I have to laugh at a lot of the intentional mystifications that surrounds electronic composers and the so called "journalist" that write about the proces. Magazines like ND (from Austin, Texas) are turgid overblown and pretentios beyond belief and neccessitiy. Too many artist and writers both fall in love with their own words and the sounds of their bloated pseudointellectualism. In ND 20 /the new issue, just out)-just read carefully through the pedantic and grandiloqent musings by Jeff Filla, Rob Forman, Dan Plunkett, Micheal Prime and Giancarlo Toniutti. Filla is the worst. Some academics never learn how to put their educational training aside and to overcom their urge to cooly critique and reduce everyting in to a semantic language of convulted snobbery.
People are multifacetted and complex by nature but can communicate on many levels. Who was it… the painter cezanne i think, who said "every pice an artist produces is really a picture of himself. What i record is an expression of all the thoughts emotions and directions within myself. It is important to remember however that in my case, although i am the noise and the noise is me- that that defines the sound only. External factors like graphic presentation ore how other people reicieve the work doesnt reflect upon the contense of the material at all. I make sounds for my own listening enjoyment and couldnt care less what others think. I do have an intricate and scizophrenic madness behind my ideas- but rarely would i choose to share them with people i dont know.
When you here something of mine… you are opening the door to one hour, one day, one week ore one month of my life and sharing in the energy that makes me get out of bed very day.
What is your relationship with sound?
It is difficult sometimes to fully capture these feelings with words. Early in life, my relationshipp with sounds whas crucial (quite litterary) to life and death. I had very poor eyesight and needed to have uranium seeds inserted under my left eye. There was no laser surgery in the laste 1950´s /early 1960´s, just like a blind person i had to become acutely aware of everything moving around me in order to survive. Hydralic mechanism that opened, elevators , aircraft flying over my head and dozens of electrical devices mesmerized me and became familiar to me like an urban lullaby. Untill the radoactive pellets cured my vision i depended on this rutine of cut-up noises to guide me to school, and then back home.
This heightened awereness was reinforced later on by other sounds i can remember, we lived in a tall six-story apartment building that had a massive oilburner and a giant incinerator. The power that these heat producing units generated was incredible. Constant non-stop low end rumbling and the heavy clunk of steel and iron. My grandmother lived close by and she had a very noisy coal burning furnace and an old rca victrola. My father bought a shortwave radio and a bunch of radio-equipment just about the time i turned seven, ofcourse i was fascinated with music, but i could just as easily sit for hours and enjoy the the pure white static and equating frequences of the radio equipment.
Music and sounds are emotional conduits and can alter our mood and behaviour. Certain pieces, can calm or irritate,some can be uplifting ore evoke profound sadness.A lot of what i create is deliberately enigmatic to affirm my own confusion-or it is loud and powerful to vent my anger and frustration. Sound is a language and a variety of sources can serve to form an aural alfabet. Building blocks and tools of communication. True silence is a anomaly and missconception. Even the quietest interludes are alive with sonic activity. It is a love/hate relationship to be sure. Sound can be controlled ore accidental. After a lifetime of wresling with electronics, ambient sounds of nature and the cacphony of daily industry-plus the voices of our own inner demons and muses…i fully expect to welcome the total and absolute silence and nothingless of the death and grave eternal. We should rage aginst the dying of the light- when we are vital, young and and sexually charged. When we can force the issues of our rebellion the end is not an adventure, it is simply the end. The quietude of forever is an unequivocal gift- and shuld not be feared.
Why did you start making music?
At first it was a challenge to see how to build songs and make the equipment produce the desired end result. I started in a normal music band as a vocalist then learned to play bass by eighteeen, guitar by twentyone and keyboards and and drums by thirty. Because tonalty, melody, harmony and musicianship is both mathematical and disciplined-with study and practise it is easy to become good at it. Once you master composition and performance next you should instinctivly yearn and desire to be atonal, dissonant, antiform and spontaneus. To learn to expand your repetoire and embrace as many unusual styles as possible. During manic and obsessive improvisations at some point it turns into noise and cacaphony. Since the early to mid 1980`s i fooled around with feedback and tape manipulation in my playing. Growing up in the 1970´s i had done reel to reel and casette recoring and i had always wanted to try more experimental things. After 15 years of group interaction (i think i was in about a dozen different bands)… i just got sick of songs and regular instuments. I wanted to record in the style of others who inspired me and use my skills in totally different ways. I had enjoyed electronic sounds and using pedals and efx boxes as primary sources of sounds, so i started to make tapes using turntables, distortion, delays and other noisemakers as my instruments.
