MUSIC

GUNILLA SÜSSMANN The Colors of Longing

IFIRST SAW HER PERFORM IN A HAUNTED 12TH CENTURY CONVENT ON THE WESTCOAST OF NORWAY. SHE SMILED AT THE AUDIENCE AND TOOK A BRIEF APPLAUSE BEFORE SITTING DOWN IN FRONT OF THE GRAND PIANO.

THEN SHE WAS GONE. GONE WAS THE PERFORMER, WHOSE MASTERY OF HER INSTRUMENT AND THE MUSIC OF THE OLD MASTERS IS RIVALLED ONLY BY FEW.

SHE HAD BECOME A CONDUIT FOR AN UNEARTHLY RESONANCE, A MUSIC SO BEAUTIFUL IT CUT DEEP INTO MY SOUL. EARLY ON SHE KNEW SHE HAD TAPPED

INTO SOMETHING THAT WAS ALMOST LARGER THAN LIFE – TO HER, SHE TOLD ME, A “HOLY PLACE”. LAST YEAR SHE RELEASED HER DEBUT SOLO CD, TOCKA, FEATURING SONATAS OF RACHMANINOV AND SCRIABIN. SHE KINDLY TOOK TIME

OFF FROM HER BUSY SCHEDULE TO ANSWER SOME OF OUR qUESTIONS AND SHE GIVES US SOME UNIqUE INSIGHTS INTO THE MIND AND WORK OF A MASTER...

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SOLAR ANGELS: Gunilla, how are you doing? You have had a very busy year! Please let us know what you’ve been up to ...

GUNILLA: Hi there... I´m very fine, having a pretty calm start of this season, which is a welcome and nice change after being fairly busy last year. 2007 was a hectic yet very exciting year for me. It was the 100th anniversary of norwegian composer Edvard Grieg, which meant a lot of concerts within this frame, among other places in China. This year also included my first trip to Taiwan, where I for the first time in my life suffered from real insomnia. It´s hard to pick highlights from the last year, because every event has its own value or meaning.

The spring and summer was filled with concerts and festivals in Norway, Germany, France and the UK, and a huge challenge this year was the intense variety of repertoire.

There were almost no concerts with the same program, and in the end this was far more exhausting than the amount of concerts. But also a very satisfying process. I also had the pleasure of making my debuts at 2 of Germany’s most important festivals; in Schwetzingen and Ludwigsburg, which were great experiences for me. Apart from solo-recitals I also played with a dear colleague of mine, Solveig Kringleborn, a phenomenal soprano, and both the concerts and the wonderful surroundings in this southern area of Gernany were incredibly special. Another very precious event this year was the release of MALINCONIA, a CD with my precious friend, the cellist Tanja Tetzlaff. This recording has been through such a process of fateful and unfortunate events, but still carries the very essence of our collaboration and contains music that we both praise very highly. It was like getting a child a child when it finally arrived, and fortunately it also received excellent reviews worldwide. Finally I have to mention a concert in Wigmore Hall, UK, which was one of the peakexperiences last year. It’s always such a magical pleasure to perform in this hall, with its unique atmosphere and acoustics. And I felt really grateful to return, especially with a really spectacular ensemble of musicians from UK, France and Norway. This too was an anniversary-concert for Grieg, but for me personally it became a celebration of the core of musical communication.

SOLAR ANGELS: I can’t really describe my feelings when listening to your playing. It is as if my mind becomes a canvas, and with every note, you paint a landscape in my mind. I am in such awe of this mysterious power of music. I was at a concert with the wonderful piano player and composer Laurence Rosenthal. After the concert, he held a brief q&A session and someone in the audience asked him what he felt or experienced when he performed. And he said: I listen. That was surprising. But it made so much sense. With masters like him and yourself, it isn’t just about the music, because the experience goes deeper. The music becomes a bridge between two worlds, or separate realities that come together in the moment of the performance. And I realized that he, as us, were merely receiving the music from that magical place beyond

the reach of our temporal everyday selves. And that is very similar to what you say in the liner notes to your CD, about music bridging the gap between two poles or worlds. Can you tell us more about how you experience this process and how it may have transformed you on your life’s path?

