18 Mart Çarşamba akşamı Babylon’da, Bant Sunar: City Star Nights by Converse serisi kapsamında gerçekleşecek Pluxus konseri ve DJ Sven Fortmann performansı için iki kişiye davetiye kazanma şansı!

Aşağıdaki sorunun doğru yanıtını bant [at] bant [dot] tv adresine gönderen ilk iki kişi geceye davetlimiz olarak katılacaktır…

Soru:
*Pluxus grubunun kendi yürüttüğü plak şirketinin adı nedir?

Interview by J. Hakan Dedeoğlu

 

This is the original English version of the interview with Pluxus for Bant Magazine’s March-April 2009 issue.

 

The electronic trio Pluxus disregards the common feeling of sunshiny pop in Swedish music. With their analogue synthesizers and hipnotic beats, Pluxus’ songs have travelled from their

hometown to many living rooms. And you can’t deny the fact that The Ford Fiesta commercials were helpful in that sense. Sebastian Tesch of the Swedish trio answers our questions before his band’s first ever Istanbul show as the guest of Bant Presents: City Star Nights by Converse on the 18th of March in Babylon.

 

How did everything start for you? What brought you three together?

­­­We are all brought up in the same suburb outside of Stockholm called Täby. We all played in lots of different bands mostly guitar based music at the time.

 

What was the initial musical direction in the band when you first started?

Musically, are you far away from the first sounds that you created? pluxus first cassete release 1997 - Music inspired by the architecture of Kennedy International Airport  is in some ways similar to solid state and Fas 2 as well. We sort of took a round trip.

 

What does the name stand for? What is the story?

I think Sebastian came up with the name pluxus, maybe it has something to do with the fluxus movement, I can’t remember.

 

Giving a song for big brand’s advert can change a lot of thing for a band. We have seen good examples of this. So, how did the Ford Fiesta ad come up? Was it a big surprise for you guys? Has the ad changed anything for you? Are you way more popular now?

Its great to be featured in a tv ad. The song got like a second life and was played so many times all over Europe. We could see on MySpace when the add started to play in Turkey. All

off a sudden we got lots of friend requests from there, so it’s going to be great to finally play in Istanbul.

 

The sweet sunny pop sound in the Swedish music scene is almost unavoidable. It is very identical, we can see a similar sunshine pop sense in most of the bands coming from Sweden. You on the other hand, seem to stand away from this and have a non-Swedish sound. This brings us to two questions:

1-What do you think of the Swedish music scene in general?

There are lots of great swedish electronic acts like Familjen and Parken and also lots of good alternative female artists but in general I have to say that the Swedish music scene sucks and is dominated by Eurovision and Idol.

 

2-And if there is, what are the Swedish elements in the music of Pluxus?

Like Swedish folk music, even if its happy and up there is always kind of cold, dark, still sadness. Maybe thats a similarity.

 

When you first started in 1996, I guess there was a whole lot of different electronic music scene in Sweden. After 12 years, how do you see the electronic scene in Scandinavia and Europe?

In 1996 the Swedish electronic music scene was quit dull, mostly boring trance. But i think that we were one of the bands that played live and built a bridge between the indie and electronic scenes. Now electronic music is much more accepted, there are a few good clubs

in Stockholm and sometimes they even play good music in elevators.

 

You were silent for a long time, before the release of “Solid State”. What took you so long and what has changed with the band’s sound with “Solid State”?

After “European Onion” we needed to do something else. So we moved in to a new studio and started to use computers. Solid state is very sound oriented compared to the earlier records. that are more melody based. And to discuss if a hihat sound is ok or not takes time. We felt no press or had no big record label on our backs so we took the time we

needed.

 

You use a lot of vintage synthesizers and acoustic sounds too… First of all, can you give us some tips on which keyboards you use, and which vintage keyboard is your favorite? Also, when playing live, what acoustic sounds do you use live, or do you mostly use them as samples?

