Sometimes I paint – An interview with Mirt

Tomek Mirt is a Polish musician and artist. We originally got in touch with him when compiling the first full-length well-nigh fundraising albums for Ukraine, as Mirt destined proceeds of his bandcamp sales to the country without the full scale Russian invasion. Considering of space constraints, and to maximise focus, we ended up pulling his interview with a view to expand our conversation for a stand vacated feature.

The release of two new albums, the solo vinyl Hiræth and [security] by Brasil & The Gallowbrothers Band, the collaborative project he shares with Madgda Ter and Dominik Savio, provided the right excuse to reconnect.

Hiræth presents Mirt’s trademark freeform trademark of ritualistic rhythms layered over aquatic field recordings. And yet, the colouring is darker, the waters murkier than in previous works. The liminal quality of tracks like “Heavy Rain” and “Lagging Relay”, with their heady mix of modular synths and gongs, leads to uncharted terrain rhadamanthine overly increasingly utopian in texture and signaling a throw-away from the organic undergrowth they sprang from.

[security] is a similarly unsettling work, refusing to be welded by any identifiable sense of place. One minute one seems to be coasting through wetlands lulled by oceanic sounds, the next, one finds oneself orbiting in space picking up frequencies from galaxies far away. The title acts in a counterintuitive way, as the listener is left wayfaring in space at the end of a incoherent journey into the unknown.

 

Could you start by introducing yourself?

Explaining what I do is getting harder for me every year. Solo or with Magda Ter we are responsible for a strange kind of Fourth World music mixed with field recordings, sort of an imaginary soundtrack straight from the trash bin.

Add a handful of echoes of post post psychedelia and you should come tropical to the music performed by Brasil & the Gallowbrothers flipside project I’m part of. There is moreover Saamleng a label releasing pure field recordings.

From time to time I am a painter and designer. I’m one of the founding members of Xaoc Devices, where we diamond and produce modular synths. This is a very unenduring introduction as much increasingly is veiled in the past.

 

What is your studio setup and how has it evolved over the years to match variegated creative targets?

I started in the mid 90s while I was in upper school. My wreath didn’t have a lot of equipment and our ideas were constantly waffly so we were experimenting with everything: from guitars, old turntables and toy samplers to scrap metal. Slowly, I started ownership old analog synthesizers. You didn’t have to sell your kidneys to buy something vintage then

At one point, I had a large hodgepodge of synths, processors, some laboratory equipment, etc. It was then that I realized I was much closer to sound design, sound synthesis, event programming, and processing sounds than just playing. It was the whence of the revival of modular synthesizers, so I slowly started replacing most of my vintage synths with a modular system. It was so inspiring for me that together with my friends I founded Xaoc Devices.

We started designing modules ourselves. Working with a modular synth unliable me to focus on a track as a whole. Before, it was easy for me to get lost in tweaking one small element unremittingly and not seeing the big picture. Flipside vector of transpiration in my studio marks the transition from multi-track tape recorders to recording everything live in the digital domain. One day, I just came to the conclusion that, if I wanted to be effective, I needed to be worldly-wise to work fast. I couldn’t leave projects unfinished for weeks. Recording live was moreover the effect of me trying to modernize my live performances. I didn’t want to be dependent on excessive editing.

What would you say is the defining full-length of your sound?

This is a tough question. I think an important speciality of my work is focusing on an tome as a whole. It probably makes little sense in the overly progressive world of condensed information, snapshots, playlists and impatient skipping the tracks, but considering of that I can treat individual pieces differently.

I have ripened a method of collecting fragments that do not have to be finished works in themselves. For me, it is unbearable that they play well with other pieces with which they are juxtaposed. They don’t have to work out of the context of a given album.

I think it was virtually the time I was making the Random Soundtrack tome when I had some intriguing parts, just short pieces of improvisation that weren’t anything like a finished track, and I couldn’t find any inveigling way to mold them into a proper piece. It appeared the weightier I could do was just to release them as they were. It was a moment of enlightenment and relief for me.

I don’t need to follow any rules on how to put together an album. This vein allows me to swiftly improvise and then put these improvisations together, equal to the method of “Écriture automatique”, very intuitively.

