Interview met STAATSEINDE
De vrienden van STAATSEINDE zijn terug en hebben weer een nieuwe kneiter van een EP afgeleverd. De prachtige mix van synthwave, EBM en hun eigen unieke muzikale stijl genaamd de Neue Niederländische Welle maakt het pompende album ¨Darüber Reden Wir Nicht¨ tot iets bijzonders en van buiten deze wereld. Ook wel logisch, want ze zijn tenslotte van buitenaarde afkomst. In de roerige tijden waarin we ons nu bevinden kunnen de mannen zich in dit interview even los laten gaan en wordt je getrakteerd op een zeer openhartig gesprek waarin de we zielen binnentreden van deze ¨parels¨ binnen de Nederlandse muziekscène. Geniet van dit interview en vanaf 20 september ligt het nieuwe album in de digitale schappen en kan je ook nog je eigen exemplaar op LP bemachtigen.
The friends of STAATSEINDE are back and have delivered another new stunning EP. The wonderful mix of synthwave, EBM and their own unique musical style called the Neue Niederländische Welle makes the pumping album ¨Darüber Reden Wir Nicht¨ something special and from outside this world. Also logical, because after all they are of extraterrestrial descent. In the turbulent times in which we find ourselves now, the men can let themselves go in this interview and you will be treated to a very frank conversation in which we enter the souls of these "pearls" within the Dutch music scene. Enjoy this interview and from September 20th the new album will be on the digital shelves and you can also get your own copy on LP.
Friends from outer space, can you please introduce yourself?
Der Neo here, founder and commander of the former ISCMC (Intergalactic Staatseindic
Cosmonaut Music Companionship), better known here on Earth as Staatseinde.
Congratulations with your new EP ¨Darüber Reden Wir Nicht¨! What can you tell us about the concept for this album?
It was not intended as a concept album, since there was no concept on forehand, but we have to admit the message has become urgent when you place it in today's reality. To start recording with a concept might temper your artistic input options. That said, there will always be some sort of concept when you record within a period of time, it will always reflect the things that happen in the world and on a personal level in some way.
The tracks are mainly about how humans seem to never learn from their past and are incapable of foreseeing the future in a perspective that is good for the species in the long term. Conflicts, violence, war, hunger, starvation,... Mankind is sucking up all resources this planet has to offer and doesn't give anything back. You could ask us why we decided to stay here... well at least some of you try to change the world and humans are simply great at listening to music.
What are the reactions on this EP beyond the boundaries of our solar system?
We have had many responses! Buck Rogers said he can boogie on it for lightyears, Rick Decard thinks that we are so good that we must be replicants,... Wilma Deering, Data, Major Tom,... I can go on for a while here... it's so widespread already... even Davros made a statement about the new record. He thinks we are a threat to his so-called superiority. He must be so scared of us to let himself go like that.
What other activities will you do to promote the new EP?
A month ago i would have said: Darüber reden wir Nicht (we don't talk about that), but things change fast these dystopian days. It all went very differently than what we had planned. We had scheduled a festival and a few gigs in Germany already and various options in clubs and venues in a few countries as well, and then... we all know what happened. We knew something was coming, but since we decided to become fully humanoid a few years ago we have not had many contact with the worlds beyond this planet, otherwise we had probably been able to see this all coming.
The last couple of weeks we have been talking a lot with Walter from Lo Phi on how to have some sort of release show and we managed to set up a show in Leiden and eventually two more gigs in Zeist and Bunnik (of all places). We are very happy to at least be able to perform again and are really thankful to the people and venues that helped us making it happen after all these months of liveshow-silence!
How did you spend your time this year so far on earth with this worldwide pandemic
called COVID-19?
In the studio! We were just starting to change our live set-up, to make it more flexible, intuitive and use less equipment so we would be able to travel more lightly and not have to stuff a van. We had to send back our spaceship when adopting the sleeve of man so we have to travel the human way now. We had all the time to work on that and we did a few live streams to have some sort of live performance adrenaline going through your spine and tweaked the live set-up here and there. Also there was more than enough inspiration and time to create new material. Maybe these are the first recordings based on a by forehand made concept idea. It had to be this way I guess.
As the founders of the Neue Niederländische Welle, what can you tell us about this style?