All synths are good at different things so its hard to give tips but the mono machine and machine drum are two really cool instruments. We use a lot of samples and controllers but we try to play live as much as we can. Adam plays the guitar. To watch 3 guys behind computers sending e-mails on stage is not really that exiting is it?

 

You are also running your own record label Pluxemburg. Isn’t it hard to keep it going in today’s circumstances? What other bands have you been releasing from Pluxemburg?

The record industry today is hard but if a record is good it will still sell. We have released Andreas Tilliander, fibes o fibes and Jeans Team. We also have some new artists up our sleeves  but its a secret so keep up to date.

 

How does Pluxus operate when creating songs?

It differs a lot, sometime inspiration comes from a sound and after many work hours it becomes a song. Some songs are fragments of stuff we made or recorded at home and then taken to our studio.

 

What are you listening to nowadays?

We all listen to lots of different stuff. Last time I talked to Sebastian he was into old 78″ records.

 

2009 Mart-Nisan sayımız çıkmıştır.
Yeni sayının içeriğinden birkaç başlık ise şöyle:

2009 March-April issue is out.
Below are some highlights of the new issue:

Konu: Fatura / Topic: Invoice
Röportajlar / Interviews: Ship Of Fools, Pluxus, Kria Brekkan, Jen Stark, Proudpilot, Kris Kuksi
Diğer Konular / Other Subjects: Ergen Günlükleri, Mickey Rourke, Motown Records, The Dunedin Sound

DJ: SVEN FORTMANN
18 MART ÇARŞAMBA 21:30

Bant Sunar: City Star Nights konser serisi, Mart ayında sahneye İsveçli elektronik müzik topluluğu Pluxus’u çıkarıyor. Pluxus her ne kadar geçtiğimiz sene yayınladıkları “Transient” adlı şarkının Ford Fiesta’nın reklam müziğinde kullanılmasıyla ünlenmiş olsa da, Stockholm’lü üçlünün synthesizer’lar, sample’lar ve bilgisayar kullanarak ortaya koyduğu elektro-pop ziyafetinin geçmişi 1998 senesine kadar dayanıyor. İsveç’te üretilen elektronik müziklerde orijinal ve taze tatların yakalanmasının kolay olmadığı o günlerde, Devo, Jean Jaques Perry, Kraftwerk, Aphex Twin ve Matmos gibi isimlere duydukları hayranlıkla yere sağlam basarak yola çıkan Pluxus, albümlerini Pluxemburg adlı kendi kurdukları plak şirketlerinden yayınlıyor. 2006 tarihli, “Solid State” isimli ve synth-pop’un karanlık doğasına da dokunan çalışmaları ise geçtiğimiz sene minimal techno’nun en önemli isimlerinden biri olan Kompakt Records tarafından yeniden basılarak takdir toplamıştı. Pluxus’un insanın içine işleyen elektronik melodilerine teslim olmaya hazır olun. Gecenin DJ’liğini ise Lodown dergisinin yaratıcısı ve tasarımcısı olan, Berlin’li Sven Fortmann üstleniyor. Fortmann, breakbeat, electro-house, dance-rock’ın çarpıcı seçkileri arasında gezinen setiyle 18 Mart gecesi kabinin arkasına geçiyor.

www.myspace.com/pluxus
www.myspace.com/fortsch

 

BANT PRESENTS: CITY STAR NIGHTS BY CONVERSE #17
PLUXUS @ BABYLON, ISTANBUL
DJ: SVEN FORTMANN
MARCH 18TH, WEDNESDAY AT 9:30 PM

The concert series invite Swedish electronic music trio Pluxus to Babylon stage. Although Pluxus spreaded the word through their song “Transient” accompanying the Ford Fiesta TV commercials, the delicious electro-pop they have been producing with synthesizers, samplers and computers dates back to year 1998 when it wasn’t that easy to create electronic sounds that are fresh and original in their hometown. With influences such as Devo, Jean Jaques Perry, Kraftwerk, Aphex Twin and Matmos, Pluxus was well aware of this situation… They have been releasing their albums through their own label Pluxemburg. Their 2006 album “Solid State”, which gently touches to the darker nature of the world of synth-pop, was crowned when Kompakt Records, the biggest name when it comes to minimal techno, rereleased it. Get ready to surrender to Pluxus’s catchy electronic melodies on the 18th of March. There is also a speacial guest who will be DJing the night: Sven Fortmann, the editor in chief of the Lodown magazine from Berlin. Fortmann’s set will be wandering around breakbeat, electro-house and dance-rock. Should be fun.

