With the release of their self-titled debut album as Concubine, Berlin-based electronic duo Rick Bull and Noah Pred certainly aren’t giving much away in terms of detail, though in this case it’s for reasons of open-ended social experimentation, rather than a desire to remain enigmatic (more on this later). In fact when Cyclic Defrost recently had the opportunity to chat to them, the duo were more than happy to elaborate on the sorts of ideas that went into its eleven streamlined, techno-centred and distinctly nocturnal tracks.
While longtime Cyclic Defrost readers will already know Rick Bull for his solo output as Deepchild, it was his connection with fellow ex-pat Noah that lead to him releasing his 2012 album ‘Neukolln Burning’ on the latter’s Thoughtless Music label. It was these beginnings as well as a shared fascination of their city as outsiders that lead to their collaboration as Concubine, a project that takes inspiration from live improvisation whilst also documenting a period marked by both personal losses and significant life changes for the duo.
Cyclic Defrost: Were there any particular reasons why you chose the name Concubine for this collaborative project?
Rick: The notion of the concubine resonates deeply with me – a moral ambiguity, a naming of desire, an attempt to reconcile a need for intimacy with traditional models of exchange. Depending on cultural context, a concubine is either venerated or degraded, shamed or exalted – or frequently, all at once. It’s a fairly feminized notion, yet something of a subversion of the slut-shaming conventions that permeate derogatory strains of hip-hop jargon. Neither of us are interested in didactic musical tropes: we’re far more interested in robust artistic discourse. In this sense, the Concubine tag is a reflection of the kinds of musical conversations we’d like to have. We’re all prostitutes, goddesses wrestling to find a place within a system of music politics that gladly sees arts workers framed as powerless service-providers. I’d like to think we’re all far more than that.
Noah: Giving your life to art or music often results in major sacrifices. There’s a lot I’ve missed out on by pursuing this full time. But whenever we’re in the studio, we’re sort of prostrating ourselves at the feet of a nameless divinity – serving our eternal muse as best we can, the only way we know how. Music as a deeper kind of service – that’s a big part of the name for me. But as Chris Hedges recently wrote, “Prostitution is the quintessential expression of global capitalism… we are all being debased and degraded, rendered impoverished and powerless, to service the cruel and lascivious demands of the corporate elite.” This sentiment particularly resonates in relation to the many artists effectively indentured for no more than a small fraction of their gross earnings.
Cyclic Defrost: The accompanying press release for this album certainly doesn’t give much away – is this because you want people to place more focus on the music itself rather than the players involved?
Rick: I’ve felt like this project is an experiment in open-ended questions – one in which we wish to hand over the album for others to pour their own narratives into. There seems to be a glut of prescriptive musical projects these days, things like, “this is an album about urban decay in Berlin”, for example. I’ve felt like these sorts of publicity models have come to feel claustrophobic and constrictive. With Concubine, we’ve both been fascinated with what might happen if we resist these narratives, instead offering tools, signifiers, and imaginative fuel for others to build their own stories around. Both Noah and I are indebted to the lineage of artists like Sun Ra, Fela Kuti, and our own little strange communities – the eccentric outliers who’ve insisted that revisionism is nowhere near as compelling a notion as re-imagining. In a sea of Berlin techno fetish, we’ve had to remind ourselves that we needn’t be beholden to the facile expectations and assumptions of contemporary marketing conventions. Musical exchange is about far more than the personalities behind it.
Noah: I don’t think there was any overt attempt to mask our identities – though I have come to resent the personality politics that seem to drive much of the music press. I understand how difficult it can be to separate creation from creator, but ultimately any piece of recorded music will go on to live a life completely independent of whoever produced it, making friends and finding venues the producer could never be aware of. So while I wouldn’t want to ascribe to any “secret producer” gimmickry, I do prefer to put the emphasis more on the music than ourselves – as far as I’m concerned, that’s always been the important part.
Cyclic Defrost: Are you interested in giving away any information on the artists that make up Concubine, or will this remain a secret? Is it a case of wanting to avoid preconceptions?
Rick: We’re not attempting to intentionally hide anything here. Hopefully the project is greater than the sum of its parts – certainly, it’s as much of a sonic diversion as it is an amalgam of our individual sounds and influences. I suppose that, ultimately, we both harbor a certain fantasy of being present at the heart of the music making process – yet simultaneously observing it from the perimeter, watching and listening and allowing the musical onflow to reveal itself as much as we actively play a role in generating it.
Noah: It’s no secret who’s behind the project; we just didn’t want to make it a point of emphasis. Choosing a new project name gave us a fresh start and the possibility to create a new collective identity rather than rely on the preconceptions established by our solo work to date. It just seemed more fun this way.
