Behind The Scenes with: Glacis

For this week’s blog post I’m pleased to welcome back Ryan Watts (Akira Film Script), who returns with another thoughtful interview - this time with Glacis (Euan Alexander Millar-McMeeken) following his collaboration with Swedish cellist Henrik Meierkord on the album 'We Gape and We Are Healed'.

Ryan has a real talent for getting into the emotional core of a release, and here he explores the album’s themes of vulnerability, reflection and healing, as well as the delicate balance between the piano and cello that gives the record such an intimate and human feel. The interview also goes deeper into Euan's work - touching on how he navigates ADHD, other projects such as another collaboration with Henrik, his record with Satomimagae as Yoal, a tour of Japan in June and more!

Scroll down to read this behind the scenes interview, where you'll also find photos, embedded Bandcamp players, links and at the bottom, you can check out We Gape and We Are Healed.

Euan, thank you for joining us and we know your schedule is quite busy between your ongoing Glacis Substack output, multiple musical projects, and upcoming live shows!

First off, how do you balance it all? Writing, recording, release-related admin, tour planning - slightly joking, but have you found a few extra hours in the day that others may have not?

Honestly, I don't know! What’s made things manageable is realising that everything in my life happens in phases. I’ve basically got three things to juggle: work, parenting, and music. When my kids were small, I had to accept that making music would fit into whatever scraps of time were left over from the first two.

Over the last 13 years, that’s shaped my whole approach. I’ve learned to work quickly, accept what happens in the moment, and stop chasing perfection. On my debut solo album, 'All The Weather of the Human Heart', you can hear my son coughing all the way through the first track. It wasn’t intentional - I was recording in the next room and that’s just what the day sounded like. Instead of trying to fix it or record some other time, I left it in. It felt honest. Those limitations (the need for immediacy) became part of the music, and now I actually like working within those constraints.

The funny thing is, as my kids have grown and need me a bit less, more time has opened up again for making music, which I’m definitely not complaining about.

Some weeks, writing comes easily and I just run with it. Other weeks, it’s all the admin and organising, and I try not to resent that side too much because it’s part of the whole thing. Whenever I start feeling stretched, I remind myself why I’m doing any of this in the first place

Wow, that's a lot to balance, even with getting some time back as life progressed - I can see how it would condition your approach to expedite things and embrace a bit of improv and imperfections; it's a wonder all your releases never fall short of that special touch of emotion your output consistently brings considering all that.

What amidst the work/life balance allows you to expeditiously touch the core of your creative space; who or what inspires you, and what do you look to when in the stages of creating a composition?

Honestly, half the time I don’t really know where my inspiration comes from. With ADHD my brain jumps around a lot, so ideas tend to appear out of nowhere or drift off before I’ve properly noticed them. What I do know is that making (and listening to) music feels like a space I need to exist in. It’s the one thing that reliably brings me into focus. And sure, maybe some of that is the dopamine hit of creating something, but it also just feels like home for my brain.

A lot of what drives me is just wanting to get better. Better at composing, better at playing, better at producing. That sense of pushing myself is a big part of why I keep going, even when everything around music starts to pile up.

The emotional thread in what I make isn't something I sit down and try to manufacture. With ADHD, working quickly before my attention shoots off actually seems to help capture something honest before it slips away.

Inspiration, when I recognise it, usually comes from music itself. And sometimes it’s just everyday life. I often don’t realise those things are feeding into my work until much later.

I also strongly believe that music, more than any other art form, is something that begins with a feeling rather than a plan. The rest grows around it and songs/pieces often reveal themselves as you go. I’ll often get an idea down quickly, follow the feeling for as long as I can, and then I step away. Sometimes for a few weeks, sometimes for months. When I come back to it, the piece almost tells me what it wants to be. It shows me the direction I couldn’t see at the time because I was too close to it. That distance is actually really useful - it’s like the music reveals a layer I didn’t realise was there.

I too suffer from ADHD and found at an early age how to use music to harness it and get the dopamine rush you mention to find balance with daily life; thank you for being open and sharing that with us all - I'm sure that will resonate with a lot of readers.

While most know you for the Glacis project, I'd like to start by asking about your recently released 2nd album, if I'm counting correctly, 'Framed Insects' under your own name on your Sleep In The Fire label. It's an incredible vocal album with a healthy dose of collaborators, and to great effect. Can you tell us a bit about the record; the inspirations and your approach?

Framed Insects is my second solo album, and for me it marks a shift into a warmer and more open emotional space. My first solo record, All the Weather of the Human Heart, came from a much darker headspace, and you can hear that in the weight of it. Framed Insects is the opposite — it’s about movement, growth, and letting light back in. The title came from thinking about how to hold onto these small, delicate moments in life without fixing them so tightly that they lose their life. That idea became a sort of emotional thread running through the whole album. In the track 'Nothing More Is Needed' there is the lyric "Feel the murmur of a heartbeat" which was one of the first things that came to me when making this record and felt like the catalyst for tone and feeling. It's an album of hope and growth but definitely not resolution because life is never truly resolved, just evolving.

In all candor, I wasn't sure what to expect going into the album for the first time (your other creative output aside), and I was floored by the quality, attention to detail, and production queues you were operating with. Sublime and unpredictable are my best descriptors for the first listening experience.

