Svart Recording Artist- Cleaning Women Interview up now
Cleaning Women
Interview- CW04 AKA Tero Vänttinen
1. I know very little about Cleaning Women tell us about this Finnish avat rock project?
Cleaning Women is a group of three cleaners CW01, CW03 and CW04. The official story is that we are from Planet Clinus and we are here to save the world but there is also a side to us that there are three guys living in Helsinki, Finland who make music with self-made and self-customised instruments such as miked laundry racks or coffee bean can bouzouki and metal trash percussions. The group started as an audio-visual performance for a Christmas party in 1996 and has been developing into this 3-piece band with a huge variety of self-made instruments. It is a D-I-Y group, besides building our own instruments, we do most of the stuff related to showbiz by ourselves. Anyhow, it is not a joke neither a gimmick. Our aim is to make good music with interesting sounds.
2. Tell us the story behind Intersubjectivity whats the theme of album?
It has been ten years since our previous album "U" came out. Since then we have been playing gigs and making music for silent films performing live with such films as "My Grandmother" and "Aelita" among others. A year ago we started to think about the new album, and how to do it. We started to gather the material for the album and before we went into the studio we rehearsed for about a month. During that time we composed quite a lot of new stuff, which we wanted to put on the album. For some reason the new stuff was quite melodic, even pop music in our terms, and that felt like a good idea, since we have an aura of being experimental and avant garde. So we wanted to make an avant garde pop album. The title Intersubjectivity comes from the lyrical themes that we look on, which is humanity in all its variety. How do we cleaning robots look at the humanity that we see around us.
3. I here elements of bands like When, Bogus Blimp, Tenhi , Pink Floyd , Can and Television . What bands inspired you to get here?
To be honest, and believe it or not, Cleaning Women has never had much musical heroes collectively. There are a lot of bands people say we sound like that we haven't even heard, such as half of those band aforementioned. Our instruments have been somewhat limited musically, at least in the early days, so there has been a lot of rhythmic elements in our music. Nowadays we are a bit more melodic, due to bigger variety of stringed instruments, but our sound comes from the instruments. For example in the latest album there is hardly any effects at all colouring the sound, let alone overdubbing in the studio.
4. Four words to Describe Cleaning Women sound?
Self-made, original, transitional, hypnotic
5.How did you come to sign and work with Svart Records?
When the album was recorded I asked from Mike Patton's Ipecac records if they have any interest in it, since I know that Patton has seen our band in a festival club in Finland in the early 2000's, and I know that the next time he was in Finland he had asked whether our band still exists. But when they said they have enough material to release for the next year ahead, we went for Svart and they said yes, throwing piles of cash in our direction.
6. What do think ties youre sound into what Svart does its a very special label?
Svart does release a lot of stuff, they are active and work hard. It is not easy to run a record label these days. They are releasing all kinds of stuff, from jazz to black metal and that makes it pretty interesting for me.
7. If you could make a proper video for any track off Intersubjectivity which would it be and why ?
We have made two already; videos for We work it out and Leap of faith are online for everyone to be seen and enjoy.
8. What is a live show like for Cleaning Women how does it differ from recordings?
Soundwise it is pretty much the same, especially comparing to the latest album, which was recorded pretty much live in the studio. But of course in a live show people can see our original instruments and how we use them. Which is usually surprising for them, they are surprised that we really use these instruments to create all the sounds and we don't have any synth pads or triggers or backing tracks. Also I would dare to say, we can create quite an intense feeling which can vary from hypnotic flow to a dance trance, depending on the night and the atmosphere of the venue. It is a powerful experience.
9. How does image play a role into what Cleaning Women creates ?
We are what we are, no question about that.
10. I see Neubaten members helped with Intersubjectivity how did that come about ?
I, CW04, was collaborating with Alexander Hacke and his wife Danielle de Picciotto in 2009 when they came to Helsinki to perform their "Ship of Fools" show. They were travelling around with the show, inviting local musicians in each city with personal instruments to join them on stage. This is how I got to know Alexander. When we were making the new album, we thought about who could mix it and since I knew that Alexander has a studio in Berlin and he is a wonderful guy, we asked him. Luckily, he said yes. We also had a hard time finding a time slot to do it, since he is a busy guy.
11. I have to ask what bands are currently interesting Cleaning Women?
There are some interesting new albums that have come out just recently, like Aavikko's Monopoly and Janne Westerlund's Bell.
12. Do the members of Cleaning Women have other musical project you would like to talk about?
All of us do, more or less. Solo stuff, group stuff, wonderful stuff. But we don't want anything to distract you from the total Cleaning Women experience.
13. If the music career ended today what would the band members do too keep the creative vibe alive?
CW01 is busy all the time doing visual arts so I bet he would continue doing that. I don't know what I would do, if I couldn't play. I guess I would write and make movies, or at least try. We all have a background in audio-visual stuff.
14. Thank you for the time any closing thoughts here.
No more cigarette butts in the streets please, put them in a trash can. Clean up your minds.
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