"..is it "Industrial"? I don't know, I don't think so.. maybe Cinematic Industrial Pop?.."
("Pinwheels" by JG Thirlwell)
JG Thirlwell
Vivid Intonation Engineer
JG Thirlwell Bio:
JG Thirlwell is a composer/producer/performer based in Brooklyn NY. He was born in Melbourne, Australia, where he studied art at Melbourne State College for two years before moving to London in 1978. After working with experimental group Nurse With Wound, Thirlwell started making his own records in 1980, initially releasing them on his own “Self Immolation” label. He was inspired by the Post-Punk explosion of creativity in the UK which engendered the accessibility of DIY, as well as the writings of John Cage and systems music, among other things. He relocated to NYC in 1983, where he still lives and works today.
Thirlwell’s discography is extensive under many pseudonyms including Foetus, Steroid Maximus, Manorexia, Baby Zizanie, Wiseblood, Clint Ruin and others. If there is a common thread to his varied musical styles, it is dramatic intensity and evocative, cinematic quality. Thirlwell’s oeuvre stretches the gamut from orchestrations, big band, cathartic noise-rock to abstract electronics and sound sculpture, chamber music, serial music and imaginary soundtracks – sometimes all in the same album.
In recent years, with commissions for Kronos Quartet, Bang On A Can, and his occasional eighteen piece ensemble, he has been increasingly interested electronically and sample generated music being re-scored for traditional instrumentation – played both conventionally and not (recent examples include performing with a chamber ensemble version of Manorexia). Thirlwell is also a member of the “freq_out” sound-art collective, who create on-site sound and light installations led by curator Carl Michael Von Hausswolf. In addition, Thirlwell scores “The Venture Brothers”, a hit cartoon show on Adult Swim/Cartoon Network.
Hello, how are you?
(..we'll assume he's OK:)
What are you currently listening to?
This morning I have been listening to Morton Subotnik, the Danish composer Poul Ruders, "Phaedra" by Tangerine Dream, "The Piece Men" by David Lang and the album "Journeys : Orchestral Works By American Women"
Congratulations on such an amazing album (EIC's #2 album of 2010)! What exactly do you mean by "Hide"?
The Foetus album titles are all four letter one syllable words with multiple interpretations. To me the title Hide means "secrete thyself", and also Hide as in animal skin. I describe the album as a neo-symphonic avant-psychedelic concept album informed by the culture of fear. I made the album over the period of a few years, and most of the lyrics were written while George W. Bush was in power. However it seems the culture of fear continues unabated, the pot stirred by the Tea Party, Fox News, Neo-cons etc. These themes run thru some off the tracks, where I allude to crusades, the rapture, paranoia and secret societies, notably on "Here Comes The Rain", "Cosmetics" and "Oilfields". There are some masonic references on the sleeve.
Musically it goes in many directions, but it is perhaps my most symphonic album. I didn't really set out to make an album like that at the outset, but it evolved into that organically.
The first track I wrote was "Paper Slippers", which I think is is quite psychedelic, but with some slightly dissonant string passages. Then when I made the operatic track "Cosmetics", that set a new tone and sparked a lot of ideas, in some ways framed the album. When I started that composition I knew the form that I wanted it to take, I had it pieced out in my head - that it would be symphonic with a massed choral vocal part and it would be complex, with many sections which would return to a main theme. Though in the course of getting it out of my head and into an aural reality, things change, and there were points I felt it may not work. It got reworked a few times and chunks got rejected. I was very excited to work with mezzo-soprano Abby Fischer on the vocals, she is incredible and it whet my appetite for more work in the vein.
Similarly, when I went into "The Ballad of Sisyphus T.Jones", I had the concept of re-contextualizing the Sisyphus myth into an epic spaghetti western. I had just read "A Long Way Gone", about child soldiers in Sierra Leone, so that fed into it as well.
The track "Concrete" is a musiq concrète piece which grew re-examining some of the textures I had been using in some sound design work I've been doing over the past few years.
A lot of the time I have to massage my songs into shape. HIDE was actually created over the course of about four years. Simultaneously I was also working on The Venture Bros and Manorexia, among other things.
I know this is an older track, but I really/absolutely 101% LOVE the song "Butterfly Potion", what prompted you to write this song?
I was inspired to wrote it after readng "The Shoemaker", a book by Flora Rita Schreiber, which is a fascinating and chilling account of Joseph Kallinger. He was severely abused by his parents and went on to inflict abuse on his own wife and kids, and commit various nefarious acts. He invented his own language. His only escape from his mental anguish was watching butterflies fly over some cliffs by a seaside.
Can you tell us the story of how you were chosen to do the Venture Bros music?
