Interview to Wilfried Hanrath
Today we did an interview to the experimental multi-genre, multi-instrumentalist composer & improviser Wilfried Hanrath from Germany
https://wilfriedhanrath.bandcamp.com
https://soundcloud.com/flyingtonefish
https://www.youtube.com/user/flyingtonefish/videos
https://www.facebook.com/Wilfried-Hanrath-802956243231862/
First say welcome to this written interview for Cian Orbe blog. -
Thank you very much for inviting me. Giving artists the opportunity to speak about their work and their approach etc. is a great project, thank you very much.
Which are the concept behind your music, how you categorize your own music?
To start with the second question: I do not think in categories. In my opinion, thinking in categories is think only in black and white. I prefer to think in colours and the richness of diversity.
When it comes to releasing an album, it is important to find categories, I know - but it is very hard for me. Not only because I play many styles and genres, is because I love to mix genres, having grown up in an era in which many people broke up the old rules to find new ways ....
Well, even if many of those new ways ended up becoming old rules again, this was the spirit I grew up with and which I preserved to the day. As for the first question: to be honest, I do not have a concept for my art, which ismusic and photography. I am sure most artists know this feeling that there is something within themselves that seeks to be let out, to be expressed, be it painting, or writing, or music. Being the emotional type, I feel the urge to express what I feel inside, but I do not see any necessity for analyzing or describing it.
What I can say furthermore is, that there is a deep spiritual aspect to everything I do. Making music for me is about passion and emotion, Music is where I feel at homeland where I can find a language to communicate with others. One more thing is that free improvisation is the basis for all of my work. I do not like restrictions, I think I perform best when I am free to do what I want to do. There was one crucial point in making music when I suddenly was partially paralyzed.
On my right side, which included finding new ways, of striking strings and others.Luckily this handicap is only a mild one, many people do not notice, but I do, each time I try to move my right-hand fingers, and with each step I go. But still lucky. -
Do you release music only under Wilfried Hanrath name or you have other music projects, bands, monikers?
Using monikers was sort of hiding behind them for me in the first time.
My first album was released by German label Opa Loka Records, my moniker was oracle.sing#sing.oracle. When I joined to Soundcloud, it was W:I:L, but after a while I started to use my own name for my music.
https://completelygonerecordings.bandcamp.com/album/live-subsol-d-sseldorf-feb-1-2020
https://completelygonerecordings.bandcamp.com/album/live-in-the-studio-may-29-2020
Also I am member in several ensembles for improvised music. But I also have virtual projects, like my transatlantic duo The Hauchzart Ensemble with Matt Getchell from Portland, USA.
soundcloud: https://soundcloud.com/user-700628387/tracks
https://soundcloud.com/flyingtonefish/die-abbilder-heartbeat-1
- In what year did you start making music? which was your first band?
When I was twelve, I started to learn classical guitar. But after a year I quit, because everyone that i knew played rockmusic, and I wanted to play electric guitar and be real loud. We played Hendrix, Doors, Beatles, Stones etc. in a rather punkish, jazzy way. But as lifehas it, soon the band split up, and I continued alone, teaching myself drums and bass, The next band I joined was 2007, 30 years later, it split up when we were about to startplaying gigs....but I kept playing with the same drummer until these days.
- Which inspiration you have from the place where you live? There's some inspiration from your country in your music?
I tend to think that the environment is no a fact of influence for me when it comes to making music. It is like being yourself always wherever you go; but being in a quiet, peaceful environment sure helps. Apart when all your life is about improvisation you always try to take the situation and find your way to handle it.
I grew up in a rural area, and I feel blessed to have grown up there...blessed also, because many of Germany ́s top Krautrock bands played there. And it was only a short distance to a larger city where I could attend concerts international musicians played. With my interest for music arising in 1967, I felt blessed also to witness the beginnings of Krautrock, electronic music with the likes of Tangerine Dream, Klaus Schulze, Ashra Temple...I also felt attracted by free jazz, there was an annual free jazz festival nearby, and Peter Brötzmannand Peter Kowald also lived nearby.
Special Moments that mark your carreer as musician?
