Friday, November 23, 2018

interview with Art Electronix (Katerina Yan)

1' How did you start producing music?

Usually we do not have an established track creation scheme. Rather, it is a selective construction of the methods for creating dub, techno, ambient or something else. Each of us individually prepares samples, patterns, patches and all sorts of ideas, and then we get together and see what we can do about it. We do not have a specific musical role, so the authorship of percussion, melodies or bass lines may belong to each of us.

2. How is the experimental music scene in Ukraine?

There are quite a large number of enthusiasts who regularly continue to develop interesting trends in music and art, however, there is a general lack of funding and a low level of quality of life, and there is also a small amount of prepared for the perception of the audience.

3. Tell about your project Art Electronix

The project involves two people - Eugene and Katerina.
We are from Ukraine, we live in the industrial city of Krivoy Rog, a large part of the territory of which is occupied by the metallurgical plant. The idea of ​​creating a joint project began with a common love for gaming consoles, tape loops, science fiction and many other interesting things in our opinion. Later interest in DJing, sampling, breakbeat and techno music. We describe our own creativity as cross-genre art and unlimited by conventions of styles or extraneous tastes. When creating music for 10 years, the project collected a decent discography of a total of up to 100 hours of music, was published on physical media, participated in the creation of several soundtracks for independent films and held many local events.

interview with Marty Byrne

Who are you? Whats your mission? Tell me about your voice experiments, how came you into doing this and what kind of feedback have you been receiving??
I am Marty Byrne, from Belfast, N. Ireland. I make music for theatre and short films and work as a sound and lights technician. I've been writing and singing my own songs and playing in bands since I was 14. 
My mission is to keep making, performing and working with music and sound for as long as my ears will let me. I have always struggled to find one "style" or genre that fits me, so I work in a variety of styles, which helps for the varied "commercial" music I make (for theatre and film). I also love collaboration with others. 

When I first figured out how to use recording equipment I made a lot of messy, experimental, "conceptual" music. One of the first vocal pieces I made, on my first computer (age 16 or 17) was a piece featuring a lot of sporadic digital vocal edits, distortion and feedback. 

However, between age 17 until about age 26 (1997 until 2006) I almost completely moved away from making "experimental" music. Singing in rock / metal / pop bands. It was only when I went to college in Belfast to study Music Technology at Queen's University, that I returned to improvisation / experimentation / extended techniques, when I took the Performance Module classes under Paul Stapleton. Around this time I was also given some vocal lessons from Caroline Pugh and I joined the QUB Ensemble for Improvisation, under Steve Davis and Paul Stapleton. During this period I performed more as a vocalist using improvisation, effects, digital processing (Max/MSP patches & Kaoss Pad etc...) in the QUB Ensemble and on my own. 

I stopped pursuing performing or recording vocal stuff as much, when I left University, when I busied myself making more commercial music and working on my Song A Day For A Year and Song A Week For A Year projects in 2011 and 2012.

In 2014 I went back to Queen's University to do my Masters in Sonic Art. During this time I performed, again in the QUB Ensemble and got into performing solo again. In 2015 I won the award for Audio Artist in the "Performative Sound Art Contest" at Radical dB, Zaragoza, Spain. 

Then things went quiet again, while I worked in a cover band and as a technician for a cabaret club, between 2015 and now. 

In 2018, the big influence, to get back into pursuing improvised vocal performance has been visiting Berlin. I've been 3 times since March 2018 (it'll be my 4th time in November!). I have seen so many exciting improv and noise gigs in places like WestGermany, Loophole and Sowieso. Also, joining and performing in Belfast's Hive Choir (who work with improvisation, game pieces and so on) has spurred me onto getting involved in this area again. 

Saturday, November 17, 2018

interview with Tokoh Antagonist

1 How did u got into this kind of music? Tell about your teenage years
I live in very crowded city in Indonesia called surabaya, its very noisy atmosphere here, and thats become my idea for me to do some art about it
favorite international artists and favorite ones from indonesia
A band called "Eels" and Indra Menus from To Die

whats your job? How do u consolidate it with music?

