Microkill
Microkill is a virtual group; it has no members, exept the ones mentioned in the past, fictitious members - and the music is recorded at home (or wherever) with music software. The recorded are noises, sounds, music, soundscapes, sonic artifacts, rhythms, and other (processed) sounds, such as loops, pads, layerings, etc.
As composers we use layers of sound. We do not use instruments, only soundbites (on occasion we record an experimental instrument, voices or an actual instrument, but the recordings are what matters, not the instruments).
Microkill color their compositions with bluesy tunes of harmony and melody, swinging climaxes, and stomping rhythms, a la Milhaud, but without the jazz, which cannot be considered as music as it is foul.
Microkill uses an anarchic, nonconformist way of composing. It's like making collages (montages) with sound. Sounds, noises, voices - everything you can hear - is mixed using audio software. Microkill has amassed about 150 Gb of sounds (musical instruments, soundscapes, loops, tones, voices, recordings, etc.) and they use this soundlibrary to compose their musical pieces. Their techniques are those of music producers (Microkill are not musicians) that use field recordings, electronica, drones, noises, etc. and compose out of those ingedients their 'music'. Sometimes they improvise sometimes they use theory-based composition.
We do not compose with a direction, or an idea. There is no construction, no form. We start with a sound, any sound and work towards a composition, improvising as we go. We call this process 'Experimentalism'.
We use the digital computer as an instrument foreseen by Schaeffer: 'capable not only of replacing all existing instruments, but every conceivable instrument, musical or not'.
Tell me about your history? How did you get where you are now?
Once there was Incubus Succubus, but The Swans stole our logo $.
Then there was Flipping Zoo, strange ambient music.
Microkill was born a few years ago, around 2005, but was more about performence than music. Now, it is all about music.
Have you performed live in front of an audience? Any special memories?
Ours is the flac and the mp3. We're not even dj's, we're composers. Others should play us live and like it.
Your musical influences
The Residents, Klaus Schulze, TD, Jarre, Kraftwerk, 9" Nails, Laibach, The Art of Noise, Suicide, OMD, Dead Kennedys, Birthday Party, Wagner, Schaeffer, Carlos Peron, DAF, Diamanda Galas, Flying Lizards, Yellow Magic Orchestra, Holger Czukay, John Hassell, Laurie Anderson, Malcolm McLaren, Pankow, PIL, Sprung aus den Wolken, William Orbit, Vangelis, Yello, Brian Eno, Steve Reich, Moritz Von Oswald Trio
What equipment do you use?
Software. FL sometimes, Audacity, Renoise, FractMus, etc.
Anything else?
We are detached from the norms and have build trails through unusual paths of music. Ours is the so-called 'World Music', but not limited to that type of music. We trod on these unseen paths, listening for unusual sounds, hearing trumpets in the sky, the drone of the factory, the gliding aeroplane, twittering of birds, a car goes by. These are the normal background noises of today, these are our rhythm, our chords. The hustle and bustle of the city, the tranquility of the countryside. Filled with noises, sounds. A chirp here, a vroom there. And then there is the virtual world of the internet. Filled to the brim with music and sounds.