Living with a consciousness for the moment, I ́d say always the one I am momentarily involved in. In retrospective, there are moments that are of very special meaning for me – like a concert I played with a band I had joined only half a year before- the drummer died 2 ½ before the event, and playing without drummer, honouring him,created a very special and very creative atmosphere, this concert is one of a few I love especially.
Using visuals for music is nothing new, but for us in AnyDayNow it was, and we found that when we started playing the music for films we watched this sure changed our way of playing. I have played quite a number of performances with a great musicians I met in one of theensembles I was member of. Sean Derrick Cooper Marquardt invited me to join him in.
Playing the live soundtrack for silent movies from the 1920's, and this was one major big experience for me...watching the movie with the audience, and improvising the soundtrack. I had known most of those movies before, but the exciting difference in watching them not just for fun but with the intention to play the soundtrack is that you get all the deeper into the film.
- Most of your cover artworks are abstract art. what are your main influences for this kind of visuals?
I have always loved to take photos, and had a very special perspective on my objects. Things changed when I suddenly was paralyzed (after a long illness) on my right side and could not hold the camera without tremor. In the first time I was very disappointed, and wasabout to quit photography, when I attended a meeting of friends.
When I took a photo of them,I was fascinated by the result. Well, you could not recognize any person, and I had no idea where those colours came from because they weren ́t in the room – but this photo helped mechange my mind and accept my handicap. Later I learned that others intentionally move their cameras. - Then again, making interesting photos is not a matter of the camera or the technique, but most of all it is a feeling, a way of looking at your environment that helps you discover those little details that are so beautiful.
Besides, I am very happy with my girlfriend. She is painter, and her way of painting is very similiar to my way of create music. I do all documentation of her art for her, and in return she allows me to be creative with my photos of her paintings. Her name is Susanne Stepbach.
How do you see the current Experimental music scene?
There has always been experimental music. Nowadays, in our digitalized world, it has become increasingly easy to record and edit stuff.
Taking a loop, for example...nowadays you have yourlooper, you press on a button to get it started and hit another one to stop it and you have your loop. In former times, in order to create a loop you had to cut out a piece of a reel tape and glue it together...Apart from this technical aspect, I think that there is indeed a rising interest, both in musicians and in listeners.
What has been the experience of make live performances?
Playing live is ... to create magic. It is quite an adventure when you go on stage, to join people you have never seen before, without any concept or idea of what to play - but with the confidence to unite and make the moment sound great. It gives you the thrills when you realize you play the soundtrack for the moment, then you create something that is larger than its parts.
Which is your favorite song and album created by yourself?
To be honest, I do not have any favourites of my music. Like I wrote before, the project I am momentarily working on is closest and most important to me. So long...until it is finished and I move on to the next project which again becomes closest and most important. However, memories are often connected with music...with some pieces or albums I have very intense memories, but it does not imply that they are my favourites.
Tell us about the concept & the creation process of your latest album "Head up in the Skies" self-released // link: https://wilfriedhanrath.bandcamp.com/album/head-up-in-the-skies
I have released since then, on my bandcamp but also with Completely Gone Recordings.Owing to health issues, I haven ́t made any new music for a while now. To make the best of this situation, I started to clean up my external hardware-drive (which is rather messy), and to put the audios I find in files...and some of those files I combine with others...and in the end this is what makes up this album. I have to mention the artist who gave the inspirationfor the artwork – Andrea Thierbach also lives in Wuppertal, and even if we have never metin person, we sometimes write.
- Tell us about the underground music scene in Germany or in your zone. and which are your favorite artists from your country
Oh I am sorry I cannot say too much on this topic. For ¾ of this year 2020, nothing or almostnothing could take place due to the pandemic. I felt lucky to play a concert with my band AnyDayNow shortly before the lock-down started, and even happier to have particpated in the re:flections festival in Augsburg in the south of Germany, curated by Sascha Stadlmeier, who is one great musician for sure. 2 months later I felt blessed to perform with SeanDerrick Cooper Marquardt and the Accidental Orchestra Berlin he founded for this occasion.
