Adventurous journeys in Doombient: an interview with Stephen Parsick
Date: Febr 22 2008
photo copyright Matthias Fuchs
Stephen, I first met you at the Michael Garrison meeting in Cologne in 1992, where the rumour spread that we would hear from you someday. What were you doing in those days, how did you get in touch with electronic music anyway?
At that time I was still out on a limb, trying not only to get some electronic equipment together but also desperately struggling to find my own way. Around that time I had just released my second self-produced cassette “Polarity”.
I had already been infected with the music virus for many years. I listened to Wendy Carlos´ “Clockwork Orange” for the first time when I was about three years old, and around that time Kraftwerk´s “Autobahn” also plucked some strings. Jarre´s “Oxygene” made me want to make music on a “synthesiser” as well.
At the age of ten I started taking musical lessons, and in fact I will be celebrating my 25th anniversary as a musician in 2008.
That “while” took – as far as I know – another six years when Spheric Music released your debut album “Traces of the Past”. How did that album come to life?
Actually, first there was the infamous “Trancesession” cd Lambert Ringlage and I created together which was released in 1995.
I think this was something of a breakthrough because a lot of listeners became aware of my name for the first time. After that, people kept asking me whether I also had a solo album available. I had already been dabbling in some music I had recorded on my own but there still were some bits missing to make a release worthwhile.
In September 1996, I asked Klaus Hoffmann whether he would like to record some music with me, and he agreed. The majority of music we recorded then ended up on the original release of “Traces of the Past”. In some respect I reckon these recordings also prompted Klaus to resurrect his own “Cosmic Hoffmann” alter ego.
In fact, I view “Beyond the Galaxy” and “Shiva Connection” as siblings to “Traces of the Past”.
You were and still are a fond collector of vintage electronic gear. Tell us some more about your passion for and your relationship with them.
This collecting aspect was one part of the quest for my own musical voice, and those instruments were a means to an end to help me articulate my musical ideas. Ultimately, this all helped me find a small collection of really useful tools which I kept and which have a dedicated function within my music.
The whole thing about collecting synthesisers seems utterly pointless to me today unless you actually use this collection, which most collectors don´t do. I also believe that too many choices around you don´t help your creativity or your inspiration. Too much stuff just gets in your way and keeps you from creating something.
When and why did you start getting some digital equipment as well?
I got into digital stuff and sampling because I felt that analogue synthesisers tend to cover just one very small part of the spectrum. When you have other timbres in mind you ought to buy some entirely different type of equipment.
I was looking for timbral complexity which went way beyond what a standard analogue synthesiser could come up with. And seriously, analogue synthesisers become a bit of an old hat after some twenty years. It´s not that you dislike wearing it, but somehow you´d wish to have something else to put on, you know?
Do you still not use a computer?
I still don´t use computers when it comes to making music. I find it unnerving to deal with a device which doesn´t immediately respond to me, which forces me to work and think in a particular way. I find them boring.
For me, the computer only matters when I produce albums. I use hard disk recording in a similar manner as Holger Czukay of CAN used an old Revox tape recorder, a razorblade, and a splicing block back in the 1970s. It´s a tool that helps me shape the final product, that allows me to play for hours on end, and then put the best bits together and actually produce a piece of music. This is what it´s good for, but I shudder at the mere thought of using the computer as a musical instrument.
How do you define music for yourself now, and to what extent does it differ from how you defined music some ten years ago?
When I started releasing music I wasn´t at all confident about what I was doing. My first cassette was more or less a hotchpotch of half-baked ideas, and so was the second one. I was still very strongly influenced by the music I used to listen to around that time, and I tried to actually “compose” music in a similar vein.
At some point I learned that this way of organising thought didn´t work out for me. Another thing that changed over the years is that I tried to impress listeners and colleagues by being the smartest player around who had the most impressive collection of desirable synthesisers on stage. I no longer care about this, it´s a waste of time. It doesn´t help the music.
In the past I managed to prove that I feel a little bit at home on keyboard instruments, there´s no pressing need to show off anymore.
