So much of the music released on 4AD during Ivos era had this same creative tension, beauty masking secrets, feelings buried, persisting in anxious dreams and suppressed fear, hope and anger; lyrics that dont explain emotion as much as cloud the issue, penned by a carnival full of beautiful freaks who didnt want to be seen. Isnt that what music does best, express feelings that words cant articulate? Emotion that cant be attached to a view or opinion, to a time or a place, is often the most timeless and precious.
People have long attached an obsessive importance to 4AD, and cited its enduring influence. On its own, This Mortal Coils Song To The Siren drew extravagant praise. At the time, vocalists Annie Lennox (Eurythmics) and Simon Le Bon (Duran Duran) voted it their favourite single of the year. Today, Antony Hegarty (Antony and the Johnsons) calls it, the best recording of the Eighties. The song was to make an indelible impression. For years, I was spellbound by the Julee Cruise catalogue but I didnt know why, says Hegarty. It was so beautiful and yet so horribly cryptic; there seemed to be something terrible lurking beneath the breathy sheen. Years later, I understood when I discovered that Lynch had originally wanted to license Song To The Siren.
Irish singer Sinead OConnor was just seventeen when her mother was killed in a car crash. It was the record that got me through her death. In a country like Ireland where there was no such thing as therapy, self-expression or emotion, music was the only place you had to put anything. I played Song To The Siren nearly all day, every day, lying on the floor curled up in a ball, just bawling. I couldnt understand the words much, but [Frasers] way of singing was the feeling I didnt how to make. I still cant move a muscle when I hear her sing it.
July 2012. Ivo is driving from his New Mexico home in Lamy towards Santa Fe to an appointment with a new therapist, with Emmett sitting pillion; his black Newfoundland-Chow mix is the most eager of Ivos three dogs to go along for the ride, and Ivo loves his company anyway. Clouded memories of former sessions, in the inevitably elusive pursuit of happiness and to understand the nature of depression, persist as he passes through the jagged, barren landscape, the sun playing shadow games on the mounds of burrograss, the rust-coloured earth framed 360 degrees by the mountains. So much beauty and light. But inside his head, sadness and darkness.
On arrival, Ivo is pleasantly surprised when the therapist agrees Emmett can stay. Thats the way to do
therapy, Ivo reckons. And Emmett loves our time together. But Ivo is not here to discuss Emmett, except in relation to how dogs have taught him to love unconditionally. Something I have struggled to do with people, he says.
The black dog at his feet during the session has a special significance for Ivo. Depression is often known as the black dog, as British politician Winston Churchill famously labelled it. In 1974, towards the end of his young life, the British folk singer Nick Drake wrote Black-Eyed Dog about the same subject. A black-eyed dog he called at my door/ A black-eyed dog he called for more/ A black-eyed dog he knew my name
Andrew Solomons book The Noonday Demon: An Atlas of Depression summarised such depression: You lose the ability to trust anyone, to be touched, to grieve. Eventually, you are simply absent from yourself.
Try running a record company with two offices and over a dozen members of staff with countless artists looking to you for advice, guidance and financial support in that condition, says Ivo.
Up in the high desert of New Mexico, 7,000 feet above sea level and 18 miles outside of the state capital Santa Fe, the community of Lamy is comfortably off the beaten track. It was once a vital railroad junction: the Burlington Northern Santa Fe (BNSF) line colloquially known as the Santa Fe was to stop in Santa Fe but the surrounding hills meant that Lamy was a more practical destination. But few people disembark here now. The restaurant (in what was the plush El Ortiz hotel) and tiny museum are outnumbered by the rusting, abandoned rail carts, memories of a more prestigious past. Not many people live here either: the 2010 census gave a population count of 218.
By nightfall, a hush descends; its the kind of place where you come to get away, or hide away, from it all. To give an idea of its isolation, Americas first atomic bomb was tested just two hours away. Its a landscape on to which you can put your own impression, and also disappear into. Ive moved to where I feel my most comfortable, Ivo confesses. But people just think Im eccentric.
Its here, on a ridge outside of Lamy, that Ivo built his house. On the roof, you can see 360 degrees to the surrounding mountains. To the left, the Manzanos; straight ahead towards Albuquerque, the Sandias; to the right above Los Alamos, the Jemez and the Sangre de Cristo ranges that host ski season. Trails lead through the rock and scrub, but generally only dog walkers follow them; the remoteness is both impressive and comforting. In his decidedly modernist house, which stands out among New Mexicos predominantly pueblo architecture, Ivo lives with his three dogs, his art, his music and his privacy. Its an idyll, a hideaway, a fortress, possibly even a prison. Sometimes the only sounds are the sighs, whines and occasional barks of his dogs. The sun bakes down for much of the year. The skies are huge, the silence deafening.