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BEN FROST [INTERVIEW] Posted on 29/04/2015 by Ervin Felić His music has been described as “brutal”, “militant”, and “uncompromising”, and the work he has produced has given him the opportunity to cooperate on some key artistic projects, such as the rescoring of the cult film Solaris with Daníel Bjarnason and creating the soundtrack for The Enclave, a video installation about war torn Kongo. His beard causes faintness in girls and envy in boys, while his performances are an experience so intense that there are warning signs for those sensitive to sensory stimuli posted at the entrances of his jam-packed concert venues. WORDS: ERVIN FELIĆ He, of course, is Ben Frost, an Australian native with an Icelandic address, whom I’ve had the opportunity to talk to before his performance at Močvara. The above mentioned adjectives made me rather nervous while I was asking my first question, so nervous, in fact that the hand I was holding my pink voice recorder with shook visibly and my concentration dropped to zero when I realized I was sticking a pink voice recorder in Ben Frost’s face. However, I soon felt at ease, having discovered that the man behind the fierce music was actually a very pleasant and talkative guy with something of a sweet tooth, as he went through an orange, half a box of cookies, and two bananas during our twenty minute conversation about his work, the machinations of the music industry and the nature of art in general. You’re Australian by birth and have been living in Iceland for more than a decade. You’ve often talked about how the island always held a very special place in your imagination growing up. What was it about Iceland that fascinated you? Jesus I must have been asked that question 7.000 times. It’s just where I live. Some people are lucky enough to be born… home. They’re lucky enough to be born where they belong. They feel like they’re home from the day they were born. I never had that. And I think that the rest of us, people like me, just have to go and find home… And for whatever reason it just feels like home there. I don’t know why, it just is. ince your relocation to Iceland, you have collaborated with a great number of artists, composing music for theatre, film, and video games, as well as working in production. How is your creative process different when you’re doing commissioned work as opposed to making music from an internal impulse? Well I guess the thing is, when you’re making music for other people, it’s always as a counterpart to something else, you know? It’s not purely for listening to. It’s interacting with film or interacting with dancers. It’s about a space. And all of those things affect music. I think when music is either acting as a soundtrack for something or as a counterpart to something else, it’s not a fully formed entity. It’s why most soundtrack music is shitty music, you know? Because it’s missing something. Myself included. I’ve made available music that I’ve made as a score for other things, but by and large I don’t think it’s great work. Because it’s missing parts of itself. When you’re working for other people, ultimately your ideas are coming down to you. And when I’m working on my own, I’m not looking for guidance from somebody else or something else. I would like to think that it’s kind of, well, honest. So would you say you prefer working on your own pieces than for someone else? I wouldn’t say I prefer it, it’s just that I’m very clear about what I’m doing. I guess it’s the difference between a carpenter making a kitchen for someone else or making himself a piece of furniture. Like, if I’m going to make myself a chair to sit in, that’s a completely different thing to building someone else’s bathroom. And I think there’s a difference there and I don’t think enough people recognize that. You know, writing music for a video game is fun, it’s great and it’s really challenging and working with different people from different worlds is always really inspiring. But ultimately you’re a worker. You work for hire. Your music has been described as