FUTURE WHIRL

INTERVIEW WITH HOLTERDIPOLTER MAGAZINE
By Nico Steckelberg, 2001

Note: The German original with lots of pics and stuff can be viewed here.

Hello Bard! How are you?
Pretty good, thanks. Just finished watching Chris Marker’s Sans Soleil movie. It makes Japan look as if it’s a scene out of Bladerunner sometimes.

Please tell us a little about your recent album ”Anthem”.
Anthem is Dream Vision. It is, I suppose, a form of ambient music. It is a very abstract album in that it has no definite form, like a pop album would. It’s one of my favourite albums, because it works in any setting, it merges with the soul. It’s Soul Music, hehe. But I am sure you won’t ever see it on MTV.

I think ”Anthem“ is very experimental. Quite different from all former Oberon releases. What made you dare this step from wonderful melodic music to an album of atmospheric sounds?
The thing about the music on Anthem is that I would let my vision flow freely into the recordings. Usually when I work I spend a lot of time on lyrics, on song structure, on all that stuff, and when I did Anthem, I just completely let go of all that. I pushed “record” and would just improvise a lot of the music. Like the reverse guitar on “Love_Light” - it was totally improvised. When you improvise, you meditate. You connect with something deep inside you and just let it flow out through the music. It was as if one could capture a dream and project it onto a screen for others to see. That’s what Anthem is all about for me.

The cover was also quite special for me. It’s a collage of photographs from Lanzarote’s National park, Timanfaya, which is like a huge volcanic desert. My soul felt at home there. We’d rent a car and drive around the island, visiting all these remote places, eating at a local resturant, and just sucking up the atmosphere. I don’t care if people get hung up on the tourist stigma of the Canary Islands. It’s a magical place. I completed Anthem there.

You once said that “what a person does here, now, will lay the foundation for things to come”. That’s a very realistic thought. How necessaty was it for Oberon as a project not to release „Anthem“ as an unbound album but under the name of Oberon?
People are very concerned with appearances and facades. But the bottom line is, we’re all potential waiting to be realised. “Oberon” is my brand, so to speak. What it tells you is that beyond that name, there is a vast universe of things to be discovered. If you say “Planet Earth”, you think of the globe spinning in space, but beyond that initial image there exists a multitude things. So, beyond the name Oberon there are a bunch of things, music, art, words, feelings, dreams. Anthem isn’t bound. Oberon signifies Freedom. There is no genre, image, religion, no law, nothing... just freedom. Just nature.

How did Oberon fans react to “Anthem”?
The reviews it got were very favourable. It’s an album that works on different levels with different people. It might not be for everyone.

Which three CDs, tapes or LPs did you listen to most within the last four weeks?
The Beach Boys - Sun Flower / Surf’s Up (Two albums on one disc)
Arvo Pärt - Tabula Rasa
Vangelis - Mythodea

You say that music in general doesn‘t influence your own songs much. How do you gain your inspiration?
It changes. What can I say? People have to think about what inspires them! Music, art, sex, life...? For the composer, music is something you do in order to grow as a human being and to maintain your equilibrium. There are two sides to it. It is the public, “entertainment” side, and then there is the personal, more spiritual side. One of them can be challenging and rewarding in many different ways for many different people, the artist included, the other is challenging and rewarding in many different ways for the artist alone. The work is the collective sum of all the things that happen in a life. As we go along we observe and learn. Creating an album is like working through a rite of passage, that takes you from one stage in life to another.

What is the most inspiring thing of the following ones: a forest, a lake, a snow storm, a mountaintop, an empty theatre hall or an emotional conflict?
It's not so much the actual experiencing of a place, a time, or an event as the visual or emotional memory of it, that inspires me to create.

“There is a time for sadness and a time for music“ you said to another interviewer. So, if you don’t sit down in front of the piano in sad times, what else do you do?
There’s an existential sadness that most of us will experience every now and then. So it is up to each and every one of us to deal with it, maybe explore it. What does it mean that a thing comes from something, it grows and blossoms, and then it disappears back into that very same “something” it originally came from? Envision every human being as a temporary materialisation on the physical plane of an infinite cosmic energy. Isn’t it strange to think how little we actually see of ourselves, our true selves. If we are energy that flows endlessly throughout the vast incomprihensible universe, have we been conscious like this before? Shall we be able to become aware of this endless journey at other points in time, or even in other dimensions? Or is our life experience, just a rare moment in an eternity of unconscious existece?