As with the German counterpart the style of music was evaluated through time. We want to feel free to choose new musical paths and adopt them as we wish. We started as a band using a granny-organ demo/backing tape that I made at home and added some live drums, bass guitar and screamed some vocals through a space echo and distortion pedal. Most of us listened to rock and metal in those days and all remember the good old 80's period as a distant memory of our human childhood.
Like the early days of NDW it had a big punk-like attitude. Later more wave was added and some good old gothic-period influences found their way into our sound. With the departure of the bass player and Andy Dufter joining us he introduced the bass synth and I thought it would be great to bring a 'mobile' version of my Yamaha C-605 organ on stage. The sound became more and more electronic, more synths were added, drummer left, sequencer came in; just like the sound of NDW has done it, we became more and more electronic. At a certain point we kind of had to adopt the style term that was once introduced by a reviewer from one of our first records. And from there on we went on evolving ourselves and got inspired by many artists andstyles, genres and subgenres.
Neue Niederländische Welle fits us comfortably and we don't have to push ourselves in a certain genre. The style name NNW gives us the freedom to adopt pretty much every possible music style without having to explain it.
You are based in the Dutch city of Utrecht. How is it to live there and what´s your opinion on the electronic music scene in this great city?
I think I can say we are not really operating from within the Utrecht scene. Although we love Utrecht somehow we have a mixed feeling concerning getting the right shows booked. For The Netherlands in general that is. Maybe we are too 'German' in terms of our lyrics. It seems as if we are not easy to book for Dutch bookers. We are not a traditional band, but also not a dance act. In the countries around us that seems not to be a problem for bookers. Utrecht and also The Netherlands are a bit too small for our niche. There are some great acts from Utrecht like Sololust, Men of Mega, Pocket Knife Army, Roberto Auser and Endfest for example.
With which producer or artist would you like to make a record?
We have only worked with a producer in our traditional-band-formation days, but since we are fully electronic things have changed in a way that until today we don't feel like we need them. Maybe being an electronic acts makes us able to create a workflow to be good producers ourselves. Not that we think producers can't do a great job or help you make a better product. We are autonomous. We simply don't feel the need to work with a producer. Instead of a producer we work together closely with the labels we are attached to. An example is a remix of our already successful debut track that resulted in the Rude66 remix of Ruimtevaart Vooruit as part of our first 7" that was discussed with Enfant Terrible. Also the label is always great in giving us feedback on tracks to make them even better.
A few years ago we recorded a track together with the German singer from UiJuiJui that became the start of the Crazy Earthlings Collab Tape project. Also we were asked for an art project in Nijmegen to work together with the Dutch writer and poet Wout Waanders that resulted in a show we brought to the audience in 2017 and 2019. From there on the collabs with befriended artists resulted in a cassette including songs not only with Zacki from UiJuiJui and Wout Waanders but also Lovataraxx from France, Butsenzeller from Belgium and Sololust, Sarah Malpass and Arpatle from Utrecht took part in the collaboration. The last one being a project of Metzger Pat who joined Staatseinde after the collab release where we performed one of our songs together.
At this very moment we are working on the 2nd collaboration tape. We started a week before the lockdown with HerrNia from Belgium resulting in a video release of our song 'Virus' during one of our recent live-stream concerts. We also did a studio session with Endfest who is basically our neighbour and have a cover and remix with Celldöd from Sweden and some more recordings with Wout Waanders in the archives. More is planned, sometimes by sending over files. Although prefered, with all the regulations nowadays studio sessions are going a bit slower. To finally answer your question with who we'd like to make a record, we are talking with artists such as Dada Pogrom, Ian Martin, Venderstrooik, Raderkraft and Leroy Se Meurt.
Which movie should we all watch, and how about music to listen to and books to read?
For this question(s) we made a pretty big list of our recommendations which you can find at the bottom of this interview.
What do you like most about the ´80s?
Although the foundation for electronic music goes back much further than the '80s by Kraftwerk, .... And.... my nostalgic mind wants to say it was the '80s. I think that is because the '80s was a decade that made electronic music find its way from underground and the experimental music scene into popular music and with the rise and importance of music videos it created something new. Electronic music created the possibility to expand the boundaries of sound itself. The possibilities given brought experimenting to the next level. People like Jimi Hendrix found out how to find the boundaries of experimenting on a guitar, but electronic instruments, although hard to operate in the early days, created possibilities for every person that could switch a knob to make anything they'd imagined.