fierce, militant, and powerful; combining minimalist electronics and explosive metal. Later on in your career, in Theory of Machines and By the Throat you’ve complemented this by adding a variety of recorded sounds, such as howling wolves and life support machines. A lot of the music you create seeks not to appease or entertain, but rather to unnerve and stimulate, delivering that “emotional fucking kick in the ass”, as you yourself put it. What is the function of that? What should your audience be feeling when listening to your music? I don’t know, I mean… I think the only thing I have to offer as an artist is what I consider to be interesting and what I consider to be the way that music should sound. Do you not consider your audiences at all then or do you think about the response you’re creating? I really can honestly say I don’t think about the audience. I’m interested in how I perceive things. And often that surprises me. Sometimes things just feel better to me when they are not right. I can’t explain where that comes from. But, there’s a certain arrangement that I’m looking for in music, maybe in all art. The most honest thing I think I can do as an artist is to follow that and to push deeper into it and just trust that the uncompromised nature of it will find resonance outside of myself. Is there a dimension of social and/or cultural critique to your work, especially in a world with “too much fucking music”, to quote you again, that is just so docile and similar sounding? I would definitely say that my lack of output is a social critique in that way. I don’t want to make records all the time. And I don’t feel any need to compete in this kind of incessant delivery chain where it’s like one album then tour, followed by interesting collaborations into a new album which turns into a new tour. It’s like this 18-month album cycle mentality that you have to keep going, you have to make more Facebook friends, you have to keep your career alive somehow, you know, and that to me is extremely uninteresting and I really feel like I’m at the mercy of my interests, my interest in creating new work is something I can’t control, it controls me, if anything. And I think that, as I was saying, the most honest thing I can do is just to follow that. Whether there’s a loss or a gain, or anything in between. You recently wrapped up a very intense project with artist Richard Mosse, the Enclave, a film installation that follows the ongoing struggle in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, but does so using an old decommissioned type of film that reacts to chlorophyll and presents it as bright pink instead of green, resulting in really stunning, beautiful images of violence. Mosse’s concept of manipulating fear and violence into art, revealing the beauty that is hidden reminds me of your own aesthetic. Would you agree? Is that why you wanted to collaborate with Mosse? I think I saw something in Richards work that really resonated with me. I didn’t see myself in it, particularly. And when we first started talking there was no inclination towards working together. That actually was a bit of a coincidence. I didn’t know he was working with film, even at that stage. The most that I hoped for was that maybe we could end up working on a photo together or an album cover or something. But very quickly we made a connection together and a friendship that has gone far beyond the machinations of his work or mine. I understand what he’s trying to do and I think he, more than anyone actually, has a sense for my work. To paraphrase him when he talks about the project and these images of war torn Africa presented in a way that has this unique aesthetic beauty to it, when you’re confronted with beauty and violence in the same measure it creates an ethical problem for the viewer. And that ethical problem is interesting. It’s not so much what’s going on in the photo as in the way we as a viewer are able to marry these things together. We enjoy the image but we feel weird about enjoying it. I think that that’s a really healthy imposition for an audience to be put in, to exercise that