Dirk Serries - interview

Interview with Dirk Serries aka Vidna Obmana, Fear Falls Burning

Dirk Serries is a prolific Belgian composer and performer of original ambient music with a career spanning nearly three decades. He prefers minimal approach, employing various techniques such as looping to create amorphous, long pieces lasting an eternity and engrossing the enthralled listener into a uniquely complacent world no one else can conjure up.

Over this lengthy time he has collaborated with numerous masters of the ambient genre, including Steve Roach, Steven Wilson, Alio Die, Jeff Pearce and numerous others. Dirk is perhaps best known under the moniker vidnaObmana as well as Fear Falls Burning, both now discontinued.

In the interview that follows Dirk has taken time to talk through his past, present and future and offers an excellent glimpse into what making ambient electronic music is about.

DO: Tell us a little about yourself.

DS: I'm Dirk Serries, born in 1968, and since 1984 active as an autodidact musician, independently from anything that is commercial or mainstream. My main goal was and still is to pursue a beauty in music, whether it's electronically or made with guitars. I never have been interested in creating music for the masses, instead my drive is to purify sound into harmony. Music focusing on beauty, minimalism and repetition.

DO: What musicians and genres made the most influence on you when you were only starting out as a composer? Have there been any influences more recently?

DS: When I started out as vidnaObmana in 1984 I was extremely fascinated by the industrial movement : extreme music that was distributed by means of trading limited cassette releases worldwide. A network that was completely independent, anarchistic and uncompromised. Early influences were SPK, Cabaret Voltaire, Ramleh and Maurizio Bianchi.

Naturally over time you do progress as a musician and the music changes along, influences became early Brian Eno, minimalists Morton Feldman, Philip Glass and others. Over the course of these past 30 years the music, the ideology, focus and motivation expanded, matured and modified and while I do had my essential influences in order to shape my art and to mature as a musician and human being, I think it's fair to say that currently influences disappeared since my own personal musical baggage is rich enough to draw from. My recent music is the accumulation of everything I experienced, created and performed.  Never felt so enriched by my own legacy and finally able to extract the essential for the music I'm currently composing and performing. This is why that I'm finally exposing myself too under my own birth name, instead of using a project name. Don't get me wrong, I feel that this is just the beginning. It's now that I'm finally able to execute the music in my head and the concept is only at its very early stage.

DO: Can you describe the moods and feelings one may have listening to your music?

DS: Difficult though to describe it myself as I never been so keen on telling the listener what to expect or how to listen to my music.  It remains so subjective. While some find my music soothing, meditative and peaceful, others find it offensive, intense and utterly difficult. A fact is that my music remains music that expects devotion, patience and an open mind before you can embrace in its full effect. Through the eye of the needle before you can experience its expansive, multi-layered structure.

DO: You have your albums released on vinyl. How does this format reflect your musical philosophy? Do you believe there is some special magic about collecting vinyl?

DS: Having learned from all formats, I really felt relieved I was able to return to vinyl after all these years. In my ambient days of releasing my music on compact disc, it was custom to expand your music up to the 74 minutes of a CD. Listeners didn't expect anything else while in general this expectation blurred my vision as an artist, artificially expanding my music since it was an obligation. The return to vinyl gave me back that freedom to score albums to a timeframe of 45 minutes maximum.  Giving you and forcing yourself gently to work within a shorter amount of time. Writing songs is much more focused, effective over the course of its shorter run and definitely more detailed. On top of this, forcing the listener to be more actively involved (after all you have to turn around the vinyl record after 20 minutes or so) gives the music a much greater platform to express itself upon. I truly believe that the return of vinyl also can help the listener to be involved again with the music, instead of it having it up there as audio wallpaper when a CD goes on for 74 minutes.  An extra point of interest is the larger format in order to give the artwork as well the attention it deserves.

DO: Please, outline for our readers the differences between your two most well-known projects, vidnaObmana and Fear Falls Burning?

DS: VidnaObmana originates from way back in the beginning, when initially recording simple motives in my bedroom, doing industrial music in the early eighties and moving towards ambient and fourth world music in the nineties.  vidnaObmana’s music was mostly done with synthesizers and acoustic instruments. When recordings my last trilogy of albums (Tremor, Spore and Legacy) for Relapse Records, it’s when I truly felt everything was said and that some drastic changes were in order to keep the creative process for me interesting, healthy and satisfying.  Fear Falls Burning was the antidote for the years I lingered on too long in the ambient field of vidnaObmana.  Fear Falls Burning was more about the spontaneous and real-time interaction through a set-up of pedal effects and the electric guitar.  Initially originated as a pure and solo guitar project slowly evolved into something that was beyond control, a solo project that became a band.  Fear Falls Burning was that of raw power, uncontrolled passion for the heavier side of my fascination for sound.  It became truly a monster that was both fascinating as destructive and I knew I had to conclude the story on time before lingering on too long, hence my experience with vidnaObmana.

