We're delighted to be releasing 'All These Empty Rooms' by Veins Full Of Static on 21 July 2023.

Veins Full Of Static is the ambient/drone project of Cardiff-based Jamie Philpin-Jones, who has been building an impressive body of work over the last 5-6 years. This has included solo and collaborative album releases and compilation tracks on great labels like Disintegration State, This Is It Forever, Waxing Crescent Records, Decaying Spheres, Difficult Art And Music, and Mailbox.

The release of 'All These Empty Rooms' on Machine Records is the first to come about thanks to the amazing Wales Electronic Producers Network (WEPN). This collective has been operating out of Cardiff for the last few years, holding networking and live music events and releasing a variety of digital and CD compilations from its members, including Jamie. We love it when we see people doing this kind of phenomenal work, dedicating themselves to the scene.

When we collaborated with WEPN earlier this year by inviting submissions from its members, we were excited to see this Veins Full Of Static track arrive. WEPN's previous releases had brought Jamie's music to our attention in 2021, and this track didn't disappoint. We're looking forward to bringing you more releases as a result of working with WEPN later this year.

We caught up with Jamie to have a chat about Veins Full Of Static and the inspiration behind his first Machine records release, ‘All These Empty Rooms’.

Machine: How did you get into doing music as Veins Full Of Static?

Jamie: I started making music as Veins Full of Static five or six years ago. I've been quietly making music a lot longer - more traditionally song oriented stuff - but I'd never quite found a sound or method of working that suited me.

I was listening to a lot of Lawrence English, Biosphere, The Caretaker, stuff more focused on mood, and decided to attempt something in that vein. Even with just a copy of Audacity and some free VSTs - and no idea what I was doing - it felt right. Like a whole new world had opened up to me. I've been steadily releasing music as Veins Full Of Static ever since.

Machine: Growing up, did you learn an instrument or play in bands, or anything like that?

Jamie: I didn't learn an instrument as a kid. I had this idea that I'd be a great rock/metal vocalist but I couldn't really sing either. I got a guitar at 17 and taught myself to play, convinced that by exploring the guitar without boundaries I'd end up a better player in the long run. This was, unsurprisingly, a dreadful idea - I still suck at guitar to this day.

I was in a few bands in college/uni but none of the really made it past the rehearsal stage. I was a big Stoner Rock fan at the time and we were all very good at the Stoner part but the Rock thing somehow kept eluding us.

Machine: It sounds like working more solo and with the computer was really a game changer from those previous experiences. Who were some musical role models for you pre-VFOS and the electronic artists you mentioned earlier?

Jamie: I've been a bit of a musical nomad over the years. In terms of role models who have stuck with me it tends to be the people who have wandered through wildly different styles of music themselves. From my young grunge-loving days Mark Lanegan is a big one. I fell in love with the Screaming Trees and then his solo work guided me into less bombastic genres. And his collaborations with a million different artists across the musical spectrum showed me that there aren't really any boundaries.

From my metal days Justin Broadrick with his beautiful droney shoegazey metal work in Jesu and his bass-heavy electronic work in Techno Animal took me off in a different direction. He introduced me to more long-form atmospheric drone works which eventually led me onto artists like the ones I mentioned before.

There's definitely something to be said for doing a small number of things and doing them well but I've always gravitated towards restless artists who are willing to try their hand at anything.

Machine: The metal/ambient/noise crossover is a real force of invention these days. It always surprises me, although perhaps it shouldn’t as one of my own entry-points into electronic music was Ministry’s Psalm 69.

Turning to your new release. What inspired 'All These Empty Rooms'?

Jamie: A couple of things coming together inspired the track. I'd got an Elektron: Samples, which is a nice bit of kit but didn't seem to suit my workflow at all. Then as I was playing around with its limited synth functions I tried putting it through a VST I'd also just about given up on, Fathoms by Puremagnetik. Somehow these two things I couldn't get to grips with combined to make these really beautiful swirling echoes.

I was visiting my parents, who were suffering some health issues at the time (they're doing okay, for the record) and found myself alone in their house. The silence in all these rooms so full of memories really hit me. I used that effect with some strings and samples to try and conjure that same feeling of sad nostalgia, of being surrounded by old, (mostly) happy ghosts in an unsure present.

Machine: I think it really comes across in this, and your other tracks I’ve heard, that they are “about” things. Sometimes people don’t really know what their music is about, especially with electronic music.

Jamie: Yeah it does seem to be a thing in electronic music where a lot of tracks and albums don’t seem to be about anything. I wonder if that’s because a lot of it is made by folks buying some nice gear, putting on headphones, and making music as an act of escapism. And there’s nothing wrong with that, lots of great music has been made for its own sake. Not everything needs a story or a deeper meaning. It does mean you don’t have much to say when telling people about it though.

But then on the flip-side it does feel a bit pretentious sometimes to do like a seven minute drone track with minimal variation and tell folks it has a deep and complicated meaning – maybe some folks would just rather keep it to themselves!

For me finding some kind of narrative or just a mood helps me go from a promising idea to a finished track though. If it doesn’t have some kind of thread to it chances are I won’t finish it.

Machine: I think there can be a strong connection between finding a clear meaning/idea/emotion for a track and actually finishing it. It helps make choices and define “done”. It is something that can emerge though, it doesn’t have to be clear at the start, it can be a process of discovery.