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: What 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.
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: What 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.
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