KAIJU [ANDRACULOID]

First, congratulations with Andraculoid's fifth birthday.
Thanks so much, it has been an interesting and fun five years. I am excited to see what the next 5 years will bring about.

After the first album, what were things you really wanted to change with Andraculoid. What ideas did you not use on the previous album, but used for "Imbalance" instead? Well, it’s pretty much standard that my music is dark, that is the type of electronic music I enjoy most whether it’s dark ambient, harsh electro, etc. So that bled over from the first album for sure. With this album I was going for more of a layered, frantic, but cleaner sound. Most of the noisy stuff has been subdued to beats or sounds except for the song “Disturbance (reflected)” which goes back to my noisier days. I learned a lot from my first album experience, especially what I didn’t want to do on future material. I am still proud of some of the tracks but overall I see it as a learning experience.

On “Imbalance” the biggest difference is the use of created sounds. There was some usage of preset sounds on the first album because I didn’t know any better at the time (there was a lot of created sounds too however) but on “Imbalance” every sound was created from scratch or sampled directly (for example the wind sound in “Subordination” was sampled directly and effected). This is the way I will continue to work, I think it helps to make our sound a bit more unique because we aren’t using Access Virus presets like most other bands. “Imbalance” compared to my first CD “Observations In Human Error”, is more complex, layered, faster, produced and mixed way better, sounds better, and most of all maintains diversity but is not as disjointed as the first album.

I read the album had at first been written by you, and then finished later by Mika. How did you feel about handing your material to someone else, instead of finish it yourself?
Well, we originally planned on working together on all of the songs but it proved to be very time consuming and tedious. If we would have kept working that way it would have taken us probably 6 years to get the CD done! So Mika and I decided since Andraculoid is my baby that I should write the rest of the songs (which most I already had started) and then as I finished them on my end (or at least got them close to done) he would add in his musical input and sounds. Everything worked out great, it took us a little while to get used to the system of working together but next time around it will be much smoother I think.

As for handing off my music to someone to finish, well I wouldn’t just hand it off to anyone. Mika is the other main member in the project and when I invited him to be in Andraculoid I knew he would do a great job and he was as into doing it as I was. So there’s only a few select people I would let touch my music in that way, I am not about to start passing my music off to others. That wasn’t the point. The point is that was the best way for us to work rather then sending loops and files back and forth for months to get one song done. Plus the end result came out great (in my opinion) and I think everything Mika put in just added all the right ingredients to make a good song a greater song!

The music on "Imbalance" sounds more electronic than the previous album, yet it's very tribal and organic sounding music. Is it that Mika does the tribal part (TMO elements) and you do the electronic part?
Yes, I agree the music is more electronic sounding, I definitely wanted to make our sound more hi-tech. The sounds on “Observations...” are a little more dated and the album has an old school kind of sound to it. There are tribal and organic sounds on the first CD as well. This type of music is just another style that I enjoy and it is through this interest that I found Mika (when I got into the Hybryds stuff years ago). Andraculoid may always be a harsh electro/industrial project but it will always contain aspects from every style of electronic music I enjoy. By using all these aspects it opens the musical spectrum even wider for us and our material will always be a little more unique because of this. So be prepared: I have many other ideas to add into our growing sound.

Come to think of it now I don’t believe Mika added many tribal sounds at all, his stuff was more like sweeping sounds, cavernous echoes, high end samples, and harsh drum loops.

The album has certainly got it's influences from dark electro, but also some of the industrial and noise-scene. Do you think these influences would have been different if you'd have been cooperating with (an)other person(s)?
Actually I find that before working with Mika that my material was even noisier. This is because prior to Andraculoid I was doing a lot of experimental and harsh noise material with another band I was involved with. I don’t think cooperating with others has really altered the sound of Andraculoid that drastically. We kind of evolved from less accessible music to something still harsh but more developed in structure and sound.

Truthfully I don’t find any of This Morn’ Omina to be that noisy or most of Mika’s other work. But that’s because I listen to stuff like Haus Arafna, Strom.ec or Jarl and that is what I consider to be noisy. I can’t get into the white noise stuff though – there’s no talent in it, anyone can do that stuff if they want to.

Why use the title "Imbalance" if you mix various styles that sound so balanced, so freshly mixed? What about the album title/theme? Is there a general theme worked out in the songs?
Ha I never really thought about that!! Well the title is and the songs are all based on a common theme. To make a long idea short, the album is very personal to me. It’s about my own struggle with people in general around me – mainly people I am close to. It seems over the past few years a common thing was happening to a lot of my closest friends and family.

They were having breakdowns, mental and emotional. Some to the point where they had to go on medication to “balance” out the serotonin in their brains. I became very fascinated by these events and started to notice that it was happening not only to people close to me but widespread across the world. It seems like more now than ever almost one in five people are on some type of medication to help them keep their mental states in line. I also discovered that a large part of my own life and maybe part of it’s purpose is to be a stable “anchor” so to speak for these people that are close to me. So the album is about my struggle to help keep a bunch of unstable people “a float” so to speak while trying not to lose my own mind in the stressful process of doing so (one anchor can only hold so many unstable ships right?).

