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AmbiEntrance: Can we start with your name? What does "Vir Unis" mean, why did you choose it and how is it pronounced... (I figure it's either "veer OO-nis", or "vur YU-nis")
Vir Unis: Pronounced "veer" "oonis".... The name Vir Unis means "one" or "united" "man" in Latin, the source language. It really is quite a personal and intense path for myself to identify with this name which bridges my interior and personal life to my social one, ultimately unifying the two really. I've been in bands for years and now it's only me left.
I wanted something that would signify this process of individuation in my musical work. I'm on my own here collaborating with other artists, giving myself fully to the process. It's all about becoming a decent and compassionate human being, about becoming someone that is whole, less fragmented, adding to the good of the world. Music does this for me, it's my initiation into the world of the living, it helps me live up, as closely as possible, to my full potential.
AmbiEntrance: How did you become so actively conscientious? What do you do just for fun?
Vir Unis: I've really been blessed to have met some beautiful people in this life, most notably my wife, Rashelle, who has shown me what compassion and reverence for life truly is, helping me live a life sensitive to my surroundings. A series of profound revelations, a close friend dying, psychedelic experiences, and intense catharsis have really shaken me up in the past ten to twelve years and have shown me that the best way to live life to the fullest is to give fully and also be able to receive wisdom and guidance from other people. Of course I don't always meet this ideal, but I do try daily.
Just for fun? Well, I do music for fun ultimately, even though it goes much deeper than that for me. I also like to go swimming, mountain biking, and read books. In fact, mountain biking, or any kind of biking, is wonderful. I go on what I call "sound rides" where I hop on my bike and ride wherever, with no idea where I'm going and just listen to the surrounding environment and how it crossfades and morphs into other sounds. When I lived in Chicago I would do this constantly, noticing the different textures and harmonics between various neighborhoods, ethnic regions, business districts, and the lake. Each place has its own unique sound taste. It's infinitely rewarding to tune into this sonic energy of so many people amassed in such small areas of land. I'm moving to New York soon and really looking forward to my "sound rides" there.
I also do a lot of mountain biking with Steve Roach when I go out to Tucson to work on various projects. It's hard to keep up with him all the time on the bike trails though, as he's quite the experienced biker and in such excellent shape! We have a blast riding through the canyons, desert, and mountains. Such beautiful scenery, and the sound out there is so expansive. This really adds a unique dimension to the energy in the music we create, and helps to keep us focused on our work.
AmbiEntrance: How long have you been making music and what were your early explorations like?
Vir Unis: I've been making music for about 17 years now. I started playing a drum kit when I was 13 years old, playing with my older brother's "new wave" band in local bars and clubs. My brother had a Moog Rogue, which is a monophonic analog synthesizer and I also had a set of Mattel Synsonic Drums, so that started my exploration into electronic music. Sometimes we'd set up a tape recorder and just try to make the most alien sounds. A couple years later, I eventually moved over to primarily playing the synthesizer and would experiment at making electronic based music on my own, before and after band rehearsals.
I proceeded to spend the next ten years recording music, primarily alone, on four track and DAT, with one FX processor, synthesizer, 12-bit mono sampler, and a drum machine, getting lost in the space I was creating. Eventually I upgraded to a more sophisticated setup, including digital synthesizers, and computers. This solitary ritual completely took over my musical life and hence the one man status. My early music was somewhat influenced by David Sylvian, Brian Eno, John Cage, and early electronic experiments from the 50's and 60's. The music I made then could be considered ambient or atmospheric, but also filled with a lot of more industrial and synthetic sounds too.
AmbiEntrance: I always seem to read about Vir Unis in conjunction with the term, Fractal Groove... What exactly *is* a Fractal Groove?
Vir Unis: A "fractal groove", in relation to what myself and Steve are doing, is the result of a process born out of computer/hard disk recording and its non-linear approach to editing sound. By replicating, mutating and guiding the evolution of electronic grooves through various generations, you can create patterns within patterns that contain elements of the whole though display a sound unique to that particular groove. All grooves are 100% original and built from the ground up as they are moved along the production line. There is a sort of "survival of the fittest" sense to this whole ordeal, so only the most intense reach the final edit. Like a queen bee, one single groove can give birth to dozens or more, all unique, but all containing the code of the original pattern.