GUNILLA: First of all; I couldn´t agree more about what Mr. Rosenthal so simply expressed. To listen when you play is the most essential and important tool to communicate, and yet also the hardest. I believe the ultimate feeling as a musician is when you experience listening to your own playing in real time, not only with your 2 physical ears from the inside of what you’re playing, but with a third ear, from the outside, as if you were released from the actual task of playing. You hear it, not before it’s played or after it’s been played, but AS you play. To experience the unity of notes, harmonies, sound and lines, in a way that enables you to let the music flow naturally instead of consciously trying to construct its shape. Listening – to the extent that the awareness of time and place disappears, and all that is left is the music’s endless and natural possibilities to plant itself in the room there and then. In other words it’s about being so aware and alert that you finally loose awareness. I believe that the ear is the most important tool in the process of conveying music, because no matter how skilled you are, no matter how much you practiced or how well you know a piece, when the time comes and the ear is not totally free and open, the performance can never reach a higher level. I may give two recitals in

q &A

with * GUNILLA SÜSSMANN *

What are your three fave movies and why? I know for certain that I will leave something genious out by picking only 3, and tomorrow I would probably remember 3 others, but: IRREvERsIbLE for the incredibly stabbing effect of telling such a story backwards, leaving us with so many questions concerning where and why brutality and violence appear in people. For never giving in to the temptation to “soften” the cruelty or hide the horrible darkness within such a story. I´ve never been so repulsed, and yet so impressed by a movie. ThE EnGLIsh paTIEnT; for it’s breathtaking story, fantastic acting, intense and incredible directing and production, and for its unique way of conveying love, warmth, pain, human relations and universal themes in its own style without turning into a cliché. ThE LIFE oF oThERs; because it shows the “other” side of Germany’s ordeal after second world war. how people on all sides suffer incredibly from the paranoia, surveillance and lack of human warmth within their own rows, and the incredible way of conveying a story of such change in a man’s attitude, simply from watching people who love eachother and want to fight for their art.

What is the greatest album of all time? also an impossible question, and something I almost refuse to answer...however; Michelangeli playing Ravel and Rachmaninoff in a recording from 1957, released on EMI. simply because it’s purest magic from first to last tone. Divine music, divinely performed by one of music-history’s greatest artists. It’s the kind of recording that excludes any other recordings of these works. It gives me goose-bumps just thinking of it.

Is there such a thing as free will? Idealistically, yes. but I believe we have to distinguish between what we think is free will, and what actually is. Free will in itself, I believe, is quite simple and evident, but to become such a person who can achieve the skills, insight and reflection to use it, I think is a painful and long process. because in order to make it something more than a superficial reflection of one’s own needs and wishes, I believe one has to have seen so far within and so far out that one clearly “knows” what kind of free will doesn´t exclude any free will of another human being. If one could reach that point, I think free will could be a pure perspiration and natural expression, but unfortunately too often it’s misinterpreted as personal satisfaction and greed, and like this nothing is free.

What are dreams? “ I have a dream...” I wonder why this sentence established itself in the first place, because in this context the word is always referring to something positive. I don’t have a very strong relation to dreams, but I guess that dreams are the closest we get to an unfiltered, uncontrolled image of ourselves. Which is also why they are so scary sometimes, and we´re desperate to find an explanation to everything. This

interests me much more than the dream itself, why are we so eager to find an explanation? because we´re so afraid of things we can’t comprehend, scared of loosing control. but maybe this is the closest to a free will that our minds get, because they spin around in their own time and space, regardless of what you as a person will gain out of it. Making bits and pieces of our history come together in a new pattern, and who are we to say what makes more sense....?

Why is art important? because it’s the shortest distance between two persons. Try change the word religion with art, and the world would look a different place. because it has the ability to create understanding, respect, unconditional feelings and open new gates between the most different people and cultures. because without it we’re only animals. because it prolongs everything. because it´s the only “invention” that can never cause harm in itself, and if it does it´s always due to systems and circumstances around, not art itself.

Does everyone have a price? This depends totally on who’s in charge. It depends on whether we regard ourselves as part of a system where price matters, or if we find that term too narrow. I believe as soon as we label ourselves with a price, we say goodbye to a certain freedom or free will, if you want. of course, in our world today, you can’t escape the fact of relating to this at a certain point. I just think that it should never be measured from a point of personal greed, but from a point of objective judgement of ones contribution to the whole universe. ( I don’t interprete this as a question about some people being more worth than others, as my answer would have been different then.)

