BALEYYG interview by TheeBradMiller
BALEYYG (aka Nic Le Ban) is the performing name for a reclusive avant-garde, accomplished guitarist and frequent Jarboe collaborator. While BALEYYG’s (pronounced BAAL’YEH’GAH) discography provides an eclectic mix of styles (check out the heavy guitar work on Jarboe’s “Stream Enterer” series and then listen to the more folk/avant garde style on “Knight Of Swords / The Beggar”) his new material promises to go further into the darkness exploring “Death/Doom Metal” and “Dark Ambient Soundscapes”. A self professed “iconoclast, creative NON conformist, and free-thinking recluse” has kept BALEYYG out of the mainstream public eye. And as one read over his rants on his MySpace page it is obvious that fame does not elude BALEYYG, but rather he eludes fame. While his discography is significant, and being a collaborator with Jarboe certainly shines on his credentials, BALEYYG has not done that many interviews. Never afraid to share his opinion BALEYYG has chosen to share details on his own terms through his own writing (again see his MySpace page). This is the first interview of it’s kind with the reclusive BALEYYG. Included with this interview are 3 recordings from the NEX REGIT MAGUS recording sessions in 2007.
According to BALEYYG, “… all are raw ideas that led to several other songs on the NEX REGIT MAGUS release. All of my recorded work, even the tracks I do with Jarboe, start from rough general ideas I explore when recording my riffing and then proceed from there. Along the way, there are always some intriguing ideas that get tossed for one reason or another, so its always interesting revisit them.”
TheeBradMiller: According to your blog the name BALEYYG was chosen through your mystical studies with the old Norse traditions of Odinism. You describe yourself as “mystical” but certainly not “religious”. Is it possible to describe how your beliefs/practices channel themselves through your musick.
BALEYYG: Mystical… in truth I had no idea what BALEYYG was when I first encountered it and experienced it. I thought it was connected with a certain meditative path I was following at the time. I asked a master in that path about the experience I had, and he told me that it was unrelated and that its significance would reveal itself to me years later. He was right. The musical aspect is harder to describe. Jarboe describes me as a channeler on stage for the kind of energy I evoke live. So if I am gifted with something musically, then now you know it’s true source. I’m not an expert on Odinism, it found me, not the other way around. I take that as an ancestral message since I have Viking blood. Beyond that, I know that religions are false in general, so whatever I experience mystically is something which is very alive, its energy animates me, it is not dead, mythological, or based upon a set of beliefs.
TheeBradMiller: Yet I see subtle references to Buddhism, to the teaching of Crowley(Thelema), and to Kabbalah in some of your writings. How do these energy manifest themselves in the creative process?
BALEYYG: All of those paths, as unlikely as one might believe, have common sources in the distant past. Those who study mystical ideas often are not aware of the fact that mysticism is not an existentialist experience, it is a natural aspect of being human which arises from the unknown ocean of the human psyche. The other half of the mind unused by the veneer of consciousness we call the consensus reality. Musically and creatively the great unknown speaks through the lens of the psyche, so using techniques in meditation one may open doorways into the psyche, and even to travel within that world as it reveals itself over time.
TheeBradMiller: You worked as a collaborator with Jarboe on many releases. Did you practice these techniques in meditation with her as part of the process? Or, perhaps a better question, how does your musick continue its mystical element in collaboration with such a powerful artist?
BALEYYG: No. Jarboe follows her own path. Jarboe and I share a common ground creatively, although we are two very different people. My mystical self is not separate from another facet of my self. So what I’m doing creatively is a natural element of my daily life.
TheeBradMiller: You participated on two of my favorite Jarboe releases… The amazing “Conduit” and the double release “Knight Of Swords/The Beggar”. Tell me about the recording process with these two releases. How did you and Jarboe tackle the writing duties for the recordings, and then transfer those ideas into what are such personal recordings.
