2 dates uniques en France : Aavikko et Bodenstandig 2000
1ère fois à Nantes : Bodenstandig 2000 et Syndrome WPW

AAVIKKO

Listening to your last album NOVO ATLANTIS we can't help but thinking to the 70's.
Kosmische music, Kraut Rock, Electronic Sagas, even something of psychedelic and progressive rock.
It was present in the last album somehow but here it explodes.
Are these things you listen for a long time now or is it recent or not at all, I am all wrong ?

No, you're absolutely right. Our infuences are various and the deeper we go in our musical discovery, the more we discover different genres of music. The humble purpose of our new album was to project the journey of entire mankind, beginning from early astronomical researches (Syntaksis) to the mystery of New Atlantis which mirrors the decline of the modern times. We chose to use our version of latin because it is the mutual language of muysic, science and religion.

It is a long journey from the musical debut in your first album which was way more
electronic freakout lounge oddity. Do you think you could come back to something like this
one day or your need of change totally prohibits it ?

Nice that you notice this. Normally we hear that we haven't changed at all since the beginning. With every record everybody brings their own vision of what it should be and it merges naturally to something that none of us could separately create. You could think us as a restaurant. Making a record is like making food. You have the basic ingredients that will always stick with you but you need to add different and new flavours in order to keep things interesting and tasty. Otherwise the cook might get bored and the customers go away.

What are your other basic influences ? Is Finland musical history a part of Aavikko ?

We come from different backgrounds and have been influenced by millions of artists. In the beginning we were inspired by bands who are playing in the ferries between sweden and finland. Now we are inspired by bands who are playing between Jupiter and Saturn. Finnish classical music, folk music and schlager culture has also been influental to us. Our music could be seen as "everybody electro" that you can understand without knowledge of any specific genre.

Do the three of you share the same musical background ?

What are the other finnish bands that you like ?

In a song called Computopia (in Novo Atlantis album) we have guest vocalist named Läjä Äijälä. He is a true legend of finnish music. He started music making in late 70's, doing early Suicide-inspired proto-tekno under the name Aavikon kone ja moottori. At the same time he started a hardcore punk band called Terveet Kädet which is the most legendary and most appreciated group of that genre in Finland and they are still going on. They have also been highly influential to many foreign bands like Sepultura. To answer your questions, we really like one of his bands The Leo Bugariloves.

I know that the two Tomis (membres de Aavikko) have at least one other band each,
can you tell something about them ? Nothing to do with Aavikko I guess...
Is it easy to manage ?

Yes we have many many bands also operating... Same style, different style, same people, different people...So much to say!

Did you often play in France ? Did you see a specificity to french audience ?

We've been to France maybe 4 or 5 times, it's always been good! Once we played in Nantes in the LU factory and met our idol Jean Jacques Perrey there. We gave him our single and he promised to listen to it next sunday after the breakfast.

Are you more famous in Finland or outside ? Do you focus on national or international ?

I think in Finland our name is familiar to many people, it's a small country with small circles. We've been sneaking to peoples minds through the tv by making theme songs for tv series and talk shows. Outside Finland we are mostly known by internet communities who specialize in special music.

Why did you choose Aavikko, for the meaning (Desert) or for the sound of the word ?

It's an anagram of our names with some missing and extra letters included.

One message to the Superboum crowd ?

We Play - You Dance!

BODENSTANDIG 2000

I think everybody know you from the Rephlex album.
Personnally I was very disapointed when they stopped releasing weird stuff like Lektrogirl,
PP Roy or you.
Did you felt betrayed when they said they wouldn't release new stuff from you ?
How did you react ?

We don't really know why Rephlex stopped releasing weird stuff. Maybe they
are getting old or changed their staff too much or were globalized and
streamlined by a multinational record company or whatever... :-)
Also, we had some money problems with them so we just took it as it was.

So you decided to produce you album yourself, why only 256 copies ?

It's 256 special vinyl copies for DJs! The complete album (incl. all the
not so danceable tracks) is available for download only
(http://bodenstandig.de/2000 and many major non-DRM online stores). The CD
seems dead to us.

As old geeks, attached to vinyl and computers in the same way I can guess, what is your feeling about music dematerialisation ?

With my musician's hat on, I feel a bit sad about it, but that's life.
With my listener's hat on, MP3 is a really cool and revolutionary thing
and every day is like christmas.

Appart of 8bit, what are your influences ?
Were you into German New Wave for instance ?

German new wave was very cool! Other influences are Dancefloor/Eurodance.
Kraftwerk and Reel2Real are our gods.

What do you think of Micromusic scene, chip, 8bit, whatever you call it ? Don't you think it's often a dead end ?

You can say it's a dead end if people just copy old videogame tracks. But
there are many younger acts creating new forms of live or semilive stage
performance (Gameboy DJing, 1000 toys on stage...). There are endless
possibilities to explore and it just started IMHO.
Also, combining good lyrics with 8bit music is still widely unexplored.

You are kind of stars in this community, is it enough for you or would you like to be more famous
for the common people or at least "the second circle of underground" ?