My job not really into my art, but maybe its a part of an influenced. Maybe you could read by your self, my job, on VICE :
https://www.vice.com/en_asia/article/vbbx7j/the-grunge-pioneer-who-helps-children-navigate-the-criminal-justice-system

interview with Tesla Manaf

1 Tell me about your city and the noise scene in there...
Bandung is famous for Pop Culture, from fashion, design,music etc. This city always put a high standard it mostly responsible for all Country creative-pop culture goings to. In past 4 years, noise scene starting to grew and getting bigger by now, many young generation who starts to open their ear to attend noise and contemporary music event eventho in a term of Noise Music, Post Rock or Jazz Music, players and artists start to combine many genre with Noise. Sadly, many Noise artist feels like they are outcast and think "it just a noise" so there is no willing to improve a sound quality and gear also renting cheap amd bad sound system. Because it's hard to collecting money from audiences for this kind of gig, they always open for donation but not so many people who donate eventho sometimes so many people attend. But slowly we try to improve the quality in many aspect, from the artist, venue, sound system and the audiences as well.
2. What kind of gear do u use in your performances?
 I used a few different geat in my setup, while i'm travelling in another country i'm trying to find a small and travel-able synth/noise generator but the sound as good as a big synth. I change gear many times in my NoiseBox but right now i used 
- Pocket Piano from Critter and Guitari
- EGL1 from JMT Synth
- Korg Volca Bass
- Softpop from Bastl Instruments
- Micro Mixer to controled those 4 above
- Straight to the Strymon Big Sky Reverb and Strymon Timeline Delay
- Elektron Digitakt (i used this one a lot for complicated beats and voices)
- Korg KP2 mini as a main output and effects such as Looper, Break Reverb etc.

All instruments used independently, not clocked one to another. So i can play impulsively with different bpm.
3 . Favorite artists...
3. I grew up with classical music, and focused on it in my first 10 years of my music carrer. And then turned in to jazz and contemporary music/Art Music after that. Eventho my current instruments totally different than before, i still admired many Classical artist from Gyorgy Ligeti to Stockhausen. And transferred to natural voices and tweaked into Electronics sound try to combine those noises with Acoustic Drum Beats (mainly influenced from Jazz Drummer and the great Aphex Twin, Squarepusher and Venetian Snares) https://open.spotify.com/album/26thKhSZoRdsXUr6LIzv9m?si=-8Rx1nDPTWGp-Yd3jQE66w www.soundcloud.com/tesla-manaf-effendi https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCr4YZM Tesla Manaf Studio Jl. Awiligar Raya 140 Bandung, Indonesia +6285659031760