I was listening to Eric Lunde. Le syndicatt, tnb, Contrelled Bleeding etc. And i set up a room in the concrete basement of the house where i could plug in my stuff and make as a loud racket as i wanted. Over the next few years i added about 2,000 lbs/ 925 kilos of scrap metal all around the space, then did more live recordings in stereo.After a few more years i discovered japanese noise and around that time i bought my first four-track machine, i found a collaborator/partner (rodger) in 1989 and we practised editing an cut-up techniques, then did our first tape in 1990. Once we knew what we where doing my whole reson for continuing to make recordings was to developour own unique sound and build a colection of tapes, cds and records that i personally wanted to hear. To have exactly what i enjoyed listening to most, required that i do the the job myself. Now i have a lot of material and noise in the style that i like best.
What are your liveshows like? Do you do any kind of performance art?
On the rare occasions we would do a live performance we try to attack the audience with a very loud sound and something interesting to look at. We dont use film or video backgrounds.In the past we´ve brought some of our metal on stage which makes for a massive display and resonates with great power right through the bodies of people watching when we mic the pieces and pound on them with sledgehammers.
Other times we´ve had extra participants do strange things while we played in the shadows. Once a crazy drunk guy ate live mice soaked in vodka, once we had a naked woman and a transvestite with real breasts do sex acts on us and on each other. We´ve used controlled pyrotechnics and fireworks and at the end a simulated (and very convincing) strangulation. Somtimes We´ve just stood behind our equipment and done nothing at all except make noise, once we destroeyd a large tv set that was still plugged into the wall socket with a pitchfork., stabbed it, lifted it up with blue sparks and small pieces exploding out of it, smashed it into the floor. That time i was lycky i didnt get electrocuted. If we do things on stage its usually somewhat planned but we dont consider it "performance art" at all.
Since Tim joined Macronymphain late ´96 we havent played a live show. He lives in san fransico and im on the east side so we havent had a chance to plug in together and do our thing, eventually it will happen. For now we exchange source tapes in the mail and work as a collaborative team from a long distance relationship. We speak ofen however so only the live aspect of being a cohesive unit is missing.
Will you do any liveshows outside the usa?
Maybe well get a chance to visit Toronto, Canada but we wont go to Europé unless the people inviting us over pay well and supply our round -trip air tickets.
Tim has gone to Japan a few times on his own and i know he would like to go there again in the future. He spent his own money the last time and i dont know what his requirements would be. Speaking for myself only, japan is much to expensive for me and i would not go there without advance money and planetickets. If i ever did leave the country to go on a holiday (i havent taken a real vacation in ten years) id probably visit south america. I have good contacts in Chile amd Venezuela plus a good friend in Ecuador. I like the latino lifestyle, the super influated value of tge us dollar and the ocen coastline. Food drugs, beer and liquor are all quite cheap and its easy to find all sorts of erotic sex and entertainment. Guyaquil and Santiago are my exotic fantasy destinations.
You have made a split cd with jpana artist Yasutoshi Yoshida and a split with Evil moisture-why so many splits?
Well weve also made a split 7" with Incapacitants, a split 72 with Smell and quim. Split casettes with Mlesth, Armenia kdf and Separation plus tape collaborations with Taint, Monde Bruits, Grey wolves, Third organ and other people as well. Somtime soon a split 8" ep will be coming out on K, tanos label that is a macronympha / msbr record.
Working with other artist is always a positive experience when you fully communicate your ideas and share a common vision. It is possible to gain insight and inspiration from one antoher and perhaps do things a bit differenet than usual, like you would if you were putting together a project of your own. A few of these cooperations were to help realize the releases of something special.The transsexual record for exampel came with a 20 page booklet and required extra financing so it was neccesary to split the cost with someone else.
With Incapacitants , Mleshst, Taint, Armenia, Msbr and the others… it was a mutual desire and adnmiration for each others work that pulled us together and meshed so well with our noises and aestethics that we decided to make the colaboration and ongoing one.We will do Macronymoha, Ovmn and One dark eye recordings in the future and once in a while we will ad some other friends and comrades into the mix as well like A. Bretnall, L. Sabbato K. Kusafuka, Y. Yoshida and K. Matsuyama, someday we will also work with taint (K.Brewer) again and do collaboration work with Patrick Oneill (skin crime). Another person i´d like to work with is Endo (formerly killer bug). We´ll be doing a split lp album with Mikko Aspa/Grunt for his Freak animal label in finland and a collaboration with k2 for kinky music and RRR. I guess expanding our number of commitments helps us stay focused on the recording process because there is no time to take time of and get complacent, lazy or lethargic… were never satisfied with standing still and patting ourselfs on the back for a job recently finsihed.
