Interview with Bliss / Outbreak^Fairlight
A couple of words about yourself.
My name is Henrik Jose. I was born in the early stages of 1982 and I'm still alive here in Helsingborg, at the southern tip of Sweden.
From the tender age of a few months, I tried to make music by throwing plates, smashing apples and dropping water-filled cups to the floor, which has been replaced lately with computers and such.
From the beginning of my school years I have been blessed with a lot of music education. From the terrible days of grammar school where my sixty-year-old teacher sung good old "Johnny B Good" on a church organ, to a special six year long education with a specialty in music, to university where I studied, well, music.
Now, I have finished school and I'm trying to stay alive, taking jobs now and then to be able to make music full time. I'm getting closer, but I have to confess that I have got some road left.
So, you have huge musical experience. You said, that you have musical education. What instrument(s) do you play?
Well, I started out pretty early, as the guy who couldn't deside which instrument to play. So I played them all for a while. I guess what I really needed was to be able to sequenze all kinds of instruments together, to form compelete songs.
As a more complete answer to the question, I have to say that I pretty much suck at most of the instuments nowadays. As time passed, friend around me got really good at their instruments, as I just wanted to sequenze.
So nowadays, I play the piano ;)
Why computers? Why don't you concentrate on "live" music?
Well, I guess computers were really not in my plan from the beginning. All I really wanted to do was the multi-channel composing thingy. When I was really little, I used two separate tape recorders for the same purpose, playing drums on some plastic cans letting one record while the other was on playing the previous recording at the same time.
Nowadays computers does the job. It's all about complete freedom with ideas and art. You can't really get bored of "computer music", as "computer music" could be anything. Depending on what software and samples you got at home, computers are rock bands, classical orchestras, school choirs, electric pioneers, heck even eurotechno-dorks, all rolled in to one!
I still love "live" music. I was in a jazz band for three years, and now I'm playing in a rock band.
I'm open minded! :)
You prefer MP3 as a musical format. Why don't you use old good IT or so? Is that because you're not satisfied by tracker's sound quality?
This is really hard to answer as people have different ways of working and thinking. What I can tell you is, that making the music of my dreams with programs such as FastTracker 2 could be a nightmare. Trackers often made static sample music. I wanted the dynamic sound of softsynth's and the brilliance of multi-sampled piano-patches combined with fantastic effects. I wanted midi control. I wanted real-time.
I first got this with "Reason", a great program to work with if you are new to softsynths and midi in general.
Right now, the heart in my creativity and productivity is Cubase SX. Cubase, like other similar vst-hosts is a very powerful and complex studio-imitating program with a great and intuitive user interface. It's a dream to work with recording, programming, editing, automating, mixing and mastering in the same program, all in real-time.
I can do everything now! :)
Do you use hardware keyboards/synthesizers for making music or just some software tools?
I have all the essential hardware that a modern lap top producer needs. Exept for the lap top. ;) I got a few microphones, some guitars, a pile of sample CD's etc. etc. I'm very satisfied with my equipment.
Have you ever released your music on CDs and if not, are you planning to do this in future?
No, I have not released anything official on CD.
In my planning though, I'm "soon" releasing, on some kind of medium differing from internet, yes. :)
You've recently won several big musical compos. Are you satisfied with the results? What did it meant to you?
I'm not sure what you mean by "recently won", but I guess you are referring to the results at assembly'02 where I came 4th in the instrumental- and 2nd in the vocal music compo.
Before assembly I had won a few music competition at mostly Swedish demo parties, but was at the same time disappointed at the quality of many of the other entries in the competitions. That's why the results at assembly were so amazing.
As good as all entries in the competitions were really professional and enjoyable. So the results at assembly is by far the most amazing placements I have ever gotten in a demo party competition. After listening to all the songs and realizing the amount of songs released that never made the jury cut of 15 entries, I felt really special in question about my music; it felt great and inspiring.
Also the time following assembly, I got a lot of mails from people that told me they liked my music. That was great, and is probably the only thing I have ever gotten from other people in return for doing my music.
Also, it's probably the best thing you can get as a musician of my kind.
And YES, I'm satisfied with the results. As a Swede, to finish 2nd and 4th at a Finnish mega-party, is really something ;)
Thank you all who made this possible!
What are your plans for the future? Win all the compos of next Assembly, become a popstar or, maybe, something else? :)
I AM a popstar! ;)
Right now I'm trying to do something really special.
My goal is to make a few songs good enough to send to some record labels. It would be great to get some feedback from some nice labels. This goal keeps me really busy at the moment and gives me a lot of anguish to ;)
I will probably release some songs to the scene soon enough, but my primary goal is to get them to some labels.