However, I think there exists a point beyond which sadness will take on another form, quite different to the type of existential anxiety which characterizes a lot of Western thought, both historically and in our own time. But you need to work hard to get there. Visit wild nature. Seek out places where there is silence. Sit down and listen to the sound of the waves of the sea washing against the shore. Discover timeless time.

Which role does sexuality play in your music? I espescially think of “Anything“ off your “Mysteries“ - Album.
That song was full of longing. Not only sexual but in other ways as well. The song is a song to my soul mate.

You are recently working in the studio. When will your new Album be released?
I am not sure. We will finish the recordings soon, I hope. Then it depends if I can find a label to release it. But I hope the album comes out before the summer. It should, because it is a summer album.

Is there already a title?
Yes, the new album is called “Future Whirl”. It’s gonna have nine or ten songs on it.

Will it be „Back to the roots“ or another musical turn-over?

Something new... It's my idea of creativity that one has to evolve all the time. Because the creative process is a form of alchemy. You ennoble the soul through the work and we go through this life searching, exploring, making discoveries on the personal level that will strengthen the musical expression. Because as you evolve as a human being you need to find the musical keys which touch you where ever you find yourself along the spiritual path. You have to stay hungry for the unknown.

Who would be pleased most by your music: a Kiss fan, an Edward Grieg fan, a David Bowie fan or a fan of Dead Can Dance?
Oh man, you know, I picture the average Oberon fan to have an open mind. I have no time for people who aren't able to exist or enjoy life outside of some narrow framework they've set up for themselves.

You were born into a very musical familiy. What does e.g. your mother as an opera singer think of the music of Oberon?
She thinks my music is good. I on my part have a huge awe for Opera as an artform. Just look at some of the stage productions that’s been pulled off throughout history. It leaves you speechless sometimes.

You had some live gigs with a band. Did the audience go down well with Oberon?
I’ve never played Oberon material live, although I have done concerts with other groups, playing keyboards, drums or bass. I actually wrote a song that was performed on one of these shows, and we played the song as the last number and it went down really well with the audience. Unfortunately, no recordings exist (that I know of) so it’s probably lost forever.

What can you tell us about Eridu Arcane?
It’s a group I’ve been quite heavily involved with. There’s a song on their last album called “Cold Blue Day”. Those three words, really sums up what their music is about for me. Not in the sense that it is cold music, because I don’t think it is, but it has a very autumnal feel to it. Trond, the group’s main composer, is engineering my new album and he’s also written one of the songs that we’ve recorded for it. So we’ve been travelling back and forth between our individual universes exchanging ideas and insights. So I also did a lot of work for their new album, “The Dying Of An Ageless Day”. I wrote and performed lyrics and lead vocals for one song called “The Fragile Core”, and then I played keyboards, bass and percussion on most of the other songs. So we’ve got a pretty close working relationship. I suggest people keep an eye out for their new album which should be out on Cynfeirdd as you read this.

You are not only musically gifted. Which gifts are there beside that?
I think one should try to do as many things as possible. I write, I sometimes draw / paint. While music is obviously my greatest passion, there are other things in my life which take up a great deal of time. And after a while everything connects. The music inspires the writing, the writing inspires the painting and then it comes back to the music. It makes me think of what I just said, about evolving through the work. It is important to be able to do different things. Because sometimes you'll run out of ideas in one field. And then it's important that you can do something else, and find some sort of enjoyment or fulfilment in other places. I think life itself is the ultimate art form. You create a luminous work through living in accordance with the principles that guide you along your path. If you can't write music, go out in nature and look at all the beauty there. Absorb it. Make it a part of what you are. Whatever you do, free yourself and try to connect with the things that you find true and beautiful around you. Become an Artist of Life. Not all people can draw or play an instrument, and some desire an anonymous, quiet life, but still, you can create an art work out of your life. By doing this, I believe that we contribute to the future health of humanity. Which is important because it means that we have a better chance of surviving through these dark times. Stay true and let nothing corrupt the purity of your work!

