MOON DOOGAS: Dark music? It all comes from the didgeridoo

You worked with a plethora of artists over the years. What collaborations were/are the most interesting and important to You and why?

I have never formally sat in a studio and organised formal written music apart from the early years of a “Dada” experiment where we created and performed our compositions of New Music in Melbourne’s ABC Studios which were broadcast on radio 3AR back in the late 70’s. This came after 3 years of study in Melbourne’s Studio of Electronic Music in the Percy Grainger museum in the Melbourne University School of Music. Then after a few minor band collaborations, musically, I fell asleep, so from 1982 to 1997 so was not collaborative nor productive during this time at all. Basically I have been solo until recently, where we get ideas rolling via forming a texture then reacting to the tone and emotion of the sound and building an inspired movement of sound. You could say my collaborators have been the sound boxes and synths that happen to be switched on at the time of recording as well as the people.

Can You tell me, in short the main ideas are behind Your music?

The nature of synthesisers is that they have an infinity of variant sounds, the likeliness of hitting the same combination of sound without having a pre-set switch means that you are forever searching for “the Lost Chord”. It is this search from one amazing session to the next that leads one down pathways of new moods, feelings and rhythms, melodies, textures that are unrepeatable once the machines are switched over or off.

So, in short, my musical ideas are simple: find an inspiration, react, play as if no-one is watching and in the meantime, create a symphony, but record as you go, you will never be back down that path ever again. One essential ingredient is that my music must tell a story or at least have a conversation.

Could You name Your favorite Your compositions / albums / collaborations?

Throw in Tangerine Dream, Eno, Hawkwind, Bela Bartok, Steve Reich, Philip Glass, Yes, Neu! some Beethoven and Rossini, Dylan, Neil Young and Velvet Underground and I think you have it. As you can see, it’s not about the lyrics for me, it’s the energy and it’s the mood.

What about the new album? What's its concept?

Aural Canyon? It’s about taking a trip down some planetary canyon, Grand, majestic, spectacular.

I work fast, I have no time for endless perfection so am constantly searching for a new feeling.

I treat meeting sound like meeting people, every one is different: some are quiet, others are boisterous, and when fuelled by fire, they can become quite brash. It’s the conversation we have with each other that becomes the journey.

The current idea is to build fat harmonic chord sculptures with repeat motifs over the top to link up the strata of textures to make it palatable. The time it takes to build the idea is part of the conversation, so the length of a piece is an essential part of the composition. It goes like this: introduce a texture, bring in a beat, overlay with melody, take it somewhere, complete the story then fade away into obscurity. Sounds very simple, I know, but the results are always different.

The sound is magic. You‘ve proven it. But, what ends, when there‘s no sound?

Ha! there never is no sound, the silence at the end is sometimes wonderful but it is full of nuance - the dead of night still has aural intrigue: how good is the distant electric-like late night sound of a single car/truck zooming from a distance along a stretch of highway, and that same highway during the day,  the traffic from a distance rolls like surf. Listen to a midnight pond, very still, very quiet. And then the frogs awake! how cool are they in that marsh, croaking from one voice to another then to a cacophony and after a symphony suddenly all stopping after an hour’s dalliance?

In space, I’d imagine you would hear the musical beat of your blood coming to one’s ears.

The idea of John Cage’s of having no such thing as empty space has always been the crux of my investigation, be it harmonic exploration, melodic build or simply tonal chaos.

No, silence isn’t there. I imagine silence to be death but then can you hear it anyway?

Your compositions are so strong and sincere. What is and what is not Sound Art to You?

Thank you for the kind words, these compositional journeys are like songs without words, they leave one to make up their own storyline and dialogue.

Sound Art? I guess the divide is commercial and formulaic versus other types of sound constructions. The art is in the placement of the hearer into the environment of the aural experience and that is where art becomes its own, interpretive and individual questioning of the medium as opposed to singing along and repeating memories. For example, take Neil Young, he creates such a passionate lyric and melody (formulaic) then breaks into an artistic solo that comments on the music, so he has a foot in both camps.

What do You think about relations between the old art and computer art? Are they compatible?

Most definitely - the digital age is a new paintbrush and where we are now will be far different in a few years time, music will not be as we know it: the musician (who by the way, everyone treats as free-sound) will become more challenged to produce new tonalities and progressions and will need every new tool they can muster, including reaching backwards and re-working ideas from before - but like all forms of handing on tradition, there must be a grandparent to respect, to treat carefully but to use as a catapult into the bold and new ideas.

What Lithuanian and foreign musicians do You value most?

My first memories are of the Liaudes dainos that my mother would play to remind her of her home. Here was Berliner school before synthesisers - running melodies over themselves, creating harmonic shifts, raw untrained voices that have textures that harmonise, collide and ring-modulate into beats and patterns of true honest musics.

Yes, and voices from choirs, from Mongol and Tibetan throats, from Icelandic choirs to Spanish Flamencan howls, they all have their original values.

Naming bands/musicians? I guess we don’t have enough paper to list them but in general, those that continue to defy convention and reach out to new sound combinations and structures always gets my ear.

Your are from Australia. Its music scene is famous. What about dark music/dark ambient/industrial/rock scenes of it?

I guess it all comes from the didgeridoo - how dark and mysterious is the sound of a voice modulating through the hollow of a tree trunk ?

In Melbourne, we have venues catering for every type of sound you would like from Mozart to Metal, from electronica to electric, Rock predominantly, some really terrific bands get together but are only as famous as their followers. The dance scene is huge and DJs are the musicians of today, sampling and re-working them into new ideas. I avoid crowds. I am dark. Can i say I am synthetic organic?

What inspires You most?

The moment. The creations we have left are for others but creating is more important to the self. There is no future but in ideas and that is what brings us to this moment.

Religion, philosophy, …?

"Space is deep” and so are our souls -  our knowledge of our universe is enlarging every day and with every new realisation, the mind blows even further apart from the inner universe - yes, I would love to hear my music in some cathedral and maybe with that experience I can then connect with the order that we are part of.

If you have a chance, Kaunas Photo 2016 is on at the moment, they are exhibiting part of my Photographic works “Urban Mangle”, I’d love to be there to see it. Maybe you can see it for me ;)

Ačiū / Thank You.

Useful links:

simankevicius.com

https://www.mixcloud.com/mindoogas/black-box-bed-rock

https://www.mixcloud.com/mindoogas/klaus-plays-aural-canyon

https://www.mixcloud.com/mindoogas/the-zen-rationality-of-pat-garrett-when-applied-to-chasing-billy-the-kid

https://www.mixcloud.com/mindoogas/sun-songs-solar-winds