Is revolution a necessary good/evil of evolution? as a person who has been born into a time and part of the world, so happily free of such events, I feel it quite unfair to answer anything worthy to such a question. so many people through time, have suffered incredible agony and unfairness through corrupt and power-abusing systems, and who are we today to mean or say that they were wrong in opposing to this? Through history revolution has been the poor people´s only weapon against tyrannic treatment,and it´s hard to say whether we at all are able to picture how the world would have looked today if the history was free of revolutions. but isolated into a technical “term”, I think I can´t really decide if it´s a good or evil, I think it´s more inevitable. because human-kind tends to flock together, no matter what circumstances. and as long as we do that, a collective opinion of something is doomed to be pushed towards the surface. personally I don´t think this is necessarily a good thing always. When such things happen, a lot of nuances and individual thinking is lost, and replaced with the most obvious, easy-to-understand-slogan,and in terms of evolution I´m not sure this always brings the greatest values on to the future.

above: süssmann’s “Tocka” which was nominated for the Les victoires de la Musique Classique 2006 at the Midem convention in Cannes. below is “aurora borealis” (naXos) a piano What is the nicest thing that concert by the norwegian composer Geirr Tveitt, performed with another norwegian piano great happened to you today? håvard Gimse. That my husband returned safe from a tour. What is the purpose and destiny of humankind? This is an incredibly huge question and I feel way too small to give a good answer. I think I´ll avoid the “destiny”-part, because for me it´s bringing too many borders and frames into the universal question on why we´re here. however, I believe that our greatest responsibility is to never stop wondering, never accept a final solution to the wonder of our existence, and be humble to the forces we don´t understand.To strive for knowledge. Further. I think the longing for love, and love in itself is a huge part of our purpose. because I personally think love is the greatest and most unlimited source of experiences we can have. Regardless of what it speaks through; music, art, nature, people. It´s one of the few things, no matter how far we get in our technical skills, inventions and science, it´s one of the few things we´ll never ever be able to control and that we´ll constantly be searching and longing for, consciously or unconsciously.

a row, and note-wise I play the exact same thing. Only that in one of the concerts my ears are “locked”, “fixed” or “blocked” (from exhaustion, indifference, nervousity, stress..), and in the other they’re open and able to “breathe” freely with the music. The performances are completely different. Not that one could necessarily put a finger on what’s wrong, but the spirit, atmosphere, the lungs of the music are missing. And this is for me the hardest and greatest thing about being a musician. That I always long to find myself in this position on stage, entirely open for the sound, and yet the fear of loosing it and not “getting there today” is always present. It´s a sacred place, and it´s undisscusably so, because without it, without this room between two poles, music stops being music. It´s absolutely dependant on such a silent communication with “the other pole” to develop this unique energy and power that it may carry.

SOLAR ANGELS: Is performing music simply a craft, or can it also be more like a rediscovery of a hidden sense, as in a sixth or even seventh sense?

GUNILLA: Definately. I would say it´s beyond doubt like a sixth or seventh sense. The performance you hear as part of an audience (given that the artist is good, of course) is idealistically always a sum of his/ her ability to utilize this sense. In the same way that you can describe for someone the taste of a certain fruit, the smell of a perfume, the impression of a sunset, I as a musician should be able to describe for an audience what I hear “out there”. The craft of playing an instrument is basically a tool, where of course some tools give a better result, but all in all this is a far more concrete discipline than using this “third ear”, which is more or less what I mean with a sixth/seventh sense. I believe it’s quite similar to the ancient idea about the “third eye”. Like the third eye is a “thought” and internally visualised image, the third ear is a “thought” and audio-visualised ear, which becomes the translator and messenger between the two poles.

SOLAR ANGELS: Your album is called TOCKA, which means longing in Russian. Why do you think this particular emotion has had such a strong influence on artists, composers, musicians and poets through the ages? What is the magic of longing?