AmbiEntrance: The Drift Inside is your first solo release, though you've been previously heard in several other notable ambient/electronic releases (Imaginarium, Body Electric, Ambient Expanse). How did you first get involved with Ma Ja Le?
Vir Unis: I met Chris Short (Ma Ja Le/guitarist) through mutual friends back in 1992 when I first moved to Chicago. I met Paul Vnuk (Ma Ja Le/keyboardist) through Chris and would participate as a guest artist at a couple of their performances in Milwaukee. After realizing that the music we were improvising on stage had to be organized into an album, we went into my home studio and started cooking up "Imaginarium" on my, now quite antiquated, PC. We took a lot of source material that we recorded on digital tape from the perfomances and sort of sliced and diced an album. Amidst technical glitches, abbreviated inspiration, interesting living room performances, and varying schedules we managed to finish it in about 4-5 months. During the middle of recording we opened up a show in Milwaukee for Steve Roach.
AmbiEntrance: Tell us about linking up with Steve Roach for Body Electric...
Vir Unis: I met Steve Roach in Milwaukee at the show which Ma Ja Le and myself were performing before him. To be quite honest, I had really never heard much of him or his music until that time. However, I remember being quite moved hearing his music live and in such an intimate theater. It was called the Eagle's Nest and it was this 1940's type club with a bowling alley beneath. You could actually hear bowlers knocking pins down while Steve was performing, though it really added to the cosmic thunder like sounds he was producing at the time (On This Planet tour).
The honesty and intimacy that he displayed on stage, creating a magical soundwall, in such a unique performance really blew me away. I really admired him for being able to get on stage alone and reveal such profound and intensely personal music. Steve Roach is to ambient music what Henry Miller is to literature. I mean, he sets the music on fire like Henry did with the word, projecting such a burning sense of self and a relentless will to jump into the current of the now, regardless of what the public may or may not perceive. He is daring, takes risks, and very honest, without brutality....
Later, I gave him a CD-R of some solo music that I was working on at the time as well as samples from Imaginarium. He called me about a month later and started the dialogue. We found out that we had a lot to share on the personal, spiritual, and musical level and the trading of DATs flowed like a river between Chicago and Tucson, ultimately creating Body Electric, and his production and guidance on the completion of Imaginarium, thus paving the way for future collaborations.
AmbiEntrance: How did working on those projects gear you up for The Drift Inside?
Vir Unis: Working on these projects that are more based on the fractal grooves and other more complex computer editing projects, gave me the space and desire to explore the more linear approach to creating multi-tracked layered performances, which is really what I was doing with 4 and 8-track analog tape decks in the previous ten years. I needed to balance out the newer approaches and wanted to explore the more self-reflective side of my music, much like the The Undivided Flow on Mirage's Ambient Expanse compilation. There are very little computer treatments on The Drift Inside in comparison to Body Electric. There are some, but most of it is hitting play and record and just playing the synthesizer. It was a nice interlude between the other projects that I've been working on in the last 2 years.
AmbiEntrance: So you've given up the tribal beats and fractal grooves this time, and I must say the results are gorgeous... what was your inspiration for the tracks of The Drift Inside?
Vir Unis: Thank you. I've been into "space" music for quite some time and really wanted to explore this in a very direct way, without beats or grooves to carry the atmospherics. I wanted to make the concept of "space" original and my own. My idea was more the inner space, the inner drift that sustains life, the sacred space that contains the self, which mirrors the macrocosmic space that contains all.
The understanding that there is a vast amount of space within us all, which we inhabit every second of our lives, is something that I particularly pay attention to and it's this feeling that I was driven to instill in The Drift Inside, a sort of soundtrack for personal sanctuary.
AmbiEntrance: How did the Peoria Planetarium gig come about? Is there a "space" link here between your music and the venue?
