In 2021, I reviewed the amazing album by Logan Mccurter called, ‘Primitive Baptist & The Oldest Time Traveler In The World’ and what I discovered was an alluring blend of Dungeon Synth and Ambient music. This album brought a fresh prospective to both synth-based genres and I was eager to hear more. Fast forward to 2024, and we have the same compelling music but now under the moniker, Wøzard. Curious to find out more about this artist and the motivation behind the music, I reached out to Wøzard for an interview opportunity, which was quickly obliged. What I found was a down-to-earth musician with a solid approach to songwriting, with quite the comical side to boot. I hope you enjoy this interview as much as I had putting it together.
1. In really appreciate your time in order to discuss your music projects. Before we get into the meat of things, tell us what music means to you and how it led to you commencing your own musical endeavors.
Howdy! And thank you for having me. This is SUCH a heavy question to start with haha but I think its an important foundation to any artist. I was born into a very musically inclined family.
MY grandfather, aka: “The last western hero” and my grandmother formed a Country Western Christian Gospel group called “The Cox Family” (not that one…the other one) in the 80’s, which also featured my Mother and my Aunt. They performed all over America and had a residency show in Branson Missouri until the late 90s. All this to say when I was born in 1999 I was surrounded by musicians.
HOWEVER~ When my mother got pregnant at age 16/17. While I was incubating, they used to play pink Floyd to me through her stomach with headphones. I was literally raised in a sonic WOMB.
And I think this parts important. My father and his side of the family, are all bikers, my dads a metal head / tattoo artist. And I was always drawn to the alt life style artistically and sonically. So when I picked up guitar at age 5 or whatever I wasn’t banging out christ tunes, I was playing whatever alternative underground bla bla I could get my hands on. My inspirations range from the likes of Daniel Johnston, Mort Garson, Neutral Milk hotel, Bruce Haack, The Protomen, My Bloody Valentine, Sleep, Yob, Mastadon, Brian Eno, Hiroshi Yoshimura, Asobi Seksu, and MANY many other artist that I wear close to my chest.
For me, Making music is as automatic as breathing, it’s ingrained in the pulse of our hearts. Music as we refer to it is the one thing that truly binds us as a species. Humanity from dust till dust, separated by time and space, has and will have a musical culture that transcends language. Humans are many things, granted. But we are ALL musicians. We are all songbirds. We are all storytellers.
Ok…ill get off this mighty tall soapbox now.
2. In 2019, you started releasing albums under your own name but then shifted everything under the Wøzard moniker. What brought about this change?
No I didn’t, who told you that? You’re lying. Its ALWAYS been Wøzard…
No you’re totally right I did go by my name for a while. To be honest I never intended to become an electronic musician. Or even a dungeon synth artist (if you can even call me that) My earliest work (which I’ve scrubbed from existence) was an amateurish acoustic singer songwriter EP. That was mostly inspired by my being a teenage dirtbag, my love of Daniel Johnston, and an unhealthy serving of Midwest-ish pop punk.
my “Debut” EP from 2019 titled “may I admire you again someday” (a reference to pretty in pink) was a synth pop concept about an astronaut who is selected for an experimental program called “MIAYAS” which will launch him into the mind of another person to discover the truth therein, but before his mission can even begin, his ship crashes into the lucid mud. Now lost and trapped inside this OTHER mind, slowly losing all sense of self as he experiences the subconscious. Until he reaches the bridge of memories. And finds out he’s not trapped in someone else’s mind. He is trapped inside his own. And upon this realization. He wakes up, in the very chair that sent him on this adventure. But its not the end…its the beginning. An ouroboros loop, doomed to wake up in the very chair that stars this mission and to be launched right back in… it’s also a live theatrical stage production. Which you can hear in the album with people clapping, the curtains raising, footsteps on the hard wood floor of the stage. And the track intermission (Which is a play on Enter, Mission)
With all that in mind. I decided in 2020 after becoming enamored by dungeon synth to try my hand at that. And once I had a few projects under my belt. I realized that my name was weirdly to broad. I found the electronic ambient hill I wanted to die on. But felt my government name was not the energy for that world. So I changed it to Wøzard!