kind of dilemma. I read somewhere that you wrote most of your latest album, A U R O R A, in the DRC, during the Enclave project. I imagine working under those circumstances, with only your laptop and not even a wall to plug it in, must have been very challenging. And yet you persisted. Why is that? What was it about Congo that motivated you to write? Kind of just being aware of the fact that I was having a lot of feelings about what I was experiencing. Being aware that it was a unique experience. I think I just wanted to see what would happen in that situation, trying to work in those conditions. What it would do to me and what it would do to the music. To be perfectly honest, I don’t think I really noticed any of those aspects of the work, the fact that I was working mostly off a battery and I didn’t notice the presence of the diesel generator as this kind of opposing force in the work until much later on. Part of the process of record making is the reflective image of the end result, the hindsight of a finished work. You can’t have that in parallel with the creation of the work and if you can, then there’s also a problem there. It’s really only now, much later, that I can really have any kind of definitive feelings about that experience because in the moment it didn’t feel important and it didn’t feel like an album and it didn’t feel like something that’s going to end up in the Venice Biennale. A U R O R A is arguably your fiercest album yet. It packs the same punch as your previous material, but it is bereft of any warmth in terms of instruments and the immersive melodies that are present in the earlier albums. It does, however, communicate a sort of urgency, especially in the drums of Greg Fox and Thor Harris, and the coldness left in the absence of other instruments actually brings forth a sense of clarity and purity. So what is A U R O R A really about? Could you tell us a bit more about what inspired you to write it? It’s still pretty close. I mean the thing only came out like less than a year ago. That’s not a long time and I still feel like I’m in that space, processing that. That’s what this musical life is about, this kind of working through an ongoing process of trying to find the bottom of the record. The thing with records is that myth building process that’s needed in order to sell it. In order for people to feel connected to it, it needs a story. In this case the strongest story line was, I guess, connected to Africa and connecting to that space but I don’t know if that’s what it’s about really. I’m not sure if it’s for me to say. I know what you mean, it’s kind of easy to make the mental connection between Africa and A U R O R A. Well I think in a much wider context, the jury is out on what any of my music is really about. But maybe in like 50 years from now, 100 years from now, there’ll be some fucking university course on 21st century electronic music and me and five other guys who I’ve barely even heard of will be talked about as one kind of group or a movement or sort of a school of thought. Or maybe we won’t, maybe no one gives a fuck. But my point is that it’s with the longer view of history that you can make these connections between things and that you can look back on a body of work and see a bigger picture, a pattern. I think that makes a lot of sense. You always look backwards on art because you never call a movement something until much later. Yeah, exactly! Usually when people are dead. You mentioned in an interview that writing A U R O R A felt dictated at times and you had little control over the process because the album would not be anything else than what it demanded to be, that it wrote itself through you, in a sense. It’s almost reminiscent of Frankenstein in that way, especially given the brutality and aggressiveness of the album. Did it ever feel like you were creating a monster? Was the process frightening at times? It was only frightening in the sense that it felt like a very divergent step from where I’d been, which surprised me as much as anyone, I think. And the physical nature, the sound of that album was