Hearing music, seeing sounds, Justin Lassen continues to create digital musical art,
in collaboration with the community.
CGSociety :: Artist Profile
29 July 2008, Paul Hellard
Just over two years ago, I looked outside the square a little to find a digital artist not so much working full-time to create images on the computer, but creating images in people’s minds with his ethereal music.
Justin Lassen has almost a decade of experience in the music, film and game industries. Many acclaimed artists had been touched by his work, having had music written by him, or they have been moved to create images after hearing his symphonies.
The first CGSociety article introduced a music composer’s work and the images painted by many in the professional art community inspired by the music he portrayed. Justin Lassen also went in the other direction and wrote pieces for the images he saw in our pages, and the pages set up by the artists themselves in their CGPortfolios. Here now is a feature, totally given over to the sound and the visual art of the combined inspirations of the CGSociety, with new compositions and some gorgeous artwork choices!
Music career
Lassen has produced remixes for artists like Madonna, Garbage, Blue Man Group, Lenny Kravitz, Robert Miles, Nine Inch Nails, Linkin Park, Evanescence, Apocalyptica as well as many others. He's also worked on various high-profile projects for game and technology companies such as Interplay, Cakewalk and Intel. In 2003, he released a dark chamber suite entitled 'And Now We See But Through A Glass Darkly' (5.5 million copies in circulation) which caught immediate critical acclaim and response from both the industry and public alike. Lassen's masterful compositions have been praised and quoted by leading CG artists, film, game and music professionals the world over. In 2006 he released his wildly successful 'Synaesthesia' series on CGSociety, melding the worlds of music and CG artwork together. That was just the beginning.
Justin now has artists approaching him to compose music inspired from their images. In addition to having an audio-graphic mind, he also has a very visual imagination. “As artists approach me, I feel it is very easy to take their visual arts and convert them into musical compositions,” he says. “In a sense, the music is already composed, and my eye converts what it sees into audio, through my fingers. I believe that it is very natural for visual artists to want to add a new dimensionality to their work with audio.
As I compose tracks based on other artwork, I find so much inspiration in the color, texture and subjects of these pieces. I put myself into the scene wholly and completely rather than looking at it from afar or objectively, as if I am standing right there in the middle and get goose bumps from how real it can feel.”
Inspiration
Many digital visual artists might listen to music while painting, or become inspired by something they hear, so here, Justin is doing very much the reverse. “I feel a welcome synergy every time,” Justin continues. “Some would call this a blessing or a curse otherwise known as Synaesthesia.”
Justin Lassen has also been busy on a wide variety of projects. In recent news he produced the mobile game ‘Red Isle: The Dark Relics' a fun re-playable gem of the mobile arena, with fellow artist and creator Damien Hostin.
He also announced a new video game concept called "Lord Retro" late last year. “I'm working with two of CGSociety's great artists, whom are wholeheartedly involved in the concept artwork that is helping me to shape this new 'retro' universe. Martin Bland and Alex Ruiz. I adore these guys.”
The soundtrack has played a big role in the inspiration of this new yet familiar universe for both artists and the rest of the team.
Last year he finished the 27-track score to the video game "Out of Hell", which is the cult-hit of the mod world with a rabid fan base. It has already been featured in famous magazines like The Escapist Magazine, PC Gamer (US and UK), as well as the top Unreal and engine modding sites (Epic Games Engine).
“My partner, and veteran modder/developer, is one of the best in the scene. I'm really quite proud of him,” quips Justin. "The game itself was five years in the making, and will come out later this year (2008)!"
"I think the most important thing about my dark chamber symphonies is the mood, the density and the verb in which the music is presented. There is a certain power to natural room verbs, and recording the dense quietness of places with heavy history, and deep undertones. You can feel it in the walls, in the instruments, in the people, and in the settings and places you make your own. I believe that the environment is the instrument, and I think that this mentality helps me to compose in very unusual and interesting way."
"Yes, I could record in a high-end multi-million dollar recording studio and recording hall, and my symphony would sound “perfect” in that Hollywood or classical sense; however, I find that the imperfections in the recording process are far more fascinating, and I think the best performances come when you are not waiting for a cue light to click on."
"Rather, when you’ve just come up from the cellar, and you were freaked out that something was going to pull your foot under the stairs, or the eye balls in the painting that somehow keep changing where they are looking," begins Lassen.