 

 

www.myspace.com/pluxus
www.myspace.com/fortsch

 

Interview by Ekin Sanaç

This is the original English version of the interview with Kría Brekkan for Bant Magazine’s March-April 2009 issue.

 

Once the voice of the charismatic Icelandic band Múm, one of the twin sisters on the cover of Belle & Sebastian’s “Fold Your Hands Child, You Walk Like A Peasant”, the princess of the magical lands: Kría Brekkan. After Brekkan left Múm, she started her solo career as the founder of sounds as innocent as lullabies sung for grown-ups. She tells us about her approach to music and to life in general before her first Istanbul appearance in arkaoda on the 15th of March as the guest of Kulaktan Kulağa -the concert series Bant has been organizing with arkaoda. Here’s the interview we did with her through e-mail:

 

*As a multi-instrumentalist, what instruments do you play and use in your music? And which one is your most beloved one?

The piano is special to me. I did not touch it for the first few years when I started creating music. Probably cause I had some classical training on it. I returned to it 5 years ago, and it is definetly the instrument I can express myself most intricatly on,  beside my voice. I used to play the accordion a whole lot. I want to get back into it. Else I´ll make music with whatever I find that makes inspiring sound.

 

*Besides the last year’s “Wildering” EP, you also have a self-release called “Apotropaíosong Armor”. Most people are not interested in self-releasing their stuff anymore, which is quite sad. What are your motivations in self-releasing your music?

It is all part of a process. I had a record deal with a label before I had even dreamt of it, when

I was 18, with my band at the time, múm. When I left the band I wanted to have more intimate time with music with out any structures that would relate it to music buisness, or the outside world in general.  Wildering was a litle bottle message from that dive. And it was made in collaboration with Afterhours in Japan. So it got released there by a label. Apotropaiosong Armor was born by pretty intense survival urge,on many different levels of existence. Glueing the copies became a repetitional meditative act. I thought everywhere around me, giant transformation was taking place. Myself I was suspended in the void of the unknown at the time, a scary yet interesting place. I wrote on the copies TO DIE TO! and took them to Other music record store in Manhatta. I felt the music had to get to the hands of certain people immedietly. That this would be good music for certain people right now. I didnt even see it as completed, and it is not. But i thought there was an agony that wanted to relate.  And certain beautiful abstractness that one arrives at when approching situation with no plan, model or pre-conceived idea about what to do, that i hoped would inspire. I take the copies I make to Other Music in Manhattan or sell them at my shows. I like this rather intimate exchange of them.

 

*Although your releases have been in limited editions and therefore kind of hard to get hold of, you are playing a show in Istanbul soon! How does it make you feel?

Oh, Im really excited about coming to Istanbul. I might even be too excited…

 

*Do your solo performances vary according to where you are playing? Do you always perform with the same equipment? What will accompany you on stage in Istanbul? What will be the setup like?

Yes it does vary.  My friend put up two shows for me in Berlin. He did not exactly know what I was doing, but the two very different venues where both perfect for what I do. A white gallery space with a piano, that I played and sang without a pause one night. And then a black cellar where I performed with electronics spider woman show, on my birthday.

 

*Do you always perform your own songs at your live shows? Or do you play stuff from “Pullhair Rubeye” or your other collaborations too? Do you do any covers?

I´ve done few covers. But really no more than one at a time. I never play anything from “Pullhair Rubeye”.  I made that with Avey Tare and we have not played music together for a while, though we´ve worked together in other ways.