Another speciality of my work is the influence of field recording. I’m using these recordings in my tracks, obviously, but I moreover listen to soundscapes and learn how to listen, how some natural sounds are constructed, how space works acoustically, etc. Finally, I can build my albums increasingly as a hodgepodge of soundscapes than individual tracks.

 

When did you first get a sense of having found your own musical voice? And have there been any Eureka! moments in your musical development?

I have been making music for so long that, on the one hand, I have placid quite a large list of transilience moments and, on the other hand, I have wilt unobtrusive unbearable to winnow that for the listeners all my revolutions are just smooth and unhurried changes.

The year 2013 was definitely a transilience for me though, when I quickly x-rated the tape multi-track recordings and decided to focus on the modular system. I moreover believe that my music reverted then a bit. I x-rated the idea of trying to record songs. Heading South was the last time when I was trying to record something with vocals and lyrics.

Everything I did surpassing 2013 seems extremely afar to me, like centuries ago. There was one early crucial moment, when I recorded my third release, the mini-album Most (the Bridge). This was the first time I used field recordings as the main towers block. I did it completely differently than I do today, but it crystallized the way I use field recordings. It was a lot of experimentation with very tape and I decided to use only the field recordings I made on the underpass on the Odra river. It was a concept album, I think it was my first conscious work. That was the moment when I found my own path, at least the whence of it!

 

Who and / or what would you say has influenced you the most in the way you think well-nigh sound?

I think that two important factors were realising that I could use the soundscape as a kind of compositional tool or largest a template, and opening to traditional music. I started reading a lot well-nigh gamelan, African music, etc. At some point, I was tropical to declaring my music as a kind of a “new folk music”.

In this postindustrial age, electronic instruments seem to me as the natural replacement for traditional instruments. If you explore these traditional instruments, you notice that many of them were just mimicking natural sounds. Many with just some everyday items. The modular synth isn’t an everyday item, but it is just a tuft of simple buzzing generators, perhaps some samplers. Somehow it seems to me tropical to this idea of simple tools that you can use to make music.

It is easy to mention Jon Hassell here and his fourth world music. I must shoehorn that I’ve been a fan of his early works for a long time. I love the whole Made To Measure series from Crammed Disc, expressly Benjamin Lew, but I believe I’ve ripened a bit grimer updated revision of fourth world music, stuck together from scraps and waste.

Musically, Cluster is an important act for me, I moreover love Neu! and Harmonia. I’m trying to find new music everyday and not to be stuck in the past.

 

You are moreover a (mostly) figurative painter. How would you say your visual art and music practices influence each other?

Rather than say, “I’m a painter”, I’d say, “Sometimes I paint”. It was an important part of my life, but now usually I’m when to painting only when I need new artwork for an album.

I’m probably a bit of a tenancy freak. Lately, it’s music that has been influencing my paintings increasingly than the other way round, but I find it a pain to paint anything convincing.

I am a designer by education, so theoretically I’m increasingly of a “pro” painter and an “amateur” musician, but over time music has wilt my main zone of interest. In reality, what I do is a mix of multiple forms that just work together music but moreover painting, diamond and lately video.

 

How is your collaboration with Magda Ter structured and how do you tideway a live set when playing together?

We are partners and have lived together for a long time, so everything seems very natural to me. For a long time we were both part of Brasil and the Gallowbrothers and when I started playing live with my solo works I invited Magda to help me. Quickly, it appeared that we were creating a trademark new project that was usually still live oriented, but it was moreover something new. It works well like this, we have completely variegated styles of working in the studio. I’m doing a lot of ad hoc recordings and trying to glue everything together without a plan.

I finger Magda is increasingly focused on the final picture when she is preparing anything new. It is easy for us to take variegated approaches without any disputes. I remember one concert in Italy where we had prepared a score and it was like playing together on one instrument. We share tasks with ease. Lately we have been preparing live material with visualisations made with a video modular system and I can’t imagine anyone else with whom I could just share so many parts of one setup.

 

In the liner notes to your first tome Rain In The City Of The Past, that you revisited in 2018, you indicate that the field recordings you used there came from special effects albums from the 80s, as you didn’t have the necessary equipment when then.

Since then, and thanks to increasingly affordable and readily misogynist technology, not only have you been using your own material, but you have moreover been releasing pure field recordings albums on your label Saamleng.

How would you say the role of field recordings has reverted over the years in your work?