inyterview with Erik Jovet - I Eternal

Who are you ?
From a point of view, i’m a married man of 52, proud father of my daughter. From another point, I’m what can be considered as an artist. But! My aim is to share my art with other, I do not live in an ivory tower far from reality, even reality was normal to some, but not for I,Eternal. My love of discovering artists, as musicians, poets, plasticians is my driving force. If I can find something I haven’t found yet each day is self accomplishment. Plus as some qualified me as ever enthousiast, I need to share my finds. The share of cultures ( films I saw, tapes records I got, places I went, museums I visited, and so on) are important to me. If it can interest one person, I won the game. I don’t play games, it’s a waste of time to me. I don’t do sports, I don’t want to die earlier than the Moirai decide to cut my string of life. And it’s waste of my energy and time for creation. My endorphin addiction don’t need this. I find pleasure in contemplation. Meditation fulfill the holes in my life.
How did you got there?
As many I sung the lyrics on the covers of records, looked like an idiot doing air guitar in front of mirrors. I tried to be a drummer, but I was lazy and a good drum kit costs a fortune I couldn’t afford. My money was spent in magazines, books, comics, records, tapes and videos…So now I gor a small collection of vinyls nearly 2000, tapes about 100, some died long ago…, books I can’t tell there are in each room of my house….the DVDs are nearly 1000…A reason my wife hates me, you can laugh. I joined bands as a singer by accident, I quit the drumkit of a punk band to face the mic for the firs time in 1985, we made a grind core band “Lily Of The Valley” . I joined The Clever Boys, until 1986 Raw’K’Roll with Hard Core influences, I also were into a fun punk core band “Les Shark’s” local fame. After my military period ruining my health and time I made another band Space Jerks until ’89. After this band, I made CIANID a demo still exists thanks to my cousin in the band! I joined a band called Punishment Park heavily in dark industrial psychedelic sounds. An album got out 20 years after it’s recording due to the band’s explosion due to some asshole leaving the band for soup and fame. I stayed I the dark and created I,Eternal. In 96. I joined other bands after that. And decided to end live action in 2011 after Re_Org ( Industrial Goth Metal). I never had stagefright , I don’t care if there’s 1 or 2500 people in front of me, if I had to play, I did the part of the contract : giving all possible for a great show. I got there but my past has little or no interest for me. What is important is to come and discover.
Expression or Impression??!!
As words are limited I express myself with sounds. The sonic prism has less limits of good , evil, all those anthropocentrism concepts given to music. Some likes good music, I feel it’s strange. Some never liked what I heard saying it’s noise 10% of the time, shit the rest%...Lack of understanding, knowledge, fuck them you make your choice. Explaining 2000 years of music history to untolerant people is a waste of my time. I don’t do it anymore. I prefer to be perceived as an asshole by many. I never understood people listening constantly to the same bands year after without discovering some in the same veins. I lost fortunes covering full ranges of styles and time of course. This driving me away from unknown formations. I remember at a Soundcheck for a I,Eternal show in 2012 a Contemporary Art , someone from the Tri Athlete Federation told me my music was giving her vomiting envy. A compliment of worthy value. I told her she can go and do it and die far from me. I know how endorphin junkies are desperate without their daily dose… I let them alone.
Sport is really a problem in my life, there you can laugh a little more than before... While I create my stuff for me or especially for someone else is peace on Earth made possible. Sharing our cultures is the only way to make peace not a hippy dream. Some sounds arrive home with their no words to say but try me… I do things with passion. It is very important to me. That’s why I understand people with other passions than mine, I respect theirs. Enough said for others, let them make their way. I have no ambition but Peace on Earth. At a cosmic scale it’s less than shit. When making collaborations songs, I do songs, I’m a singer, I use my voice as first sound to filter, transform , into something else ( Rules of Musique Concrète Read Schaeffer !), I try to make the piece sounding like a classic pop tune. Not that easy, micro details are important, transitions have a power of story telling driving force. It can also be made with a punk fuck it attitude sometimes, when all is possible so why staying in musical jail form? I know how to sing in many styles ( a good breath exercise and from grind to falsetto) , I can place melodies easily. But it has no more surprising me aspects. Noise is really more infinite. Even I prefer the term sound. Too bad we can’t explore the ultrasonic universe.
My play ground is this planet, my time in this dimension is short so I don’t waste it. I nearly died many times due to health problems, lifestyle and allergies, don’t feel sorry for me, feel sorry for the poor who can’t eat or go to school, for the women still enduring violences , for the LGBT people facing aggressions. I’d love to have the impression that racism ended centuries ago, that women got the respect they deserve. Sure I’ll experience this in another kharma. I’m no mystical person nor religious, it’s too much separating people from each other and war generator. Check history…But enough talking about me. Let the wheel turn. IMPRESS ME WITH YOUR EXPRESSION.

interview with Julio Kaegi

How did the trumpet entered in your life?

