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The first rule of fanzine writing is take
your dictaphone everywhere, even if you just use it to annoy people
at random. Take today, we’re wandering the streets of London, probably
on the way to Rough Trade or something, looking forward to the Gonzales
show later in the day, and we get stopped on Charing Cross Road...
we’re easy targets for religious pamphleteers at the best of times,
but today we’ll talk to anybody. This guy is different — he’s
trying to sell us a CD. He’s not from round here. Let’s see what
he has to say...
Tell us about this — what is it
called?
It’s Finnish drum’n’bass. We have
our own label called Absolute Truth Press, and the heart of the
label is three guys — me and my friends. We have our own studio,
one guy is a jazz drummer — he studies in a Finnish jazz academy
so we have a good connection with all kinds of live instrument players.
And simply we make it, print it, and I go around Europe selling
it on the street.
How many have you sold so far?
Eight thousand.
That’s amazing — how long
has it taken you to sell them?
From last year's summer — about
ten months.
Is there much of a drum’n’bass scene
in Finland, apart from you?
I’d say actively maybe 6,000 people
— and almost all of them have this. But I’ve been in Denmark,
Sweden, this is my first time here. Switzerland, Germany, Holland,
these are the places I’ve been since. I think we’ve sold more like
this than any record label.
Are there any other Krishna drum’n’bass
bands around?
There is a big scene in hardcore
music. If you go to the internet ant type in ‘krishnacore’
you’ll find many hardcore bands, but drum’n’bass... we are weird,
even for Krishnas! And for big Krishna-oriented bands there was
Kula Shaker, they have quite a lot of the same ideas. What else?
Are you trying to stay independent?
Well through this record we got
some contacts, for example Formation Records was us to make some
tracks. But this project is completely independent and as a matter
of fact I think for some of the persons here they like it, because
then as an artist you are really free to do what you want. Because,
at least in Finland, to get your things done you immediately have
to put it commercial, then if you are an artist who really wants
to express yourself, your ideas, you cannot.
In this thing I said to the boys
that whatever you do, I’ll sell it if it’s good, because I trust
that they are professionals. In the street I have it here (on
a CD walkman) and I put it in peoples’ ear and they can hear
the sound. But here in London the difference is that I have to use
much more energy to get over peoples’ suspiciousness because they
have millions of ideas of what could I be doing. When I go to girls
in Soho they think I’m a lusty guy just looking for I don’t know
what, or selling drugs or whatever.
While one of us keeps him talking the other
one has a listen to the CD. It’s nice. Nice and funky, and a bit
jazzy in a Peshay kind of way.
Do you have a website?
We don’t yet have, but we have email.
The guy who made this knows how to work on paper but now he is learning,
so I think soon we are going to have our own website.
* stop press — website is www.absolutetruthpress.com
Often Krishna bands are just seen kind
of chanting, but you’ve got lyrics on here?
This is almost instrumental, there
are sampled speeches. We have a conception that the consciousness
you have when you make the music also affects the listener, and
if you’re making spiritual consciousness music it affects each person.
Raga is one way of Indian music — it’s completely instrumental
but still they are called prayers, but they’re instrumental.
Okay, so none of us were really prepared for
this interview to happen, and to be honest when we eventually played
the tape back we couldn’t work out the name of the band. Then, when
we were putting Slow 5 together, we discovered it was Damodara;
like Govinda — it’s another name for Krishna (we’re told),
but being simple country folk we forgot to research it properly
for months. Our new Finnish friend (who we now also know is named
Kardama) is a bit bewildered by the whole being interrogated thing
too, it’s like people don’t normally stop to talk to strangers or
something.
From Shadow To Substance is the
name of the album. This is really spontaneous...
We’re here to interview somebody else
later on, so we’re prepared, to a certain extent (then we get
the cameras out...)
Hahaha, this is just incredible!
Do you have a live act as well, or is
it just a studio thing?
These guys have live things, but
they are just productions — this is simply a studio project.
It all got a bit much for us after this,
so we wished our friend luck, tried to give him our spare travelcards,
and strolled off into the London afternoon. I think we all learned
something that day. Our immense thanks go to Kardama for not running
away when he had the chance, and to Kaisa at Absolute Truth Press
for giving us the facts we so desperately needed for this article
to work. We got there in the end — we’re just a bit slow.
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