MEMBER
Christoph Heemann (H.N.A.S., PLASTIC PALACE PEOPLE, HOLLYWOOD DREAM TRIP, MIRROR, MIMIR, IN CAMERA, A MOUSE ORCHESTRA, DIE LUSTIGEN NUSSE, HIRSCH QUADRAT, SECLUSION, VOGELSCHEIs UND SEINE VERRUCKTEN KROTEN, ULTRA)
Christoph Heemann. Born in 1964 in Aachen, Germany, Heemann began his musical work in 1983 as a founding member of the group HIRSCHE NICHT AUFS SOFA (H.N.A.S.), who released several albums of their surreal collagemusic between 1985 and 1993, drawing inspiration from such diverse elements as musique concrete, avantgarde, krautrock and improvised music. After the group disbanded Heemann continued working solo and with the group MIMIR (with Edward Ka-spel and Jim O'Rourke), the drone projects MIRROR (with Andrew Chalk), and IN CAMERA (with Timo van Luyck).
Heemann's solo compositions have often been described as "ear-movies", in which he fuses field recordings, acoustic instruments, electronics, and electroacoustic sounds into audio narratives. Aside from this Heemann has done a series of musical collaborations (with Jim O'Rourke, Lee Ranaldo, Charlemagne Palestine, William Basinski) and works as a producer (Keiji Haino, Charlemagne Palestine, Limpe Fuchs, Current 93). He has run the Streamline label since 1994.
How did you become interested in sound construction?
I grew up with music around me, everybody in my family was interested in listening to and playing music and even as a yound teenager I got to hear a lot of different types of music. When I first heard the electronic music of John Cage and the minimalist music of Terry Riley at the age of 13 my interest in sound changed and became more serious, shortly after I started wanting to explore working with sound myself.
I feel your music is so many kind of music. Do you think that you were influenced by any kind of music?
I was influenced by the mixture of all the different sounds of music and environment I got in touch with and learned to experience and apreciate.
What inspires you to create music?
I'm not exactly sure where the initial inspiration comes from, the experience of listening helps to develop ideas about possible shapes and textures of my own creation
... when I work on a piece I usually wait until the idea has grown in my thoughts and then recreate what I can hear in my imagination.
What do you have the concept when you start to make new record?
I try to approach every record in a different way, for some albums I created graphic scores, others happened intuitively, there is no general or repeating concept/approach.
You will come to Japan soon! How do you feel the Japan Tour with Jim O'Rourke and Celer?
I'm excited about coming to Japan again soon as it is a place I like very much. I'm also looking forward to the concerts as Will Long and Jim O'Rourke are among my very favourite artists to collaborate with.
How do you feel about Japan?
Since Japanese culture is extremely complex and intricate my feelings reflect that in some way, a detailed answer to this question thus would take more time and space than this situation would allow for, however I shall say that I have been drawn to Japanese culture for a long time already.
Do you have some japanese favorite artists?
Yes, I like a lot of Haruomi Hosono's work, both as musician and producer (Happy End, Tin Pan Alley, Chu Kosaka etc), also Morio Agata, Guernica, more recent artists like Nagisa Nite, OOIOO and Oorutaichi...
Please let me know near future plan.
I'm about to release a new solo album "Perception And Association", also a new In Camera album should appear before too long, together with Limpe Fuchs In Camera has produced the "Macchia Forest" album that will appear on Streamline in December. I hope to produce more work with Jim O'Rourke as Plastic Palace People and with Will Long as Hollywood Dream Trip. With Andrew Chalk I am talking about new Mirror sessions in the fall of this year.
Please give a massage to japanese fans!
I look forward to seeing old friends and fans again and I hope to meet new people too.
We will offer some new, micro edition items at the concerts, exclusive to this tour only, including a special Japanese edition of Hollywood Dream Trip's "Second Album" and a disc of new and previously unreleased work by myself.
INTERVIEW in July 2013
TRANSLATED by Naoko Yamada
TEXT by Masato Hoshino
CHRISTOPH HEEMANN
