2023-04-27 07:25:00
BILLY ROISZ skips the introduction. The woman from Viennaähas been involved with music, performance and film for so long that even such people leave herört have düries that have never been heard from herört should have. As the grande dame of audiovisual autodidactics “LOW” on VENTIL RECORDS it’s only their second solo album. to the conversationäch in the cafeIt is Kreuzberg sits ROISZ checknightly, dafür she stays wämeanwhile taciturn. Sometimes we are silent, späthen she laughs out loud. addendumäEqually she tinkers with the dialogue, because the control weighs heavily.
I put forward a thesis: in your music, space is not präsent, just the time.
Billy Roisz: I have to disappoint you: space is definitely an important aspect in my music, both the space that is played, that I share with the listeners – and also in my perception and conception of sound as matter in space. I work sculpturally. What interests me most about the sound is its multidimensionality and the expansiveness. How does sound include the listener?
Your bass becomes a resonance chamber.
Billy Roisz: The bass is of course a resonance space, but for me it’s about the sound itself – as if it were stone or other malleable material that I can chisel with my tools, the mixer and all sorts of analogue and digital effects devices.
You mean a taking away edit, right?
Billy Roisz: Sometimes it’s that, yes, an exposure, sometimes it’s also an application. It’s multi-layered editing.
That sounds archaeological. You don’t brush around in the earth, but on the…
Billy Roisz: instruments, exactly. Or actually the sound itself. First I collect a lot of material, I recorded the sound for the current record in several phases. Also in different places. I have a trip with Dieter [Kovačič, Anm.], my partner of many years, into a tunnel under the Autobahn in Spillern. We recorded double bass, cimbal and helicon, which Dieter played as a guest musician. In a further step, I then listened to all the material, sorted it out and layered, arranged and “sculpted” it on the computer in my editing program, i.e. created the final tracks.
Without the computer work wüIf the bass wouldn’t sound like it did in your Hchange sounds.
Billy Roisz: Can’t say like that, I also have a lot of the original bass sounds inside – sometimes pure, but then again just as a layer together with processed bass sound and additional electronics.
“THE BASS INTERESTS ME AS AN INTERFACE FOR SOUND GENERATION.”
The effect is important.
Billy Roisz: It’s always about the sound, the sound, the structure, the dramaturgy. I am interested in the bass as an interface to the sound generation. As a body of sound. As an experimental field. I got it as a gift.
How do you get a bass as a gift?
Billy Roisz: Dieter surprisingly gave me the bass for my birthday two years ago. He somehow picked up that I would like to try it out. When the bass suddenly appeared in my room, I was surprised and almost shocked. But I quickly made friends with him, now the bass is a buddy.
If an instrument, then bass, you said. Why?
Billy Roisz: I love the low frequencies.
where does this love come from
Billy Roisz: It’s just there.
The low-frequency berührt day Körper, right?
Billy Roisz: It definitely has to do with the body, both your own and the body of the bass sound and its movement in space. You perceive the sound more strongly through your stomach and muscles. In addition, I originally come from movement theater and dance performance. And: I used to dance at Flex at least twice a week. Drum’n’Bass, Techno, Hip Hop – that was my music in the late 90’s. Ever since then I’ve loved the warmth, the wadding of the low frequencies.
How much improvisation is there in the recordings?
Billy Roisz: I tend to compare the work on the tracks for audio carriers with my work in film editing. I usually don’t find it exciting to publish an improvised concerto without an arrangement. The place, the time, the atmosphere in the room cannot be conveyed. Nevertheless, there are also exciting improvisation recordings. But for me, the interesting work is working with the recordings, honing the dramaturgy and shaping it.
You work the Stück off before you play it.
Billy Roisz: For some projects yes, others are freely improvised. “Bajo” is available as a record, but the work for the record should also work on stage. Different, because I could never implement it straight away and I don’t want to either, but because it moves within a compositional framework – with the sound material that I used for the record.
It sounds like compositional digging to me – it kind of fits with exploring the depths, doesn’t it?
Billy Roisz: I often play the double bass lying down, i.e. the bass is on its side and I work on it bending over, kneeling. On the other hand, I often play the electric bass standing up.
You can’t imagine an attitude from the Musikverein. You play very differently.
Billy Roisz: Not just because I couldn’t, but because doing so would automatically expose me to convention.
You play – in a figurative sense – with the instrument.
Billy Roisz: Exactly.
“I ALWAYS COME TO THE SURFACE.”
Let’s talk briefly üabout the cover. You paint animals I assume.
Billy Roisz: During the pandemic I started painting and drawing again. Mainly animals.
What is that on the current record, a zebra?
Billy Roisz: An aardvark.
That’s very specific.
Billy Roisz: The aardvark also lives underground, but that’s not why I painted it. All animals were created as postcard motifs that I sent to friends in 2022. On all cards I drew strange looking but real animals. One of them was: the aardvark.
The aardvark is drilling – like you. When do you show up?
Billy Roisz: I keep coming to the surface. For example for concerts. My own, of course, but I also really enjoy going and listening to what my colleagues are doing – other music, cinema, literature, science, all of that lifts me up and inspires me for further work, musical or visual.
Thanks!
Christopher Benkeser
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Billy Roisz live:
May 23, 2023: Linz Tresor
May 24, 2023: Westbahn Studios
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Links:
Billy Roisz (Homepage)
Billy Roisz (Wikipedia)
Billy Roisz (Discogs)
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