Last night I sat down and had a cyber chat with my wonderfully talented, sleep-deprived friend, experimental pianist/keyboardist Fugue Satori
Here is what she had to say:
(Rochelle) Let’s begin with a brief introduction of when the music side of you began!
(Satori) Oh. I started being played by the piano when I was two, kind of a freakishly immediate ear-musician situation. I suppose, dating back to when memory actually stuck to my communicative spine, I was always musical.
(Rochelle) Do you remember the first musical piece that stuck with you? Is music an integral part of your being?
(Satori) Absolutely integral. Visceral, indispensable, rarely cerebral. Totally intrinsically intuitive and yes, I can still play the piece.
(Rochelle) And that first musical piece – what was it?
(Satori) Well, it wasn’t really anything worth noting, just a little bass line consisting of two notes, and a melody that began on C above it. I never named that piece, but I will always remember it.
(Rochelle) I guess we can just name it – ‘the little bass line of two notes and the melody of C above it’ or something similar. You mentioned you play the piano, do you play any other musical instruments?
(Satori) Absolutely not. laughs Anything that’s keyboard/piano-related, I can really be played by, and on levels exceeding synthesis, but nothing else feels right. I’m totally monogamous to the piano.
(Rochelle) What do you think it is about the piano/keyboard that just feels right? And has there been a time where it hasn’t?
(Satori) The piano’s always felt right, even when it has felt ‘wrong’ — keyboardists are just frustrated drummers, anyway. There’s a deep, stringed aggression that goes into it. You can play the thing with your whole body, and it, in turn, can play you up from the flesh of your ankles to the crown of your head. It has felt wrong on a few occasions, however that was only predicated on my animosity/frustration level with myself, you know? The pounding just didn’t feel right, the notes weren’t really coming, and I was probably fourteen and pissed off.
(Rochelle) Beyond your own inner self and inner worlds – Who inspires you musically? artistically?, creatively, emotionally etc? Who would be your dream person to work with?
(Satori) Christopher Corner.
I was very fortunate to tour/follow Alan Wilder around; he’s my musical mentor, but Chris Corner feels very cosmically/musically incestuous to me, an Osiris figure to my suited-up-for-lovely-war Isis. I am a very masculine warrior in female body-bits, and the effeminate male figure fits for me.
It sounds fanatical, just utterly, balls-out-nuts fanatical, but whenever I listen to acoustic piano bits of his, especially the almost-completely-acoustic rendition of IAMX’s “Think of England” that’s on the official IAMX/Chris Corner website, it pulls on me from the centre of my lost, damaged, longing, empathetic musical pneumatic core, like drawing out the dead into life, like I’m ascending into something. Something that is bigger than myself, something that is bigger than Chris, but we’re tapped in. We have a ‘right-of-way’/”you may pass” token, we have a secret doorway into which we enter, into which we serve.
(Satori) I don’t know him personally by any stretch of the imagination, though we’ve definitely, heatedly seen each other, but it very much feels like I do, like I know him from the inside. I was going to see him in London last October when my knee got damaged and I was grounded in the Southern Plains, USA for 2 months aggressively healing. I was determinedly heart-broken, but, it just wasn’t time to see him. We gotta accept what the Universe unfolds for us; everything has a reason, even if the reason is nothing at all. God, I never shut up!
I want to talk to Christopher in hushed, fevered words and frenetic treble clefts …because I already do. When we make music, when we create, our souls are putting out a call, as it were; very few people out there can “answer”.
He answers me. So, I hope one day, he hears my stuff.
(Rochelle) I hope so too
(Satori It’s the least I can do to give something back to him. /End fanaticism. I’m just fierce about what I believe in.
(Rochelle) How would you describe your music? What do you think is the perfect environment, location and space?
(Satori) Alone on headphones! laughs That’s honestly up to the listener, I cannot control that. Gigs I’ve played have taught me this, but the responses I’ve received rests very dutifully and lovingly upon “alone, drawing/making art/playing video games/on headphones”.
So I suppose “intimate isolation” is the succinct answer, but o LAWZ help me, I don’t understand this…this…SUCCINCT nonsense.
(Rochelle) Haha, and how would you describe your music?
(Satori) I can’t, for real, I can’t. I have to tag the bloody howling beasts of my boy-tunes (the songs are boys to me) via SoundCloud and Bandcamp, but I feel so…raped doing that.
I don’t mean to sound Über-Elite/pretentious-like, “o twaddly cunt fiddles, there is just NO WORD TO DESCRIBE THE AWESOME THAT IS ME”; I just stumble on the words for musical self-elucidation…it’s a goddamn war, is what it is.
It’s a bunch of sullen widowed battle cries in the ether of expression; the underbelly of the space needle. Other than that, it’s a real wacky, real loud girl on a Rowland Fantom fucking around like a junior high school student. The voxless suicide sing-along. Ghost soldiers in a war long over…so I guess I just described it.
