Published
Name: Nicolas Streichenberg aka Yes It's Ananias
Occupation: Sound artist, composer, instrumentalist
Nationality: Swiss (Nicholas)
Recent release: Yes It's Ananias's new album YES IT'S ANANIAS V: OPUS VIISI AS A FIFTH FORCE FORMING FORGOTTEN ALLIANCES BETWEEN PAST PREDICTIONS AND PRESENT POWERS OF ZENITH is out now.
If you enjoyed these thoughts by Yes It's Ananias and would like to find out more about his work, visit his official homepage. He is also on Instagram, Facebook, Soundcloud, and bandcamp.
We also recommend our earlier interview with him and An Moku about “the 70s as Inspiration, Fluxus, and the Return of Disco in 2050” and "Time Travel and Playing for the Deaf."
Your new album seems to be a love message to Finland and its music. When and how were you drawn to Finnish music?
It must have been in the mid and late 90s.
Most definitely through eurodance and trance music. A bit later through heavy and metal music - I believe this would have been in the early 2000s (The Rasmus, HIM and Nightwish, Sonata Arctica and so on …).
But definitely via Safri Duo, Bomfunk Mc’s or Darude. I mean those already higher spirited melodies and productions took me into their realm and space.
This all resulted in a very excited support show I once played with when I was still in a rockgroup and performing.
We opened for French Films, whom I often call my very personal Beatles (because, I am not a Beatles fan).
THIS later eventually fell into a coproduction with their touring engineer Valtteri Väänänen.
You recognised a particular quality in Finnish music by Finnish artists – and then you actually went there to record an album … How do you see the relationship between a place and its music?
The phonecall I received in December 2024 by Valtteri Väänänen was a dedicated one. To music and to friendship. I'd visited him several times before on tour to pay him a visit and have coffee (at least 5 times).
He invited me to a space named Lammaskallion Audio Studio. If you are a pianist or artist in general, you need to visit this place one day. Even if it’s when you are 55 years old. You gotta! This place is living!
After 5 days of recording with him and improvising on the Grand Piano and Hammond and Rhodes Piano, I collected every recorded material to an absolute spiritual icebath listening trip. And then it takes you to sauna hopefully.
Can we very briefly talk about the Finnish language as well? As an outsider, it has always felt like a unique sound world in its own right, and since it also gets featured on the album, I was wondering what you appreciate it and how it may even be a musical inspiration.
It was throughout a musical inspiration.
Finnish music is my life and has formed my upgrowing with coming of age-bands such as Polymoon, Black Lizard, Valtter Vin, French Films, Teksti-TV 666 and many more.
More recently it was the pure hearts of Paula Präktig, Julia Andersson, Teemu Halmkrona and surely Lotta-Maria Heiskanen whom I soon will share the stage in Helsinki with this weekend on my European tour lap. Arttu Silvast is another chap I got coffee with and listen to.
These people not only share their thoughts to what I create but also understand it better than most. Finnish people are honest. Icecold honest. It’s for the better.Swiss people aren’t. At all. I’m being honest here.
And if I wouldn’t mention Janne Sibelius who, for 60 year, lived just across the lake of where I worked, then what am I even talkin’ about . He is the goat.
What were concrete triggers that led to this project?
My tour was about performing my fourth record, I needed inspiration and a new producer.
I needed someone who knew me as a person, as a friend, as a performer, a fashionista and most importantly, a freak when it comes to detailmastered (perhaps undiagnosed autismpropellered ...) conceptual and psychoautomatic solo piano records which lean into interests and tastes like 70s progressive classical or as Valtteri recently told me: Crossclassical.
Love that word. Better than Neoclassical. Don’t like this one.
The sessions seem to have taken place with a lot of visitors, guests and collaborators. What were these sessions like?
The first two days of recording took place on the second day after I'd landed the airplane by myself on an icetrack. The next, second, session was one week later in a three day recording session. So the album was recorded and improvised in five long days and mixed in three days including the very excessive and punctuated, most precise hands and string artistry by Susanna Syrjäläinen.
Incredible things that she led out to and over my improvs. She really is the gold nugget up North and most surely the most recorded Finnish string artist in whole Finland. By the way, the first line was a lie but it’s all about stories. And one thing I already told you: Finns don’t lie.
So having Susanna on the record: It only meant to receive the most honest music I have ever made so far. That’s what we finally can deal with. An album so true, it’s hard to believe Valtteri and me nailed it really well. We sweat out all we had.
Went to our critical energy borders and succeeded with wonderful melodies which were hidden only there at Tuusulanjärvi (Lake of Tuusula).
Tell me about your collaboration and her contributions.
Susanna Syrjäläinen is a stand-out, and one-of-a-kind musician, artist, cellist and composer. A very special mother of many colours and harmonies. She flowers any kind of music with its essence and highlights what one may still have hidden in the music. She is a very experienced orchestral-trained musician and wonderful soul.