Wøzard by the way is a reference to the Mort Garson record “The Wozard of Iz” which is a fantastically cynical retelling of the wizard of oz set in 1960’s hippie culture. And the slash in the ø comes from my name. Løgan!
I feel like my brand is sorta obtuse, mystical, otherworldly, contemplative, and wonky. So I felt Wøzard fit that bill.
3. Wøzard is not your typical Dungeon Synth project, as it incorporates so many other aesthetics of electronic music. Is this what you set out to achieve from the very beginning?
The idea of “what even is the music I make” has been floating around for a while I think. While my works are not deeply known within the broader scene. I have had many refer to it as “progressive dungeon synth” which is flattering! I never meant to progress anything. In fact, many of my go-to inspirations for where I achieve my sound is Moog music from the 60’s, 70’s and 80’s. With a healthy does of ambient electronic scenes like lowercase, Japanese ambient synth form the early 80s, some Berlin school, and THEN dungeon synth, also the word “achieve” is funny here because I don’t know if I truly ever meant to do anything of the sorts. My LP “primitive baptist” was my honest attempt at making a dungeon synth record. And it SUPER wasn’t a dungeon synth record. Its something totally and tonally other. But It did accidentally give me an identity. I’m just glad people like my work.
4. In 2020 you released the ‘Primitive Baptist & The Oldest Time Traveler In The World’. First of all, how did you come up with that amazing title?
“Primitive Baptist & The Oldest Time Traveler in the World” was my attempt at giving the listener as many clues as possible to the plot of that record. Which like…duh? But also the plot of this story is VERY convoluted. Which I will get into…if the reader will simply skip to the next question…did…did they skip to the next question?
Why are you still here? The cool juicy plot stuff is on the next question…oh you’re just stubborn is it. I see… There is nothing else to see here reader. I promise, you can move on.
Ok fine. You WANT to stay here and read THIS questions answer. Fine… If you want to waste your time not move on to the much cooler and dare a say “saucer” questions then by all means. I can’t stop you…
Unless…
If you’re being here is in direct response to the nature of my continued presence here. If I were to simply stop existing, and move my metaphorical voice to the next question. You would then be forced by THE HANDS OF GOD HER SELF to read the next question. There in ending my suffering and your absolutely annoying ability to persist here—
5. Please tell us the back story of the album theme, as it’s really intriguing.
—Oh! That worked. Ok then, moving on, finally…
Primitive baptist tells the story of a young boy in the mid-first century CE. In a temple to god. A chapel dweller by nature, he one day finds a secret hatch to a vault below the temple. And here he finds a dusty, old, computer. The kind you’d find in the 80’s. That is still somehow connected to the internet. Likening it to a painting that moves. The young boy discovers that this device allows him to literally physically transcend time and space. So he steps through the painting and becomes the very first (and possibly only) time traveler in the world.
As he travels he discovers many secrets and deep magics, and becomes a being of unyielding knowledge. The hero of his own story. Becoming master over life and the betrayer of death. However, this is a disaster course. That was set in motion by…well… we will get into that soon as well.
6. That was such a great album that I continue to listen to today. What was the process like putting that album together musically?
so wildly enough, this record started as a noise project. Like harsh noise. I listened to merzbo’s “pulse demon” and was like…I can totally do that. (Clearly that was a lie) because as I begun creating the harsh noise tracks I started to linger on the quite moments between passages and this space between was deeply intriguing for me creatively. And with my new found love of dungeon synth on the rise. And my history with ambient works and Moog music. I wanted to create a love letter to the FEELING of dungeon synth without feeling restricted to the walls of its many dungeons. Every track you hear in most of my music is the result of a lot of trial and error, experimentation, lazy quick hacks, and a rather destructive tracking process.
