Sound of Ceres is whimsically engineering a new kind of concert experience. The project that was founded in Fort Collins, CO but is now based in New York City, Sound of Ceres’ 2022 album, “Emerald Sea,” targets the profoundly human through a galactic lens.

K Hover and Ryan Hover have been creating ethereal dream-pop under the name Sound of Ceres since 2016. For the “Emerald Sea” tour, they were joined by Jacob Graham, who designed the concert’s costumes and light show, and Derrick Bozich, who was a contributing songwriter on the album.

Listening to Sound of Ceres is like jumping into the Arctic — the experience is all-encompassing and overwhelming in the most thrilling way. Over the course of 10 tracks, “Emerald Sea” explores the cosmic love story between the Universe, who is voiced by Marina Abramović, and Venus, who is played by K. The sound of Marina Abramović’s wise and profound voice opens the album. She thunderously states, “I am the Universe” and then a cacophony of noise that sounds like it has been sourced from both the unseeable future and the deep past erupts into existence.

Just as the music of the album collapses linear perceptions of time and space, the live performance of this record destroys preconceived notions of what a concert should be as well. Sound of Ceres’ act is mesmerizing and meticulously rehearsed. Multiple elements such as a light show, costume changes, live instrumentation, and other visual elements precisely come together to produce a life-changing set despite its short runtime of 35 minutes.

WNYU had the chance to speak with Sound of Ceres ahead of their April 4 show at Elsewhere about the world-making, musical tinkering, and live performances of “Emerald Sea.”

[This interview has been edited for length and clarity]

Would you mind introducing yourselves for the record?

Ryan Hover: I'm Ryan. I write, record the songs, and play the bells on stage.

K Hover: I'm K. I'm the vocalist of the group. So I write vocal melodies and lyrics and help contribute to the magical stage illusion.

Jacob Graham: I’m Jacob and I mostly program the lights and design the costumes.

Derrick Bozich: I'm Derrick and I help write some songs and I also play harp on stage.

Thank you! Out of curiosity, are you all still based in Fort Collins?

And since you designed the costuming and visuals at the same time as the album itself, I’m wondering what it was like to translate the music and what you were imagining onto an actual live stage. What were the technicalities of that?

DB: For our performance, we really wanted our instruments to have a striking visual presence as opposed to us just playing keyboards on stage, or like guitar or something like that. So we chose the instruments that we wanted to play that just looked cool. That's what informed our decision to play harp and bells on stage. And then we just have [baking] tracks. You know, we have the tracks fill out the song.

KH: The bell tree is a really interesting visual instrument that Ryan kind of made up, I guess. Do you want to talk about the bells and how you got them?

RH: Yeah, I think there's just like one guy in the world that makes, it's called, like, a tuned bell tree. So it's one octave of notes like you would have on a keyboard. And then we had to figure out how to present it visually. It kind of balanced the harp really well. We came up with this idea of it being like a tree with an arched limb. And then the bells hang down on these golden chains, with some golden leaves on top. So yeah, primarily that first landing point for decisions is what looks good. And Derrick learned the harp just for this album and show.

KH: We really pushed ourselves in many ways this go-around, but we're really pleased with it.

Is the end product of this album what you were envisioning when you first went into this project?

JG: Pretty much yeah. But I don’t think we had a super defined vision. We knew going into it that there would be a lot of room to experiment. And that's kind of where we thrive, I think, musically and visually — that kind of thing.

What was your thought process behind the story of this album? Why was it important for you to tell that story?

RH: Like you said, our previous albums picked kind of a specific book to be based on. This time, there wasn't a specific work, but we wanted to tell the story of how awareness and human mind came into being in the universe. There's a whole range of theories and ideas of how that happens. But we liked approaching it through the storytelling of how myths are told, because the old Greek myths are super epic in scope. It's like the whole universe, things are happening on a universal scale, but they're told with very human feeling characters that all have very specific character traits and desires. Telling this really abstract, scientific concept of how mind came into being, we have two main characters. One is the Universe itself, and that's played by Marina, and then K plays Venus. The different phases of Venus throughout Roman mythology really fit with the idea of a mind coming into being and kind of knowing itself and then thriving, and then finally returning to the universe at the end. We were able to keep it very human and intimate-feeling throughout the record, while talking about these kinds of cosmic ideas.

[Adrita] K, what was it like to immerse yourself in the role of Venus?

KH: That's interesting. I think that Venus is typically thought of as a woman persona or character. And as a non-binary person, I was trying to bring a different spin to the idea of Venus. I really just enjoy taking on the roles of different characters, especially things that feel mythological. So just being this otherworldly body that's traversing around felt really interesting to me. But yeah, it's really hard to live up to Venus, right? I mean, in all of their forms, really. But I attempted to do that.

Why do you think Marina fits the role of the Universe so well?

KH: You know, I think it came about in a different way, to be honest. So we met her maybe six years ago, maybe? Yeah, it was a while ago now. And we knew straight away that we would like to work with her someday. So we were just kind of trying to think of it, of who she could play or who she could be or what could live up to her in our minds. Because she's an incredible artist to us and we take a lot of inspiration from her. We just see her as kind of like the mother of performance art. So we were trying to think of a character that really could do her justice, I suppose. Does anyone else want to talk about that?

