If you look up the name Lord Fascinator, you’ll find your screen flooded with chromatic imagery of a long-haired man in seventies-style sunnies, framed by eccentric displays of flowers, sculptural figures, and saturated blue backdrops. At first glance, one may assume he’s a poorly disguised cult leader, or perhaps a kooky surfer on a psychedelic-infused jungle expedition. In reality, Lord Fascinator is not a person–or at least, he is not defined by the creative output of any singular being. Led by multidisciplinary Australian artist Johnny Mackay, the ever-shifting collective project evolves its so-called “Fasciverse” through collaborations with a rotating array of artists, stretching its’ genre vocabulary from rustic folk instrumentals to pop-y dance. With a conceptual goal of blending experimental sonic arrangements with physical installations and performance art, Lord Fascinator’s shape-shifting catalogue of releases and exhibitions is bound together by its throughline of curiosity, united by its creators’ shared investment in imagination and play.

Lord Fascinator’s forthcoming album, Reise, is approaching materiality, its components steadily arriving into view like a not-so distant landscape we’re headed towards. A conceptual project co-crafted over the span of five days with psych-rock body Spiral Drive, Reise studies various modes of transportation, paying homage to its birthplace of Mannheim, Germany–the city also responsible for the invention of the automobile. Singles are presently releasing on a monthly basis in preparation for the album’s official October destination, with debut track Auto representing the atmosphere of the vehicle, and follow-up Rad being a love song for the bicycle. From there, the record’s travel concept zooms outwards, exploring the lesser-known terrains of air and space as an extension of its interest in fantastic escape and adventure. Sonically, the joint project is imbued with the German-Austrian band’s disruptive neo-psych sound, attributed to Spiral Drive frontman and producer Raphaël Neikes, paired with Fascinator’s signature penchant for wonder, a harmonious melding of two equally innovative creative outfits. In the conversation below, Lord Fascinator reveals the map that led to Reise’s genesis, as well as sharing insights about traffic, krautrock, and continuously finding purpose in pilgrimage.

Before creating Reise, what was your go-to music for being stuck in traffic? Has your relationship with the monotony of travel changed since making this record?

In a sort of Enonian spirit of utilitarian music I'm drawn to matching music to the pace of the space. So being stuck in traffic–stationary in motion–I’d go to the likes of Agitation Free, Between and Harold Budd's Pavillion of Dreams. We often find ourselves spiritually idling in neutral like this during the drumless sections of Reise.

This project was created in collaboration with Spiral Drive in Mannheim, Germany, the birthplace of both the car and bicycle. Being based in New York, how did you find yourself in Germany? Did the history of your creative space inform your project?

I found myself washed ashore in Europe, chasing a love that had dashed itself against the rocks just as I landed. Raphi and I had collaborated remotely on his song 13th Eye previously and then got together in Mannheim because he happened to be living there. I'd been insisting on making a "krautrock" driving record by tapping that Hallogallo motorik beat on my knees every time we spoke. Luckily he knew a little more of the history and even enlisted Jan Fride of KRAAN to play drums on one of the tracks. It wasn't until the first day during our lunch break that we discovered the automobile had been invented there. Only about two weeks before Rad’s release did we learn it was also where the bicycle was born. Blew my mind.

There is a kind of never-ending build-up in Rad that carries it through to the end of the track. This record was completed in only five days. How do you know when a piece is done? Can that kind of momentum be blinding?

We established a dogma that hopefully comes through at a fundamental level. Each day we would get to the studio and decide which mode of transport we were writing about. We had only until the end of that day to complete a song formed enough to be listenable end to end and forbade ourselves hearing any of the previous tracks until the sixth day when we cleaned it all up and added finishing touches. So I suppose we intentionally blinded ourselves which forced a hyperfocus that allowed each track to be a world in itself.

This most recent track is about riding a bike, and there is a kind of digitally nostalgic sound to the song. "Auto," which was the first release from the project, carries a much more natural sound, which seems like a rather counterintuitive connection. Did the method of transportation you were basing each track on inform the sound itself, or did you try to avoid such connections in the creative process?

It was more about chasing a feeling, but yes that amazing commodore 64-esque cacophonous synth explosion Raphi played at the start always makes me imagine a BMX video game you're breaking out of into the real world.  We didn't have any specific instrumentation rules on that front, although if there had been spokes, cogs, pedals and a bell in the room I would have tried to include them.

When creating a concept album, the release process isn't typically something that is also experimented with. Reise is being released throughout the summer, one track per month, reflecting the journey of the season changing itself. When thinking about journeys, what inspired you to make the release of this record a continuous one?

The record is essentially about freedom and escape. Being locked to the same old rules about when and how songs are supposed to drop seemed antithetical. Each of these songs is an individual planet, so they need time to chart their own orbit. Besides, we are doing all this ourselves and need time to connect with car, bike, train, plane and space companies, publications and enthusiasts. Know any? Send 'em our way.

The order of the record is road, cycling, rail, air, and space. Was there any kind of reasoning behind the order of releases? Do you think that journeys necessarily have to be taken chronologically?

It would seem logical to put Rad (bike) first, but the beautiful long intro of Auto wasn't having it. So much of this record was unconscious; the music an autonomous vehicle and us mere passengers. There didn't seem like any other way to start, it's the beginning of the map. The rest of the tracklist just mindlessly fell into place like a retro-futuristic Waymo carrying us to our destination.