The13th AÑO: 2
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NÚMERO 19
UNA R E VISTA IMA GINA RIA
SPLIT ME WIDE OPEN JARBOE | TEMPORADA DE TORMENTAS | LA DINASTÍA SISTERIANA DIE TOTEN HOSEN | COSAQUITOS EN GLOBO | NICK MARSH CINE | MÚSICA | LITERATURA
[ Interview with Jarboe by Diego Centurión and Marianarchy Deadbilly | Translation: Marcelo Simonetti ]
SACRIFICIAL CAKE IS A MAGICAL GARDEN
Jarboe is a very prolific artista that always searched alternative ways to show and register her ideas. Since being part of Swans and making great records with them, she began her solo career, and it still goes on in a very fruitful way. She’s always a step beyond, and her works are much more an experimentation than a conventional rock album. In this interview Jarboe herself will lead us through her memories to 1995, when “Sacrifical Cake” was released, her second solo work. A beautiful and mysterious album.
You once said that it was hard for you to listen to previous works, that it might be a Little painful because you might realize that it might be better recorded. Today, with the “Sacrificial Cake” 20 th anniversary, how do you feel about it? Thank you. Yes, that perception has completely reversed itself. Perhaps due to letting go of a creative work once finalized and sent to the public. Now, if I hear past work, my experience is joyous. And how are you hearing it sonorously in 2015? Sacrificial Cake is a magical garden. It explores my childhood dreams and nightmares and is a true portal.
There are moments when experimentation becomes a mantra, and others becomes a ritual. How did you conceive the album? It was intended to explore childhood fantasies and dreams and nightmares. Was it your last work with Michael Gira? Michael and I worked together intensely in Swans through the final releases in 1998 and then in his current formation of the project, The Seer most recently. In this kind of interviews, about an specific album, we like the artist to analyze every song and com-
ment upon anything you remember or want (something from the recording process, an anecdote from a show, anything you want) Lavender Girl This song was composed in the room next to the control room where Michael and I lived in Chicago at Warzone Studios in Chicago, Illinois. The studio was located in Cabrini Green, which at the time of the recording sessions was the most dangerous ghetto in America. The studio had a mosquito infestation. To protect myself from the biting mosquitoes, I purchased many boxes of incense and burned incense constantly in this room where we lived. I began to read all the names of the incense. The melody came into me and so the lyrics became a song about all the incense that protected me from mosquitoes. Ode To V This song explores the many terms and words (many Victorian era) used to describe the female orgasm and vagina. It is an ode to Vagina. Shimmer (Instrumental) This song is inspired by Tangier. I was reading Jane Bowles at the time. My Buried Child This song utilizes a call and response technique of two track voice recordings such that one responds to the other. Not Logical This song explores the value of being irrational and non defined. Spiral Staircase This song is about a woman being a lover to a married man. YumYab This song reverses the classic Buddhist deity position of Yab Yum which has the female consort below the male deity. With Yum Yab, the female consort
dominates the deity. Surgical Saviour This song is an homage to industrial culture. It also explores dominance and submission and is intended as an audio component to that fetish activity. CachÊ Toi This segment refers to live performance whether in a recording by the singer or on stage. Only in the song sung once is what is hidden truth. Tragic Seed This song is inspired by Roman Polanski’s unborn child in the womb of Sharon Tate when she was murdered by the Manson Family and thus the tragic seed. Troll Lullaby This song explores my hallucinatory childhood encounter with a troll. Deflowered This song speaks to my observation and experience as a female in rock. The Body Lover This song is a poem about an imagined London gravedigger who sells corpses which was the practice in England in the Victorian era and who has ravished a virgin freshly in her grave. Shimmer This song is all about Tangier, Morocco. Act III This song is a metaphor yet illustrated from a victim’s point of view and murder by strangulation. Troll This song deeply takes the listener into the hallucinatory realm of the troll waiting under the bridge who wants only to eat you.
Emotionally, what differences you from today between “Thirteen Masks” and “Sacrificial Cake”? I am pleased with both of those albums and in some ways the difference between then and now is simply a matter of perspective. How much did it help to have the legend “Swans related Project” on some album covers? Michael and I released Drainland and Sacrificial Cake as a two record set. The tag line you mention was purely to have the albums placed in record stores in the Swans section to help fans discover the albums. Michael’s participation in “My Buried Child” makes us remember about your Swans years. What memories have you got about the years with the band? Thats a big chapter in my memoirs and too much to answer here. I will say based on my musical training and sheer performance abilities, I influenced the direction of the sound and that I was the only person who not only co fronted the band, I was the only one who stayed from the time I became an active artist within the project in 1985 to the last releases from that era in 1998. In your extensive discography, where do you position this album? I view it as a successful communication of psychedelia and childhood and transitioning from childhood to artist. Should we expect a new Jarboe’s álbum this year beyond “Wabi Sabi” and your collaboration in “Helen Money”? Yes a new solo album is in process. Let’s talk about your present: How was it for you to mix zen and jazz? I love this album Zen JJazz. It is a sonic marriage of ideology. You have been involved in different projects with other prolific musicians, any short term project you are working on with someone?
Other than contributing a new song to the compilation for Nepal, I’m absolutely focused on solo work. Would you ever be part of Swans again, or is it something that only belongs to the past? The impact I have made working with Michael is extensive and multifaceted. As to involvement past The Seer, in theory, sure. Any of your concerts you especially remember? Why? I have had only great experiences in Russia and I also loved performing in the mausoleum in Oslo 2015. London 2005 was intense as was Riga 2004 and all of the shows I did in Neurosis 2004...Roadburn Main Stage 2010 and Inferno singing with Attila ….. The Japanese tour of 2009 and really so many tremendous experiences….. Will you ever come to delight us with your music to South America? That’s up to a promoter interested in doing shows there when the booking agent approaches that territory. I deeply appreciate your kindness in responding to these questions. ¡Thank you!
The13th U NA R EVISTA IMA GINA RIA