Livejournal interview: Dzima
Dzima is another "LJ star" that have a few albums released over at his blog. Interesting glitchmusic shares space with John Lennon covers made in a reggae style. This is the interview to get to know more about him. As all LJ-interviews are supposed to do.
Cap_scaleman: I wonder if you're a traveling person because your songs often
seems to be recorded between different cities. Why do you travel and do you enjoy
to travel? Do you have any stories from your travels?
Dzima: Basically all those places where I recorded my songs are the places
where I have lived (Australia, Japan, Brazil).
The reason why I have travelled is that, well, I wasn't satisified
with what life had to offer in my surroundings so I searched for other
places where I could live and see more. In the past, I was in a sort
of a "mission" but I have learned to relax about it and tamed this
restlessness I think.
Stories about travelling? That's worth an interview in itself! I
wouldn't know where to start. Even though I do remember stories,
feelings, memories from those travels I
wouldn't single any in particular as the most important. They were all
important in their own way.
So send me more questions if you want to hear Dzima's travels stories.
CS: What do you want to say with your music? Or do you just want to
make records with a variation of electronic music and some more rock
oriented pieces?
D: What do I want say... I think that as musician I'm bit of a fraud. My
goal is that I'd like to make sound art/noise that passes as pop music
but it's not really 'music'.
I started out like everyone else does, you know, playing pop songs on
a cheap acoustic guitar and etc. But then as soon as I started getting
into composers like Schoenberg, Stockhausen and Cage, I threw
everything away and told myself "everything I knew is wrong". Like a
good Fluxus artist, I deconstructed all things I had learned about
music and art and I started to create with this template on my mind. I
made noise music galore during this time.
When there was nothing left to deconstruct I realised I had been in
this dark world of experimentalism for too long and had lost touch
with what I enjoy listening and playing so I decided it's time to go
back to the early naive days (with my now acquired extra baggage of
knowledge) and try to build from that. So the motto from now on is
"Constructing Old Buildings" (instead of "collapsing new
buildings"). The idea is not build replicas of buildings but somehow
erect buildings that have travelled in time and arrived here and now
with all the cracks, mould and cobwebs one would expect to find in an
old building. A metaphor: not Mock Tudor but a Tudor building that was
put in a time machine and is being sonicified through your
headphones/stereo/laptop speakers.
!Here's the goss for the future of Dzima's music: soon enough I'll
release the sequel album to 'Skill' which keeps the same vein going
on: a mixture of new and old tracks; a strong contrast between easy
listening tracks and very challenging ones, something like Selected
Ambient Works a la Pisces Iscariot/Rattle and Hum vol. I and II.
The follow-up to them, or the "third proper album" is going to be the
style of "DSP chamber soft rock" but different to what those people on
labels like Plop and Tomlab were doing a couple of years ago. I'll
revive my violin and I want a saxophon player in it! Literally Brian
Ferry gone glitch.
CS: Do you have any records out on any real labels?
D: Not at all. Once you realise that getting a deal with labels is not
really a matter of how capable and talented you are, you learn how to
stop worrying about recognition and, you know, love the bomb.
CS: Why did you ever start out making music? Did you start because of the
music another artist made?
D: It seemed to me like "why not do it?" kind of thing. There's just
another person in my extended family who is a visual artist, all the
rest of my relatives are doctors or economists/businessmen (they are
not all necessarily wealthy I should note). Should I be boring like
them? Or maybe do something else? Once again, why I started making
music is question worthy of yet another interview but I can recall
very clearly from day one I picked up a guitar I wanted to
write/make/compose music. When I was learning how to play the violin
with this unsurprisingly narrow minded classically trained teacher, I
was so frustated because I just wasn't interested in performing music
written by people who died centuries ago. What a waste of time, I
could be writing my own!
Another example of my will to be not only the performer but composer:
a few years back, I was in a band (whose main achievement was to have
been the opening act to Einstuerzende Neubauten once). The experience
of 'being a band' had more of a negative impact on me than a positive
one. With them, I was only allowed to be a cog in the wheel so I had
to repress any ideas because they had to be discussed (and probably
rejected) with the other members and the 'band leader'. Exactly like
politicians do in parliament. This experience made me go into the 'one
man band' path, which is good. At times. Now I'm figuring realising
again that it's good to collaborate as well. Clashing and matching!
CS: Any recommended artist to listen to?
D: The artists I want to be inspired by are: After Dinner/Haco; all the
artists on the Noble label;
Brian Eno, King Crimson, Yes; Pink Floyd's Meddle; The Cure's
Seventeen Seconds; Jim O'Rourke and Vincent Gallo; Sakamoto Ryuuichi.
I can enjoy the most obscure release next to some pretty mainstream
things almost at the same time.
CS: Are you interested in art? Do you make art yourself or do you rather
watch art someone else have made? Which painter/artmaker is your favourite one?
D: Of course. I have studied sculpture for a little while and used to
like Richard Serra, Brancusi, Calder and Max Ernst (as a sculptor).
I'm also a fan of Beuys, Ben Vautier, Kawara On, Joseph Kosuth and
Donald Judd. Not a big fan of Picasso. And I was forgetting Duchamp,
Man Ray and also Magritte!
I ended up veering towards photography because it gives you
possibility of creating works while looking to the world outside of
yourself. It's also needed very often and can be seen everywhere you
go: for example, let's say I made a sculpture to be on the cover of my
album. I'll certainly need to take a photo of it.
CS: What do you would've happend if the electronic revolution actually
happend? Would the world be a better place to live?
D: I'm not so sure about the positive effect of electronics in our lives
the way things stand. In an ideal world, the people and politicians
would seriously try to make machines tools that make everyone's life
easier instead being yet another problem...
CS: Why did you ever start an LJ account?
D: I can't remember why but until 2 years ago I didn't have a website at
all so LJ was a goopd place to start. It also seemed like a nice and
interesting community to be a part of. That's all.
CS: Loud bigga-boom eighties Guitar or smeeriggle freeze 30 jazz guitar?
D: Whose doesn't like an 80's guitar? The intellectuals and indie snobs
might cringe and say they prefer 30's jazz guitar. I simply add them
and say I prefer loud and freeze 110 smeerigle guitar.
CS: Thank you for this interview?
D:Thank you Cap Scaleman and thanks to all animals with hard shells (not
the ones with breakable shells though).