Opion Somnium interview by Taucher Magazine- Germany
Let's start with some general (maybe boring) question:
What is the significance of your name?
O.S.-� The name of the music was given for what I was trying to convey musically at the time, namely dealing with ecstatic dream states and of my own interest with sleeping.
I read that you started in the hip hop-genre (you mentioned clouddead as inspiration). What was it that led you to change your musical direction? Was it a kind of process or a sudden thing?
O.S.- It was definitely a process. I went from producing really dramatic, slow core hip hopish stuff slowly into other realms of music. I started playing what I wanted to sample, instead of having it just sample based music, in turn creating a very organic music. I would say that cLOUDDEAD really was a big influence on me to move away from hip hop and stretch boundaries.
Talking about composition-you once mentioned that often only some rough ideas are pre-planned. The rest is intuition. Would you say that that is a kind of concept or did that happen more or less accidentally?
O.S.- It's sort of an accident, and I find I work well that way. I do like to think about it as the music guiding me more than myself guiding the music. The music will take me in a certain direction as it builds.
Do you feel an affinity to the ideas about the unconscious/about dreaming that can be found in the music of Troum?
O.S.- Yes, definitely- I am very much intrigued with the realm of dreaming.
In this context: What do you think of the Surrealist concept of automatic writing?
O.S.- I think that music can definitely bring thoughts and emotions out in people that they don't have much control over. As far as writing goes, I've not looked into it much, but as for the music, I'm very fascinated with the idea that music can have more control over a listener's brain than the listener itself.
You said you don't want to sound too harsh. Do you try to create a kind of hypnotic maelstrom to suck the listener into a kind of vortex where he can forget time? ��
O.S.- Yes, I would say so. In general my pieces are quite lengthy. I would like to think of my music as peaceful in a sense, or something one could fall asleep to. In that sense I would like to try and transcend time barriers for what music is thought to fit, and also focus on the "sublime".
Your "organic" sound is certainly due to the fact that you use "proper" instruments as sound source. Have you ever used only electronically created sounds for your compositions?
O.S.- Yeah, that was back in the hip hop days. Now I would really rather play the instruments that are creating the sounds, I feel more of a connection to the music that way.
What is the significance of birds (and their feathers) on/for your releases?
O.S.- For me, they are earth angels, creatures that represent the divine - soaring creatures that continually sing- a sign of hope, and feathers are the traces of these creatures, a way to be close to something untouchable.
How do you feel about the Icarus myth?
O.S.- I think humans will always try and escape, try to be birds and escape their sufferings on the ground, but we will only crash. I'd rather look to the birds and hear them sing.
When I listened to the Drone-EP I got the impression that both tracks are aptly titled. 'Falling into the gaping hole, dark abyss' really sounds rather dark whereas 'Falling asleep on these feathers' has a soothing quality. Was it your intention to present two aspects of the music of Opion Somnium?
O.S.- Yes, that's pretty much what you picked up on. The first side represents a very dark, emotional music whereas I like to leave the listener in a bit of a lighter, dream-filled state on the second side.
Hip Hop is dominated by lyrics whereas Opion Somnium is basically instrumental. Do you sometimes regret that and would you sometimes like to integrate words into your music? I ask that because you included a rather long poem on your homepage for the Drone-release and you also used a quote in the inlay.
�O.S.- No, I don't regret the lack of lyrics. I feel like I can say infinitely more with just the music. As for the poem, that was to correspond with the different written segments on the back of the Drone 7" , each one is numbered 1 to 300, when put together in order, it completes the poem. I was interested in the idea that each one of the people who might own a copy of that record will own a part, or play a part of a larger piece- these small intimate parts of my thoughts that will be collected in different parts of the world.
You have performed live a couple of times. How many people are involved in the concerts and do you totally improvise (or do you use overdubs etc.)?
O.S.- It's really hard to do live shows. If I could do an ideal show, I would need a whole orchestra and more, but usually when we perform there are about 5 people playing and a large part of it is impossible to reproduce ?live?, so there is a lot of pre-recorded material we work off of. We have also really integrated video and film projection into our live shows.
What can we expect from the future (releases, collaborations etc.)?
O.S.- Well, there was just recently a small label formed around Opion Somnium releases and close projects. We released a full length CD of 'side project' material which features lots of artists in my area. If interested, this is available at www.cdbaby.com/opionsomnium. The next project in the making is a 12" vinyl of a re-issued and slightly re-mixed version of the 2002 'ascend and descend with feathers in hand' album. More info is at www.goodnightmoonmusic.com

*Also for those of you in Europe, these releases can be purchased from the Drone Records Mailorder.*
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