(Rochelle) I love all those descriptions. I’ll end soon because I’m aware of your need for sleep
(Satori) Nah, now I’m wide awake, it’s cool. “O fiddles, we’re talking about ME? I’M AWAKE NOW!! What’s for dinner?!”
(Rochelle) OK
(Satori) This is my first interview. So I’m 8 different kinds of pumped now that we’re into it.
(Rochelle) This is my first music interview too.
(Satori) So, it works. don’t worry, I’ll not be gentle.
(Rochelle) If you were to make a playlist, any kind of playlist that possibly speaks to you – what would be on it?
(Satori) Oh, that playlist? the soul playlist?
I’ve made thousands of playlists before, from the “I am working out b/c I am very angry” to the “WHY DON’T YOU LOVE ME”. But I know off the top of my head Radiohead’s “All I Need” would be on that, IAMX “This Will Make You Love Again”, et al.
(Rochelle) So for the playlist we have Radiohead’s “All I Need” and IAMX “This Will Make You Love Again”
(Satori) So far, yes. Einstürzende Neubauten’s “Sabrina”. I love me some good angry Rammstein-like rage, I love me some disposable pop, I love me some upcomingly famous chip-tune like Nicolas Wolf but I traditionally operate on a very smoky, sullen, sexual vibe.
I love The Church! Particularly the songs “Day of the Dead” and “Loveblind”, but the whole album ‘Sometime Anywhere’ ‘ is fucking delicious.
I could talk for hours about this: The Smoky Slinky I’m Being Interviewed Playlist.
(Satori) Recoil, of course, “Allelujah”, “Intruders”
“Allelujah (Noisy Church Mix)”.
Massive Attack’s “Live With Me”,
DK7′s “Sweetness In Time”, which is a song that still haunts what is the ghost-dream of a fantasy I had in 2009, a real hard-bled, heart-broken-for-the-first-time phantasm. Whoops. Sorry, 2009.
Smashing Pumpkins “Obscured”.
Led Zeppelin’s “Friends”, which is a *wondrous* yet totally-overlooked Zep tune. I love me some Zep.
Sleepy Eyes of Death (a local Seattle band that disbanded at the end of last year) “Data Graves”, “Pierce the Air”, “In Parallel”, very visual stuff, those blokes.
None of this is in any order – when I make a playlist, I go DJ-style, end of note on one song/sentiment must segue into succeeding ditty.
Vast’s “Lost” or “Don’t Take Your Love Away”.
(Rochelle) Yah Yah I’m totally getting this.
(Satori) I could lump the entirety of IAMX’s ‘Kiss+Swallow’ album, it’s my favourite IAMX record… haha yays!!
The Steven Drozd of Flaming Lips & Maynard James Tool version of “Rocket Man” is fucking heartbreaking. Total brilliance, when I hear it, I just disappear completely. Thom Yorke got it half-wrong on how to disappear completely, heh.
O! and. Gary Numan “Me I Disconnect From You” & “Ancients”, of all tunes.
Band of Horses “Detlef Schrempf”, that song hurts.
O GOD YES IT HURTS, YES PLEASE GOD.
(Rochelle) Band of Horses?
(Satori) Detlef Schrempf is the name of an old basketball player for the Seattle Supersonics, and I used to both play basketball and watch the NBA finals (from 1995 – 1999). Band of Horses is a local Seattle band that kinda made it big – very “hipster” music – and they predicated a song title to that basketball player. The song has nothing to do with him, just a name-drop.
(Rochelle) Yeah I know the song. I like Band of Horses, but my music taste is pretty hipsterish
(Satori) Roy Orbison “In Dreams”.
(Rochelle) OH YES!
(Satori) And KD Lang singing Leonard Cohen’s “Hallelujah”. So far, we’re covering depression, heart-break, and crucifixion of the spheres…hrm and love.
Bjork’s “Undo” and “It’s Not Up To You” *purrs* I fucking love Bjork.
(Rochelle) Bjork Homogenic
(Satori)Yeah, that’s a fantastic album….“Unravel” especially, greatest love song of all time.
The Cure’s “Carnage Visors” and “All Cats Are Grey” — and! I’m not a huge Cure fan or really a fan at all, but speaking of the greatest love songs of all time… “This Twilight Garden” by the Cure is just. fucking delicious.
Public Image Limited’s “USLS1″
Depeche Mode, of course, the “Slow Slide” mix of “My Joy”. I’ve always wanted to make love to that, but it’s just…too sacred. I introduced IAMX to a lover, once, and that was depressing enough, in the sacred realm of things.
MGMT’s ”Of birds, Moons and Monsters” is great.
Can’t stop, Rochelle.
(Rochelle) Haha no I love it, if you want to keep going, go
(Satori) Echo & The Bunnymen’s “Nocturnal Me”.
Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark “Statues”.
Ultravox “Just For A Moment” is bliss.
Pink Floyd, of course, “High Hopes”.
This is the Epic Playlist. ”Suit up, we may die”. “Here’s *everything*.”
Nick Cave and Badseeds “Do You Love Me” but but but but a very particular rendition of that song, basically the last track on that album.
