me further pursue her music or her writing.
Chet: I remember going back to some of our original improvisations and jams that we would record, and especially when you homed in on a set of sounds and a patch for your Shared System, we started to notice that it was going towards drones and monophony. And I think we realized we were just a couple steps logically away from early music. So we started to look through some early composers. I can’t remember if we actually if we went to Hildegard right away, but I want to say that we did. We started researching through the various websites, and the codex that’s been uploaded and maintained, that a lot of her extra musical interests were also present in our sound. A lot of it seemed to align — like, a lot of the field recordings that that Micah had brought to some of our jams check the box of her studies in the natural world. And then some of the philosophical things we were looking at, and we were looking at her visual art, too, and that seemed to align really well with what we were doing. So it seemed like a match waiting to happen.
Micah: Yeah. I think it was also just this trove of material that’s pretty uncommon from such early composers. Just the breadth of the material and the fact that it was notated and very accessible. So we were actually able to go back pretty far in terms of music history, and retrieve these pieces that that could be realized quite easily in a modern context without us having to become musicologists or anthropologists to some degree. So I think that was a huge motivator for us too. I remember when we worked on the first release, The Music of Hildegard von Bingen, part one, we would have sessions and we’d just print out a ton of different sheet music and play through it and figure out which ones really stuck. So I feel like we just had a wealth of material because of that.
Chet: Yeah. We were kind of spoiled that way, where we had so much music that we could build sets not only based on the vibe and the arc that we wanted to create due to the source material, but it also inspired some of the guests that we would reach out to. We reached out to one of our collaborators, Emi Makabe, who is a shamisen player. And I think it speaks to the breadth of her vision, that this music can still take on a life that now lives on in our world, through the experimental music world of Gowanus, Brooklyn, where we’re playing at the Record Shop or at Public Records, and her music becomes this touchstone to collaborate with. It’s amazing how open that this music has been able to keep us. It’s kind of created this space where the list is so long of people that we could bring in to play with us because of this repertoire.
Micah: Yeah, totally. There’s that, and also just mechanically and technically and stylistically, I think it all fits our style perfectly. We both come from a very deep improvisational background, and I think we’re at heart live performers and improvisers. At the same time, I think we both appreciate having this sort of structure, and the music of Hildegard really delivers that, because we have these waypoints in her music that we can get to, and we don’t have to stay there. And it’s completely interpretive, too. Whereas if we found a composer from 200 years later, we might feel more that we had to adhere to the original composer’s vision and form.
Also, just from an instrumental and mechanical standpoint, this music really helped me realize my instrument that I’m using on all these recordings — which is a modular synthesizer — because of that space that’s given. As you know, it’s really hard for me to harmonically move around on the modular synthesizer. It’s not like I can reprogram entire harmonic sections on the fly. So the music has also really helped me develop the playing technique on the synthesizer, as well, and I think that really reflects back on when we’re performing, how open everything is and improvised, but still maintains this structure, this drone or firm harmonic background.
Chet: Yeah. You’re making me think, too — when you use the words “open” and “space,” whether or not it’s what we’re hearing while we’re playing or the source material — and I like to think it’s both — there’s a space that this music fosters, where I feel a deep sense of respect for the work. So every time we take on this work, and even though we work together so much, there’s still this underlying thing when we bring up one of these pieces to perform that it’s an important work and it’s important music. And just the sheer fact that we’re even looking back a thousand years says something — when we go to reinterpret works that are a thousand years old, it’s a lot of responsibility, right? And I feel like that’s something that might not be as strong in some of the other work that I do. Of course, you always want to take it seriously and bring your best self, but there’s one extra layer because this music is so important in shaping the world.
Micah: Yeah.
Chet: No pressure. [Laughs.]
Micah: You bring up working with other projects as well, and I’ve always been curious: how did your approach differ with the Hildegard material and working together with me from your other projects? Just in terms of the studio work and the writing and arranging.
Chet: What I’ve been thinking about is, there’s not really a precedent that’s been set. If I come from a jazz background, and even if it’s a free jazz background, there’s still a couple of touchstones and there’s a shorthand that can be exchanged when you put some music up in front of somebody. You don’t try to drop names because you don’t want to box people in, but you could be like, “I was kind of thinking of Ornette Coleman when I wrote this piece,” and that can align a lot of things. But when we’re working together, there’s no reference point, really. So that’s another thing — if you think about it too much, it can be scary, because what we’re doing is not really in the lineage of anything.
Micah: Yeah, every time we try something else — let’s say a different Hildegard composition, and we want to try and arrange it and and make a production out of it — it’s sort of like working in a void. There’s no real foundation to to spring from, and we have to kind of find where that is.
Chet: I’ve never really thought about that. If I thought about that, I might get freaked out. I feel like I trust your aesthetics, and however we start working on something feels very natural. We just go, and then it changes a million times, and sometimes it doesn’t. I feel like we don’t get too hung up on things. We’re going to work later today, and I know that we’ve been working on this one thing for a long time, but we’re about to clear out a lot of things. And that doesn’t feel weird or scary to me. It’s just like, “Alright, cool. We’re gonna just keep moving until we find the thing that we both like.” So there’s a certain freedom in it, that there’s no way to compare what we’re doing to anything else. And I guess that’s one of the things I’ve never really thought about, that makes this so easy and fun to engage with. It’s kind of refreshing.
Micah: Yeah, it is. It sort of has a Zen quality to it. We’re not rushing anything. I don’t think we ever feel pressured to get something out the door. And I think we give ourselves space to discard things, as well. The last time we met, we talked about all the stuff that we spent hours and hours and days working on, that we just were like, “Let’s just get rid of it all! Let’s just get rid of all the drums, let’s just get rid of all the structure, anything that indicates any type of movement in time. Let’s just get rid of months of work.” I think our approach is, “Let’s just keep reiterating until it works.” There’s no real rules or method for approaching this type of music.