The "obleration" cd has two different kinds of handmade artpackaging, why?
Actually three different versions are available.The original handmade package is the cd disc in a cardboard sleeve with white and black side panels. Inside is asticker and an insert that gives the trackslist and contact information. We got this idea from RRR Ron and his Pure series. Paper materials are easy to work with and less expensive than plastic cases,so for the regular edition we could kep the prices low for both wholesale and retail. Since 500 cds went to Yasutoshi in Japan and 500 stayed with me here in usa we each used our ingenuity and scrounged around to find some interesting materials to put together two special editions that are collectible objects.
The usa version is a black rubber sleeve with aliminium attached to the front and the Japanese version is a metal sleeve wrapped in heavy duty screen material with re-cykled electronic circuit boards, Transitors, capacitors and spare parts from destroyed components.
Both designs and the regular edition to convey a sense of "obleration" . Destruction, blackness end of humanity, doomsday, nuclear war and the meltdown of civilization. Yoshidasan said that he was inspired by early Macronympha packaging from 1993 and 1994 were we used many such electronic parts attached to the outside of our tape cases. I was inspired by blackness, nothingless, the great dark void, zero, and the old 1960´s film "Dr strangelove"... or how i learned to worship the bomb" the scene where slim pickens rides on his atomic weapon into the sky once the bomb doors open and the payload is dropped always sticks in my mind as a wondeful example of how stupid and corrupt war truly is. Classic introspective and "see through the bullshit" lsd influenced cinema
Your live cassettes from early ´96 is titled "urban decay" is this something that influences your music, something you try to express?
Oh sure, Europe is old and decrepit and now so is america. Our Infrastructure is collapsing and a lot of the monay paid in taxes to fix roads, bridgets and rebuild the urban wasteland goes into the greedy pockets of crooked politicians and constructions contracters who are mostly thieves.
Especially here on the east coast of the usa and the gateway to the midwest of america, we call it "the rust belt". In Pittsburgh the steel mines are abandoned relics like dinosaur bones fossilzied in slag and coal dust. Skeletal remains that show how the large corporations picked the bones and lifes of their workers clean. Vultures like Andrew Carnegie, Thomas Frick, J.P Morgan, George Westinghouse and Richard Scaife who exploited the area, sucked it dry then left the ghost towns behind.
Unlike the cheap wood and tubleweed ghosttowns built by the railroads and the miners out west, our ghost towns are massive monuments of twisted junk metal, scrap iron and monolithic structures which symbolize indentured servitude and the era of the compaby store, the company neighborhood, and the poorly built schools and librarys left behind, now crumbling to dust.
You can see such sights all through New york, New jersey, New england , Pennsylvania and Ohio. Like indan totems and death masks they gape and glare sarcastically mocking the failure of american dream and our transition from a manufacturing/industrial empire to an economy whose wealth is based on information technology, paper assetts and commodities trading. Thirty-five percent (at least) of our commercial real estate is owned by English banks and other foreign conglomerates so since most of the lease and rental income ends up leaving the country very little of the net profits are available to fix up the dilapilated areas. Everything about the current system infuriates us, so we use it to strenthen our Anarchy and feed our disgust.
What is planned for the future?
By December ´97 a Macronympha cd on Selfabuse titled "intensive care". All the stuff i mentioned earlier and in early ´98 our other harsh side project OVMN (optimum volume maximum noise) will have a cd titled "visios of autoerotic excess and electromagneticife force procedurs" out on Armed and loaded.
Weve recorded two lp albums both of less harsh more experimental and textured soundtrack styled work. it could be released as a double album or perhaps just a single cd. This project we call- One dark eye.
Tim has a Stimbox cd with some collaboration material titled "enjoy happiness" he is distributing on his own H.L.A.S label. Both stimbox and macronympha will do 7" eps for the Self-Abuse serial killer series.Skin crime just finished their record for the collection whose subject is the mad russian Chikatilla and Tim will do Purdy, the Ak-47 childkiller from Stockton, California I´m doing Shawcross ("missbegotten son") from upstate New York. Also next year in 1998 we will do a Macronympha cd for Release label in Millersville Pennsylvania.
Who knows what else will happen? Right now i have a c-60 mastertape that is a pretty cool macronympha/Mlesth collaboration- and we are looking for a label to release it as a cd (if anyone is interested.
