Exterior is Edinburgh’s Doug MacDonald, a project originally borne out of a desire to go beyond traditional rock band tropes in favour of synthesis and which introduced the startlingly new voice of a solo performer and electronic musician.
Harnessing an understanding of the power of live drumming and years of finely honed performance skills (something of an aberration in dance music), debut EP Plagued Streets Of Pity (2019) and album Umbilical Digital (2022) embraced the dance floor in the most visceral way. Abstracting the human element via heavily processed vocal samples, beats and guitars, as well as modular synthesis, MacDonald’s primary objective was the music’s physical impact: intense, often dense productions that would make you move, toying with tempos as much as sonics.
These gained support from Avalon Emerson, Laurent Garnier, Optimo's JD Twitch, Nightwave, Auntie Flo, ND Baumecker (Berghain), Leo Mas, Rolando, IDA, Hostage, Mick Wills, Phil Cooper, Mixmag, The Scotsman, The Skinny and Monolith Cocktail, among others.
Needless to say, Exterior’s incendiary live performances have been causing shockwaves wherever he plays. And yet, there has always remained a deeply introspective element at play as well…
“The Holocene era coincides with humanity’s most extreme developments: agriculture, written language, urbanisation and nation states,” explains MacDonald. “It is the epoch of our spread over the landmass of the Earth. The idea of a record concerned with this subject came to me due to ongoing discussions in society about Earth’s climate and the human impact on it. I became interested in responding emotionally through music to models described by the Earth sciences. Holocene is the end result of this artistic process.
In order to encapsulate the drama of such a topic, I felt it necessary to make specific creative choices. Most of the genesis of the tracks were written on guitar, albeit processed via modular synths. This leant the sound a live performance basis and textural depth out of which the compositions emerged. Early on I decided to work with vocals on every track. This seemed apt given the subject matter, the progression of the ‘Human Era’ on Earth.
I was fortunate to collaborate with Scottish vocalist and composer Kate Young. She had spent a year in Bulgaria and learned traditional Bulgarian songs. Some of these songs are the basis of the vocal sampling for the album. Other tracks are amalgamations from the Gaelic vocal tradition.”
Additionally, MacDonald’s live drumming is supplemented by recordings of Panos Baras (also Exterior’s visual artist) and Glasgow-based percussionist Alex Palmer.
“The result delivered a propulsive soundscape which hybridised a ‘band’ sound with that of an electronic producer,” he says. “Holocene is the sound closest to the ‘music I hear in my head’ when I imagine a future direction, defying genre tropes, a maximalist sonic finale.”
The live interpretation of Holocene was developed during a residency at the week-long Hidden Door festival ‘23.
Harnessing an understanding of the power of live drumming and years of finely honed performance skills (something of an aberration in dance music), debut EP Plagued Streets Of Pity (2019) and album Umbilical Digital (2022) embraced the dance floor in the most visceral way. Abstracting the human element via heavily processed vocal samples, beats and guitars, as well as modular synthesis, MacDonald’s primary objective was the music’s physical impact: intense, often dense productions that would make you move, toying with tempos as much as sonics.
These gained support from Avalon Emerson, Laurent Garnier, Optimo's JD Twitch, Nightwave, Auntie Flo, ND Baumecker (Berghain), Leo Mas, Rolando, IDA, Hostage, Mick Wills, Phil Cooper, Mixmag, The Scotsman, The Skinny and Monolith Cocktail, among others.
Needless to say, Exterior’s incendiary live performances have been causing shockwaves wherever he plays. And yet, there has always remained a deeply introspective element at play as well…
“The Holocene era coincides with humanity’s most extreme developments: agriculture, written language, urbanisation and nation states,” explains MacDonald. “It is the epoch of our spread over the landmass of the Earth. The idea of a record concerned with this subject came to me due to ongoing discussions in society about Earth’s climate and the human impact on it. I became interested in responding emotionally through music to models described by the Earth sciences. Holocene is the end result of this artistic process.
In order to encapsulate the drama of such a topic, I felt it necessary to make specific creative choices. Most of the genesis of the tracks were written on guitar, albeit processed via modular synths. This leant the sound a live performance basis and textural depth out of which the compositions emerged. Early on I decided to work with vocals on every track. This seemed apt given the subject matter, the progression of the ‘Human Era’ on Earth.
I was fortunate to collaborate with Scottish vocalist and composer Kate Young. She had spent a year in Bulgaria and learned traditional Bulgarian songs. Some of these songs are the basis of the vocal sampling for the album. Other tracks are amalgamations from the Gaelic vocal tradition.”
Additionally, MacDonald’s live drumming is supplemented by recordings of Panos Baras (also Exterior’s visual artist) and Glasgow-based percussionist Alex Palmer.
“The result delivered a propulsive soundscape which hybridised a ‘band’ sound with that of an electronic producer,” he says. “Holocene is the sound closest to the ‘music I hear in my head’ when I imagine a future direction, defying genre tropes, a maximalist sonic finale.”
The live interpretation of Holocene was developed during a residency at the week-long Hidden Door festival ‘23.
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