GUNILLA: First I have to say that finding the word Tocká wasn’t easy. I

was very clear on what kind of feeling I wanted to convey, and in Norwegian and lots of other european languages the alternatives for the word longing are not overwhelming. I spesifically wanted to avoid the side of it that had to do with desire, and the closest I could get to something that served the emotion right was the german word sehnsucht. But releasing a CD with only Russian music, I would have to find the Russian word, However, that seemed to be more difficult than I had thought. The thing is; in the Russian language they have a whole list of words that mean longing. And each one with a different nuance, colour and meaning. I talked to lots of different Russian colleagues, explaining what I meant, and not one of them would come up with a word immideately. They all needed some time to think, to find the exact word for this specific emotion and context. How fascinating!! To have a language that rich of nuances! I was weakkneed with admiration when they all some weeks later came up with the same word − Tockà. That was the one it had to be.

I believe since the very core of music, and music in general is something so abstract, it’s predestined to cause a need and an urge for its very opposite. And for all spiritual beings; musicians and artists, a huge part of their work will always consist of looking for answers, as well as release and help in this mysterious circle of life and death. Searching for the hidden, searching for something that will never come, searcing for comfort for one’s helpless insuffiency. I think the longing and searching aspect is inevitably connected with the very essence of art. Most music is built around tension and release, some only with tension, some with both. And the tension, representing the longing, will always be stronger than the release, the fulfillment. It may give satisfaction when the tension is released, but the power that the tension/longing builds up will always carry much more than the release can give back. And thus I think we’re clinging to the longing/ tension, because the expectation of what may come will always be of greater value and contain stronger dreams, hopes and wishes than the satisfaction in itself, and like this it knows no boundaries and never limits the magic on its way.

SOLAR ANGELS: What does discipline mean to you? How do you keep yourself getting better after all this work. How do you keep challenging yourself?

GUNILLA: I consider myself very lucky. Since I was very little I learnt that music was not something one did for fun, it was something to be taken very seriously. As a child I obviously didn’t fully comprehend what that meant, but something I could grasp was the discipline of this seriousness, in terms of practising and devoting myself to the world of music. Later in life I started to comprehend for real how serious music was for me, not only because I was told, but because I could experience this great gift on my own. By then the discipline part of it was already so drilled into my system, that it was and has ever since been a very natural part of my attitude towards how I work. I strongly believe that the path of a musician is an eternal education. As a player, as a listener and as a human being. And for me discipline means a tool which enables me to constantly be open for this education. To never fall for the temptation to say that I’ve learned enough, I’ve practised enough. If that day comes, I’m no longer a musician. There are different aspects of discipline. There is the physical one; which is needed to maintain and improve the technical level of ones playing, and there is the mental one, which is more of an attitude, They are closely linked together, one doesn’t exist without the other. But the mental discipline is important for me in terms of what I talked about earlier; being so aware and alert, that one can later give in to it. For me a mixture of the physical and mental discipline has always been a totally necessary tool of preparation and education in order to be more free during a performance. In some periods I may practise less than I did during my time in the music academies, but the approach, my attitude towards my work is unaltered. One learns to be more efficient too, one has to, given that the time frames are often more narrow now than earlier. I also still love learning new repertoire, I love that challenge of starting from scratch on something entirely new, and see where the road leads me.

SOLAR ANGELS: Is there an ultimate goal for you?

GUNILLA: It’s weird to talk about an ultimate goal... For me, as long as I can see a goal, the process of longing somehow looses its purpose. For me the longing is extremely precious, and as long as I’m allowed to keep longing through music for an indefinate time, that’s more than enough for me.

ALLÁ

IT’S TIME!

WE FIRST SAW A LL á PLAY AT A VENUE IN C HICAGO CALLED M ARTYRS WHERE THEY WERE PLAYING WITH O PPENHEIMER AND M OS q UITOS. T HEY WERE DOING SOUNDCHECK WHEN WE GOT THERE . A ND FROM THE FIRST MONUMENTAL CHORD STRUCK , I KNEW THIS WAS A BAND I WOULD WANT