When I was ten or eleven years old, I watched a jazz concert on television, the trumpet player blew my mind, it was Freddie Hubbard playing Cantalupe Island with Joe Henderson, Herbie Hancock, Ron Carter and Tony Williams, that was a Blue Note Concert 1985 at The Town Hall New York City. After that, my approach with a trumpet was always very asymptotic. Every so often I discovered a new trumpeter who blew my mind like Chet Baker, Winton Marsalis, Michele Lacerenza. But the instrument that I had chosen to play and study was the guitar because the music that I liked was music where the guitar had a preponderant place.
Much later and in the middle of a changes in my life, because I had stopped making music for about seven years, I decided to make music again because my companion Alejandra supported me to retake that aspect of my life. And I decided to start again but this time playing the trumpet. I did not have money, so I could not buy a trumpet, but I could pay for classes and I started taking classes just a mouthpiece that my teacher gave me. I became obsessed with the study of buzzing and many others thinks like that at the same time I started to open my head to a lot of music. Salsa, Ska, Free jazz, Free improvisation.

Favorite artist when u were teenager?
I lived my adolescence between the beginning of 90's in Formosa, Argentina. And even though I lived in a small city, we managed to get some CD´s and watch many videos on rare TV shows we catch in CATV. The bands that most influenced me in that time were Slayer, Suicidal Tendencies, Cannibal Corpse, Ratos de Porão and Sepultura. And participate in bands whose sound make noise like that´s bands.
Outside the music, the cinema was what interested me most and my favorite was the B-cinema of science fiction. I loved watching those movies where you felt you could have made them with boxes, and some old computer Commodore 64 made in Argentine.

Plans for next year?
My activity as a musician is mainly linked to free improvisation within two projects. A trio with Franco Pellini on drums and Andres Asia on guitar. And another in a duo with the pianist Silvia Angles. All these projects are based in the city of Córdoba, Argentina. For next year one of the plans is to be able to travel with these projects to other places and play with other friends improvisers.
At the same time I also participate in a free jazz radio program from where we plan to publish albums and some book dedicated to give some account of the scene of our city.
And some other things that involve a lot of people and we hope that they can also be realized.

Volumen 3 from TOTOKA FILMS on Vimeo.

Thursday, November 15, 2018

interview with Maia Koenig (Feminoise LatinoAmerica)

1 Cuéntame sobre ti, tu adolescencia!!

mi adolescencia tuvo un antes y un despues al encontrarme x error con el libro the anarchist cook book, un manual de bombas caseras. Me hice anarquista y gracias a eso llegue al punk. Arme mi primera banda a los 16 años, una banda de chicas llamada Mokientas, ya que vivia en un pueblito patagonico donde hacia mucho frio y siempre nos colgaban los mocos, empece cantanto teniendo muchas cosas por las cuales protestar. Siempre adore la performance desde esa epoca ya se hacia eco mis rodillas en el piso y mi cabellera sacudiendo las ideas que nos querias esteucturar.

my adolescence had a before and after to find x error with the book the anarchist cook book, a manual of homemade bombs. I became an anarchist and thanks to that I got to punk. I put together my first band when I was 16 years old, a girl band called Mokientas, since I lived in a small Patagonian town where it was very cold and the snot was always hanging, I started cantanto having many things to protest about. I always adore the performance since that time my knees echoed on the floor and my hair shaking the ideas that we wanted to build.

2 ¿Cómo llegó la música de ruido a tu vida?
Quiza esa primera etapa ya se trataba de ruido. Pero cuando relacion el movimiento DIY de los fanzines y el punk rock con el Diy electronics, me di cuenta q ese era mi camino, armar mis propios instrumentos y no darle espacio a las grandes marcas. Tuve una banda llamada Mielcitas Trash Me, donde se improvisaba a niveles muy explosivos, en ese momento tocaba el bajo y exprimir el instrumento, llevarlo a otro nivel, es la vinculacion de que el ruido es una forma de existir en este mundo.

Maybe that first stage was already noise. But when I relate the DIY movement of fanzines and punk rock with Diy electronics, I realized that this was my way, putting together my own instruments and not giving space to big brands. I had a band called Mielcitas Trash Me, where I improvised to very explosive levels, at that moment I played bass and squeeze the instrument, take it to another level, it is the link that noise is a way of existing in this world.

