TB: Your music and performance have a very ritualistic element. What are a few things you're inspired by?
YOD: We both come from different backgrounds and are inspired by different art mediums, which is great, because that’s what really shapes the project.
Barkosina: My main inspiration comes from performance art, punk, literature/poetry and rave culture. All those art forms, I believe, are interconnected and have very strong social and political movement behind them. An edgy, expressive, liberal, raw, honest, authentic and most importantly, an open dialogue in between everyday life and Art. Musically, people like Lydia Lunch, Patti Smith, Nina Hagen, Nico… Well, all the femme fatal figures, who have been amplifying their soul using a mic, in their very own way, is extremely powerful and inspiring. As much as I am into electronic music production, the vocal side of it, is definitely crucial. Having a female voice is not a cliché. If you have things to say, it’s an absolute game changer. Don’t treat your voice as a sample, treat it as a lead! And beloved Einstürzenden Neubauten and Suicide, all have been large influences.
Every performance is a ritual, and it has repetitive element to it, yet each time the experience will vary. As in performance art, you set up your narrative/material, yet you don’t know where exactly it will take you to. Depending on the environment, culture, country, people and places... those are extra ingredients. The audience plays a major role and I like to have direct contact with them if that’s possible. There is always an intense vibration and energy exchange in between the performer and the audience and it creates frequencies, exactly as sound does. Sometimes it works out perfectly, sometimes it doesn’t. All this is material to work with while performing. Even having technical issues can burst into totally new material to work with.
Jerome: For the past 3 years, my influence has been Barkosina :). We create and also live together, as dangerous and difficult as it sounds, it is also a beautiful experience. There is not much distinction in between everyday life and creative time anymore. There was no master plan from the beginning and still isn't, we don’t try to sound like people we listen to or write words of others. In the most honest way, we simply document our poetic life; we became the process and as the result, the tool reshapes his creators in an infinite loop… The first band I fell in love with was The Cure, I saw them live in 89 and it had a massive impact on me. That same year I started to play drums and 30 years after I’m still into patterns and emotional melodies. In the nineties I met OCCULT 69, who ended up becoming one of my best friends, but also had a big influence on me. He introduced me to the sound of Basic Channel and Disko B but also Mille Plateaux and Panasonic. At that time I started to buy more and more electronic music and got into music production. Wordsound Records / Scorn / Techno Animal were my main influences but also the experiments of Pete Kember (Spacemen 3) with his project E.AR. Since then I keep my ears open expecting the unexpected.
