http://www.thenewnoise.it/bloodyminded-mark-solotroff/
You have many musical
projects, you play live, you are very active. And you started this thirty years
ago. I admire artists like you, because you operate constantly in the
underground, and without hesitations. What makes you so strong? What gives you
energy?
Thank you! I cannot imagine a life in which I do not
create music, whether it is closer to industrial culture, with BLOODYMINDED, or
more in the metal or post-punk realm, as with my band Anatomy of Habit. That said, it is not always easy to continue doing
this, so deep in the underground, and sometimes it becomes quite
fatiguing. The urge to create remains
very strong inside of me and I love the live performance aspect too much to
walk away from this.
You’re from United
States, but you have created a bridge between two continents… and there was no
internet at the time. Please, tell my Italian readers something about your contacts
with early industrial Italian pioneers and how they influenced you.
I started listening to
industrial, experimental, noise, or what have you, towards the end of my high
school years. Then, while I was in
college, I became friends with Peter Sotos.
After starting Intrinsic Action and recording our first cassette, Pete
gave me a list of people to contact in various European countries and in
Japan. And yes, we all wrote letters
back then. It was many years before we
had access to email. I started
corresponding with Andrea Cernotto from The Sodality, first to order Mauthausen
Orchestra and other cassettes from his Aquilifer Sodality catalog. A few years later, while spending a summer in
Venice, I traveled to Milan to meet Andrea, and I also met Paolo Bandera of
Sigillum S (and later Sshe Retina Stimulants).
This all set in motion making many great friends in the Milan area, and,
much through Paolo’s efforts and support, me releasing music by many great
Italian Artists, starting with Sigillum S, continuing to Iugula-Thor, Sshe
Retina Stimulants, The Sodality, Mauthausen Orchestra, Atrax Morgue, Dead Body
Love, Murder Corporation. And nearly 30
years later, Paolo just left Chicago a week ago, after a nice visit, and I will
be traveling to Rome in a few weeks to perform with The Sodality, at the
Destination Morgue festival. M.B. and
Mauthausen Orchestra were among the earliest underground “power-electronics”
artists I heard, along with Whitehouse, Consumer Electronics, Sutcliffe Jugend
and Ramleh, and for some reason, something about the Italian style really
clicked with me, even though these artists and groups represent a wide range of
styles. I love Italy so much and I have
great friends there, so I have returned several times.
Bloodyminded are Xavier
Laradji, James Moy, Isidro Reyes, Pieter Schoolwerth and you. It’s not unusual
to see collective projects in your genre, but we also have many and many (and
many) “one man bands”. How do you work on a single track? Is everyone adding
his sounds? Is someone driving the whole creative process?
BLOODYMINDED is
certainly a band, made up of very good friends who also really enjoy working on
music together. On some recordings and
at some shows, we have been lucky enough to all be together, but as we are
spread out in different US cities and with Xavier in France, being a band can
be challenging. Sometimes Xavier sends
recordings from France, sometimes Pieter has been unable to travel to Chicago
due to commitments with his art career, so we find ways to work around that. Sometimes we incorporate field recordings
made together, or we work with live recordings, or we share computer files. I would say that at the beginning, I was
driving and controlling the creative process, but now there is much more true
collaboration, which is one of the things I appreciate most about our new
album, “Within The Walls.”
In Within The Walls
you worked with Sanford Parker. I’ve listened to part of his work both as
musician and as producer. He seems to me too clean and too rational for a
visceral band like yours. But this is just my opinion. I would like to know
what has convinced you to collaborate with him.
I have known Sanford
for several years and I have a great appreciation for his production
style. We have also collaborated in the
group Wrekmeister Harmonies over the last two years. I first became aware of his work with the
heavy doom of Buried At Sea, which I would definitely not characterize as
“clean.” I have numerous records that he
has made and I think Sanford is great at balancing dark, dense and heavy sounds
with a clear production that allows the musicians to deliver everything they
want and for the listener to be able to receive everything that the musicians
intended. He had asked about recording
BLOODYMINDED a few years ago and the timing was finally right. I can say that it was a very enjoyable and
easy experience. Sanford is great to work
with and I have since returned to the studio with him, for the new record by my
band Anatomy of Habit.
You start your new
album with an ambient track. It’s a very good track, created with the help of
David Reed (Luasa Raelon). It makes this album deeper, it prepares my mind for
what’s next, switching off the light, so to speak. Why is it entitled “All The
Cities Are Occupied”?
