1. Hello Erik, I hope you're feeling fine? It is very rare to find anywhere interviews with you... So, I’m very happy that we have possibility to arrange interview for Apostazja.

Erik Ursich: I thank you for this opportunity!


2. For the start, please tell us, how did this all begin? What was the reason of your interest in alternative, electronic music, and was ERIK URSICH the first project you were involved in? What bands are you taking part in right now?

E.U.: I started listening to electronic music when I was 6 or 7 years old!!! …my uncle lent me “Le Voyage” by Pierre Henry and “Electronic Music VOL. 1”, two great LPs of pure electronic music from the early 60s…those records had a tremendous impact on me! They kind of scared me (“Le Voyage” in particular), but they also deeply intrigued me at a subconsciuos level (I was too little to understand that kind of music!). A few years later in fact I felt the need to listen to them again, and at that point everything really started! Shortly afterward, I also began doing my own experiments with recordings, it was the late 80s. And yes, my first project was just myself! My first original audiotapes came out in the very early 90s. In those years my approach to music was total "banzai", in the sense that besides the electronic element (rather omni-present) I made music with anything that produced sound: chairs, cardboard boxes, vacuum cleaners, bicycle parts, water bowls etc… Songs usually didn’t have a pre-conceived structure, they were free improvisations… they kind of had a structure of their own, that took form as the piece was recorded, ranging from wild sonic mayhem to delicate almost unaudible whispers… This anarchic and sometimes furious approach was only one of my many sides, though, that included also meditative slow songs, hypnotic drones and vibrations, as well as some melodic works… I let all these different approaches develope by themselves without putting any restraint or guide-line… I was the first to be curious of what I would have done next! Oh, and I also was founder and guitarist of a weird hardcore-punk band back then! Over the years anyway the meditative/calm approach tended to prevail (age smoothens things), and in the late 90s I sort of stopped for a while. Also the band split. I started again making music in 2000, and at the moment I have several different projects running: my own (for which I do records and live shows with my own name), then I do soundtracks for independent filmakers (mostly the guys of BORZA PRODUZIONI from Padova) and finally I have a band in which I play bass and synths (Grimoon). I also take care of the musical aspect of the SENOR TONTO project, which is a wacky electro-pop-weirdo-lounge thing in which I play loads of old synths and keyboards.


3. Who is this pleasant cow in suite and glasses, which you use often on your Internet websites? Maybe this cow is kind of your alter ego?

E.U.: Yes, that cow is actually me…a sort of mediatic alter-ego! Since I don’t like my face to be shown, I came up with this thing. In the beginning it was a joke, but then I liked it so much that I decided to keep it!




4. Please tell us about your label Vacca Stracca. Which is its musical profile? With it in the past you released some audio casettes and cds. Vacca Stracca is still active?

E.U.: Vacca Stracca (literally: “tired cow”) started as an underground ghost-label in the early 90s. With "ghost" I mean that I put really little effort in giving it a wide diffusion! In those years I was interested in making music just for me, and consequently I did very limited pressings of my audiotapes! I mostly sold them and gave them to friends and people I personally knew. My primary interest was not to get known, but to build alternative dimensions in which to spend most of my time! It may sound autistic, but that’s what I did: I made my own drugs (my music) and I used them to take my trips! …everything else didn’t matter very much! Over the years I changed my vision (which was somewhat dangerous for certain aspects!) and started confronting with the outer world: the first phase of the Vacca Stracca died in this passage. Now the label has become just me, or like I said before, my mediatic image. A sort of bizarre and grotesque alter-ego I hide behind.


5. You are fascinated by everything from the 1960s and 1970s. You like this kind of auto, music, fashion. Why you miss so much the past?

E.U.: Because I despise present! I think we live in a horrible era in which everything is standardized, levelled, impersonal, hollow, cold, tasteless… It was a long process of self awareness, a puzzle whose pieces I put together over the years… and at a certain point of my life I just realized that 90% of the things I really love belong to the past (60s and 70s for the most part)… it was simple statistic! Partly because I spent my childhood in the 70s (and that of course makes for a very strong "imprinting"), but mainly because I objectively found much more beauty, taste and substance in old things. Once I got this thought clear in my head and completed the puzzle, I made a sort of decision, that is to devote myself to seek pleasure in the past.


6. You are a collector of old synths, keyboards, samplers, drum machines and other electronic, vintage instruments. Could you describe your passion and brag the most unique booty’s?