"That adrenaline, or the memories that you keep to yourself, seem to reflect a more realistic and colorful dissonance that a lot of people in the world seem to dive into sometimes. I’m happy to be working in a niche genre like this, and from the kinds of feedback I get; I know I’m helping a lot of people. I know what I’m good at and I’m perfectly content to let this process happen naturally."
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I usually say don’t expect anything except the unexpected. If you think about it too much, it won’t make sense anymore."
Games
When composing for video games, Lassen scores them much as he would a film. He has the development team send him videos of the levels, detailed screenshots and concept artwork, as well as the story and overall mood. "I let the ambience take over from there, controlling my fingers," he explains. "I am generally given a sort of guideline at the beginning, then I’ll turn in something completely different and the team usually agrees with my two cents.
This is all very similar to my Synaesthesia composing, in which I let the artwork write the music for me. My fingers are purely a tool for the artwork to get its magic onto paper for me. I don’t have any strict practices or techniques. When I’m lost for inspiration, which is the most difficult part for me, I must search the web for inspiring concept art, scenery, environments and other visual art and artists. One of my absolute favorite sources is CGSociety, which has made several deposits into my inspiration bank over the years."
Clive Barker
Also during 2008, Justin produced and remixed the official soundtrack for Clive Barker’s new film “The Midnight Meat Train” for Lakeshore Records in support of the film release. It includes 14 brand-new eerie rock remixes by Justin and came out during the summer of 2008 to great applause.
On the album you can find remixes of a unique cast of artist and bands which Justin got full charge over. “I wanted to pick bands that I would listen to, not just the typical stuff you find in horror movie soundtracks, but I also wanted it to feel Clive Barker through and through, being inspired by the writing as well as the film."
Of the many great artists on it, you will find graphics programmer extraordinaire SLVTN (famous for writing the graphics code for some of the best electronic concerts to date.), the legendary composer of World of WarCraft, Jason Hayes, four of the world’s best Cello players, Apocalyptica and on and on. It’s an interesting lineup that you wouldn’t normally find together. With Justin involved, of course it would turn out this way.
“I've been working on the soundtrack as well out here in London and Budapest to another game called Hexen: Edge of Chaos (also highly regarded in the scene), a sequel to the originals," Lassen says. "I'm not sure when that developer will release the game, but from what I’ve seen it looks AAA and totally immersive, the team is incredibly talented and could steal away the jobs of some of the best designers in the game industry. The music is coming along nicely.”
Justin has been working also to have his second symphony recovered. It was titled ‘A Suite of Grimm in the Mind of the Darkly Inclined,’ it was well on the way when the whole hard drive crashed and the release had to be put on the back-burner. This is a hard tale to remind people to back-up. “It's pretty expensive, I’d spent some three years producing it, but it was supposed to be released December 2006,” explains Lassen. “It featured three live orchestras and ensembles, and would have been a pretty cool release. It still makes me sad, and I hope that I can recover it soon. I wanted it to be a follow-up to my first symphony ‘And Now We See But Through A Glass Darkly’.”
Client base “My clientele is varied, and keeps me busy,” he explains. “I have done remix work for artists like Nine Inch Nails, Linkin Park, Robert Miles, and David Bowie. I also find work doing sound design for storybooks, radio stations, art galleries and video games. I love working with visual artists, and have done work with gothic, minimalist, and fairy tale artists. I love to take their inspired visual artwork and allowing the beauty of their pieces to find their voice and their music.” When he’s not doing audio work, Justin finds jobs doing anything from web site design to art direction, and doing non-audio related producing. Justin admires musicians for their ability to create visual soundscapes. Like Philip Glass, Sergei Rachmaninov, Aphex Twin, Trent Reznor, BT, Blue Man Group, Poe, Danny Elfman, and James Horner amongst others.
Travel stuff “I've been travelling all over the world the past few years, giving talks at universities on various subjects on everything from music to record labels, to graphics as they apply to sound, etc. It's been fun to answer questions and help people out. That's been my favorite thing. Helping whenever I can, and seeing the world through different perspectives and through different people."
"I've been recording non-stop on tons of other personal projects as well, always playing piano wherever I find them, and keeping my chops up to par."
