Intervista Karsten Pflum

Qualcuno avrà notato un rinnovato interesse nei confronti dell'elettronica danese di recente. Non che in passato non abbia destato in noi una certa curiosità (ricordiamo ancora con piacere oltre all'invasione di produzione scandinava che segno i primi anni del nuovo secolo, i lavori di progetti davvero intriganti quali quello dei Future 3), ma pare che di recente c'è un nuovo fermento a Copenaghen e dintorni. In prevalenza musica nata nelle quattro mura di uno studiolo allestito in camerette, ma che conferma l'attitudine e le peculiarità delle produzioni di quella terra affascinantee forse ancora poco nota in Italia, che sta inserendo interessanti tasselli al gigantesco mosaico della produzione musicale contemporanea. Abbiamo intervistato uno dei più promettenti protagonisti, Karsten Pflum (all'anagrafe Jacob Madsen), progetto ruotante alla fervida scena electrodub di quella regione. Idhax (ispirato a suo dire da certe pratiche di hacking e cracking, almeno per quanto riguarda la nomenclatura... i titoli delle sue song pare siano le cheats per mitici sparatutto quali Quake e Wolfenstein!) è un discreto lavoro che sembra ridurre ulteriormente i già indistinguibili confini fra dub ed elettronica. Lavoro di sintesi e di sincretismo che trova l'approvazione dei nostri padiglioni. Karsten Pflum "Idhax" (Rump Recordings) 01.Impulse 9 02.SV_Gravity 03.Impulse II 04.Draworder 05.Fullbright 06.Noclip 07.Fly 08.Notarget 09.God

Hi Jacob! How are you? Hi Vito. I'm quite good, thanks. I'm hanging out in Berlin for a few days, making music with my friend Monolog. I had a gig here in the weekend, and it's always nice not having to rush back right away...

I've just finished listening to your new workout. Really squeezy and dubby sounds. First of all, why have you chosen that lab mouse for the cover artwork? Thanks! Yeah - I wanted to have something in a slightly psychedelic style for the cover... the mouse refers to the title Idhax - which is all about hacking stuff, computergames, companies, a brain, whatever. A mouse and some circuit boards is the cymbal of this.

You said your music is a kind of therapy for you... Could you explain the meaning of this assertion? Haha, well it sounds so beautiful or romantic, but it's actually true. I make music a lot - all the time, and so I naturally digest whatever impressions I've gathered around outside my studio. It's a kind of reaction to what's going on around me. It's my way to react.

Some tracks of your new album reminds that stage of electronic music, in which minimalism and click'n'cut was absorbed by the so-called acusmatique principles... Some other projects pushed that "movement" -totally new for electronic music- such as Funckarma, partially Funkstorung and Speedy J. What about you? Where do you "classify" your music? Well classifying ones own music is always the hardest. I've definately been into a lot of the old techno stuff for a while - Speedy J for sure, but also guys like Rob Hood and Jeff Mills. I guess my background is more techno than drum and bass. I'm really into the whole idea of music having a non-linear time. I like stuff that can grow on you, and reveal new layers everytime you listen to it. Also this album has been a lot about sound for me. Working with the production as if I were painting - giving a lot of thought to perspective, foreground and background etc... I don't really know how to classify the music. It's not for me to decide, I guess.

One of the features of the electonic musicians coming from Danmark has a certain appeal for the complative side of electronic music (Future 3,...) Is there any particular reason for this particular style in you opinion? Well I hear this term "the nordic melancholy" a lot, but to me it's a kind of empty term. I don't think people are more melancholic in scandinavia than enywhere else in the world. quite often, in fact, i think that musicians are just plain lazy - the result being very simple looped melody lines, that sound kind of melancholic. i hear this in fx a lot of english and german music as well... i don't really know - i guess it's quite obvious that IDHAX is kind of dark-sounding or retrospective, but that's just where i am right now. I could have thrown in a few happy tunes as well, but it wouldn't work as well as a whole album, i think.

One of my favourite track is Draworder... It's the first time an explosion sounds so droney! Those "heartshaped" basstones combined with those crispy cutted sounds are fantastic while cheerios crisp while suspended in a cup of boiling milk! What behind that track? well, basically it's a lot of sounds i've made out of field recordings and sythezisers. I've played a lot around with a Doepfer modular system, a kurzweil sampler and some other stuff. the sound of nature (leaves, trees, plastic trash cans etc.) go really well with the synthezised sounds, i think. I've wanted to do a more abstract pice like this for a while, so i guess it's just a lot of ideas, scraps of sound from here and there, and tons of effects combined.

