Thomas Ekelund

WHAT INSPIRES YOU? I gather inspiration from many sources. Sometimes it's a song, sometimes it's a movie or a TV show or a painting or a piece of graphic design. I also gather a lot of inspiration from natural sounds, a train going by, the syncopated pulses of traffic lights, flight of birds or a metal construction set into motion. Everything can be inspiring. Another huge factor is the communication with other artists, both in the same field I am in (i.e. experimental music, whatever that means) and in other more traditional forms of music. 

WHAT IS IT THAT ATTRACTS YOUR EARS TO EXPERIMENTAL SOUND? DO YOU BELIEVE IT CAN HAVE POSITIVE PSYCHOLOGICAL EFFECTS ON THE MIND? I have asked myself that question many times, and I am not sure I've come to any conclusion. For one thing "experimental sound" can mean so many things so what might attract me to one artist isn't necessarily the same as why I like another artist. But I guess in someway the attraction lies in the unconventional, to achieve certain moods through new ways. As for the psychological effect: All forms of music and sound have a psychological effect. Listening to music can change your mood on an instant, it can set lose long forgotten memories and so on. There's of course also the aspect of psycho-acoustics and things like that, but I am afraid I know far too little about that to make any real comment. 

YOU HAVE MANY SIDE PROJECTS OUTSIDE OF YOUR SOLO MATERIAL, HOW ARE THESE WORKING OUT FOR YOU? It's true, I've got quite a few side projects. Most of them are one-off's or at least not very active once. I am currently involved in the following projects: Dead+Hurt, which is Jonas Lindgren (The Hurt I Feel Is My Hurt, J. Lindgren, Syri, Motpol) and me doing glitch punk, i.e. semi-rhythmic music once described as "kraut electronica". We've got a 7" coming soon on Honeyspiderthree and a 10" on Zeromoon. Normal Music, which is just what the name indicates, very normal lounge glitch with an experimental twist. The project consists of Jeff Surak (Violet, V., Vultrapia et al), Raphael Irissari (The Musique Concrete Ensemble). Coming attractions include an mp3 ep for Autoplate and a cd on Zeromoon. Skull Defekts. Rythmic noise glitch. A quite new undertaking with the head of iDEAL Recordings Joachim Nordwall and me. Since nothing is really finished yet, I can't really describe it, but I am sure it will be very cool in the end. As far as releases go, we're gonna shop it around and see what might happen. Other projects, past, present and future include: Winquist/Virtanen (dark isolationism), WNQST//LNDGRN (maximal/minimal drones again together with J. Lindgren), goneandforgotten (slow and pityfull shoegazing), dead violets (ambient noise together with J. Surak) and tons more I have forgotten about. Side projects serve as a sort of playground where I can do things I don't want to do with Dead Letters. Because even though I feel pretty free to do what ever I want with Dead Letters, I still want to keep some sort of consistency in what I do. All of my projects sound pretty different from each other. 

DO YOU BEGIN WITH PARTICULAR THEMES FOR EACH COMPOSITION YOU CREATE, OR DO YOU PREFER THEM TO BE MORE UNIVERSAL AND OPEN TO DIFFERENT INTERPRETATIONS? My themes are sometimes pretty clear, as for instance the Dreamland ep which started with the idea to explore the sounds of what I perceive to be the decay of the city. This is a reoccurring theme, which could be taken at face value, but it has a deeper meaning to me as well, which I don't really see the need to share with others. Other times there's no real concept at all, I just go with the flow and see where it leads me. It's always fascinating to hear what others think of when listening to my music. Sometimes it's pretty similar to what I've had in mind and other times it's way off in another direction which I've never thought about. 

HAVE YOU ANY PLANS TO VISIT AUSTRALIA FOR A TOUR? Touring seems very far off. I am yet to perform live as Dead Letters Spell Out Dead Words, so I would like to have some experience before I go to the other side of the world. Of course it would be great fun to come to Australia and tour or any other continent for that matter. Who knows what the future have in store. 

YOU OPERATE AN EXCELLENT ONLINE EXPERIMENTAL LABEL NAMED "FUKK GOD, LET'S CREATE". HAVE YOU ANY PLANS TO RELEASE MORE CDs? Thank you! I've been operating Fukk God for three and a half years now, releasing mini discs, cdrs and mp3's and yes, real cd releases as well as vinyl is on the way. First out will be J. Lindgren's excellent cd "Why is this bedroom so cold" later this year. It's a collection of Lindgren's two previous mp3eps for Fukk God as well as 20 or so minutes of new material. I am very much looking forward to getting it out there. 

HOW IS THE ONLINE FORMAT WORKING OUT FOR YOU COMPARED TO OPERATING IN A CD RELEASE FORMAT? There are many advantages to online release. For one thing it's comparatively cheap. I can get good music out on the market with a very small investment and there are no distribution costs. I think it's a great way to promote the label for future physical releases as well as the artists I release.

HOW DO YOU PICK THE ARTISTS FOR YOUR LABEL? Usually it's through contacts. I might ask artists I know if they want to release something and sometimes it's the other way around: friends ask me if I want to release their stuff. I have made a point of never releasing anything just because it's a friend of mine though, if it's not high quality stuff I wont release it.  I also get quite a number of demo's from around the world. Most of them I don't release but every now and then I do get something extra-ordinary that wind up in the Fukk God catalogue.

WHAT PROGRAMS DO YOU USE FOR DESIGNING THE EXCELLENT ARTWORK OF YOUR RELEASES?  I use a wide variety of program, but the core would be Photoshop, Illustrator, InDesign & Acrobat. But the programs aren't that important, it's what you do with them that matters. Lately I've also been doing a lot of old school cut & past collages, just to get away from the computer.

WHAT ARE YOUR FEELINGS TOWARDS CD COPYING, MP3 AND SHARE WARE MUSIC WEB BASED PROGRAMS? I am all for it! And I think all underground labels/artists should be. I don't see how it would be a big threat to what we do, our customers are often keen on actually owning the releases they love anyway so I don't think it has an impact on sales. I can understand why the mainstream music industry is so scared though. Their customers don't care about the record as an artefact, they just want what ever crap is on the top 40 list at the moment, so why should they bother to by the record when they can download it for free? Personally I couldn't care less if the big labels lose money.

WHAT IS YOUR OPINION ON CDRs BECOMING MORE WIDESPREAD FOR EXPERIMENTAL LABELS IN THE FUTURE? CDRs are a great media for marginal music. Like mp3's it's a fast way to get the music out there and as the technology is progressing, the quality of the cdr is getting better and better. A lot of people still look at cdr as a less important medium, but hopefully that will change. There's a lot of music that simply wont sell enough copies to warrant a glass mastered cd. I personally will continue to release cdrs from time to time in the future.

THERE IS DEBATE IN REGARDS TO USING LAPTOPS FOR LIVE PERFORMANCE? DO YOU AGREE WITH THE "AS LONG AS IT SOUNDS GREAT ITS OK" PREFERENCE, OR DO YOU BELIEVE IN GIVING AN AUDIENCE MORE OF A SPONTANEOUS IMPROVISED PERFORMANCE USING LIVE INSTRUMENTATION COMPARED TO SITTING BEHIND A MONITOR? I don't mind that much really. As long as it sounds good I am okay with laptops and I plan to use one myself for live shows. But I suppose it is more entertaining to see someone with a lot of machines and junk hammering away on stage then looking at someone fiddling about with a laptop.