How did come out the idea of combining spoken-word and operatic singer for your new album release 'Re member'?
 

“Some time ago I created the music for a dance/theatre piece in Croatia that was based on the classical japanese no theatre-piece ‘Mazukaze and Murasame’ by Zeami Motokio. What I liked most about the whole production was that they insisted that I work together with an opera singer. There were two parts in the performance where she sang in croatian language over electronic/electroacoustic ambient music. It had something very special for me and the idea kept fascinating me after the performance. Brigitte Deutsch is an opera singer who also sings romamusic in a very authentic way. While recording her voice for the track ‘Fafner’ I had the spontaneous idea of her singing the words of ´’gelem gelem’, the traditional roma hymn, but using her opera voice and changing the melody. For me this track represents a vision I have of combining elements from very different cultures and styles in a way that something new is created that is at least as intense as the used elements would be on their own.
The spoken word poetry on the track ‘Skin’ was written by Aiko Kazuko Kurosaki who is a dancer and performer based in vienna. It is quite an erotic text. The original idea was that she sings the text but we tried a lot of things and in the end we both felt that the spoken version is the most special one. So like that a lot of ideas for the album came very spontaneously and in the process of creating it. Basically I try to follow my instincts”.
 

How your interest in Westafrican Percussion influenced your music?
 

“This question is not easy to answer. I ask it myself quite a lot. While growing up in a family of musicians I was confronted with a lot of music  from Bach to Schönberg. At the age of twelve I started to learn the drumset for some time but except this my entire background is westafrican music. I studied the music of the Malinke, Susu, Baga and Bambara deeply for years and had a lot of great teachers. So in a way every music I play or create must be influenced by westafrican music and especially persussion. The album ‘Re member’ doesn't contain a lot of obvious rhythmical elements but the one thing that could be similar to african percussionmusic is the fact that most of the tracks had a loop as the basic element in the beginning. You could say that westafrican percussion is also based on loops, although it is much more complex than that”. 

Please tell us about your work with theatre, performance and dance.
 

“My first work for theatre was in New York, where I had the honor of working with Robyn Lee and Emmy award winning producer Sheila Shayon. The actors where just wearing white and there was no decoration or stage scenery, so the whole scenery and even things like a door and a house and atmospheres like ‘early in the morning’ had to be created entirely by music/sound and light. I learned a lot during this production and started to love this kind of work.
I especially like to create music for japanese butoh pieces because I dance butoh myself a little bit so I think my understanding of it is quite deep. I worked a lot with choreographers Moe Yamamoto and Kei Shirasaka and they never tell me exactly what kind of music they would like me to create but they give me pictures, sometimes paintings or photographs and sometimes they just describe it for me with words. It is always very different to what happens in the scene. And in the end when you put it together it creates something I would call poetry”.
 

What sounds are interested in exploring?

Generally I am very interested in sounds that can trigger a special atmosphere, emotion or memory in me. On the album ‘Re member’ I used a lot of sounds that have a special history for me, from myself crying as a baby to my girlfriend brushing her teeth. Nowadays a big variety of software enables you to manipulate sounds in every possible way. Im not interested in the technical aspect or the programming but in the fact that you can for example make a massive sound out of a tiny sound and a tiny sound out of a massive sound. So you can explore quite surprising qualities that ‘sleep’ in a sound.
At the moment I am especially interested in acoustic sounds both of instruments I play and of things like stones, leaves, grass, a plastic bag, the sea, a piece of paper and so on. But I dont see myself as an explorer, so its not important for me that I am the first person in the world who did what I did or that I invent something totally new. I am searching for things that feel right and true at the moment and are joyful to do”.

Guillermo Escudero
October 2013