Today, my music is primarily defined by parameters like timbre, texture, structure, time, or transience. I´m not really that interested in traditional musical formalisms anymore.
Frank Makowksi and you also founded the dark ambient project [‘ramp]. When did that happen, were there any goals set for this project?
[´ramp], or RPM as it was called initially, came about when Lambert and I were thinking about another session to elaborate on the “Trancesession” thing back in 1996. Frank asked to join us, and since we liked his music we thought that would be a great idea.
Musically, it literally clicked between Frank and me. We soon realised that we would continue our collaboration, no matter whether Lambert would follow us or not. There were no goals or styles, actually. We wanted to be a platform that others could join while most other EM people shut themselves away in some closet, boiling on their own, being boring. We did by no means want to be boring. We wanted to grow, we wanted to prove that crossing boundaries can be a lot of fun. That´s probably one of the reasons why we tried to evolve stylistically from album to album.
You also collaborated with Klaus Hoffmann-Hoock a couple of times. Although your and his style of music are quite different, the outcome was very nice. Did you learn anything from it, or was it just a fun-thing?
I did learn a lot from Klaus, not only on a musical level but first and foremost on a personal one. Without Klaus I would not be the person I am now. Whether this is a good thing or not is not up to me to tell. I enjoyed playing keyboards on the Cosmic Hoffmann albums as well as on some Mind over Matter stuff because I felt I could add some twists to his music which he would not have thought of.
I liked the momentum the music gathered when we were in full flight. Yet, at some point I noticed that Klaus was also keen on keeping his listeners satisfied. I believe in total artistic freedom, which I found quite limited all of a sudden.
The third Cosmic Hoffmann album didn´t see me do much. Even though I played some keyboards on it, I was no longer involved in the production of the album.
photo copyright Matthias Fuchs
In the following years, the [‘ramp] project seemed to be your main outlet for studio and live music. Is this correct, and if yes, why was it more satisfying compared to working on your own?
I had not quit making music on my own but [´ramp] definitely took on a central role because it was incredibly energetic and productive for some time. It was around the time of the hiatus in 2003 that I started focussing on my own work again as I had neglected it for several years.
What I enjoyed most about the band situation was the fact that we could join forces and become more powerful than we ever could have been on our own then. There were no limits, and intuitively there was a mutual agreement about which way to go. After some years, though, it was dawning on me that the perspective had shifted. I felt I was becoming more and more of a leader musically, and I never liked the standard “frontman-sideman” situation you´d find in many Rock´n´Roll bands. Had I wanted to be the leader of the pack, I could have worked all on my own quite as well. That´s why I began concentrating on studio work more intensely, while [´ramp] was first and foremost a live electronica enterprise that hardly ever recorded music in a studio situation.
What’s the place of the Doombient site in the world of electronic dark ambient music?
No idea, as I don´t like Dark Ambient music very much. Most of what is passed off as “Dark Ambient” (DA) doesn´t really bother me, neither timbrally, nor musically, nor artistically. Either it´s “fridge drones”, or it´s dumb and clumsy noise without direction. Whitehouse on valium, so to speak. Or, even worse, it´s toying with fascist iconography and aesthestics which I find utterly disturbing.
I´ve listened to a lot of DA stuff during the past couple of years which I would not want to have for free, really. Unfortunately, DA is rather easy to make. It just takes some plug-ins like “Atmosphere” and a couple of samplings cds like “Distorted Realities” or whatever, and off you go making DA.
These component parts don´t sound bad at all but they do not bring out your own wit as a sound designer. They make people believe they were creating something outstandingly spectacular which it is not. It´s just using readymades. It´s very much like calling a convenience food product “haute cuisine” just because you managed to warm it up yourself.
There is very little DA that I find worth the bother, and mostly, this is dwelling on the edges of other genres or not even considered as DA by the makers themselves.
What was your intention, then?
Our intention was to establish “doombient” not only as a hallmark for music which transcended the boundaries of both Dark Ambient in particular and Electronic Music in general. We also wanted to distinguish ourselves from what we disliked in these genres.
