"I don't know if I'm a great lover of new technologies," says Fog front man and multi-instrumentalist Andrew Broder. "I mean, they're there. I'll use whatever's at my disposal that I happen to think sounds good. When you get into electronic music and things like that, yeah, there's a danger that the music becomes too reliant on new technology, and the music sometimes can feel empty in that way, where the music just becomes a matter of keeping up with what the latest products are, and if you don't have them included in your music, you're somehow behind the times. I'm very hesitant to get into that kind of thing. But that said, you know, it's really cool to be able to make a whole album on your home computer," he adds, laughing. "But everything was new technology at some point. Reel-to-reel recording was new technology at one point, same with the electric guitar and the synthesizer. Those all came along, and people went through those same kinds of debates with them as to whether or not it was kind of cheating or somehow more artificial to use than an acoustic instrument. And that all comes with the territory."

Throughout his career as Fog, Broder has certainly run the gamut of experimentation in his music; the "wow" factor when listening to Broder is the realization that such complex, deeply-layered music is produced by just one person. Over his course as Fog, he's used samples of things being dropped and rolled, bad things happening to turntables and the records on them, things breaking, water/fluidic atmospherics, and even bird songs, most notably the prevalent owl samples on his previous release, Ether Teeth (Ninja Tune). "I've always had a thing where I liked odd noises and things going wrong, and the sound of that," says Broder. "If something's in front of me, some kind of device or electronic thing, just anything you can make sound with, I'm always kind of curious to see what can be done with it, you know? I've always been that way. So far as a the electronic end of things, it's just another means of making sound. I try not to segregate it from other traditional instruments. To me, they're all just means of getting something across."

On his newest release, 10th Avenue Freakout (Lex Records), there seems to be a real attempt to draw a line between the organic-sounding instrumentation on the album (pianos, guitar, etc) and the harsher electronic buzzing and popping and chemical-sounding washes that fill the empty spaces. The result is a two-headed creature trying to overpower itself, caustic and beautiful and ultimately futile.

"Good!" says Broder when I accuse his new album of being apocalyptic. "I don't know it could not be, with the way things are in the world right now, to an extent. I mean, with this album, I really wanted write about things that were less about staring at one's belly button, so to speak, and be a little more universal, worldly with the writing. So that probably brought about the apocalyptic feel to it."

Far from sounding glum and defeatist and whimpering end-of-the-worldish, however, Broder's idea of the soundtrack to the Apocalypse is almost danceable, loaded with sweet-sounding (cherubic?) vocals, samples from a variety of bells and whistles and piano, random electronic buzzes and pops, and, at times, an explosive sort of energy one usually reserves for high school cheerleading tournaments and not the arrival of the Four Horsemen. On the surface, the album is extremely ethereal and poppy; lyrically, though, this is one dark beast. On "The Small Burn," Broder sings, "The end of the movie reel/flap, flap flap... The wings of the pteranadon/ flap, flap flap..." and it sounds so much like a goodbye to everything that has and is that it's hard to breathe while listening to it. On the brilliantly sarcastic "We're Winning," Broder sings about people dying, decomposing and becoming fuel for flying cars in the future, Jesus becoming "the brand new funky President," and preparing for nuclear war and the onslaught of bulldozers. If Fog is indeed picked out to perform against the backdrop of the end of the world -- and you know somebody out there will be -- it's going to be one hell of a party.

"I don't know about the future," admits Broder when pressed. "I mean, it looks bad, obviously, but, you know, it's hard to attach a word like 'good' or 'bad' to it. If you take a step back, it is what it is; it's everything that's happening. You do what you can in the world to do what you think is right and address the things that you think are wrong, but to say whether it's good or bad, yeah, on the surface, it seems like everything's bad, but it doesn't serve a lot of purpose to wallow in it, either. And I think that's where music can sort of be effective," he adds. "It's a way of expressing something about what's going on, and trying to process everything that's going on in a way that's creative and human. It unintentionally brings out the good qualities that humanity can produce, because the act of art in itself, making art, is an attempt at reaching out to other people, and some kind of truth, and that is an important thing to do.

"I wonder, though, how much effect it really has in the end, creating art, trying to communicate," he continues. "It might not have any effect at all. I think it's almost equally dangerous to be an artist and purport to have the answer to anything, or the solution. But I do, truly, believe that making art and continuing that endeavor is really important right now, putting something out into the world that is at least in part truthful and unique and just the voice of the individuals in humanity in general. I think it's an important thing to attempt to do. I don't know what else there is to do."

So is Fog Broder's last, desperate attempt to leave one bright, shining legacy before we all blow ourselves up? He laughs, a little derisively. "Something like that, sure! I don't know, that's sort of grandiose, but it's true. Yeah. And it's true that I feel that way some times. I don't know if that's right. I don't know if that's the right way to feel, and I think sometimes that can lead to a sense of disappointment, because then you get into the question of whether or not you're making music in order to change people's minds about something, and I don't know how I necessarily feel about that.

Despite the approaching end-of-the-world -- or perhaps because of it -- Broder seems to be involved in a million projects at once, from his side gig, Hymie's Basement (which has also released albums on Lex Records), to his frequent collaborations with artists ranging from George Cartwright and Christian Marclay to Cepia. "It's funny, because right now I feel very non-prolific, just at this very moment," Broder admits. "I'm just kind of waiting for a record to come out, waiting to tour a little bit, and doing all that stuff. But I think I've just been really inspired by wanting to be and stay curious and try new things out and play with different people and get different sounds happening. It's also a matter of collaborating with people that are kind of like-minded spirits, and that feels really good. It feels really good to establish a group of people that are true to what they do, and make good music, and want to share that with each other, and explore that with each other. So to be able to expand that group of people feels great. That's really nice."

© 2005 - Holly Day