My favourite one is Impulse 9! The reason you called it so... Like Fill 1,Fill 2, etc by Speedy J? Well ok, I'm gonna have to let you in on a little secret, than. The titles on the album all come from hax for different computergames. Impulse 9 and impulse 11 are basically cheatcodes. The idea is that once the code is entered, the nature of the track changes - that's why these two tracks are quite similar in their composition. If you're ever playing wolfenstein or quake, and having trouble killing the monsters try entering some of my tracktitles...

What's your favourite scientifical theory? I used to think a lot in this analytical way - like when you're stoned and want everything to fit together. I'm trying to slowly let go of all this. I guess I'm still quite into guys like kirkegaard and nietzsche.. to me life's all about feeling things, absorbing impressions through your subconcious. I think a lot of the subconcious stuff in our heads is much more relavant to our lives, than the everyday bullshit that occupies most of our time. There's a kind of poetic beauty to that subjective way of thinking. I definately do not belive in the idea of the world comming together as one, with peace, democracy, human rights and all that, even though it sound cozy. Humans are animals too. Any person has a potential serial killer in him - just starve him, give him vast amounts of lsd, tease him in public school or something. Hell can brake loose anytime! We're aproximately 6 billion people stuck together on the piece of mud, flying through an endless universe at an insane speed. I don't think we should expect too much of that situation... haha.

After re-listening to Tracks, it's not so difficult to have an idea of the different and less-playful path you're following. Any reason to this stylistical change? Well, it's happened gradually over some time. Listening to my older stuff I realise how melody based i've been. I still really like "tracks" and the idea behind it, but I've tried to create the same kind of effect using more ambient and dronebased melodies, leaving out the most obvious stuff, and leaving a lot to the listeners emagination. I've found that it's possible to get a lot more through without stating so many things directly.

What about your equipment? I use a lot of different stuff but basically my setup consists of two setups - a hardware and a software one. I still work with my old akai samplers, the kurzweil k2000r, different analouge synths, and perhaps most important my roland mc-50 sequencer. Although it can be a pain in the neck I find that I know my way around this gear even in my sleep. Some people might say that I'm old fashioned, but to me it's just about finding the setup that works for me. I think that working with the sounds both in a harware-layer and a software-layer gives some details in the sound that I wouldn't get from just using either one. I'm not gonna get too much into details about what I do, but the main idea is very about restricting myself and tweeking what I'm using.

According to some critics, the so-called "laptop dream" in music has definitively finished. Do you refute this assumption or not? Well I know more about the laptop nightmare! Programs crashing, cheap sounding software etc... no, seriously, I think electronic music is still going in lots of exciting directions. But perhaps the thin line between what's electronic and what isn't is becoming more and more narrow. I generally try not to make the distinction. The laptop has a huge potential because it's a portable instrument - so in a way it's like a modern folk instrument now. Electronic music used to be all about producing and focusing on sound while more traditional music tended to be more about notes, harmonies, rythems etc. These two are slowly melting together, so it's probably not very likely that either of them will survive another 100 years without changing. Thank god!

Any person you consider a sort of god in electronic music -livind or dead-? Maybe Richard James? Well there are a few... aphex, squarepusher, autechre and u-ziq have done a lot for me when I was younger. I still really admire origionals like joe meek or wendy carlos. But I try not to get to fanatic about my favorite electronic compusers - it can really do your head in. At the moment I don't really listen to anything else than my own stuff. If I do I prefer something that is miles away from what I do. I tend to want to copy ideas or techniques if it gets to close to my genre, instead of just enjoying the music. It's a kind of work related problem i have. But it works for me..

I've read you "assembled" Idhax in one winter... do you think that weather could influence sound in a way or another? Well definately. But usually it's just more about having the time to dive properly into something. In the summer I'm usually quite busy playing gigs. Winter is more quiet. The perfect time to exclude yourself from the outside world.

A lot of people still think that electronic music is for snobbish intellectualoids. What do you argue a propos of this idea? Well I think these people should really just fuck off! To me the perfect transmitter group for wierd electronic music is drugaddicts, alchoholics, children, buddhists or animals. People who are in contact with their impulsive sides. Who focus on the now. I had a dog once that reacted a lot to my music - started barking or running around the house. To me a reaction like this is far more gratifying than a bunch of intellectuals scratching their beards, discussing if the pitch of a clicksound is right or weather or not Adorno would appreciate the music.

There are some passages of your records that remind Nikakoi, one of those electronic musicians trying to "humanize" this musical genre, but also Metamatics attempts to give a sentimental shape to clicks and cuts. Do you think that the debate about the supposed coldness of electronic music is reasonable? Sure I do. It's a healthy sign that we are worried weather or not art becomes too unhuman. But to me really sterile or scientific music can work as well - depending on what it is of course. I guess I've just found that a more "human" expression works for me, but then again, that's probably just because I've got a better understanding of humanistics than a mathematics.