3 Cuéntame sobre el colectivo femenino, ¿planes de futuro?

3. Feminoise Latinoamerica es una bomba escondida en el centro de la tierra donde la adrenalina aumenta cuando nos unimos y hacemos cosas para derrumbar, y para construir cimientos sororos y artisticos. El 3.4.5 de abril del 2019 se hace el primer Feminoise Internacional, donde vienen amigxs de toda latinoamerica a capacitarse y participar de los shows.

3. Feminoise Latin America is a hidden bomb in the center of the earth where the adrenaline increases when we unite and do things to break down, and to build artistic and sacred foundations. The 3.4.5 of April 2019 becomes the first International Feminoise, where friends from all over Latin America come to train and participate in the shows.

https://sisterstriangla.bandcamp.com/album/ruido-por-la-autonomia-de-los-cuerpos

interview with Mariam Zohra Durrani / taRka / Myrh

  • chill memory
    • i grew up in pakistan, and the most memorable time I can remember is hiking with my little brother and my parents in the Himalyan mountains.
  • why i became a vocalist
    • On the whole, I am a singer because it has become my friend from since I was young, the practice decompresses my feelings, unites my breathing and body, it helps me create a personalized ceremony to stand up for life, to celebrate life. I have always lived in a diverse context of music with good mix of traditional and fusion or experimental collections; I regularly listened to family members and community singers perform live at home, or my father humming at dinner time, rapping the beat on the table with his palm and fingers like it was a tabla. Once I developed my own collection of music humming was my radio on the go, it was my walkman - my iPod, but tunes and lyrics were improvised as I sang walking down the street or doing dishes - my biggest delight was to lead a melody from one song I knew to another and weaving in a bit of my own composition. I began to make my own songs from early on but never with music (I compensated for music I heard with… more humming), eventually i began to play the djembe casually and it would inspire me to chant out loud. It was a dozen years ago tho, that I finally put my singing to an instrumental or jamming with local musicians in parks or home gatherings. Two years ago I decided to post some of these jams to soundcloud and through the listenership there I found many musicians to work with and more opportunities toward the experimental. 
    • Majority of my songs are my words and poems; I describe it as a meditation on a poem so when I sing the poetry transforms in the moment adapting to the instrumental’s tones, some words are kept some are not. I have a freestyle approach to create songs without much of a plan but some basic guidelines. Letting the moment inform the singing and the direction of the song. In general the content of all the songs move from a subjective voice and perspective, grounded in the politic, to an objective voice reaching out to the universal, the spirits. A critique of self and the world around her.
  • what about my city?
    • Vancouver is a beautiful city because of the trees and the ocean and mountains in particular and these forces of nature are a foundation to my lyrics and poetry. My exposure to the city’s music life has been through spontaneous and random happenings mostly in parks. Some of my songs are about the cities relationship with the indigenous communities native to Canada as well as the conditions of people living in poverty in ‘the downtown east-side’ area.

interview with Swamp Rainbow

My project hinges on the idea that I'm not there. So I'd really prefer my name not be associated, as it is in...

1 - Who is Swamp Rainbow?
*shrug*

2 - whats your job?
I've had 1000 of them and none of them stick.  I'm bad with authority and idiocy..

3 - some places u have been playing?
I don't.  Not only do I believe no one will appreciate what I do, I don't appreciate them in any regard.  I would if i could somehow flat out not be there...
My hope is to burrow into the outsider consciousness of jaded existentialists and schizophrenics and then relinquish mine into the soil.

4 - fav movies?
Faster Pussycat Kill! Kill!, Night of the Living Dead, Dawn of the Dead, Carnival of Souls

5  plans for after tomorrow?
Read books and look at the sky.


Interview with Carlos Nacatero


1.-  What do you remember about your childhood?
I remember when a I was good soccer player and the video games like snes, n64 and Play station.