RH: And just her voice too, is very powerful and commanding. We thought it fit perfectly with the idea of the universe. So she recorded the lines and sent them to us, and we placed them in the album. When she heard the album, I think she laughed because she wasn't expecting it to be so powerful like the way that we mixed it

KH: She kind of thought it was funny, this idea of her playing like the Universe, you know, she's a very humble and modest person. So I think this idea of her playing this big character, she was like, “What, why me? Why didn't you?” It was a funny reaction from her, but I think she enjoyed it. And I'm really curious to see what she thinks of the live show because she hasn't seen it yet. But her narration is included in the show. I'm sure it'll be weird for her, though, being in the crowd watching this performance and hearing her voice.

RH: She’s been in weirder situations, though.

Since the album has such a lush sound, what was the recording process like? Were all of the elaborate orchestral parts done electronically?

RH: Pretty much any way that you could get the sound of an instrument. We used a lot of MIDI, symphonic instruments, like strings, harps and horns. And then we spent a lot of time running back through old analog gear to make it not sound like MIDI. We went to our friend's studio in…Ohio?

DB: Akron, OH, close.

RH: He has a huge studio full of percussion and synthesizers and crazy contraptions that he's invented. And drums too, so we did all the drum tracks there, all the timpani and chimes. And all the weird sounds. We did some things with modular synthesizers. Is there anything I'm missing?

DB: We did record some harp live.

KH: And flute, you [Derrick] play the flute.

Derrick: We also recorded a pocket piano. We made a custom note sequence.

KH: Like a music box, you can create your own kind of music box which you would hand crank. So we're able to write some notes onto this and play part of a song, which was really cool.

Did the additions that your collaborators contribute come about organically? Did they change the trajectory of the album or was there still a specific vision that you were following?

KH: I feel like we had a strong vision. You know, I think we were pretty pretty aligned in our vision as well — really on the same page. Everyone brought something a little bit different to it. But yeah, we had been, it seemed like we talked about making the record for just as long as it took to actually make the record. Which I think helped in this case, because it allowed us when we finally went into the process to really know what we wanted and how we wanted to achieve it; who we wanted to work with and what instruments we wanted to play. So it was really thought out.

Gotcha. With the immersive experience of this concert, what are you hoping people will take away from your show? What emotions do you hope they will feel?

RH: What do you think, Jacob? It's your masterpiece.

JG: I hope people feel a little mystified, I hope it's kind of thought provoking because I think what we are doing onstage is just, it's just not typical. It's not what most bands are doing. So I hope that especially other people who make music take this idea from it that a live show can be something radically different than what it normally is. I'd love to see other people like really pushing those boundaries and see what they come up with.

KH: Right, I mean, when you see the show, you'll definitely see that it's like our music meets theater. It's definitely very performance-based and theatrical.

What was the process of creating the tangible, visual aspects of the show?

KH: Many long gruesome hours, dragging tiny pinpoints to make the lights come on at the exact split second that you'd like them to — very tedious.

JG: Extremely tedious.

KH: I mean, it took three years to program and do and it's only, what, like a 35 minute set, you know? I's very intricate, and a lot of the things honestly are things that we noticed and that were important to us when programming but the audience might not even catch these little things.

RH: It all adds up. There's multiple things happening all at once throughout the show, and I think, for us, we've fine tuned each one of those things. But as the viewer, it all washes over you at once. Hopefully it feels a little overwhelming, but in a good way, where we're trying to figure out what just happened while the next thing is happening. It's a mix of synchronized lights with the music as well as video projections, costume changes, you know, elaborate instruments that we have to figure out how to play and all that.

What was the process of choreographing the shows?

KH: Each song’s choreography has a different origin story. When we began programming lights for a song, we thought of at least one "magic moment" for each track. These magic moments usually involve dancing light across the scrim, handheld illusion objects, or a special costume. After we figured out the magic moment, we adapted our body choreography to match the light choreography (jumping upwards to catch a light that appears on the scrim, etc). It makes performing so fun!

Were there any specific characters of figures you took inspiration from for the choreography/staging?

KH: Emerald Sea (both album and live) was heavily inspired by fairy tales. I have always loved Tinker Bell, especially the renditions of Tink that frame her as a simple ball of light darting about. I definitely try and embody her on stage.

What is it like to move around and tour with that set-up?

JG: Oh, it’s terrifying.

KH: You have to be very careful. I perform on an elevated platform. It's tricky because we painted the platform black, so that it would not show to the audience at all. But it makes it nearly invisible for me. And then I have bright light shining up at me. It's very scary to not fall off the edge. So I have to be like, super mindful.

RH: It feels like a Marina inspired thing. Yeah, there's a parallel.

What was it like adapting to different venues and audiences?

KH: Emerald Sea, the play, requires such a specific footprint. While we can squeeze into smaller spaces if need be, really being able to have great height, width, and depth to stretch our scrim and bodies allows for the show to reach its full potential. Audiences are so different night to night. Some very quiet and attentive, seemingly mesmerized, others loud and cheering, energized by the performance. We enjoy it all!

And finally, can you tell us any details about upcoming projects?

KH: TBD? It's a big question mark right now, but we'll see where our interests take us, I suppose. It's definitely not over.

RH: We've been so in this album and show, I don't think we've had time to think of what's next yet. We're just as curious as you.