TO HEAR AGAIN AND AGAIN. N OT ONLY IS THEIR MUSIC GREAT, BUT THEY EMIT A CHARISMA

RESERVED FOR ROCK STARS. B UT THERE IS MORE TO A LLA THAN THAT. T HE STRENGTH OF

GROUP LEADER J ORGE L EDEZMA ’ S VISION, AND HIS FOCUS ON HIS PERSONAL GOALS MAKES

HIM A WORTHY SUBJECT FOR THE OPENING ARTICLE OF S OLAR A NGELS ’ FIRST ISSUE . I W E

MET AT A CAFE IN C HICAGO ’ S PILSEN AREA AND OVER COFFEE AND HOT CHOCOLATE WE

DISCUSSED A LLA PAST PRESENT AND FUTURE , AS WELL AS TOUCHING UPON MANY OTHER

THINGS. A ND I LEARNED A LOT FROM J ORGE DURING OUR CONVERSATION, AND HE INSPIRED

ME TO NOT LOSE TRACK OF MY OWN VISIONS. S O I HOPE THAT ALL OF YOU WILL ALSO GET THE

SAME FROM READING WHAT HE HAD TO SAY. L AST BUT NOT LEAST, A LLA ’ S DEBUT ALBUM , “E S

TIEMPO ” IS DUE OUT IN MAY ON CRAMMED DISKS. A LLA WILL RULE THE WORLD, AND WE ’ RE

GLAD WE WERE THERE AT THE BEGINNING. A LLA ON THE WEB : WWW. MYSPACE . COM / ESTIEMPO

D

SOLAR ANGELS: Tell me about your background...

JORGE: I grew up in a middleclass family. I have two other brothers. I am the middle child. My parents immigrated here from Mexico in the mid. sixties or early seventies. They met here. I grew up on the north side of Chicago, but in our early teens we moved to the suburbs, so we kind of experienced the city life and the suburban life, or, if you will, the urban sort of life and then the white suburban sort of life. So yeah, we’ve always been fascinated by music, and my dad had a lot of Beatles and Rolling Stones, so we grew up with a lot of pop. We didn’t grow up with traditional Mexican music. So when we moved to the suburbs we discovered a lot stranger music. We discovered bands we had never heard before, and it kind of blossomed from there, you know.

SOLAR ANGELS: So when did you realize you’d be working so closely with your brother, Angel (drummer of Alla)? JORGE: I guess it always starts with a love for music, and we loved music. He was a musician first. He played drums first. It’s funny because he had a friend who went to those Christian youth groups. And he talked my brother into going with him, but my brother would go only because after they talked about the Bible, they had a Christian band with drums and everything. So my brother would sit through the Christian stuff and then when they were done they would just jam in the Church. So that’s how my brother started playing drums.

Photo: Bårisol.

I guess I started making tape loops. I was really into experimental music in high school. I couldn’t actually play any instruments. But I played in some punk bands, and I was always playing in these weird sort of conceptual bands with drum machines and broken keyboards. SOLAR ANGELS: So you learned your musical skills as you went along...

JORGE: Yeah, I’d end up being, like, oh, I want to play guitar now. I didn’t start to play guitar until I was 22. As I discovered music I was like, I want to play that kind of music, so I just had to learn how to do it. But we were doing Defender and we had a love for early Kraftwerk, krautrock and electronic, but old school electronic music. My bands were very high concept, like, at first we would always talk about costumes and theatrical stuff and then the music was always second. And then I got into this whole thing

where I bought a four track before I bought any instruments and started to record all my friends, and I was like, let’s make these records, and we tried to make these concpepts albums, and they were a mess. My friends were in orchestras so they would bring trumpets and stuff. I have some of those tapes and they’re pretty funny to listen to. But we did Defender, and that was again very high concept. It was always high concepts.

SOLAR ANGELS: Some of that stuff would probably be cool to use as source material...

JORGE: Yeah, I wanted to do it for this record, but definitely want to do it for the next one. I have tons of just crazy stuff we did, you know, experimenting with tape loops and stuff. I was really into stuff like Frank Zappa and The Residents...

SOLAR ANGELS: “Es Tiempo”, which is Spanish for “It’s time...” – it’s a great title that can have many meanings, and I guess in our day and age, it truly is time... for new ideas, for passion, for truth, for great and meaningful music, and so on... What specifically are you trying to express with this title?

JORGE: Oh yes, it has so many meanings obviously. I always wanted to make sure that the first real musical statement that I made was important. Some people argue that you’ve got to put some 7 inches out, or get the word out, you know. But I was like, no, I’m going to make this big debut. So it is like it’s time for me to show the world what I found. And of course there’s the time element, and how long it took.

SOLAR ANGELS: Yeah, you should have called the album ”it’s about time...”

