|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
"Beyond Into The Night Of Day" became the perfect 'Director's Cut' of one of the best albums ever released." Thilo Meiswinkel - Germany 5/5 - BloodDawn.de |
 |
|||
| media | |||
OTHYRWORLD — Interview with Jeff Ulmer (Steffan Bauer, Blood Dawn.de/ 2005) Note: This interview appears in its translated form on Germany's Blood Dawn website. This is the original English text. Steffan Bauer: The first question is of course, why it needed more than a decade to complete workings on the OTHYRWORLD-album!? Jeff Ulmer: Each album holds its own challenges, and it seems that working on an album for me has become a life adventure. While it may sound simple enough to just go and record a collection of songs, I have found that the universe often has other plans for me along the way. When I began making this record, it was slated as a short project, since the original idea was to just rerecord the Of the Sun + Moon album using the improved technology and sound quality I was achieving on other material. However, like most everything I do, this wasn't as easy as I had anticipated. There were many complications along the way. I had decided early in the 1990s that I wanted to proceed independently, after my disappointment with the first Sacred Blade album. I did not want to allow time or financial restraints to compromise the work I was doing. From a creative perspective, the new album took on a life of its own. In re-evaluating my previous work, I found more and more areas that could be improved upon, from the arrangements to new artwork. Rewriting the guitar solos was a monumental task. Most of the older recordings were done in one pass, and without much planning. The new solos had to be written and arranged, both for the music being played and the way I wanted it to sit in the sonic landscape. I did a lot of experimenting with different instruments to find the ones that best suited a particular passage. The interesting part was that it literally took years to get to a point where some of these solos were working, not from a performance stand point, but just finding the inspiration to get started. From there it was typically a matter of a few days' work to complete the tracks, a few hours at a time. Funding the project consumed a vast amount of time, as it meant working several jobs. There were also many renovations needed to both accommodate my living situation, and to build a facility that could serve as the studio, which alone took years. Since there was no way I could budget for a proper building (this album was recorded entirely in my garage), I then had to begin to learn the room. By that, I mean learning to understand what things sound like in the space, and how what I was hearing in the studio translated to the outside world. This was made more challenging due to the need to attend to all the other commitments in my life, and finally by having to pack everything up and move just before the record was to be finished, which meant starting all over again with the building and room learning. Since I do all the production and engineering myself, there also comes a time when you have been so immersed in the work that you lose perspective, you need to take a rest from it and come back with renewed energy. In a typical album project, there are outside personnel to deal with a lot of the more mundane aspects of production, but when you are working by yourself, if there is a job to be done, it is your responsibility to do it, all of which takes time. Since this is basically a one-man operation, I am responsible for everything that needs doing - building and maintaining the websites, all the order processing and handling, instrument and gear maintenance, all the artwork development, promotional responsibilities, and so on. That is on top of the day jobs that have up until now been funding the project, and family obligations. Another of the reasons this album took so long was waiting for technology to catch up with my needs. I am involved with a number of leading companies in testing and developing new software and hardware that aids in my work. Even a few years ago, it was impossible to do what I am able to now, and I'm sure in a few years there will be more improvements that make my work more productive and streamlined. I have always been on the bleeding edge when it came to the technology, and more than once ran into obstacles due to pushing the boundaries. Interesting would be also, why you decided to name your "new" band OTHYRWORLD. Musically and lyrically there is no difference between SACRED BLADE and OTHYRWORLD. It is true that on the surface there may appear to be little difference, but behind the scenes there are many. The most important difference is the quality of recording you should expect from me in the future. This was not an easy decision to make, as it would have been far simpler in almost all regards to continue working under the SACRED BLADE banner. By the late 1980s I knew that a change was necessary, and OTHYRWORLD is a more meaningful name for the styles of music I create. The were rumours, that you are writing on a book based on the SACRED BLADE-lyrics. Is this true and if yes, could you please tell me a bit more of it? It is actually the other way around, the lyrics are based in part on the novel that I am writing. There is not much to