Name: Etceteral
Members: Boštjan Simon, Marek Fakuč, Lina Rica

Nationality: Slovenian
Occupation: Saxophone, synth, electronics (Boštjan Simon), drums (Marek Faku), visuals (Lina Rica)
Current Release: Etceteral's Rhizome is out via Glitterbeat.
Recommendations: Marek: At the moment I’m into The Art of War and artist Damien Hirst
Boštjan: Two books by David Graeber: The Dawn Of Everything and Debt: First 5000 Years
Lina: Marta Fakuch, Darija S. Radaković, Svetislav Basara

If you enjoyed this interview with Etceteral and would like to stay up to date with the band and their music, visit them on Instagram, and Facebook



When did you start writing/producing/playing music and what or who were your early passions and influences? What was it about music and/or sound that drew you to it?
 
Boštjan: Marek (the drummer) and me started playing in the winter of 2019. We set out to mostly improvise and explore the electroacoustic realm.

We come from a mixed background, our musical pasts include free improvisation, jazz and electroacoustic music. I came from playing and studying jazz, but since I was coming of age in the 90s when the British underground electronic music scene was booming, I became aware of Aphex Twin, The Chemical Brothers, The Prodigy, then later Autechre, Boards Of Canada and others.

The thing that drew me to this music was its propulsive and at the same time elusive nature that was different from the radio hits at the time.

Lina: I have never produced any music, but it has been an important part of my life since early childhood because my parents had many records and music was our daily companion.

Until the mid 90s, it was r'n'r, reggae, classical music. Then, in the 90s, trip-hop, grunge, punk, techno and jazz. After that minimal, experimental and noise.

When I listen to music, I see shapes, objects and colours. What happens in your body when you're listening and how does it influence your approach to creativity?
 
Boštjan: No synaesthesia for me, but depending on the music, my reactions range form feeling interested, curious, all the way to feeling threatened, suffocated.

The listening experience feeds back into what I do in terms of taking care that there is enough space for the listener to digest all the musical information and generally to stay on the bright side even when things get dark.

Lina: I have had the experience of synaesthesia whilst listening to certain music in altered states of consciousness. It happened few times and it was wonderful.

My usual reaction to good music is movement. I love dancing. I found it therapeutical.

How would you describe your development as an artist in terms of interests and challenges, searching for a personal voice, as well as breakthroughs?

Marek: My musical interests and challenges changed drastically as the daily bills began to rise.

Lina: The inner voice that has been bugging me with curiosity, gloom and dissatisfaction, has found a solace in creativity. I see it as an ongoing process that liberates and emancipates oneself. It has its peaks and lows, sometimes it's ecstatic, other times exhausting.

Tell me a bit about your sense of identity and how it influences both your preferences as a listener and your creativity as an artist, please.

Boštjan: Show me your playlist and I will show you who you are?

Lina: Be like water. .. said Bruce Lee.

What, would you say, are the key ideas behind your approach to music and art?

Boštjan: Right now I'm into polyrhythms, triadic improvisation, triggering, feedback, transmissibiliy and interaction.

Marek. Same like Boštjan and in all those approaches it is always important to integrate, provoke and manifest my personal style and sound.

Lina: Experiment, concept, process.

How would you describe your views on topics like originality and innovation versus perfection and timelessness in music? Are you interested in a “music of the future” or “continuing a tradition”?

Boštjan: There can be originality in continuing the tradition and also something timeless in innovation. Tradition is the rootedness that creates a musical context where innovation can be introduced.

I find "music of the future" to be a very nostalgic term, people like Raymond Scott, Morton Subotnick, Mort Garson and Ursula Bogner were creating otherworldly music in a time when a technologically advanced future utopia was imaginable.

Lina recently made an art piece, a neon sign lighting up the words NOW, HERE, NOWHERE consecutively. It is safer to say we are interested in music for the NOW-HERE.

Over the course of your development, what have been your most important instruments and tools - and what are the most promising strategies for working with them?
 
Boštjan: Saxophone, Max-Msp, Ableton, then DSI Evolver and modular synthesiser. Unfortunately the only promising strategy is practice and RTFM.

Marek: Drums and the work related to them, based on practice, personal creativity, interaction and ability to hear the surrounding  

Lina: In terms of live visuals I am a huge fan of VDMX software.

Take us through a day in your life, from a possible morning routine through to your work, please.

Boštjan: Routine is key when it comes to skill progression and general balance in life. I like the cliche routine of some yoga and some practicing.

Marek: My daily routine is a messy animal, I don’t believe it helps me.

Lina: There is little routine in precarious work.

Could you describe your creative process on the basis of a piece, live performance or album that's particularly dear to you, please?

Lina: Our second album Rhizome was done in Boštjan's studio. We have set up a system where we are interconnected and the music and the visuals were created simultaneously.

Real-time generative visuals react to three audio inputs, snare, synth and sax.  

Listening can be both a solitary and a communal activity. Likewise, creating music can be private or collaborative. Can you talk about your preferences in this regard and how these constellations influence creative results?

Boštjan: The communal listening and creating feels natural and how it was always supposed to be done. However, most of my ideas come from the solitary passive state, a certain tuning into someting and then distilling out the meaningful.

Marek: Every musical idea always grows bigger in correlation with others. I like to build the idea alone with one complete theme but the next step is to share it and deconstruct it or to complement it with the other band members.

How do your work and your creativity relate to the world and what is the role of music in society?

Marek: My work is almost always the direct mirror of social interactions I have, sometimes it is also a parody of the current system we live in.

Lina: Music both reflects and shapes society. It can be a catalyst and a good friend. It can also give you a headache.

Art can be a way of dealing with the big topics in life: Life, loss, death, love, pain, and many more. In which way and on which occasions has music – both your own or that of others - contributed to your understanding of these questions?

Boštjan: There are too many occasions I can account for where I would burst into tears when listening to something, joyful or solemn.

However, some music is what John Cage would call "a purposlesess play", it can be liberated from meaningful purposes and romantic big topics, and as such can reveal a lot more about life we live day by day.

How do you see the connection between music and science and what can these two fields reveal about each other?  

Boštjan: Great question that begs for extensive research.

In Heideggerian terms technology is not neutral, it shapes the way we look at the world and how it goes from nature to something we can use and reshape at will.

The connection between technology and music might be a sort of complementary interplay, but we are too much involved with using technology in music to truly understand the nature of this interplay. Definitely something I'd like to look into.

Creativity can reach many different corners of our lives. Do you feel as though writing or performing a piece of music is inherently different from something like making a great cup of coffee? What do you express through music that you couldn't or wouldn't in more 'mundane' tasks?

Boštjan: Anything extatic, be it spiritual or euphoric, is exempt from the mundane tasks or chores and it's what makes music different.

Marek: The act of performing is in other words a time machine capsule that allows you to freeze the moment and stretch it into a specific feeling and make it your desirable space.

If you make a great cup of coffee, you eventually enjoy the taste. I like coffee.

Music is vibration in the air, captured by our ear drums. From your perspective as a creator and listener, do you have an explanation how it able to transmit such diverse and potentially deep messages?

Boštjan: A simplistic explanation would point to our communication capacity, which was crucial in our evolution. You had to discern one sound from another to be able to survive.

As far as deep messages go, people can find meanings also in empty cups of coffee, clouds, hands, cards and stars.