You have to get those songs. Interview with musician Detlef / Day

Return to the Latvian popular music scene in a crowded concert in the autumn of last year Palladium Riga, Uldis Dirnen, who is more known for the stage name Detlefs (it has climbed since the television show Talent factory times) has released a new album Memories of non -existent events. « Palladium The concert created interesting reflections in 2023 – as if I were doing a foreign profession. Being in music is one, but on stage – something from another planet. I watch it with great interest, « says Detlefs about the first concert after a long pause he spent many years in London and New York, but now mostly lives in Valka, where his wife Dace (once worked in music management) on the second floor of the restored parents’ home. Mate Published greetings last Christmas – Uld’s sunny song song: « The bunny in the forest is called: / Where’s my friend?

The concert has not been much for Detlef in these few years after returning, but at the Culture House Wiktoria Ulda’s hometown in Liepaja and last year at the festival Positivus There was no shortage of listeners in Lucavsala. On April 5, Detlef invites to the opening of his new album – this time on the Tallinas Street Quarter In the hangar. See you at Uldi at the moment, who has fallen not only on the virtual release of the new album, but also on the day of the vinyl album test press on the day of listening – the black great hitch is already on the player, prepared a sparkling wine bottle to celebrate this event with a group of members in the basement.

Remind the artist to our previous meeting Navel In the studio, the most important Latvian music recording is viewed on the broadcast Lightning on the bottomwhere we talked about Detlef’s 2004 album You pretend to be yourself. This is probably the most important thing that does not change for decades – Uldis is still as shy as in our first interview, which in turn happened about twenty years ago. He explains that it is probably from the wind of Liepaja, which has blown out all the thoughts out of his head in childhood, because as two more hopeless interviewees, each of which has to be pulled out « with the strangles », we also remember two Liepaja residents – Vilnis Krieviņš and Modri ​​Sterns from Livs.

The new album, according to its name, is the memories of events that have not been at all. Perhaps our two and conversations are not at all, and we are just pretending to be in Riga, seeing the drum set, the wide on the player and the undocated bottle of champagne? Perhaps a detlef is a stupid chatter and pretends to be someone who doesn’t speak?

Why did you disappear at all those many years ago? The rest of your group continued to work successfully: Kaspars Ansons became one of Latvia’s most sought -after producers, Marek Ameriks runs jazz music company Jersika Records, plays in groups Satellites LV and Riga Fashion.

I don’t even remember when I was the last concert at the time. It could be someone of the group Detlef Zoo album In a closet (2007) Tour concerts. The global financial crisis of 2008 coincided with Detlef Zoo In the end, and as one of the seeming solutions was Spridis’s scenario – to go in the world! Alongside the music, I started to get passionate about the videos – primitive 2D animation, video assembly, some kind of advertising rolls – later I started filming myself. I am looking for ways to develop in that direction.

I joined the Brighton Film School, though I wouldn’t call it a school, but rather an interest group that collects enthusiasts and trying to do something for the year. The wife was in practice in a music management company. So also started living abroad. It was nowhere far from filming – some short films and my own flights, but nothing serious. Such a radical change of activity for a short time ventilates the head. Only later did I realize that this industry could not get through the window, but experience, of course, is useful today while working in music. After that, New York came, and probably London would be released if it was possible to get to New York right away. Dace won the green card and then we left. New York after England was like day -to -night. We moved to Brooklyn and started slowly. Sunday I used to spend in a Brooklyn laundry reading by reading a magazine Tape OP, Who had come to my sight already in Latvia around 2005, when I subscribed to it. There were various casual work in filming, assembly, assistant photo sessions. I was in practice with a fairly well -known photographer Jessie, who is one of the last to picture Kobein and Nirvana. I also participated in his books later Kurt Cobain: The Last Session In making, I am also mentioned in it. In the book Kurt Kobein’s last photo session is almost full -length – I ran negative to the laboratory and after the printer cartridge, because at the beginning of the creation phase the book was printed at home and put together on the floor to understand the layout and sequence of it all. Very interesting time.

Didn’t you try to play in a pub in New York, even about beer? Many later famous musicians like The Police, At first they played in empty clubs and pubs.

It was another time. At that time, I had to go to the concerts to hear something at all. Now people have enough Youtube Friday night, loudly turning it at home. I don’t think you can get somewhere as you walk this way, if you are just a miracle child. They come to New York from all over the world and then struggle there trying to get out. There are many music, but most of them get to know something new at all.

It is probably that about ninety percent is enough for what you already know. But the ten percent remain, but the joy of a new discovery when you see an unknown musician and Kaifo from it.