JORGE: Haha, yeah. But culturally too, I thought there wasn’t enough interesting Latino music being made. And there is plenty, I guess, but as far as independent artists go, they tend to fall into a mold where they want to copy what western bands do but just in Spanish, to which I am like, no, you’re missing the point. So there’s also that element that it’s time that some Latin artist steps out of the boundries. SOLAR ANGELS: I think a band I have a lot of respect for is Café Tacuba. And they wanted to mix that Western influence with their own traditional sounds. But they came up with something very interesting I think.

JORGE: Yeah, but they’re from Mexico so they’re influences are very different from ours. And I respect them a lot too, and they make some very challenging records.

SOLAR ANGELS: In your biography you talk about the main themes being love and spiritual and cultural awakening. Do you think the world is ready for that? Seeing how saturated the world is with hate and greed. Do you think music really has the power to change the world?

JORGE: Yeah, definitely. I guess that’s sort of a navie part of me. I

mean, I’m not navie but that’s what inspired me to do this record. And I was inspired by a lot of artists from the sixties who felt the same way; that music could change people, and I mean, it changed me! I was listening to something the other day about how, as much as we’ve made all this progress, we’re becoming more conservative over all, and music and culture still poses a threat to any totalitarian ideas or big brother systems, so I think it’s important. Again that’s why I spent so much time on the record and on the lyrics and everything to make sure the message is clear.

SOLAR ANGELS: Absolutely. Someone whose message struck a chord with me was Ron Paul who’s currently running for president. Because his message is basically let’s open ourselves to the possibility of dealing with other nations through trade, talking and travelling, as opposed to this constant violence and enmity... And that scares a lot of people because they are afraid if you let down your guard that you’ll

open yourself to attack from some enemy somewhere. But I’m thinking that after all these thousands of years with war and destruction, it is time to do what John Lennon said, to give peace a chance. We’re all gonna die one day anyway. Isn’t it worth it to give our children and grandchildren the see if we could actually coexist peacefully?

JORGE: Yeah, it sounds like such a novel idea, doesn’t it. It’s so simple, but it’s absolutely true. And I don’t know what it’s gonna take. There has to be some giant shift. To me it seems as if it needs to get worse before it gets better, but how much worse can we go, you know!

SOLAR ANGELS: So in a sense, It’s like the time that we live in sort of opens up the door to experimentation and to stop worrying about conventions and just doing what you feel is right because it’s worth to see what comes out of it...

JORGE: Yeah, obviously this is the day and age of convenience and everything being instant. You go on MySpace – you write your first song, you put it on Myspace, you got a 100.000 hits, but the hardest thing is to carve your own path, that’s the hardest way to go. But obviously people are looking for fulfillment in their lives. That’s something I realized making the record. What’s fulfilling me as a person. I question my intentions all the time as I do this. It’s important. Am I doing this right? Is this song going in this driection? Is the band going here or are we doing this or are we doing that. But people lose track of that. They just kinda go with the machine and they get sucked in.

Photo: Bårisol.

SOLAR ANGELS: And I guess that’s one thing, if you love what you

do, and the audience loves what you do, then the end result is basically love. And that’s what brings people together...

JORGE: Yes, you know, not to bring up an old cliche, but I hope that somewhere some kid, you know, anybody that hears the record says wow, if this guy can do it, I can do it. You know, I’m not rich. My parents are not paying for anything. I’ve worked a job for years and years. I have no savings. The only thing I own is my car and my music, you know. So it’s like I hope that somewhere down the line somebody gets inspired and says shit! This guy could do it! It seems pretty easy!

SOLAR ANGELS: Writing and creating Es Tiempo has been a long and difficult journey, I imagine. It’s taken you across to the other side of the world, you’ve been working with a bunch of different musicians, and like Lee Hazlewood, you spent some time working in Sweden. Tell me what this musical journey has done to you as a musician and a person.

JORGE: Oh going to Sweden, or Europe... you know it’s funny. As soon as you decide you’re gonna do something, the whole universe sort of moves everything around so as to make it happen... SOLAR ANGELS: Synchronicity...

JORGE: Yeah, it’s fantastic. And when I talk to people about that I can give them so many examples. When I made the decision to go to Sweden – because I was in love with the string sound of a certain band who works at a certain studio – I met two Swedish guys at an Empty Bottle show who ended up being my sort of surrogate family in Sweden.

