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The ANIEC Project Volume 2: Adam Naworal Interviews Lord Litter

10/22/2018

9 Comments

 
There's not much I can say about Lord Litter that he didn't say better himself here. What follows is the second part of our co-interview. Enjoy, dear reader!
Adam- Having your own radio program, do you find much difference between the classic airwaves radio and the now-common internet radio formats? What would you say are the advantages and downsides of each?
LL- The advantages are sure the variety of the shows. There is almost anything one can think of that has a  special radio show. You just need to be clever enough to find it. And don't use GOOGLE - there are always alternatives 1. http://www.duckduckgo.com 2. http://www.startpage.com - use one of those and you'll be astonished how different the world is if you DON'T use Google. Whatever your very special taste may be, there is always a show to give you information and entertainment. The downside is the quality. In the old days radio was mostly well researched and curated. Today it's too often just a accumulation of sound. An hour of not really curated noise or power pop is not what I call a radio show. This is why I think shows like Charles Rice Goff III is producing are so good and important! All very carefully researched and presented!

Adam- In your track for the EC Compilation, you mention how if you don't succeed you'll be just another noise-maker on the internet. Was this a true feeling you have or purely tongue in cheek? Either way, do you find there is a fine line between genuine artistic expression and recording yourself fooling around?
LL- Well I guess it is a bit true feeling and a bit tongue in cheek. Since *everybody* can produce at home there is definitely a mass of non *unique / inspired* stuff on the internet. And I'm not only talking about *experimental* artists. There are so many pop-rock loops around that *everybody* can quickly compile something that sounds WOW and extremely professional but it's nothing but a uninspired tutorial on how to combine files. Since everybody can offer this via Bandcamp and similar websites, the internet explodes with this. Don't get me wrong basically the structure/idea of sites like Bandcamp is sure ok .. but ... all this is meant in *Workshop*.

Adam- You have mentioned your opposition to social media due to its potential for toxicity. Do you feel that more private social communities such as EC and Encyclotronic are the positive future of social media, as I do? What would you suggest other social media platforms implement to reduce the toxic potential?
LL- Definitely! Sites like EC go directly to the core of the interest, so you really gain if you take part as artist that fits to the core. Again, the basic idea of so-called *social media* is sure okay. The big problem is that it is a tool to make nothing but profit. All the toxicity is based on this. If the *social media* sites were curated as a worldwide pro_life forum (as Zuckerberg once tooted), all the poison would be eliminated .. but it isn't .. it's a tool to make as much profit as possible and you make much more profit with the ugly / negative side of things, so .. the official *social media* scene will NEVER eliminate the toxic potential because this is how they make their profit. How to reduce the toxic potential? Very simple - set up rules that *define* a pro_life platform, this would exclude hate etc mongers.

Adam- Please tell me one or two of your favorites in the following categories: audio artists, visual artists, cinematic artists. What draws you to their works? Do you find they inspire your own work?
LL- The easy part of the answer is cinematic artists because here I am more or less just a fan. If you want me to mention two names it would be Luis Buñuel and Jess Franco .. odd both movie directors from Spain. One who extremely careful creates and one who just spits it all out. Some of their movies I can watch again and again.
​Come to think about it - I was involved in movie making. I created the soundtracks for *art house* short movies. Here is one example: Chapter 14' the dream of the disembodied birds' -"Soundtrack composed by Lord Litter on excerpts from over 60 acoustic film sequences https://vimeo.com/18294834 - I even won a prize for this. But you better not ask me about cinema .. I could start talking .. and never stop again.

Chapter 14 ' the dream of the disembodied birds' from Andrea Splisgar on Vimeo.

LL- Visual artists didn't inspire me that much and I don't want shove cliche names around. But well - I'm more into the classics like Jan Vermeer and Caspar David Friedrich. Sure I'm also inspired by Dada and inventors like Dali ... but that's more *in general*.

Music is also very difficult to answer. I guess we're all influenced by names that were around when we grew up.  Big names? Well - Frank Zappa (structure) and The Kinks (lyrics) really *taught* me many things. But that became more and more irrelevant as I was diving into the underground since the 1980s. I stopped buying new records and people I know personally became more important. Basically from the *names* section one musician became very *close* to me with the years  because he went the other way. *All* musicians go from innovative, challenging, wild to lame and radio-friendly. There is one who went from Boy Pop to Avant garde - Scott Walker.

Well - how did they all inspire my own work? I guess they all showed me something that I thought was interesting / inspiring / fascinating / talking to me - so I thought lets go there too and check out what I can find. One thing I have to admit - what I really found was that there already was someone before me .. I still don't know what that really means to me.
Picture
Gen Ken Montgomery and Lord Litter hanging out and having a laugh, 2016
Adam- Outside of experimental media, do you have any interest in more mainstream art forms etc.? What draws you to them?
LL- There is one mainstream art form that really fascinates me and that's *endless/ongoing* TV series' story telling. Some kind of art form that did not exist before. I sure prefer the more *surreal* topics like X-Files, LOST etc. Of course in times of as much profit as possible moneymakers like Netflix have already started to destroy this art form.

