At the end of September 2011, Black Lake releases their debut record,  Shake.  An unusual duo comprised of Susan Jennings and Slink Moss, two different interdisciplinary artists, that come together to create music. Black Lake has performed in various public art spaces, clubs and experimental venues such as: the RISD Art Museum, Club Hellsinki, David Nolan Gallery, 179 Canal, X-initiative, etc. Their project is an inter-media fusion of video projections, sculptures, written words, shadows, lights, and floating objects. The post-effect to a spectator and a listener is the experience of moving through music from an unusual stage for an original hybrid of sound and movement. Light and shadow operates their central vision. Lydia Dona converses with Black Lake on this occasion to understand and reflect their process.  

Lydia Dona: You formed in the fall of 2009. Why? 

Slink Moss:  To experiment with time and space. 

Susan Jennings:  And light and sound.  

LD: What is the relationship between Black Lake and Slink Moss' comics?

SM: In my comics I explore icons of rock and roll and other things. With Black Lake we are exploring the icon of the black lake itself. That iconography is very important to us; it shapes who we are.

 LD: Slink Moss, I want to know a little about your background. What do you bring into this from your background that you think is channeled into this? You bring all kinds of aspects that are different from Susan’s, so I am trying to understand where you are coming from and how you integrate this into your process. What’s intriguing is that I know that you make paintings, are involved with poetry, and do performance, but I am trying to understand the cartoon thing and how you bring it in. You use a lot of the cartoon in the performance and in the sharp gestures. The gesture has these characters when you stand that plays between a mannequin and a cartoon. The performance becomes very interesting in terms of the body and the integration of the body.

SM: I use a very flat perspective in my comics. Sometimeswhen I perform I imagine myself as a two-dimensional cutout. I think that is what you are seeing in the movements.

SJ:  Movement is one of our media. Video art, digital projections, sculpture, and shadows are all our media. Movement definitely. 

LD:  When looking at the cultural background, you utilize the 1970s and late 1960s, without appropriation, which is really cool.  You reference echoes of the Velvet Underground Patti Smith, and performance aspects of Laurie Anderson. However, Black Lake brings it in a different manner with has different impact and intention. You maintain a connection to nature and want a connection to nature. 

SM: Yes. 

LD: Susan, you were working with multi-media projects that I see as incredible engagements with light, transparency, sculpture, video, and the recreation of a specific movement of light. Slink has a very different participation to the visual aspect that you bring. The two of you create an intense hybrid space. In this hybrid space, both of you contributes different elements that are between performance and this sculptural, video, and transparent space. However, it’s almost the space that alludes to the space of writing and fracture. How do you relate to this? 

SJ: Well, writing is interesting because my work is drawing. There’s an aspect of not using any drawing media, but with the light I am drawing. With the shapes that leave the shadows, I am making drawings. And Slink is writing. He writes the lyrics, and the lyrics are really important. They are poetry and that is one of his contributions. 

SM: Lately, we have been doing automatic writing where we trade lines and share stream of consciousness. 

SJ: We recently took a long trip with our families. The kids were asleep to pass the time in the car, we traded off two words. I did two words; Slink did two words, back and forth. After that, we sifted through and made a couple of new songs. We pulled out songs. 

LD: My take is that it is music despite itself and that it is a hybrid space. 

SJ: It’s somewhere between words, sound art, poetry, lighting and this is almost painterly. Everything including the words are painterly, the sculptures, the video. Yet, there is not a whole lot of paint involved. Slink does some small paintings that are part of it. 

SM: We have a strict vision, though of what we think is Black Lake. 

LD: Do you think it’s reductive? Would you call it a reductive vision, or would you call it a compressed vision? 

SJ: We know what we are not in terms of sound and image. So when we are collaborating, if something comes in, we can remind each other that that’s not Black Lake and that helps us a lot in making our work. 

SM: But it’s compressed, reduced and expanded. 

SJ: Yea. 

SM: Because it’s got a breathing quality. 

LD: It is interesting that you create a stage in which both of you collaborate in the creativity of that space, creating the stage itself with sounds, motions, lights, transparency, sculptures, words, and a kind of abrupt movement. There is a sort of calculated improvisation, am I correct? 