Vir Unis: I've grown up in the Peoria area and would go to the planetarium as a child in grade school. I remember being utterly fascinated and spellbound by the star machine and the NASA images that they would show. This is really the foundation for my interest in atmospheric music, since a lot of these films and presentations were tracked with music by Brian Eno and his cronies. It's a small and cute little dome with awesome acoutics, with a natural sort of surround sound and I just really wanted to do something to help them out. They're terribly underfunded and in great need of modernizing a lot of their equipment.
So, with some people there, I helped organize a fundraiser for the planetarium along with the local NPR station, WCBU 89.9FM. They carry the Hearts of Space show, so it all ties in rather nicely. Paul Adams, a local recording artist, will also be performing at this show. I'll also be using a lot of computer animation done on SGI machines by Steven Rooke, a video entitled The Electric Body, projecting it on three screens around the dome. Steven Rooke did the cover artwork for Body Electric. Imagine this fully animated on 3 large screens!
AmbiEntrance: (Now that it's over...) How would you say the show went? What was the audience reaction in general?
Vir Unis: The Planetarium concert actually turned out better than I anticipated. The turnout was pretty good for this area and the audience seemed to enjoy the new sounds and animation. The Museum doesn't usually do stuff like this, so it was a spark to get something going, which was really what I wanted out of this; to inspire them to do creative things, with the resources they have and the people to implement them. With the money they raised, they should be able to get some digital equipment in there and a better sound system, which is sorely needed. I had to provide the speakers for them, as there was no way I could use the old stuff they had. I'm encouraged that it was received as well as it was. I had friends coming to the show from as far away as Minneapolis, so it was really a genuine show of support there. It felt good.
AmbiEntrance: Did you appreciate the moral support from Chris and Paul of Ma Ja Le and James Johnson coming down for the show?
Vir Unis: Yes, I did appreciate it. They came down from Milwaukee and Chicago, so it was good to have them there. I hadn't met James before, but have heard about him, so it was nice to meet him. Paul and Chris I hadn't seen for a year and a half, so seeing them again added to making the night special.
Chris Short, Paul Vnuk Jr. and James Johnson
AmbiEntrance: What can you tell us about your upcoming collab with Steve Roach, Blood Machine? How far along is it and when will it be released?
Vir Unis: There is a 14-minute preview track for Blood Machine on The Electric Body, so this collaboration with Steve is well under way. We're really pulling up the subterranean zones, fusing organic sounds into the heart of the computer machine, digging deep and carving out dark grooves on this one. With all the editing and drawing envelopes on the wave forms, with this project, it's like performing a triple bypass on the PC....
It's been a real self discovery so far, delving into the whole idea of the human relation to machines and dreaming of where we're heading with our silicon based offspring. We're planning on release for late 2000, but probably early 2001, kicking off the real beginning to the 21st century. When you put this into perspective, in the technological landscape that is being created now, you begin to realize just how on the edge of a new world we really are and how, more so than ever, it is with respect, tolerance, and wisdom that we must build a foundation and blueprint for the future. It is an awesome power that we are beginning to wield, and with this new knowledge there must be a full understanding of what it is we hold. If Body Electric is a celebration of the Man/Machine relationship, then Blood Machine is sort of a dark premonition, exploring both sides, negative and positive, drawing a full circle in this sometimes mad rush for knowledge and information.
AmbiEntrance: The Vir Unis website is up and running; did you create the site yourself?
Vir Unis: Yes, I created virunis.com myself. It's really in its infancy stage right now and isn't entirely sophisticated looking, but hopefully serves the information well. I do have plans to develop it into a mail-order web store, but probably won't happen until later this year or next. I need to learn more about putting together web sites. I do think the future of independent artists will rely more and more on this sort of commerce, and it really puts the artist in direct touch with the listeners.
AmbiEntrance: Looks like you know your way around some graphics programs (on your "images" page, particularly and for the The Drift Inside liner notes)... how does artwork tie in with you musical work?