BALEYYG: Both of those releases were fraught with some difficulties. “The Conduit” was the first work Jarboe and I ever did together. We argued a lot about the songs on “The Conduit”. I wanted it to be more guitar driven, but that was not what “The Conduit” was about. After recording “The Conduit” I wanted to do a second “Conduit” style album, somewhat ambient in nature, and we did that with “Knight of Swords”. The other half of that second release, called “The Beggar”, is unfortunately incomplete! The wrong CD master was sent to Vivo Records in Poland, and this mistake was not found until it was too late unfortunately. The original was heavier from an acoustic perspective.
TheeBradMiller: Last Jarboe question… I know you are involved with The Sweet Meat Love And Holy Cult, is there going to be a full length release by this line up, and will be you be recording with Jarboe again in the future?
BALEYYG: There is a full length already mostly in the can as I write this. It will be coming out as an indie label release probably next year. Jarboe and I are already working on a few secret projects together. The interesting thing about our creative work together, and also that which continues to inspire me as much as it scares the hell out of me, is the intensity of the music created and that vibe that you’re not always sure what’s about to happen next.
TheeBradMiller: Let’s move into more current territory. Starting with the Black Metal band Ophidian Forest. You were a member of Ophidian Forest earlier this year for – a week? What happened?
BALEYYG: Ahh Ophidian Forest… great band, possibly existing as Ophidian as a pseudonym… very cool guys, great music, but mostly great orchestrations. I really liked how they were putting the pieces together in their music. I have known their guitarist/bassist for a few years online through correspondence. We have very similar views and a nearly identical sense of humor. I wound up working with that band for a month or more on some recordings they needed some help finishing. Some of the orchestrations were fairly complex, with multiple odd timings and difficult changes. I enjoyed working with all of them, but eventually had a disconnect with the drummer (located in the Bay Area) regarding his (or a friends idea) of categorizing the music in a way that seemed silly and immature to me. I avoid that sort of thing, so that was where I parted ways with them.
TheeBradMiller: Will any of that material see the light of day as a BALEYYG track?
BALEYYG: There were a few epic riffs in all of that material that I will probably use again. They are my guitar parts, I wrote them, so why not?
TheeBradMiller: One track that has been out there is the multi-layered “Vekke”. It was up for a long while on MySpace… then vanished. I would describe it as a drone piece, all though that is a way over simplification. Can you tell me about the track “Vekke”? What inspired it? What is at its root?
BALEYYG: “Vekke” is something that came out of nowhere at the end of the summer of 2007. I was working on material for Jarboe’s Mahakali album, which I wandered away from later, yet around this time this song sort of dropped out of nowhere. It began with some leftovers of other tracks that I put together and remixed into a kind of “wall of sound” idea. There are several meanings for “wall of sound” – I’m not talking about a wall of speaker cabs – that’s something else. There is a kind of ambient “wall of sound” idea where you have multiple layers of music and other sounds happening all at once, and the more one listens, the deeper one can go into that mix of sound by following and tuning their ears into those sounds. So there is world within “Vekke” that may be overlooked by some people, yet many people get it and tell me what they find in there. If you listen very closely there is an entirely different song buried in the far background of “Vekke”. I used that same technique for a dark ambient-industrial Kenji Siratori collaboration that has yet to be released.
TheeBradMiller: From previous conversations I know that at one time “Vekke” was going to be part of a CD of demo’s and unreleased recordings. Then possibly a of a 7 inch single….? But the track seems to grow continually. Where do you see it ending up at this point?
BALEYYG: I’m not really sure. I like the fact that on the surface it seems like just noise, and then when one actually listens to it, there is an entire world hidden within there. I want to do an entire CD like that. I think it would be cool. maybe “Vekke” would be a part of that, or like an intro to something that has that kind of strangeness going on within it. Some days I feel like the David Lynch of soundscape art. I’m not going for a Lynch sound like the soundtracks to his films, but internally from a psychological point of view, I feel like I have this weird eternal bender going on within me. It’s like your the guy at the party that has had too much vodka, and you are having too much fun to stop, and you are riding that great creative wave, and there are a few people there who see that and recognize that and they are riding that wave with you, and I guess that’s what makes it all worthwhile for me.