What I now dislike about that “doombient” thing myself is that life evolves all the time, and at some point you´re beginning to realise that you no longer can identify yourself with something you found very attractive some five years ago. I was asked by some people if Frank or I were members of some occult religious group who would pray for Armageddon to come, and I thought “hey, this is taking a direction I don´t want it to take”.
And even when people were not thinking in these terms, all they would associate “doombient” with would be bleakness, depression, and a dire need of psychotherapy or whatever. I don´t think this music is depressive or depressing. It´s more like Peter Gabriel´s wonderful quote, “the deeper it goes, the darker it gets.” This is what it´s all about. To me “depressive” music is on heavy rotation on MTV. This shallowness, this emptiness really depresses me.
In 2006, you composed a series of special concept albums “Tektonik”, “Schwartzschild”, “Gronland” and “Deltaplan”) which were all released in very limited numbers. Was this something you had in mind doing for a long time, what were you aiming at?
These albums were and still are one vital part of finding my own musical voice. I´ve always been a huge fan of musical soundscapes which created an acoustic setting through timbre rather than through melody and rhythm.
I always wondered “how are they doing that?”, and I always wanted to find the veins these albums tapped. I wanted to get deeper into sound design, too.
Using a Mellotron, a sequencer bass, and a guitar wailing on top of it doesn´t have much to do with sound design, actually. These small batches of cd-r releases allow me to become a lot more creative as I can release music very quickly. Recorded today, released tomorrow, if you wish.
They are a means to showcase my current state of the art, while official albums usually reflect an extended period of time, up to several years. These cd-r’s allow for a considerable artistic freedom as I found myself too quickly stowed away in some niche like “Germany´s Michael Garrison”, “Germany´s RMI”, “Germany´s this”, “Germany´s that”. I found this very annoying when I released official cds. Everybody would go, “oh, I don´t like it because on the previous album you did this or that which I liked better”, and as a consequence they would not buy it.
…the trap of being pigeon-holed.
Exactly. Like Wendy Carlos once said, “pigeon-holes are good. For pigeons”. It´s their prerogative to like or dislike my work but when you consider 300 albums sitting in my kitchen unsold, this attitude becomes rather obnoxious after a while. I don´t want to limit myself just because my listeners aren´t able or willing to keep pace.
There´s no point in burning all my financial resources on an album nobody wants to buy because it´s too different from expectations established previously.
Finally, these cd-r’s allow me to fathom myself. I really found myself trying to figure out how deep I could actually get, and what I would find in those depths.
A nice side-effect of this release policy is that these albums are available in small quantities only, and only to those who really care. That´s why I call these albums “supporter albums” for myself, very much like the Einstürzende Neubauten do with their own exclusive releases.
I like that idea of producing a series of numbered, hand-made artefacts in contrast to mass-produced stuff. At the same time, this clearly continues the original idea of punk and industrial music.
What do you mean by that?
When the entire punk movement began in Germany, it wasn´t about grotty hair and being slightly smelly. It was about becoming aware of the fact that the widely accepted form of society didn´t quite work out for you. Thus, you had to seek for a different kind of lifestyle which did not necessarily match that of those who had already established themselves. Also, everything that was associated with music and the entire music industry was regarded as highly suspicious, and as a consequence many creative people tried to release music through alternative channels.
Labels as Zick-Zack or Atatak in Germany were among the first to establish a network of artists who´d release their work independently and who paved the way for others to come. In England it was Throbbing Gristle and Industrial Records who did a similar thing.
In that respect I´d say I owe more to the industrial movement of TG, Coil, Einstürzende Neubauten, or SPK. They proved that it was possible to pursue an artistic vision outside the usual circuit. Their attitude and their vision is more important to me today than anything Klaus Schulze or Edgar Froese have ever done. TG, Neubauten, and Coil really changed my outlook on life forever. TD and Schulze did not have a long-lasting effect on me in the end.
What´s this thing about you and Coil…?
I got to know Tim Lewis aka Thighpaulsandra some years ago when he had just joined Coil for recording “Astral Disaster”. Tim and I happened to have a similar hobby, namely collecting old synthesisers.
