An Interview with Adam Majdecki-Janicki
1- What are your musical influences?
My primary musical influence was punk rock and Black Sabbath. Later I started listening to noise rock, bands like Cows, or Butthole Surfers, or Swans. I also soaked in lots of industrial and tape culture music thanks to my German friends, and krautrock. I even got to meet the legendary Amon Duul II in London, back in 2015. It was a major influence on my music, meeting the guys and talking to them on everything from world music through Jimi Hendrix to what to do to play good music.
2- Which albums impressed you the most?
Hard to answer this question, first album that really impressed me was by a Polish band, the cassette "Sea Sea" by Ewa Braun, a noise rock album. Then "Master of Reality" by Black Sabbath. Later "Tanz der Lemminge" by Amon Duul II, and "Doremi Fasol Latido" by Hawkwind. In 2015 I got introduced to the music of Yuri Morozov and later bought "Strange Angels" which I love. Today I'm listening to "Flag" by James Taylor, the soundtrack to "Bilitis", and an album by Bogna Sokorska, a soprano singer known as the "nightingale of Warsaw".
3- How did the idea for the "Eimi" album arise?
I had lots of ideas circling around that first took shape as the "93-105" project, but thanks to Nicolas Tourney's influence I decided on the "Eimi" title, the map cover, and released "93-105" which is more krautrock/psychedelic rock seperately with Illuminated Paths, and "Eimi" with Snow in Water Records as a collection of drone, noise, and ambient exploration of imaginary film music from a distant era.
4- How do you build your tracks and how do you record them?
I usually start with guitars, effects, and voice. But then I modulate it all beyond recognition, add tape textures from a box of unmarked tapes of music I recorded over the years, and sometimes collage, sometimes effortlessly, sometimes a track takes years to finish. I record it all at home – the guitars using line-in, the voice using Shure SM58, and additional textures with a simple Labtec microphone. I sometimes use my phone, and some synth apps, as I currently don't own a synthesizer.
5- How can we describe the music of Eimi? We were talking the other time about your link with Yuri Morozov, can you tell us more about these inspiration?
Yuri Morozov did a universe of sound, from Russian folk through improv rock to really crazy hippie textures. I tried to put in "Eimi" all my heart and ideas of the moment, of a film of life, or like a film. Yuri Morozov is like a mythology. I like to think of "Eimi" as "mythology in continuum", an endless roll of film, maybe even like certain Warhol movies.
6- Can you tell us about the cassette culture, and the tape-textures we can find in Eimi's tracks?
I started recording music to tape in late 2001, early 2002 – as a kid really. So, later we cut some 90 minute tapes of improvised rock'n'roll music with my friends, and so we were really a part of Polish cassette culture, if there ever was one, quite early on, actually according to our knowledge – it was much later that I learned of Polish punk cassette culture – punk was essential in Poland being copied on illegal tapes in the 70s and 80s. It was a movement, a motion. A motion I try to keep in textures on "Eimi". Also, "93-105" was released on cassette this year with Illuminated Paths, so, for me, it's full circle.
7- What are your other current musical projects, and how do you make them interact with your solo project?
As of June 19 2020 I started recording a more singer/songwriter oriented album, influenced by David Bowie, and Roxy Music, at a nice small studio in Gniezno, Poland – KARNEOL Studio owned by a good friend and original bass player, Sebastian Żurek. We hope to finish the album by September and release it the same month, or a month later. I also sporadically return to my noise rock project Brain Salad Underground active since 2002, and Die Rote Erde, active since 2004. Die Rote Erde should interest everyone who likes "Eimi". Same ideas, same textures, same philosophy, same name.
8- You are also a writer, inspired by Beat Poets and cuts up techniques... How do you make interactions between poetry and music?
I actually don't. I stopped writing poetry in 2015 after being published in one anthology with William S. Burroughs and Gregory Corso. I said to myself, this is the max, where can I go further from there? Nowhere. So, I keep my pen silent and the page blank.
9- Something we can wish you?
Lots of money to buy analog synths and food for my dog.
10- A word for the end?
Listen to good music on Snow in Water Records, Engram Recordings, Illuminated Paths, and Superspace Records!