discuss about the novel at this time, as it is still a long way from being finished. The lyrics do not necessarily tell the story, but they are derived from the many concepts that I am exploring in the novel. On a thematic level, everything is interconnected somehow. What confuses me, is, that there are only four new tracks on "Beyond Into The Night Of Day". The rest of the songs are new versions of SACRED BLADE-material featured on "Of The Sun + Moon". Why doesn't the OTHYRWORLD-record feature only new songs? As I've read in an interview with you, in your archives, there are about 200 unreleased songs, so there would have been enough stuff for "Beyond Into The Night Of Day". It is hard to explain being compelled to finish work you have started, but that was the case with this record. Due to forces beyond my control, Of the Sun + Moon was released long before I had a chance to finish it, and has never lived up to the vision I had for those songs, or to their potential. I felt I had let both myself and the fans down by releasing that material as it was. Beyond Into the Night of Day gave me the opportunity to finish that work, and present the music as it was originally intended, or at least close to it. As I mentioned earlier, the original plan did not include ANY new songs. As work progressed, I decided to rearrange things, primarily to put some new energy into the project, and I began adding material that had been previously slated for future releases. While it may only be four songs, it is still an additional 18 minutes of new music, in addition to newly recorded, much higher quality versions of material from Of the Sun + Moon. Of the Sun + Moon was the demo, Beyond Into the Night of Day is the finished product. The coverartwork and other pictures featured in the booklet of "Beyond Into The Night Of Day" are made with a painting programme on PC, as it seems. Does modern technology help you to realise your visions? I am always looking to new technology that will help me get my work done more efficiently and allow me to realise the projects I come up with, while also maintaining a high standard of quality. The Of the Sun + Moon album artwork was all done by hand, using a complex system I developed which combined oil and acrylic painting and photography, which consumed a vast amount of time and resources, but fell far short of my expectations. What was even worse, was that there were critical parts of the process that I had hand over to people who didn't really care about it, which caused a lot of problems that were extremely expensive to fix. Throw in a few disasters, and it is an experience I'll be happy never to relive again. Using a computer gives me more control over the development process, and also allows me to do more experimentation than I could before, since I am able to undo steps that aren't working, unlike the days of working with paint, where one mistake meant the end of weeks of work. The cover artwork for the new album was created primarily in a 3D modelling program called Bryce, the same program used to create the classic games Myst and Riven. The images are actually a collection of three-dimensional renderings. The size of the CD packaging really doesn't do the artwork justice, which is one thing I really miss about the LP format. I have been using computers in all aspects of my work since the early 1980s, and while they do allow me a lot more flexibility and control, they also add another layer of frustration, as we don't always think the same way, even when the machines are working properly. I have no idea how many hundreds of hours went into creating the cover art, which doesn't include the weeks of rendering time. The follower to "Beyond Into The Night Of The Day" is even in the making, as it is written on your homepage. Will there be needed again so long, to release it? How long it takes to record the next album will be determined in large part by the success of Beyond Into the Night of Day. If early album sales are strong enough to pay for the current album and finance the studio work needed to finish the new recordings, it will allow me to devote my time to music production. If I am required to spend most of my time coming up with the funding from outside work it will take a lot longer. This is where the fans can play a very significant role, as their support by purchasing the existing music is directly tied to enabling me to make more. Fortunately, early sales have been reasonably strong, and the critical response has been excellent. A key part of the recording of Beyond Into The Night Of Day was figuring out ways to streamline my production process without sacrificing quality. Much of the material I am working on for the next album has already been in various stages of production for the past twenty years, from demos to ironing out final arrangements. However, no matter how much planning is done before hand, there are always things that come up during the recording that are unexpected. There is still a lot of work to do on the next album, including a complete rebuild of the studio, but I can only hope that its production doesn't have as many stumbling blocks as Beyond Into the Night of Day. Is OTHYRWORLD more of a studio-band or will there be live-gigs (perhaps in Germany) in the future? Although Othyrworld is basically a solo/collaborative effort, the music has always