 

*What makes your singing so appealing and special is that it remains somysterious and it is in a way hard to get. It’s like one gets carried away unconsciously and without even knowing what’s really going on. What do you most like to sing about? Do you usually write your lyrics while improvising with the music or do you write them seperately?

Mmm… I am not awfully in control of the lyrics. They sometimes come out simultaneously as a song comes to creation, and insist on beeing certain way eventhough I’d like to change a sentence. I hardly ever write lyrics down without music, I think my choice of words is very affected by the sounds they make and the feeling they give when joined with the harmonics in the tune. But they always have a deep meaning to me. Often times it is a very obvious litle story, especially with the piano songs.

 

*Who are your favorite female voices? Whose voice do you get carried away with?

I like voices that have something completely personal to them.  I don’t care if the voice is a “good singer”. I get turned off when I sense too much amount of influences in the way people express themselves. You know when you can pick out the influence and the expressions in the voice, it does not sound authentic. I get carried away with the atonality of a baby kid singing.

 

*You had a collaboration with Antony for Revered Green’s “Be Good To Earth This Season” Christmas single. How did the collaboration come about?

It was not really a collaboration with Antony. We never even met in the making of this litle record. The collaboration was mainly between me and Reverend Green, whose true name is Brad Truax, a good friend and tour manager for Animal Collective. The two of us made the song and recorded, and it was done really fast, and then Antony sung to it afterwards. The song was recorded for an annual cdr that Brad makes with his roomate and gives to his friends and family for Christmas. Josh Dipp from Animal Collective wanted to make it a 7″ release on their label.

 

*You also played on the Storsveit Nix Noltes record. Which play Greek, Balkan and Turkish folk tunes. Are you familiar with these countries’ folk tunes? Do you follow or practice a lot of world music?

Oh we mostly play Bulgarian music. We´ve played something Greek, but never anything Turkish. Good idea. We want to start playing more as we are putting out a record this spring.  Maybe I should research into Turkish folk music while I’m there. I play accordion in that band.  I don’t practise much anything. But I do love and listen to a whole bunch of music from all over the world. Most of the music I´m into and inspired by is either being made by my friends, or someone who lives on the other side of the equinox, on the otherside of the oceans. In a different world than what´s around me, that often times performs music as ritual, and that appeals to me.

 

*Was Rings’ “Black Habit” your first producing besides your own music? Was it enjoyable for you? What was the recording process like technically?

I was in a band that opperated very much as a recording process. Through that I learn much about how to engineer, the production part I pay no attention to as I do things methodlessly so they will always have certain amount of creativity to how it is done. You know my workmanship I guess. I entered the Rings project as a friend who came along to Kentucky to Paul Oldham´s house. I was brought along without any official task for me beside helping out.  But as soon as I was there, I worked with every bit of energy I had within me straight for 9 days because this needed to be created fast, and there was not much time for sleep and I was in charge of recording them. I had really never done that before unless for myself. We recorded in a bedroom style studio, without the bed in it. Around us were cornfields and it was early spring time and we all had a blast. It was really fun time, the girls were a little bit clueless about how they wanted to do things which made the process very spontanious.

 

*It feels like “Pullhair Rubeye” got really good attention and reactions. How does it feel to make music as a husband and wife duo?

Really? Uh, I must get to Turkey if that is the case! “Pullhair Rubeye” got terrible reaction everywhere i´ve so far been!  It did for sure get attention.  Much more then I realized.  Im very socially aware person, but I live an introverted life. I had no idea that people had such expectations for this record.  It was created in such personal space it didn’t even occur to me that it ever would be reviewed by someone. Me and Dave have not played music together really since recording these songs.

 

*At what points your inspirations seperate from each other with Avey Tare and at what points do they merge? What are the different flavors you think you add to the music seperately?

