Pop Experiment: Aside from frosk.org, there are a few other websites (My Space, Photo Box) showcasing your work. Is this intentional or accidental?

Natasha: A lot of the times it is absolutely intentional. I love how the Internet links people with similar interests together on the same platform, and I have fallen in love with quite a little handfull with great online communities. Livejournal has been my top favorite for quite a few years now, it has a great friends-list-function where you can watch other people’s journals and it also have awesome privacy settings! I also try to frequent places like flickr, myspace and probably a dozen more, mostly because I have come upon amazing, but quite different people on each individual site, so it is hard to gather all my forces in one place! I try to reply to everybody who sends me a message somewhere, but it might take me a little time before people get their answers!

The photobox site is a bit quirky for me as I know nothing about it! It must have been somebody else featuring my images on there. Even though I am grateful for the publicity, I would normally appreciate if people asked before they pasted my images on a web page I dont have control over though!

Pop Experiment: Do you make a living with your photography? If yes, could you give us a few details on how you work? If not, is there a link between your passion for photography and your day-to-day job?

Natasha: Up until this point I have always been focused on making photography be a part of myself instead of putting it on the side and outside of myself, so most pictures on my website are taken directly from my life and work as a good mood-indicator about my life in the moment the pictures were taken. I should mention that right now I feel I am at a break-through point, because after 5 years I finally feel somewhat finished with documenting ONLY myself and the little bubble around me. So I have new plans now. Greater plans. But they are still kind of secret, and I wont tell you! But keep watching frosk.org this fall, there will be lots of new great things going on!

I have made a living of my photography up until this point, but it is not as glamorous as it sounds. During the latest two years I’ve worked in a modern portrait studio where you take happy family portraits on a white background. The images I’ve taken at work are extremely different from my own pictures, and if you saw one of my images I’ve taken at work you could probably not tell that it was my image. All photographers working at the studio had to produce quite similar, generic pictures to fit into the concept. Working for the portrait studio was quite a stressful job, and you had very little creative freedom. I ended up feeling more like a factory worker than a photographer in the end.

As of this summer I dont work there anymore, and I’ve been lucky enough to get myself a little space in an atelier together with other artists. So this year I can finally become a full time artist as they say! (Haha, I still am not comfortable calling myself an artist and I probably never will!) Now I can finally focus fulltime on my own projects! I almost don’t have words about how much I am looking forward to it!

Pop Experiment: What can you tell us about the region you live in?

Natasha: As I mentioned in the start, for me one of the best things with the Internet is how it binds people together because they have an interest in common, instead of binding people together because of their location. I never had to go public with my various locations before since I haven’t worked outside of the Internet, but now that I’ve gone freelance I might have too! I never meant to hide my location because I wanted to be all mysterious about it, but simply because I liked the idea that people were looking at MY images, but they had to use THEIR mind to find a setting around the images since they knew very little about me and my surroundings. I’ve sometimes had the experience that a few special things are more beautiful when it is untouched and pure. When the image just speaks for itself.

But you have probably figured that I like places with dramatic northern, western, rugged looking nature. My favorite place in the whole wide world would have to be Northern Norway in Scandinavia. I’ve never seen anything like it anywhere else. With its steep rugged mountains that are reaching directly from the sea directly up into the sky. I felt incredibly in harmony with the rest of the world when I was there. If anybody has the opportunity to travel to Northern Norway they shouldn’t miss out!

Pop Experiment: What can you tell us about your background? Where did you go to school? What did you study? How did you begin? What artists or things have inspired you? Continue to?

Natasha: I bought my first camera at 16 after I made the dreadful discovery that there wasn’t a single image of me from I was 7 or 8 years old and up until the point where I decided to get a camera. I guess the family camera broke at 8, and we never got a new one until I bought myself one. I decided from that point forward that I would try to document as much of my life as possible, and that is how I started to take pictures.