How important is the Internet for you?
Ah it's been pretty important. I've met some great people over the internet. It's a cleaner way of getting around out there... depending on your browsing and chatting preferences, of course. When I grew up, I was completely hooked on the Commodore 64, and later the Amiga. This was in the Eighties and early Nineties. They were great innovative times. Nowadays they have the technology to make whatever they want but they lack the CREATIVITY. There was such a great diversity back then, there was a sense of discovery and hunger behind most things that I came across ... wonder why progress today has to mean that things become more streamlined, more sterile and less organic. Of course you’ll find a little bit of everything on the internet. You can even download Amiga Games Emulators which means that the good old days aren’t completely gone. But it’s not quite the same. It never is.

Would you like to distribute the music of your label Incidental Music exclusively via the Net in future?
I do offer my entire catalogue via my website, where people can purchase my albums using their credit card. In this way people will get the albums at a cheaper price than if they bought it through a record store, and they will get it a lot quicker too. But I wouldn’t want to confine myself to the internet. The most important thing is that people can get hold of the records.

Film and literature are very important in your life. What do you think about David Lynch and who is the most overestimated author in your eyes?
I think David Lynch has done some good work, and I don't have an opinion on who is the most overestimated author. Over the past year or so, I've built a small collection of films from different places and times around the globe, and in doing so, movies has become one of my favourite pastimes.

I like to read also, but I don't read so much fiction and prose. Last truly great novels I read were Women by Charles Bukowski, The Magus by John Fowles, The Fountainhead by Ayn Rand and Spring Snow by Yukio Mishima.

If you had the chance to re-compose and arrange the soundtrack to an already exsiting film, which one would that be?
Ah, I really couldn't say... You know, I've been asked to do things in the past, but none of the projects ever got off the ground. The Nocturne piece from Mysteries was originally written for a film, and I recently had an offer to do something but I don't know what's happening with that. It's something I'd gladly consider to do for serious people with serious projects. Films like Sans Soleil by Chris Marker or The Inauguration Of The Pleasure Dome by Kenneth Anger, show what a potent force music and moving images can be when they are combined.

Please tell us the link between you and the fourth moon of Uranus (named Oberon).
I think that using the name of a celestial body to signify a work of art, is good because it is distant and alien, and it pulls us beyond the confines of our daily lives. We need to dream and travel through time and space with our minds. In this way we expand and grow.

Another statement of yours is that our society is sick. You seldomly watch TV and distance yourself from curremt events. If you were able to create any law you’d like, which one would be your first, dispite from the ability of realisation?
In our "free world", there is a powerful machinery which is willing to destroy all life on earth in order to make a PROFIT (I've tried to figure out what is the ultimate aim of a system which holds "profit" as it's highest ideal... and furthermore, what values they put into the word "profit", and what it really means, when it's evident that the end result is suffering for the world, and not happiness... which would be a type of profit that would be understood by- and benefit humanity and nature at large) They sow the seeds of doom in our fields, our oceans and in our air. My law would stop this. I hope that more and more people will gradually wake up to see what’s really happening.

You studied history for some time. Which historical epoch is the most fascinating in your eyes?
A study of history is useless unless we try to understand the principles and mechanics that underlies the flow of human evolution. The uncritical study of history, as well as a one sided study of history, meaning that you only read books that are written for mainstream audiences, is no good. You need to catch the whole picture.

Which historic person would you like to meet to kick him/her tremendously in his/her ass?
Some people, groups of people, and individuals, have done things which have catapulted our world in a certain direction. But they could never have done this without the collective acceptance of the people. We must never forget that the masses usually let their politicians get away with just about everything. The people needs to be kicked in the butt!

Would you prefer to live here and now, even if you had the chance to travel into a past of your choice?
My outlook is the outlook of a person born on the threshold of the 21st Century. We are here today, and we must use the material we have at our disposal at any time to create something true, something beautiful. It will benefit not only ourselves, but those who come after us. I think this is very important. This is my home. This is where our mission is at. But if I had an offer to travel through time... I'd like to see Ancient Egypt. And from there travel to the see the Aztec empire.

Thank you very much for your answers. Holterdipolter.com will of course report about news from the world of Oberon. Bard, yours are the last words!
I sure hope not! Thanks a lot for your support! Keep an eye out for the Future Whirl. It’s gonna be great!