Interview Snöleoparden

Nuova interessante pubblicazione della danese Rump (l'uscita ufficiale è fissato per il 3 marzo) firmata dal polistrumentista Jonas Stampe aka Snöleoparden (ovvero "leopardo delle nevi", felino raro nonchè in via di estinzione originario delle zone montuose dell'Asia Centrale, alter-ego artistico di Jonas a rimarcare le sue origini pakistane nonchè la sua "agilità" nel muoversi da uno stile all'altro, facoltà di cui Stempe è pienamente consapevole). Ciò che sembra accomunare le differenti tracce del disco (l'eterogeneità è un tratto distintivo, visto che si passa da canzoni tradizionali paki a musiche rituali e cerimoniali, dall'elettronica al rock psichedelico, da filastrocche per bambini a quel genere di minimalismo che richiama alla mente Steve Reich) è un approccio quasi fanciullesco alla composizone nonchè la poliedricità nell'uso dei differenti strumenti (molti davvero inusuali, souvenir di alcuni viaggi fatti dall'autore in vari angoli del mondo) di Jonas, che in qualche modo tira fuori la sua passione per la world music, il suo apprendistato di un anno in India alle maestranze di Ravi Shankar e il suo approccio creativo, che gli è valso una folta schiera di collaborazioni tra cui quelle con la band cyber-jazz Badun (già intervistata da TheVibes qualche tempo fa), gli indietronici danesi Mofus, Glen Scott, gli Antophones, i Vektormusik e molti altri... Conosciamo meglio questo eclettico personaggio. Buona lettura! Snöleoparden "Snöleoparden" (Rump Recordings) 01.Nr.1 02.Hodja Fra Pjort 03.Xylofon 04.Water Puppet Theatre 05.Snabel E 06.Den Evige 07.Lillecykel 08.Dreng 09.Trance 10.UFO 11.Grieg

Hi Jonas. How are you? At the moment I'm jamming with my friend Henning, we are going to rehearse a set for next week, when I have my release party - so I'm doing good.

I've heard and liked a lot your brand new record. It's very interesting and etherogenous even if there's just a few traces of electronics in it. But before speaking of your new album, I'd like to introduce your rich background to our readers… You studied sitar in India with a renowned sitar maestro… How do you remember that experience? It met guruji two weeks after I landet in Delhi - it was sheer luck. I was in his house for a few days, listening when he was teaching and I played a short peace on guitar for him. For some reason, which no one else there quiet understood, he liked me alot, and that was the kick off. I stayed ten months in Calcutta with one of his senior students, Barun Kumar Pal, who was conducting my basic training. After that I was with guruji´s group, when he stayed in London for a month, and I played tanpura on a concert. My strongest impression on that whole experience is through having been close to a music master of his caliber. To have seen a human being consisting so much music power will stay with me as a shining memory for ever.

What's your favourite raga? Raga Yeman - that was the first one I learned and the one I have the most understanding on, and it reminds me a lot of my stay in India.

A part of your Indian training period, what are the most remarkable foreign experiences for your musical background? A funny one is that when I was touring with the Pakistani Qawali group Meher and Sher Ali, and we had a gig on national TV. I played electric guitar and my cable went into the sound booth, so I couldn´t hear myself. Besides that the group decided to play two tunes I´d never heard before and started while I was still tuning my guitar. When we had to do the second one the producer wanted me to start the song of, so while the camera is running I'm going "whats the key?" and "whats the tempo?". That was the biggest exposure I´ve ever had, 20 million people saw it and I never got a chance to see it myself. I guess I learned a lot about just letting go´ from that experience. But to answer your question more generally, the Sufi´s from Morocco and especially Pakistan has definitely breathed something into my music. Also I was so lucky that when I was in my early teens, the best guitarist Denmark ever had, lived near by, and I followed him around as an apprentice, the old skool way, playing in the worst of the worst bars in town. Many times he could just disappear and I'd be standing playing alone scared to death, by these people.

I suppose you travelled a lot. What's the way you try to grab musical traditions of different countries you visited? Don´t know - I get high from the music and from then on everything flows. I've read you're half Paki. Have you ever come back to your country of origin? Yes, I´ve played a lot in Pakistan. With a fantastic drummer duo Gonga Sain, and as mentioned before with Meher and Sher Ali. Recently I´ve produced an album with Meher and Sher Ali, I'm in the mixing progress, so it will be released later this year.

What about your support to Badun project? I played in Badun for 5 years. We started out as a hippie band, but the other guys slowly started to get more and more into their computers, and I couldn´t really hang out with them because of that. Now I just play on the records, guitar and sitar. It´s a shame because the music is really good, and we´re really good friends, but I guess that as soon as any band gets to busy with gigs and ambitions I always get out, cause I gotta have a lot of time to just sit in my home and jam with all my instruments.

Why did you choose snowleopard as your artistic alter-ego? It's my favorite animal. Once when I was at a Moroccan leela, I went into a snowleopard trance.

What's your idea of progress? Make music with aliens.

I like the trancey way you play instruments such as xylophone. Do you use traditional instruments or do you sometimes modify them? The xylophone was made in a local workshop where I went down a found the nicest piece of wood and started carving and after a week I had a tiny xylophone. It was a really good experience to see music come out a piece of wood cause I didn´t really know what I was doing. I really like to take things from complete scratch, when I tuned it I didn´t do it in any special way, I just carved on every single piece until I thought it sounded good. Besides that I modify all my instruments, and I cant stop. When I was touring with a group called Mofus, I gave them bad nerves cause all my gear was always hanging and dangling with loose connections, only working half the time. My first question when I enter a venue is probably, do you have a soldering iron or some glue.

Are you planning a live set? How could you involve those kids playing in Hodja Fra Pjort? What's the meaning of that childplay? Was it difficult to involve them in the recording of that song? I don't have the kids with me live. But I actually have a band with at least ten to fifteen kids. I played a concert in a park once where I had all my friends kids and who else was up for it with me. After the gig the kids were going, highfive and lets make a band!. Its gonna be a different project, but I haven´t had the time do work on it. But I've played live a lot, just me and my reel to reel tape recorder and as many instruments as I could pack down. The idea was to feel as if I was sitting at home. But these days I play live with Henning Frimann, who has made a massive percussion kid out of junk. We can make a lot of sound just the two of us.

A propos of chilplays, the two ones you included in your album are intended for minors or for adults? I never have any intent when I make music and I never really thought anybody was ever going to hear it when I made most of it. But I would love people to be playing my music for their kids, especially the more percussive tracks.

Which kind of instructions have you given to Karsten about electronics' add-ons? I recorded a fantastic local avantgarde musician, Ko De Regt, playing his Obukano, which is an african bass. But the recording session didn´t go so well, so I had Karsten Pflum, to cut it up.

What's the meaning of Dreng? Who's that great singer playing it? A six year old homeless boy from Pakistan. He was singing for us when we woke up in the morning after an all night gig, and the old qawali singers started crying and we gave him lots of money. I played it for a promoter in Pakistan four months ago, and he is now trying to find him.

I agreed with the info-sheet related to the issue of your record when saying your style is unclassifiable… Do you want to try to classify it or not? What it is - I guess - is some sort of neo-experimental, but I don't know if you can call that a genre or if its already something else.

I didn't recognized the instruments you palyed for that strange Reich-like excerpt entitled Lillecykel… What's that? Tiny souvenir clay drums with goatskin from Morocco.