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FLUORYNE German Expressionism Story online since: 27.01.2010 / 11:00:00 .........................................................................................................................................................  Fluoryne is a one-man band that has just released it's Dämmerung album, an album that consists of five German Expressionist poems turned into music. While I was having several listens of the album, delving deeper into the music (and later into the poems, too), I exchanged some messages with Falk, the man behind the band. And his answers were so kind, because he found the questions interesting enough, that we felt the chatter had to go on and start all over to turn it into an interview, just like he did with the five poems, to construct something bigger and more complete. Here's the result of it, although not as complete as the album, but you will have to listen to it by yourselves; I can only redirect you to its review. Now, lets learn a bit about Fluoryne. Adryuu: Welcome, Falk. First of all, would you tell me about the -not so far- starting of your project? What the name Fluoryne means, how you came up with the idea of doing a band by yourself, what you did before Dämmerung, etc. Falk: I started FLUORYNE in the beginning of 2005. Until then I had played guitars for a while in a crappy Death Metal band – where I improved my guitar skills a lot, despite the otherwise tedious music – and also had played around with some home recording software and so on, but initiating FLUORYNE was the first step to a somewhat directed musical vision. I didn’t want to make any compromises so I set up FLUORYNE as a one man project. Until September 2005 I recorded my first demo-CD "Dark Water” which contained eight songs, one of them being a cover of THORNS’ "Aerie Descent”. On "Dark Water” I did all by myself: I used a drum computer and did all the vocals – even the clean vocals which are, as I have to admit, not very good. Nevertheless "Dark Water” gained some attention – this is actually how I got to know GEIST’s Alboîn, who is also editor-in-chief of metal.de and reviewed "Dark Water”. I met him some weeks later at the university’s tram station (I knew he went to the same university) and we got along very well immediately. We became friends and later on he asked me to join GEIST on synthesizers. In 2006 I recorded a second demo-CD, entitled "Dynamics Of Extinction” – these ten songs (two of them being re-recordings of songs from "Dark Water”) haven’t officially seen the light of day yet, mostly because I improved my recording equipment shortly after finishing the re-cordings and thus am not satisfied with the demo-CD’s sound. Oh, and I also participated in the ULVER-tribute "My Own Wolf: A New Approach” (Aspheri-cal Asphyxia/Cold Dimensions), covering "Not Saved” from ULVER’s "Teachings In Silence”. That kind of sums up FLUORYNE’s and my history until "Dämmerung”, I guess. But you also wanted to know about the name, right!? Ok, FLUORYNE is a different spelling of the word "fluorine”, name of the 9th element in the periodic system. Fluorine is the first halogen and the most reactive element. It reacts with almost every substance – and the resulting compounds have interesting and mostly exceptional properties. I’ll just throw in the name Teflon® here – yea, the frying pan… In my opinion there are certain parallels between FLUORYNE and fluorine/its compounds. To say it with SATYRICON’s "Prime Evil Renais-sance”: In order to create you must destroy. What is your role on Geist? Do you compose there? Why are you leaving that band? What does it sound like? Geist is a rather straight-forward Black Metal band, with some influences from Rock and also Ambient, which is my main role. I play the synthesizers (and on our latest album "Galeere" I even played acordion) and am responsible for the atmospheric intros and stuff. But I wouldn't call this composing, because most of the intros are based on important guitar riffs from the particular songs. On www.myspace.com/geistmetal you'll find a trailer for the latest album. Oh, and unfortunately I'll have to leave Geist in spring 2010, because I will do a postdoc somewhere else, so I won't have any possibilities to rehearse with them...  Well, let's talk about Dämmerung. At what point in the composition process did you get the inspiration to turn these five poems into music? This question is difficult to answer in a straight manner. It was kind of a dialectical process. The general idea of turning Expressionist poems into music lurked in my head since school. It became more tangible when I was working on some ideas for a new song shortly after putting aside "Dynamics Of Extinction” – at the same time I was reading a famous Expressionist anthology (again) and stumbled upon "Morgens” by Jakob van Hoddis. It suddenly became clear to me that this poem and the musical ideas were like chalk and cheese. I recorded a preproduction of the song and tried to get my teeth into other poems and their connection to FLUORYNE’s music. This is how "Fern” developed. After I had finished the preproduction there were a certain time I couldn’t get hold of Expressionism in terms of putting it into music. So I started working on other ideas again (for example the aforementioned ULVER-tribute); originally the music for "Unwetter” was not planned to be part of "Dämmerung”, but when I read a collection of Alfred Lichtenstein’s poetry I realized that "Unwetter” would be the perfect lyrics to the yet-untitled song. But I knew "Dämmerung” wouldn’t work without my personal favourite, Georg Trakl. So I specifically looked for Trakl-poems I could turn into music – he wrote enough for several albums. I actually failed at approaching certain poems, but could get my perception of "De Profundis” and "Klage” to work. Why German Expressionism and why those in particular? As already mentioned I developed the idea of connecting Expressionist poetry and music when I went to school. The poetry of this era is very expressional - hence the name :) - and, by its linguistic breaks and unconventional constructions, refuses to be grasped by the reader. In my opinion this is the best foundation for the connection with music, which itself is above all expressional. Black Metal is, as I understand it, based on skepticism, on denial, on negation – and this is where the poetry I chose and