This concert was multi-medial, there were dancers, livepainting, a food ritual....we played open-air, and it started to rain, but we could not stop playingbut covered our pedalboards and equipment and continued – the magic of the performance was so strong we did not want do disturb it. Oh, this one is only about me ....as for the scene, there seems to be a growingnumber of events on experimental and improvisational music, workshops, concerts, labels, musicians.
As favourite artists...CAN always come first, Klause Schulze with his work in the 70's, Embryo, Manuel Göttsching, Gentle Giant, Genesis, Soft Machine, to name only a few,fantastic wave and indie – music in the 80ies, minimalistic musicians like Philipp Glass and Terry Riley,also techno and house in the 90's, hip-hop in 00ies....nowadays Max Richter is one of my favourite composers.
We have always seen that you love collaborations, which have been your favorites?
In one of my first major collaborations I encountered Cian Orbe netlabel, when Mario Lino Stancati asked me for a collaboration.
Neal D. Retke was and isa major influence for me. I first met him – virtually – when he called for submissions for an album to be released on president Trump ́s inauguration – TrumpFunk.
I have since then participated in many of his numerous wonderful projects, like the ones in which he teams participants in duos or trios that hitherto haven ́t worked together, so this is really always thrilling.
I learned a lot about collaborations in the time I took part in the disquit junto project run by Marc Weidenbaum, on thursdayyou received you email with the topic for this week ́s project, and you had little time, Monday midnight latest you had to deliver your work.
Collaborations were oftenpart. When it comes to collaborations, I feel so blessed....I had two remix projects so far, Something (in the air and in-between) and Portland, (both I count as collab – albums)and I am so very happy and grateful for all the wonderful submissions...more than 80 for the Portland – project, released by Thomas Mathie on his label wereallghosts in 5 volumes and little less for my Something – project, which I released on my bandcamp.
Any anecdote that you want to share with us in the creation of some track?
Well, in the chapter about performing live I already mentioned my concert with Versuchsanordnung, with Christian Barthold and Christoph Uhlhaas...we playedto honour our drummer Joe Becker, who had died 2 ½ weeks before the festival.
The thing is, he had promised his girlfriend who runs a gallery, to play at the vernissage that same day. So we went to play the festival – our concert was scheduled for the early afternoon, and immediately after we finished our concertwe left to play at the gallery, which was quite a distance to drive. Meeting Joe ́s girlfriend was very touching, and it touched me to watch her while we played...but I was so very very happy when I saw that she had tears in her eyes but couldenjoy our performance. Later, friends joined us...and the event turned into a party....But this day was pure bliss and magic, this is one of my performances if not the one I love most...luckily, this concert was filmed:versuchsanordnung: Oberscheid ...there are three videos
Any news for 2021 in your music project?
Plans for next year are difficult, since nobody can predict how long this pandemic will last. Nonetheless, another of my projects, IMPROCITY, a guitar-noise trio, has applied at an avantgarde-festival, and I also hope to be able to perform with my band AnyDayNow. For one of Neal D. Retke ́s projects I made two cover versions of Brian Eno – songs. I ́d rather say re-interpretations than cover version, but I really loved to work on his music , so I feel tempted to continue. Especially since someone wrote after listeningto my rework of The Fat Lady of Limburgh he was curious how My Third Uncle wouldsound in my rework. No further plans beyond this, but I am very curious how things will develop....
Any other thing that you want to say to your listeners?
As an experience musician, I think I hope I may say this, sort of advice: always enjoy, what you are doing, and never try to be or to sound like anybody else – always try to find yourvery own and personal sound
WILFRIED HANRATH RELEASES IN CIAN ORBE:
2017: Mario Lino Stancati & Wilfried Hanrath - Tutto è riva (EP) (CIOR-130):
https://archive.org/details/cior-130-mario-lino-stancati-wilfried-hanrath-tutto-e-riva-ep
2018: The Hauchzart Ensemble - Calicomb (CIOR-272):
https://cianorbenetlabel.bandcamp.com/album/calicomb-cior-272
2020: 60's/70's Bands Tribute (4 tracks contribution: 27-28-29-30):
https://archive.org/details/va-60s70s-bands-tribu
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