Music that's not suitable For Restaurants
By Clubbers Guide (1999)
(Tthis interview took place on 29th March 2001, the day after Felix's concert at 13th Note Club in Glasgow. Originally published in 'Clubbers Guide')
Berlin and Cologne are renowned as centres for experiments in music, art and ways of life. Thanks to Felix Kubin and his Gagarin label, Hamburg should soon be joining them on the map. Kubin began his career in Futurist noise bands like Die Egozentrischen Zwei and Klangkrieg, before setting out on his own to explore the possibilities of psycho sci-fi pop. A Kubin live performance is awe-inspiring, as (with or without his pet plastic skull) he teases twisted rhythms and squelchy beats out of his array of antique synths, while haranguing his audience to join him in freaky dancing and buy him glasses of whisky. When electronic music has largely become the province of bald guys nodding their heads over laptops, Kubin's style and charisma come as a blast of fresh air. His madness has a purpose though. "I make no compromises with my music so I do a trick where I combine me as a person on stage with a strong appearance with music that is quite manic.
By this combination I lead the audience to trust me. A good appearance on stage can make it possible to transport quite difficult music to people".
In person Kubin is quite a serious type, passionately committed to music and challenging aesthetic and political orthodoxies. One minute he's playing records by his label mates Electric Helgoland and enthusing over the vibrancy of the Hamburg scene, the next digging out obscure German tape-loop experiments and lamenting the conformity of contemporary music. His background is in contemporary classical music, his first passion electro-acoustic tape music. "The first thing I did (as Kubin) was film music for animations that contained lots of violence, pornography and cold social relations, by Mariola Brillowska, who makes my records covers. I made the music quite laidback, rather melancholy, some clear melodies but not quite accessible. People were already seeing me in this easy listening, eerie listening type of music. If something gets too easy for me - I have a kind of timebomb go off in my body and I do something else."
That something else would prove to be a deranged series of electro classics called things like "Babelfish Swing Ballet" and "I Lost My Heart In Reykjavik". These records matched extreme strangeness with maximum danceability, but have real depth. Again, Kubin credits this to classical background. "One of my favourite composers is Bartok, and the way I play organ, or the way I use harmonies for rhythms goes back to Bartok."
Another historical figure who's influenced Kubin is Ludwig II of Bavaria, a King who created a lake complete with foliage and swans in his castle , whose regal attire Kubin has assumed in recent photos. "Someone sent me a picture, commenting on the resemblance. Ludwig II was like a perfect Dadaist without knowing it, but he lost his mind, I hope I will not. When I dress as him it is not totally arbitrary, though. It is important to include things from your daily life into music, because there are so many shallow personalities in music."
His distaste for the narcissicism of pop reaches hilarious heights in his cover of Lionel Richie's "Hello", which he turns into an autistic parody of one of the most horrible songs ever written. Kubin laments a lost golden age when "in the 50s and 60s tape music was so new and popular it was played on the radio. Pierre Henry carried it far because he was not afraid of pop music. 'Psyche Rock' was a perfect mix of psychedelic tape loops and pop melodies. I would like to re-create this type of music."
But how can the shock of the new be recreated in a world where electronic music is so commonplace it's used to advertise everything from cars to condoms? I leave Kubin to point the way forward. "There has been really good electronic music that you could easily play in a restaurant, it can be taken out of it's context and abused for that. That should be a new maxim for electronic music: Music That's Not Suitable For Restaurants."