really embedded in the recordings and that’s not something I can dial back. It had this kind of white heat, a ferocity to it and you can’t really take that away, you know? In that way, I wasn’t in control. Another project that you mentioned heavily influenced the creation of A U R O R A was The Wasp Factory, your foray into opera. You not only wrote the music for it, but also directed the piece. How did that feel, expressing yourself through manipulating movement and the body, as opposed to manipulating sound? Especially in a narrative as physical and violent as Ian Banks’ novel. It felt like a really natural extension of what I was already doing. Working with singers, with people, it’s really not that different to working in a studio environment, where you’re manipulating people to get the best out of them. Manipulating in a good way, usually. Working as a director, 90% percent of it is just choosing the right people. And being in that position, working with the best people there are, a lot of that came about because I had the experience of working with the best people through other projects, like working with dance companies, theatre companies or whatever and just building a repertoire with those people and having the opportunity to see other directors working, some of the best in the business. It was my first shot at taking that role, it won’t be my last. I felt extremely comfortable in the position of the director. I had uncertainty, sure, but that for me is actually a really positive thing. Just to be kind of unsure. The one thing that’s guaranteed when working in this realm of computer based music is that you get bored and it gets easier. That’s why I feel this constant need to keep upping the stakes because you normalize, you push harder and you normalize to that level. So what do you do next time? It’s got to be bigger, more difficult, it’s got to have more restrictions, more rules, something harder you need to work against. I know I’m capable of doing that sort of work, and furthermore, because I was very luckily successful in what I’m doing and I had the opportunity to survive as an artist, as a musician, I feel increasingly that my responsibility is to use that privilege to push harder, not to make it easier. To keep upping those stakes, to keep challenging the threshold of what I’m capable of, to make it harder. That’s the kind of discipline in this work. That’s the only part I feel I owe to an audience. Is there anything in particular you’d like to take on for your next project? I don’t know yet. I mean, I have ideas, but, you know, the first ideas are usually the ones you need to get rid of, just get them out of the way. I do know I’m going to play some new pieces for the show here in Zagreb, just to see how they work, test the waters a bit.
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Beskompromisni Ben Frost [INTERVJU] Posted on 29/04/2015 by Ervin Felić Njegovu glazbu kritičari su častili pridjevima „brutalno“, „militantno“ i „beskompromisno“, a njegovo stvaralaštvo donijelo mu je angažmane na ključnim umjetničkim projektima, poput rescoringa kultnog filma Solaris s Daníelom Bjarnasonom i snimanja glazbene podloge za The Enclave, video instalacije o ratom razorenom Kongu. Njegova brada izaziva nesvjesticu kod djevojaka i zavist kod dječaka, dok su njegovi nastupi toliko intenzivno iskustvo da su ispred krcatih dvorana polijepljeni natpisi upozorenja za one osjetljive na senzorne stimulanse. RIJEČI: ERVIN FELIĆ On je, naravno, Ben Frost, Australac s islandskom adresom, s kojim sam popričao prije njegovog nastupa u Močvari. Gore navedeni pridjevi učinili su me poprilično nervoznim pri postavljanju prvog pitanja, čak toliko da mi se ruka u kojoj sam držao svoj ružičasti diktafon vidno tresla, a koncentracija pala na nulu kada sam shvatio da Benu Frostu guram ružičasti diktafon u facu, no brzo sam se opustio otkrivši da iza brutalne glazbe stoji vrlo ugodan i pričljiv sugovornik, sladokusac koji je uspio pojesti naranču, pola kutije Domaćica i dvije banane tijekom dvadeset minutnog razgovora o njegovom radu, funkcioniranju glazbene