2.- Whats your bigger influences when it comes to noise music?
My big influencies in noise comes from Anal Cunt,T.G., S.P.K., Whitehouse, Masonna, Sarcófago, Atrax Morgue, Genocide Organ and many more,plus my Mexicans friends like Prisionero 13/Vulgar disease, Heraldos Negros, all projects from Claudio Baltazar, Sin Forma and Gerald Aio in Power electronics mood. 

3.- Bears or wine? Plans for future??
Beer, beer, beer! The plans for this fall and next year comes the demo called Harsh Solvent and later an Ep which will be dark and schizophrenic power from hell. A bandcamp and a Facebook pages too. Also I keep planning with other projects which I’m involved, like Exagerado, Arma de Destrucción Auditiva (A.D.A.) and Territorio Hostil. Ohh wait for Prisionero 13 split! And other too with other people from Mexico and around the world. Many thanks for interview and greetings to my girl and my mom who are supporting me always. 

https://www.instagram.com/carlosnacatero/
https://thedarkthursday.bandcamp.com/track/i-can-t-stop-drinking
https://skitnaste.bandcamp.com/track/yamahahahaha

interview with Marc Bascougnano / Running Time


1_ Tell me something about your grandmother or grandfather!!
My grandfather was a pilot during the spanish civil war on the republican side.One day his gunner and close friend was shot dead.He kept one belonging of his in souvenir.Some ruler-type intsrument made to calculate speed.The item had blood stains on it that are still visible now like it happend last year.

2_ Tell me about how noise music came into your life!!
The noise music came in my life when I discovered circuit bending.As I was more into realtime visuals at the time(Vjing) I first started modifying video stuff.Then naturally I started bending audio devices to make my own sound along with my clips.
I got myself a bunch of casios and other instrument-toys to experiment deeper.As I am not a real musician and know pretty much nothing about music theory, I was seduced by the possibility to sort crazy random tunes out of those.Like I often say, I quite never come out with some precise ideas of sounds, I operate and provoque things and the machines do the rest.

3_ What kind of feedback do you get from this animated criatures you creat?
My realtime illustrations I do are produced with dated video telestrators.Some sketchpads you used in the 90's to draw and create tittles for video editing.It's analog vid, so all you need is a tv and a VCR .I always found great to be able to do pixel art on a tv without cpu help even if there's still a small processor in it.I also modified those to glitch out the drawing once they're complete.
So I end up with a regular version of the drawing and a multitude of glitchy versions of it.
I spend hours to do and select the video grabs that I'll keep.
The challenging thing here is to hack and use the drawing features of the devices.Mostly they're hard to use and really poor sketchy ink and paint tools.When it comes to work some real constructed and detailed art, you need to hack the thing in order to get close from what you have in mind.I like that aspect pretty much and find that step really constructive for a cartoonist.It opens doors you weren't expecting.
I usually got good feedback from the audience concerning this type of work.However most of the people don't really get it and may consider that I fucked it up.It's important to mention that almost all I produce is improvised and freestyle drawing sessions and the spontaneous aspect might speak to certain persons more than others.
I know that I have to explain clearly my concept and technique first before showing my work to get proper understanding.The tools are important here cause they shape your art diferently that a traditionnal pen and ink.Only a few people appreciate the bizarre subjects of my drawings at the first sight without wondering how it's done  .Process is important in art but never should overcome the final piece.
http://runningtimelab.fr/

close combat from Running Time on Vimeo.

interview with Daniel Baranov

1.  How did you ended up here? Which was your way?


I start play music at the age 40.

Before that i only hear the music. A lot of music. I start from rock in the school. Rock, prog rock, avant prog, contemporary music,  noise, free jazz, free improve. All the time I was interesting how music is born, what is act of creation, composition. I started to read about music and sound. 

But can't imagine, that i also can do some music. 

Once I came to my new friend, and he shows me his eurowrack modules. He asked me if I like to try. I try to fill that I can to make some music.

