featured image shot by Mazzy Lizzul
“I think part of it too is recognizing that nothing I ever make is going to encapsulate how big that feeling is. There’s kind of a beauty in knowing that you’ll always fail to do so.”
Floating Clouds, a project by Portland-based Alexandre Duccini, is a quiet yet bold collection of memories pieced together through strings and mellow imagery. Floating Clouds’ latest two-piece single focuses on the in-between of conscious and unconscious, reality and dissociation, and the beauty of it all. death of a rabbit got to sit down with Duccini to discuss their latest release, and more.
DEATH OF A RABBIT: This isn’t your first project, right?
FLOATING CLOUDS: I’m 28 now, and I’ve been making music and recording since I was like 15 with myself in my room alone or with bands. I played bass in a band called Memory Boys, and then I had an old band called Sister Wife and another old band called My Eyes Shut.
DOAR: How is this project different from the rest?
FLOATING CLOUDS: It feels like a continuation of everything in a way, but it feels different also because maybe I turned a corner where I felt like the writing and the songs feel more personal, or maybe I just like what I’m doing now.
DOAR: It’s kind of like changing your username, almost by the way you’re describing it.
FLOATING CLOUDS: Yeah, I always like to joke that if I just keep changing my band name, then I will always be releasing my first album.
DOAR: I feel like your aesthetic, with your drawings, especially your cover art, and the muted color, has a nice warm feeling to it. I was wondering how you feel like they contribute to the music.
FLOATING CLOUDS: The artwork for the single was done by my partner, Pepper. I love their artwork. And I think in the way you connect to someone, it’s natural that your art would probably connect with each other well, too. They do a lot of drawings with watercolor pencils. They draw everything and then add water, letting it be this mystery of not knowing how it’s going to affect it, which I think is pretty cool. I do a little bit of drawing and visual stuff, but I usually outsource that kind of stuff to artists who feel like it. But yeah, love the artwork for the single. I think it sort of captures the atmosphere of it; I wanted it to feel sort of like a dreaminess, but also something sweet and tender as well.
DOAR: The way you described it matches the lyrics very well. I also really like the singles that you’ve put out. I think my favorite lyric is “the light in my eyes and bones in my arms start to fade.” I really like the way that it feels and how I hear it. And I feel like you talk a lot about the kind of dissociation in these songs and reality. I guess this is more of a comment, but I thought that was so interesting, how you get philosophical.
FLOATING CLOUDS: There’s so many different ways to write. I feel like sometimes with writing, it just happens, and that’s cool. Other times when you’re writing, there’s that more conscious like “Oh, there’s this idea that I want to try and do this thing,” or a goal of a sound or feeling that you want to capture. There’s some interview with Elliot Smith where he talks about the songs just being like photographs, and I think that’s really cool. I like that idea of really shrinking down to a singular moment of feeling and experience, and remembering that each moment we live is kind of like a whole universe. The human experience is so complicated and intense, and that’s what I think being alive is — just really vivid and intense. One moment could maybe be enough to make your art forever, but that’s not how we do it, because it’s like an onslaught of moment after moment. I think part of it too is recognizing that nothing I ever make is going to encapsulate how big that feeling is. There’s kind of a beauty in knowing that you’ll always fail to do so.
DOAR: I really love your introspection and the appreciation of it. I feel like we as individuals should appreciate those moments. Even sitting in my room now, there will be a time where I won’t be in this room anymore, you know? I was also wondering, what space do you imagine these singles in?
FLOATING CLOUDS: I don’t know if I’ve totally thought about them as physical spaces, but that’s a cool idea. I feel like both of the songs from that double single have to do with sleep and dreaming, so I guess it’s just in bed.
DOAR: Any specific bed?
FLOATING CLOUDS: Maybe just any bed that I’ve slept in. It was just about the interaction of your sleep brain, who you are when you’re unconscious, with who you are when you start to wake up again, and that really brief moment where those two things can coexist before you realize that you’re waking up. I think I was interested in the way you can kind of visit your subconscious self for a second.
DOAR: I was also wondering how these singles fit into your music, or if they fit into an album that’s coming up.
FLOATING CLOUDS: They were kind of just one-offs. I wanted an opportunity to record with my friend Skyler, who has a studio space here in Portland, because I really like the work she does, and I thought it would be fun to try and do some recordings. And so we did these songs. There’s an album getting worked on, and hopefully it will be recorded in the fall. I’m kind of thinking that the song “Slipped Away” [will have] a rerecorded version of it for the album.
DOAR: death of a rabbit likes to focus on lyricism and poetry — what’s a lyric that you’ve enjoyed recently, or a lyric that you wish you wrote?
FLOATING CLOUDS:
Oh, ’02 Corolla
Blasting the heat
Oh, would you help me out
With some paper for the DMV?
Friendship, “Salvage Title”
Check out Floating Clouds’ work here!
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