Barry Adamson “Déjà Voodoo”.
The band, College, came out with an album called ‘Secret Diary’ — they’re French. “She Never Came Back” is a wonderful song.
And of course, orchestral snippets from soundtracks, very much into Clint Mansell from Pop Will Eat Itself however, he scores fantastic movies: Requiem for a Dream, Pi, The Fountain, M00n, et al.
And David Bowie, oh bless, David fucking Bowie.
“Sunday” is a great David Bowie song.
(Rochelle) Sunday is definitely a great Bowie song
(Satori) But we should end this here. You can’t exceed Bowie.
(Rochelle) Agreed.
(Satori) At least the musical playlist part, heh. Haha, high-five, Rochelle.
(Rochelle) That was a pretty epic list. (high-five) I’ll send you my list one day
(Satori) YAY I hope so. : )
(Rochelle) Your music collection? If you have one – are there any surprises on it? Stuff that people would NOT think you would listen to, or are dumbstruck by it?
(Satori) I absolutely love Foster the People. For real.
(Satori) Fun disposable sing-along pop with just enough of an amalgamation/edge that it sticks to the dance-y ribcage. Also all the band members are spindly Nintendo generation boys, yes, plz. I’ll take the whole band.
I bought both of their albums, and the first is terrible. wicked-bad. ‘Torches’, though, is just goddamn brilliant. I worry like Mrs. Robinson for those boys once that fifteen and a half minutes of fame have passed.
(Rochelle) Do you have any music goals? where would you like to see yourself in a year, 5 years?
(Satori) Anxiously, quickly out of Seattle within the coming months; I discovered Kurt Cobain here. I want to be living in New Zealand in a year, and I mean… What goals don’t musicians have? I don’t want fame, I couldn’t handle that, but having sort of an underground cult following who’s extremely loyal and to whom I can give back, who pays my electric bill and keeps my belly full of dried cherries and almonds, for sure.
I don’t want to live a luxurious life, but it would be nice to be touring with myself, or with IAMX, or something akin to that. Then England/Europe. Paris for a wee. However! In five years, I would like to be adopted into Berlin, into a loving, musical commune, very openly liberal, full of talent and mellowed drama, assimilate the culture, be open and musically free, write tunes in the snow. Dance. I love Germany. I feel Germany. I badly speak German. I speak it in my dreams.
Berlin speaks to me — it’s my final stopping ground, unsettling ground, and I wouldn’t mind joining a carnival as the fire-eating piano-player!
I’m more keyboard, now, since I finally upgraded from acoustic, but I am not a technical harlot by any stretch of the imagination. I kinda require an engineer. I could teach myself, but where’s the fun in being alone?
So, I want people to know who I am, really love my stuff, write me mad flailing e-mails and send me snail-mail letters full of poetry and stories and words telling me what my songs mean to them – cos I will never really talk about what my tunes mean. I only want to hear what they mean to others. That kind of thing.
And I’d like to fall in love, really, truly fall in love.
(Rochelle) Me too
(Satori) Divorced from the rock-star bullshit, the public eye, addiction and betrayal, lawsuits and trainwrecks, just absolutely naked and pulsing in shades of irrevocable adoration, trust, children, music…
I am still on my quest to find Osiris. I want to stop living in the past — leave that for the ghost hymns and let negativity just wash over me.
So the underground cult dream.
(Rochelle) I deserve more than what my heart can give overflowing
(Satori) WORD.
Quite tired of the dearth of reciprocation. It’s been many years of hell and carwrecks and accidents and metal and incongruence, either me pining for someone else or someone else pining for me.
Reciprocation in the velvet-fist romantic sheet-ruffle fashion would be lovely, but in lieu of just lust this time, love. I’ve bled dry that story, the ‘WHY DON’T YOU LOVE ME’ story, whether I was the shouter or the one being shouted at. It’s bled. It’s done. I deserve a nice love story. : ) I am extremely liberal, polyamorous to a degree, but unconditionally devoted – and what better way than through music and inspiration. My whole siren snake body is predicated on inspiration.
(Rochelle) Perfectly put. Do you have any parting comments for the readers? and for anyone who is interested – where can one buy your stuff?
(Satori) Bandcamp. Parting words? Live your life the way you wish to live it, free from parental demands and social expectations, shatter the status quo, eliminate all animosity and bitterness, open yourselves to emotion, and swim. Swim, swim, swim.
O, also buy my music if it strikes the tuning fork of your pneumatic-cells. By all means, don’t let me stop that purchase. ;P
Fugue Satori is currently working on her second demo album, which will be released via both Bandcamp & SirenWire Editions this Northern Hemisphere Summer. She is also hiding on SoundCloud, where harsh demos are privately released to the followers/listeners.
Links
Fugue Satori Bandcamp
Fugue Satori Facebook page
Fugue Satori on SoundCloud (again!)
SirenWire/Susan Matthews
Fugue Satori via A Tribute to Soulseekers (French e-zine/blog)
All images except for those that are credited are courtesy of Fugue Satori [Flickr Stream]