Mostly only young people are looking for something. At that time, the music myself had become so important, not so much to get somewhere and show something at all costs. I’m a pretty self -sufficient person in music, I can sit, write songs myself and be happy with it. I wrote songs all the time, so now it is not difficult to record and release something because I have accumulated and over time sifted, who has passed the criticism of time and not. The music hadn’t left me, everything I needed at hand. In general, the environment is doing quite a bit with you. I felt it, both writing music and in general – what’s doing in my head. It was for the first time in the Brooklyn apartment that I tried my carpenter’s ability for the first time in my life. I had a white IKEA table on which the laptop stood. So plastic was so damaged by the mood that I decided to make a table from the palettes, which would also be more suitable for working with music. On the fourth floor window, I saw the palettes in the courtyard of the house. The guardian of the building was a Mexican boy who was happy to agree to sell his palette for five dollars with delivery to the door! I bought some tools, a sander and … Later, when we got out, I sold a table to a record studio for $ 400.

You went to the concerts?

I hardly don’t like being in the crowd, so I don’t go to the concerts myself, but from the England stage, a concert in the center of Barbiken, in the center of Barbiken, seems to be remembered in 2013. In New York to Future Islands We were.

The reason for the return was longing for Latvia?

Somehow it seemed that it was enough and time. Such a teen life cannot be lived forever. Children need to think about. But morally was enough. Three years in New York is enough time to survive it all, and we came to the idea of ​​returning very organically.

You are quite different in the new album than in the earlier recordings. Even the voice cannot be recognized at once. The only such brighter piece was 1998.

Time passed. « 1998 » is the year when that song was written in a barn where we started.

So here is not only in London and New York in the evenings, but also older?

This album contains songs that I had to get away from myself. They just didn’t make them peace and were all the time, sounding in my head. Now that they finish, they stop sounding.

When the jar is filled with contents, can you screw the lid on top?

Yes, you have preserved them and have not returned to this jar.

But in order to play at the concert, the lid must be opened again.

You don’t have anything there or supplement. You already know what it is, and it is partly consumed by yourself.

Since the products are written – ready for use? You no longer have to cook, spices.

That’s the court. As a result, it was not important how the sound of these songs will fit in today. It didn’t matter in this case. I have nothing in return that they are not hits or what may seem to anyone in the context of these songs. The key was to get those songs away. Not just in a bad sense.

The title of the album is Memories of non -existent events. Other times, you can’t even distinguish between memories and what you want to be memories.

The brain is already changing for protective purposes, sometimes changing something in your memories. In general, others say they only remember the good. Its songs are tied to some particular moment or time, London or New York. These are important songs for me, so they didn’t peace. If there are no eighteen years of pause between albums, you are not able to see them in such a « natural color » yet. In other words, over time they mature, and you are no longer in doubt, you are not thinking about how it sounds. You still don’t know what it is about a new song. If you listen to it in a year, you may not want it to your new album anymore. For almost eighteen years, it was quite easy to choose the album for the album. Also, the genre and fashion – sometimes you are tied to what’s up to date, but not two years later, and then you don’t want it naturally anymore.

I know that one of the most sought -after drummers is playing with you now (Peter Lunde from Milk’s adventures and The Sound Poets).

Pois is quite busy. He is on the record, but the concerts have to look at how it will be. Most of the bass has been played by Martin, and the rest I myself – guitar, synthesizers and strings. Not live but built on a computer. Most healed and in principle everything else was built in my home studio in Valka, only the drums we wrote elsewhere. Nostalgia came up – I bought such an old one Yamaha I wrote demo at the time the digital remote that I had before England. I also entered the guitars and sang it. It seemed like it needed. At the concert guitar will play Elvis Prekis (Time dog).

Have you watched what’s going on now in Latvian music? Something like or dislike?

No, I didn’t listen quite deliberately, at least during this period when I was working on the album to have peace from any influence. If something good is what I have to hear, the same comes to me. I let myself come. I only catch foreign music. Is such a girl from New York, she plays in a group Pretty SickWhat I’m listening to now.

The concerts will be?

So far this one. For me, concerts are a very difficult event. I’m trying to get myself tame not to be afraid to play.

Don’t feel comfortable?

Yes. I feel comfortable enough when I play my songs, but I have had a nightmare from day one. I have also turned my back against the spectators like Morrison, and I was accused of it in the past.

But pouring it into the TV « Factory » didn’t make all the simpler and fear smaller?

There people are watching you constantly – you are thrown yourself in the water, but you can’t swim yet. It had nothing to do with music at all. I didn’t even apply for that show myself. I was announced. I would never do it in my life.

There will be old songs at the concert?

Yes, its loudest will, of course, be. I understand the people who want to hear the style innocent. These songs are tied to them some emotions, times and events. It is not my right now to decide that this song is no longer good. It is interesting to be active back in music. Some deadlines appear again. Like the freedom of the first album when no one has to report. It is important that you hear yourself in your music by listening to many years later. It does not matter whether it is good or bad, the key to reflecting you as accurate as possible. Not to be on the top today, but to see yourself clearly, listening to it in ten years.

Detleph

Tallinn Quarter In the hangar 5.IV 20
Tickets ekase.lv EUR 30