Feardrop Magazine interview 2007

1. The Title of your DVD is related to aliens. We can see, as on some of your record sleeves, strange beings, homunculus. You also mentioned them on The alien question CD and you are interested in the SETI project.

Can you tell us how far you are interested in that kind of supposition and research?

I am more interested in other people’s interest and fascination with extraterrestrial life and the attachment of belief structures to such phenomena. I find belief systems of any nature rather bizarre and to some extent irrational. I also see them from an existential viewpoint in as much as I see it as an abandonment of responsibility to believe in a higher order of life to which we are held in sway. It all boils down to those perennial questions about life. Why are we here? Is there a point to it all? As human beings we have all asked ourselves those questions at some time or another. The answers to those questions vary enormously and there seems to me no simple right or wrong. What interests me most is the human condition. The human need to ask such questions.

On a practical level I am interested in the SETI project because of natural curiosity. I certainly wouldn’t attach any religious significance to the discovery of any alien life forms and nor would I be unduly surprised if there were any to found .It seems more remarkable that we haven’t found any yet. I am interested in the human psyche as a whole and aliens and belief systems are only one part of that very complex whole. My own interest extends from the fact that I have seen things that don’t seem to have any immediate or satisfactory explanation.

I am very interested in the commonality of experiences and question the origin of these commonalities. Recent scientific thought explores the possibility that we are in actuality a complex self-evolving computer program. How very Philip K. Dick !!!

2. In a more metaphorical way, these so called-aliens, and also the angels (errant and fallen) that we can meet in your CDs, could seem like the visitors and maybe creators of a very personal, strong and balanced musical world. So can we understand these beings as a metaphor of the creators, the artists (you, the RF) visiting their own musical creation?

To be honest I had never really thought about it in quite that way before but now that you mention it there seems a lot of truth in that statement. My ideas behind the use of those terms are more ephemeral and tangential. I think I was referring to the desire to obtain a sort of perfect balance of lucidity and enlightenment and how far we (I) constantly fall short of this aim. The reason being that on very rare occasions this state of lucidity has been experienced. Therefore as much as I know anything to be determined as true then these experiences were true. It is the fall from grace, if you will. The descent back into the chaotic thought processes and the noise of day-to-day concerns occupying the brain. The angels in the reference are a sort of mnemonic to oneself that there is something more.

3. In many Rapoon’s and Z*F’s tracks, we can hear reminiscences of Jon Hassell’s sounds and ondulations. Was he an influence indeed for you ? I mean not only as a sound creator but also as a world creator ? His « fourth world » has a signature as yours has also.

Perhaps a long time ago I was influenced by the Eno/Hassell recordings and fourth world series but I have always tried to avoid copying what others are doing and instead tried to find my own space and identity which is why I include everything that interests me, no matter how diverse and seemingly unconnected. This includes sounds as well as spoken or narrative themes that frequently reoccur and permeate the body of my work. I purposefully don’t rule out any sounds or sources and am constantly trying to expand the scope and breadth of my work. The use of horn sounds has become more interesting to me lately, though they do appear on old Zf recordings also, but these days I am more interested in the kind of expressive possibilities of the sounds through what are initially live improvisations. Jon Hassell is an obvious comparison here and I am a great admirer of his ability to use apparently simple phraseology to convey a kind of sparse beauty.

4. Some musical parts (loops and rhythm repetition) and pictural parts (rupestral-like drawings) refer to a kind of primitivism. What kind of primitivism ? Is it the one we can imagine as the life of our remote ancestors (and also more contemporary archaic societies ? Or the one of modern artists from the early 20th century ?

Well perhaps I should say here something that is also relevant to the previous answer. I absolutely do not have any romantic notions about ancient civilizations or perfect worlds.

Quite the contrary, life mostly sucks and probably always has.

I personally use the musical construction techniques of loops and rhythmic repetition as a kind of platform for inducing a sort of trance like reception. I find the repetition of patterns and sequences takes on a life of its’ own and other sounds are suggested. For me personally there are also overtones of the nature of quantum mechanics, in that there are innumerable possibilities at any given time and I am very interested in the nature of causal events. The pieces of music are suggested  pieces but by no means the only possibilities.

The process of creation is more interesting to me than the outcome and I find the use of repetitive elements acts as a catalyst for realizing more complete pieces.

5. About the writing, the « glyph » you mention in the title of your DVD, it’s obviously your writing, your signature. But, with forms and colours and tones you use, do you feel close to a more universal pattern ?

Is the search for an all-human list of forms and textures a part of your artistic projects ?

I am interested in the use of symbols and the psychological nature of symbols. This began a number of years ago when I started doing what could be described as almost automatic paintings. I found that a number of symbols were evolving and emerging. They seemed to me to hold a kind of potency and subconscious meaning that was very powerful and primitive. (Primitive in the sense that they were somehow fundamental to the human psyche)

Some of these symbols I realized occurred in other cultures and often had different meanings or interpretations but I am not interested at all in the deciphering of these symbols into a linguistic form because I feel that they transcend the boundaries of linguistic thought. That is what makes them interesting to me. I have read a fair bit about the cultural use of symbols and the recurring nature of many of the elements and find it interesting that many of the commonalities can be attributed to the artists being in a trance like state when making the marks. This has also been suggested for the cave paintings of Lascaux

6. In these paintings and drawings, we can see a likeness to the huge parallel coils and curves that can be seen from a plane in some parts of South America. Are these drawings (some kind of early land art !) an inspiration for you ?

I find all early art very interesting and as I just mentioned the cave paintings of Lascaux I can only repeat what Picasso famously said after a visit there we have learned nothing.

The strength and beauty of these, and many other cultures, indigenous art forms are a real inspiration. I think only after you have tried to paint yourself can you appreciate the sublime nature of these works.

I am also interested in the use of marks made in the landscape. This includes stone circles and stone glyphs and rock arrangements. It is a fundamental part of life to interact with the landscape and these additions to the surroundings (alien) are a commonly expressed part of human culture.

7. Your music, with these looped rhythmic parts and sound waves, can be understood as an artistic expression of the early conception of time, in archaic societies : circular time (as opposed to a straight, rectilinear history). Is it an inspiring idea for you ?

Yes it is. I have long thought that the notion that time is only linear was some how wrong. It was at odds with my own perception of time. There are references to this in my work. The missing persons in Tin of Drum turn up again in My life as a Ghost as voices communicating through a computer program in a sort of 21st century equivalent of a séance. They don’t know where they are but they have simply stepped out of this time frame. Their narrative will be visited again and will hopefully become the basis of a planned short story to be published at some point in the future. Missing persons is also the basis of the next series of video pieces I am working on and further explores the ideas of time.

8. What is the programmed future for the Reformed Faction. Do you plan other records, etc. ?

Reformed Faction has become a very active part of my creative output at the moment. It is very satisfying to work with someone else closely and to share the creative process. I find it very easy to work with Mark (Spybey) and it is good to have someone to bounce ideas off and to generate a momentum to a project. There are quite a few future releases planned. We are currently working on the next release, which will appear later this year, and we have a short tour of live shows in Germany in September and have been asked to be artists in residence at the prestigious Toon festival in Holland next year. Other live shows and festivals are to be confirmed soon, and if circumstances permit we will tour USA next year. We are also working on a project, which involves Jared Louche (Chemlab) providing spoken word pieces to which Mark and I are adding the music. All in all things are quite busy musically and artistically at the moment.