Last night, Frank Ocean released his new visual album, Endless. The audio begins with a German-accented voice, over a bed of flickering electronics, intoning, “With this Apple appliance, you can capture live videos.” The same voice returns at the end of Endless, as part of a gleaming techno-pop song that takes up about the last seven minutes of the album. Today, acclaimed German fine-art photographer Wolfgang Tillmans, who also releases music under his own name as well as with his band Fragile, said on Instagram that both of the tracks bookending Endless incorporate his own unreleased track “Device Control.”
Tillmans wrote that he shared a few tracks with Ocean a few weeks ago, then was surprised and excited to find that Ocean didn’t just sample it: “He released my complete original track at the end of this amazing album.” Tillmans’ track is from his Device Control EP, which he will release digitally tomorrow, August 20. The EP, out physically on September 16 via Fragile, also includes remixes of Tillmans’ “Make It Up As You Go Along” by Daniel Wang & J.E.E.P. as well as Salem. Today, Tillmans chatted with Pitchfork over email about how the collaboration came to be.
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Pitchfork: How did you first happen to get in touch with Frank Ocean?
Wolfgang Tillmans: We were brought together by the wonderful people at Fantastic Man magazine, who had set up an exclusive cover story for their 10th anniversary album early last year. The shoot turned out to be almost impossible to set up. Frank and I would telephone a few times, and then he would cancel on the evening before the shoot in London, reschedule for the next day, then cancel again. I had given up hope and said I had to go to Berlin next day. He said he would prefer to do it there. I didn’t think he meant it, but two days later he showed up at my Berlin studio, having driven 12 hours through the night from London.
What was your interaction like?
We immediately got on, and I felt he was a unique artist, and that all the backs and forths were somehow OK. He seemed so well-considered and sharp, yet open to what would happen on the day. At the end of the day, we looked at all the pictures together. He asked about going to [iconic Berlin club] Berghain, but it wasn’t open. He said he might come back on the weekend for it, and drove back to London. Two days later, he indeed showed up again and we went clubbing. All seemed well, but a couple weeks later Fantastic Man got a letter from his lawyers in Los Angeles barring them from using the pictures. It was a huge disappointment and felt very unfair, but we stayed in touch and he later wanted to use images for his book to accompany a future album.
Tell me how you came to show him some songs. What styles of tracks did you pick out for him?
Frank contacted me three weeks ago about the use of my photograph on an upcoming album. Whilst chatting I mentioned my recent musical activities, and he was interested in listening to some. I sent him two spoken-word pieces (one is out on Soundcloud—Fragile's “Naive Me”), two pop songs I’ve written with my band Fragile this year, and the solo dance track “Device Control,” which I had written in April and worked on with Tim Knapp in Berlin and Kyle Combs in New York, to be released next month.
Did he have anything interesting to say about your music, or techno in general? Any guesses why he might have gravitated to “Device Control” specifically?
All communication is very brief unless on the phone. He wrote, “Device Control is brilliant. Love,” and later a one-liner [asking] if he could use 15 seconds for the intro of the album, it would be perfect for it. I’m thrilled that it now ends the album also in my full original 7-minute, 30-second version.
I’d love to know about how you made “Device Control.” What were you going for, sonically? I see you worked with musicians in both New York and Berlin, with live drums as well as programming.
In the morning I sometimes get a sudden musical burst, a lyrical idea, which I then sing out loud. In this case I was in the kitchen getting dressed and feeling I was onto something good, so I switched on the voice recorder on my phone and actually wrote and recorded the entire song in one go, without thinking, just playfully making up fake smartphone ads. Later I took the song to Tim Knapp at Trixx Studios in Berlin, and he pulled the words into a grid, creating the weird time warps and cut offs. Later, we worked on the overall track whilst my friend Kyle Combs in New York, who I showed a rough demo to, felt intrigued to make an intro, by exactly harmonizing on the vocal modulations.
Of course, you’re talking about phones, and not just Apple, which is amusing given how the visual album premiered [as an Apple Music exclusive]. What type of commentary, if any, are you making in the lyrics?
The absurdity of living life through constantly depicting and broadcasting it is so funny when looked at in the serious words of the phone manufacturers. As if any of it matters, and at the same time we are all doing it to varying degrees.
What it was like when you first heard your music on the Frank Ocean album?
I realized in a Feeder news item this morning, that they quoted the full lyrics, and I wondered how they knew them. Then, I realized that the full original song ends the album. I mean, the whole world has been at his mercy about information of any kind for the last 15 months. I’m all new to this, and the art of the digital release. I think the video album is beautiful. The publishing mode I take all with a pinch of salt from artist to artist. Whatever he will do in the end, I hugely respect him. Now, I end up being more part of the project than I ever knew.
What other types of sounds can we expect from your EP? I believe there's going to be a Salem remix on there—what was it like working with John and Jack?
I picked up making music a year and half ago after literally taking a 29-year break. The first result, the track “Make It Up As You Go Along,” I released this June. Immediately the potential of remixes seemed appealing and the fantastic American/French Berlin-based duo Daniel Wang & J.E.E.P. got working on two. In May I visited Salem in Montague, deepest rural Louisiana, where they had holed up to record a new album. We had been loosely in touch for a few years, respecting each other as artists, but had never actually met. When they were about to pack up there, they made it clear to me that I really, really should witness this part of the world. We spent three days in the bayou, and great photographs happened. I played them my original version of “Make It Up” and they offered to interpret it. The result is a total abstraction, but as the original harmony runs through the remix I feel it is connected in an eerie way. The whole EP is a measure of temperatures this spring and summer. New York, Berlin, Louisiana. The vocal on “Angered Son” refers to the Orlando killer.
In addition to being a musician, you’re a celebrated visual artist. You’ve probably been asked this before, but is there a connection, for you, between the visual arts and electronic music?
I was originally very careful when considering going public with my new music. There have been so many musicians making bad paintings and vice versa. But music has always been present in my art and exhibitions. I’ve been DJing for some years now as well, and when I released the first music this year, I was glad to realize that people were not that surprised and appreciated it as a natural extension of my practice.
Another Frank Ocean album is reportedly on the way this weekend. Do you know yet if your music will be on there at all? Any idea yet if your music will be involved in a physical Endless release?
I want to only comment on the past, and I treat what Frank tells me as fully confidential.
What appeals to you about Frank's music? Had you been a fan for a while previously?
I had made an installation called Playback Room at my art space Between Bridges in Berlin. This was devoted to recorded music, not sound art or live performance. The second program was called American Producers. In it, I featured “Pyramids.” I fell in love with Channel Orange whilst researching the Playback Room project, so I was thrilled when Fantastic Man set up the contact. As a gay man, I needless to say appreciate his openness, how he deals with the initial sensation of his coming out. No pulling back, putting it in context. It’s just there, and it’s good that way. He is a very, very good artist.
Any other upcoming projects?
In my forthcoming solo exhibition titled “2017” at Tate Modern next February in London there will be more music content in the form of a Playback Room devoted to the genius 1980s London studio band Colourbox and a special installation of my music and others’ inside the stunning giant oil tank in early March 2017.