David is part of the
extended BLOODYMINDED family and he has played synth live with us many
times. We have toured together and have
collaborated in the synth trio, Nightmares, with Jonathan Canady (Angel of
Decay, Deathpile). It is so nice to have
him on this album. The title of the
opening track came from some sort of sleep-deprived hallucinatory conspiracy
among the members of BLOODYMINDED, and
was initially inspired by the very rare
minimal synth artist ADN' Ckrystall.
We have also five very
short tracks (Token number…). I don’t consider them as an “entr’acte”, it seems
like your version of grindcore. Why did you put these tokens between the
tracks?
They are exactly like
our version of grindcore, so thank you for that observation. I do not mind them being thought of as
“pauses,” as they create contrast in our music, but they are considered fully
realized songs. I started playing around
with that type of “blast” song towards the end of my old band, Intrinsic
Action, and from the beginning of BLOODYMINDED, we have incorporated short,
sharp tracks in our live shows and our recordings. We have played with many punk and grindcore
bands and I feel that aesthetic has been as much an influence on us as
noise/electronics. The “Token” titles
are a reference to the offshoot band that Isidro and I started, The Fortieth
Day, and this new album has a deep connection to themes that Isidro and I have
been working on for several years.
I have Territories by
Locrian: I remember clearly your performance in “Inverted Ruins”. It’s not easy
to remember a specific vocal performance in extreme music. Why did you decide
to publish your version of “Inverted Ruins” here?
Isidro and I had
already started writing “Within The Walls” when I collaborated with Locrian on
their “Territories” album and I sensed a strong connection between what we were
writing and what Terence Hannum had written for “Inverted Ruins.” I wanted to end this record with a song that
changed the mood from the more assaultive songs to something that allowed for
closure or resolve, and this seemed like the ideal way to do it.
Why do you have
English and Spanish lyrics? From my European point of view, it seems to me a
way to recognize how many Americans are “hispanohablantes” and a way to
communicate with everyone, because the Spanish version is very close to the
English version (and it helps me to understand some meanings of it)…
BLOODYMINDED is a
multilingual band, with Xavier being a native French speaker and Isidro being a
native Spanish speaker, as he comes from Mexico. We first took this approach on “Gift Givers,”
and since Isidro and I fully collaborated on the lyrics for “Within The Walls,”
we felt this was the best approach. I
particularly enjoy how our voices all work in contrast – the different ranges
that James, Isidro and I have - and how the different languages create another
type of contrast. Living in Chicago, one
hears a great deal of Spanish, and I first started incorporating elements of
this culture into my music with Intrinsic Action, embedding pieces of Flamenco
music into our early live shows, as I was attracted to the arrogance, the
romance and the darkness of that music genre.
Although I am a slow learner, the Spanish language is a big part of my
life, partly due to my long and very close relationship with Isidro and his
family, and now certainly due to the fact that my wife is from Mexico.
I’ve seen videos of
your concerts. I noticed that often there are no barriers between Bloodyminded
and the audience. This is normal if you are into power
electronics/industrial/noise. And this is normal if you are into hardcore, but
in the first case I feel uncomfortable. Are you at ease in these situations? And
have you ever been afraid of these situations?
Yes, playing “on the
floor” has been a big part of the BLOODYMINDED experience over the years. Probably half of our shows have been WITH the
audience, rather than on a stage. The
two types of performances are drastically different. When we play at floor level, at shows with
many excited intense fans who know all of our lyrics, there is an energy that
simply cannot be matched. I think that
we have to work much harder when we are on stage, specifically because of that
distance. That said, “floor” shows are
very unpredictable and I have suffered several broken bones because they can be
so physical and violent – even though, at the same time, they can be
exhilarating and joyful shows for both the band and the audience. I think it is rare to see so many enthusiastic
people smiling at noise or dark industrial shows, and that is one reason I love
playing live with BLOODYMINDED. But yes,
sometimes, when we are about to start our show, I turn around towards the
audience and discover they are only inches away, and I think, “Oh god, here we
go…”
Finally: are you
inside or outside the gate?
Chicago is suffering
through an unusually cold December so right now I am comfortably within the
walls. But having finally released our
new album, after many delays, I am happy to report that I have made my way
outside the gate!