Adam- Lastly, please tell us something we should check out that might be previously unknown to us. Thank you for taking the time for this interview!
LL- What I realised as I was growing older; I learned immensely by looking on *the other side*. A example I like to tell again and again. There were decades in my life where I never would've listened to Bert Kaempfert, the German master of easy listening. I guess it started about 10 years ago when they re-released all his LPs on CD and something drove me to - in the end - buy them all. I started watching documentaries and read books dealing with him. I learned so much about music, production, creating etc etc .. probably more than I ever learned before. One example: whenever he didn't hear one of the musicians not well in the general sound of his orchestra, he did not say "play louder", he said "play quieter" ...  to all the other musicians - which taught me so many aspects of creation and about a way to live! Yep that would be probably my hint - check out the other side - wherever you are - check out the other side .. for 30 years I more or less only explored the *underground*. Only recently I started to take a closer look at *the other side* to be really smashed by what I found after eliminating my cliches.

cheerz .. bye and thanks!! LL
9 Comments
C. Goff III link
10/22/2018 12:22:08

Revealing interview -- good work Adam and LL. I've never seen (or even knew about) that "dream of the disembodied birds" video -- quite well executed and thought provoking! Where can I see the rest of these films LL has done the soundtracks for? And Luis Buñuel's work is on my list of most intriguing films too. I'm smiling now.

Reply
Lord Litter link
10/24/2018 06:27:50

Here are 3 of the visual works I did with Andrea Splisgar https://vimeo.com/user5221309

All in all we did much more - several *readings* - sound recordings - a whole concept theatre performance (she performing, I sound) was cancelled 2 days before the premiere because the theatre changed the conditions and we did not agree.

Later we decided not to perform the piece because it was about building bombs and the premiere was set for several days before September 11, 2001 ...

Reply
C. Goff III link
10/25/2018 00:05:26

Some interesting films and soundtracks indeed, thanks for the links. Seems like there was quite a lot of intrigue involved in all the non-performances; it's good that the films endure. The Velvet Underground connection caught me by surprise.

Jeremiah Paddock
10/22/2018 14:40:34

That was a thoughtful and fun to read interview. It gave me lots of things to look up!

Reply
Rafael González
10/23/2018 14:22:40

A great interview Very good work!

Reply
gen ken
10/24/2018 18:41:08

Fabulous! I didn't know about your film soundtrack work. Loved seeing and hearing Chapter 14' the dream of the disembodied birds' - wonderful collage. We had so many conversations but I don't think we ever spoke about films. Dropping out of film school because I realized I was more interested in the soundtrack than the film jump started my work with sound - buying a used reel-to-reel tape recorder and making soundtracks to films that didn't exist. It's always overwhelming to see a friend site an influence you've never heard of. I was a fan of Bunuel growing up but I never crossed paths with Jess Franco - always more to explore on the inside and well as 'the other' side. I love the way you speak about 'the other' side - playful and wise Lord Litter. Thanks for this great interview.

Reply
Lord Litter link
10/25/2018 09:25:11

PS Jess Franco - the movie I recommended is in spanisch..

Here is one in english .. and it has a soundtrack that could have been released on Generations Unlimited

https://archive.org/details/AVirginAmongTheLivingDead1973

Reply
Lord Litter link
10/25/2018 08:31:55

Yeah - we talked about soooo many aspects - I remember you saying:"Dropping out of film school because I realized I was more interested in the soundtrack.." in one of the interviews but then there never was enough time to keep talking about movies.

Jess Franco is a LOVE/HATE theme. He spit out about 200 movies. Some definitely too much nudism but many remind me on the way I was producing tapes. Rough, unfinished, crazy, stupid etc etc. A careful producing musician from England once told me he thinks I should try to leave out many songs on my tapes and just keep the real good ones. Now looking back I hate much of the stuff I did then - and this is exactly what Jess Franco said about his work. If you wanna check him out I recommend SUCCUBUS https://archive.org/details/NecronomiconSuccubbusJessFranco1968

.. *the other side* without it my world would be like a prison... with no outside.. especially today too many people live in their own small world refusing humans, culture etc from *the other side* ... look at what is happening all over the world...sad and dangerous.

Reply
Chris Phinney
10/25/2018 18:54:24

Interview great, films mesmerizing thanks so much for sharing these pieces of visual cinematic art!

Reply



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    Adam Naworal


    Sorta artist, sorta musician, sorta improviser, definitely husband, writer, and catdad.

    Member of Waste Of Tape and Tomokie's Cup (the latter with my wife Aimee). 

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