Sounds from underground/File N°054

another great release of Brazilian label Meia-Vida. <Devastaçã> is a dark lp by <<Buraco Negro>> that is full of best elements of experimental music. makes me think what would happen if SPK would meet Cabaret Voltaire in 2016. absolute love
0. name of the band

PEDRO: Buraco Negro. It means Black Hole in Portuguese. We were having issues deciding the bands name and our concert was just by the weekend. I aways wanted to have a band after this name and it sort of came up in this urgency.

1. where are you from?

PEDRO We're both from the southern region in Brazil. I'm from São Paulo. Gustavo's from Curitiba. Our cities are about a six hour drive apart. We met when my other band Gattopardo went touring South Brazil and got closer as Gustavo's projects came to São Paulo for concerts.

2. what kind of instruments/equipment you use? do you use some particular record technique? which is your method of composition?

PEDRO: This is hard to tell. When the band started our idea was to do a D-Beat sort of sound with a synth and electronic music approach. But many of our influences from post-punk and techno get into it, but that's not much far from our main motif I think. Our demo is recorded with heavily distorted bass, a Casio VL Tone filtered through a Korg Monotron Delay, an Yamaha drum machine, an Electribe and pedals filtering vocals. There's also a track which samples an atomic bomb documentary from Youtube and a guitar with many pedal effects. But this changed a lot through our last concerts. Our last works have been using two Electribes, a Korg Volca Sample, guitar, distorted bass and delayed vocals. I think the main idea is to experiment our sound on whatever equipment in reach. Its punk aesthetics. If we had sticks and pans our music would get more percussive. That way, we record with we have. Our demo was recorded using a Tascam Tape recorder, which was what we had. We plan to release an EP soon and would like to record in studio with proper equipment for achieving better sounds and overcome the DIY material limitations.

This makes our music mainly experimental regarding composition and what I believe Gustavo makes the best of it is his approach on a true experimental perspective. Our rehearsals are general ideas which will develop live. It lays a lot on our chemestry and eventually results in failure, but anyway, success is overestimated. If an idea fails and keeps is promises, its results went further than a new idea that had established itself as canon. We don't see each other very often, so every meeting is full of new ideas we bred during our time apart that are put in practice until it turns into something, then when we go live its a lot different but still the same "form" if you can call it so. Sometimes rehearsal just doesn't flow and we kill it and go do something else.

3. what do you think about the music context nowadays and how you place yourself in? do you feel a part of any scene?

PEDRO I love the current brazilian music scene we make part of. Its mainly fruit of punk bands that started having gigs with experimental groups that then opened its cluster for electronic music. One day you can go to a crust punk and black metal concert, the next day you'll see experimental noise and punk/post-punk gigs and at the same week you can manage to dance to live techno and acid jazz. And eventually you have this all together at one venue. There are also great reggae and dub events around.

4. do you think that nowadays has still sense talking about "underground"?

PEDRO: Yes. We still work outside of industry and independent from sponsorships etc. Our gigs are booked by ourselves or friends and labels are run by ordinary individuals. Not business people. Many people complain they haven't heard of such music being made and don't come to concerts because can't find it. Only thing is that now with internet it has more people involved.

5. do you play live? how does the public react to your music?

PEDRO: We are quite surprised that although our music is abject to our audience – punk rock to people who dance to techno and dance music to people who pogo, it's of great interest to them. So far everybody loved it. Even when our concerts were a total disaster. I usually don't mind that much, but certainly you get carried away by your audience when it's into what you're playing, making you more excited. I can't forget that our first concert brought me and some people in the audience to a real sort of trance. I couldn't speak with anybody and my hands were shaking when we left stage. For me this is the maximum degree on the thermometer of live performing.

6. Genesis P-Orridge said "Our records were documents of attitudes and experiences and observations by us and other determinedly individual outsiders. Fashion was an enemy, style irrelevant.". What do your records represent to you?

PEDRO: Records are not the same as performed music. Any form of representation and reproduction has its way of killing what I called before the "promises" of sound establishing it as a sort of "canon". It doesn't mean its fruitless. Recording makes your sounds available to more people and its a challenge to keep it interesting to look for seeing performed live, although its mystery has been killed. That's why artists must put their efforts to kill it live, make it a true sacrifice.

But I'm also very fond of record collecting. I love vinyl records as objects. But I leave that to the analysis of some freudian anal obsession that goes beyond my words.