INTERVIEW WITH NAING NAING

NAING NAING : INTERVIEW (English version)

Questions by Sédryk - August 2002

Below is an interview from 2002

MARCH 2006

How did you get that idea to make music with ice cube sounds, toads, etc... ?

In 97, in Ko Pha Ngan (Thailand), while sitting on a small bridge over a stream, I had the chance of listening to an incredible toad concert: it made me think of some acid(-core) techno which would had lost its cold mechanical feel to attain total chaos. There were two different species gathered in numbers: one was whirling in the treble much as a dentist drill sent through a flanger and the other one was bellowing hypnotic basses. But afterwards it has taken me years before I could record all that animals.

For the ice cubes, it was in Japan, at that time I used to record all the sounds that crossed my way. I was given a drink with an ice cube straight from the freezer, due to the thermal shock it made a nice dry "crac!" and I knew I had to record that sound to use it as a snare.

Four years ago I used to call it "music without instrument" (for lack of a better term) in contrast with my other projects which were full of musical instruments (Editing note: Tear of a Doll album is crammed with instruments: guitar, drums, bass, sitar, sarod, electrified sanza, effect pedals used as such without touching the guitar, Burmese gongs, sax and... bicycle wheel).

But now I think computer should be regarded as a genuine musical instrument as it is indeed the computer and all those marvelous software which make it possible to use any sound as a musical instrument.

You mentioned ''Concrete Music". This term is a reference to the past, to some stage in the history of music. I do not think I am in the same vein as Pierre Henri: my culture is more rock, hardcore punk (from U.S., Finland, etc...), Indian Classical Music, the early Soft Machine & Pink Floyd, Captain Beefheart, etc... It is true that Pierre Henri made a long piece out of five notes (being samples of five instruments) and I did a whole song out of the buzz of a single wasp. One could find a connection as in both cases the sources of sound had been intentionally limited, but that's all.

On the other hand, I found on several occasions similarities with Pink Floyd: They have integrated animal sounds in several tracks (69, 77), as well as an alarm clock's "tic-tac" and ringing (73), etc... Without mentioning the real dog who sings the blues. And I noticed a few similar ideas in the arrangements of some titles by Björk.

No, my aim is not to use only animal sounds: I use all everyday sounds. But it just happened that amongst the sounds I selected for the first album, animal sounds outnumber other sounds.

- You used to be a hardcore guitarist (Heimatlos, Tear of a Doll). This is completely different. Are you leaving hardcore behind ?

No. I still create hardcore tracks at home. I still intent to make hardcore records, but it has to be a little innovative (many punks are very conservative).

Around 2000 / 2001 I stayed a while in Paris and I formed DANCE KENNEDYS, a band playing 100% improvised hardcore, with Macario (Angrrr Rds, Copywrong, Unlogistics) and various drummers (Ohran, Morej & Easy Boy). The concept was to infuse spontaneity into Hardcore: to look at each other and start playing together (guitar + drums + vocals) without knowing what was going to come out, thus pure improvisation. But there was a trick: the guitar was plugged into both a guitar and a bass amp so that the bass would always be synchronized with the guitar. People found it similar to Naked City (but John Zorn's hardcore music is extremely "choreographed").

Actually we plan to make some new TEAR OF A DOLL songs "par correspondance" (the singer and the drummer are in Paris, I am in Rangoon and the bassplayer is in Southern France). Before I started under the name Naing Naing, my idea was to integrate toads and crickets into Tear of A Doll's music. But we only did one track featuring crickets for one compilation EP by Pandemonium with Melt Banana and God is my co-Pilot.

However I would like to point out that there is something in common between HEIMATLOS and NAING NAING: it is that in 83, 84, etc... audiences (in France) were stunned to see a band playing so fast just because they never saw that before and with Naing Naing it is similar: it is just fun because no-one has heard before a cover of Elvis performed by toads.

- Now you are living in Myanmar. How much did Naing Naing's music get influenced by burmese or indian music ?

Initially, I was trying to learn several stringed instruments from India (sitar, sarod, sarangi and santûr) to integrate them into Tear of a Doll's experimental hardcore. My main purpose was to get out of the tempered scales that give a certain colour to western music since Bach. And I always preferred minor to major.

Then I was in Benares (Varanasi) to take sitar lessons, the teacher had to travel, so I just started tabla lessons out of curiosity… And gradually I got to practise tabla so much that it became impossible to continue sitar, sarangi and sarod... (and as I could not bring over all those instruments I just cannot practise anymore).

This is how my main Asiatic influence became tabla rythms. But I still use Indian scales at times.

A funny thing is that an Indian Musician, Abir Singh (an Esraj virtusuo from West Bengal), told me that the melodies of "Dervish Bee" (wasp music) strangely reminded him of the music of one Indian tribe that I did not knew: the Santali. I had just worked chromatic melodies as a "clin d'oeil" (eye blink) to the work of de Rimsky-Korsakov in "the flight of the bumblebee".

As I spent five years in Myanmar, I took the opportunity to study its classical music ("mahagita"), more interesting, by the way, than local rock (imagine sub-Bon Jovi half-melted by tropical sun). Here I am learning Burmese harp ("saung") and bamboo xylophone ("pattala"). Up to now I only used harp in a music for a Burmese TV commercial and once on stage with Tear of a Doll. I intend to learn a little more before getting into experimental Burmese music.

Flying Home Studio in Rangoon (2002)

Naing Naing (in Ngapali)

Flying Home Studio in Paris (with Lena joining hands)

First, one has to collect a sound bank. Early on I have done lots of "field recordings" with a minidisc. Sometimes I have to wait very long before being able to record a specific sound I need, knowing that background noise makes most recordings useless. Those sounds are cleaned, cut and classified on hard disks as in a library. Then I build the songs with software (sequencers) on PC. One can really do more with software than traditional studio hardware.

I try to build each song in the spirit of the chosen sound. I would not treat a washing machine as a toothbrush. I will use stereo placement (pan) as an example: wasps turn quickly into space (left-right), ice cubes move slower in the glass, toads are set here and there in the pan, but remain static.

(New answer from 2004:) For this album I made a cover of "Fever" (Elvis version) with an instrumentation consisting of 100% toad sounds, but the American publisher that owns the rights to that song refused to authorize its use, finding that this version would damage the reputation of a song they were pround of owning the rights to.
It has taken me a awful lot of time to make this song. I decided to replace it with a personal composition ("Webbed") and to add several other tracks (Wazo, Mi Ma La Bu) that were supposed to be on the next album. That is why you did not hear "Brosse à danse" and the ice cube and wasp music in 2002.

I have already all the concept of the second album in that vein. Some tracks already do exist but were intentionally excluded from the first album because they have a central function in the second one. But before making another big thing like this I would enjoy making a little album of music with instruments...