I instantly bought her debut album 5 times to hide in some friend’s music shelves for fun. So they one day find it and be as surprised as I was when I detect that Valtteri’s partner’s talent is unique.
The release information mentions that there was "no script but liner notes." What does that mean?
It means we met and we listened and we let spirits run through us to get out what’s inside of the forrests, the pushed skies and the pushed trees.
I never write down notes or tones. Only poetry in words. Ever. Always. They are only printed in the vinyl sleeves.
Many of your albums feel very thought-through and free and they will often be improvised with a compositional mindset. How do you know the moment has come for recording, what is that feeling like, and how much depends on the moment and how much on preparation?
Booking a studio and then living in the moment to create an album is mental. I stick to this sick concept as I believe music can only be worthy if it’s meaningful.
And by that, I mean, that I mean what I play. You can’t lie when you improvise. Another great match for Finland.
The field recordings feel like an important part of creating the spatial, world-building quality of the album. Tell me a bit about were you captured them, please. Are they more relevant for their sonic qualities or because they capture a space that was personally important to you?
Dear fifteen questions, I have to admit, to answer that I had to laugh out loud ... then I was shocked, because while recording this, our lives could have rapidly ended.
Here is a little sidefact about SIDE B: It starts with someone walking across the snow (everyone up North knows the sound.). Now, we walked over the frozen lake in the middle of the night pitchblack with a Zoom, and we only had 20 minutes time. Any more would’ve been pure suicide if you stay outside longer in weather conditions of minus -25 degrees celcius C*.
I was a little bit worried breaking into the lake. But all went well. Luckily. Valtteri knew what he was doing with his little Swiss bear. I trust him not only as a producer but someone who pushes my life everytime we meet. I hope I colour his too!
I'd be curious to know what the Finnish artists' perception of your perception of their culture was like. (if that makes sense)
It makes sense. And the Finns made sense of it: They nicknamed me in many ways. I guess the most common one is “Fakefinn”. I take it as a compliment.
But in all seriousness, within the Finnish music scene, be it heavy, classical or pop, even punkrock, they all mostly hang out at the same table and sometimes wonder why this longhaired guy with a moustache buys a beer for the local rockstars. It’s because I can give back what they give me. Headaches and hard morning. Nah, just kidding.
Finns appreciate my interest, In Switzerland they look at me a bit weird when I tell them about Finnland, Hitler’s visit there, Mannerheim, Sibelius, and all other stories and highlights that this new album hosts. Not to mention the presidents and deaths I whirled-into the track titles (that 99% need to translate anyways hehe)
You mentioned that the visual world which accompanies the music was essential. In which way?
Oh very easy my dear friend and reader: I am proud to say I am the creator of the music along the craftsmanship and production talents of Valtteri Väänänen. I am the creator of the analog photography of the artwork and social media content.
(Fuck that! Come on over to my newsletter, free for joining, on my webpage - Why? It’s high-res and more photodocumentary over there including analog reelfilms, and studio documentary films. And of course Interviews and press like this beauty here. Thanks for support!)
And then there is the beat-influenced psychoautomatic poetry I wrote. And the live performances internationally. Quite a multimedia experience everytime. Why not.
When it comes to multimedial combinations, is there any way of explaining what triggers what? I will often see a video and think to myself: These sounds make for a great match, but it's impossible for me to say, why. It's like the image brings out something in the music - or "sees" something in the music that I didn't know was there. What do you think is happening there or how do these two layers relate?
To find out about what is meant I guess you gotta start with the single films on 8mm film we did with Nicolas Küng, a young, very promising Swiss film maker and artist. Then you buy the record on bandscamp. I ship it and handnumber it.
Then, you open a expensive bottle of wine, zip a glass, pour out the second one to your dog or wive or gspusi and put the needle on the record to gain fullinsight into the work of “YIA V”.
After that you drop me a message on socials or my mail and we can have a chat. Then I hopefully see you at the show a city near you. Or invite me. I'll play your saloon.
How do the visual and sonic layers interact for this project would you say? Do they eventually become inseparable?
Inseperaple.
At a recent exhibition at c/o Berlin, I saw Walter Scheels' NY Transformations #1 which impressively demonstrated that photography and painting can essentially seamlessly transition from one to the other. What about sound and image – do you feel there are points where do they, as it were, segue as well?
I’m not getting tired or anything here to answer, but somehow I understand this to essentially be the same question as above. But this, exactly, proves my point, right?
Words only can never frame what’s in our minds. It needs colours, sounds, feels, vibrations and visuals.
Now, for any blind person reading this hear me out: You are the better visionairies. I see you.
Where do the boundaries between inner and outer experience lie from your perspective as an artist?
If you finally learned to listen. I am learning this everyday.
I mean I try to make a living from pepople listening to what I have to “say”. You feel me? Are you listening? Are you feeling the sound? I just want to be a sound.