We met a couple of times and toyed with the idea of collaborating. Unfortunately, nothing ever came of it as Tim was terribly busy with his own work as well as with playing in Spiritualized and Coil.
I haven´t seen him or spoken to him since Geoff Rushton´s death, though, so I guess it´s going to be yet another “what would have happened if…” stories.
For the album “Ceasing to Exist”, [‘ramp] collaborated with the skilled ambient guitarist Markus Reuter. How did that project come about, what made the outcome so special?
I met Markus at Alfa Centauri festival in 2000. I had just been introduced to his work through his collaboration with Ian Boddy. Funnily enough, Robert Rich was playing at that festival, and Markus and he recorded an aIbum together recently. Full circle. I thought that Markus would be a great companion to work with as I am always looking for new ways to grow and to learn.
He agreed to collaborate with us and gave us some textural work we could use for our own music. After these sessions, I took the recordings home and condensed them into more focussed soundscapes, with Markus making suggestions and additions along the way.
We then ended up with a rough cut of the album which Markus liked but he thought it would benefit from some proper mastering job. Unfortunately, the result was flawed by some heavy compression which literally squeezed the reverb ambiences out of the music. Luckily, Markus retrieved some unprocessed master cd-r which I could then add some finishing touches to. Just when the album was ready to be released, we had to put [´ramp] in limbo for an indefinite period of time. This is why “ceasing” came out that late.
In 2007, you privately released an upgraded and slightly changed “Redux” version of your debut-album “Traces of the Past”. I heard you weren’t satisfied with the previous edition. How come and what did you improve/change?
“Traces of the Past” was a collection of tracks which had come into being between 1994 and 1997. At that time, I didn´t have the tools I needed to shape the music the way I fancied it to be. I didn´t even have a proper DAT recorder.
The original version of “Traces” was more or less a compromise between what I wanted to do and what I could actually achieve. This fact always bothered me, and I never really enjoyed my own work.
Basically, this “reduxing” means getting rid of all musical dead weight which serves no other purpose than making the music lengthy. “Traces” alone lost more than fifteen minutes of dead weight, and I could finally include all the music I had originally wanted to be on the album. Ultimately, I remixed and EQ´d the tracks slightly because Klaus´ old mixing desk sounded a bit dull and muffled, and my original tapes were more than just a bit hissy, too.
I heard you and Frank have put [‘ramp] on hold. How come, did you two reach a dead point or something, what’s Frank up to these days?
This is something I would prefer not to elaborate on. I for one did not reach a dead point. [´ramp] put itself on hold, more like it.
To quote Radiohead, “after years of waiting, nothing came”. It really saddens me but then again, I don´t need a band to make music. Apparently neither does Frank as he is now Thespeedofdark.
What’s your opinion about nowadays electronic music scene? Are there still innovative musicians around these days?
As for musicians, there´s an ever growing number of people who perform “electronic music” but “quantity” doesn´t necessarily imply “quality”.
The numbers of those who do not mimic the yardsticks of the genre are minuscule, I´m afraid. Telling from what I hear and read, there isn´t much happening to really turn me on to it.
But who am I to direct criticism at others? I´m happy anytime I find some music that goes beyond mere superficiality. Unfortunately, people don´t continue to impress anymore, as a Japanese Zen master once said so aptly.
Is Klaus’ digital Mellotron (Memotron) or Manikin’s Schrittmacher something that interests you?
Not really. I don´t get the point why people would use a device like the Memotron that is as limited and as anachronistic as the real Mellotron.
Some people really seem to like it but to me it´s like the “Simpsons” episode where Homer Simpson designed a car. It´s a car that suits Homer Simpson´s needs but it doesn´t really serve a purpose.
The same thing goes for the Schrittmacher. I´m sorry to say so but I don´t believe this will get us any further. This stuff only serves a rehash of something that is long gone. Nostalgia. Like a Bugatti replica on a Volkswagen Beetle chassis.
Personally, I´d rather go for concepts like the Jayemsonic Resonator Neuronium, the Hartmann Neuron, or some modular synthesisers by Serge, Modcan, Buchla, or Cyndustries. These machines have the potential to open up new horizons in terms of timbre and interaction. They might help the performer to get back to the original idea of what electronic music was all about, namely the quest for new forms and timbres.