SJ: Yes. For example, with the sculptures that also make sound, we don’t exactly know what they’re going to look like during the performance because they’re moving and spinning. We don’t know exactly what the sound is going to be, but we know the overall images. We know what the image is landing, and we know we can find that in the performance, but there is definitely an aspect of improvisation. We rehearse all the time. We are very serious about making sure that we feel comfortable with what we are doing before we perform. 

SM:  I like that phrase ‘music despite itself,’ because it’s almost like we don’t need to do music. We could do our art without the music, but then the music becomes this huge sky over our world. 

LD: Now, as opposed to the Velvet Underground and Patti Smith, those were different types of systems of darkness that were in the 70s style. What I like about you is that you use the elements of nature at the end, and there is a sense of optimism in the way that you approach the topics, the lyrics, and the writing. There is a transparency in the collaborative materiality and emphemerality simultaneously, which gives a possibility of everything to be more, I don’t like to say the word spiritual, but more positive. 

SJ: Some of our songs, I don’t even know if they are songs, are about pretty dark subjects. But, what we have in common is that we like the grungy dark side of life. We also find, for me with my visual art, the light wherever it is, so that’s true in the sound and words we use. Would you say that is true, Slink? We don’t see the separation between dark and light. 

SM: Yes 

LD: So, here’s the conflict. That’s why I say opacity. That’s transparency. 

SM: I want to talk about opacity.  Start here 

LD: Opacity. Opacity is the conceiving aspect of darkness that I think is really good. I saw the ink, a blot of ink, in the name Black Lake. A whole puddle. As a result of that puddle, there’s residue of the darkness and the writing. 

SJ: Some people thought that the name Black Lake was about heavy metal. For us, the blackness is a shiny shimmery black, and the lake is the lake at night that finds and the light that is there. It couldn’t be for us a bright light, a bright blue sky. That’s not interesting to us. It’s all about the light that’s there in the darkness. 

SM: I keep thinking about a Chinese poet who is in the mountains and all he can think about is how water is related to writing because you use ink to write. And how the black ink is like language. 

SJ: And I think about another Chinese poet who was drunk on rice wine and he was so enamored by the reflection of the moon in the river that he and wanted it. He ran into the river to get the light and he drowned. I think there is something exquisite about that. 

LD: When I saw you both I said, “You are like lunar angels.” One time you dressed in white, and one time you dressed in black. 

SJ: Sometimes silver. 

LD: Sometimes silver. Sometimes, you have gadgets on your arms that are silver, and sometimes you become a part of the shadow of your own work. You almost interrupt your own shadow and move with your own shadow. You cut into Slink’s movement and become the shadow of the other. The music and the words become the shadow of the other. It is interesting how the moon’s reflection is operative in the music. 

SJ: One of our lyrics is ‘you move in and out like a shadow in the dark.’ I think of us as having four of us.  There are both of us and then there are our two shadows. They are performing with us. 

LD: I love that. Now, what is the purpose of the hat? 

SM: The purpose of the hat is to reference another world. It’s like that movie West World, where a cowboy ends up in the future. A lot of our music is from American music, from the cowboys of the past. We are like futuristic cow people. 

LD: Oh, I really love that. Futuristic cow people. So, ‘I put a spell on you’ is a part of a cow. How do you use that? 

SJ: ‘I put a spell on you’ was our only cover, and it is a very American song, very much itself a hybrid 

SM: But it’s also voo doo. 

LD: So, in another words, it is related to magic. Black Lake has a serious connection to magic and Edgar Allen Poe. 

LD: I mean a part of the magic is this whole idea of the electric guitar and listening to its romance and legacy. 

SJ: Well, Lydia. I learned on an acoustic guitar. At 14, I took lessons and learned how to play the acoustic guitar. I never played an electric guitar until now. Slink, though, is the Rock-and-Roll guy. Although, I listened to tons of rock as a kid. 

SM: It’s one of the best vehicles for getting loud there is. You can get really loud and it sounds really good, the electric guitar. 