When I was there it almost seemed like I found my purpose. Everything I was doing, every decision I was making was just leading me to even better things, you know. And I knew right there that that was the path that I had to take. I mean, I could go on as far as examples of, you know, saying: ”alright, I’m gonna do this, I just have to set my mind to it” and immediately I’d see things start appearing. You know sometimes your mind gets clouded, even with us having an opportunity to have our record out worldwide. For a while I was really bummed out about it, but then I’d think, ”you know what, it’s gonna happen... it’s gonna happen, this is what I’ve always planned, I gotta stay focussed on what I’ve got to do.” And sure enough, three weeks later, something happened.

But as far as me going to Sweden, that was an eye opening experience. It began like, I was living off a credit card, I only had a four day stay at a hotel, and then next thing you know I’m in a recording studio, I’m meeting the Cardigans, I’m in Finland touring with Damo Suzuki, jamming with Swedish psychedelic legends and meeting amazing people. And all this happened just because I opened my mind to the possibility of that happening. I mean I only saw a hundred feet ahead of me at a time, but I just opened up to it.

SOLAR ANGELS: You just let go.

JORGE: Yeah, I just let go.

SOLAR ANGELS: Allá means ”over there” and I thought that was such a great name, because it´s something you can´t really define, it´s almost like a state of mind...

JORGE: Yeah absolutely!

SOLAR ANGELS: Especially in our world today where everything seems to be given a tag so that nobody needs to worry about

Photo: Bårisol.

looking outside the box. And I loved that about you from the start, because that doesn’t seem to be something you care about.

JORGE: No, obviously, when you hear the album, you know, it´s a music album! It’s not like a band record, it’s not a guitar record... I guess I use the term psychedelic in the sense of what I feel my definition is. Just be open to whatever influences come in. I’ve always loved band names that were just one word. Litterally Allá comes from Mexicans in the US referring to Mexico as allá, and when you’re in Mexico you refer to the US as allá. So then it just becomes, what the fuck is allá, you know. For a while we wanted to call the band Allá People because me, my brother and Lupe obviously are stuck in between.

SOLAR ANGELS: Considering the current situation in the record industry with declining record sales, is that affecting you at all?

JORGE: A little bit but I think ultimately you have to make a great recording, you have to make a great song. I think you start with the music. The industry side, I guess, will happen, but I definitely made sure I made an album and then whatever the label decides to do, if they want to do this as a single, or if they want to do this as a ringtone... do whatever you want. I did my part, I made a great record. I wrote some great songs so the aftermath is whatever happens.

SOLAR ANGELS: At one point you considered releasing Es Tiempo yourself...

JORGE: A part of the self release was that I was hoping I could have complete control over everything, but depending on what your intent is, you know, mine was that this had to be a worldwide release. I mean, that was always my dream. And now it’s gonna be released in over 30 countries. And I wanted that, and I knew that you have to be honest with yourself. Just like I’m honest with

myself that I am not an engineer, I couldn’t record this record on my own and so I hired somebody to do it. And at this point, you just find a good home and good people to work with and your message is spread out.

SOLAR ANGELS: The live experience of Allá is so different from the way you sound on the album. I’ve seen you perform quite a few times and even though Es Tiempo is a great album, it does not capture the raw magic of Allá live... it’s almost like two different entities.

JORGE: I though about that and it was always my intent that it would always have to be completely different from the album. And that’s funny because we were making the record and I thought about Brian Wilson doing Pet Sounds or The Beatles making Sgt. Pepper because people who were around during the making of Es Tiempo would ask me, ”Jorge, how are you gonna do this live”, but I wasn’t even thinking about that. I am making a great record, I am not worried about how it’s gonna translate live, I’ll worry about that when we get there.

SOLAR ANGELS: What does freedom mean to you, artistically and personally?

JORGE: I guess freedom starts with just thoughts. The opening of possibilities. Especially as an artist, I am open to almost anything. In the studio, if somebody wants to try something new, you know, I don’t try to put limits on what we’re trying to do creatively. So as a human being or an artist, I think it’s as simple as not trying to put limits on yourself, like, ”no I can’t do that, or, no, that’s not who I am”.

SOLAR ANGELS: Is there any other message for our readers?

JORGE: Dream big. Even early on I thought I’m gonna win a grammy. I think these big lofty things all the time. And don’t limit yourself. I guess what worries me about humanity is that people don’t know what they want to do. Because if you really think hard, what would you wanna be right now? Just start with that. Just do it. And as soon as you set your mind to it, you’ll see things will happen.