been envisioned for live performance. My immediate goal is to continue to work on the next album, which could be ready for release some time next year. I would prefer to wait until we can bring our proper live show to Europe, and have enough material released to support it, but I am already in discussions with people about possible live appearances, however it is too early to really say what or where. The Seventies-roots of the new song "Ethereal Skyline" are more than obvious. The Hammond-sounds do serve the atmosphere real good. For me, this is the one song, which show the influences of old Progressive Rock-bands the very best of SACRED BLADE/OTHYRWORLD. You think so, too? Most of my musical influences come from the late sixties and seventies, when music was made to listen to, not just provide the soundtrack for videos. My tastes span many genres - after all, good music is good music, no matter what the style - and prog is definitely part of that influence. Ethereal Skyline does have somewhat of a seventies feel to it. The use of the Hammond comes primarily from my love of that Deep Purple sound. I know keyboards are considered by many metal fans to be unacceptable, but if used tastefully, they can really diversify the listening experience, and open up a lot of new sonic possibilities. I find it very hard to single out individual songs as "the best" of our music, since I am creating an ever growing body of work, and every song has to be the best it can be before I want to release it. Ethereal Skyline is just one of the hundreds of newer songs that are in various stages of development, I am very glad you like it. Would you please give a short comment on each of the four new songs... As I mentioned, the original idea was to re-envision the Of the Sun + Moon album, but as time passed, I started adding songs that had been slated for later releases to the Beyond Into the Night of Day album. Right Ascension was the first of these, and is my first collaboration with our live guitarist, Randy Robertson, who supplied the basis for a couple of the primary riffs. Written in the late 1980s, this one is fairly progressive, with a number of different sections, contrasting acoustic parts with the heavier sections and big vocal harmonies. The instrumental Odyssey of Light was written back in 1983, and had been released on a couple of the second album demos. This one features the only recorded tracks of my first Simon & Patrick acoustic 12-string, which was returned to the factory and destroyed. Ethereal Skyline is another song from the early 1980s, which features a Hammond track among its wall of guitars. This one originally had completely different lyrics, and underwent many revisions in the arrangement over the years, with the harmony solo section taken from another unreleased song. The vocals were rerecorded at the very last moment during final mixing. Originally slated for album number three, The Alignment was the last song to be added, and one of the last to be recorded at my old studio. Since the drum tracks were incomplete before Ted's car accident, I ended up finishing them in my new room. It has a different feel than everything else, which is why I like it. I think it fits the record perfectly, and again has a very progressive attitude. I would also mention that although the songs that make up the rest of the album were released before, they have all undergone extensive revision, and while they will be familiar to older fans, they offer a completely new listening experience. Of the Sun + Moon got a major reworking with much more elaborate production and a new ending solo; To Lunar Windz... finally got the production it deserved, and the new coda is one of my favorite musical spaces on the album. One of the oldest songs on the album, Moon, also had a lot of work done to it, and was also extended to just under ten minutes in duration. There was also the CD "The Astral Archivez - Volume One" in the pipeline. A release, that would feature all demos of SACRED BLADE. Are there any news about this? This project is still in the planning stages, but how soon it gets done will depend on how much time I have available to work on it. Like all my work, I want it to be the best it can be, and I plan on letting the fans have their say on how it is finally released, as I have a few ideas in mind. There is a lot of work being done to deliver the highest possible audio quality, including a lot of remastering and remixing where possible. This will be a definitive collection when I am done with it. As you seem to be a big fan of Sci-Fi, what book did you read in the last time, and are there special releases in things of books or movies, which you would recommend to fans of this genre? I can't say I have had much time for reading the past decade. I would recommend the classics, including most of Isaac Asimov's catalogue, especially the Foundation series; Frederick Pohl's Gateway series; Arthur C. Clarke; Jack L. Chalker's Well World series; Philip Jose Farmer (the Riverworld series); Robert Heinlein; Dan Simmons (Hyperion); and of course Tolkien's Lord of the Rings and Frank Herbert's Dune series. My cinematic tastes are similar to my musical tastes, and cross all genres and styles, which was one reason I became a reviewer. My favorite film list would take pages to go through, but most of my favorite Sci-Fi films are from