E.U.: Well it’s part of the process I just described in my previous answer. Actually it’s probably the most important part of that process! When I started making music these thoughts were not yet formed in my head. I used to have a couple of digital synthesizers, and I was happy with that. But as I went deeper in my musical path, I found myself looking for a certain kind of sounds. Fat, warm, simple yet full, vibrating and alive sounds… when I found my first old analog synth, it was like I discovered plutonium!!! All I was looking for… there it was!!! It didn’t take too long for me to realize that all I needed was to keep on looking for old analog machines… I sold my digital synths and devoted myself to the hunt of old (now they call them "vintage" …in those years they were just "old"!) instruments. Shall we talk about the ease of use? On these old synths everything you needed was exposed and easily accessible through a multitude of knobs, sliders, buttons and so on… you wanted to change something?…you just had to put your hand on a knob and tweak it… as simple as that! With modern digital synths there are just too many parameters, and to reach them you have to waste too much time in menus and submenus… it takes away all the fun! And last but not least, these old beasts also looked SO WAY better than modern instruments! Even the cheapest smallest piece of equipment made in those years had its unique charming design and personality! It was at that point that I started looking at myself and at what I really liked… it was not just with instruments that my tastes matched the “past-factor”, it was also about movies, cars, design, furniture, clothing etc etc etc… Pratically all my personal world! So what I did was basically take complete awareness of how I was and live accordingly! This way I may be disconnected from the present, but honestly I don’t feel like I’m missing something! About bragging my most unique booty’s, let’s say that I have many that I particularly love! …probably too many!!! …but I can’t help it, I get attached to these instruments like they were persons!!! After all, these objects do have a life… Each one has its own history, some of them are older than I am! They come from all over the world, they have been used by countless hands before mine… some were gently taken care of, other have been mistreated, but here they are, willing to keep on working for me! And like every aged thing, they have their defects, their little malfunctions, their little “bad moods” that I have to learn living with, but that’s what makes them unique and makes me feel like I’m dealing with living creatures, each one with its own character and personality, and I’m sorry but I cannot find this in modern instruments!




7. What’s your opinion about industrial/neo folk scene? Are you interested in this kind of music? Don’t you think there is still too little originality and freshness in that music? Do you believe there is a chance for progress on that scene and if so, what direction could it go into?

E.U.: I’m not very informed about the contemporary industrial (or post-industrial) scene… I can happen to listen to something by chance (and I actually enjoy it even if it’s not too original), but I don’t seek it. I listened to a lot of industrial and noise in the past: Throbbing Gristle, Cabaret Voltaire, Nurse With Wound, SPK, Monte Cazazza, Esplendor Geometrico, Einstuerzende Neubauten, Klinik, Brighter Death Now and many more… There were also some very good italian bands like F:A.R., The Tapes (a very odd kind of industrial), the early Kirlian Kamera etc… I stopped following the scene when it got over-populated with bands using distorted sounds…they all sounded alike, so I lost interest. Instead, I’ve never listened to neo-folk. It’s a matter of personal taste: I just can’t tolerate the minstrel-style acoustic guitar that fills every record of that genre…it really gets on my nerves! About the progress that can be made in this field, I think it’s possible. Every era has its own peculiar genres…some of them last throughout the ages, some don’t. Very few of them keep on existing being true to themselves (blues did, for example, because it deals with simple and universal feelings), most take new forms and merge with other elements or movements. Industrial music was a complex, mutant creature right from the day it was born, and it embodied the frustrations and aberrations of industrial civilization… our future seems to be going further in that direction (a ”Pain In Progress”, to quote one of the bands I named before!), so I think industrial music could have a very long life… maybe in shapes that we cannot even imagine now… In my opinion its fate could be the same of electronic music, which, born in the 50s as a radical and challenging genre, ended to be phagocyted in modern civilization as a normal part of it.


8. In my opinion, Tairy from Punch Records took under his wing very diverse, original and specific projects. This way, something like an “avant-garde family” has been created, where everyone supports each other. That is a great phenomenon, which allowed to fulfill this stiff post-industrial scene with more freshness, optimism and joy. I wonder how you, being very important part of it, view this phenomenon…

E.U.: Tairy is a unique figure in music buisness (a “white fly” we would say in Italy). Today’s music market is very sectorial and it often follows rules that have nothing to do with music. Finding a label that produces bands so different from one another and with such free and open attitude was for me an incredibly joyful discovery!!! It was in a way the same thing I always did at a much smaller level with my own ghost-label! But Tairy did this with a real label, and this can only lead to admiration and enthusiasm! He’s a BIG one! And in my opinion this is good not only for the (post-)industrial scene, but for the music scene in general! It delivers a strong message: having an open mind!!! Music has no barriers or labels…once we get to understand this, we can only get more fun out of it!!!