Thank you very much. :-)
I think we would appreciate if our music or micromusic in common would
become a more mainstream kind of music.

Do you think you are part of a german scene ? Do you mind it ?

I don't think we are part of a german scene. The german micromusic scene
is very small.
We are just part of the very international micromusic scene. I would
appreciate if more germans would do innovative micromusic, maybe with
german lyrics.

What are the other german bands you like ?

Kraftwerk, Rammstein, DAF, Scooter, Snap, Peter Licht, Peter Maffay, Peter
Schilling, Boney M, Alexandra, many german rappers, many german new wave,
many german reggae, Helge Schneider and many others...

One of you live in Saarbrucken, the other in Stuttgart, do you rehearsal in Karlsruhe (ville entre les deux précédentes) ?

It's really not easy. In former years, we mostly met in Saarbrucken to
write tracks and do rehersals. At the moment, we do singing rehersal in
the trains and planes and in the streets around the venues before the
concert.

One message to the Superboum crowd ?

Haa-Yeeh! Get off your shirts and wait for further instructions!

SYNDROME WPW

En quelque sorte nouveau dans le paysage freaky électronique underground, il
me semble que tu as déjà une bonne "street credibility",
Est-ce que tu as ce sentiment et si oui comment tu l'expliques ? Est-ce lié
à tes projets précédents à ton avis ?

Non, c'est lié à la violence, la drogue, le travail et l'honnêteté. Le
travail surtout.

On sent tout de suite chez toi un attrait pour la musique "Metal" et
l'énergie du punk, ce qui n'est pas si courant pour les gens qui font de la
musique électronique,
Y a-t-il d'autres influences plus difficiles à discerner ?

Le punk et le hardcore sont mes références musicales principales et ce
n'est plus un choix aujourd'hui. Mon cerveau a été formaté par cette
musique à une époque ou il était encore malléable. Mais je reste quand
même très influençable. De mon dernier disque je peux citer: Les
Béruriers Noirs, Jean-Michel Jarre, Iron Maiden, Metallica et en plus
général: le baroque, le harsh noise, les Moog albums, la new french
touch (oui, j'ai très honte), l'italo-disco, le swing.

Qu'est-ce qui est venu en premier ? Tu écoutais quoi chez tes parents ?
Aphex Twin ou Metallica , Venetian Snares ou les Sex Pistols ?

Metallica s'il faut choisir entre ces quatre. Aphex twin j'aime pas,
Venetian Snare je connais pas et les Sex Pistols sont ridicules.
Enfant, j'écoutais les Beatles et Frank Zappa (à cause de maman). Ma
première révolution adolescente c'est The Pogues, la 2e c'est
Béruriers Noirs et la 3e Sepultura. Puis je suis devenu adulte.

Quels sont les autres groupes suisses dont tu te sens proche ou que tu aimes ?

Opérateur Fotokopieur, Bacalao, Unas.

Et tes groupes cultes en général ?

Crass, Moog Cookbook, Jean-Jacques Perrey, Carcass, Hellnation.

Que penses-tu de la scène électronique underground européenne ? As-tu encore
des émotions musicales en découvrant
des groupes, en partageant la scène avec eux peut-être ? En bref, c'était
mieux avant, maintenant ou bien c'est pareil ?

C'est pas pareil est c'est ni mieux ni moins bien. Il m'arrive
toujours de découvrir des groupes géniaux et il y a toujours autant de
groupes de merde aujourd'hui que hier. Je parle de la scène
underground en général. Ce qui est excitant c'est que j'ai
l'impression que ça évolue vite (peut-être parce que je suis lent?)

Tu utilises beaucoup le vocoder , par goût du son ou par timidité, pour
dissimuler ta voix ?

C'est vraiment méchant comme question. Non j'ai pas envie de
dissimuler ma voix, mais je chante très faux et j'arrive pas à faire
du chant polyphonique tout seul.

Pourquoi ce nom Syndrome WPW (trouble du rythme cardiaque)? Tu en es atteint
toi-même ?

C'est une déformation génétique (conduction anormale d'un signal dans
un ventricule) qui dans certaines conditions provoque une accélération
très brutale -instantanée et intense- du coeur. Jusqu'à la mort dans
de rares cas. C'est simplement ce que j'essaye de provoquer chez
l'auditeur.

Tu peux nous parler de Jacques Canon ? Pourquoi ce besoin d'une deuxième
identité ?

T'as la preuve que c'est moi? En fait: j'ai de la peine avec les
groupes qui font des "lives" et des "DJ sets" sous le même nom.
Jacques Canon est un DJ: il a le droit de remixer, de passer les
morceaux des autres et de glander derrière son ordi quand il se
produit, Syndrome WPW n'a pas cette liberté.

Je sens que ce n'est pas la peine de te parler de chocolat ou d'horlogerie ?
Le chocolat peut-être ?

De la Suisse, j'aime plutôt le pognon et le sens de l'ordre.

Un message pour le public de la Superboum ?

Vous êtes géniaux, je suis heureux que vous soyez en vie.