the sixties and seventies. I have always been a fan of John Boorman's Zardoz, and was instrumental in getting Fox to release it on DVD, including getting Boorman involved and supplying most of the supplemental material. Others from that era include Logan's Run, Solaris, Blade Runner, Farenheit 451, or The Man Who Fell to Earth. The original Star Wars was a major part of my childhood. If you are interested in other recommendations, you can read my reviews at <a http://www.digitallyobsessed.comdigitallyOBSESSED.com</a> Has the re-release of "Of The Sun + Moon" been a success? I am both amazed and grateful that twenty years after its release, this album is still being favorably reviewed, and that it has taken a place in music history. Creating a work that lasts is the dream of most artists, and I am humbled that people can overlook all its shortcomings and recognise the spirit in which it was created. Since I knew that my own feelings about Of The Sun + Moon meant I wasn't finished with the material, I had several goals in mind when rereleasing the album. The first, and most important, was to preserve that album for the fans that found it special. I think I managed to achieve this goal. The second goal was to use proceeds from the sale of the CD to further my work, and this is still ongoing, with many people buying multiple copies, some for their friends, others for the collector's market once the limited edition is sold out. When the CD was released in 1999, there was not a lot of promotion to go with it. Now that the OTHYRWORLD album has been released, there is a revived interest in where that music came from, and many people are discovering this album for the first time. All your music is released on your own label Othyr World Recordingz. Why do you release everything on your own? I'm sure, that there are some labels out there, interested in your music. I would rather work for the fans than for a record label, which is what most signed bands end up doing. We have had plenty of label interest over the years, including the majors, but I decided long ago to work and release independently, at least for now. I don't really care what it costs or how long it takes to make a record, as long as I can make one that I can be proud of, it is the end product is what matters. By having my own label, the fans can directly support my work, and they know that all the money they spend on our product is put back into making new recordings. Back in the old days, a record company was necessary to get your music released, now that isn't as true anymore. There are a lot of advantages to having a good label, especially when it comes to promotion, distribution and funding, but I've seen many bands that I've known sign to labels, work for years and still wind up broke, while the record company takes all the profits. With the internet, there is the opportunity to change the system, to directly support the artists we want more music from, and to promote those artists based on the recommendations of the fans, not some committee designed ad campaign thought up by people who have never even heard the music. That isn't saying that I am uninterested in any label affiliation, especially when it comes to distribution, but in keeping the production of new material in-house, I am able to make the records I want to make without artificial restrictions on budget, time or content. The OTHYRWORLD-recordings were all done in your own studio. The sound is very clear and powerful, but isn't too modern and sounds like a typical Eighties-production. Has this been your intention? My goal has always been to deliver the best possible sonic quality I could. I am not fashioning the sound after any particular model or time period, I just try to get a fair representation of the music in my head, and the instruments I am recording. The mixes found on the new album have gone through many different approaches, I probably have 50 or more versions of the entire album, half of which were done in the final months before release. As I'm building a song it will start to take its own shape, some of it planned, but much of it a result of natural progression. I try to focus on each element, and make every part fit in a natural way. Once I have an approach that works, I see how it translates to other songs, and by going back and forth between all of the parts on the record, come to a mix ideal. It is interesting that you think this has an eighties sound, which may be partly because I chose to master the album going against the current trend of compressing the life out of everything, and leaving the dynamics as intact as possible. I find most modern music painful to listen to, so I spent a great deal of time fine tuning the mixes and mastering to allow a full, clear sound, without harshness in the cymbals, and with a tight, heavy bottom end, and lots of crunch in the guitars when needed. The great thing about working independently is that I am able to experiment with many recording techniques during the process, and have found solutions that I can use on future recordings. This means that fans won't have to worry about the sound quality deteriorating on the next album the way it often does with other artists who work in outside studios. I want the OTHYRWORLD experience to be consistent from a quality perspective, while allowing the songs to shape themselves. Over