industrije i prirodi umjetnosti uopće. Rodio si se u Australiji i živiš na Islandu već više od desetljeća. Više si puta pričao o tome kako je taj otok uvijek zauzimao posebno mjesto u tvojoj mašti dok si odrastao. Što te fascinira oko Islanda? Jao, mora da su me pitali to pitanje već 7.000 puta. Island je samo mjesto gdje živim. Neki ljudi imaju tu sreću da se rode… Doma. Imaju sreću da se rode tamo gdje pripadaju. Osjećaju se kod kuće od dana kad su rođeni. Ja nikad nisam to imao. I mislim da mi ostali, ljudi poput mene, moraju pronaći svoj dom… I iz nekog razloga tamo se osjećaju kao kod kuće. Ne znam zašto, to je jednostavno tako. Od preseljenja na Island, surađivao si s velikim brojem umjetnika i komponirao glazbu za kazalište, film i video igre, te radio kao producent. Kako ti se kreativni proces razlikuje kad radiš glazbu za tuđi projekt od skladanja iz neke unutarnje potrebe? Pa radi se o tome da kad radiš glazbu za druge, ona je uvijek prilog nečem drugom. Nije stvorena čisto za slušanje, već je podloga filmu ili plesu. Ta glazba postoji u nekom prostoru. I sve te stvari utječu na glazbu. Mislim da glazba skladana u prilog nečem drugom, kao glazbena podloga, nije potpuno formiran entitet. To je razlog zašto je većina soundtrack glazbe sranje, znaš? Zato što joj nešto nedostaje. A to vrijedi i za mene. Radio sam na glazbi koja je stvorena kao podloga drugim stvarima, ali općenito ne smatram to vrlo vrijednim radom. Jer toj glazbi nedostaju dijelovi sebe. Kad radiš za nekog, na kraju ti ideje ipak dolaze odozgo. A kad radim na vlastitim projektima, ne tražim vodstvo od nekog ili nečeg. Sve što stvaram nekako je… Iskreno. Znači rekao bi da ti je draže raditi na svojim stvarima nego na tuđim projektima? Ne bih rekao da mi je draže, jednostavno mi je vrlo jasno što radim. Usporedio bih to s razlikom koja postoji kada stolar izrađuje nečiju kuhinju i kada napravi komad namještaja za sebe samog. Ako ću raditi stolac za sebe, to je potpuno drugačije od projektiranja nečije kupaonice. Mislim da tu postoji razlika i mislim da ljudi to često ne razumiju. Recimo, raditi glazbu za video igru je zabavno i super i izazovno i rad s različitim ljudima iz različitih svjetova je uvijek jako nadahnjujući. Međutim, na kraju si ipak radnik. Radiš za nekog drugog. Tvoja glazba često je opisivana kao silovita, militantna i moćna. Ona spaja minimalističku elektroniku i eksplozivni metal. Kasnije u karijeri, u albumima Theory of Machines i By the Throat, tome si dodao i raznolike snimane zvukove, kao što su zavijanje vukova i aparati za održavanje života. Velik dio tvoje glazbe nije tu da umiri ili zabavi, već suprotno, da rastroji, stimulira i dostavi taj „jebeni emocionalni udarac u guzicu“, kao što si sam već rekao. Koja je funkcija toga? Što bi tvoja publika trebala osjećati slušajući tvoju muziku? Ne znam… Mislim da, kao umjetnik, jedino što mogu ponuditi je ono što sam smatram zanimljivim i ono što ja mislim da je način na koji bi muzika trebala zvučati. Znači li to da uopće nemaš publiku na umu ili razmišljaš o reakcijama koje izazivaš? Mogu zaista iskreno reći da ne razmišljam o publici. Zanima me način na koji sam percipiram stvari. I to me često iznenadi. Ponekad mi stvari djeluju bolje ako nisu onakve kakve bi trebale biti. Ne mogu objasniti odakle to dolazi. No postoji određen aranžman koji tražim u glazbi, možda općenito u umjetnosti. Najiskrenija stvar koju mogu raditi kao umjetnik je slijediti to i prodirati dublje i vjerovati da će beskompromisna priroda toga što stvaram odjeknuti i izvan mene samog. Postoji li dimenzija društvene i/ili kulturne kritike tvom radu? Pogotovo u svijetu u kojem postoji „previše jebene muzike“, da te opet citiram, koja je toliko konformistička i sva nekako zvuči slično? Definitivno bih rekao da je moje neredovito objavljivanje novog materijala društvena kritika u tom smislu. Ne želim stalno izbacivati ploče. I ne osjećam nikakvu potrebu natjecati se u tom neprekidnom lancu objava koji funkcionira na principu album, pa turneja koju slijede zanimljive kolaboracije koje vode u novi album, iza koje ponovno slijedi turneja. Postoji taj