Well, what are your other hobbies (excluding music)?
All forms of creative work where I get to come up with ideas as an art form is always very satisfying. Closest to music is motion pictures. I have been longing to do short movies and music videos for such a long time now.
The problem is that I'm poor, and movie equipment costs ten times more than music equipment.
Otherwise I love the art of flying :)
At some periods, I tend to spend countless hours in civilian aircraft simulators, just taking a buzz over Alaska or something. My friends hate that.
Especially Tord. That's alright, I hate him anyway. ;)
Is there such a place in the Net where our readers can download all your songs and listen to them? :)
Sure there are. Check out www.fairlight.scene.org, which is the homepage of the musicians of Fairlight Music.
Far from all my songs are to be found on that page, but right now (6 January) I'm working on my very own homepage. The page will at some point feature a lot of my songs, some info about them, etc. :)
Just check out www.bliss.nu; maybe it's ready now when you're reading this!?
Whom could you name your favorite artists (both cene and pop\rock\etc...)?
Impossible question to give a complete answer to. I guess the problem is, I was never in to artists, but more in to music if you now what I mean. =)
Altought there always where, and are, a few artists i got some great deal of respect for. When i first heard tracked music i thought Necros was the one with the best music.
As I look at it now there are a few. Among others Radix always has my respect. I guess not only for being talanted, but also for making music that appealed to me and where somwhat like the music I myself did and was trying to do. Hunz, Virgill and Reed are good to. Also Norfair, who keeps sending me some really cool project now and then. :) There are more of you guys.
When it comes to non-scene artists and more comercial ones, I listen a lot right now to bjork, beck, plaid, ulrich schnauss and mouse on mars. Damnet. There are hundreds of great artists! I listen to a LOT of ambient and soft idm right now. Check out www.monotonik.com - they got some kick-ass artists!
Some people trend to think that the music of today is much worse than even a couple of decades ago, that commerce has spoilt it: all the bands sound the same and nothing new is being composed, new artists only copy each other. Do you agree with that point?
I agree with the point that commercial artists copy each other, yes. But that's nothing unique to modern music industry. That has always been the case. People like you and me have always hated the commercial copy music all through time. ;) In the beginning of the decade everyone made blues of the same three chords and the same worries in the lyrics. In the 50's everyone made simple rock and roll that sounded all alike. In the 60 everyone copied beatles. .... so on and so on.. The hate against commercial music kind of decays with time. You don't hate the early 90's eurotechno now as you did then. Now you hate other music styles ;)
The difference now a days as I see it, is that media has a real big influence and a shit load of money. The media has always been influencing people's music choices but now it's rediculous. At the same time internet is now making a revolution in the music buisiness. Now, people can find all sorts of music if they only want to. It's much easier if you compare to ten years ago. Sure, there has always been all sorts of music styles outside the commerce, but the 00's is certainly, to me anyway, a decade of no music style definition.
Now quite many people have surround sound equipment at home (home theatres and so on). New media also allow you to create music using more, than just stereo. How do you think would composers of tomorrow (in the nearest future) use advantages of multichannel sound? Would you try writing "3D" music yourself or old good stereo is enough to fit all your needs?
First of all. Stereo is fantastic!
Second, surround is some kind of a gift from god. :)
When I first grew aware of surround systems I imagined music mixed in surround like something wonderfull and something I wanted to do as soon as possible.
Now this was some time ago. And I have to say, that mixing and especially composing/arranging music in surround is something that has moved pretty slow. To be honest, I have only heard one bad piece of music in surround. It was from the movie "Clock Stoppers". I'm telling you, that is the worst movie ever. :)
I myself have not worked with real multi channel surround yet, much because of the lack of equipment, time and the fact that I'm still battling with stereo. ;)
I'm certain tough, that I will work with it in a fairly near future. The whole idea of dynamic and moving landscapes, the life and the spectacular sound images has always been something that bring water to my eyes and makes my skin fold. (My cheeks that is).
Now you have the final word. You are free to say whatever you want: add something I could miss, send greets and so on... Anything :)
I would like to greet the following people:
Justin for his friendship and his generousity.
Also:
Tord, Anders, Bob, Tobias.
Outbreak, Fairlight, zalza, dubmood, (get out of the chiptrask!), the "swedish demoscene gang", Lasse from Halmen and ofcourse, Charlotta.
Also, my warmest thanks to all you people that acctually mailed me and told me you liked my music.
You make me go on.
Puss.
Thanks for the interview.
P.S.: Bliss has just informed me that he has joined the demo division of Fairlight. Well, I bet it would be interesting to take a look at demos with his music ;)