CONTRASTATE

Could you outline how, where and when Contrastate came into existence?
Stephen Meixner: "Contrastate are a London based group formed in 1987 by Jonathan Grieve and myself. Previous to the formation of Contrastate Jon and I studied at the same college where we got to know each other through work on a variety of theatre and music based projects. Stephen J. Pomeroy Joined in 1991 after being invited to participate in the recording sessions for "A live coal under the ashes".

Looking back, how would you say your musical approach has changed over the years? I personally feel your first releases to be somewhat more chaotic, and perhaps lacking some of the emotional directness of your later outputs.
Stephen Meixner: "Apart from maybe our first LP "Seven hands seek nine fingers", I am not sure I would describe the first few Contrastate releases as chaotic. I agree with you when you say that they lack some of the emotional directness of our later outputs. Our first releases were more learning affairs, (i.e. learning how to communicate the ideas we had into music/sound; learning how to focus those ideas making them flow and have a purpose on the recordings; improving our recording practices, etc, etc.). As we have got older, so our recordings have matured. We have become much more focussed in how we want our ideas interpreted into music. The emotional edge and directness comes from the fact that as we are recording the ideas and themes behind the tracks are generally thought out giving the music depth and direction."

In the earliest days of Contrastate, I believe you also put out some tapes...? What memories do you have of these recordings?
Stephen Meixner: "The first Contrasate releases were on vinyl, namely the albums "Seven hands seek nine fingers" and "A thousand badgers in labour". These were released in editions of 500 in 1989 and 1990 respectively. The first (and so far only) Contrastate tape to be released was "i" on Direction Music in 1991. "i" has since then been re-released onto CD by Functional Organisation. I think the recordings for "i" were quite important as this was where our ideas were becoming more purposeful, more focussed, and our recording techniques were becoming better."

One of your most recent releases is the CD in Staalplaat's "Mort aux vaches" series. Did the VPRO invitation come as a surprise to you? Would it be utopic to hope for a similar interest in your own country, from the BBC for example? Are you satisfied with the release?
Stephen Meixner: "The invitation to do a live studio session for VPRO came through our contact with Frans de Waard from Staalplaat. As we were going to play live in Lille that year, Frans de Waard and VPRO thought that it would be an ideal time for us to then go and do the session at the same time. The invitation was a surprise and doing the session was thoroughly enjoyable."

"So far as doing a live radio session in Britain is concerned, I would say that utopic is a reasonable description to use. As the situation currently stands we are not well known in Britain. Interest in Contrastate comes mainly from the rest of Europe and America."

"As a document of the material we played live in Autumn 1995, I am very satisfied with the "Mort aux vaches"release. We played well and the recording quality is extremely good. However, this release should not be looked on as the follow up release to "Throwing out the baby with the bathwater". The new studio recordings should be out sometime in the summer of 1997."

"Mort aux vaches"/"Kill the cows"... pretty touchy title perhaps, particularly for a UK-band, isn't it? What did mum and dad have to say to this?
Jonathan Grieve: "Mum said: 'The rich people won't die because they could afford to eat fillet steak, it's the poor people who will die who ate all the rubbish that went into the hamburgers. I still eat beef, poor cows."

As to the VPRO-recordings themselves. With the Lille performance still in mind, didn't it feel kind of strange to do a live set in a studio without having a direct contact with the audience? In general, how important are performance and direct contact with the audience for you?
Jonathan Grieve: "No it is not strange to perform without an audience, after all we spend three months rehearsing without an audience. It is important not to conserve your energy for the audience, but I have already experienced the height of your intensity in rehearsal, this way it is possible to ensure your personal control over your medium. A little extra always comes out anyway. The stronger and more confident you are, the more aware that you are can help to bring your feelings into focus. Without an audience the thing that disappears is your physical self-consciousness, but you still have the tape as your witness, it was not possible to make a single mistake, a mistake that may not have been noticed live."

