Chile’s LOOP MAGAZINE just published a brand-new interview with DIRK SERRIES about his recent solo album FLUCTUATION OF BEING on MIDIRA RECORDS.
In the early 80s the Belgian composer Dirk Serries began to work in the industrial scene with the alias of Vidna Obmana with whom he released more than 140 solo albums and in collaboration with other artists such as Steve Roach, San Rosenthal, David Lee Myers, Asmus Tietchens, Steven R. Smith, Aidan Baker, Celer, Scatterwound to name a few.
In 2005, Serries decided to finish with Vidna Obmana, while he had other projects like The Fear Falls Burning and Microphonics, the latter is still active. In addition to playing with several bands. Meanwhile he founded several labels such as Mechanical Orchestration Music in which he released the music of Vidna Obmana. In recent years he has developed a great interest in free-jazz and improvisational music, founding the A New Wave Of Jazz label.
Serries is a multifaceted musician who works both with metal and post-metal, as well as free improvisation, avant-garde jazz and ambient music under his name, with which he has just released the album “Fluctuation Of Being” (Midira Records, 2023), an album that features long guitar drones that float in a sea of uplifting tonalities. On the occasion of this new album, this interview is carried out.
Thanks go to Ed Benndorf, from the Berlin distributor Dense, for arranging this interview and to Dirk Serries for sharing his experience.
You work in a wide spectrum of music. Can you tell us what you find and appreciate in ambient music and free-jazz/improvisation?
“Almost from day one when I started to experiment with sound in the early eighties my goal was to look forward, to learn and grow as a musician and a human being. So, I never shied away from pushing myself and trying different combinations, genres and even instruments. Apart from a brief industrial phase in my early existence as a musician, I got extremely fascinated by ambient music and I still am. Over those past 3 decades I was able to fine-tune my own style in this genre, over the course working with synths and computers till purifying my sound to work solely with an electric guitar and a few pedals. Although I’m not that intensely active any more, the focus lies way more on the free improvisation nowadays, ambient music is what I breath and it’s actually thanks to being involved in the free improv scene I managed to apply a working method for my ambient music that is equally on the spot and surprising than any of the improvised music I do. It still is course a different music style so naturally it requires different playing techniques but both sides of the spectrum I just love to be in.”
What do you mean when you say “vintage ambient music”?
“The term is a wink to the old-school ambient scene in which I was active in the late eighties till the late nineties. Much changed over time, going from outboard hardware instruments like synths, sequencers, mutli-track recording on tape, analog mixing desks to the younger generation that works solely on a laptop computer. I am happy that I was able to perform a technique for myself that still resembles the style of ambient music I created with Vidna Obmana while trimming down the set-up to just one Carefully selected electric guitar and a handful of pedals. The way of playing, layering the tonalities and having them shift slowly over time is just that what I did with Vidna Obmana on synths and all the tools in my studio. Therefore, the reference to the vintage style of playing the ambience”
What do you like to explore with your side-projects Fear Falls Burning and Microphonics?
“Microphonics is definitely a closed book but with Fear Falls Burning ideas are forming to do another record and it surely will be the ‘band’ approach again. Hopefully I’ll be able to record some material over the course of this Summer.”
Which bands/labels/music magazines would you highlight from the early 80s?
“There are plenty as the eighties were just such an inspiring and creative period. To highlight a few musicians and bands: Giancarlo Toniutti, Joy Division, Test Department, early The Cure, Maurizio Bianchi, Chris & Cosey and even early Simple Minds. Labels like Factory, Broken Flag, RRRecords, Sub Rosa, Staalplaat and Projekt.”
Which were the sources of inspiration for the making of your latest “Fluctuation Of Being” album?
“Being here and now. I mean, despite still a lot of people will probably deny or refuse to accept it, we are living in an intense period and already for a long time. Absolutely don’t want to go politically here but the pressure ‘On us, all the impulses we’ve to digest is just sometimes too much to handle and makes you shift your life almost constantly. This album is just about that, the constant twists of the mind under impulse of daily life.’”
On Fear Falls Burning’s Bandcamp page you pointed out “a musical meditation on purity and subdued power” What does it mean?
“Wow, that’s a long time since I read that definition but back then after completing the Vidna Obmana story I really wanted to pursue something different. Fear Falls Burning still has connotations to what I did previously but the approach was different, less studio-oriented but real-time guitar manipulations through a vast array of pedal effects. The focus was on playing simple motives on the guitar while the effects brought everything into play and constructed the full guitar soundscape. Fear Falls Burning was way more powerful than Vidna Obmana ever was, louder and more intense but at the same time it was about the detailed research in what the electric guitar could produce, from the tiniest sounds to the full-on wash of tones. That said, Fear Falls Burning slowly over time, due to My ongoing urge to experiment, turned into a band project that features several key players from the metal, post-metal and free improv. scene. More to come for sure.”
What would you highlight the most from these 30 years dedicated to music?
“It’s difficult to pick one but generally seen I’m most proud of how I have been able to create my own identity while maintaining my independency. Nothing is original but in this all you can still work and make the efforts to realize your own voice and this is what I’ve done from day one. Of course, I always have been ambitious to share my music with as many listeners possible, this is something you decide upon when you start releasing your work but never, I wanted to follow the straight path and rely on a particular success. The number surely dropped when the highly successful cd retail collapsed in the late nineties, due to the arrival of streaming, but luckily there’s still a dedicated audience adventurous enough to follow me on this journey of constant exploration. And the fact that I’ve been able to work together with such talented international musicians, through various genres, while others seem to follow that and be inspired by, confirms that I probably am doing some interesting stuff. From my solo work, the free improv band KODIAN TRIO (with Colin Webster and Andrew Lisle) to the culmination of all YODOK III (with Tomas Järmyr and Kristoffer Lo).”
Guillermo Escudero
May 2023
Buy FLUCTUATION OF BEING here. Visit the MIDIRA RECORDS website here.
dirkserries.com 