Artist: Ra

[mars]

Artist: Ra (Christer Borge-Lunde)

Date: 06-20-01

By: Children

 

Q: Can you tell us a little about yourself to know you better ?

A: I'm currently living in the outskirts of Oslo, Norway. I'm 25 years old, and I have been making music since the age of 16. I'm musically trained in saxophone, but after I started making computer music I haven't used it much (but I'm planning to get a sax MIDI controller!). As for my personality, I guess I would have to say that I'm the kind of person that likes to have alot of things going at the same time. Which is not only frustrating at times, but very confusing I like to take the initiative to get things done, and I like to have control or atleast a full overview over all things I am involved with......hehehe...now this is starting to sound like a job interview, so NEXT QUESTION PLEASE!...hehehehe

 

Q: Ok :-) What about your musical background (studies, first compositions) ?

A: I started playing the saxophone when I was about 10 years old. Then when I was about 16 I started composing music on my Amiga, which was when I lost interest in my saxophone playing. Other than that, I think the only formal education I have is one year in a boarding school studying music. In that year I mostly focused on improvisation (saxophone), music theory, music history and I had my own class at night time, teaching other students basic music theory. I made my first composition when I was 16, and my first composition using MIDI was when I was 19.

 

Q: How did your career in psytrance music started and evolved ?

A: Back in 1995, I met up with Lars W. Lind, who was also doing music at the time. We had both spent years doing music on amiga and PC, making music for demos, and we wanted to move on. We both loved electronic music, and we decided to hook up and create RA. Not long after that, a good friend showed up and played us "the yellow LP". I think that was the turning point, and after that we were sure of what we wanted to do. I think it was the intricate melodies and the eastern oriented scales, that caught my attention the most. A couple of years went by, making music, finding "the sound" and most of all buying equipment. RA did some gigs here and there. It all seemed pretty stagnant until we decided it was time to send out some demo tapes. 5 days after sending the tapes we got a call from Intastella records, and we had ourselves a contract for a single (ROM/Azure Child). In this period, me and Lars had a falling out, and we decided to go our separate ways. I kept the RA name as my solo project. The single release delayed (as they often do) and not until Jan 1999 things started to get interesting. The intastella crew had gotten themselves a big deal, and it ment that BlueMoon wanted to buy their label. So the RA single was released under BlueMoon UK, and not much later I was on a plane to England to work with Dimension 5. I spent two months there, until BlueMoon decided that we all was to go to Bangkok to do albums. And so I did. After spending a year in Bangkok I had finished off the RA album, written the new Dimension 5 album with Kerry Palmer and an Electron Wave album with Charlie Clarke. The albums were released in 2000 under BlueMoon in Thailand, and now re-released, remastered and fixed under NovaTekk/Velvet Inc. (That's it in a nutshell I guess ;-) )

 

Q: Why did you choose to make psytrance over any other medium of music ?

A: Why psytrance? To tell the truth, it's one of the few music genres that gives me chills down my spine when I listen to it. I don't have any intellectual-well-thought-through-reason for it. Very simple, psytrance/trance makes me feel good

 

Q: What other music styles do you like ?

A: Most electronic music is OK in my book, like house, deep house, some club, industrial, drum&bass, ambient and dark ambient, but other than electronica I would have to say world music, indian music, some thai traditional music, japanese traditional, classical (mainly händel, bach, dvorak, grieg and beethoven), grunge, and some jazz. (I'm sure I forgot something in there!) Different things, for moods.

 

Q: Do you project to release a next RA album after "To Sirius" ? When would you release it ?

A: Many people has asked me exactly that, and it's a bit tricky to say WHEN I will release it. But yes, I will make more albums, and I'm planning two at the moment. One ambient, and one more like "To Sirius". I'm hoping to have at least one of them finished for this autumn, but we'll have to see.

 

Q: Is making psytrance sufficient for a living or do you have another job ?

A: Making psytrance is far from enough!! I have my own company that does music and sound for commercials, web pages, TV programs, games etc. Also I get hired for doing engineering/producing, and I collaborate with musicians doing different things than trance. But in all of this I have to say that trance is my main passion.

 

Q: What are you doing in life except working ?

A: Spending much time with my better half and my friends. It's been alot of work, and in this industry you take your work with you home, so you never really feel like you have time off. So I try to chill out as often as I can! =)

 

Q: Your favourite psytrance Groups & Albums ?

A: I have to start off by saying that I don't listen THAT much to psy-trance, and I definately don't keep myself updated on the latest stuff (I'm glad I have friends helping me out in that dept.) (But I can say that I still listen to my "yellow LP" compilation from time to time ;-) ) One of my all time favourites must be Shakta - Silicon Trip which I have listened to recently. Transwave - Helium is also a high ranking one. Of more recent stuff I must say that Vibraspheres new album really blasts! =)

 

Q: Where does your inspiration come from ?

A: I would have to say that my inspiration comes from everyday experiences, dreams and spiritual experiences and also fellow artists, old classical masters, But to pinpoint where inspiration came/comes from, is beyond me. When I sit down and make something, the track usually writes itself. How this happens is still not quite clear to me (and not really that important either). It's just ideas on top of ideas on top of ideas. It was like that when me and Lars started RA, and it still is.

 

Q: Do you use psychedelics and if so has it influenced the music you make ?