The director Jackson Publick had started writing the pilot of the show, but was stuck, when he heard an early Steroid Maximus album. That provided him inspiration to finish the pilot. When it came to score they contacted me and coerced to to score the series. At first I was finding my feet defining the musical vocabulary of the show, but when I finally did - probably by the second season - it started to come more quickly. It's been a rewarding experience and the sheer amount of composing has made my chops better.
Who's your favorite Venture Bros. character?
Brock Samson. When he's around I can often get my teeth into some juicy action scoring.
Can you share with us the strangest/most bizarre moment you have witnessed/been a part of in your lengthy musical career?
I had an audience with Dr Anton LaVey, of the Church of Satan, in his house. It was arranged by our mutual friend Rebecca Wilson and I went there with artist The Pizz. We sat in the Doctor's kitchen and he regaled us with tales of his life. He was very charming and eloquent. I brought him a Steroid Maximus CD, and he listened to closely while I was there and enjoyed it. At one point he spontaneously started playing on his keyboard rig, which was set up there, and this became a 20 minute impromptu performance. It was incredible!
What's next for JG Thirlwell?
I am finishing the new Manorexia album The Dinoflagelette Blooms. Manorexia is another one of my instrumental projects. The new album will be released both in stereo and 5:1 surround sound. When I play live as Manorexia, it is as a seven piece chamber ensemble , consisting of two violins, viola, cello, piano, percussion and laptop. I re-score and re-voice the compositions for those instruments. I made an album of the chamber versions which was released last year on John Zorn's Tzadik label.
Soon I will be scoring a feature film, which is directed by Eva Aridjis. Entitled The Blue Eyes, it's a supernatural thriller.
I have been working with Kronos Quartet for a few years, and have written two string quartets for them. Soon I will start working on my third commission for them.
I'm also looking froward to doing some work with Mivos Quartet.
There will also be what I call a companion, or satellite album, to HIDE, which will be comprised of pieces I wrote for HIDE that didn't make it onto the album,as well as other material recorded around the same time.
You can also look forward to an anthology of my very early singles and radio sessions.
There's always new projects, which you can keep track of on on www.foetus.org
You can only keep/listen to ONE album for the rest of your life ..which album would it be?
I would put a bullet in my head if I was only able to listen to one album so maybe for today I'll cheat and say that I'll be washed up on the desert island with a boxed set of the entire works of Stravinsky.
Are you living your dream?
Not yet. But things aren't too shabby.
Thanx Mr. Thirlwell!
JG Thirlwell is currently working on a lot of things (as usual), make sure to check his website out for regular updates...
("Pinwheels" by JG Thirlwell)JG Thirlwell
Vivid Intonation Engineer
JG Thirlwell Bio:
JG Thirlwell is a composer/producer/performer based in Brooklyn NY. He was born in Melbourne, Australia, where he studied art at Melbourne State College for two years before moving to London in 1978. After working with experimental group Nurse With Wound, Thirlwell started making his own records in 1980, initially releasing them on his own “Self Immolation” label. He was inspired by the Post-Punk explosion of creativity in the UK which engendered the accessibility of DIY, as well as the writings of John Cage and systems music, among other things. He relocated to NYC in 1983, where he still lives and works today.
Thirlwell’s discography is extensive under many pseudonyms including Foetus, Steroid Maximus, Manorexia, Baby Zizanie, Wiseblood, Clint Ruin and others. If there is a common thread to his varied musical styles, it is dramatic intensity and evocative, cinematic quality. Thirlwell’s oeuvre stretches the gamut from orchestrations, big band, cathartic noise-rock to abstract electronics and sound sculpture, chamber music, serial music and imaginary soundtracks – sometimes all in the same album.
In recent years, with commissions for Kronos Quartet, Bang On A Can, and his occasional eighteen piece ensemble, he has been increasingly interested electronically and sample generated music being re-scored for traditional instrumentation – played both conventionally and not (recent examples include performing with a chamber ensemble version of Manorexia). Thirlwell is also a member of the “freq_out” sound-art collective, who create on-site sound and light installations led by curator Carl Michael Von Hausswolf. In addition, Thirlwell scores “The Venture Brothers”, a hit cartoon show on Adult Swim/Cartoon Network.
Hello, how are you?
(..we'll assume he's OK:)
What are you currently listening to?
This morning I have been listening to Morton Subotnik, the Danish composer Poul Ruders, "Phaedra" by Tangerine Dream, "The Piece Men" by David Lang and the album "Journeys : Orchestral Works By American Women"
Congratulations on such an amazing album (EIC's #2 album of 2010)! What exactly do you mean by "Hide"?