Chet: Yeah. It’s very liberating in that way. And it very much feels like that child mind when you’re coming to it, because there’s no hang ups about it. We’re just making the sounds. And I find it interesting that we almost made a beat record just now, and we’re about to do whatever we’re going to do later on today. It’s interesting that we kind of don’t have any vocals or lyrics — that’s never really been a consideration, though we did have some vocalizing from Emi. But those were not the lyrics. And then now we’re kind of beat averse, but we’re still open to the idea of it. If it makes sense, we’ll do it. That’s, I think, a respectful move to the listener too. Giving the music as much room as possible, to not box it in basically… I don’t feel like I really need to be sung at, or sung to, a lot of the time. And I feel like a beat sometimes can be one notch below that.
Micah: You mean dictating how you should feel about something?
Chet: Yeah. And the people that are listening to this, I like to think that maybe a lot of them feel the same way. We don’t need to box things in for people and hit a big chorus or something like that, you know?
Micah: Yeah. I think part of that also goes, I’m a very process oriented composer and musician — and I think you are too, in a different way. I think we both are constantly absorbing outside influences and cool things that we see, or cool processes. I think you and I are both constantly very inspired and taking that and trying to apply it to our own work. And sometimes, I think when you’re constantly absorbing outside influences and trying to apply them, only a very small fraction of those things actually really stick. We produce our music with all of this outside influence, but then I think at the end of the day, we end up shedding a lot of that and just leaving the good stuff, the stuff that has sort of been refined through this interpretive process. Which leaves us with a very sort of rich distillation of material.
Chet: Yeah. It’s been a great lesson to work that way with somebody else, because I’ve had some guidance along the way — I grew up knowing this generalization that Thelonious Monk wrote one song a month, and that can be perceived as slow, although you’re left with these 70-odd masterpieces from him. And one of the things that Carla Bley told me — we were on tour, and I was like, “I was thinking of starting my own trio…” And then she whispered to me, “Write one song a month.” And her partner, Steve Swallow, was sitting with me, too, and he’s like, “One song a month.” I was like, “That’s crazy!” I feel like you just want to pump it out, you know? And then you’re like, Wait a second, these people—
Micah: Carla Bley’s not on TikTok, I don’t think.
Chet: [Laughs.] That’s right. But then what’s happened with us, as you gain more experience, when you’re working with somebody else that you trust, you do get that feeling that you’re leaving only the important, meaningful parts. And being able then to go back into your private practice and making your own thing, whether it’s me practicing or you doing your own projects, there’s a leftover lesson. You’re like, OK, slow down. Be more perceptive. That’s what I’m learning from working together, and being around other musicians. Like in our scene, if we go see Tim Berne play, a lot of that world that he’s created with his improvising — that doesn’t happen quickly. It doesn’t have to, and it’s not supposed to happen quickly. And this has been a nice moment and partnership for me to reinforce that. Even though everything else around us is moving faster than ever, that’s not where the best work can come from.
Micah: Yeah, I think the way we work is just following what feels right and not trying to push anything. We pretty much just started when my studio was back at home in a spare bedroom, and we just started jamming on stuff. We never really made a push to say, “We’re going to do these bunch of shows and release a bunch of albums.” We just took it day by day. And I think that’s helped us develop a really strong local foundation.
Chet: Yeah.
Micah: It gives us motivation to keep going and keep doing what we want to do and just enjoy it and not try to push things or set ourselves up for high expectations and disappointment.
Chet: Yeah. Maybe a few times a year, we’ll set up the work schedule and we’ll set some of our own deadlines, like, “OK, let’s get this EP out by this date,” or “let’s send this demo to this.” But yeah, so far there’s been no pressure. It’s just been all about creation. And it’s been cool to hear the response from people — it always surprises me, because this way of working together feels very natural and just fun, and I never stopped to really think about how that translates. But of course it does. The way we work must come through in the music, obviously, and I’ve never stopped to think about that. But it’s like, yeah, the reason people are responding to this and liking it is because we’re having an awesome time and it’s super fun,and we’re always sending music back and forth and going to see shows. It’s just like an extension of what we’re doing anyways.
Micah: I think our work dynamic definitely translates to the stage. It comes through in the way we communicate and improvise on stage. And I think it comes through also when [we perform with other people]. We rarely play just a duo, we usually perform with at least one other guest on stage, and I think that dynamic that we’ve developed definitely helps with the third or fourth performer. Which is somewhat wild cards, because oftentimes it’s my first time playing with someone, or sometimes it’s both of our first times playing someone, on stage. And we’re both very confident that everything’s going to work out. We never have a moment where we’re like, “I wonder if this musician is going to be able to perform with us.” We’re like, “Whatever happens, happens, and it’s going to be cool.” And I think that the musician on stage feels it, and the audience does as well. There’s no judgment. We’ve both played with a lot of people, and I think when we’re on stage together performing, I never feel like I’m ever going to be judged. It’s not ever going to be a situation where I’m like, Is Chet upset with me for changing that part there? [Laughs.]
Chet: [Laughs.] Well, what’s awesome about living in this city and getting to play with all the people that we get to play with is your only job up there when we’re playing is really to make choices, and there’s nothing else going through your head. All you have to do is make a choice that makes sense. That’s a very special place to be in, and I find that when we play together, it’s the feeling that I have when I get to play with the best musicians — I’m like, Oh, my god, this is so easy. 