mentalitet osamnaestomjesečnog ciklusa albuma u kojem stalno moraš biti u pokretu, stjecati sve više Facebook prijatelja i održavati svoju karijeru na životu. Meni je to krajnje nezanimljivo. Ja sam prepušten milosti i nemilosti svojih interesa, a moj interes za stvaranjem novog materijala je nešto što ne mogu kontrolirati. On kontrolira mene, ako išta. Smatram da, kao što sam već rekao, najiskrenija stvar koju mogu napraviti je prepustiti se tome. Neovisno o tome jesam li na dobitku, gubitku ili bilo gdje između. Nedavno si završio vrlo intenzivan projekt s umjetnikom Richardom Mosseom pod naslovom The Enclave – filmsku instalaciju koja prati trajni sukob u Demokratskoj republici Kongo, koristeći staru vojničku vrstu filma koji reagira na klorofil i prikazuje ga u intenzivno ružičastoj boji, umjesto u zelenoj, što je rezultiralo zaista impresivnim, estetiziranim slikama nasilja. Mosseov koncept manipulacije straha i nasilja u umjetnost, otkrivanje skrivene ljepote podsjeća me na tvoj vlastiti koncept estetike. Bi li se složio s time? Jesi li zato htio surađivati s Mosseom? Mislim da sam u Richardovom radu vidio nešto s čime sam se povezao. Nisam u tome vidio specifično sebe. Ispočetka kada smo počeli pričati nije postojala ideja za suradnjom. To se zapravo dogodilo nekako slučajno. Ja nisam znao da je on radio s filmom u tom trenutku. Ono čemu sam se nadao je da ćemo u nekom trenutku zajedno raditi na nekoj fotografiji ili naslovnici za album. No ubrzo smo se povezali i postali prijatelji na razini koja prelazi naš zasebni rad. Razumijem što on pokušava provesti i mislim da on, više od ikoga zapravo, razumije moj rad. Da parafraziram njegova razmišljanja o projektu i tim slikama ratom razorene Afrike prezentiranim u umjetničkom kontekstu lijepog – kada smo suočeni s ljepotom i nasiljem u istoj mjeri, to stvara etički problem za gledatelja. I taj je problem interesantan. Ne radi se toliko o tome što se dešava na slici, već o načinu na koji mi, kao gledatelji, percipirano dovodimo u svezu. Uživamo u slici, no osjećamo se čudno zbog toga što nam takva slika donosi užitak. Mislim da je ta pozicija vrlo zdrava za publiku jer nas tjera da promišljamo takvu dilemu. Negdje sam pročitao da si većinu svog zadnjeg albuma, A U R O R A, napisao u Kongu, usred projekta The Enclave. Zamišljam da je bilo vrlo izazovno raditi u takvim uvjetima, samo s laptopom i bez zidova u koji bi ga uopće mogao priključiti. No ti su ustrajao. Zašto? Što te u Kongu motiviralo na rad? Pa zapravo samo ta činjenica da sam različito emocionalno reagirao na ono što sam iskusio. Ta svijest da je ono što proživljavam jedinstveno iskustvo. Jednostavno sam htio vidjeti što bi se dogodilo u takvoj situaciji, radeći u tim uvjetima. Što bi mi to učinilo, i što bi učinilo glazbi. Da budem iskren, mislim da nisam primjećivao te aspekte rada, činjenicu da sam radio na bateriji laptopa i u prisutstvu dizel generatora kao nekakvoj opozicijskoj sili u onome što sam stvarao, do puno kasnije. Dio procesa rada na ploči je reflektirana slika rezultata, retrospektiva nakon što je posao završen. To je nešto što ne možeš imati paralelno sa stvaranjem djela, a ako možeš, onda tu postoji nekakav problem. Tek se sada, dosta kasnije, osjećam sposobnim imati bilokakve definirane osjećaje prema tom iskustvu, jer u tom trenutku to što sam stvarao nije izgledalo važno, nije izgledalo kao album, i nije izgledalo kao nešto što će završiti na bijenalu u Veneciji. Moglo bi se reći da je A U R O R A tvoj najsilovitiji album do sad. Ima snagu tvojeg dosadašnjeg materijala, ali oduzeta mu je sva toplina instrumenata i melodija koje su prisutne u tvojim prijašnjim albumima. No A U R O R A zato komunicira odlučnost, pogotovo u bubnjarskim dionicama Grega Foxa i Thora Harrisa, a hladnoća albuma zapravo ostavlja osjećaj jasnoće i čistoće. O čemu se zapravo radi u albumu? Bi li mi mogao reći što te inspiriralo da ga napišeš? Sve mi je to još nekako preblizu. Mislim, album je tek izašao prije manje od godinu dana. To nije puno vremena i još sam nekako u tom prostoru i procesuiram sve to. Takav je život glazbenika, konstanta