The Foetus album titles are all four letter one syllable words with multiple interpretations. To me the title Hide means "secrete thyself", and also Hide as in animal skin. I describe the album as a neo-symphonic avant-psychedelic concept album informed by the culture of fear. I made the album over the period of a few years, and most of the lyrics were written while George W. Bush was in power. However it seems the culture of fear continues unabated, the pot stirred by the Tea Party, Fox News, Neo-cons etc. These themes run thru some off the tracks, where I allude to crusades, the rapture, paranoia and secret societies, notably on "Here Comes The Rain", "Cosmetics" and "Oilfields". There are some masonic references on the sleeve.
Musically it goes in many directions, but it is perhaps my most symphonic album. I didn't really set out to make an album like that at the outset, but it evolved into that organically.
The first track I wrote was "Paper Slippers", which I think is is quite psychedelic, but with some slightly dissonant string passages. Then when I made the operatic track "Cosmetics", that set a new tone and sparked a lot of ideas, in some ways framed the album. When I started that composition I knew the form that I wanted it to take, I had it pieced out in my head - that it would be symphonic with a massed choral vocal part and it would be complex, with many sections which would return to a main theme. Though in the course of getting it out of my head and into an aural reality, things change, and there were points I felt it may not work. It got reworked a few times and chunks got rejected. I was very excited to work with mezzo-soprano Abby Fischer on the vocals, she is incredible and it whet my appetite for more work in the vein.
Similarly, when I went into "The Ballad of Sisyphus T.Jones", I had the concept of re-contextualizing the Sisyphus myth into an epic spaghetti western. I had just read "A Long Way Gone", about child soldiers in Sierra Leone, so that fed into it as well.
The track "Concrete" is a musiq concrète piece which grew re-examining some of the textures I had been using in some sound design work I've been doing over the past few years.
A lot of the time I have to massage my songs into shape. HIDE was actually created over the course of about four years. Simultaneously I was also working on The Venture Bros and Manorexia, among other things.
I know this is an older track, but I really/absolutely 101% LOVE the song "Butterfly Potion", what prompted you to write this song?
I was inspired to wrote it after readng "The Shoemaker", a book by Flora Rita Schreiber, which is a fascinating and chilling account of Joseph Kallinger. He was severely abused by his parents and went on to inflict abuse on his own wife and kids, and commit various nefarious acts. He invented his own language. His only escape from his mental anguish was watching butterflies fly over some cliffs by a seaside.
Can you tell us the story of how you were chosen to do the Venture Bros music?
The director Jackson Publick had started writing the pilot of the show, but was stuck, when he heard an early Steroid Maximus album. That provided him inspiration to finish the pilot. When it came to score they contacted me and coerced to to score the series. At first I was finding my feet defining the musical vocabulary of the show, but when I finally did - probably by the second season - it started to come more quickly. It's been a rewarding experience and the sheer amount of composing has made my chops better.
Who's your favorite Venture Bros. character?
Brock Samson. When he's around I can often get my teeth into some juicy action scoring.
Can you share with us the strangest/most bizarre moment you have witnessed/been a part of in your lengthy musical career?
I had an audience with Dr Anton LaVey, of the Church of Satan, in his house. It was arranged by our mutual friend Rebecca Wilson and I went there with artist The Pizz. We sat in the Doctor's kitchen and he regaled us with tales of his life. He was very charming and eloquent. I brought him a Steroid Maximus CD, and he listened to closely while I was there and enjoyed it. At one point he spontaneously started playing on his keyboard rig, which was set up there, and this became a 20 minute impromptu performance. It was incredible!
What's next for JG Thirlwell?
I am finishing the new Manorexia album The Dinoflagelette Blooms. Manorexia is another one of my instrumental projects. The new album will be released both in stereo and 5:1 surround sound. When I play live as Manorexia, it is as a seven piece chamber ensemble , consisting of two violins, viola, cello, piano, percussion and laptop. I re-score and re-voice the compositions for those instruments. I made an album of the chamber versions which was released last year on John Zorn's Tzadik label.
Soon I will be scoring a feature film, which is directed by Eva Aridjis. Entitled The Blue Eyes, it's a supernatural thriller.
I have been working with Kronos Quartet for a few years, and have written two string quartets for them. Soon I will start working on my third commission for them.
I'm also looking froward to doing some work with Mivos Quartet.
There will also be what I call a companion, or satellite album, to HIDE, which will be comprised of pieces I wrote for HIDE that didn't make it onto the album,as well as other material recorded around the same time.
You can also look forward to an anthology of my very early singles and radio sessions.
There's always new projects, which you can keep track of on on www.foetus.org
You can only keep/listen to ONE album for the rest of your life ..which album would it be?
I would put a bullet in my head if I was only able to listen to one album so maybe for today I'll cheat and say that I'll be washed up on the desert island with a boxed set of the entire works of Stravinsky.
Are you living your dream?
Not yet. But things aren't too shabby.
Thanx Mr. Thirlwell!
JG Thirlwell is currently working on a lot of things (as usual), make sure to check his website out for regular updates...
No comments:
Post a Comment