This is a somewhat funny story. In the early 90s, as a teenager, I was discovering music that I had never been interested in before. I didn’t have any older brother or a friend with record collections and wise words on where to start. So somewhere between Pink Floyd and metal intros, I noticed that the most interesting moments for me were when any fx or field recordings appeared. Maybe I wasn’t an twentieth-century zealot from the beginning, but for sure all the weird things happening in music were well-flavored to me. When a couple of years later we worked my first band, One Inch of Shadow, stuff inspired by field recordings was an element that was unchangingly important to us all.

The role of field recordings only grew increasingly significant when I started playing solo. First, it was nonflexible for me to start recording any piece, so I improvised to the field recordings. It was just the urge to hear some sounds while I was playing, well-constructed silence was something unnatural for me. As I had never learned to play the traditional way, at some point I started looking for elements of sonnet in the soundscapes; As I have once mentioned, I started organising songs in a similar way to how preliminaries sounds are organised. The Artificial Field Recordings tome was a kind of a statement for me in that sense.

Everything really took off with the availability of unseemly handheld recorders. I was unchangingly delivering one of the early Zoom recorders with me, but at that time I was still using my recordings only for musical purposes. I was in contact with Glenn Donaldson of Jewelled Antler, and he sent me the Heat & Birds compilations where there were songs mixed with pure field recordings and theo whole thing started to grow on me.

The real transilience came with my first trip to Asia. This completely variegated soundscape was so refreshing for me that I decided to start a label devoted to pure field recordings. This was the start of Saamleng.

Concluding field recordings were unchangingly important for me. I needed to learn to use them not just as an ornament, but as something remodeling sonnet and to simply cherish them on their own. Maybe one day I’ll welsh making music perfectly and all I’ll be left with will be just listening to sounds.

 

Your new tome Hiræth was produced during a period of quarantine, and yet you are keen to stress it is not a pandemic album. Does the title refer to the Welsh word indicating a tousle of homesickness, nostalgia and longing?

Also, in the liner notes you refer to “bad times”. Do you finger pessimistic, or are the current times we are living through just a “glitch in humanity”? Or has something been irretrievably lost?

Faster and faster we are losing our home, and it isn’t just “our” home, as we are just one of the species on the planet. It isn’t just homesickness, it is the sensation of an irreversible loss.

I was recording this tome at the peak of the refugee slipperiness in Poland. The Polish and Belarusian governments are responsible for the death of many people whose only fault was seeking shelter. I believe it is just a prelude, the climate slipperiness is here.

In reality, every day I’m trying to run yonder from most of these problems expressly while I’m doing music, but really I can’t. I’m a bit of an escapist, but I still finger the undersong of it all without each short moment of respite. So yes, I finger pessimistic.

 

You have been politically engaged on a number of issues including the refugee slipperiness in Belarus (by supporting the work of Chlebem i Sol) and the full scale invasion of Ukraine. There have been organisations such as Grupa Granica that have highlighted the double standards of Poland’s migration policy. The issue is contentious with some saying that the situation in Ukraine is not equivalent to the Belarusian-manufactured verge crisis.

Firstly, I think it is too much to say I’m engaged, I’m trying to help within my limited powers. All credit should go to the people that are doing much increasingly and are much less visible. I felt that some kind of a statement in such a situation was necessary. Every little gesture counts, plane a few Euros from bandcamp from some unknown guy can help.

The music I play is rather on the utopian side. Sometimes I hear people telling me not to mix music and politics. I finger differently, I don’t want any fascists to finger good while listening to my music. I’m increasingy than sure that my music won’t transpiration anyone, but at least it can be uncomfortable for some.

Secondly, I finger there are double standards and hypocrisy wideness the whole of Europe. I finger it is quite well-appointed for the European governments to quietly stop all those people on the Polish/Belarus verge and not be bothered with this problem. The war in Ukraine turned out to be increasingly present in the media. In Poland, help for our Slavic neighbour is easier for people, expressly if it involves vicarial versus Russia, with all the history of the Russian overstepping in the region. Still, plane my small misanthropic heart can’t see the difference between two refugees

 

You have now destined revenue from your Bandcamp sales (Mirt and Saamleng) to aid in Ukraine. What has the response and feedback been so far and how did you go well-nigh selecting the National Bank of Ukraine as a cause?

