Interview Hans Joachim Roedelius

Capita di rado di conoscere una persona considerata da molti una leggenda vivente: noi abbiamo avuto la fortuna di imbatterci in Hans Joachim Roedelius, storico compositore contemporaneo paragonabile a mostri sacri quali Brian Eno, Harold Budd o Jah Wobble, in occasione della pubblicazione di Snapshots/Sidesteps, per la piccola etichetta irlandese Psychonavigation, raccolta di dieci collaborazioni di Joachim con importanti esponenti della scena contemporanea, che mostra come il genio musicale non conosce nè limitazioni nè sclerotizzazioni stilistiche, che Roedelius ha ampiamente dimostrato nel corso dei tempi, nonostante i suoi 73 anni.

La sua leggenda è in parte legata ai Kluster, storica band fondata nel '69, i cui lavori inquadrati da alcuni nella corrente del Krautrock sara' destinato ad influenzare piu' di quanto si immagini l'elettronica contemporanea, ma la sua carriera artistica cominciera' nel cinema dove il piccolo Joachim si mostra prodigioso protagonista di sei film tedeschi alla tenera eta' di 10 anni. Le difficolta' risalenti al periodo bellico (con la famiglia fu costretto a rifugiarsi ai confini con la Russia) e in quello immediatamente successivo (perseguito dalla polizia politica della Germania dell'Est, la temibile Stasi, campava vendendo gioielli falsi e viveva con alcuni rifugiati in un minuscolo appartamento, fino a quando non fu arrestato nel tentativo di valicare il confine per riunirsi alla sua famiglia) probabilmente gli fecero meglio apprezzare l'importanza del tempo e della liberta' d'espressione e a seguire i suoi impulsi creativi che lo porteranno a diventare uno dei piu' apprezzati compositori dell'epoca (ricordando quel periodo, Roedelius si autodefinisce un'esponente dell'"attivismo anarchico musicale"!) e a continuare la sua profonda opera di innovazione dell'espressione musicale anche con progetti solisti, a cui diede inizio con il suo storico album di debutto Durch die Wuste (1978). Oltre 100 dischi, una spiccata attitudine alla sperimentazione e una progressiva migrazione dal leftfield alla composizione di musica classica e di soundtrack oltrechè una nutrita base di fan (giovani e meno giovani) sono in estrema sintesi i passaggi piu' importanti di questo grande musicista. Oggi oltre a dedicarsi ancora alla sperimentazione sonora, è diventato direttore del festival nazionale di musica albanese, di cui curerà la prossima edizione. Ma siamo sicuri che i suoi impegni e i suoi successi impreziosiranno un curriculum gia' ricco e invidiabile. Noi abbiamo fatto qualche domanda al maestro, che si è dimostrato disponibile e gentile oltre le nostre aspettative. Vi rimandiamo al suo spazio myspace per aggiornamenti riguardo la sua fervida attivita' e all'ascolto di questo Snapshots/Sidesteps, album multicromatico, che si va ad aggiungere al gia' affastellato repertorio di Roedelius. Roedelius "Snapshots/Sidesteps" (Psychonavigation Records) 01.Ad Honorem w/ Seiichi Suzuki (Japan) (2003) 02.Belvedere w/ George Taylor & Fratellis (UK) (2006) 03.Claire Obscure w/ Patrick Pulsinger and Wener Dafeldecker (Austria) (2005) 04.Dynamo w/ Haeyoung Kim (Korea) and Nikos Arvanitis (Greece) (2004) 05.Elektrum w/ Alex Paterson (UK) and Thomas Fehlmann (Germany) (2002) 06.Fait Accompli w/ Werner Moebius (Austria) (2002) 07.Gusto w/ Alec Way and Eric Bonerz (USA) (2000) 08.Hoc Volo w/ Timothy O'Keefe (USA) (2003) 09.In Natura w/ David Bickley (Ireland) (1998) 10.Juste Milieu w/ Fabio Capanni (Italy) (1995)

Good morning, Mr.Roedelius! You're considered a living legend. What does it mean coexist with such a definition? It's very much appreciated to be a living legend, especially because I'm deeply motivated lifewise and artwise to go ahead whereever it guides me to.

Before speaking about your present work, let's clarify something for younger generation. You're considered one of the forerunner of the so-called Krautrock scene. Most of former British music press partially teased that movement by coining that term, that later was going to be an accolade for one of the most original and influential music form. What's the reason in your opinion of such a position? Even so the public opinion puts us into the Krautrockpicture, we never were really part of it. Kluster / Cluster were and still are part of the Fluxus-Movement. Our most appreciated contemporaries were Beuys, Paik, Gilbert & George, Brus and many others of the time, from which some are still active like us. There's just one exception in re what I'm saying here. Harmonia, but this was a short intermezzo in Clusters history. Harmonia was also not really a Krautrocktrio, because it came to live and "died" between 1973 to 1975. It worked out in only two records and one collaboration with Brian Eno. We ( Kluster / Cluster ) never really tried to adapt or work in the rockfield, but the feeling of it, the blues, the revolutionary ingredient was part of our motivation to create a new genre and this was / is it.