On this record, there's a bigger role for the use of vocals. Where does all the anger you use come from?
Hmm I think vocal usage is about the same? Maybe it is because there are more songs on this CD and vocals are up in the mix and much more understandable (I guess as much as distorted vocals can be!).

As for the anger, everything that makes me angry builds up and gets released into the music. The biggest thing that angers me is stupidity. Stupid and ignorant people fuel plenty of the rage found on my CD’s. I really feel like people are mentally devolving back to a more primitive and less conscious state. Eventually we will all probably be clubbing each other again like angry cavemen, but this time with guns and bombs!

Beside Andraculoid, you're also cooperating in a project called Abduction Cabinet. What (and when) can we expect something from this?
Actually the Abduction Cabinet was my first electronic music venture! We put out two full length CD-R albums back in 98 and 99. Those are long gone but I may put the best tracks out on a collective CD. It was a head of it’s time, experiments with industrial, idm, electro, noise etc. All instrumental but it was my learning of analog music to digital. After the last Abduction Cabinet CD came out, I then released the Andraculoid “Modified” CD-R teaser and got picked up by DSBP. So the focus shifted to Andraculoid since that was the direction I wanted to go in. Now I have been working slowly off and on a new Abduction Cabinet album which is instrumental mainly and much darker and sinister but holds the same ideas as the older material. I hope to get it done by next year but I have been saying that for awhile. I also have a ton of other projects in the works but not enough of anything to get an album out yet.

Any more future plans in the musical department?
Yes lots but I don’t have anything complete enough to speak about in full detail. I hope I can start to get things done; there are so many songs that don’t fit into to my other projects. I am working on a soundtrack dark ambient project Vorbvl, an experimental project using tin robots called Dissectinrobotmanow, and an electro video game style project I will do with Skeletal Meltdown. Hopefully all of this stuff will be done within the next 5 years!!

And there's also a toy company? What is it with your fascination for Masks and 50’s Horror items and such?
Yessir, last year we started our own toy company Optikon Toys! Our first toy line Bobble Beasts was based on my own characters and did fairly well. We still have a few left and only 500 of each were made. We are shifting our focus away from bobble heads and are moving into vinyl action figures, pvc mini monsters, rubber slime bleeding creatures, puppets, and masks. There is a lot to come, plus we are going to start offering prototyping and small manufacturing services next year. As for my own interest in horror I like everything from the silent era up to the current stuff. I grew up watching monster movies with my dad and then I learned how to draw the creatures. Throughout the rest of my life the interest has only grown and I have become more and more involved in the whole horror genre. Now i am lucky enough to have my own monster creations available to the public. I hope to get a cartoon done next year and then maybe someday i will start doing independent films!

I am very multimedia oriented and that will be the focus of every Optikon company!

MIKA [THIS MORN' OMINA - NEBULA-H – POW[d]ER PUSSY - ANDRACULOID]

After a very successful release with This Morn' Omina, you're now involved in Andraculoid and Pow[d]er Pussy as well. You appear to be a very busy person...?
I was involved in Andraculoid before the tmo-boom. Kaiju and I were in contact even before the first pressing of “7 Years of Famine”. I guess you might say we were kindred spirits who found each other. His first album was a big surprise for me. Things developed from there, with the only drawback that there are so many miles between us, but as this album shows it is a drag but not an inhibition for the quality of the final result.

Yes, I am a busy man with all the projects and my own audio-visual company (Atomic Studios) but this is what I always worked for. No 9-5 jobs for me as they drain creativity.

Did the success of This Morn' Omina made any expectations for Andraculoid? Do you think you can make this band just as successful as TMO?
I don’t think any of projects “draws” upon the success or recognition of the other as even though with each project it is mentioned who is behind it, it has NEVER been the intention or goal to “sell” or “market” one project with the success of the other).
First of all I would not agree with such a course of action as it is disrespectful towards the audience and Secondly all the projects (nebula / tmo / andraculoid / tmo / project arctic) are different in nature and style and that is the reason why they exist or why I am involved in them – NOT because I want to ‘market’ my ‘name’.

For me personally ‘Imbalance’ had to be a progression an evolution and that is the only expectation I wanted to see fulfilled. Andraculoid is esp. Kaiju side of the project is “music from the gut” – no fancy stuff – just ‘in your face’-lyrics and music. This is what can make Andraculoid successful – its authenticity not my name on a sleeve.

Before "Imbalance", did you have a general idea of what Kaiju was working with? Did it gave you any ideas of what you wanted to do with the songs, when he was finished with his part?
I started without any preconceptions. The only thing I knew was that it had be progressive in sound and overall atmosphere by taking special care for the final mix and mastering. I took each track as Kaiju presented it to me without looking backwards to the first album.

In what way is doing a more dark electro orientated project different from a eclectic tribal dance project?
For me personally musical projects have to happen “naturally” – it all has to flow from “that good feeling” while working on it. In essence that is what music is about whatever style you work on. I don’t care about that particular “ box” people want to put Andraculoid in or about “what” is “done” and “not-done” in that style. Cross fertilization of styles is the only thing which can keep the underground alive. Being stuck in the same patterns will only destroy that perhaps last bastion of critical views on society that still exists