After it I bought a Thingamagoop, that make sinewave like sound with some effects and is invoked with two adjustable led lamps. 

After it I start to experiment with contact microphones and to participate in “Not instruments” festival and play with another improvisers and build some noise instruments. After some time I meet sound poetry and free-improvising vocal and start to use voice. 

After it came will to learn play some conventional instrument. So I bay a trumpet. Play trumpet is difficult and I start to play mouthpiece with change. 

Now I have also trombone, shakuhachi and xiao flute. I study 2 years butoh dancing and now I try to do mix of all. 

To dance the sound and make sounds with dance movements. 

2. What is not art?  
I think art is something that contains something from fundamental categories like beauty or truth or at least a search of this categories.

3.  Which instruments have you been using in your performances?

Thingamagoop , oxoma, (electronic bayed), electronic DIY instruments,  glass table, vacuum cleaner, big plastic bag, pan, saucepan, trombone, shakuhachi, voice, e.t.c.

happy birthday song from Daniel Baranov on Vimeo.

interview with Andrew Page aka Raxil4

ANHai: How do you got into this kind of music?!!


When I was in my early 20s, I used to sing in a dodgy grunge band, this was in the late 90s, we were awful. I was heavily influenced by the Butthole Surfers so I used to use a lot of effects on my voice. When the band broke up I was left with a lot of equipment and very little musical know how, but still I wanted to make a racket. I tried out for several other bands but never really found one that fit. I used to improvise the lyrics quite a lot at this time mainly because my memory for lyrics wasn't amazing, the songs would often shift tense or change perspective from gig to gig often keeping only the vocal melody but losing the meaning. Without realising at the time, I was always more of an improviser than I ever was a songwriter.

To this day I still can't really play any real or traditional instruments. 

But I know how to use effects so I started plugging in different things into my effects set up. Plugging them in the wrong way round, using things that weren't traditional instruments as a sound source.

I was always a bit of a music obsessive growing up, moving through Punk, to Goth, to Industrial, to Grunge as a teenager. After that I just started listening to whatever I thought sounded good at the time. I'm a big fan of soundtrack music especially 1980s Horror Film music by artists such as John Carpenter and Richard Band. I even had a Hip-Hop phase for a while. I believe all music has a 90 / 10 split where 90 percent is absolute garbage, but that 10 percent makes up for all the rest. It might surprise you to know I'm very fond of Tony Bennett.


Growing older the music I liked to listen to was always more leaning to the Left Field Avant Garde end of the spectrum, I started listening to John Zorn's Avant Garde Jazz Label Tzadik quite a lot and through this was introduced to Klezmer, Improv, Free Jazz and also some of the noisier end of the Jazz influenced Japanese Noise artists, such as Otomo Yoshihide, Sachiko M and Toshimaru Nakamura. Then I kind of worked my way backwards through Avant Garde artists such as John Cage, Alvin Lucier and Karlheinz Stockhausen. Drone musicians such as Phill Niblock and Eliane Radigue. Then started listening to Music Concrète and early electronic music pioneers such as the BBC Radiophonic Workshop, the Polish Radio Experimental Studio and Louis & Bebe Barron. As well as also absorbing Krautrock, Japanese Psychedelic Rock, Prog, Doom, etc etc etc.

Currently my four main sound sources for my solo works are Analogue Sine Waves. No Input Spring Reverb Mixer. 4-Track Tape Recorders and a guitar-like object I built out of driftwood and bones that I reclaimed from the River Thames. I like to change my equipment every gig mainly to keep myself entertained and engaged. To challenge myself I rarely ever practice before I play. Choosing to draw a schematic of my equipment instead and prepare by using my imagination only.