I was pretty blank when I first got the camera, I knew nothing about cameras or their settings, and I just had to try and fail until I got things somewhat right. After I had taken pictures for a couple of years, people started to hire me for freelance work on the side of my drama education. The moment I was done with my drama education I never looked back and haven’t been on a stage since (but that is a whole other story)! I was luckily and very quickly offered a non-glamorous full-time job as a school-photographer, driving around for 13 hours in a car with 80kg of photographic equipment to schools all over the place. But it was a nice stepping stone for me. After working as a school photographer for half a year, I applied for the job at the portrait studio which I got. I probably wouldn’t have gotten it without my experience as a school-photographer, because I am completely autodidact, and don’t have a single hour of formal education in any kind photographic work.

When it comes to inspiring artists, my favorite photographer is Jan Saudek. Even though I look up to him on so many levels, it doesn’t mean I want to create the same type of imagery as him. He manages to turn something that otherwise would seem pornographic into something beautiful. He has always been ahead of his time in so many ways. He is a very unique individual. I was lucky enough to meet him in Prague this summer, and he has an amazing charisma.

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Arne Van Petegem of Styrofoam finished a North American tour last November, returned to his native Belgium and finished a collaborative album in February, and started work on his own new album last month. He played with Death Cab for Cutie in Amsterdam on June 25th and will play with Low in Antwerp on July 29th. On his last album, Nothings Lost, released in 2004, he worked together with artists Valerie Trabeljhar (Lali Puna), Andrew Kenny (The American Analog Set), Ben Gibbard (Death Cab for Cutie, The Postal Service), Bent Van Looy (Das Pop), and Alias. In addition, he creates remixes prolifically. He is one of the many strong artists on the Berlin-based Morr Music label whose passion and commitment to his craft shine through. Glitch-pop impresario Arne spoke with us recently.

“lately it seems more as if the music making itself turns into an inspiration”

PE: How did you get into music?
ARNE: I went to music school starting age six and then when I was twelve I moved on to playing guitar. I had my first band when I was fifteen, playing mostly cover versions and a couple years later I got into more noisy pop stuff like sonic youth, dinosaur jr and hüsker dü and that’s when things became more serious and putting out a record of my own seemed possible all of a sudden. After a while I got sort of tired of playing in bands, so i bought myself a four track tape recorder and started experimenting on my own, gradually adding more electronic instruments and computer production to the mix.

PE: What instruments do you play?
ARNE: I play the guitar (electric + aocustic), I sing and I play some keyboards - I guess like most “electronic” producers in that aspect I’m mainly restricted to one fingered melodies. I’d love to be able to really play keyboards, maybe I should take a course or something. :)

PE: What do you like best about what you do?
ARNE: I think the most fascinating thing is the constant search you seem to be on, which can be very frustrating on the one hand, but very rewarding as well when things end up working out. There’s nothing that beats firing up a just finished new song on the ipod and walking through town.

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GimmiJapan is a Danish band that merges dreamy female vocals with guitar, bass, drums (among other instruments) and structured electronic noise to create harmonious, complex songs that are easy to listen to. With two releases (a demo and an EP) so far, and another EP on the way we recently had the pleasure of speaking with drummer and laptop programmer, Casper, regarding the band, its influences and some of their favorite foods.

PE: How did GimmiJapan form?
GIMMIJAPAN: The Bass player, Ruben and I knew each other from school, and Ruben moved to London for a couple of years, but when he got back a mutual friend had started a band with this weird girl who just got out of Jehovah’s Witnesses and became a lesbian for a period. This woman turned out to be Therese of GimmiJapan. We tried to form something great for a year or so back in our hometown (Aalborg), but could not agree on the terms, so we split up and moved to the Capital, Copenhagen. Ruben, Therese and I agreed to give it another go, and began to make music as a trio with the computer as a forth partner. It worked out ok, but we needed a guitar player, and tried different people out until we found Morten who fit in perfectly and had the right approach. After that we became GimmiJapan. By the way, we are planning on recording an EP over the summer, and rerecord some of the tracks from our myspace profile. We want them to be more sensual and with less effects on vocal and drums. Also, we are planning a tour through Sweden and Finland in the fall.