This sounds slightly bitter…
I´m getting old, and I guess I lost my respect for most of those I originally admired. I find them too self-indulgent and too vain. In the end there are just a very few left who I have a lot of respect for. I guess I´m slowly developing the ability to let everything that doesn´t really matter truly slide.
Rumour has it you recently had some trouble with Klaus Schulze?
Not with Klaus himself. His manager Klaus D. Müller (KDM) got on my heels. Some bloke claimed in the KS Circle that I had made use of the same rhythm KS used on “Totem” for my own track “Totem Poles”.
At first I was only amazed at how flat-footedly someone formulated facts the wrong way. I used a similar patch on an ARP Odyssey. Anybody who owns that instrument could have come up with that sound as well. I suddenly found myself in a situation where I had to justify myself in front of KDM not only for having used this particular sound effect.
I also had to justify myself for having called my own track “Totem Poles” without paying KS some due respect in the form of crediting him as a composer, even though he did not contribute a single note to my track.
KDM was apparently trying to make me pay royalties for a sound effect KS certainly has no copyright on.
I sent KDM a copy of “Totem Poles” and asked him to put me in touch with the author of this quote in order to straighten things out.
KDM seemingly was quite pissed off with my reply. He pointed out it was typical of a thief to accuse others of theft. I was not only a musical thief but obviously also a very bad man, as he sneered at me. How pathetic can you get? I wonder how many TD sound-alikes get to hear this from Edgar Froese or Wolfgang Rajmann.
Do you think it’s still useful/beneficial releasing electronic music on cd or cd-r as there’s so much messing around going on regarding illegal downloads and copying?
When it comes to illegal downloads, this is the utmost lack of respect I can imagine. What I find even more upsetting is the fact that I might have actually dealt with that very person who did this to me. The fact that there is an entire sub”culture” of downloaders spoilt the market for cds considerably.
Seven or eight years ago it wasn´t very hard to sell 500 copies of an album. Today it´s hard selling even 250. It really hurts to see on some illegal download forum that “oughtibridge” was downloaded 500 times since it has been made available while there are still 200 copies sitting in my basement.
And these 200 copies are of excellent quality, which the downloads most likely are not. They are just available for free, and I dare ask money for my work, greedy bastard that I am.
The cd-r thing is a good alternative and a decent compromise between releasing an actual album and not ruining oneself completely. I was happy to have left the era of releasing shoddy home-made cassette tapes behind me when cd production became affordable.
Sadly, a cd-r release is aesthetically the same as a cassette, just on a higher technical level. Yet, it´s still better than no “physical” album at all.
Is legal digital download (like Music Zeit) the final exit?
Alas, I´m afraid that legal downloads will be one way to go in the future, it is an option one must not ignore. It will become a necessity to have some virtual albums out in parallel with actual ones. I still am not fully convinced of the internet thing, though, but if you want to make music on a semi-professional level, this is one of the compromises you have to make, I´m afraid.
What projects do you have in the works?
There´s quite a constant flow of projects and ideas at the moment which I´m very thankful for. There are four more supporter albums I would like to make available in 2008 and 2009 as well as at least one official album and some legal downloads. I´m currently in the process of making the third and final “doombient” cd-r available, as well as the “reduxed” versions of [´ramp]´s “Nodular” and “Frozen Radios”.
Also, Mathias Grassow and I want to collaborate in the future but unfortunately nothing has come of it yet because my own workload kept growing constantly. I hope to release an album soon which will also feature the two tracks Mark Shreeve and I recorded in the summer of 2002.
There are other plans for collaborations as well. I´d love to have Robert Rich play on one of my upcoming albums, and David Morley and I also thought about recording some music together.
….anything else you´d like to share?
Support the artists, buy more cds. Show respect and appreciation for what the people whose work you love are doing.
They do their best to make you have a good time, and something tells me there aren´t many of these people around anymore. And all illegal downloaders or people who mess with my music… you better steer clear of me.
