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BACK
 ALLERSEELEN
By Adam Wasylyk
[The following is a continuation of the print story that appeared in Unrestrained! #25. I thought it a cruel fate for the rest of our conversation to remain unpublished, so the following is what was left unsaid print-wise. Enjoy!]
U!: As we've discussed in the past, your travels have had a profound influence on your work in Allerseelen—for time you spent in Venice influenced Venezia, and your travels to Spain influenced Abenteuerliches Herz—so has any recent travel had any influence on your current, or (perhaps) future work?
G: "I liked a lot the landscapes of Oregon and California and was fascinated by the lighthouses close to the wild ocean—those could be a perfect thing for another concept album for Allerseelen. One song for each lighthouse. During the last few years, the mountains of Austria and South Tyrol and Slovenia have been quite important for me. My current favourite flower is the Schopfige Teufelskralle or Devil's Claw, Physoplexis comosum—maybe I will record a song for this strange flower that only grows in the Dolomiti and Julian Alps. And I already recorded a song for the Edelweiss for the Infernal Proteus compilation by Ajna in Oregon. Mountains inspired various songs I recorded during the last months. I recorded a song on mountains and love named Salz (Salt) for the Russian compilation Heilige Feuer IV that should be released this fall. The Allerseelen CD Venezia was published some years ago, but in the last six months Allerseelen performed twice in Venice, so these two live performances and all the days I spent in this magnificent place inspired me again to record some other songs. These songs will be published on the vinyl double LP version of Venezia, which we will publish on Ahnstern later this year. One of the songs is the Nietzsche poem Venedig which I recorded as a completely new song with the erotic voice of the Italian artist Gaya Donadio. She is also the girl that will speak the Italian lyrics of ‘Ob auch mein Herz so funkelt.'”
U!: You performed last year with Allerseelen on the Pacific West Coast—in Portland, Seattle and San Francisco. So what was your impression of the country, and the people?
G: "Of course I got to know only the very best parts of Oregon and California, great conversations with my friends in Ajna and Blood Axis and other people I got to know on the Pacific West Coast. I loved the magnificent volcanic landscapes, sacred mountains (Glass Mountain, Lassen Peak, Mount Shasta), crater lakes, orange poppy and poison oak, searching for cougars and lynxes. I have some great impressions from my journeys in June 2003 in Oregon and California. In Seattle, Portland and San Francisco the Allerseelen Mannschaft on stage was different from the European shows, I was on stage with two and sometimes three members of Blood Axis—Aaron contributed passionate and apocalyptic bass lines and soundscapes, Markus played his powerful pagan Schlagwerk, and Michael contributed his unique Irish bodhran drum. In Europe Allerseelen has usually on stage the great drummers of the German group Hekate and for the next live performances I will collaborate with the passionate percussionists from the Hungarian group Cawatana. I remember a fascinating summer solstice night in the desert of Northern California close to a cave with ancient rock carvings. Some hours later we were climbing on the Lassen Peak in the Lassen Volcanic National Park, again some hours later we were on stage in San Francisco in the small club Edinburgh Castle, at the beginning of the Allerseelen concert passing around the horn with mead from the organic farm of Ajna which we also had used for the solstice. We are thinking of further concerts in the United States next year—I would like to have Allerseelen combined with Blood Axis, but let's see if this will come into existence as it won't be too easy for the Blood Axis members to be on tour with their wolves and wolf-dogs.”
U!: You've declared that you dislike the idea of democratic decisions concerning art. Would this explain the solo-artist status of Allerseelen, and that collaborations with other artists are merely to fill roles (on stage or in the studio) rather than contribute writing-wise?
G: "Art has always something of a monarchy. But I will try to avoid all political conceptions. There are various reasons why I usually create all the music myself in a very autocratic and also egocentric way—it is much more spontaneous, and I am also able to work much faster. On one hand, I am able to work with much patience but on the other hand I often also feel the urge to finish a song within one, two days. As my music is like a diary, I of course have to write it myself. I have never written songs together with other persons. I grew up with small keyboards and the writings of Aleister Crowley, and his philosophy and cosmology of Thelema, his ‘Do what thou wilt' was probably more important for me than everything else I read in my whole life. Probably I have a very thelemitic point of view, and as "Every man and every woman is a star," I am glad that in Allerseelen I am able to collaborate with the drummers of Hekate and Cawatana and the great bassist of the Austrian group Graumahd. But the participants are not actors in a play named Allerseelen, they are thelemitic activists too. The easiest way for me was and is not to tell my musicians what to do on stage but just let them express themselves in the way they feel most appropriate. And the result was always perfect, some kind of a thelemitic symphony, a microcosm in which each woman, each man behaves like a star with its own orbit. Hermann Hesse has expressed in several of his books quite similar thoughts on art and life.”
U!: I'm curious to know your situation regarding the recording of your music—do you have a home studio? Do you record in spurts or do you wait to have a certain amount of material?
G: "I am recording everything at home. I have been in a studio only once but never with Allerseelen. My archive of sounds is growing almost daily; the sounds are like the raw materials and essences an alchemist has in his collection. I am not only working but also sleeping in my archive, close to my beloved sounds which very often no one else has ever heard—I have some favourite sounds that I have never used in my life for any public recordings and maybe will never use. My archive is my dark room, and it appears to me like the interior of a mountain with many caves and mines. It is like the hall of the mountain king. Sometimes I have not (heard) some melodies or rhythms for years, they remain latent—until there is this divine spark appearing suddenly like a messenger telling me to use it in a synthesis with appropriate lyrics or another sound. With this magical moment that is known to many artists lasting less then one second it is often very easy to record a song within a few days. This is magic. My archive is a strange mixture of chaos and order, it is on one hand very chaotic, which means it is forcing the hand of chance: many things are coming into existence by chance. Very often I am discovering, re-discovering a certain sound which is perfect while actually had searched for something completely different.” |
