Horse Gives Birth To Fly, interview
Thursday, 20 May 2010 18:53 Artur
They name theirselves as "ritual noise". Borned in 2007, Montpelier, France as duo (Kriss and Miccam), Horse Gives Birth To Fly is the project which makes me very intrigued, considerate and awake nature of explorer. There are no noise, like you can imagine as distortion fury, rather rustling textures, appearing and dissapearing layers, unknown sources and magical, shamanic atmosphere. Following by one of track of Deutsch Nepal from "Tolerance" album, French artists are presenting experimental ambient tunes, with deep reverb, unexpected sonic events, noisy eruptions.
Their latest release entitled "Ourobouros" contains 3 tracks and are available as CDR material or ready to listen online at artist's Myspace profile. Horse Gives Birth To Fly is working currently as trio and all members are answering questions regarding mentioned new release, visual aspects and name, of course.
If Deutsch Nepal wouldn't record "Tolerance" album, than Horse Gives Birth To Fly won't be established at all? What is so special in opening track of this album? What other artists, other music is inspiring you?
Miccam: The album "Tolerance" of Deutsch Nepal was for Christopher and me a common musical referent when we decided to create this group, then in duet. The opening piece from 1994 titled "Horses Give Birth To Flies" and has the distinction of containing a large number of musical features that we take to heart, hypnotic loops, dark ambient, minimal noise and dirty and trippy electronic tessituras . Deutsxh Nepal, aka Peter Andersson, who himself derived his name from a piece of psychedelic band Amon Düül II, other training that we love too, was the chance of contracting these two musical concepts into one. The choice fell on "Horses Give Birth To Flies" turned into Gives Birth To Fly Horse, since Dav-ID joined us, because of its liabilities and our music friendships and common musical references, which were for much to the idea of becoming a trio. For my part, I am a compulsive music, like my two assistants and my sources of inspiration are as diverse and contradictory. To name a few classics, "Revolution" by Spacemen 3 "The Hunt" by Bastard, "Bad Moon" by Sonic Youth, "Montsalvat" by Ain Soph, "Faith" by The Cure "Like Rats "by Godflesh," Bright " by Low, all My Cat Is An Alien," Set The Controls For The Heart Of The Sun " by Pink Floyd," Helicopter " by Sand," All of Us " by Slowdive" Mekano " by SPK, "Horizontal Hold" by This Heat "Dissa" by The Grief, "Corpses have bedmates" by Third Eye Foundation, "Thief" by Can, "Black Bed Blues" by Charalambides, "Suddenly the Living are Dying" by Current 93, "Grundstueck: GS 3" by Einstürzende Neubauten, "Heart hunters" by Passion Fodder, ... And more ...
Khrist: Use the title as the name came a night of drinking and as usual bad jokes, shortly after deciding to play together with Michael. And indeed, we will not bring the name without the title of Deutsch Nepal, which (as content) I was very much attracted to its output. At the time, I discovered and "marry him" the vein "dark-ambient" during the heyday of Cold Meat Industry label, alongside Lustmord, Coil, TG Zoviet or France. This was the starting point of my appetite for the fantastic worlds of sound. The idea of borrowing the title of a popular piece of training that takes itself named after a piece of a legendary band describes / sets / means a kind of belonging, and demand tribute to all this music creation / sound rich and multifaceted. It also symbolizes the continuity and sustainability of freedom of artistic expression curious, unconventional, a state of mind free / libertarian, especially a visceral passion that animates and gives meaning to our compositions. We take from a constellation of outstanding projects and try to take over / torch over 40 years of experimentation and musical enjoyment. HGBTF offered the privilege of presenting two perspectives of "work", created: one based on acoustic influences (krautrock, psyche-rock, post-punk, industrial rock, metal, free-rock, noise-rock, noise-free, freak-folk, we can say about Faust, Volcano the Bear and Einstürzende Neubauten and production of labels such as Nashazphone, killing Sergeant (Kraak) 3, Weird Forest Records, Constellation, Important Records, Mute, no fun productions, Beta-lactam Ring Records etc..) and other influences from electronic and electroacoustic drones (between Cluster, Nurse With Wound, KTL, Daniel Menche, Jim Haynes, release-labels Utech Records, Aurora-Borealis Alga Marghen, Death to cows, intransitive records etc..).