I often will make a midi file and bounce it. Bring it in as a sample, play it two Simi-tones lower so it will artifact and distort. Or like ill record a whole ass song, bounce it. Sample it to a midi. Play it an octave lower. And then play a whole new instrument lead over the top of that. And then bounce THAT and put it into idk PaulxStretch or something. Texture reigns king.
But I do find that I favor a melodic sensibility. Just to ground a piece. So ill pretty routinely load in a flute sample or whatever and just improvise away until something sticky happens. Genuinely everything on these records are mostly improved in real time the whole way through a song. And then I go behind that and check my work. And then ill do all the destructive editing I do. All this to say i have NO idea how i would be able to perform this project live.
7. In 2022 you released a Comfy Synth EP called ‘Save The Forest, Little Flower’. Please tell us how this album came about and to you plan to release anymore that continue this subjected path?
Save The Forest, Little Flower, (my darling EP) was a commissioned work from HDK records for their volume 6 Dungeon Synth Magazine. It was a blast making this because I had NO F*&%KING IDEA how to do comfy synth. Nor did HDK want me to do comfy synth. They simple said “make something” and write a story to go with it. And so…being the aquarian contrarian that I tend to be, I reached into the deepest recesses of my mental vast. And found the clouded memories of my childhood. Sitting in front of an old CRT watching cartoons wrapped up in blankets. Within that hazy memory I listened into that sonic landscape of nostalgia. And thats where the impetus came from for this record. I followed a lot of my tendencies workflow wise but explored a more melodic flow state. And tried my damndest to find sounds that had that sense of AGE on them. I used a lot of tape VST’s and Vinyl Warble plug ins to achieve that effect.
I had coined this “A Little Adventure” because at the time I did plan on making more. But because it takes me forever to get my ideas together that sorta fell through. I was also approached by Phantom Lure Records to turn this into a vinyl…but, they wanted me to add more tracks. And I took to long, so they dropped it. I would love to have this pressed to vinyl at some point. I love this EP.
8. Last year we saw the release of ‘Future Cultist & The Slip Space Micromancy’, which was one of the most brilliantly unique albums of 2023. This album leans more toward ambience and retro soundscapes but still maintains that Dungeon Synth vibe. How did this one come about?
Ok so Future Cultist is a continuation of the story set in the first LP. Its part of a planned trilogy of albums i’ve coined “Monomythica” This album sees our time traveling boy whom stepped through the painting, now within the way future. Old, learned, and dying…Reflecting on the time that has passed him. It is here that he begins to use the planets in a sort of divinatory manor to seek out WHY he was called to this adventure. And he finds the answers. There is a beast beset upon all of existence. Story. The ever growing demon of forward motion through the hero’s journey, but this beast has abandoned this story, and has moved to a new one. In our time. Now.
It is then that our hero realizes what he must do has done many times over. And so he uses deep magics to call upon a ritual of death…filtered though the powers of universal love. And he destroys this narrative line. Travels back in time to his former life. And gifts unto himself the very computer that sent him on his journey. With the clear objective of finding the beast with 1000 faces. And killing it. Once and for all…but like in the next album obviously.
As towards your question, thank you for the kind words! I actually had no idea what to do for this record originally. So when “production” began I sorta was throwing everything at the wall to see what clung on for dear life. I was really getting into 80’s goth and post punk at the time. And wanted to uses instruments that were popular during that time. Lots of Roland VST’s and Juno Reverbs. But I also wanted to chase that high of nostalgia from save the forest. So I tried to find the balance of these two idea in a sorta of soundtrack to a space documentary form the late 70s early 80s. If that makes ANY sense…
9. I noticed that both of your longer albums are thirty three minutes in length? Strange coincidence or is there a back story to that?
the first time that happened was purely accidental. HOWEVER…333 is a number that comes up a lot in my life. And when the albums run time came out to be 33:33 I was like, this is so totally a sign. Right? But then something funny happened. I made the next record without any though or care towards that notion. And it just happened to also end up being 33:33…like on the dot. And I was stunned. Maybe I just have an internal clock that taps out at 33 minute. But this has become the branding for the LP’s now. So I gotta stick to it.
