FEED»Normally people ask me what I think of Fennesz’s music« – intervju med Tim Hecker
Jag är fullkomligt besatt av honom. Eller, snarare, av hans musik. Tim Heckers senaste båda epos »Radio Amor« och »Mirages« har en plats i mitt hjärta som få andra musikaliska verk. När kompisar som dissar honom säger att det bara är ljudgröt så förstår jag faktiskt ingenting, för även om de saknar beats så är det två av de mest fulländade abstrakta kompositionerna jag har hört. Vid sidan av Brian Enos »Apollo« och The Future Sound of Londons »Life Forms« och »ISDN« är »Radio Amor« och »Mirages« de mest kompletta harmoni-hantverken som skapats.
Hösten 2003 satt jag en natt i ett inte helt okej tillstånd och skrev ett mail på tiotusen tecken till Tim. Jag berättade för honom vad »Radio Amor« hade gjort för mig, att den hade varit bakgrundsmusik till varje ord jag skrev i en roman det året, att den försatte mig i ett kreativt tillstånd där det kändes som att allt i livet blev perfekt. Jag spillde bönorna i ett jättelångt mail och han svarade: »nice to hear that people listen to my music, and take something from it!«. Jag hade ju hoppats på att han skulle utveckla lite, berätta lite mer. Men med tanke på mitt mails ton tyckte han nog att jag var en skitskum nätstalker som behövde hållas kort.
Jag lät det gå lite mer än ett år. Sen skickade jag ett nytt mail…
»Radio Amor« circled around the themes of a geographic location and the life of a fisherman. Did you have any special conceptual approach when composing »Mirages«?
– I was focused on working towards some understanding of goth, as opposed to a
particular story like a latino fisherman. I was mostly interested in creating something that was heavy, and carried a strong sense of emotion.
»Radio Amor« was very well-recieved by critics and listeners. Did you feel any creative pressure following that, as, for example, if it was difficult to live up to the qualities again without repeating »Radio Amor«?
– Certainly, but only to a small extent. I work in my studio, hang out with friends, drink beer on the weekends, wake up with a hangover. I enjoy watching English Football on Saturday mornings. I play in a football league here in Canada. I do the occasional trip to Europe for a single festival performance, and a few dates here and there. So the »success« of Radio Amor is very abstract indeed, as I have no idea how many copies were sold since Mille Plateaux went bankrupt!
Even in the most abstract parts of your music, I still get the sense of a melody’s being in there somewhere, although there’s no instrument playing it. It’s like me as the listener »fills in the blanks« and the melody appears even though the music coming out of the speakers at a given moment may be just a granulated chord. Do you understand what I mean? Is this a way you intended one could/should experience your music in?
– Yeah sure — I wanted to totally immerse the pieces in melody — whether they’re very present and up front, or whether they lurk back in the shadows like a predator. And those predator pieces are very much more of an open book!
Your compositions often have dissonance and distorsion rather than crystal-clear bitreducing or hi-fi reverbations. Is it more of an artistic challenge to work with a rough cut-up sound than a slick digital one? Do you think it would be possible to express what »Mirages« expresses with clear sounds?
– I am trying to get away from the cold easy sterility of powerbook music. While I do very much use state of the art reverbs and bitreducers, I equally employ old broken technologies — analogue tape delays, tube amps, guitar pedals, mixer feedback/art. This is more challenging I think but also more rewards than preset electronica, and hopefully it ends up not serving that purpose.
You use takes from guitar and other »conventional« instruments in your music. Does the way you work with textures, effects etc on such sound sources differ compared to when you work with a synthetic sound source?
– I can’t really differentiate whether a sample came from guitar, it is still treated brutally via digital processing, as much as anything so-called »synthetic« sounds. They are all treated with prejudice!
As Im sure you know, Brian Eno said his ambient music was to be like a scent or a colour, merely functioning as a backdrop in a room without evoking any particular emotion other than enhancing the emotions than the listener already had before playing the music. What’s your view on that manifesto with regards to your own music and artistry?
– I respect this approach, and also hope that my music could serve on this level, but find it sterile and limiting. Personally I prefer my music to be listened to full-blast somewhat like black Sabbath or ozzy. Drifting textural music takes on a totally other life at this volume — quite physical.
Obviously, the scene for electronic music has exploded in the last couple of years. A distributor I met in Germany a couple of weeks ago said that the supply is now bigger than the demand and that the shear number of releases are limiting the chances of an artist’s reaching his/hers audience rather than increasing them. What’s your view on that opinion?
– I’d say that the distributor plays a role in this by heeding to market demands by supporting so-called folk-tronica or ex-electronic musicians who are now in a pop band. I think it’s totally crap and cynical view — there will always be an avalanche of »supply«, its the labels and distributor’s job to filter through the oceans of crap and find the truly brilliant music irrespective of genre and support it totally. Does this distributor think there’s some shortage of garage-rock bands hoping to sign with XL? Theres billions of them.
Do you think the current development of experimental electronic music may turn into an attractive soundtrack for commercials, movies etc as for example drum’n'bass eventually did a few years into its evolution, and if so, do you believe that commercial success would be good or bad for originality and innovation in today’s electronic music?
– I think that commercial success would be bad for the genre….happens every time once an artist gets a taste of financial success, they begin to assume they deserve the accolades and cash, and begin creating sub-standard music, which perhaps subconsciously caters to the mediocre tastes of the marketplace.
Techno producers and other people who are into the dance/club-scene often emphasize the necessity of »staying underground«. Do you think experimental
electronic music also needs this or would nothing be lost if it made public breakthrough?
– I can’t see a public breakthrough, as if the music is to be truly »experimental« it will always or should always challenge listeners, so that there would likely always be marginal support. You got to remember though that all these terms thrown around… whether it’s experimental, alternative, underground etc are often empty-signifiers, and do nothing more that actually serve the marketing impulse of global capitalism. The logic of capitalism is that in a world of global homogenous products, people have a hunger for romantic notions of difference, individuality and one-of a kinds, so this also plays into the music market as well. So I guess its a neither-or!!!
You ask tough questions! Normally people ask me what I think of Fennesz’s music!
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Taggar: > Brian Eno > brus > electronica > fennesz > intervju > laptop > Tim Hecker