PE: When did you first get into music? First band? How did the computer enter the scene for you?
GIMMEJAPAN: I (Casper – laptop, drums) started playing ´cause my dad was a drummer as well, and I kind of looked up to that. Ruben (bass) started cause he heard that it is a good way to pick up girls, unfortunately he picked the bass instead of the guitar! Morten (guitar) liked the Pixies and grabbed a guitar to be like them. Therese (vocals, organ) started in school and has a background strongly inspired by the early trip hop scene. GimmiJapan was the first real band for Therese, Morten played in some indiebands in his hometown, me (Casper) and Ruben played in a Jazz band together.

PE: What motivates you to play music?
GIMMIJAPAN: We have got a lot of stuff that needs to be said and a lot of feelings and moods are projected via the songs.

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Recently, Deborah of Pop Experiment had the pleasure of talking with Shawn James Seymour and Yoshimi Tomida of Lullatone. “Lullatone’s music is cute!” they say.

We say it is that, plus more.

With three released albums (Computer Recital, My Petit Melodies, and Little Songs About Raindrops) and another on the way (Lullatone Plays Pajama Pop for You), Lullatone has created worlds where the sounds are gentle, interesting, varied, layered, and evocative of afternoon sunshowers, dreamy summer naps and languid days spent painting, writing, and watching the moon move across the sky.

This music is contemporarily electronic, but full of the natural world, be they the sounds of drinking orange juice, or the sense you get of being outside while listening to Lullatone at your computer with your headphones on.

Some say it is minimalist, and it is essential, using only what is needed to convey its incredibly lush sentiments, leaving the rest to you, the listener.

PE: I love the organic nature of your music and vocals. Do you have a way of describing/defining it?
SHAWN: Thank you! We usually call it pajama pop. A lot of musicians and artists seem to want to avoid genres and descriptions of their music, but I think it is fun to think about that kind of stuff. Especially if you make up your own genre name!

PE: I read that many of your songs grew out of lullabies you were writing for Yoshimi…has this changed over time?
SHAWN: Yeah, it has really. Before I would stay up all night every night. I only slept like 2-3 hours a day, so it was a good chance for me to make these sleepy sounds for her while she was snoozing by my side. But now I work with Junior High School kids, teaching English, and I usually end up playing basketball or running or something with them after school. So, I am too sleepy at night to make lullabies these days. Every time I try I fall asleep in the studio (it happens a lot).
YOSHIMI: He always woke me up in the middle of night to play the lullabies he made for me!

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Dean Garcia Versatile and innovative musician Dean Garcia has played and collaborated with many musicians over the years, creating distinctive and interesting sounds. Born in Kentish Town London, he left school at 15, and is self-taught on the bass, guitar and drums. He started off working and touring with the likes of the Eurythmics, Mick Jagger, and Sinead O’Conner, and then played in State of Play in the late ’80s where he met Toni Halliday. They created Curve in 1991, composing and performing incredibly innovative music together until deciding to move on to other things in 2004. Dean continues to bring his distinctive sound to his collaborations with other artists, including his daughter, Rose Berlin and The Black Holes. Dean lives and works in London, England with his family. Popexperiment had the pleasure of asking Dean a few questions. This is what he had to say.

PE: In Curve you manged to create a new sound, a rock without all the baggage associated with it. Is there anything you’d like to share about that time or the work you did on the Curve project?
DEAN: A wonderful chaotic time was had by all….

PE: What is Doglab?
DEAN: It’s was more of a studio identity for collaborations. I’ve ditched that now and pulled the site and am in the middle of setting up a new one probably under my own name this time (see www.deangarcia.com) …I like to chop and change things and names for the work I do. [note: Doglab was a website Dean had up for a while with mp3’s of his recent collaborations and links to artists he was working with.]

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