15 Questions to Gustaf Hildebrand
TobiasHi! How are you? Where are you?
Hello there! I’m just fine, thanks. I’m in my livingroom, in front of my extremely messy desk, somewhere in Sweden.
What’s on your schedule right now?
Not
too much at the moment, dabbling with some new material and trying to
revise my studio setup with some new hardware and gadgets.
You’re music has almost unanimously been described as “dark”. What do you personally associate with it?
Funny
you should mention that. To people who usually don’t listen to this
kind of music I often end up describing it as “space rumblings” or
“ruin sounds” or some other similarly strange term which does little to
enlighten the person who’s asking. If it’s dark or not is a subject I
leave entirely to the listener to decide, though describing it as
upbeat or cheery would be a bit of an exaggeration, I suppose.
Personally I associate it a lot with the feelings of awe and wonder, be
it about the incomprehensible unkowns of space or more earthly things
like ruminating over how lovely ruins and abandoned places can look.
Another aspect of your work seems to be “the void” (also very much present on “Starscape”). What is so fascinating about it?
Yes,
I find it extraordinarily fascinating in the sense that this planet is
surrounded by an expanse of nothingness which is really beyond our
capability to grasp in terms of its massiveness. Gives you something to
think about, and it certainly serves as fuel for the imagination. It’s
a kind of escapism really, a desire to leave this reality behind and
journey out into the great unkown to strange and wonderous places where
no one has ever been before. I doubt that I’ll ever be able to do this,
but the concept itself serves as a great source of inspiration.
“Primordial
Resonace” has just been released on cyclic law. In comparison with many
other similarly orientated works, it is remarkably concise, a feat it
shares with its predecessor. Is it important to you that your albums
can be listened to in one continous session?
Thanks! Yes, I
think it’s very important to keep the listener’s interest throughout
the duration of the album. I find that records which have some sort of
theme (even if it happens to be relatively abstract) are a lot more
captivating than those which are just a “random” collection of songs.
Not that the latter is automatically bad, of course, but I find that a
consistent theme, mood or other form of common denominator really helps
to accent the music, hence I try to do this myself.
What
or who was your biggest influence as an artist? Do you see yourself as
part of a certain tradition or as part of a movement?
In general
I’d say that astronomy has played a big part in shaping my music, but
it’s far from the only thing. Not so much the astrophysical aspect of
it though, more in a sense of attempting to convey what might be out
there in terms of unknown places and things. When it comes to strictly
musical influences, Jerry Goldsmith’s Alien soundtrack, Lustmord and
few other classical composers come to mind, such as Arvo Pärt and
Zbigniew Preisner. I’m not sure what manner of movement I would be a
part of, perhaps the history books will tell of the great Cyclic Law
Ambient-Wave out of Scandinavia during the early 21st century?
How would you describe or characterise your composing process?
I
usually start out with a very basic sound structure which I then build
upon with all sorts of different sounds to see what fits, there’s quite
a lot of experimentation going on at this stage as to what goes
together and what doesn’t. Sometimes nothing seems to work, other times
you stumble upon something which you think sounds fantastic. It has a
degree of uncertainty to it which I enjoy.
How do you see the relationship between sound and composition?
Depends
on what kind of music you’re creating. Music doesn’t necessarily have
to be rigidly composed and structured to sound good, though maybe
Kraftwerk would disagree with me on this.
What constitutes a good live performance in your opinion? What’s your approach to performing on stage?
I
like to think that a good live performance is when you catch the
audience’s attention and hopefully don’t bore them. Music like mine
tends to go best with some manner of backdrop video, adding an
interesting visual element to the music. It’s heavily computerised
music, but I do like to use at least some manner of “analouge”
equipment on stage, be it banging on big oil drums or using a bass
guitar connected to an effects pod.
What’s your view on the music scene at present? Is there a crisis?
Ever
since man first banged two stones together in a rythmical fashion there
has been people who claim that there is a crisis in the music scene. I
guess people who are into different genres define their crisises
differently, I know that many see commercialism as the big devil while
others may have a hard time finding audiences to play for.
Some
feel there is no need to record albums any more, that there is no such
thing as genuinely “new” music. What do you tell them? Is “new” an
important aspect of what you want your pieces to be?
Saying that
there shouldn’t be any new albums recorded is a bit like saying that
you should abolish science because we’ve discovered everything there is
to discover – a pretty strange argument. Of course I want my music to
sound interesting and thought-provoking, but I wouldn’t say that for it
to sound “new” is the number one priority I have when composing.
Perhaps someone should record an album of Moldavian Fusion-Polka to
satisfy this desire for completely new music, if that hasn’t been done
before.
Do you feel an artist has a certain duty
towards anyone but himself? Or to put it differently: Should art have a
poltical/social or any other aspect apart from a personal sensation?
I’ll
never include any political references in my material, but music is a
very powerful medium and should not be underestimated when it comes to
conveying messages, be they political, social or otherwise. Personally,
I prefer when issues like these are kept out of music. If I wanted
politics and social commentary I’d go watch CNN or the latest
government-scrutinising documentary.
You are given the position of artistic director of a festival. What would be on your program?
All of my favourite bands, decadence and perhaps some alcohol.
A
lot of people feel that some of the radical experiments of modern
compositions can no longer be qualified as “music”. Would you draw a
border – and if so, where?
I think it’s very easy to dismiss
something as “not qualifying as music”, especially if it’s on the
extreme experimental end of the spectrum such as noise and similar
styles. It’s a statement which says more about the person who utters it
than the audio he or she is trying to describe. All I really ask is
that you should keep an open mind, what constitutes good and bad music
is completely subjective, however. I don’t expect everyone to like
everything, but that doesn’t mean you should automatically dismiss a
certain style as not being music.
Many artists dream of a “magnum opus”. Do you have a vision of what yours would sound like?
I
have no idea! A couple of decades from now when I look back on my
discography I might be able to say that I liked a certain album better
than another, but right now I really can’t say.
Discography:
Starscape (Cyclic Law) 2004
Primordial Resonance (Cyclic Law) 2006
Out of the Darkling Light Into the Bright Shadows/with Peter Bjargo (Erebusodora) 2006
Homepage:
Gustaf Hildebrand
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