Hi there, and welcome to yet another episode in which we discuss what our favorite musical millipede Oli Heffernan has been up to musically, that is his alter ego Ivan The Tolerable of course. On his new album Under Magnetic Mountain he mines the cinematic, embedding multiple funky spoken word parts pulled from various of Heffernan’s personal inspirations.
Musically it is not all that different from his earlier works, meaning this won’t sound like anything else you’ll hear this year, except for perhaps another Ivan The Tolerable album. There are hints of kraut rock, free jazz, and post rock here, but at the same time if you know Ivan The Tolerable a little bit by now you should probably realise that trying to catch this into a couple of smartly formulated genre tags is not going to cut it. It is “free music”; going straight into whatever direction Heffernan’s rich mind wills it. Believe, you want to be where he is going, jam after jam, and trip after trip.
Under Magnetic Mountain too his worthy of all of your attention once again, and knowing this project as well as I do now I believe its follow up will be too. Let’s continue to marvel in this incredible artists’ mind and endless imagination and be grateful that he seems to be in such a wealthy creative flow.
Always a pleasure, we hit up Oli Heffernan for another update on his life as a musician and graphic designer. He is a busy bee, and all of his current projects are worth checking out, so let’s not waste a second!
Hi Oli! How are you today, what has been the highlight of your life the past few months?
All good here thanks – usual deal, busy busy busy! A recent highlight was going tom see Matthew Halsall at the Wylam Brewery in Newcastle and I also had a very nice and much needed holiday in Belgium!
What can you tell me about the making of Under Magnetic Mountain, who was involved this time?
I made it over the Christmas holiday in late 22/early 23 with Ben Hopkinson on sax and electric piano, Christian Alderson (Unit Ama/Archipelago) on drums and me on everything else – I tend to always make an album at that time of year as my girlfriend is out a lot at various Christmas parties and such so I take advantage of the empty house haha – it was recorded in the same way as usual – I started and stopped when i had enough for an album – nice and easy.
What can you tell me about the use of voice samples? If I’m correct there is the chanting in Opening Bell, the spoken word in Koestler, the female voice in Waves, the spoken word in Feathers, and the chanting in Closing Bell. Can you tell me where those come from?
They are all samples taken from interviews with people I was thinking about t the time – Delia Derbyshire, Sun Ra, Rachmaninov, Arthur Koestler…- I watched the Delia film, Space is The Place, a doc on Rachmaninov and reread Darkness at Noon last december so I guess they were all on my mind haha.
The music is very imaginative, do you see pictures when playing, and can you share some of them?
Not really pictures, but I hear in complete terms – I don’t put a chord structure together in the time-honoured tradition, I can hear a finished track in my head as soon as I begin so I just build it from my memory – I find it very efficient but it can be hard to explain to players what I want, but I have a crack team of people I work with on ITT stuff who all just seem to get what I want and make it happen. Magic really.
What can you tell me about the label Library Of The Occult and your relationship with them?
This will be my third LP for LOTO and Ive done 2 or 3 7″s too….Tom originally asked me to do an LP for him after he heard one of my albums when he was working at Rough Trade in London so I gave him White Tears which I’d just finished when he emailed and we’ve done lots of stuff since then – his label is great! Hes a joy to work with and is always very open to whatever I send him…
What can you tell me about the album you are releasing with Up In Her Room?
This will be the first in a series of re-releases of albums that only came out on Lathe Cuts or Tapes in very small quantities – its nice to start getting them out properly – there are 4 planned with UIHR and another 4 with another label to be announced in early 2024! Autodidact is first and is due out before the end of the year
Anything else up your sleeves that you can share with the Weirdo Shrine readers?
Ive got three albums of new material already in the pipe for 2024, the first being what I consider to be one of the very best records I’ve ever made – we did it as a Trio at the amazing ATA studios in Leeds and its a double album. More on that later!
I’m also playing some shows between now and Xmas with All Structures Align (Wrong Speed Records) which will be fun and we are doing an Ivan The Tolerable Quartet show at Boundaries Festival in Sunderland in November, and I’m finishing off a collaboration album I made with Tom from Sweet Williams, Neil from Objections and Tim from All Structures Align that is coming together nicely and that takes us up to Christmas when I will probably make another record! Business as usual!
Weirdo Shrine 