We believe in the joy and power of music, and we also see that to make this kind of statement today, you need to be a hero, because there are more dominant beliefs - like the belief in power itself or in fame or in money. Our belief in the power of music is something that really needs a strong position in order to keep it up for a lifetime - and hopefully even beyond. We don't want to miss out on the chance to give food for thought to other generations that may relate to it in a way that is not yet foreseeable.
If you spent your weekends in the clubs, you could see the change in the eyes of the people. They became merciless, in a way, in their desire to be entertained.
There was a period when the utopian scenario was almost true - when we felt that you could do almost anything in a club, as long as it was any good. There was no rigid expectation from the audience as to how it had to be delivered. But this didn't last very long. It was almost palpable, the decline of this in the new millennium.
We are fascinated by the club and the dancefloor; we are also fascinated by very nuanced sonic experiences, and somehow we are convinced that we can bring together these two contradictory forces and create some kind of sonic supernova. This would be the candle that has always been at the center of our project.
We allow the sonic qualities themselves to develop their own momentum. It's a kind of humbling experience to put the sound first instead of the statement.
I would almost say that in our solo activities there is an overarching line of thought that is Porter Ricks itself. Our solo work delivers the details. So occasionally we have to go back to our corners and study and research these details to be able to bring it back into the Porter Ricks project, and into the dialogue.
I remember periods where we didn't even have beats in our club sets, but people kept dancing. The beat wasn't even necessary, because it was a biokinetic experience - that's our metaphor for the dance and the body and all its expressions. From today's point of view, this would be totally impossible.
Maybe it's good that we are so slow with everything. We were saved from the damages that took place in the last 10 or 15 years in the scene.
Our intention is to develop more subtlety in contemporary electronic sounds. We don't like nostalgic projects. We have disparate interests and many philosophical concerns. In the past 10 years, I have realized music in the classical tradition - I have composed for strings, brass, and electronic, and alp-horn!
1999 was your last recorded output, and then Porter Ricks was put on hold until 2012.