Dav_I.D: It's difficult to say if this artist or this one inspire me...I think all music I listen (experimental, noise, hard core, hip hop, post rock etc.) can inspire me at a moment or another. But I have to say that Rozz Williams is my favorite artist ever.
You have released EP "Ourobouros" this year. Can you tell us more about it? What we can find there?
Miccam: "Ourobouros" was born following the proposal of the musical collective Elapidae Project, which asked us to shape a beach "dronique. Once the piece is, we have had no news from them, but this encouraged us to pursue this project independently. The orientation was then taken to this album, produced entirely at home is focused on electronic sounds, at least in the vague background. Cyril, an old friend fond of old analog sound has put his cloths and improvisation did the rest. Meanwhile, another friend, Guillon balanguera, wrote a text entitled "Industry flies" which corresponded perfectly to the world deployed in "Ourobouros", although it will be concerted. This writing has been fragmented into extracts and inserted into each CD.
Khrist: There are specific sounds: heavy breathing and whispering through a metal tube, friction noise of teeth and piles of metal objects.
Dav-I.D: It was the first time we (HGBTF) worked with an other musician, friends of us.
Do you think that publishing whole content of mentioned EP in player at Myspace is good idea? What is so special in physical release that people still might to want to buy it? What is so unique in disc?
Miccam: I think Myspace is an excellent communication tool that brought us to collaborate on various projects and perpetuate the rich encounters. The length of the pieces of "Ourobouros" must be representative, then played almost in its entirety, to better detect changes and different moods for each track. "Lady White Snake's" is proposed for its extract, due to its original length. These pieces can not be downloaded, the risk of piracy is largely decreased. Moreover, I place a fundamental interest in the "object disk" and in the case of "Ourobouros, everything is made entirely by ourselves, by hand, which credits an appreciation of uniqueness for each musical objects. Buy Mp3 songs seems uninteresting when you can get for the same price, the object itself.
Khrist: Ok for me!
Dav-I.D: Why not ?! Music must be share. it's not a business for us...I'm glad to know that someone in Poland for exemple can listen all the tracks of our last EP. Kriss, Miccam and I realy love LP, CD...we like to have these objects in our hands, see the artworks, touch the cover...it's physical...
One of compositions on this EP is entitled "Shosnone". What is so intriguing in this tribe? Did you pick up them becaise they are called also "Snakes"? Do you interest in shamanic subjects?
Miccam: The Shoshone are a Native American tribe living on the territory of the United States today. They are also called Snake. The direct and imaged with Horse Gives Birth To Fly is that they were the first to adopt the horse (recurring element and symbolic about us) with the arrival of European settlers. The ritual music and trance are subjects close to what can pass our music on stage. The shaman manages randomness. We also, in our way but we do not take ourselves for great wizards in search of spiritualism false. We approach it with detachment and curiosity. Immerse yourself beyond our senses to search for that part of the world that escapes us seems to be the real dimension in which action is needed to guide the destiny of each modest.
Khrist: (that joins your answer after) Trance is the first thing we look for when we meet is to call or to just have fun ... and sometimes both simultaneously. An improvisation, a piece chosen is not a composition in which we do not Tripon. Basically, if you play something new without having vertigo, abstraction and audio hallucinations, we do not validate and continue our journey.
Tell us how easy or difficult is creating music like yours as trio. Is it hard to keep one music concept/thought and realize own sonic vision at the same time? Your music is very spatial and multidimensional so it might be convenience or inversely.
Miccam: "When a noise bothers you, listen. "(John Cage). For my part, I feel close to the movement of No Wave 77, which incorporates the concept of quiet noise associated with the amateurism of punk, rejecting all types of rock patterns and enhancing improvisation, dissonance and disintegration. We have, I think, a method of composition close to that movement. The idea is never to be repeated at the discretion of the pieces and let the note hazardously essential plant a soundscape. The report takes place around the multidimensional effects that we use and the status of self-transcendence in which we want to be. If the trance with us, then, is a good song.