10. One of my favorite tracks from that album is, “The Meaning Of Death Is That It Teaches”. Were you shooting for that horror-themed soundtrack aesthetic?
thank you! I don’t know if I was shooting for ANY aesthetic really. This track was the “thesis” of the record. Much like Primitive Baptist’s “the meaning of life is that it ends” was that records thesis. i find that these LP’s often have the term scary thrown at them. or like… ominous. but i truly have never meant to make it that way. i just find the energy of these records has a lingering darkness that hides in the shadows of its more ethereal melancholy. and that energy definitely comes out from time to time. though unintentionally. Honestly, when making these records i find myself in a stage of experimentation until i stumble upon a creative spark that moves me.
But then i get trapped on this cycle of (damn i now have “the sound” or whatever) but now i have to capture that again on these next few tracks to make a coherent record. So to the question, the reason this one has a vibe change up near the end is i wanted to shock the system of the listener and draw them back in. Ambient music can sometimes scare away new listeners due to it being a more passive form of music. and i feel like my goal has always been to move my listeners into a more active state of engagement within these sonic landscapes.
11. What’s next for Wøzard? Any new releases planned for this year?
I’m currently working on an EP simply titled “Daughter” which weirdly i’ll talk about more in depth here in a few more questions….(foreshadowing)
12. Have you thought about releasing a straight up Dark Ambient/Drone album? If so, would it be under the Wøzard moniker or something different?
I haven’t really put much thought into that to be honest. Earnestly Wøzard is by definition and scope an electronic genre-jumping-ish experiment of texture and scope. i have no qualms with the the idea of releasing a dark drone record and i fear that my works already teeter totter on that particular line already.
13. Have you thought about collaborating with other Dungeon Synth artists? If so, who are some that intrigue you the most?
I so totally have! Thought about it I mean. I would love to work with anyone who would have me. I think collaboration is the life blood of music. And while Dungeon synth can be a sort of loners club, I think some of the best records we have seen have come form colboaritive efforts.
however, my process is sorta catty wompus and i have no idea how a collaborative effort would work…
however part two, (the return of the previous statements) My next project “daughter” IS a collaboration…with myself and my band Fuzzwall.
Fuzzwall is a shoe-gaze, fuzzed out wall of sound, inspired by MBV, Asobi Seksu, Boris, The Melvins, my love of riff landed stoner doom / my inability to escape a pop melody.
I hope to use this EP as a stomping grounds for the sound and texture of what Fuzzwall can do. while giving me the ability to play within that which rings familiar in my process for my project wøzard. i’ll send you a tester track of the opening song “ frequencies within the light” I can’t wait for you to hear it!
14. What are your thoughts on physical releases (Vinyl, Cd, Cassettes, etc..)? How important is physical media to music in general?
i think physical media is beyond important! in an age where our very right to ownership to the media we purchase is all hanging in the delicate balance between corporate capitalistic greed and the world being on fire. I feel its desperately needed now more then ever for us as artist and consumers of art to archive our hearts out with the things we wish to keep in perpetuity.
So the listeners shitty Demo tape. Yeah thats worth more then gold to me.
The listeners favorite cartoon that is no longer on streaming, pirate it and put it to VHS. I mean it.
The DIY scene of Dungeon Synth has always blown me away for the simple fact that despite the world and everything going against them. Labels and artist still find a way to sell their music. Its inspiring.
15. Once again, I appreciate your time and insight to all things Wøzard. Any last word/comments for those that will be reading this interview?
Thank you for having me, your last review of my record made my whole year. I can not stress how excited I am to hear your thoughts on my latest LP Future Cultist & The Slip Space Micromancy,
Go follow me on stuff! My instagram is my most active…(barely) and my music is on everything you can find music at. Yes even at the weird local wizard man who sings ancient lores under the bridge by I-20 whom smells of lilac and piss.
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