My little interviews.....(Minterview #1)

So, for any of you who are here because you read my other blog, I am moving all of my minterviews over to this new fangled blog. In future, all minterviews (and there will be a future of minterviews) will be posted here, and all music blogging will also be done here. Starting with numero one, here are the previous four minterview posts from Day in Day Out:

So, funny thing, if you mention obscure bands, records, and labels enough, eventually people involved with those bands, records, and labels will not only begin reading your blog, but also commenting on it.....

This literal happenstance has convinced me to steer this blog into a somewhat more serious and regular direction. While I will provide the occasional anecdote (who could resist mentioning being stopped by gang members and asked if you were "family"....), I will try, for the time being, to focus more on music.

The first commenter happened to be Bjoern Eichstaedt, one of the creators of the aurally intriguing, minimal, musical soundtrack project, Caacrinolas. After he thanked me for saying a kind word or two about their most recent release "Vargtimmen," I thought I might track him down for my first in a series of mini-interviews (or, as I will more irritatingly call them from here on out "minterviews"...) More than kind, Bjoern went above and beyond to give some very fascinating answers to some basic questions. And yes, this minterview will get you from Darkthrone to Tangerine Dream in ways that eerily make sense. So without futher ado, here's what this musical craftsman said:

*(me=normal font, Bjoern=italics)

Bjoern Eichstaedt

First, on a merely personal level, is there any way to still get a hold of A Thousand Cries Has the Night, and Valley of the Dead? I'm guessing no, what with the limited run, but I figured if anyone would know where to dig them up it would be you.

I only have one copy each of them for myself left. But if you search for the titles, there are a lot of sites online, which offer the records for illegal download...


Second, what projects are you working on now? Any remote plans for a Caacrinolas 4?

We just did a remix project with a German gothic band called KALIBER 9, but I have no clue, when the record will come out. Talking about Caacrinolas 4, yes we are working on it. It is based on the classical piece DEATH AND THE MAIDEN by German composer Franz Schubert and will be recorded in a surround sound version for DVD. Might take us some more time, but it will definitely see that light of day ...some day.

What is your aesthetic view of the Caacrinolas project?

Well, it all started as a black metal project from guys who had never ever heard a black metal album. Larry and myself were playing in a free improvised music trio called BRETZEL KILLING MACHINE together and one day a friend of mine played a DARKTHRONE record to me which completely blew me away. So I immediately called Larry and told him: Let's do a black metal record - he had never heard any black metal before we started the recording process of A THOUSAND CRIES HAS THE NIGHT - which was as close to black metal as we could get. But being both interested in a wide range of music, we had no problems to adapt to the style. The second album VALLEY OF THE DEAD was more soundtrack oriented, so we tried to get some horror movie feel into it (that is why we used the title - it was something like a mixture of the titles DAWN OF THE DEAD and VALLEY OF THE DOLLS - a 60s movie starring Sharon Tate, the wife of Roman Polanski who has been murdered by the Charles Manson group in the late 60s) and mixed the album with influences from soundtrack composers such as ENNIO MORRICONE, also we put some prog rock influences such as KING CRIMSON or early GENESIS into it. From that moment on we defined the Caacrinolas music as film music without film. VARGTIMMEN then used that approach and took it a little further, also putting doom influences into the record. Also the record was influenced by 20th century classical composers such as György Ligeti and Penderecki, who's music was often used by filmmakers such as STANLEY KUBRICK or WILLIAM FRIEDKIN for films such as THE SHINING, THE EXORCIST or 2001. Also the music on Vargtimmen paid reference to German 70s krautrock group TANGERINE DREAM. The music of Caacrinolas is a kaleidoscope of alot of our musical influences, being classical music, prog rock, jazz, krautrock, ambient music, black metal, minimal music etc. and also our influences from the world of movies. It is film without pictures...does that answer your question?


And finally, just out of curiosity, what are you listening to these days?

I listen to alot of music. I love soundtracks, like music from 60s Mario Bava films for example, french jazz, RnB music - Neptunes stuff for example, I just bought three Kelis records. Also alot of Miles Davis 70s music recently plus German language pop music such as the latest album by German singer / songwriter Bernadette La Hengst. Well, to be honest, all kinds of stuff....

It kind of blows my mind that you were able to start with Darkthrone and end up at Tangerine Dream. It is funny that we both listen to black metal and hip hop (you may hate this stuff, and we won't even get into the subject matter but you should check out Bonecrusher and Trillville, or if you like the dj scene, DJ Dave Nada, and Tittsworth)

I know Bonecrusher - love that stuff. Never heard of the others though, but will definitely check.

Well to be honest, Tangerine Dream is not so far away from Darkthrone in my opinion since I think that Black Metal, although it is really fast, really FEELS very slow sometimes, very meditation like. Which is what Tangerine Dream is all about in my opinion. Also, Tangerine Dream did soundtrack music for William Friedkin, who also used Pendereckis music... so all is very close really. Oh, I forgot: Angelo Badalamenti, David Lynch's composer definitely was an influence too.

Also I love exotica music, like the early records of Martin Denny, Arthur Lyman and some Les Baxter stuff. Listen to these alot as well.....

[...] I just have to say that I love exotica music. I own many Martin Denny LP's, and love Yma Sumac, and Arthur Lyman, and Les Baxter, etc. I've been listening to that genre for ten years now. Out of all the diverse styles of music that my friends listen to, none of them seem to understand my deep appreciation for something like Quiet Village

Quiet Village is... well.... amazing ;-) And Yma Sumac, I just forgot about her. Although I mainly like MAMBO and VOICE OF THE XTABAY... the others are kind of cheesy..

And that friends, is the end. For coherency's sake, I should add that the first part was a series of questions that I sent Bjoern, and then it devolved into us just talking about random things we find interesting.

Unfortunately, as he mentioned, you cannot find copies of the first two Caacrinolas releases, as they were limited run cd-r's. However, you can still pick up their newest piece "Vargtimmen." If you are smart, you will grab up a copy here:Aquarius Records Simply scroll down the page until you find Caacrinolas, if you want to read about each release and hear a sample.

Well that's it for the first installment. For now I will try to put one up each week. The next two weeks will consist of an interview with one of the guys behind DC's only black metal band, Time of the Wolf, on what they've been up to lately, and the week after that, a few words with Bruno about his black metal inspired Ruralfaune Records sub label, Faunasabbatha. So keep checking in.

On a less positive note, my favorite DC record store,
Smash was broken into last week.
Here is their official statment:

in case you hadn't heard SMASH was broken into the nite of mon january
7th/8th. we've received many kind responses. while the situation
totally sucks, it could have been much worse. thanx for all the
support during this crappy time.

rock
matt/smash

----------
8 January 2008
Smash! was broken into last night.
The thief/thieves broke-in and stole eight black men's leather jackets
and all the cash from the cash register and change box were stolen.
That's over $3000 in valuables.
You want to help?
1.- Be on the lookout for someone trying to sell brand new leather
jackets at discount prices on Craigslist, Ebay, etc..
2.- Stop by Smash and buy something, we lost a lot last night, we are
small independent local-owned business.
3. Don't steal/shoplift from small independent local-owned business.
We are a dying breed due to multinational franchises.
Thank you.
Love from the Smash Staff.

It's a sad day when people are willing to steal thousands from a small, independent record store. For anyone in the DC area reading this, you should stop in and pick up a few killer items to help them out. I promise it will be well worth your time.

Thanks for reading, and in the meantime, refuse to listen to the music you are fed....