Khrist: See answer to previous question.
Dav-I.D: It's easy beacause we are just 3 ! the perfect line up for me. I don't see any difficulties in creating music like our as a trio... of course we can't play all our tracks live. When we work on « nerd velocity » or « lady white snake », we know it'll be impossible for us to play these stuffs live because we are a trio and the way we composed these tracks is very different…it's a side of our music...Concept ? There is no concept in HGBTF. There is something special between us, it's the first time I feel that in a band...It's alchimic.
You have additional sentence on you profile - "Ritual Noise". Can you develop it a little bit - what does it mean in your case? You are not noise project and what is situation with ritual matter in Horse Gives Birth To Fly?
Miccam: The noise is a musical side constant in our musical approach, although we are far removed from bands like Merzbow and others. The rite is our expression in live mode and transcendental body sounds through our employees. A ritual is a physical movement with a beginning, an end and a specific direction, just a concert, which by its process and its relationship between audience and musicians make this exchange, a ritual performance. These bodily processes symbolically encoded create social realities, interpret, and maintain and modify. These two terms confuse our actions and our sound.
Khrist: The ritual music is minimal nature, repetitive, primitive and mostly universal. She is clean and reveals the human hand buried deep in everyone and that binds us even unconsciously. That may be what attracted the people live that are not gender sensitive or ignored totally but there are obvious raw energy, pulse and vital language beyond the immediate noise and apparent chaos.
Dav-I.D: Are we not noise ?! Hummm, I'm not agree... in fact a lot of bands are labeled « noise », a lot of different bands : Unsane, The Jesus Lizard, Neptune, Decapante etc. the way we use guitar, bass is noise for me.
You are describing Horse Gives Birth To Fly also as visual. I don't know your other works than artworks for your releases, so what can you say about this aspect of your project?
Miccam: I am a visual artist and graphic designer by trade. The imaging group's name is rich in nature, I am busy creating a mixed visual bestiary horse flies, people and places in reciprocity with the group name. The objective of this work is to create a plastic bridge between the visual expression and musical expression and to allow these two modes of expression often artificially partitioned to take advantage of a transversality made possible by setting correspondence of these two arts. Nowadays, the increasing dematerialization and the scaling of visual and musical creations are conducive to increased merger of these two poles. Background music for a work, but also give a time dimension that encourages the viewer to linger, attach images to reinforce their capacities sounds discourse.
Khrist: Nickel!
By the way, what does mean sign you are using together with name of the project?
Miccam: I created this logo by starting with a character from signet of ancient China. This symbol represents the horse and once split and placed face to face, it evokes the sleek lines of a fly's head. The loop is closed and thus defines the symbol closest to the visual identity of Horse Gives Birth To Fly.
Khrist: Nickel!
Looking at your discography, I have to say that you are prolific project. So, question - when can we expect your next release. If you can reveal some details about it, I would be thankful.
Miccam: We are currently mixing for five new songs. Unlike a "Ourobouros, this new album will be a live rock direction. We usually alternate our projects sound that way. I hope to see him leave by September. The visual and the pouch are ready, it's missing is the content mastered. Another project with The Goat Austrasian should come very soon as an 8cm CDr (20 MN) limited to 50 for the series of splits KLTN through Muckrackers and
Allied. The principle is to exchange soundtracks to the finalization of a 20-minute piece. So much for the near future ...
Khrist: New album has the same characteristics in the form and registration as "Untitled", the eponym. There will be sound in our view "ritual-noise".
Dav-I.D: You're right, in 3 years we have release something like 4 Cds. Our next ? We have just finished to record new tracks a couple of weeks ago...but we don't know when these tracks will be available. We must promoted « Ourobouros » before ! All I can say is that the tracks are very different to « ourobouros », more rythms...it will sound more « noise »
Thank you for interview. If you would like to add something, feel free - it is your space.
Micca, Khrist, Dav-I.D: Thank you for interview. If you would like to add something, feel free - it is your space.
Dav-ID : thank you so much for your interest and for the interview (good interview by the way).