Beside music from the '80s I think the whole youth culture that was started on MTV, although I am especially a fan of their ‘90s shows such as Beavis & Butt-Head and Celebrity Deathmatch. And ofcourse ‘80s movies and series in general, wow, those movies... Gremlins, Critters, Back to the Future, Dune, Knight Rider, Star Trek,... It's all nostalgia I guess that makes the '80s great. It's the period that shaped my Earth days, and thereby a big inspiration.
And finally as the space travellers you are, any last words to the synthwave community?
I hope the days of concerts come back, so we can go on with our mission of spreading our music. In the meantime we think this period will inspire musicians to make great new works. I hope you like reading my long humanoid thoughts on mankind. Don't take it personally, or do it when you feel offended, then you probably deserve it. But ´Darüber reden wir Nicht´.
Movies to watch
1. All David Lynch movies are a must watch! 2. 'Brazil' - Great dystopian sci-fi movie by Terry Gilliam
3. '2001: A Space Odyssey' by Stanley Kubrick, needs no explanation...
4. 'Tank Girl' directed by Rachel Talalay, post-apocalyptic sci-fi based on Alan Martin and Jamie Hewlett's comic series.
5. 'The Forbidden Room' is surrealistic cinema at its best by Guy Maddin.
6. 'The Holy Mountain', a Mexican hippie (bad) trip movie by Alejandro Jodorowsky
7. 'Pink Flamingos', a black comedy movie by John Waters
8. 'Meet the Feebles' by Peter Jackson is a sadistic puppet movie full of violence, explicit sex, drug abuse, murder, rapes and snuffs.
9. Not all, but a lot of films by Lars von Trier are masterpieces. Apocalyptic 'Melancholia' is maybe his best work, but also films made in compliance with the 'Dogme 95 Manifest', such as 'Idioterne' are great films
10. Not a movie, but two series to recommend are German sci-fi drama thriller 'Dark' and UK 'The End of the F***ing World', a cringing coming of age dark-comedy drama.
Books you should read
1. Pretty much all books by Haruki Murakami are masterpieces and great reads. Best works are dystopian parallel world novels '1q84' and 'Kafka on the Shore' full of magical realism and interrelated plots.
2. 'Globalia' is a sci-fi novel by Jean-Christophe Rufin, where thanks to genetic manipulation and plastic surgery, everyone is young, healthy and beautiful.
3. 'The Man in the High Castle' by Philip K. Dick is an alternative history novel where the Axis Powers of Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan rule the world after victory in WWII.
4. 'We' by Jevgeni Zamjalitin. Written in 1929, before Brave New World and 1984, this is the first anti-utopian novel.
5. In 'Cell' by Stephan King a signal turns every cell phone user into a mindless zombie-like killer. The eight-part book series of the 'Dark Tower' is Stephan King at its best. A magical world
with the best of horror, fantasy, sci-fi and western (don't watch the movie, it's bad).
7. 'How to Feed a Dictator' by Witold Szabłowski. A Bad taste guide to entertaining Tyrants.
8. 'Terra Insecta' by Anne Sverdrup-Thygeson. Without insects our world would not spin around the way it does.
9. Arto Paasilinna is a Finnish writer of humoristic novels placed in a depressing setting. Must read is 'A Charming Mass Suicide'.
10. Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams, a great satirical science-fiction classic.
11 'Blindness' by Jose Saramago is about a mass epidemic of blindness and the social breakdown of humanity.
Music we listen to
1. Molchat Doma - Etazhi (post-punk, new-wave)
2. Crystal Castles - Amnesty (I) (witch house / glitchpop)
3. Leroy Se Meurt - LRSM (post-punk / EBM)
4. Troum - Tjukurrpa (drone / dark ambient)
5. The Legendary Pink Dots - Asylum (experimental rock)
6. Einstürzende Neubauten - Ende Neu (avant garde / industrial)
7. La Femme - Psycho Tropical Berlin (psych-punk / krautrock / coldwave)
8. Void Vision - Sub Rosa (minimal synth / coldwave)
9. Beograd - Remek depo (synthpop / electronic)
10. Some more bands to listen to... Kim Ki O, Schwefelgelb, Hatari, Deux, Group Rhoda, Onont Kombar, Neugeborene Nachtmusik, The Soft Moon and TWINS for exemple.
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