Vir Unis: I consider music to be a visual medium. Not just in imagining pictures while listening to music, but in a much more direct way. I see music when I listen to it. It creates patterns, textures, and all sorts of mandala like structures. In designing images on the computer, I try to capture the things I see in music. Painting, drawing, and computer aided design is all musical too. So, there's this sort of synesthesia that occurs naturally if you tune into it, and that's why a lot of artists are able to cross over into various mediums, because they all derive from the same source.
Working with these computer graphics programs like Photoshop, etc., is not too much different than editing and producing music. Instead of a wave you have a tiff or a jpeg. You mix, match, and mutate them on independent tracks (layers) and then mix them down into a single layered file just like you would an audio file. So, it's really quite fun and interesting to explore this area of expression as well. Also, I've just begun in the last few years so I have the added fun of not really knowing my way around too well, which leads to a lot of time in front of a glowing screen and a sore arm, but also leads to a few "happy accidents".
You had mentioned to me before that you were working with MetaSynth. Really this sort of program ties in this whole idea, so I think it's quite an interesting area to explore and develop in the coming years.
AmbiEntrance: Can you explain your usage of atmospheric, ambient music as a sleep aid?
Vir Unis: Over the last two years I've developed occasional insomnia. I'll have times where I sleep quite sound for long periods of time, then I have a few cycles where I'm tossing and turning most of the night, where sometimes I have radio or tv programming cycling through my head in a monotonous loop. If you think about it, we are bombarded by a multi-media blitz of advertising just about every day. I think that there's a danger of overdosing on information and the brain is trying to absorb these things, subliminally and consciously.
There's over 40 million Americans who suffer from chronic insomnia. This isn't counting undocumented cases or occasional sufferers. There's something going on in this information age of computers, number crunching, global commerce, and digital link that is not quite jiving all the way with human life. The earth is undergoing quite a transformation and I don't think that the individual human persona can always keep up with the relentless agenda of this planetary indentity that is emerging. It's disrupting our sleep cylces and turning our minds inside out at times. Maybe it's all eventually for the good, which is certainly to be determined. But, I really think that introspective/ambient music (as well as many other types of music) has the potential to create an atmosphere of safety and a connection to the inner self that really needs nurturing, respect, and honor. It's a place of refuge, a sanctuary, sorely needed in a world that got itself in a big hurry during the last three centuries. For me, this type of music does create this space for me and helps me heal in many ways, including sleeping and dreaming deeply.
AmbiEntrance: What sorts of projects are you looking forward to next? More solo material or collaborational works?
Vir Unis: Really looking forward to Blood Machine with Steve Roach. I think this project is really going to be quite rewarding for us in the most personal way, as it deepens our friendship and develops an interesting musical language since we're really treading some new ground here.
I do have a solo CD planned for late summer release with GreenHouse Music. I actually played a bit from this new material at the concert as well as excerpts from The Drift Inside, so this release blends nicely with this more introspective and atmospheric material. There may only be two to three longer pieces on this album though.
I also have a collaboration with a speed metal drummer and computer/synthesist musician, MJ Dawn, called Subatomic God, which should be released 2001. This will also be produced with Steve Roach. Fast like drum and bass, but without the usual conventions and sounds you might hear, and still retaining a sense of expansiveness and space. It's a paradox, but that's exactly what we wanted, exploring this juxtaposition of the atomic/industrial machine age and spiritual enlightenment occuring almost simultaneously in the western world; the cosmic strangeness of the two cohabitating in a shrinking world.
Also, I have another budding project with a local band called Torque where I'm playing an acoustic drum kit with a bassist and guitarist, recording live with them, and feeding those recordings into the computer, making loops, and remixing. So, it's going to be a busy year.
AmbiEntrance: Thanks very much for speaking with us. Anyhing you'd like to say in closing?
Vir Unis: It is my pleasure. Thank you for taking the time to ask good questions and for coming to the Planetarium concert. It's a great thing what you're doing here, supporting the music and artists in a genre that doesn't get too much attention. I enjoy Ambientrance and hope to see it continue and thrive. Let's hope that this year and the new millenium next year brings about a more gentle, tolerant, and peaceful world.
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