Interview: Reclus.É
It's been a nice challenge to write to Dan's music... Through collaboration you automatically make something that sounds new because every collaborator contributes their own thing.
From a live debut supporting A Perfect Circle to the 2026 festival circuit to their debut album, new duo Reclus.É have definitely made an entrance. Nick Dunn sat down with Soren Bryce and Daniel P. Carter at ArcTanGent to discuss it all and found them anything but reclusive. . .
Photo: Carl Battams
E&D: Before even releasing your first album, you’ve gone on tour with A Perfect Circle and played at 2000Trees, Outbreak and ArcTanGent. Safe to say that’s quite the entrance. How has it all gone down with audiences so far?
Soren: It’s been so fun! I feel like it’s still so fresh. Each opportunity that’s come up has been such a whirlwind. It’s almost like a hyper-object, I can’t really take it in! I feel super grateful and I feel like everyone’s been really nice, especially not knowing the music. It’s probably hard going in because a lot of the time you want to listen to the album before checking out the band, so it’s nice that people have trusted the festival line-up and taken a chance on us.
Dan: We’ve been lucky as well because everyone’s been so welcoming and open to give us their time.
E&D: That’s one of the strengths of ATG in particular. Festivals generally encourage exploring new stuff, but ATG definitely emphasises that.
Dan: 2000Trees is the same, because it’s the same organisers, and I feel like there’s a big crossover in audiences there. It seems weird to say it but they’re actually music fans at this festival, and they’re prepared to hear new things.
Soren: They’re coming with the expectation of finding new things they didn’t know about before, which is cool.
E&D: How did you land the slot opening for APC? Is their music an inspiration for yours at all?
Dan: Maynard just messaged me and asked!
E&D: So he just knows you?
Dan: We’re just friends! He asked me and then his manager messaged me
Soren: I feel like you were keeping it on the down-low.
Dan: It was really lovely, and the crowd were lovely.
E&D: It’s nice that as big a figure as Maynard is, he’s still willing to lift up new artists.
Soren: Yeah! I feel like that’s pretty rare now in the mainstream. Not that Maynard is that mainstream, but still. Tool was my first exposure to guitar music as a kid. I had a Tool chain wallet when I was in fifth grade.
E&D: Of the two tracks available at the moment, one is a Portishead cover. How important is their music to the band?
Soren: I feel like that came along quite naturally. We just really like Portishead a lot, and that particular song had really relevant lyrics to the rest of the record. Plus it was a great way to break the ice between us and see how we worked in the studio together. But we didn’t sit down and decide we were doing this and that, it just happened organically in the studio.
E&D: APC and Tool are very distinct in terms of music for MJK; are you aiming for a similar difference between tummyache and Reclus.É?
Soren: I would say pretty different, sonically. I don’t even know how to explain it. I guess because tummyache is just one guitar, that’s one reason, and I do a lot of vocal effects live. It’s a bit more mellow. But there are crossover points.
Dan: Obviously the unifying is your voice and your lyrics. But they’re like a Venn diagram, inhabiting their own spaces and the crossover is Soren.
Soren: It’s been a nice challenge to write to Dan’s music. I’m normally the one holding the guitar, so this was fun to be pushed into a space I wouldn’t have found on my own. Through collaboration you automatically make something that sounds new because every collaborator contributes their own thing. Even if it’s the same crew of people, you still come out with something different.
Photo: Carl Battams
E&D: Collaboration breeds innovation, and everyone brings something new to the table. If it’s just you, you can get narrow-minded and myopic.
Soren: Yeah! You can end up in the same rut of repetitive creation.
Dan: Collaboration enables you to really hone in on what you’re doing and explore new avenues too. I’ve been making music by myself for a long time, but most of it exists never to be heard because I’m just writing for myself. But as soon as Soren started singing on things and sending me lyrics, it became a new thing for me. It’s probably the record I’ve listened to most in the last year. And I’m not saying that egotistically, it’s more that it became its own thing and took on its own life, so I love it so much.
E&D: How did you come to collaborate in the first place?
Soren: We have mutual friends, because I work at a studio called Middle Farm; I’m an engineer there, and Dan knows my boss and my friends there. The actual act of coming together to collaborate was that Dan had been seeking a new person to try work with and someone recommended me, somehow! I don’t remember who though.
E&D: It’s not what you know, it’s who you know!
Dan: Yeah, and there’s an unbelievable community at the studio where Soren works. It blows my mind every time I’m there that there’s this universe of musicians, that’s so incredibly varied, who all collaborate with each other. I’ll be honest, I have my particularities, and normally I’m quite precious about things, so this has been amazing for me to be able to put trust in everything Soren’s done.
Soren: I feel like Middle Farm is a really good place to exercise that habit. There’s so many people coming and going and making music for fun. When I first started working there, I’d been making records for Tummyache by myself at home; and then I started working at Middle Farm and people would make suggestions and so on, and that makes you learn how to listen and learn how to collaborate.
E&D: I don’t know if this crosses over so much because I’m not a musician, but as a writer the act of showing someone else my writing is terrifying, but having someone else make suggestions and critiques is quite liberating.
Soren: Yeah! Once you let go of that fear, there’s so much scope for cool shit to happen, because it exists outside of you and you’re allowing it to work for you rather than trying to control it.
E&D: The band name comes from French anarchist and geographer Élisée Reclus. Who is he, and what impact has he had on you as a band?
Dan: This is a long story, I’ll try and do the condensed version. I was working on a record with a friend that was inspired by Cascadian black metal, and off the back of it I was reading a lot of books about the environment and how that intersects with some forms of anarchy. I then found out about Reclus and thought he sounded amazing and looked into him. The things that he was writing and coming with were incredible, and he led this truly astounding life for the time he lived in. He travelled widely and made the connection that the environment is such an important thing for us to survive in as people but that we have impacts on the environments we live within as much as it has impacts us. So it stuck with me for a while, this thing of Reclus.É, particularly putting the first letter of his first name at the end. And that makes a visual distinction from other bands. Unfortunately a lot of people have been confused about the pronunciation! It’s just “recluse.”
E&D: Reclus was a champion of animal rights and nature conservation – are these important ideals for you too? Are they going to be part of the band’s philosophy going forward?
Soren: Yeah, I feel like we both try to live in a way that centres those in our lives. Lyrically, it’s not like an intentional choice, but some of our songs touch on those topics.
Dan: It’s weird how things line up when you’re making art, but it was never a conscious choice, like “we need to have a song about this because of that reason.” All art is the product of the people making it. But I think we’re both pretty good people.
Soren: You heard it here first!
Dan: It’s also informing the name of the album: The World Can’t Take Much More. It’s one of the lyrics that resonated most with me.
Soren: I write quite politically, so it’s also been fun for me to explore the intersection of politics and environment. And it was quite fun to explore during the making of the album. But it’s not a concept album, it’s just the stuff we were consuming at the time.
E&D: And when is the album due out?
Dan: November-ish time.
If you were curating a festival, who would be on your line-up?
Soren: That’s hard!
Dan: How many are we allowed?
E&D: As many as you like, it’s your festival!
Soren: Hayden Pedigo, an ambient musician. Kali Malone. Mine would be quite ambient. Honestly, I’d just have a festival with all my friends’ bands.
Dan: Yeah, like a Middle Farm festival! If I could choose and bring bands back, I would have Fugazi headlining. I would have Horseback play, not sure if you’re aware of them? They started off as a post-black-metal band and became more and more ambient and esoteric soundscapes. And if we’re having Fugazi as headliners we’d have to have Nation of Ulysses. Oh, and Kate Bush.