DO: You are known to have your own notation system. Presumably, your type of musical compositions aren’t the easiest to transcribe.

DS: Indeed and on top of that since I’m an autodidact musician I can’t rely on the classical notation system.  Although I do know my chords and how to play them, I was forced to generate my own way of notating. My system is simple and has to do much more with the tonal quality than actually the notes I’m allowed to play.  The rest is all about playing by ear and how the harmonies evolve over time and how I can interact.

DO: You have worked with your sound engineer, Ronald Marien, for a good 17 years now. What is Ronald’s contribution to your shows?

DS: Correct, since the later days of vidnaObmana, Ronald has been on my side for live mixing.  Nobody else understands my music better than Ronald does, even when I’m surprising him on the spot when changing the set. Ronald anticipates and continues to mix my music in a concert setting so respectfully I really can’t see anybody replacing him.  Even over the course of the various projects, Ronald has been there to evolve, progress and change along.  I also believe that now with my microphonics project his involvement became even more essential as the music needs that ebb and flow in a live setting as well.  He knows the correct frequencies, which dynamics need to apply and when.  On top of that Ronald gives me a sort of peace, calmness on stage so essential in order to focus completely on the performance. For me there’s no need to come off stage and approve the sound, I know Ronald will manage the best possible sound and one that I probably mix myself.  For that moment in time, during soundcheck and the concert itself, I can step away from being a control freak and enjoy the performing of my music.  

DO: I’ve seen you perform in Kiev to a slowly evolving black-and-white video, almost still images really. Who was it made by? How do you  synchronize the playing with the movie, if at all?

DS: It was just one of those rare moments when I actually use visuals.  To be honest I hardly feel comfortable using visuals since it demands another dimension to stay focus on, keep in control and monitor.  But when I met visual artist Jan Kees Helms (he did a short film using my earlier microphonics music), I felt it could be really interesting to work with a movie to accompany my live music.  Asking Jan Kees Helms to approach me visually like the artwork does for my releases, was quite easy and Jan Kees delivered a beautiful work.  But again I never felt really comfortable with using projections since I do believe that most of the times visuals are used inappropriate, images that do not correspond with the music played or visuals used to mask other flaws.  The movie isn’t synchronized, I just play along the duration of the movie.

DO: What does the artwork on your albums add to the overall feel of your music? Unlike the more ‘transcendental’ and ‘natural’ vidnaObmana album covers, the latest Microphonics covers portray ‘the city jungle’, often shrouded in a haze.

DS: It has a quite simple explanation.  I never liked talking about my music, explaining what the music stands for, needs to provoke or how it should be experienced.  I prefer to keep it all open to suggestion and therefor selecting photography explains more than words can.  Setting the mood, creating a particular feeling. With vidnaObmana, apart from my last Relapse Records trilogy, the music was definitely more spacey and transcendental, larger in scope, expansive in sound, therefore was the choice of photography quite deliberate and selective.  The more I came aware of my own artistry, the more I matured as a musician, the music became bigger in dynamics but smaller in scale.  The sound canvas became smaller while it provoked more power and dynamics than any of my vidnaObmana music.  Agreed the music of vidnaObmana didn’t had this purpose either, it was more about meditation and reflection.  But with my new music I felt that I became closer to who I am, where I live and how I live my life.  The city is part of my existence. 

DO: For most of our readers Steven Wilson, who you’ve collaborated with, is associated most closely with progressive rock. How come the two of you sat down in the studio to record?

DS: Although I never have been a fan of progressive rock, I do enjoy the most collaborating with musicians who come from a different genre.  Apart from Steve Roach with whom my collaborations became more than just musical exchanges, I do think my most interesting collaborations are those done with those musicians, , like Tim Bertilsson (Switchblade), Johannes Persson, Magnus Lindberg (Cult Of Luna), Justin K. Broadrick (Jesu, Godflesh) and also Steven Wilson.  It was my trilogy on Relapse Records that introduced Steven Wilson to my music.  We came in touch and while we both share a relentless passion for collecting music, listening to a variety of music, we both felt that a collaboration could work.  And before we know it, we were remixing each other’s work, contributing sounds and layers to each other’s albums and collaborating on a full project, Continuum.  This is the beauty what music can generate, when the boundaries between genres fade and a mutual exchange in sound is created.

DO: Finally, can we have a brief Dirk Serries guide to the galaxy of ambient/experimental electronic music for curious newbies? Please, shortlist some projects/musicians in the genre good to begin with.

Current faves are Duane Pitre, Richard Skelton, Greg Haines, jazz trio The Necks, Jesu, Landing, Kevin Drumm, Low and some who are always part of my playlists like John Coltrane, Maurizio Bianchi (the older industrial releases) and Joy Division.