The last 10+ years of my solo and collaborative works can be heard here:

https://raxil4.bandcamp.com/

I also started using my voice again recently after having a break for quite a few years I am now doing vocals in three ongoing projects, but I have given up using lyrics and all of my vocal performances are improvised glossolalia usually through lots of effects:

A Harsh Noise project with fellow London Noisenik Tim Drage (Cementimental) under the name 'Page & Drage'. Oddly we didn't come up with that name until our third gig we went under Cementimental vs raxil4 before that.
Here's a link to our stuff:
 https://raxil4.bandcamp.com/album/page-drage-cementimental-vs-raxil4

I also have another project with Tim called Drones 4u which is an instrumental drone project.
Link: https://raxil4.bandcamp.com/album/drones-4u

A four piece harsh noise doom band called Bongdrinker with Lydia Morgan (μ), Tim Holehouse (TCH / Ræppen) and James Shearman (A Raja's Mesh men / Prolonged Version / Dog Milk / Roadside Dead / Echoes Through The Caverns Of Leytonstone).
Link: https://bongdrinker.bandcamp.com/

A band called Ghost Fang with Kevin Morpurgo (Dethscalator / Casual Sect), Robbie Judkins (Left Hand Cuts Off The Right / Casual Sect), Connie Prantera (Moon Seer / Moon Ra) and Will Elvin (Bruxa Maria), which is in theory a five-piece but we've only ever managed to get all five of us in a room for one gig so far. So we've played many gigs in different smaller line-ups. We play a kind of dark dread filled cosmic psychedelia with harsh noise elements.
Link: https://ghostfang.bandcamp.com/

And sometimes I sing in an improvising choir.

https://raxil4.bandcamp.com/album/silver-road-tank-17-12-16

Over the years I have been lucky enough to play in some very interesting spaces such as caves, churches, crypts, prison cells, psychiatric hospitals & water towers. And have become more interested in the science of acoustic phenomena. Hitting a resonant frequency of part of the building making one part of the room vibrate and then shift that vibration to another corner of the room.


ANHai: W
hat do you think about music today?



A pet peeve of mine is laptop musicians. Don't get me wrong, some of them can make very interesting sounds, but I really don't find a live show with someone sat behind a laptop particularly engaging. I don't mind people using laptops if it is simply one tool out of many. But watching someone using only a laptop is a very tedious affair. For all I know they could be updating their facebook status after pressing play on a pre recorded track. 

I far prefer an Analogue approach to sound, something that is hands on, almost organic even if in essence it is electronic.

Unfortunately this makes the kit bag far heavier, but at the same time more rewarding also.

To me laptop music just seems far too convenient and too easy. I think the laptop as an instrument has made many musicians very lazy.


Strangely these days I rarely ever seek out new music to listen to though. I usually prefer to make my own instead. Most of the new music I hear is through other artists I see at the live concerts I play and I like to play a lot, anytime they let me I will play. Some of my favourite artists these days are folks I know through playing, such as: Legion of Swine, PSÔM, Harmergeddon, Ashtoreth, Isn'tses, Left Hand Cuts Off The Right, Tasos Stamou, Vera Bremerton, Ræppen, Prolonged Version, Marta Zapparolli, Bismuth, Graham Dunning, Anton Mobin, Nyogtha, Flesh Eating Foundation, Sharon Gal, Grimbergen, Mark Wagner, his Namelessness Is Legion, Akoustik Timbre Frekuency, Seesar, Guy Harries, Apocalypse Jazz Unit, The Oneirologist, Richard Sanderson, Black Sheet Servitude, Illi Adato, Goh Lee Kwang, μ, Henry Collins, Seth Cooke, Bioni Samp, Pharmakustik, Hypercube, Benedict Taylor, Howlround, IlSantoBevitore, the list goes on and on, there are so many amazing DIY artists out there struggling through their art.


ANHai: What are going to do tomorrow?


Tomorrow I shall go back to my day job. Which sounds far more impressive than it actually is. I order books for the Tate Modern Art Gallery's shops. I've worked for over ten years for Tate in a variety of different roles, starting out in their retail warehouse where I used to unload pallets of books and products while driving a forklift truck. Or driving a white Transit Van across London for them. Now I order and replenish stock for their shops from somewhere in the lower depths of the basement of the new building.