9. Please tell us about your album “Kanashii” which you released for Punch. I love this melancholic but also calm and dreamy aura record. Is there any chance that you release something similar in the future?

E.U.: "Kanashii" is an album which I’m particularly fond of! For many reasons. It was my first vinyl record (a dream of mine since I was a kid… I’ve always been a vinyl enthusiast), and it collects some of my most beloved compositions. Also the artwork contains so many elements that are so dear to me… in short, I put all myself and my most intimate world in that record, and I think it will remain my favourite for a long time. Something similar won’t probably be released in a near future, because I like to make different records each time. But I think it will definitely find space in some future release, because it’s a kind of music that is very true to how I am inside… I do many things, I touch many genres, but these melancholic minimalist tunes which put in a mixed state of sadness, relax and meditation really get me going!!! …when I play this kind of music I feel at home!!!


10. At the end of january punch will release your new album "Electronic Diffraction Patterns"... Please imagine, you are now advertising manager, and you must to induce (convince) your customer to buy this material...

E.U.: OK, let’s start with saying that this is a "difficult" record! It’s a very very raw album, slow, monolythic, with long hallucinatory and choking moments but also with psychedelic and hypnotic passages and sudden noisey outbursts. All is focused on pure electronics without melodies and even without rhythm! So, why would someone want to buy this “brick”? Maybe because it makes you hear what music can be if it’s free from the bridles of any pre-conceived structure! Who said that music must be just “songs”: verse-bridge-chorus and all that crap, so that you can whistle it while you take a shower? Music can be so much more than that! Personally I have an almost religious approach with certain kinds of music... I follow an authentic ritual when I listen to a record: I close myself in my room, wear my headphones, switch off the light, push the play button and enter another dimension! This way I give my total attention and respect to what I hear! If you can concentrate enough you can literally merge with what you listen to, your brain will start responding to the sounds in ways you wouldn’t expect, your mind is so perceptive that everything is amplified, even the smallest change is perceived like a dramatic revolution and this will lead to an incredibly rewarding listening experience! You don’t need melodies, you don’t need drum beats, you just have to focus on the primary element music is made of: sound. I would say that with my record I’d like to put the attention on the ‘ritualistic’ aspect of music... which becomes a way to achieve another level of perception! It may be un-easy listening until you find the key that opens the door of your third eye, but when you do you wish you never come back! OK, I guess that I’m sounding too pompous now!!! So here’s the nice promotional line of the advertising manager: “Erik Ursich’s new album Electronic Diffraction Patterns: a PUNCH in the face of easy-listening!”




11. Do you have any expectations connected to your new musical child?

E.U.: Like it happened with “Kanashii”, I put all myself in this record... so yes, I have the usual expectations that anyone would have with something in which he really believes! With “Kanashii” I was so gratified about how good it was welcomed! But even if very peculiar, it was still a music album. “Electronic Diffraction Patterns” instead is a real challenge! I have no idea of what will happen, and I’m very curious to find out!


12. You want to transfer something to listeners by your music? Any kind of "message" or something similar?

E.U.: Freedom. Freedom of expression. Breaking all imposed barriers and letting the raw sound live. Free from the chains of any pre-conceived structure, sound becomes something much bigger and true to itself, a living creature following its own paths, that we can enjoy in a mystic-contemplative way. I would like to be clear, though... I don’t mean to have guru-aspirations! I just happen to like doing music this way! I find it much more intriguing and stimulating than following stereotypes! When I play I want to go where I’ve never been, and to do so I avoid any kind of rule and structure.


13. I would like to thank you for your time. I hope, I didn’t bore you with my questions. Would you like to add anything more?

E.U.: I didn’t get bored at all! On the contrary, I hope not to have bored you with my long answers!!! When I write I’m always very relaxed and comunicative, sometimes even too chatty (which is counter-balanced by my almost mute attitude when I have to talk to someone in person)! Add something more… I don’t know! These are always the questions that frighten me the most! Usually this is the moment in which someone leaves a big message, a wise hint and things like that… I’m afraid I’m not this kind of guy… I have enough problems in my life, so the wisest thing I could do is just shut up!!!




Tomasz Borowski



info:

www.myspace.com/erikursich
http://digilander.libero.it/vacca_stracca