A: I don't use psychedelics, but I have tried psychedelics a few times (OK, I was curious! ;-) ). I have tried to compose doing acid once, and that's not something that I'm going to bother with again. Maybe it works for some people, but it's totally useless for me...hehehehe. I don't believe that it is the drugs that does the music for you, but rather a tool that one can use to get inspiration and see new angles to things. If you can reach that creativity without drugs, I don't see the point of doing it.

 

Q: How much time does it take you to make a Track ?

A: Usually it doesn't take very long. The main ideas are written down in a day, or maybe two. But I usually spend time being unsure and contemplating afterwards. Adding and removing a few things, until I get tired of it. I have to do it quite fast though, as I get bored easily. If I get bored while making something, I've reached a point of no return, where the motivation dissappears(and you can hear that quite well). If that happens, I usually put it away for a long time, or I just delete the track.

 

Q: Tell us your recipe to make a good RA Track ?

A: The day that I use a recipe to make music, I'll either have to stop composing, or I have to really re-evaluate my composing. ;-) But if we refrain from using the word "recipe", I can say that I usually let the track write itself. By that I mean ideas upon ideas, or just following the flow. If I start of with a drum track, string section or a riff is random at best, it's just the fact that one segment leads to the idea of another. Usually I play what segments I have in a loop or either jam on top of it, or sit quitely and listen until I hear the next segment in my head. It all depends on my mood and what kind of track I'm making I guess.

 

Q: What kind of equipment do you use to make your Tracks ?

A: The equipment I use have varied so much, so that's quite hard to list up. Right now I have a Kurzweil K2500, Nord Lead, Basstation, Ensoniq EPS sampler, Ensoniq SQ1+ and a Pulsar II soundcard for my 800Mhz PC. A couple of the tracks on the album are using a bigger studio setup which has more external effects like Lexicon reverbs, Ensoniq DP4+, Midiverb4. And synths and samplers like Yamaha A3000, 2x Prophecy, 2x Nord Lead, JV 1080, JV 2080, Mini Moog, Oberheim Oscar, Juno 106, 3x 303, 909 and alot more.

 

Q: Future projects ?

A: Ofcourse me and Charlie both want to do another Electron Wave album (we're just waiting for the first one to be released in July). I also have a "new world music" project with a Thai composer called Jirapan Ansvananda. There is another trance project that is hopefully starting soon with two other Norwegian composers. Actually now I have so many thoughts and ideas floating around, so it's hard to say what will happen, but I can say that "something" will defeniately happen.

 

Q: Is there any artist you'd like to work with ?

A: I would love to work with Shakta, Bilbo - Cosmosis, Dave - Chi AD, John - Mindfield, Vangelis!. One thing is ofcourse the type of music that fellow artists make, another is how you get along with them. If you're on the same wavelength with someone, the music always turns out 300% better. Ofcourse I'll continue my cooperation with Charlie Clarke (Hunab-Ku, Electron Wave). We've already discussed future projects, and we're planning to stay in the same country at some point, so we can work more closely again (hopefully soon!)

 

Q: What do you think about the evolution of psytrance in the last years ? Have things gotten better/worse according to you ?

A: First of all, I haven't seen alot of the trance community compared to alot of other people I know. I've been to a couple of festivals, underground trance parties ofcourse, and Koh Pan Ngan (Thailand). But in my opinion the trance scene has had it's ups and downs. And in the past years it's been changing as it seems to me. And lately it has seemed to me that the trance community is getting slowly more focused on the spiritual aspects of trance, rather than the drugs. Also I've gotten mails from several people lately that shares my point of view. This is not based on any facts what so ever, just a "general feel of things" if you will So I think things are looking up.

 

Q: How do you think trance music will mutate in the future ?

A: I think psytrance will break into even more sub genres than we have today, but I do believe that the trance which contains melodies and harmonies will survive no matter what. I think it touches something that a drumgroove with weird noises on top is incapable of touching. Even though I've heard some killer minimalistic tracks, I find that I'm impressed with the production of the track, and not the emotion put into it. And that's where melodies/harmonies come in....the emotional aspect.

 

Q: Some tips for the beginners who make music ?

A:

- Don't buy monophonic synths with all your money. Wait with the 303's and 909's, and buy something which has 16 channels.

- Be patient.

- The equipment is tools. It doesn't make the music for you.

- You can do alot even if you don't have the newest/coolest equipment.

- Try to be as open minded as possible when you compose.

- Being critical is fine, but don't take it to far. You'll end up destroying the "rawness" of the track and end up with something emotionless and boring.

- Stop finetuning a track when 'you're making changes and not improvements'.

 

Q: A more unexpected question to conclude : what are you spiritual beliefs ?

A: Oooh.....a bit personal I think ? =) I believe in one God and I also believe that we're all part of God, but that God is all of us. Or in other words: "We're all a slice of the same cosmic pizza" ... I also firmly believe in reincarnation. What you choose to call "the one God" is really less important I think. The main differences in religions all over the world I think is human made, and has little to do with the truth that lies beneath the surface. Entities like: Ganesha, Shiva, RA, Azekiel, etc etc....are names for entities that surround us. Equivalent to the Archangels in the Catholic faith. It's all the same stuff I think, it just depends what names you want to use.

 

Thx a lot for these great answers and good luck with your upcoming releases !