I don’t know if you were like this but I always thought people thought like me. I used to think like, I visualize, don’t other people visualize? I constantly visualize my life – constantly. Even this interview, I kinda already knew what I was gonna talk about. But meeting people as I got older and started moving on, I began to realize people don’t visualize. People don’t think about it, about who they are. Don’t you think about what it is you want to do? No, we just kind of live life. But I live life too. But to think that people just sit back and don’t have a perspective on what they’re doing, or what their intent in life is... I think changing that is more of a change than political or social change – to really think about what you’re doing...

SOLAR ANGELS:Yeah, inste-ad of just going through life mechanically...

JORGE: Yeah, and one of our songs, ”no Duermas Mas”, is lyrically very much about that. ”Don’t sleep anymore”. It has a double meaning and it’s sort of like about people sleepwalking through their lives, and the song starts with the lyrics ”Wake up, wake up”. It has a lullaby feel to it but it also asks people; what are you doing? That’s my big statement, you know, just wake up, really think of what you’re doing, and make a change. As soon as you make that change and decide, ”alright, I’m gonna do this”. Just fucking do this. Things will start happening.

SOLAR ANGELS: So you’re really a believer in synchronicity.

JORGE: Yeah, big time, big time! And as I start reading about different people and philosophers, I fell like, damn, I’m on the same wavelength.

SOLAR ANGELS: What are you currently reading?

JORGE: Oh, I’m just reading a book about the sunset strip, haha! But I’ve looked into some philosophies and even stuff as mainstream as The secret or What the bleep do we know...

SOLAR ANGELS: That’s a good movie, by the way, What the bleep...

JORGE: It’s a good movie, and watching it just reaffirms what I already believe. You know, I’m not like some rich millionaire. I work at a supermarket, I wash dishes, I come home filthy. People look at the band, and go; this will happen! But I worry about my car payments, what am I gonna do, my kids and stuff like that. But knowing that there’s an intent in my life keeps me sane. If I knew I had to just work every fucking day and go home and watch TV... and that’s like 95 % of the people of the world, and that ratio is probably getting bigger. They don’t think. And that’s what’s great about what you’re doing because we normally don’t talk about that - about how records are made, about how things start. It usually stays on a superficial level. I mean, I remember the moment I decided I was gonna make this record and what it was gonna be like. I was driving down North Avenue, and as soon as I made that decision, my life and everything just moved and I let go. I realized, I just got to let this happen.

SOLAR ANGELS: So if we say it’s time indeed, then it’s time to wake

up...

JORGE: Yeah, for everybody...

q &A with * JORGE LEDEZMA *

1. W HAT ARE YOUR THREE FAVE MOVIES AND WHY ? LA BAMBA - Ritchie Valens the first true Latin rocker plus he wrote his own songs he was only 17 when he died. PEE WEES BIG ADVENTURE - Tim Burtons finest ... brings the avant guarde to the big screen for the first time. EL TOPO - 60s mysticism meets the Spaghetti Western

2. W HAT IS THE GREATEST ALBUM OF ALL TIME ? There are no greatest but here are just a few ... Marvin Gaye - Whats Going On Can - Tago Mago Terry Riley - In C The Residents - Commercial Album Beach Boys - Pet Sounds

3. I S THERE SUCH A THING AS FREE WILL ? Yes, do most people act on it? No. Why? That’s a whole other topic.

4. W HAT ARE DREAMS ? To me? Dreams can be deliberate forms of imagination. Can daydreaming be considered visualization? If so I’m in constant state of dreaming but staying firm footed with reality. Dreams allow one to step into consciousness which allows for all possibilities. If you aware you dream if not you’re dead.

5. W HY IS ART IMPORTANT ? Art is what defines our culture and society. It inspires.

6. D OES EVERYONE HAVE A PRICE ? No

7. I S REVOLUTION A NECESSARY GOOD / EVIL OF EVOLUTION ? Revolution is a necessary good but a violent one isn’t.

8. W HAT IS THE NICEST THING THAT HAPPENED TO YOU TODAY ? Had an engaging conversation with a friend over Indian food.

9. W HAT IS THE PURPOSE AND DESTINY OF HUMANKIND ? To die out like the dinosaurs ...