- Tell us how you became involved in experimental music? Which musicians influenced you mostly? What were you listening before you started making such dark music?It was in the times when Soviet Union still existed. It was hard to get any interesting music in the town where I was living. Everything I could find was albums of Kraftwerk and Front 242. The most dramatic influence was caused by Organisation For Fun album of OFF. I couldn't imagine then that I will be writing music. When I started writing music I was listening to Future Sound Of London, Autechre, Orbital, Dead Can Dance and others.
- Why did you choose this name Nightech? What does it mean?
I started making my own music and I needed a name to release it under some name. The name is made of two words meaning night and technology. Nightech is the one following his own way. He is going to the eternity by transformation.
- How would you describe your own music? What is dark ambient for you? Is it a requirement or the most convenient way of your self-expression?
Gloomy sound landscapes of other planets, mountains, dusty winds and abstract objects slowly changing their shapes. Or simply, any unusual abandoned places on our planet.
This is maybe not the most convenient, but the closest form of translation of my feelings using sound.
- When did you realise that you want to record music? Did something encourage you? When did you record your first track that pleased you?
I realised it when I bought my first computer. Accidentally I found a program for writing music. I played several tracks on this program and was really surprised that a computer can make such sounds. I got interested to write some music on my own. The first track that pleased me was a track from Neku EP.
- Where do you work? What else do you do apart from making music and other dimensions? Is there anything else that is interesting for you in this life?
I work as a programming engineer in an electricity company. In summer I wander around abandoned sites and plants at the outskirts of my town. I take photos, read scientific articles about the universe and psychoanalysis.
- Does your work influence you music?
Your work cannot not influence whatever you do. I don't think it influences the music in the best way. I feel that I don't belong to it.
- Don't you think that psychoanalysis literature is more of an introduction rather than a conclusion?
It might be. It helps you understand many problems that you didn't exist for you earlier. You can solve only a tiny part of these problems by yourself.
- The world around us is close to the end or is it just stuck in the continuous cycle of resurrection? I guess you have your own opinion about what is happening around us.
The world is on the move. It is difficult to understand where it all is going to. Sometimes I want everything positive to happen quicker. The spaces between them I am eager to skip.
- You are talking about positive things, but your music is gloomy and not very kind. What are you writing your music for?
Maybe this is an attempt to translate all the negative and absurd into sound. Dark music is the most serious and honest.
I am writing music because I need to be doing it. I am glad to be doing it again and again. The result is the support of the dark scene, which is so close to me.
- You said once: people are mechanisms and their trajectories are predefined. Do you really think so or is it just a supposition? If people are not mechanisms who are they? Are we really in some kind of digital matrix and nothing depends on us?
I really like this theory at the moment.
Laplace said: "Give me positions and velocities of all particles in the world and I will tell you the future..." Yes, I think that behaviour of people is predefined. There is no such a thing as a free will.
- Are you talking about theory or practice? Maybe it is possible to calculate everything theoretically, providing you have all the data; practically everything is the opposite and everything is driven by the free will?
People have a feeling of free choice because nobody can show you the print off of your future actions. Everything is predetermined by the past. This is the theory, which most likely is the basis of the reality.
- Can you tell us your secret: how you manage to make people feel weightlessness in your ambient tracks? How can you realise the experience of slow gliding above a surface of a distant planet in your music?
I am doing a lot based on my intuition. I do not have any music education. I listen regularly to other dark ambient projects. This makes me understand how to deliver this feeling. Also the desire not to be on this territory helps me to create this sort of sound. In music I can be far away in a strange, extraordinary place. This can impress and distract me...
- Does your music have its own mentality? Dark ambient mentality of the Urals maybe? Is it authentic? Does it belong to the territory where you are living? Do you feel the presence of nature in your music?
To be honest, I wouldn't like to draw any connections between my music and Urals. The place is not remarkable in any way. It feels that it is stuck somewhere in the past. Of course, my music has its own mentality, character but it doesn't belong to this territory in any way. My intention was to create a deep and dark atmosphere through sound. I think I am very close to the desired sound. I suppose that I deliberately do not feel my surroundings in my music.
- What else do you use/used writing your music apart of your computer? Are you happy with everything in the sound of Nightech? Would you add or change something?
I am using only computer at the moment. There are a few midi-devices which I am not using now. I'd like to use field recording in the future but I cannot afford the right recorder now.
- Tell us about Deviation album. What is it about? What are the main idea and its concept? This is a complicated work. We are thinking this is a message, where all the music is mathematical codes translated into the language of sound.
This album is about deviation and abstraction from everyday life. I wanted to make an album in dark ambient style based on my past experience. The album was my best work at the time. I managed to compose unique sound landscapes, which transfer you into another space. You are right regarding mathematics. Computer is the tool of the transformation of music.
- Tell us how you were making it? What kind of period was it in your life? Did you manage to express your feelings through the music of this album?
It was a difficult period for me. Some things were changing. I wouldn't like to talk about it. I think I managed to express my feelings otherwise you wouldn't have heard this album.
- What is your favourite track from the Deviation album?
Come Asunder.
- What did you want to tell by your music? Why are you recording your tracks from another world?
A bit of outer space. I think I record this kind of music because the understandable and positive music of this world doesn't have any interest. I will let legions of other people do mundane music.
- Nightech
- Lagunamuch records
may '07