FUTURE WHIRL

INTERVIEW WITH ILLUMINATIONS MAGAZINE (TURKEY)

Firsty, lets return to the beginning. How did you first get interested in creating music and how and when you give birth to OBERON?

I formed Oberon in 1994, but the musical interest is something that goes back to the days of my early childhood. I've expressed myself through images, music and text for as long as I can remember.

You're a poly-instrumental musician and i think OBERON songs sound professionally-done in terms of composing. Do you have any musical education? Whats your way of composing?

No I dont have any proper education. I took some lessons on piano, clarinet and guitar when I was in my pre-teens, but apart from that I am self taught. Some times I may start with some chords on the acoustic guitar, or a drum loop or some piano work, and then I go from there. The lyrics are often written simultaneously with the music. Basically, I don't follow a specific pattern when I work. You know, I am not really a pop artist or a rock musician, I don't write regular songs in the sense of an opening a verse a bridge a verse and a chorus and back again. It's more like structured wanderings through a wilderness... well, it is what it is. Except for "The Garden of Flesh and Bones" , which is probably the closest you get to Oberon doing a rock song. Anyway, sometimes a piece of music is the result of pure chaos. Like a few days ago, a friend and new found collaborator and myself had been working on some material and we felt we didn't get anywhere with it. We were just about to spend the rest of the evening low on wine and Leonard Cohen' s greatest hits and then I said: "Damn it, I'll just flip the tape over and play it backwards!". I did, and it was the most marvellous music that came out of the speakers, so I spent the night after he had gone home reworking it, perfecting it... Sometimes, it's [...] like being in the middle of a whirlpool. You absolutely don't know what's going to happen. You open a door, sometimes it leads nowhere, but then again, you find yourself at the threshold of the universe.

Is Incidental music your own label?

I wanted to take control of my own product, [that's why] I decided to release "Mysteries" myself. Whether or not I have succeeded as a label boss shall go unanswered. But I think it was the right thing to do. Looking at what I am doing today, the kind of material I am working on and just the mentality and attitude of Oberon as a creative force and a way of life, it has changed and matured. As an artist you will always find yourself, to a certain degree, in a state of transience. So at that point in time, it was a right thing to do.

In an interview you were saying that your aim with OBERON is to spread the message of beauty and purity. While the ethical and cultural corrosion of 90's is going on, the word 'purity' comes strange, even 'out of this world' . Society works as a depersonalization machine, individualism becomes a toy of commercial lust, etc.etc. I'd like you to expand on this subject. Does OBERON have an utopistic view/optimist expectations for the future or is this message an artistic light shining thru OBERON' s music and art?

I don't have an utopistic attitude. [...] I expect nothing from this world. [...] You have to carve your own way through life. I am basically alone in this vast universe, so are you, we are all alone, and will always be. No ideology or religion could ever change that for me.
Oberon has [always] been a search for the great, lost beauty and it's purity. And I will gladly share with others who look for it too. That does not mean that I have a message for anyone, though. Oberon is a universe of its own. But if you look around, if you see the world as a vile and perverted place, then clearly, Oberon IS a statement against this.

When it comes to beauty of nature, i think Norway has the most well-protected share of the natural treasures of the world. Do you think this gift has an influence on your music? What would change if you were living in a megapol city?

I'd be in a dire need of space. I love to travel and spend some days in cities like London or Paris, but I couldn't live there permanently. The urban culture is something I have never quite managed to adapt. Not so much the music as my own mind would have had to change. [...] When I go abroad, I am usually more relaxed, simply because I enjoy visiting other cultures.