Part 2
With more and more musicians creating than ever and more and more of these creations being released, what does this mean for you as an artist in terms of originality? What are some of the areas where you currently see the greatest potential for originality and who are some of the artists and communities that you find inspiring in this regard?
We are considered part of the electronic music scene and so we keep our ears open especially to artists and bands from that scene. But in general the greatest potential in our opinion is in those artists who explore the combination of different music genres and attitudes as well as acoustic and electronic sounds. We are avid listeners of many kinds of music and we believe contamination is the key for originality.
How strictly do you separate improvising and composing?
Not much really, we like both. For us as performers, both certainty and uncertainty help us to express ourselves in different ways.
How do you see the relationship between sound, space and composition and what are some of your strategies and approaches of working with them?
They're all related for us; sound is the ambiance, space is its breath and composition is the details … We try to keep them all in balance when we create music, but depending on the piece one of them can be more dominant than the others.
What's your perspective on the relationship between music and other forms of art – painting, video art and cinema, for example – and for you and your work, how does music relate to other senses than hearing alone?
It is definitely a relationship we enjoy. Last year we started a collaboration that we're really happy about with video artist Moodif from Berlin; her visuals have turned into an important part of our live set, some of them indeed are used by Leo to perform inside the projection with Handel system and some are just projected when he plays the Palm Driver. In both cases the visuals interact with the music and I really enjoy watching them during the show; it gives me an additional emotion to go further deep into what we're playing.
We are definitely going to release some new videos with her visuals when the new record will come out, hopefully by the end of the year.
What's your view on the role and function of music as well as the (e.g. political/social/creative) tasks of artists today - and how do you try to meet these goals in your work?
As said before we consider music as a constant energy and for us it is a pure expression and language to relate ourselves with the world.
Contemporary society is pretty sick and vulgar as we unfortunately see everyday, so our “social” and “political” contribution may be about giving a pure and healthy energy through our music and through the love and passion we spread by touching the heart and mind of people …
At least, that's our hope.
Listening is also an active, rather than just a passive process. How do you see the role of the listener in the musical communication process?
We aim at communicating with people through our music so the role and the feedback of the listeners becomes an additional energy for us. We want to stimulate people through the music in order to make them use the power of their own imagination.
Reaching audiences usually involves reaching out to the press and possibly working with a PR company. What's your perspective on the promo system? In which way do music journalism and PR companies change the way music is perceived by the public?
I recently heard an interview from Steve Albini where he says that the entire music system, including promo, labels, distributors etc is a system that exists not to help music but just to financially support itself. I agree in a way, there's something sick about it, but I also must say that I had the luck to work with labels, journalists and PR companies that do what they're doing first of all because they're guided by a real passion and sensitivity for music. And since promotion is an important vehicle for an artist to reach out people, you just need to find the right ones.
At the same time we cannot hide that there is massive tendency from big music corporations to drive people, especially weak minds, towards the latest hype in order to get financial feedback. So if you have enough money you probably have the chance to influence the taste of masses.
Being a music critic it is a delicate duty because it is very hard for someone to deeply catch the work of an artist just listening to a record once or twice while the artist has been into it 24 hours a day for a long time.
So, unfortunately, many times a music review ends up in being just a collection of generic points of reference.
Do you have a musical vision that you haven't been able to realise for technical or financial reasons – or an idea of what music itself could be beyond its current form?
Not really; we've been lucky to release the vision we had for “Masses and Sea Motions” and it came out as we figured it out in our mind and it brings with it all the energy and effort that has been put into it from us and from the crew that worked with us.
We don't see a possible different form for music in general since it is already a beautiful and pleasant gift for human race and it is just perfect as it is.
Find out more about Collisions on their personal website.