If you should re-create a sort of Zodiak (not necessarily in Germany), i.e. something for spreading and maybe "patrolling" the concept of freedom in arts, which features would it have today? The Zodiak is history. I don't think it would be possible today to built up such an artslab, at least not in the way it worked out at the time, which was ( somehow ) accidentally, as part of the change of the paradigmata at the time. Nowadays ( as always ) people / artists have to learn to be free, to free themselves from being / feeling addicted to what's mainstream, what sells, what's successsful in terms of what the market expects. Contemporary music / art needs charismatic personalities who don't care at all about what the massmarket agrees to. There were and are not many of those personalities over the milleniums, as you perhaps realise.

One of the most important "breakthrough" in your stylistical path was maybe the encountering between Cluster and Brian Eno. How could you define that moment? I don't think the meeting / collaboration with Brian brought a most important breakthrough. Yes for two products of course, but it was Brians name, the history behind him, his abilities Cluster was influenced by when meeting him, but Cluster remained afterwards as Cluster and is still known like that. We kept our style, respectively did what came in our mind, as we always did and do. Cluster was and still is *the exception* in contemporary music, always recognisable, timeless, strong, just good artstuff. It was that we came together with Brian as human beings on a very basic level, working with each other in the way people somehow worked in the Zodiak period, open minded, curious, with great adoration/admiration to the way of life that we had the privilege to live at the time. Moebius and I didn't change the way to work with each other afterwards, we only were better focused to what we did anyway. That's what Brian left with me / us.

Someone associates your way of "assembling" melodies to Gnosseries by Erik Satie. Do you see any similiraties with that "mysterious" composer? You got it ! Eric, is one of my best friends, I feel very familiar with him, his personality, his behaviours, his opinions about art / music. In this years programm of my festival "More Ohr Less" in Austria we plan a special Satie section, with readings of some of his text to which I will play some of my piano-miniatures and another pianoplayer will play par example some of Saties pieces to readings/recitations of textes of Austrian writer Alfred Polgar.

You recently signed for the Irish label Psychonavigation. We know that Joyce's Finnegan's Wake was an attempt to give a literary expression to the so called flux of consciuosness. Is it the same for a musician? Or are there any differences on the basis of your knowledge and perspective? Flux of consciousness but I would moreover say "stream of awareness".

The most bizarre conversation between you and Brian Eno? About what it would cost to hire a person to cut wood in the forests and bring it down to our place, how much time this would give me / us to create new music, respectively to keep constantly working on music without"loosing" our time going in the woods. I think he understood that spending every day some time in the forests not only for cutting and schlepping wood but also collecting mushrooms and wild fruit was for us a very important input for the way we worked artwise.

I'd like to be the son of Brian Eno as well your nephew, Mr Roedelius! Imagine what I could create now!!! The way you create questions is well done, you are what you are. We all are, as the bible says, already known before we appear on earth and all what we're doing here, how we get on, with all our ups and downs, is predestined. So just do the yours as we do the ours. There's no way out. Make yourself your own father and nephew, get into the nature of what creation means to us human beings. We just have to become aware that we have to take care of this wonderful, mysterious, most exciting life, to do our best for the good, for god.

Some of your last releases have been qualified as "mediocre" by some journalists even if projects like "Lunz" have recorded a considerable success among listeners. Robert Wyatt said that musicians (and maybe artists in general) are like babies which are pretentious, remarking the fact that being pretentious is a way for learning. What's your opinion on this assumption? I've never heard that some critics used the expression mediocre. However Pretentiousness, vision, imagination, awareness of what one has to do is predestined as I said before. We have to go on when we got to know what's up with us.

Let's speak of "Snapshots/Sidesteps". What about its gesture? It's exactly what the title suggests : Roedelius Snapshots/Sidesteps. Great honour having been able to meet all those people / artist through the years, being allowed to use their original music in the way I did, with some exceptions /collaborations par example such with Alex Paterson & Thomas Fehlmann in Thomas Studio in Berlin where we created that track and one with David Bickley whose track on the album was just based on a sample that I had brought into the game, not even a sample of my music, but from my friends Alec Way and Eric Bonerz and a cut of a track I played live with Werner Moebius once in a beautiful space, a sculptor-garden near Vienna. The whole album has its very colourful and "smelly" background and I think this as well you can feel when you listen to it beside the variety of structures and moods.

Most of the tracks included in "S/S" are really exquisite, showing a considerable appeal with contemporary musical languages. I'd like to speak about each collaboration, but maybe there's no sufficient space. Could you depict one of them? Could you tell a funny anectode related to the phase of recording these enjoyable sonic experiences? As I said above, it's a collection of different moods packed in a bunch of tracks, it's a bunch of most enjoyable musical flowers.

Some says that music boundaries have already been crossed and consequently deduct that music has nothing new to propose. Do you agree? Not at all ! It's like with any art, there's always something new to develope, new colours, deepness, awareness, beauty. Each generation has new fields to develope, to work out, making life itself into art.

Are you going to perform in Italy? Hopefully soon. I'm near the Italian border in Tolmin / Slowenija at the 29th of July at the Sajeta Festival.