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Philosophy I.

(Excerpts from Bad Vibes interview with Vladislav Delay)

Why do you feel a need to classify your music under different pseudonyms?  Do you categorized music under each name, during the creation, or are the ideas immediately begin life for each project?

They are my children, my projects. I couldn’t give same name for all my children (musical or otherwise). It’s personal. And then it’s very much also practical.

I play around with so many different musical styles that I think it serves the purpose to give them different names. I can appreciate people doing music that mixes everything up; one of my biggest influences is Frank Zappa to begin with. But I can’t do that myself, and rarely I like the mash up music beside the Zappa stuff. So for me the different productions are very conscious and I guess I enforce them with different names. I also assume, and partly know also from the long history of experiencing audience’s reactions, that many people like only narrow selection of music. so it makes no sense to offer everything I do under one name, it would just confuse and piss people off, at least more than it would satisfy people by surprises in each release.

I also like concepts, musically, but also giving them titles. I mean in the end there are just few, but Luomo and Vladislav Delay for example have strong conceptual ideas behind them which I’ve had for long time already. And having new ideas for each project is very exciting. there’s something like a foundation but then you move around in that space and try to create something new, I like that.

You’ve described where you live ‘as in the middle of nowhere’ – Do you feel your environment lends itself to the creation of your musical aesthetic?

I think environment plays a big role to everyone. There’s probably the most suitable surrounding for each and everyone and it’s different to each and everyone. The big thing and the challenge is for us to even begin to look for it, never mind to find it.

I noticed while living in Berlin that I’m going to be ##### if I can’t find my “place” and then spent few years trying to figure it out, and luckily had faith and power to go through that and also a partner to support me in that and of course very importantly share my views of life.  So to a point. When you have “your place” where you live and feel well it totally benefits your creations. I have seen it very clearly already.

You’ve described your relentless work ethic as a personal vision – what is your perfected musical manifesto?

I don’t believe in manifestos actually at all. I learn new things every day and change my views accordingly, and many things I felt in the past feel already ridiculous. So I try to question myself and what I do constantly. So maybe that is the manifesto if one has to be said.

But also I don’t work so much or so hard in the end. You lose the necessary “something” if you just do and do and do without a break, and you also begin to repeat yourself. So older I’m getting more I’m trying to do other stuff, my daughter also helps a lot in that…

But my musical quest is relentless still, for sure. And the musical vision I have is also quite relentless and maybe little bit unforgiving, to myself that is.  The main thing is, there’s so much possibilities to do, and not everything is easy to achieve so what can I do? I really want to do lots of things musically. Only difficult thing is that more and more it becomes very hard to make a living out of making music, especially if you don’t want to constantly tour around. And the thing is, if you tour around you end up not making any music, good music at least. There’re sadly way too many proofs out there about that for sure.

 

Dual Connection.

From the New York Times article by Larry Rohter:

“For two decades, the Columbia University professor Manning Marable focused on the task he considered his life’s work: redefining the legacy of Malcolm X. Last fall he completed “Malcolm X: A Life of Reinvention,” a 594-page biography described by the few scholars who have seen it as full of new and startling information and insights.

“The book is scheduled to be published on Monday, and Mr. Marable had been looking forward to leading a vigorous public discussion of his ideas. But on Friday Mr. Marable, 60, died in a hospital in New York as a result of medical problems he thought he had overcome. Officials at Viking, which is publishing the book, said he was able to look at it before he died. But as his health wavered, they were scrambling to delay interviews, including an appearance on the “Today” show in which his findings would have finally been aired.”

From the book description:

“Malcolm X will stand as the definitive work on one of the most singular forces for social change, capturing with revelatory clarity a man who constantly strove, in the great American tradition, to remake himself anew.

Sade: Exemplar of Authenticity

Earlier this year, Sade announced the launch of her Soldier of Love tour, which is her first world tour in over ten years.  Fortunately for me, I was able to secure a ticket to one of her U.S. shows!  There has always been something about Sade’s music that has always inspired me and I knew that this was a unique opportunity that I didn’t want to pass up.

When reading Sade’s “Bio” page on her web site, it appears that this interest is perhaps more relevant to me than I originally thought.  Here are a few excerpts to illustrate why.

Integrity

Soldier of Love is only the sixth studio album the band Sade have released during their 25 year career, and the first since Lovers Rock in 2000. For Sade herself, as the lynchpin of the group’s songwriting effort, it’s a simple matter of integrity and authenticity. “I only make records when I feel I have something to say. I’m not interested in releasing music just for the sake of selling something. Sade is not a brand.”

Reinvention

I never want to repeat myself,” Sade herself says. “And that becomes a more interesting challenge for us the longer we carry on together.”

Persistence

Somewhat to her surprise, she found that while the singing made her nervous, she enjoyed writing songs. Two years later she had overcome her stage fright and was regularly singing back up with a North London Latin funk band called Pride. “I used to get on stage with Pride, like, shaking. I was terrified. But I was determined to try my best, and I decided that if I was going to sing, I would sing the way I speak, because it’s important to be yourself.

Priorities and Timing

For most of the past 20 years, Sade has prioritised her personal life over her professional career, releasing only three studio albums of new material during that period. Her marriage to the Spanish film director Carlos Scola Pliego in 1989; the birth of her daughter in 1996 and her early 21st century move from North London to rural Gloucestershire, where she now lives with a new partner, have consumed much of her time and attention. And quite rightly so. “You can only grow as an artist as long as you allow yourself the time to grow as a person,” Sade says. “We’re all parents, our lives have all moved on. I couldn’t have made Soldier of Love any time before now, and though it’s been a long wait for the fans – and I am sorry about that – I’m incredibly proud of it.