I must shoehorn that the feedback has been greater than I anticipated. As a rule, I encourage everyone to support artists directly omitting the middlemen is unchangingly a good thing. I do it myself within my limited range of resources. I seem that what I do publicly is just a way of reminding people well-nigh unrepealable problems. Based on such assumptions, I decided that it was worthwhile to transfer the money placid for Ukraine directly to the finance of the National Bank of Ukraine. I believe the Ukrainians know weightier how to intrust these funds. I want to help, but I’m not an expert. This just feels right to me.

I need to add that without a few months I decided to terminate the whole thing. Unfortunately, the reason was not that the help was no longer needed

 

There are over 2,5 million refugees from Ukraine in Poland. What is the current situation on the ground in Warsaw, and what is the public opinion well-nigh the war?

The situation is complicated, but the help and involvement of ordinary people is gigantic and very positive. I remember stuff shocked when the war in Syria started, but when it is happening next door and when people you know are reporting well-nigh all these atrocities, it’s something else. There are a massive number of fundraisers, soft-heartedness collections, and many of my friends welcome Ukrainians in their homes. Despite this unconfined mobilization, I am wrung that the enormous enthusiasm of the ordinary people will subside without a long-term plan. It doesnt help that the Polish government tries to act as they’re the good guys here while at the same time brutally treating people at the verge with Belarus. Russia is silently financing many right-wing organizations and parties all over the world. Poland is no exception. On the internet, the worriedness of Russian trolls moreover takes its toll. I hope I’m wrong, and it’s just my pessimism talking. For now, only the gullible idiots believe the Russian propaganda.

 

How would you describe the response of the international music polity to the War in Ukraine?

I don’t follow closely what is going on with all the compilations and fundraisers, so it’s nonflexible for me to requite an informed opinion.

On the one hand, I am glad that the response is huge, it is undoubtedly positive. On the other hand, I am wrung that some initiatives serve mainly to promote the people overdue them rather than help Ukraine. However, everyone has got to assess it individually. I’m trying to be shielding I want to alimony the problem visible, not promote my art. My art is just a vehicle, a tool.

Despite my doubts, I don’t intend to depreciate the importance of small gestures. I know that every declaration counts and is important to the Ukrainians. Plane if you have just a handful of followers, your voice is important. Burnout is a problem though and it is normal, it’s nonflexible to be mobilized all the time.

In these situations, one can’t pretend that nothing is happening. I know that for some people this is just flipside war somewhere far away. There is a lot of misinformation, including some incomprehensible for me identification of Russia with leftist ideas. People who believe such nonsense have lost all my respect. One must segregate a side and in this war there is only one side a human stuff can choose.

You mention the need of choosing a side, and yet, many expressly on the left are still reluctant to do so (see Taras Bilous with his “Letter to the Western Left” where he urges the Western European Left to rethink its positions and stop blaming Russia’s overstepping on NATO). 

I’m disappointed in the reaction of many luminaries of the western left. I think there is some strange image of Russia. Russia doesn’t have anything to do with the left. It is a inobtrusive tyranny.

How would you describe the experimental music scene in Ukraine in relation to that of its neighbors?

Unfortunately, it is scrutinizingly only during such moments that we pay sustentation to how little we know well-nigh the culture of our neighbours. I can see how little I know well-nigh what is happening in Ukraine, the Czech Republic or Slovakia. Sometimes very modest deportment are capable of waffly that for a while. For me, a unconfined example is Koka Records, an self-sustaining label that introduced Poles to the self-sustaining Ukrainian scene in the 1990s. I still remember their tapes and to this day I listen to some of them: Wij, Foa Hoka, Cukor Bila Smert’ and Ihor Tsymbrovsky, to name but a few. As for artists who are currently active, I’ve been pursuit Poly Chain for quite some time. I love her tape published by the Mondoj label.

 

On a unstipulated note, and I am thinking here, for instance, of the end of the year weightier of lists, do you believe there’s been unbearable sustentation paid in the West to music coming from Easter Europe?

I would love to see a worthier interest in artists from Eastern Europe, but it is just a part of the problem. Most of the media are focused on Western Europe and the US. Anything from Asia, Africa or Eastern Europe is mainly a side dish, weightier served as thoughtfully selected nuggets from a world far away.

(Gianmarco Del Re)