Interview: Bauchklang

Bauchklang (en allemand, « le son du ventre ») est un groupe de musique originaire d’Autriche. Le groupe est composé de cinq membres et à la particulatiré de produire tous les sons constituant leur musique par leur voix (d’où le nom du projet): beats, basse, imitations d’instruments, effets de voix, scratches, sons non identifiés, et aussi chant (presque toujours en anglais -exception faite de « You Know » en Français sur Jamzero). Interview découverte!

TheClubbing.com: Regarding the concept of beatbox, most of the french people think about Saïan Supa Crew or Rhazel. Could you remind them what are the main differences between your sound and theirs?
Bauchklang: The main difference between Saïan Supa Crew and us is of course the fact, that we do our live shows and our albums without the help of any instrument, turntables or whatever. All is strictly based on human resources. The difference between Rhazel and other hero beatboxers is, that we are not strictly relie to be beatboxers but use it as a tool and form a band.

TheClubbing.com: Someone gives the bass, someone else gives the rhythm, someone else gives the charleys… At the beginning, how did you define who made what?
Bauchklang: It was kind of given… for example I have the deepest voice, so it was clear that I would do mainly basslines. So there was no big deal of finding the right position for everyone!

TheClubbing.com: In your albums, we can hear pop, hip hop, reggae, breaks, and techno… Actually, what are your main influences?
Bauchklang: There are, as one can hear, many influences. In the beginning the main ones were black and groove music, funk as well as reggae. By the year 2000 we decided to dip into electronic styles and we were curious if we could keep up with dj’s playing in clubs – and it worked! So we improved our techniques and sounds (as we still do nowadays) and worked on this strong live performance.

TheClubbing.com: We can find your releases in the electro area. Do you agree with that? In which way is your music ‘electronic’?
Bauchklang: Of course it’s the styles, but secondly it’s because we defined our music as kind of cross-current to electronic music in terms of using its elements but doing so without the help of machines.

TheClubbing.com: Is your voice the only instrument or do you use some effects?
Bauchklang: Primarily it is all based on our vocals. Our live shows are strictly following that idea, there are just delays and reverbs. On our albums you sometimes can find slight flangers or distortions…

TheClubbing.com: Except your mouth, do you play any instrument?
Bauchklang: We play a whole spectrum of insruments which of course sometimes helps us to sketch up some ideas. There are for example drums, guitar, bass, piano, jaw’s harp…

TheClubbing.com: What are you doing when someone has a toothache for example?!
Bauchklang: Fortunately it hasn’t happened too often, but happens… we then have the possibility to cancel the gig or decide to take painkillers..

TheClubbing.com: During the live you played an extract from your last EP. What about it?
Bauchklang: It was a track called « human bees » and it has been released this summer on an Austrian radiostation’s compilation called « FM4 soundselection 18 ».

TheClubbing.com: Is there an album in preparation? What kind of surprises can we expect?
Bauchklang: In fact there is an album completed, but we still try to find a partner to release it, because we are free of record companies since beginning of 2008… The big target was to -again- getting closer to the live experience – and we succeeded!

TheClubbing.com: Thanks and congratulations again for your show in Lille!