22/03/2004 16.59.36
Ahvak Interwiev (Udi Susser)

A new exciting ensemble... with Mr. Dave Kerman on drums. We have the opportunity to talk with the composer and keyboardist Udi Susser.

First of all we would like to know how did you fall in love with the music, your main influences, how did you get involved with the RIO music and the most cultured forms of progressive rock?

In all essence, we are a six-headed beast that (ostensibly) speaks through one voice. As such, the collective influences are as wide as music is itself, varying from diverse and distinct genre couplings such as death metal to minimalism, new-wave to musique concrete, baroque to serialism, and well, er, Prog in all it's various incarnations from symphonic to RIO. Why than RIO? Well, one could propose (controversially) that RIO is not strictly a genre per se but a diagnosis by exclusion - once an onward looking piece of music doesn't fit nicely (or neatly) into a particular past genre it gets stamped with the RIO label. This is in no way a bad thing, as it indicates to potential listeners what to expect (or actually, what not to expect), and it is as inevitable as glaciers in the South Pole. The potential problem is that when RIO starts sounding like RIO, it stops being RIO. Did we get ensnared in this trap or did we transcend it? Hopefully we infused new content into the continuing evolution of the style, but really, who's to tell. Anyway, back to your question: Why than RIO? Why indeed not...
Looking back at this (rather poor) attempt at an answer, I see that by including everything in our answer, we answer, well, nothing. Such is life.

By the way, which kind of method do you prefer to use to obtain new solutions in your compositions?

Again, a hard one to answer. Chiefly, the methods we use are not too dissimilar to the gamut of 20th century classical music with some new ones thrown in for fun - (and here comes a list) - rhythmic palindromes, metric modulations, cat sounds, computer manipulations, serial retrogrades and inversions, the odd coughing, serialized rhythms, air conditioners (Electra), moment form, toilet paper, Fibonacci sequences, the occasional die casting, and empiricism, empiricism, and more empiricism.
Also different composers in the band naturally have different approaches to solutions. One may predominantly prefer the theme and variations approach (Roy Yarkoni), while another may prefer to layout a complete structure first and then fill in the missing bits (me). Or is the other way round?

Which new musical lands will you try to reach in the future? Tell us about your future projects

We'll know when we get there... Seriously though, the future projects will be a continuation and development of what we have already done, because if they weren't this whole thing would be rather pointless. And that's all that we can say at this point.

At the moment do you think that is there a musical movement where the RIO/avant-garde/progressive bands could identify themselves, find realities (artists, press, labels, promoters...) with whom stimulate their ideas and improve the diffusion of this musical genre?

It's honestly hard to tell. The movement is an amorphous amalgam of various bands separated by thousands of miles with no real uniting force but the drive to make music of a new kind within the genre. Some get record deals, more do not. The Internet can change this but only up to a point. As to us, most of us luckily are not dependent on music for our livelihood and thus we are perfectly happy with the level of publicity/promotion we are getting (which is the most one can get within this style - Cuneiform are doing a really great job). The downside of all this is that because most of us have taxing day jobs, our output quantity is rather limited. There is a brutal truth that may not be known to some - making this music costs us (and similar bands) money. The more disks we'll make, the quicker we'll populate the poor houses... Naturally we would be overjoyed if anything we do would help improve the diffusion of the genre, but honestly, as the audience for this music is staggeringly miniscule, that would be expecting a bit much.

Could you tell us your favourites bands between the new musical generations?

New musical generations? Here comes another list: Hamster Theater, Alamailman Vasarat, Sleepytime Gorrila Museum, Charming Hostess, Mr. Bungle, Koenji Hyakkei, Miriodor, and of course (sorry Dave) 5uu's, Present, Thinking Plague.

Do you want to describe your music to our readers?

Hmm... Describing one's own music is like eating rabbits with a plastic spoon (problematic and unsatisfying). Still, an attempt is in order: The music is an amalgamation of disparate and conflicting objectives - to look forward while having the deepest respect for all that has past, to "bend" the rules of composition and yet leave them in recognizable semblance, to use computer and electronics as additional compositional tools and not as noise-making-loop-repeating-eq-playing-twiddles, and ultimately not to lose the paramount objective, that the music would sound (albeit subjectively) "right" and that it would have an emotional impact as well as an intellectual one. Indeed, music devoid of emotional power is like a hamster without a foot massager.

Make a brief review of your album

21st century avant rock for the masses?

Which musical aim do you want to reach with your compositions?

Aims: Transcendence, change, sentiment, growth, groupies (preferably twins) and to have fun playing in a band.

How did you meet Dave Kerman?

Dave came to Israel with Present back in 1999 or thereabouts to record Number 6 and High Infidelity with Udi Koomran. Udi Koomran knew me and Yehuda, and so a formal connection with Dave was made. The following year Dave moved to Israel (for reasons which continue to baffle and bemuse to this day) and the formal connections became more friendly ones. Meanwhile, unbeknownst to us a band was being put together in Tel Aviv by the members of the Israel Progressive Forum Ishay and Roy. Yehuda saw the ad in the forum and soon joined. A couple of months later Yehuda brought me into the band and we started crystallizing our sound, but we were dissatisfied with our drummer, good as he was. So we asked Dave to join, and to our considerable surprise, he agreed.

How did you become a Cuneiform band?

No long stories here. Dave has long been associated with Cuneiform and through him we sent our demo to Steve Feigenbaum who subsequently agreed to release our debut.

Do you plan to be on tour in Italy or Europe in the future?

We really want to, but we have to overcome many technicalities - Dave now lives in Denver (again) and most of us have busy schedules with our day jobs. But we are working on it. Hopefully we'll manage to put something together.

Could you please let us know if there are some new interesting band in Israel? Do you know some Italian bands from Italy?

There actually has been a bit of a progressive boom in the last few years following the start of the Isael Progressive Forum on the net a few years back (which is also where this band got together). Apart for us there are quite a few new bands covering everything from RIO to folk to neo to retro to symphonic including Sympozion, Hot Fur, Ashqelon Quilt, Trespass, Sanhedrin, Mr. Toad, Sussita and Eggroll to name a few, some of which have released CD’s to some acclaim while others are recording their debut cd's as we speak. There is even an Israeli progressive label now - MIO. This is not to say that Israel is now a bursting cauldron of everything progressive as this is still a decidedly fringe movement, but it is a movement nonetheless, which will hopefully sustain itself. As for Italy, asking one if one knows about Italian bands is like asking one if the world is round... (I think it is, but people continue to fall of it's edge at such a frenetic pace...). Anyway, since Italy has been a progressive super power ever since the dawn of time, a list of influential bands would be exhaustively long. However, to name just a few, from the 70's the main Italian influences would be Area, Picchio dal Pozzo, Franco Battiato etc., and from today Deus Ex Machina and DFA are interesting. But then I would be leaving out symphonic greats such as Banco, PFM, Maxophone etc. etc. etc. etc. etc.... So really, the list is endless.

Do you want to add something?

Thank you for your interest in our music and for giving us the opportunity to share some of our thoughts, tangential as they may be. We thank any fans in Italy who enjoy our music and hope to perform there sometime, if only to see Italy again... It's been 6 years since I've been there last, and I miss the Ice cream, the wine, the women, the music... I'll be quiet now.

Thank you! Ciao Udi!