When I left politics in the early Eighties and started writing and recording, my idea was that I could have an influence further down into other generations. That Natives could come into the culture through arts and music.
There is some Eighties music that is just timeless. The melodies, the lyrics... I called it church. Church in club. You can shout and dance. The best of the Eighties was club church.
El Paso is where I started. I don't feel like I'd be making the music I'm making now if I hadn't gone there.
Sound as medium has an incredible elasticity. So, of course, it is tempting for artists of other fields to try something with sounds. Why not? We are living in the age when there is no limit in gathering all forms of art and music to mix it together if you so desire.
There was no music at all during my childhood. The first time we heard music was when my eldest brother bought a tape recorder. Even then, only he was allowed to touch it. But in our house, we listened to legends such as Muhammad Rafi, Mehdi Hasan, Noor Jehan, Attaullah Khan Esakhelvi.
When I was a teenager, I really didn't like loud rock music. I listened to jazz and blues and folk music. I've always preferred acoustic music. And it was only, I suppose, by the time Jethro Tull was getting underway that we did let the music begin to have a harder edge, in particular with the electric guitar being alongside the flute.
The thing I find frustrating about rock music is, how different can you make an acoustic drum kit sound, an electric guitar and vocals?
The thing I find frustrating about rock music is, how different can you make an acoustic drum kit sound, an electric guitar and vocals? It's very stuck, whereas with electronic music, new sounds are being created.
I don't really like club music or hip hop or electronic music at all. I'm like an old person.
I dare suggest that the composer would do himself and his music an immediate and eventual service by total, resolute and voluntary withdrawal from this public world to one of private performance and electronic media.
When I started working on electronic music, that was after the rave period. I haven't even seen that part of it that much.
If anything, a lot of electronic music is music that no one listens to at home, hardly. It's really only to be heard when everyone's out enjoying it.
The spirit of Burzum never changed, but my ability to make music changed dramatically when I was imprisoned. It is more or less impossible to record music in prison, and the only music I could record was electronic music, when I was allowed to have a synthesizer for a few months in 1994 or 1995 and in 1998.
I've been a fan of electronic music since the beginning.
There's no separation between electronic music and acoustic music. It's all one thing. Each song has its own heartbeat. Each song has its own soul.
Computers and electronic music are not the opposite of the warm human music. It's exactly the same.
Some people think electronic music is cold, but I think that has more to do with the people listening than the actual music itself.
You can still make music that people love, but there won't be more innovation. I started listening to electronic music a long time ago. But mostly I listen to rap. I think rap is the most interesting.
Hip-hop and electronic music are so similar, in the fact that they're both very visceral, have so much bass; a lot of times, it's the same tempos. The culture and some of the sound design is different but a lot of times, it's the same stuff.
I love electronic music, and I love drum and bass.