the music I wrote connect on a more substantial level. Do you think of it like a soundtrack to the poems, or rather a musical interpretation of them? Do you consider it like a concept album? I think that, if you don't have in mind the poems, it can be listened to like just one song, on a whole. Hmmm, I guess it’s kind of so so. Although the songs reflect my perception of the poems, at least the music to "Morgens” and "Unwetter” existed to a certain extent before I saw the con-nection. So for some part the songs are interpretations, but they are also a soundtrack to me, because they kind of lead me to the poems. For the listener "Dämmerung” is mostly a sound-track, I would say. When you listen to the album you don’t have to know the poems or even understand German to grasp the atmosphere. At least I hope so. In terms of the lyrical concept I would deem "Dämmerung” a concept album. But I also think that there is a kind of story behind the poems in the order I chose for "Dämmerung”. I think I can feel some kind of hope, something like confidence in "Morgens” and "Fern”; "Unwetter” destroys every hope – slowly, but firmly. "De Profundis” and "Klage” bear a strong feeling of despair: "Klage” was the second last poem Trakl ever wrote, before dying at the age of 27. So there’s a kind of escalation here. Also, the first song title translates to "In The Morning” and the last lines of "Klage” are "Lo! A precarious skiff is sinking under the stars, the silent face of the night.” In connection with the ambivalent meaning of "Dämmerung” (it translates to "dusk” as well as to "dawn”) there is another underlying concept, at least in my opinion.  Are you finely satisfied with the result? Do you think you achieved a good soundtrack to/interpretation of the poems? I am very satisfied with the result – I wouldn’t have published "Dämmerung” if I hadn’t been. Even after over two years of work the songs feel "right” to me, I guess that’s a good sign that I deservedly am satisfied. The album features fine guest musicianship (by Pariah G. and Martin Wiese on vocals and Cypher D. Rex on drums), which is quite suitable for the mood of the album, in my opinion. How and why did you decide on these persons? After "Dark Water” I slowly opened my mind to having guest musicians appear in FLUORYNE’s music, simply because I can’t play the drums and can’t sing very well either. I wanted real drums on "Dämmerung” though, and I wanted to work with clean vocals again. GEIST’s vocalist Cypher D. Rex is also drummer in the Thrash Metal band LOST WORLD ORDER – I immediately liked his drumming style and he always dug modern and sterile Black Metal, like DHG or THORNS. Hence I could convince him to play drums on "Dämmerung” very quickly. We did the drum recordings in Aurora Musiklabor, the studio of ENID-mastermind Martin Wiese – Martin is a learned vocalist and spontaneously agreed to perform on "Dämmerung”. After finishing the drum recordings we took some time to record his vocals. The last (but not least) guest musician is Pariah G., vocalist of an aspiring Black Metal band, STENCH OF STYX. I had seen him perform live with STENCH OF STYX and he also partici-pated in an "all-star-project” on GEIST’s "Galeere”-releaseparty – members of GEIST, TODTGELICHTER (Hi to Tentakel P. who played bass there!) covered MAYHEM’s "Freezing Moon” and Pariah G. did the vocals. I was very impressed and directly asked him to do the Black Metal-ish screams on "Dämmerung”. Did these session musicians actively compose their parts? Hmmm, that's a difficult one. Basically I told all of them what I wanted the songs to sound like. I left the phrasing of the shrieking vocals up to Pariah, for example. And Lykrates Vyron knew the programmed drums I had used for the preproduction. The participation of Martin as clean vocalist was a rather spontaneous idea - I told him what I had in mind for his particular parts, gave him the lyrics and off he went. So in every case I didn't write the full score for the musicians, but I gave them corner marks to align.  Did the drummer follow very much your patterns, or did he get complete freedom to do fills and arrangements? Btw, at times it sounds to me like he just follows your patterns, or maybe you wanted him to be clinical, exact, clean and cold, too. There is no definite answer to that. Of course I told him where to play blastbeats, where to play doublebass and especially for "Unwetter" I told him how to play the bassdrum (note that I recorded the guitars before Lykrates played the drums, so I had to tell him where to play straight 4/4 and where to play triplets). For the fills I gave him complete freedom and in "Morgens" there is a part where I told him "Go mad!". But - and this is why it's hard to give a definite answer - we agreed beforehand that the drums had to sound exact and cold. I very much prefer the clinical Black Metal style (such as DHG or THORNS) over the Black'n'Roll or Black'n'Punk "crap" (excuse me) played by CARPATHIAN FOREST or DARKTHRONE. Do you find influences in any electronic kind of music, be it IDM, ambient, trip-hop... or at least listen to it any time? Yea, I do listen to electronic music from time to time. Artists like SQUAREPUSHER, AMON TOBIN, LUSTMORD, THE PRODIGY and so on really inspire me. I guess it would be difficult to track down certain influences, because they are more or less of an unconscious kind, but they’re there, I’m pretty sure about that. What can we expect in the future for Fluoryne? Are you already composing new songs? Will you go back to the concept album thing? Any other involvement in other bands planned, apart from touring with Geist until spring? Yes, I do work on new songs already, but there’s nothing official yet. I also plan to re-record "Dynamics Of Extinction” – which is a concept album, so "Yes” to your second question – under better conditions and hopefully with a human drummer. We’ll see. Regarding GEIST I probably won’t play any more gigs with them, due to the tight schedule as regards my job. Other involvements aren’t definite yet, but there are certain ideas. Well, it's been a nice and kind review by your part, Dr. Falk, I appreciate your collaboration and leave it open for you to add the final words. Thank you very much for the great review, the deep and interesting interview and for your support. http://www.fluoryne.de/ http://www.myspace.com/fluoryne http://www.myspace.com/geistmetal Adryuu |