Cyclic Defrost: You’ve described Concubine as being a social experiment, of sorts. Can you elaborate on what you meant by this?
Rick: There are a lot of questions wound up in the Concubine process – a lot of which we’re still unpacking as the writing and performance process progresses. It’s a social experiment for us both – trying to negotiate the lines between commerce and questions of alternative ways of valuing what we do, and where it might fit in a saturated musical landscape. As much as anything else, I’ve felt like it’s an exercise in surrender: what happens if we refuse to allow our music to be “stolen” (for now) because quite simply, it’s not for sale in the first place? How does this enable us to hear the music differently? What sort of internal pressures does this enable us to relinquish? How do people interact with the music, the process, the experience, when certain conventional barriers are removed?
Noah: We really poured ourselves into this album, and to release it for free felt like a big risk for us – an experiment of sorts in that regard. We were both curious what unique benefits and obstacles might come from releasing it this way. We knew it might be a challenge, but our curiosity and defiance seem to have won out, at least for now.
Cyclic Defrost: You mention that you have as much to learn from the music as anyone who receives it. Is the intention to have interactions with listeners play a part in future Concubine releases?
Rick: I’m certainly open to our production process evolving and changing over time. Feedback and exchange with listeners has been an increasingly important part of my personal composition process. I’ve often felt that I’ve been overly controlling and protective of my writing process, but Concubine has presented a way to reassess our assumptions of the way music “should” be generated.
Noah: I feel like every time I listen to a piece of music, it’s a unique encounter. This is also true of music I’ve worked on: as time passes, I come to understand it in a new way. A piece of music can be a fixed statement, but it can also be an open-ended question. I think Rick and I are both far more intrigued by the open-ended possibilities in that equation.
Cyclic Defrost: To what extent does improvisation play a part in your creative process?
Rick: Improvisation is at the very core of what we do and how our ideas are generated. All our work thus far has been the result of extended jams on both hardware and software. We’ve combined randomized sequences, and hand-played keyboard lines in real time, running signals through untrod paths wherever it made sense. I think its proven fairly liberating for both of us.
Noah: Taking a more considered and scientific approach just didn’t appeal to me in the context of this project. We’ve employed a range of strategies from the traditional to the utterly mystical, and there’s a certain wild abandon to our studio sessions that we wanted to capture and convey – a kinetic essence that we wanted to cultivate and highlight rather than stifle.
Cyclic Derost: What sorts of influences (musical or otherwise) do you see as playing a part in Concubine’s sound?
Rick: Wine. Women. Grief. Left-field political leanings. Deep ecology. Displacement. Silence. Ancestors. Community. Rage. Rebirth.
Noah: Interdimensionality. Divine comedy. Tragic circumstance. Chaos. Eros. The beauty of the unforced. Explorations of the unknown. New paths to ancient places.
Cyclic Defrost: How much does the both of you living in Berlin feed into your music as Concubine?
Rick: Being neighbors and expats fumbling our way through this incredible city has been key. The sound of the city itself hasn’t so much influenced us – but it has been something we’ve metabolized, embraced, and often railed against in the process. I’d argue that the physical space of the city, and our experience as long-term guests in this mysterious town have been fundamental to the fabric of the project – more so than any dominant Berlin sound.
Noah: Pure and simple, this project doesn’t exist without Berlin’s clarion call having pulled us both here. And yet, as Rick indicates, the music we’ve created together as a result has been at least as much a reaction against the music we’ve been exposed to and surrounded by as it has been influenced by it directly. Certain elements of what we’ve done have been inextricably inspired by the city – both by going with the grain as well as against it.
Cyclic Defrost: There’s a distinctly nocturnal atmosphere to these tracks, was this something you were deliberately aiming for when making this album?
Rick: The nocturnal feel probably betrays the fact that this is music forged in darkness – from a shared and fairly internal space. We’ve both brought our own psychic geographies to the record – but it’s arguable that both of us feel most human under the half-light of an inky black sky illuminated only by machines that go bleep in the night.
Noah: It’s true, we did all our sessions for the album after nightfall in the darker season of the year, so it seems to follow that it might carry that mood – though I’m not sure we set out with that as a goal.
Cyclic Defrost: Have you been performing these tracks live? If so, how would you describe the Concubine live show? Do you have any plans to tour behind this album?
Rick: Live performance is very much in the cards, rehearsals have begun in earnest, and we’re excited for our debut show at Panorama Bar on 30 April 2015. We’re planning to tour the project as soon as possible.
You can download Concubine’s self-titled debut album for free from http://www.concubine.cc/