involviranost u proces pronalaženja rubova ploče. Svaka ploča uključuje proces izgradnje mita koji je potreban da bi se ona prodala. Kako bi se ljudi povezali s pločom, ona treba priču. Pretpostavljam da je u ovom slučaju najsnažnija priča bila ta veza s Afrikom i povezanost s tim prostorom, ali nisam siguran da se o tome zapravo radi. Nisam siguran da je na meni ta odluka. Razumijem što želiš reći, nekako je lako napraviti tu mentalnu vezu između Afrike i A U R O R E. Pa mislim da nitko zapravo ne zna o čemu govori moja glazba. Možda će za nekih 50, 100 godina postojati neki jebeni sveučilišni kolegij o elektroničkoj glazbi 21. stoljeća i govorit će o meni i petorici drugih ljudi o kojima jedva išta znam kao o nekoj vrsti grupe ili pokretu ili školi. Ili možda neće, možda nikog ne boli kurac. No poanta je u tome da tek s većim kontekstom povijesti možemo stvarati veze između stvari i pogledati unatrag da vidimo veću sliku, uočimo obrazac. Mislim da to ima smisla. Na umjetnost uvijek gledamo retrogradno i ništa ne nazivamo pokretom do puno kasnije. Da, upravo tako! Obično kad su već svi pomrli. U jednom si intervjuu spomenuo da ti je pisanje A U R O R E bilo diktirano u nekim trenucima i da nisi imao kontrolu nad procesom jer je album odbijao biti bilo što osim onog što je sam zahtijevao da bude i da se sam napisao kroz tebe, na neki način. To me dosta podsjetilo na Frankensteina, pogotovo zbog agresivnosti i brutalnosti koja karakterizira album. Jesi li se u bilo kojem trenutku osjećao kao da stvaraš čudovište? Je li te proces stvaranja ponekad plašio? Plašio me u smislu da je to bio korak u potpuno drugom smjeru od onog što sam radio prije. Mislim da je to mene iznenadilo više od ikoga. A sama tjelesna narav, zvuk albuma, bila je uključena u snimku i to nije nešto što sam mogao umanjiti. Ploča je imala neku bijelu toplinu, agresiju, koja se nije mogla suspregnuti, razumiješ? Tako da u tom smislu nisam imao kontrolu. Još jedan projekt koji je utjecao na stvaranje A U R O R E je The Wasp Factory, projekt kojim si se okušao i u operi. Ne samo da si napisao glazbu, već si i režirao komad. Kako ti se svidjelo izražavati se kroz manipulaciju pokreta i tijela, u odnosu na izraz kroz manipulaciju zvuka? Pogotovo u toliko tjelesnoj i nasilnoj priči kao što je roman Iana Banksa. Čini mi se da je to bio prirodni smjer u kojem sam trebao krenuti. Rad s pjevačima, s ljudima, nije toliko različit od rada u studiju gdje također manipuliraš ljudima kako bi iz njih izvukao ono najbolje. Manipuliraš u pozitivnom smislu, najčešće. Rad režisera u mjeri od 90% je izbor najboljih suradnika. A imao sam priliku raditi s najboljim ljudima jer sam već imao iskustvo rada s njima kroz druge projekte, u plesnim kompanijama, kazalištu i tako dalje i bio sam u prilici izgraditi repertoar s tim ljudima. Također sam imao prilike učiti od drugih redatelja od kojih su neki vrh svoje struke. To je bio moj prvi pokušaj obnašanje te uloge i neće biti zadnji. Osjećao sam se ekstremno ugodno kao redatelj. Da, postojale su prepreke, no za mene je to vrlo pozitivna stvar, biti u neku ruku nesiguran. Jedna stvar koja ti je garantirana u svijetu elektronske glazbe je da ti postane dosadno i da postane lakše. Zato osjećam konstantnu potrebu za povećavanjem uloga, upravo zbog te normalizacije. Guraš jače i normaliziraš se na tom nivou. I što radiš sljedeći put? Napraviš nešto veće, teže, nešto s više restrikcija, više pravila, nešto protiv čega je teže raditi. Znam da sam sposoban za taj rad i, što je još bitnije, budući da sam imao sreće postati uspješan u onom što radim i preživjeti kao umjetnik i glazbenik, osjećam sve više da moram iskoristiti tu privilegiju i moja je odgovornost gurati jače, ne činiti sve lakšim. To je disciplina koju zahtjeva ovakav rad. To je jedino što dugujem svojoj publici. Postoji li nešto određeno čime se želiš baviti u svom sljedećem projektu? Još ne znam. Mislim, imam ideje, no te prve ideje su obično one kojih se moraš riješiti, maknuti si ih s puta. Ono što znam je da ću danas publici u Zagrebu pustiti neke nove stvari, čisto da vidim kako prolaze, da malo testiram teren.