cat#: KK021
title:: Emphasis
artist:: Dirac
time:: 44' 32"
format:: CD

tracklist

1.: This is Your 4am Wake-Up Call
2.: Augarten
3.: Bantu
4.: A Rest in Tension

Text by Peter Kutin

our way to create a record is based on the simple principle of direct-recording – which means the shape and form of our music is basically created within one moment. It is not only about meeting in a studio to do the recordings, but to stay together at one place with a focus on creating music and concentrated listening each day. The isolation from other musical inputs and the reduced input in general, being far off from bigger cities, far off an everyday-live takes you to the point when you don’t want to sound like something you know, you just want to search, experiment and play. John Cage said, that experimental music is where the outcome can’t be foreseen. These things happen through passion and not ambition.

For ‘emphasis’, we again went to Salzburg, where we could set up our gear in the basement of Florian’s parents house for one week – the same place we recorded our first album ‘dirac’. We recorded about 4 hours everyday , experimenting with different materials and instruments. We later listened to the results at the studio garnison7 in Vienna and did more editing work in a small hut up in the snowy austrian mountains in February 2008 – it was cold, electricity was short, but it was silent.

The record contains many details that have personal aural connections to us. The bell which reappears on emphasis is an old-cuckoo-clock from the hut. The crows that fly away are a field-recording from vienna´s augarten park – we went in there during the night and triggered the birds with a short lightimpuls from a flash light. The kids playing were recorded in a village in northern India were Daniel and Peter spent some time doing field-recordings. The trumpet appearing in Bantu was recorded by Peter on a frozen mountain lake in Austria – thereby the natural reverb of the valley is transferred onto the record. The cover-picture shows the roof of an old abandoned farming-house, close to the mountain hut where we worked on the record.

Dirac interview (interviewed by artist, event organizer Chihei Hatakeyama)

1. Could you please tell me how your group was formed?

PK: There was no certain decision of forming a group, Daniel and me were just experimenting with some instruments in combination with our laptops , when we were asked to play a show at a festival in the Czech Republic in 2005. So we had to come up with a name, and suddenly "Dirac" appeared. A little later Florian joined in. All three of us studied electroacoustic music at the same univ. in Vienna at that time.

2. The combination of the live instruments and editing sounded very attractive. Under what sort of concepts do you decide on the balance of them? And is there a leader of the group?

FK: Most of the time we're just playing and recording without following a certain concept or plan what makes kind of the most sense if you still want to be able to act on impulse , so its not so much about planning a certain result than just doing it right then. Musically there is no leader, maybe only in terms of organisation.

3. I personally loved track 4 "A Rest in Tension" - the drone based track. And not just drones, I felt influences from avant rock and modern classical music inside. Could you please tell me the names of the artists you have been listening to and any particular artist that has lead you to determine the direction of Dirac music?

FK: Making music and listening to it feels sort of the same process to me. It needs a certain mood to be able to let go and just concentrate on what you are doing or hearing. For me the most influencing sounds are these that set you in that mood without beeing prepared. There would be to many names to mention as an influence, but I think they would be mostly found in fields of minimal and ambient music, as well as composers like Angelo Badalamenti or Eric Satie.

PK: During recording periods i hardly listen to other music. i personally try to isolate myself musically within the music I play with Dirac during that time. Of course there are musical influences and there are too many. But i guess instead of names i could rather name aesthetics and attitudes of labels such as KRANKY, CONSTELLATION that had a big impact on me as well as non-western music (indian-music, buddhistic rituals, gamelan...) and of course the work of certain composers (Part, Schubert, Ligeti, ....).

DL: I think that for all three of us minimal music and its relation to nonwestern musical practice made a big influence on our general perception of sound and on the way we are organising our music.

4. Track 2 "Augarten" has this feeling close to the sounds of Trapist - the band from the same city Wien. Do you have any connections to them?

PK: Martin Siewert works in the same studio (garnison7) where we record and set up concerts sometimes.But that's the only connection. I was listening to their album Ｃallroomrecently, and it is a very nice one. They are all very good musicians. Anyways "Augarten" reminded me more of Borne and the Club of Gore than of Trapist somehow....

5. I heard your album in different situations and my favorite was when I took a listen on an express train watchingsceneries from the window. I must say the flow of the album is well-thought throughout. Did you have any concept in terms of this?

Dirac: We are "collecting" tracks during recording sessions and later decide what tracks fit together to form a homogenic record.

6. Thank you so much for your time. Please feel free to add anything you like.

Dirac: Thanks a lot.