One of your collaborators on Framed Insects, cellist Heinrik Meierkord, and you both just had a release here on Whitelabrecs, 'We Gape and We Are Healed' - can you tell us a bit about how that album came together, and what it was like to work so directly with Henrik? Any interesting bits of the process or anecdotes you'd care to divulge?

The way We Gape and We Are Healed came together is actually quite intimate and understated. At its core, the album wasn’t built around a rigid concept or detailed plan. Instead, it emerged from free, intuitive improvisation. I recorded piano sketches - often very direct, unembellished takes - and only later realised that they formed a kind of emotional through-line. That arc ended up reflecting personal themes tied to upbringing, vulnerability, and learning to open up emotionally.

Henrik’s role feels like a counterweight to me. His cello adds warmth and human texture against the fragility of the piano. His playing serves the music rather than reshapes it. And he’s a joy to both work with and know. I believe he also improvised largely on this record so essentially you've got these two intuitive processes meeting in the middle - which is to me why the record feels so cohesive.

Have you and Henrik have worked together before? If so, how far back does this go, and across how many projects? Have you met in person before?

Not far back at all, actually - this is the first time Henrik and I have worked together. We hadn’t collaborated before this Glacis record, and we’ve never met in person. The whole thing came about because Harry set it up, and I’m really glad he did, because it turned out to be a great fit.

What’s funny is that, completely separately, Henrik and I also have another release coming later this year on Audiobulb, but that one is a very different kind of collaboration. It’s called Darkness Is Just Darkness, and the origins of it were basically accidental. At the start of 2024 I made a piece of music every week and posted it on Substack - regardless of the state it was in. The constraint was make a piece of music each week and post it. From that a record revealed itself. So I sent it over to Henrik asking if he could add strings but he obviously connected with it and asked if he could come on board as a co‑collaborator. So that project is very much me and Henrik, rather than me with Henrik as on the Glacis album. Two totally different dynamics, but both really enjoyable in their own ways. It's also under my own name, not Glacis as it involves both vocal and spoken word elements.

Well, can't wait for 'Darkness Is Just Darkness'! It sounds like Henrik is a wonderful artist for you to collaborate with, especially in the age of creating at a distance.

Speaking of creating at a distance, you have an upcoming collaborative album with Satomimagae from Japan for your duo's Yoal project. Can you tell us a bit of how that collaboration came together, and when folks can expect the album to release on Lost Tribe Sound?

Yeah, absolutely - working at a distance can still feel really close, and that’s definitely been the case with Yoal. The whole thing actually started because I was already a fan of Satomimagae. I reached out to ask Satomi if she’d reimagine a Glacis track for my Interpretations album, and what she sent back was so thoughtful that it just stuck with me.

After that we kept chatting on WhatsApp just checking in, talking about life and our countries and cultures. Over time that turned into sending each other pieces of music, and before we really named it, we were building something together.

The album we’ve made for Lost Tribe Sound is coming out in May and it sits in a pretty gentle, atmospheric space. It’s quite minimal and textural, with a kind of dusky feel to it I guess and feels like a cross over between two different cultures. Satomi has a really beautiful way of leaving space around things, and I found myself responding to that, letting the music breathe a bit more than I might on my own stuff.

It’s quite a quiet record, but an honest one. And considering it was made from two different sides of the world, it somehow feels very close and very personal. I’m really excited for people to hear it.

As we're discussing it, and if I'm to understand correctly, you're going to be touring Japan in short order, correct? Is this for Glacis, Yoal, or your Euan Alexander Millar-McMeeken project? All of the above? Where can folks expect to catch you, and when do tickets start going on sale for shows? And, for folks internationally, are you aware of any intended live broadcasts, or post-show recordings that might be found in the wild?

Yes, that’s right — I’ll be heading to Japan in June for a run of shows. It’s mainly centred around Yoal, but Satomi and I will also be playing solo sets at each show.

We’re still finalising the exact dates and putting the schedule together with promoters, but at the moment we’re looking at shows in Tokyo, Hoikaddo, Ishikawa, Kyoto, Hiroshima and Fukuoka. Expecting a full announcement in April and tickets will start to go on sale once the full run is confirmed.

As for live broadcasts or recordings: nothing is officially planned yet but there’s always a good chance someone will capture something and it’ll appear online afterwards. If anything more formal comes together, I’ll share it through my Glacis Substack and socials so people outside Japan can still experience a bit of it. I also intend on taking my own recording equipment to capture sounds and moments while there - and possibly do a bit of a tour diary on my Substack too. On top of this I intend to make the most of 10/12 hours on plane in each direction to create something specific to the trip and experience.

I’m really looking forward to it - Yoal feels special so it’s exciting to go there, meet Satomi and share this connection for real...

We hope you enjoyed this interview with Euan! To explore more of his work, you can follow the links below...

Glacis Bandcamp
Sleep In The Fire Bandcamp
Substack

'We Gape and We Are Healed' is available in a limited repress of 100 gatefold vinyl-effect CDrs, as well as a digital options in a range of high quality formats. You can take a listen to the album in full HERE!

Header image by Georgina Cook.
Hover over other images for additional credits where applicable.