SJ: That’s from our visual art, too. That’s part of what Black Lake is. Find the way to do it low-tech. We are not ‘digy.’ 

SM: We keep it analog. It’s almost like we are timeless in technology. 

SJ: We use the digital stuff when we need to, to get what we need  but we are not super ‘digy.’ 

LD: It is very nice because there is something romantic about this aspect. On the other hand, the performance aspect of the music from the 70s & 80s that is channeled, I will refrain from using the word appropriation and will call it ‘influential impact.’  You grew up with it and you are aware of it, but when you think about Punk, how do you relate to the scars of Punk music? 

SJ: Our songs are super short, and sometimes they are “AHHH” loud. We throw everything into a minute and ten seconds, and so we have a very strong connection to Punk. Fast. Intense. 

LD: Encapsulated. 

SM: Emotional, and raw and real. We are carrying on what we… 

SJ: We love punk. 

SM: Love punk. 

LD: So I got it right. How did Austin play into your growth? 

SJ: We went to Austin.  We saw a bunch of young bands. We saw Wanda Jackson. Did you know she is playing in Central Park this week? We performed in Austin, but what we really got to do in Austin was have an artists’ residency.  Somebody donated a house to us, and we got to rehearse and rehearse and rehearse, and we have kids and families! We got to not have any worries, any responsibilities, no jobs, and no kids. At that point, we had other band members, and we got better in Austin. 

LD: I saw a picture of the two on your bus and thought to myself, “How audacious! They’re going to Austin with all these groups.” You were looking total Folk and Americana. Here are two sophisticated Manhattan artists, weaving in all kinds of elements, Folk music, and a light touch of tambourine. Am I getting it right? The tambourines and elements of Folk music? But, with the electric guitar, you really break boundaries. You are a duo trying to create a hybrid duo and a hybrid space. You like bringing aesthetic things together that have nothing to do with each other and in the end are creating music despite itself. 

SJ: (Laughs) We are creating everything despite itself. 

SM: That’s the reduction, the compression, and the expansion right there. 

SJ: And we are creating poetry despite itself. We are creating art despite itself. That is what grabs us, is the hybridization of all these media. 

SM: One thing about us is that even though you hear folk.  We are electrified. We are electricity. 

SJ: I play the electric guitar loud with a jangly folk rhythm. That’s what I know how to do. We do sounds that you don’t hear with Folk musicians. 

LD: That’s right. The way you play the guitar, your hand goes in one motion and then passes through… 

SJ: The strumming hand? That’s the folking strum that I use. On the electric, I use folk chords. I’ve been an artist for all these years. I have played the guitar here and there and the story is…Slink came to an open studio of mine at the Elizabeth Foundation where I had a video projected onto these sculptures that were reflective and wrapped in shiny materials that were spinning around. It was a month before I said, “It’s finally time. I need to get some sound involved in this.” Before that I thought, “Why does video always have to have sound?” For years, I felt that I was a video artist who worked with light and movement and color, almost approaching a moving painting. But then, I made the work that Slink saw, and I felt like its time. It needs some sounds. I didn’t know where I was going to find the sounds. I invited all of my friends to the studio and Slink came and said, “I am hearing sound here, and if you would like to collaborate with some sound art, I make sound art.” I said, “ You are kidding… That’s just what I am finally thinking about.” And said, “Ok, let’s do that!” It started with us collaborating with sound art. He had a band at the time that lost a guitarist. I said,  “I play the guitar, but I haven’t done it much. I’d love to play guitar. Let’s see it happen.” 

SM: So, Susan showed up for tryouts for the Slink Moss Orchestra. 

SJ: It was called the Slink Moss Orchestra at that point. 

SM: And then she turns out to be an excellent guitar player and after a while, we kicked everybody out and called it Black Lake. 

LD: The two of you visually make an amazing combination, because the way you both occupy the stage is very different, given that most of the singing and writing of the songs is done by you, Slink Moss.  

SJ: Well, we joke because when I met Slink Moss, I was editing a book that you, Lydia, are in called THIS: A collection of Artist’s Writings. Slink submitted something to the collection, so, I edited him, and that’s basically my role. He writes the lyrics and I edit. I’m the editor. 