TheeBradMiller: I believe “Vekke” is a name (possible Scandinavian in origin?). Why the title “Vekke”?
BALEYYG: Vekke is Norwegian for “awaken”. It comes from the old Norse word vaka, which means to be awake. In the way that I use the word, its like a “will to power” for a personal inner awakening. For me that was the awakening into my ancestral Scandinavian heritage. The word came to me before I knew what it meant, which is sort of an interesting mystical story. When I learned what it meant, it fit the music.
TheeBradMiller: You mentioned Kenji Siratori. There has been mention on your MySpace page of a future release titled BALEYYG vs Kenji Siratori. Will that release be along the style of “Vekke”?
BALEYYG: The material I did for Kenji is psychologically dark. After Kenji heard what I did with his spoken word recordings, he was very enthusiastic about it and began working with an Italian film-maker on a film put to the music. So the plan is to release it as a CD+DVD package. That project is out of my hands and still under development at this time. I’m really looking forward to seeing it finished! The material I did for it sounds like science-fiction horror music. Somewhat intense and also epic.
TheeBradMiller: Would a live performance include some of these more soundscape style pieces?
BALEYYG: I think so. A lot of the BALEYYG material is conceptual music. The material I did for Kenji Siratori would be difficult and interesting to do live, although I hadn’t thought of that. The wall of sound idea going within “Vekke” is based upon intense drums. So the challenge is not necessarily if it can be done live, but in actually finding people who are creatively talented and broad-minded enough to take something like that on and pull it off well live. The idea that all talented musicians think the same is a myth. There are many talented musicians out there who have no clue what it takes to be a serious sound architect.
TheeBradMiller: Is there a line up forming for BALEYYG the “band”, and would it include anybody you have worked with in the past?
BALEYYG: There have already been 2 “formative” lineups for BALEYYG as a band. All of those people were very talented in their own ways. There is a certain kind of focused energy that I’m looking for in a formation of BALEYYG and that has yet to complete itself. So in a way, the only way to answer this question is to say that there is always a BALEYYG lineup emerging… it’s in a state of becoming so to speak. The current direction will likely sort itself out after all of these recordings are finished. There may be a familiar face or two in the lineup… we’ll see.
TheeBradMiller: Your blog states that BALEYYG “began as a conceptual creative space of guitar black death doom devastation’s” – but with the various styles that you have already recorded with Jarboe, then the Soundscape stuff that you have done on your own and with Kenji Siratori. What can we expect from the first official BALEYYG release.
BALEYYG: A mix of Doom/Death Metal and avant-garde music styles. This release is long overdue. Most people do not have a clear idea of what BALEYYG is as a “sound” yet. The development of the material has been uniquely unplanned, meaning that I have let the material direct itself toward it’s natural inclination. The heavier epic sound is what birthed this idea in the beginning, so its like watching a circle completing itself now. I’m excited to see what the reaction is going to be like from people, but I’m even more excited to get this music on the road as soon as possible. If feels like I’m shedding a layer of dead skin.
TheeBradMiller: Tell me about NEX REGIT MAGUS. Where does that stand in the recording process? When will it be released?
BALEYYG: That’s the difficult question now. Initially it was merely going to be a release of material and stranger chaotic guitar recordings that I have had laying around for a while. The majority of that material dates back to 2007. Some of it came out of live experiments with sound as I was exploring ideas for an album idea with Jarboe. I rediscovered that material recently and was sort of blown away with the raw chaotic energy there. So I want to release it…. yet I also have all of these new ideas that I want to release, as more formal and structured music. So NEX REGIT MAGUS may have to wait a while. I’m not sure what I’m going to do with all of that material. All of those pieces are like exercises and theoretical ideas I was putting together, so perhaps the idea of including it as a second CD in a digipak might be better. I think it might freak people out to see how those ideas are born. It’s an interesting and somewhat mysterious corner of my operational creative ethos.
BALEYYG – NEX REGIT MAGUS sounds