"The importance that we place on live is significantly less than on our recorded work. So far each outing has been an adventure, it is very good to meet with the people that we normally only have contact with by post. Also it gives us a chance to find out what other people are doing."

Several years ago you also performed in Belgium. Any chance we may see you over here again?
Stephen Meixner: "The last time we performed live in Belgium was in 1989. As Contrastate were a duo then we had to play live over backing tapes. This was very unsatisfying from both a musical and performance point of view. After those concerts we took a break from live work for four years and in that time Contrastate recruited an additional member and we worked on our live performance, giving it direction and making it totally live based. As to when we will perform live in Belgium again I do not know for sure at the moment, but there is a possibility that we will play live (possibly in Ghent) in Belgium during the first week of May 1997 while on our way to do a couple of concerts in Germany."

Is there a particular reason why you play a live set only very few times? The performer's innate fear for loss of spontaneity or intensity perhaps?
Jonathan Grieve: "So far we have never had the opportunity to play a set more than three times. One of the reasons is that Stephen M. gets bored. For us it is a practical matter of attempting to move on each time, once a live piece has been earmarked for release there does seem little point in doing it again, the least we can do for our audience is to give them something new each time."

"I think that there is a big myth surrounding the importance of spontaneity and intensity. The main reasons that a performer loses them are laziness; the inability to continue their artistic research, and incompetence, simply not having full technicall control over their elements, or perhaps not wanting to."

Parallel to Contrastate Jonathan and Stephen are also into performing arts. Could you tell us something about that? What similarities do you see between life in performing arts and music? How does your work as a performer reflect on Contrastate?
Jonathan Grieve: "Actually, Steve is not involved in the performing arts. Our first two projects were theatre based and were a collaboration between experimental music and writing. I have continued studying and working in performance; working with physical and vocal training and performance processes, and mixing this with live art, dance and work out of doors. Most of the ideas come from Grotowski and the European physical theatre tradition."

"The life is pretty much the same in music and performance, though one has to be more careful not to get drunk when you are acting or dancing. I have attempted to bring some of these elements into Contrastate, and in London we used two performers on stage when we played. I think the music has many possibilities for causing the kind of mental danger that Antonin Artaud wrote about. The question is how to find a way of performing which carries the music to its visceral limit."

Being primarily a studio project, how much room for improvisation is there in compositions? Do you also think that a great deal of forethought will nearly automatically exclude various other possibilities that might be discovered whilst improvising?
Stephen Meixner: "You're right in saying that too much planning can exclude other possibilities that might be discovered whilst improvising, but I think it is also true to say that relying on improvisation alone can make a track directionless and superficial. So a mix between the two is desirable. Although we tend to put a lot of forethought into the ideas and direction of our tracks we also like to improvise around those ideas, seeing what works and what doesn't work. Through the use of improvisation, or experimentation, we discover possibilities that we may never have in theory thought possible and it is this use of experimentation that helps to keep our ideas, sounds, recording and mixing techniques fresh."

Could you describe how exactly the three of you work together on an album/track? What's the starting point? Do you experience artistic differences within the band as an enrichment?
Jonathan Grieve: "Sometimes Stephen creates a track. Though sometimes Stephen and Jonathan, and at other times Stephen and Stephen do. Often though, they all do. Stephen often provides the main idea, unless of course Stephen and Jonathan have one, in which case they do. Stephen and Jonathan write the texts, though sometomes only Jonathan does and sometimes only Stephen does. Nowadays Jonathan does all the voices, unless he is not there. Judge for yourself!"

You've recently teamed up with another trio, The Tiger Lillies from London. How did this collaboration come about? Will there more/other collaborations in the future?
Stephen Meixner: "The Tiger Lillies have been around for a few years now. They have released three CDs and played numerous concerts, including concerts in Germany, Austria and the Czeck Republic. We first saw them live about three years ago and loved their music, their lyrics and their humour. We got to know them at their concerts and one day I asked if they were interested in working together with us, which they were. To start we took three of their songs, which I remixed and then integrated with the music that we were recording for the project."

"At the moment both groups are very busy so there are not plans for further collaborations, but I would not rule it out for the future. We shall have to wait and see."

The Contrastate/Tiger Lillies MCD "Goodbye Great Nation" turned out to be a quite remarkable recording, combining the typical Contrastate atmospheres with a castrato-like blues. As a whole very surprising and far different from your other releases. Have you received any feedback yet?
Stephen Meixner: "I was expecting some people to be disappointed because "Goodbye Great Nation" is different from our previous recorded works, but so far the feedback has been extremely positive and reviews have been excellent."

What music do the members of Contrastate enjoy/find influential today?
Jonathan Grieve: "Stephen M. has a fondness for sounds of books being open and shut. Stephen P. tends to prefer listening to the toilet being flushed and I like the sound of smells, my personal favourite at the moment is the sound of the smell of books cooking."

The basic structure of your compositions is usually electronic, but on top of that you also use a variety of acoustic and etnic instruments. Where does this love of acoustic sounds originate? Is there a particular reason why you prefer to work that way? I also suppose combining acoustic and electronic instruments brings about its own specific technical difficulties?
Stephen Meixner: "We tend to use electronic and acoustic instruments in fairly equal amounts, although the acoustic instruments may be treated depending on what kind of sound is needed for the piece we are recording at the time. I don't have a specific love of acoustic/ethnic instrumentation, rather I love sound. The sound is the priority, whether an acoustic or electronic instrument makes it is neither here nor there."

"When working with acoustic instruments the main technical problem is having to mike up the instruments so as to get a good, clear recorded signal. This is usually overcome with the use of quality microphones and recording techniques."

As prominently present as the instruments are the vocal parts. Yet, the human voice is not all that common usage in music that builds on atmospheres. Why is that, do you think? Has the human voice become an extremely underrated instrument? What's the importance of the human voice to you?
Jonathan Grieve: "Spoken text and even sung lyrics are not very useful if you want to make continuous, evolving atmospheres because the specificity of words tends to break the effect of building up moods and ambience. Sampled text or vocal sounds work better because they maintain the mood rather than challenge it. In many forms of music the voice is still deeply alive."

"In Contrastate the use of text breaks atmospheres and is designed to give the music its critical edge, the music is about something so it has been necessary to express this. I think it creates space, a sort of distance between the music and the text, it prevents the listener from understanding it only in their own way without taking the possibility of personal interpretation away from them entirely, it stops our ideas from becoming intellectual soup. Having said all that, we are moving away from making statements and starting to use the voice more dynamically and effectively."

Are you familiar with Sufi philosophy and its views on music? What do you think of the following viewpoint for example: "The effect of instrumental music is dependent on the musician's level of (spiritual) development. With other words, the musician's soul speaks through his instrument, for mere skill does not suffice to produce a grace and beauty that speaks to the heart."
Jonathan Grieve: "No, I am not intimately familiar with Sufi music, though I have heard a little. The statement however I can understand through other means. First of all it implies a deep technical knowledge of your instrument and I guess a knowledge of yourself, without this nothing can be expressed at all anyway. What is this spiritual development? It is something at least dependant on a certain self revelation through faith and belief. For us Westerners, it can simply mean to be in contact with something outside of us; a person, an object, an idea that we are researching. This is a subject that is related to ourselves, our spirit, our personal meaning. It is not enough to be competent, one must also try and go beyond competence, however first of all one must be competent."

Underneath an allegoric icing, your lyrics tend to be outspokingly critical, at times painfully cynical. Do you fear crossing the line when criticism is interpreted as preaching? Would you feel offended if people said Contrastate is a band of intellectuals?
Jonathan Grieve: "I think we have gone as far as we can with political statements, that phase of our music has finished. The text that begins the music of "Mort aux Vaches" signified the end of that phase. We will not cross the line of preaching, yes they have been cynical attacks but our texts have always suggested that resistance and criticism is positive. It is not propaganda. We would not feel offended if we were called a band of intellectuals, however it is not true, we don't write books about our music."

The artwork to your releases has a surreal touch to it, which in my opinion matches the overall atmosphere of your music very well. Are you in any way influenced by the surrealists' art in general? Could you also tell us something about Ben Hughes, the man who almost exclusively takes care of the artwork? I also noticed Ben contributed to "Goodbye Great Nation", playing some additional bass guitar.....
Stephen Meixner: "Ben Hughes is an old friend of mine. We studied at college together. I have always been an admirer of his work so when I was releasing the first Contrastate LP it seemed only natural to ask him to design the cover artwork. Since that first LP, Ben Hughes has been responsible for most of our artwork and presentation. From the start I wanted a natural progression in our music and artwork, yet still have each release recognisable as a Contrastate release, so it was important to have someone like Ben concentrate on the artwork and presentation and give it a sort of corporate identity. Ben is also an accomplished musician able to play many instruments."

"At one point in my life I used to be very influenced by the surrealist and Dadaist movements. Whilst I still admire the ideas and history behind the movements of Dadaism and Surrealism, I wouldn't say it had a great influence on the output of Contrastate's products."

Your music is marked by pessimism and desperation, and tells of people trapped in rigid social structures and religious dogmas. Despite the fact people are not happy at all, the social system does manage to carry on. How do you think this is possible and what kind of alternatives (if any) do you see? Do you hold a pessimist view of the future?
Stephen Meixner: "The social system has managed to carry on, but then again there really hasn't been any concerted attempt to change it in the post war period."

"We live in a society where everybody seems to agree that there is no alternative. The slightest difficulty is inflated into a problem of enormous proportions, and routine problems are explained away as "that's the way it has always been". This has served to justify restraint, austerity and low expectations. Those who believe that we can improve the human condition, and that tomorrow does not have to be like today should question these limits that have been placed on us, and the conservative climate which fosters these limits. From there we can begin to think of new ideas and approaches thereby creating a basis for change."

Asmus Tietchens once said in an interview that one of the causes for this situation is the increased pace of life. Everything is done at a much faster rate, even dance music has become considerably faster. As a result people simply no longer find the time to stand still and think things over. What do you think?
Jonathan Grieve: "Stillness and silence is very difficult to find in every day life. I do have the sensation that I am under attack from every sensory angle, and this gives me the sensation that I am losing a sense of myself and of a choice about what I am doing. It gives me the tendency of being compulsive and lacking distance, a feeling of being consistently manipulated. It has been said that if one can find silence outside it is easier to find silence inside."

Politics and social awareness seem to be important subjects in your music. "Live coal under the ashes" commented on the social and political changes occuring in Eastern and Central Europe at that time, "Throwing out the baby..." attacks the conservative attitude in Western politics, "Goodbye great nation" comments on the state of the British nation. Does Contrastate primarily act as your personal socio-critical outlet? Also, does the name Contrastate reflect this political aspect?
Jonathan Grieve: "No it is not our personal socio-critical outlet, it just happens that we choose to say these things through the music, sometimes I use performance. There is no specific message as such, only to continually maintain a transitional but critical outlook, something not in fixation but still precise."

Some people hold the viewpoint music is nothing but an escapist attitude and often also serves as an excuse not to act. I suppose you hold an entirely different view?
Stephen Meixner: "Music can be escapist, it all depends on what the people/artists making the music wish to do/say with their work. I would prefer to say that we use constructive criticism and debate in the subject matter behind our songs to challenge the mystification of society."

Future plans?
Stephen Meixner: "For the first half of 1997 we will be concentrating on our live performance. We have already started writing new material for the concerts, which will begin in May in Germany (Erlangen and possibly Mainz), and in June we will play live at the Nevers festival in France."
"There will be a couple of releases in 1997. A new 7" single to be released in February and the new CD "Todesmelodie" will come out hopefully in the Summer."