LD: Well, this is very interesting because a lot of your stage behavior, I’ll call it, goes with these sharp movements. One person goes into the other person’s shadow, into each other’s movements and interrupts. You move around and then have this edited movement. You come together with one sentence, three sentences. It’s almost like poems and movement.  SM: That’s all we are. 

LD: You are 2 artists coming with two different luggages that are unfolding and dismantling into this energy that I call lunar, rather than solar. 

SJ: We are very lunar. We are not solar. 

LD: At this time of high-tech obsession, you are so lo-tech. What is also really cool as hell, performing into all of this, is that you are edgy with no text reference to drugs, sex, or violence. It’s a very interesting utilization of the 70s and late 60s. Also, Black Lake is not about adrongenaeity and the 80s or 90s flavor. It’s about hybrid. It’s about fusion. 

LD: And now, let’s go back to American. What is the American aspect in the music?  SJ: It has very American roots. Rock-n-Roll and Punk. 

LD: Lets talk about Rock-n-Roll. 

SM: I know Rock-n-Roll very well. We know we are weirdoes. We are conscious of our weirdness. We are with the players and juggling acts; we are like a circus troupe. 

LD: A show on the road. 

SM: We are… 

SJ: Minstrels. 

SM: We are a minstrel show. The songs of Vaudeville. We are like a new updated crazy version of that. 

LD: like entertainers? 

SJ: Yea, they were traveling entertainers. We have a foot in that. 

LD: I keep coming back to the hat. I want to understand the symbols. 

SJ: The hat is quintessential to Black Lake, because Black Lake is at least one quarter Rock-n-Roll, which sprang from Blues and Rockabilly in America. The hat represents that part of Black Lake's ancestry.

SM: Our song about the solstice: ‘Longest night, darkest night’ is Rockabilly-like.  

LD: Well, that makes me think of Patti Smith in a way, with some of the songs’ themes, titles and characters, like the frog. 

SJ: The microscopic frog.  

SM: I think that Patti Smith is definitely a huge influence for us. 

LD: I was listening to it and was thinking about the connection to Patti Smith. 

SJ: But there are some contemporary connections, the White Stripes is one.

LD: Of course, but every artist has to make a relationship with some influences. So, I wanted to plant the roots of how Black Lake relates to Rock-n-Roll, Punk and Folk. We are a generation. 

SM: The biggest influence for us too has been the DIY movement of recording ourselves and putting things out ourselves. We are a product of our age and how we distribute and get out there ourselves. 

LD: Talk about your new vinyl record, "Shake". 

SM: We are putting out our records on vinyl because it sounds best, and it is also a cool format that references the records of the past. We are going to make it into a sculpture. 

LD: A vinyl is transparent and the transparency connects to what you do. 

SJ: It is also opaque, Lydia. It’s very opaque. It’s black. 

LD: What’s going to be the name? 

SJ: Shake. It’s a 45, it’s a ---“double single.” It has 2 short pieces on each side, and it has a shaky sculpture pierced through the jacket. The sculpture makes sound, a lot like the sculpture/instrucments that I make and that we play in performances and on our recordings. The first thing that’s coming out is “Magic”, which is a free downloadable video and audio piece, and then there’s “Shake” the double single with the shaky sculpture, and that’s coming out Sept 30th most likely. We are planning to do a performance at Participant, probably on September 30. Then, we are doing a piece called Netherzone and it is a piece of art. It’s a 12-inch vinyl with 8 pieces of music. 

SM: 10. 

SJ: 10 pieces of music on a 12-inch vinyl. All of the music is on one side. The other side is a collage, like what you saw in our studio with shiny materials. It is going to be in a transparent sleeve. It’s called “netherzone.” 

LD: How great!  SJ: That’s coming out in the winter. That’s our plan. And then we have performances. 

SM: We would like to thank you for interviewing us. 

SJ: Yea, we are so honored. 

LD: Well, to wrap this up, what is really exciting is that you are coming up with an object that incorporates like a hybrid in itself the philosophy of Black Lake. 

SJ: Yea, it does.