the years, only Ted Zawadzki stayed by your side in the band. What has happened to your old followers and why did they leave you? Although I have numerous other interests, creating music is my primary purpose life, it is what I am compelled to do, but it has not been something I could rely on for an income. In fact, creating this music has been an extremely expensive endeavour which has demanded many major sacrifices over the years. Most of the former members have moved on to real, paying jobs and raising families. When you are young, and you have your whole life ahead of you, it isn't that hard to overlook the financial aspects and create music for its emotional and spiritual rewards. However, as time marches on, things change, and you are burdened with more responsibilities, which makes it hard to justify working at a job that costs you money, instead of earning you money. It is a sad reality that many of the music industry's talents get lost due to the necessity of earning a living. Most people can not afford to devote years or decades of their life to a musical project that has no guarantee that you will be able to make a living from it. In the transition from SACRED BLADE to OTHYRWORLD, I chose to take on more and more of the responsibilities myself, as there was no way I could financially support a band. However, I enjoy working alone, and by doing so, it means that what ends up on the record is a true representation of who and what I am. If nothing else, OTHYRWORLD is an honest effort. Your lyrics are very atmospheric, transcendental and very enlightened. So, what does influence you, when writing these stories about stars far away? I am inspired by everything around me, and by the collective experience of living on this planet for nearly four decades. I think that living in Canada has also had a profound effect on my artistic sensibilities, as this is a country of contrasts, diversity and an independent spirit. I prefer to keep my writing abstract, to be interpreted by the listener. The lyrics aren't just stories about distant galaxies, they have some very universal themes behind them. The creative process is something I hope I never understand, it is a gift that I have been allowed, and a task I must undertake, no matter what the sacrifices. I have a very deep connection with this planet and its environment, it is an amazing thing. Immersing myself in nature, and leaving the human impact behind is very cathartic. It is in the peace and silence that I am most able to channel that energy which brings out the words, music and art. Credit is also due to all the countless musicians and artists I have been exposed to along the way, who by creating their own work, inspire me to continue mine. There has always been some kind of a symbiosis between the lyrics, music and also the whole stuff around (drawn pictures, pictures of the band [remember the moon-landing thing in the woods], etc.) SACRED BLADE. So, is there a certain "image" or picture, that you wanted or want to create around SACRED BLADE/OTHYRWORLD, something, the people should see and know "Ahh, that's SACRED BLADE!", some special image of the band? While it is makes it easier to market having a strict definition of what the product entails, I do not have a preconceived "image" that I am trying to convey, other than something that I find asthetically pleasing, emotionally satisfying, and most importantly, is true to my vision. My work in OTHYRWORLD allows me to explore many of my creative pursuits, from writing music, to working with language and visuals. As an artist, I am presented with an image of what I am to create, and then I must transform that idea into something tangible. I don't think it is possible for me to fully recognise the overall effect, since I am too involved in the details, and the early evolution and the mechanics of the various parts that come together as a whole. It may sound selfish, but I do not sit down and try to come up with either music or artwork to have a certain effect on an audience, I just do what I am inspired to create. I write music that I want to listen to, and artwork that I want to look at. The interesting thing is that as I share the work with others, it seems that my tastes, and the images that attract me also appeal with others, which is very rewarding. Did you have a special live show in the old days, supporting the music visually? The gatefold image on the Of the Sun + Moon album continued the story started with our first ever vinyl release, "The Alien," showing the band unloading gear from our space ship. Our full live show included the ship, which was a 16 foot tall drum riser, although there were not many venues in town that could accommodate such a large stage prop. I have yet to mount my ideal stage show due to the expense and scale which would not be justified for an act of our current stature. Perhaps one day I will have the opportunity to present our live show as it should be. A message from the Moonwatch Command Module to the people out there to finish the interview? First, thank you to all those who have supported our work over the years by purchasing our albums, and for being patient while the work is in progress. If you haven't already, drop by the website at http://www.othyrworld.com for news, our online forum, demos of the albums, or links to our distributors. Cheers! |
