Toronto-based singer-songwriter Lando Flakes creates captivating and fresh alternative and DIY pop soundscapes. With a degree in Creative Writing, he has been experimenting with music and lyrics since he was fourteen, inspired by the likes of singer-songwriter legends Elliot Smith and Jeff Buckley to the lo-fi emo-folk of Field Medic and Mat Kerekes. His five-track EP Our Life In Hibernation is now available.

You hold a degree in Creative Writing. What kinds of courses did you take, and how have they informed your approach to making music?

I did a lot of writing workshops, mainly poetry, which have for sure helped my lyric writing.  Working in a different medium has helped me to evaluate music in a more malleable way, how do all the pieces really fit together? How do they flow? How do the serve the themes of the project as a whole? Secondly, who is the speaker in the song? What are they trying to say, or give off? I went through that phase of thinking the best songs are the best because they are true, now I can view them in a more mature light and see that fiction can be more effective than fact.

Your bio mentions that you make “captivating and fresh alternative and DIY pop soundscapes.” From your perspective, what makes them particularly captivating and fresh—or sets them apart from other sounds in the alternative and DIY scenes?

An aspect I love about the DIY scene is the sheer amount of styles that are on display. I think we are in a time where artists are pulling from their most diverse influences and it’s inspiring. Just like my contemporaries, I believe that my greatest strength is my unique influences and how they show up in my work. Something I believe I do well is mixing pop tendencies with the rough unpolished soundscapes of the alternative and DIY scene.

You’ve been experimenting with music and lyrics since you were fourteen. How has your music evolved since then?

When I was younger my writing process consisted of just trying to pump out a complete song in one sitting on my acoustic. Now, that is a pretty rare thing for me, most of the time I write in Logic which really lets me think about song structure completely differently. I used to record voice memos of every little change I would make to a song for fear of forgetting it. Now, I hold onto things a lot less, if something is forgotten then it was meant to be. Kind of a long winded way of saying I’ve matured.Though, I would say the aspect that has changed the most for me is that I don’t write as many sad songs as I used to. I was obsessed with getting stuck in melancholic melodies, and I still am to some extent, but I really enjoy making less dreadful songs now. 

I like the idea of “experimenting” with music. Have you had any formal music training?

I played flute in elementary school for a year or two, had a few singing lessons as a teenager, and fumbled my way through a basic music theory course in University. But, I wouldn’t say any of these were really influential in my approach to making music. I feel at my most creative when I’m just a guy messing around with things. 

What does experimentation mean to you, and how has it informed your approach to making music?

Experimentation is inspiration. It is the willingness to try new sounds, new words, new melodies and run with it for a little. My music itself is not experimental but it is very informed by it. It is the act of experimenting which itself is exciting and often pushes me to finish a song. Usually that means just me playing around with the equipment I have until something sparks, which is almost jamming in a band just a little lonelier. 

You’ve mentioned that the album was “born out of a compulsive need to say or create something.” Do you consider yourself a compulsive person? 

I wish I was more of a compulsive person. I am at my happiest when I am in the flow and being impulsive and direct. Most of the time I get caught up in spirals usually overthinking and overcomplicating, basically just being too in my head. Songwriting has always been a platform for me to ruminate on my life, which has its pros and cons.

You recorded the entirety of your new EP, Our Life in Hibernation, in your bedroom. Can you share some technical details about your setup? What DAW do you use, for example, and are there any plugins that you find particularly helpful?

I use Logic Pro X as my DAW with a Behringer U-phoria as my interface. All of my vocals are recorded on a Shure 58 and Logic has a lot of great default tools for getting a good vocal sound, I’ve honestly been procrastinating on setting up a solid vocal preset because it’s fun to just mess around in there. Valhalla DSP’s Supermassive is one of the few plug-ins I really love because of just how insane it can get. I don’t think it’s on this release much just because it’s hard to nail down in a mix but it is always dope. Probably my most used set up on the release would be running my Ibanez Talman 5-string bass through the “Hi-Fi Di” preset with a few tweaks. 

You’ve described the EP as “a reflection on the stagnation that comes from being in a doomed relationship.” Without going into too much detail, is that reflection based on personal experience? 

Somewhat. I would say it’s more about the reflection than the relationship itself. Ultimately I was in a place that I didn’t realize how terrible it was until I was forced to take a serious step back and examine. I couldn’t just keep on keeping on, I had to make a serious change. This EP is organized around the cycle I was stuck in during this period, wrestling with myself through the happy and the sad until I tasted a bit of reality.

How might the idea of being in a doomed relationship also serve as an analogy or metaphor for other types of situations? To put it another way, how is it more than a breakup album?

The way I organize projects is kind of haphazard, these songs weren’t all written around the same time but they just felt similar to each other. I came to realize that they were all different thoughts on the same thing, the same situation. The songs came together to form this terrible cycle of avoidance and pretending, mirroring a time in my life where I had to look at how bad the situation was and I couldn’t avoid it anymore. I see it more as an exhibit of personal growth than a breakup album, as much as it is about a doomed relationship with somebody else, the most damaging relationship is the one that the character has with themselves. 

What’s next? 

More music, and as I’m putting a band together, hopefully some shows! I haven’t played live music in a while so I am very much looking forward to it.