9. ClusterZuckerzeit
Are you a secret Krautrock fan? Do you secretly listen to Neu!?
Yes. I’m a secret Krautrock fan I studied German for a few years. I’m secretly very into German art, music, culture and philosophy. All this work, Cluster and Krautrock, was so influential to me when I started Nite Jewel. I listened to it all the time and this record was really influential when I started recording, because of the way they use their drum machines and synths. I bought similar drum machines and I bought similar synthesisers to make the groove with them. Maybe I thought I was just going to be an ambient or instrumental composer at the time – but that didn’t last very long.
In terms of German culture – are you into reading Heidegger and Hegel?
Guilty as charged! I did study philosophy and I read a lot of German philosophy… Kant, Hegel Nietzsche, all those guys. It was big for me when I was high school to my mid-twenties… it was a big thing for me. And I love Rilke.
I was going to ask if you were into Rilke and Brecht, because there are so many German writers who have the last word in writing about tragedy and sadness…
Germans are always pretty sad, dealing with tragedy. It’s a big part of the impetus for authorship, especially for Rilke. Sonnets To Orpheus is one of my favourite collections of poetry he created, and I read it a lot, the German and English, and I just go between them and make myself sad. But I guess maybe melancholy is the standard place I feel comfortable? So that’s why I continue to read these German authors.
Cool you can read in the original German. Do you like Nietzsche on dancing?
Nietzsche had it right about pleasure and enjoyment. He held those things in high esteem as a writer. I would have to agree with him that the Dionysian ecstatic has high value for me as well. I don’t know if I’m so great at making the dance track that will get people dancing the longest, but I love to dance, I love to go out to disco nights and just dance for hours and hours, so I would say that I have to agree with him. But I agree with him on many points. He has a lot of good pieces that I have used as a guide in my life!
