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1. What is the most demoralising aspect of what you create?
Demoralising? I have no idea what youre talking about.
I dont know if thats supposed
to be an issue, im just a cowboy from North Dakota.
2. Does the motivation
to carry on stem from you, or your work?
Well, Im the one who does the work so i guess it comes from me. I am
very motivated.
Once an idea comes into my mind I have to hear it. The problem is that it often takes a
long damn
time to get it to work. Sometimes, because of poor technology and sometimes
its an issue of Figure versus criticism
and being a man.
3. What role does criticism play?
There is the inner critic and the outer critics.
The outer critics dont really interest me
much, probably because theyve never really said anything bad about my music.
Of the
few negative reviews I have gotten, they simply give an accurate description of the music
and then call
it pretensious. That doesnt really help me much. The inner critic is a bit
more tricky and useful. The best example
of how I use it is working on several pieces at
once, getting them into decent shape, forgetting about them while I work
on a new batch,
going back to the older pieces to see what I like and what I cant stand, and then working
on what
I like. Sometimes this goes on and on with a piece for years, and sometimes I
finish it just after the first review
period.
4. Can your compositions ever be "finished"?
Thats why the inner critic can be a bit
tricky. Once and a while I will work on a piece for
a long time only to fall in love with the early sketches. And theres
always something I
want to change on each album after it is released. I did five different versions of My
Spine
Is The Bow That Breaks and that was after I had been working on the music for
about five years. Im sure I will want
to change parts of it now but I havent thought
about it. Besides its too late and I feel really great about the album.
5. Is it possible to divorce your music from outside influence?
No. Most people ask me about being
original and all of that and I really dont care. I just
get a big thill out of creating the stuff. Im very picky about
what I like and listen to and I
have certain interests and those interests are what make my music mine.
6.
Does your music ever make you feel sexy?
All the time. Its all about sex in one way or another. There are no
lyrics on My Spine Is
The Bow That Breaks but the title refers to sexual orgasm.
7. Is your work an act of
curiosity, or of contempt?
Curiosity and the thrill of discovery.
8. Which is more prevalent: "having,"
or "being"?
Being. My whole life revolves around doing whatever I want to do when I want to do it.
I dont do anything I dont like doing. Even if it will make me some money or get
attention... oh well.
9.
Does "having" count more than "being, "today?
I dont think I really know, but I do think alot
of peoples values are starting to change
due to technology and the amount of information we have access to.
10.
Can your work be taken simply at face value?
Ah, its best with headphones, reclining, darkness....
11.
Is it possible still to instill strong feelings in today's listener?
I dont see why not. If the music means something
to the creater it may affect certain
listeners.
12. What does the term "avant-garde" mean to you?
Something that takes bold new steps. I dont really try to do that but simply do what Im
interested in.
13. What role do words play in your music?
When I write songs or music with text the words join with the music
to create an overall
mood. Also, I try to do the same with titles.
14. Is definition an issue?
No.
15. How does definition constitute knowing?
Well, again it might create an overall mood.
16.
Do you enjoy the situation of not-knowing?
I often work in a very intuitive way and sometimes it helps to create
the best work.
17. Have you ever been in a fistfight because of your music?
No and I dont see why that
would happen.
18. Does your work come first, over all else?
My life-style comes first and my music is
very much a part of that.
19. Are concepts like "good" and "bad" relevant in experimental music?
I just try to make music that I like. How other people judge it is up to them. I know the
moments that make
me feel ecstatic and I try to get to them as much as possible.
20. Do you have any regrets, so far?
None.
Hertz Lion
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Oriol Rossell from Hz Magazine
Interviews Figure
1. You have played on Glenn Branca's "Symphony no 8" and "Symphony no 10". How
was the experience
of working with Branca? Do you feel influenced by his
work?
It was pretty strange, as I was just this little
cowboy kid from a small town in North Dakota and
here I was rehearsing with these really high-strung New Yorkers. Most
of them made fun of me,
but a few of them were good people. Glenn is a good guy, just kind of bitter or something. I
enjoyed both hanging out and working with him. The influence would be in his subtle use of
microtonal music.
2. You have also played with Elliot Sharp and Zeena Parkins. They use to
play imporvised music. As a composer, what
do you think about improvisation?
Well, Ive never actually played with them before. Weve done some shows together
and Elliott
plays clarinet on My Spine Is The Bow That Breaks. I improvise all the time, and most of my
work always
leaves something up to chance. The bottom line is that if it sounds good then it is.
3. What is the concept behind
your "Virtual Symphonies"?
To make a piece that had some of the characteristics of an orchestra, except
a mostly electronic
orchestra and to be able to treat it in the studio. I did Virtual Symphonies 2 and 3 also, but tired
of the name tag and the limitations. A large part of what makes up My Spine is from those
pieces.
4. "Virtual
Simphony no 1" makes me think about tension: tension between
melodic abstraction and rythm concrection, between synthetic
sound and
organic sound,, between experimental electronica and a certain rock feeling.
Yeah, me to.
5.
Some parts of "Virtual Symphony no 1" sound very mystical. I mean mystical
in the same way that Branca incorporates
Messiaen in his music: that kind of
static and at the same time progressive sound crescendos.
Thank you very
much.
6. "My Spine Is The Bow That Breaks" sounds more homogenic than "Virtual
Symphony no 1",
wich looks as a kind of sound collage, as an interrelational
map of very diferent sounds and music genres.
My
goodness, I think youre right! My Spine was made in the same way though, but more
complex. I feel I was more focused
on an overall mood with My Spine, even though it was
recorded during a 6 year period.
7. I haven't listened to
your work with John Bergstrom as The Oblivion
Ensemble. Could you please describe it?
It is somewhat similar
to what I do on my own, except of course, Johns own sound is in there
too. As well as other people that we work with.
We started out as a pop/ rock band but by the
time of our first CD release (Nightmare: SinistrotorsE (Complacency)) half
of it was in an
experimental vain. The Drone Records release (PhonoRecord) was edited together from a live
performance.
We will have a new album out some entitled <SculpturE: and its the best thing
weve ever done. The goal was to create
the most amazing album for listening to with
headphones. It has taken a long time but it was worth it.
8.
How would you define your work with Torse?
Torse was John Bergstroms project. We used to live together. How did
you hear of that?
9. Artists like Glenn Branca or Rhys Chatham has broken the frontier between
avantgarde and
popular music by using popular forms in their avantgarde
compositions, by taking some elements from pop or rock and contextualising
them in a contemporary composition. This way of working seems to be a kind
of characteristic in NY's downtown music
scene. Do you agree? Do you feel
part of that?
It does often seem to be that way. Most of the work that I
do is leading up to something else.
What Ive always been interested in is creating a new kind of pop music. It is slowly
coming
together.
10. Wich are your next plans?
There will be a new album on Multimood in the fall called
Exhaling Ammonia and 2 other
completed albums will most likely come out soon too. Im also very close to finishing up
an
album of pop songs called A Zenith To An Ear. Seems like a lot of stuff but its from a 7 year
period of work.
There is still other music from that period too, but Im mainly focusing on the
future right now. Also, I hope to spend
a big hunk of my time touring in the next few years so let
me know about any possible gigs in Spain! Thank you.
Dmitri from Egg And We Webzine
Interviews Figure
Egg And We Figure Interview
(This is a translation from English to Russian and back to English again, having been transferred from various types of software.)
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