Samuel Savenberg So, you’re playing Les Urbaines here in Switzerland soon. The festival is kind of a hybrid for music, performance and fine art. I only saw Shaddah Tuum play live once but from what I remember performance as such played a huge part in it. Can you tell me what’s the reason for that?

Brandon Rosenbluth I studied art in university and worked at The Museum of Contemporary Art when I was younger and was especially inspired by the early video art, which documented often physically challenging and dangerous performances—artists like Vito Acconci and Chris Burden, which led me to Viennese Actionism and later on more into Butoh. As a drummer in rock bands, and having worked in concert venues since I was in high school, I was exposed to lots of bands performing live, and that element of physicality is often lost in the performance of electronic music nowadays. The stage is a place for transformation from a mere man into a godly, heroic figure. It also allows one to blur boundaries of sexuality and other identity signifiers.

SS So would you even describe Shaddah Tuum then as a music group/project? Or is it something else, maybe something more complex?

BR The first EP was very much produced in the box and after that Niko decided he wanted to work on new material with a set up that had the live performance in mind, getting an analog drum machine, lots of effect pedals, and I acquired a shaman drum, a gong, bells, and metal percussion… Plus lots of vocal effects. 

The new music is much more based around the vocals and the performance with me at the center, as a shaman leading the ritual. I had to definitely expand my vocal palate a lot more and recently have started to take throat singing lessons. Niko has recently expanded his set up with modular synths, and is a masters student designing musical interfaces for more experimental types of composition. We tend to work separately nowadays and send files back and forth, mainly due to how busy each of us is with our studies, work, and family.

SS So, for the people who are not in the know: reliq was the band both of you played in before, you released a record on aufnahme+wiedergabe and then… I guess pretty soon after it’s release the group was no more. So Shaddah Tuum is kind of its successor?

BR We had self-released an EP before Niko joined the band, split up, then Carolin, the singer and I reformed with Niko, which is the constellation that released on aufnahme+wiedergabe. After that we recorded an album in Bristol that has yet to see the light of day. At the same time Niko and I started working on the electronic ideas, which formed Shaddah Tuum and we had an immediate positive response from that first EP which inaugurated our label Portals Editions and got a good amount of show requests outside of Berlin, which reliq never had. There was no formal break up but rather a fade out, which may at some point be resurrected when the time is right. Now is the time of Shaddah Tuum.

SS Okay, I see. Now, you mentioned a lot of names before and some of them were collective-like groups/organizations (e.g. Thee Temple ov Psychick Youth or to some points also Viennese Actionism.) You guys are duo. Is this subject to change in the near future or with upcoming concerts?

BR For the moment I am performing solo in fact, but I am working with a lighting designer now to build an impressive show so that the experience is not totally dependent on the number of bodies on stage. This way of performing can be very freeing. At our last big show, opening for Sunn O))) in Berlin at Heimathafen (which can be watched on Boiler Room), Carolin did join us to perform some angelic vocals live and I would definitely like for that to happen more often, as well as potentially integrating more performers, whether it be a cellist or Butoh dancer.

SS There’s definitely still a lot of potential to work with dancers in the fields of experimental music. 

BR I think it is starting to happen more, off the top of my head I know that Clark, Emika, and Eomac perform with dancers, but it can easily become cheesy so really has to be done with a lot of intention and vision. Coil did it famously of course. It’s hard to do something exciting after that. The mystical system of movements developed by Gurdjieff is something I am curious to investigate more, however I’m most interested in the exploration of presence and non-presence in my work and with the show I am developing now for Shaddah Tuum.

SS When you talk about your concepts and ideas for the live shows it sounds a bit like a dramaturgist or choreographer talking about his piece. Which I think is super interesting. Can you relate to that?

BR Yes, I am certainly coming at it from that point of view. Romeo Castellucci is of particular interest to me at the moment in this regard. The way light, smoke and video can be used for dramatic effect, with or without any performers on stage. Constructing and contracting space visually, physically, auditorily and consequently mentally, through a combination of these techniques. Niko will also be introducing more psychoacoustic elements into the sound. It will be a full mind-body-spirit experience.

SS With all those plans, what would the perfect environment/setting be like to witness Shaddah Tuum live?

BR A theater or concert hall with a big stage and production capabilities ideally. But not too big that it would be difficult to fill the space with intense light and smoke and a focused sound. I intend to push the limits of visual and auditory perception, hijacking the bodies of the audience, and ideally producing an out of body experience for everyone in attendance. 

SS But aren’t you afraid that—the more the whole thing get’s staged—it will be harder to really (to use your words) hijack the bodies of the audience?

BR The plan is for the set up to be controlled on stage by my physical movements and in response to the sound. But I am not that concerned with performing the music as such as I am in utilizing the facilities of such theaters to construct an experience for the audience unlike anything they have ever witnessed.

SS So now we had this talk about the whole live experience. But let’s talk about recorded music quickly. Do you think you can do your music/performance justice when you press it onto vinyl?

BR You have to separate the two experiences of the music typically though in a way the introspective experience you can have listening to a record alone at home is something I am trying to recreate in the live situation, which is not usually the case at concerts. There is a lot of detail in the music and listening to it on good speakers or headphones can be transportative. The magick shouldn’t be lost by pressing it on to vinyl.

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Don’t miss to check out Shaddah Tuum’s exclusive mixtape: