Hello James. First of all, I’d like to say thank you for coming to Russia early this year and giving the performance. It was an amazing experience and we hope you’ll visit Russia again. I also would like to say thank you for agreeing to give me this interview. My first question: Conservative Apocalypse by Funki Porcini For many people it’s pretty hard to find their devotion in life. It seems, you decided to work with music very early and never looked back. Is that so and why music? - It was an accident. I began in the visual arts, painting and printmaking. The first recordings were more experiment than traditional music, but I have always liked the ambiguousness of sound. As the technology advanced and became more affordable I was offered more power through the tools that became available. I am not really a musician and so I find more intrigue and wonder in the qualities of sound than in the visual arts. We have so much language to describe the visual world and such limited language to describe sound, I think our brains treat them in very different ways. How did you begin working with music, what was the start like? - I bought a saxophone from a pawn-shop in San Francisco in 1979 and began to teach myself how to play. I was interested in recording and technology and just continued to expand my experience by working with whatever tech was affordable. I built instruments from scrap metal and electrified them using transducers. I was living in old warehouses in San Francisco with other like-minded people and we experimented with early synths and tape loops and any innovation that we could think of. Your music and your style is usually described as acid jazz. Do you have favorite jazz musicians who you think to be brilliant and you would definitely would recommend to listen to? - Don Patterson was an organist that I like. Try listening to his version of When Johnny Comes Marching Home, Ornette Coleman and Don Cherry, Miles Davies is always a thrill, Oliver Nelson, the list is endless. You have a lot of instrumental parts in your music (drums, piano, flute). Do you perform yourself or cooperate with some musicians or use samples? - I play the saxophone, I have used trumpeters, flutists, guitarists as well as many samples. The drums are nearly always programmed and the bass is usually keyboard. What do you usually use to create your music (software)? - I started using computers in 1983 and then bought an Atari ST in ‘85 that ran a program called Steinberg Pro 24, the software that became Cubase, but now I use Logic Audio. How would you describe modern music and who you'd say is interesting? - I don’t listen much to music at the moment. I enjoy making things more than consuming things (although when it comes to food it’s 50/50) the most modern record that I can think of is a Russian record made by Mewark and Lazyfish. Electronic from about 2002. Really good. Today we can see the tendency for a high quality everywhere, in music as well. If to compare modern music scene to the music that existed in 90s, what changes do you see? Do you miss this low-quality “old sound”? - I do notice a homogenized sound that I suspect is a natural result of everybody using similar tools to create music but to me there is not really a ‘new’ sound just a continuous rehashing of things that have all been done before. I find modern youth in the west very conservative in their tastes compared to the 1970s when it felt as though a cultural bomb had gone off. Could you name 10 of your favorite music albums you listen to over and over again? Le Banquet Celeste by Olivier Messiaen Duke Ellington And Johnny Hodges Back to Back and Side by Side Blues and the Abstract Truth by Oliver Nelson Fresh by Sly and the family Stone Soundtrack to Taxi Driver by Bernard Herrmann Soundtrack to Psycho by Bernard Herrmann Mewark/Lazyfish I’ve Got a Woman by Jimmy McGriff Tribute to Jack Johnson by Miles Davis with John McLaughlin The next Funki Porcini album What music should we expect in 10 years? - I don’t really care, I’m sure people will do interesting things and I hope that music wins out over money. You lived in Italy for a long time. How would you estimate this experience? - When I was in Italy I was working with Keir Fraser. With Keir we started 9 Lazy 9 and began making music that was inspired by the music we listened to. Very sample heavy as it was the time of the Akai and the Emu. But Italy remains tied into my identity. It seems you have a strong sympathy to the cinema. Can you name your favorite directors and films? - I should have said earlier that when I was making visual art I wanted to make films. But it was all so expensive. I have always found the cinema to be the easiest way to understand that you are not alone in your sympathies. I saw most of the French New Wave cinema when I was quite young and it opened up my world. As to favorites, I don’t know if they are favorites because they are great films or just a flavor of something that appeals to me. I have most likely watched Blake Edwards “The Party” more than any other film as it can cure depression. You have great music videos and you shared your experience creating your videos at your performance in Saint Petersburg. Thank you for that - it was very interesting to the audience. If we’re talking about "Conservative Apocalypse", it has many details and cultural references. What did you want to say by “Conservative Apocalypse”, what is the message? - Well there are no hidden messages just what is there. I don’t have anything to say beyond it really. The film became it’s own journey when making it, as I had no idea what was going to happen. All I knew was that the train would go through the mountains and a city. I went for a ride. Many of your videos have a movement in their structure: going through a tunnel, flying on a plane, traveling by train. These videos may say, that we live in a high-pace world with constant changes and very little time to estimate them. The same can be said about your music, it reminds a road trip, going somewhere – most likely to the past. But that’s only my perception. Can you comment on this? - Well I think of musical pieces a bit like a story. They begin, have some content and then end. That is the journey, look out of the window and enjoy the ride. It’s all just a fleeting shimmer. At your performance in SPb you mentioned that you went to Poland to work on music for Chemi Bebia film by Kote Mikaberidze and the reason to do that was to see some ancient forest in Poland. Is that correct? In general, can you describe the experience creating the music set for Chemi Bebia film? - Yes, that was the reason I agreed to do it, but I was really happy when they sent the film over. It was really a lot of work and not much time to do it in. I wish I had had longer but I enjoyed it. I had to use some pieces that I had made before and I would have preferred to compose all of it anew. The best parts are where the music was made for the film specifically. Can you share your experience going to Russia in February, 2017. Why did you decide to perform there, do you feel any connection to Russia? And how did you like this experience and the audience? - I had been to Russia before in 2000 and it was interesting to see so much change, I have Russian friends in London and I am eating Russian pierogi for supper tonight, so I do feel some connections. The audiences in Moscow and SPb were great and I enjoyed being there. There was an absolutely stunning merchandise to buy at the performance in SPb – the box set containing vinyl, cassettes, toys, postcards and “something found on the street” (tree leaves, cigarettes, etc.). It’s very personal approach, not just regular concert stuff. Why you decided to do so? - It was the first product that I released myself so I thought it would be fun to do something a bit different. What are you working on right now, what should we expect in the future? - I just finished a little video that I made on the Moscow St Petersburg train. Something for the next album… James, do you want to say anything to your listeners? - Yes, thanks for listening! Funki Porcini, Saint Petersburg, February, 2017
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