I´m not sure I understand clearly the question. I know I´ve been a huge insperation to him, in what way I do not know, but I think it has to do with me as a person, rather then a musician. Though maybe there might be no divisions there between. At the same time I think he has influenced me the same way. Sometimes it is hard knowing what is reality. Anyway, I made a song the other day that might sound inpired by old Animal Collective tunes, but really, it’s just because I made it on the instruments around me that happen to be his. They made these kind of sounds. The guitar had this kind of tuning. However we lived together for a while, and listen to a lot of the same music. And a lot of it comes from another continent. And between us there flows something that I can not ascribe to the senses. But the song is for a compilation given for free download for childrens to go to bed to. My song is called “Uterus Water”. If you have children, you should maybe seek it out. If not, try “the spirit cries” field recordings… From another continent…

 

*What are the plans for 2009? Touring as Avey Tare & Kria Brekkan? Are you planning to release anything as solo? Any new collaborations?

Hihi, Avey Tare and Kria Brekkan never tour together. I hardly tour myself. I do shows here and there all the time, mostly in New York. I do hope I´ll have releases this year. I have created so much the last 4 years and I’d like to soon make things more available.

 

*When did you move to New York and do you miss living in Iceland? Or does New York feel satisfactory enough to miss your hometown?

I haven’t been so much on the road since moving here really, in 2006.  I get very interested in things here often. It puts me in a studious mode. Then I go regularly to Iceland. Breathe the air. Swim and stay in water in the light nights of the summer. Those times put flowers into my dreams. Then I´ll sleep in an transitiorial appartment in Chinatown in the rust of the fire of the summer when you should be looking around you, getting rid of what you don’t need, make plans for the winter preperation, but you don’t know what to do, then the flowers in your dreams become a good refugee that wraps around you like a motherly blanket so that you may sleep well, and know that life loves you. Nature has great healing powers. I believe especially the nature around where you are from. Maybe that is somehow elemental. Vibratory. I´ve been in New York all winter. And I am excited to go back to Iceland in March.

  

*What are your favorite tunes nowadays?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UfLAv3JHRwY

 

*Anything you want to say to the Istanbul audience?

I will when I get there.

15 MART, PAZAR / AÇILIŞ: BİBLO

MARCH 15TH, SUNDAY / OPENING ACT: BİBLO

arkaoda ve Bant dergisinin ortak oluşumu olan Kulaktan Kulağa konserleri serisi Mart ayında İzlandalı müzisyen Kría Brekkan ile yoluna devam ediyor. İzlanda’nın en büyük gruplarından biri olarak gösterilen Múm’ın kurucu üyelerinden biri olan Kría Brekkan, 2006 yılından gruptan ayrılarak solo kariyerine ağırlık verdi. Aynı zamanda eşi olan Animal Collective vokalisti olan Avey Tare ile 2007 yılında “Pullhair Rubeye” albümünü yayınladı. Bugüne kadar Animal Collective, Mice Parade, Rings, Slowblow gibi grupların albümlerinde de konuk sanatçı olarak yer alan multi-enstrümantalist Kría, son derece atmosferik ve etkileyici müziğiyle 15 Mart’ta arkaoda’da. Gecenin açılşını ise Proudpilot grubundan Pınar Üzeltüzenci’nin solo projesi Biblo yapacak.

www.myspace.com/kriabrekkan - www.myspace.com/biblotek 

Kulaktan Kulağa (Chinese Whispers) concert series, which has been going on by the collaborative efforts of arkaoda and Bant Magazine, is inviting Icelandic musician Kría Brekkan in March. Brekkan is one of the founders of the highly influential Icelandic band Múm. She decided to quit the band in the year 2006 and decided to go on with her solo career. In 2007, she released an album with Avey Tare of Animal Collective -also known to be her husband- named “Pullhair Rubeye”. Multi-instrumentalist and one of a kind singer Kría Brekkan, who has guested on various albums by names such as Animal Collective, Mice Parade, Rings and Slowblow, is filling arkaoda with her atmospheric and inspiring sounds on 15th of March. And the opening act of the night is Biblo, the solo project of Proudpilot’s Pınar Üzeltüzenci.

www.myspace.com/kriabrekkan - www.myspace.com/biblotek