La musique d'Horse gives birth to fly est vivante. Ses lentes processions sont autant d'incantations d'un insecte humanoïde, d'un humain insectoïde, d'une divinité ancestrale. Comme millénaire et longtemps congestionnée, elle devient avec Ouroboros un nouveau talisman religieux, le renouveau, ou l'avènement d'une nouvelle ère. Ses deux longues pistes sont des paysages désolés dans lequel cette divinité se glisse langoureusement. Le serpent du péché originel contemple avec ses propres yeux les paysages écrasés du son d'Horse gives birth to a fly. Rampant au rythme décharné d'une nappe imposante, il s'élève peu à peu au dessus des éléments qui se déchainent ou au contraire s'évaporent. Ces lourdes complaintes sont pluvieuse et orageuse, mais aussi lunaire et cosmiques. A l'instar de l'effet live que peut procurer Inade, ou encore de la lourdeur nauséabonde d'une nature vivante que nous peint Kammarheit, Ouroboros est un diptyque visuel touchant. L'impact des sons atteint tous les sens. HGBTF est une synesthésie traumatique. Les assauts que sont les deux morceaux (plus un remix par un des membres lui même, Micca l'artiste chargé des visuels en occurrence) sont des coupures temporelles. Shoshone et son instrumentation grandiloquente sont une dévolution d'un instantané figé vers une accalmie des sens. L'aspiration mystique d'Ouroboros remplace l'agression à l'état brut par la lente digression des glitchs de lady white snake. L'électronique pure et malsaine combat avec les forces déchainées des éléments. Man Versus Wild, ou pire encore, la création de l'homme combat contre son environnement. Tel un film apocalyptique, peu à peu les visions d'horreur de la nature qui reprend son leg alternent aux visions épileptiques de chamans cybernétiques cognant sur des gongs tibétains. Se perdent dans le brouhaha de la discorde les chœurs des moines aspirés peu à peu vers le néant. L'ouroboros est en fait une spirale qui crisse et avale tout sur son passage. Un peu à l'image de Coil sur How to destroy angels les terrifiantes visions d'ouroboros canalisent une énergie incantatoire dévastatrice. Le final décline une conclusion vrombissante, comme si les chevaux s'étaient bien fait mouches et que l'humain avait définitivement perdu sa place sur son morceau de terre pour évoluer dans le néant intersidéral. La messe est dite et ce remix terminal n'est qu'un épilogue qui ouvre la porte à la suite de cette aventure profondément inhumaine. On imagine leurs prestations live comme de longues messes douloureuses qui ouvrent une brèche vers une expérience sonique purement physique. Comme le texte de ce joli artwork, (limité à 60 exemplaires, avec un texte différent dans chacun, qui forme un tout) le signifie : ''Enchantement ce qui est piège, collet'' . Long live the new flesh. (Lien Myspace, Site Web graphique de Miccam) 
This exhibition operates image and music, from a series of visual productions referring directly to the imaging of the musical group Horse Gives Birth To Fly, consisted of Christophe Watz, David Gimenez and Michaël Marchais (Miccam), every three living in Montpelier. 
blown off of whatever sphere i thought i was living on and on to this one. horse gives birth to fly offers up this massive Live 2nd album, taking their noisy french psych to a whole new level. they claim to make 'ritual noise,' but that only brushes the surface of their sound. these 6 tracks combine the sounds of an industrial pow-wow- crunchy metal mantras- with reverb soaked spook. HGBTF perform their cosmic ceremonies with stoned hypnotic rhythms, metal scrapes, shaky eerie singing and radical riffs. they get into a groove and sink you in it completely. with influences like volcano the bear, starving weirdos & acid mothers temple you'd be moving in the right direction, but expect this tape to stand on its own in spite of its nods. this beast will haunt you until you stand on your head and put it on repeat. so beware and be happy-this tape is one heavy hit. the kind of hit that makes the room spin, your eyes sweat and your heart race. you may want to just let this one blow your speakers. killer packaging thanks to the band! black tapes come on metal plates, screwed into place, all placed in blue oversize envelopes w/ art on front/back. edition of 30, i only have 20! expected to sell out quickly. $7ppd w/in states. / $9 world. (these puppies are heavy) 
