Manufactura - The Saint of Violence

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15 Dec, 2008

Manufactura - The Saint of Violence
To understand Karloz M., better known as Manufactura, it is perhaps best to look at the two artists whom he deems his mentors, Charles Bukowski and David Lynch. Like Karloz, both are misunderstood and unapologetic in their own right. Where Bukowski teaches one the beauty in the inherent ugliness of the human condition, Lynch's films bring the unworldly terrain of dreams and nightmares to life. Manufactura is like the linguist that translates these inspirations to music, creating for Karloz a realm of uncompromisingly aggressive power electronics and bleak soundscapes that dance to the words of his own personal muse - violence. Though not seen a commemoration of this milestone by Karloz himself, 2008 also marked not only the tenth year of Manufactura, but also the release of his first double album, "Psychogenic Fugue + A Damaged Symphony For Depraved Dementia N.2". Considering the project's birth coincided with Karloz learning that he was slowly going deaf, not to mention the accidental controversy caused by both his music and on-stage persona, it does stand testament to his sheer will-power as a musician. With another album for his side-project, Broken Fabiola, to be released any day now, Karloz has taken a moment to educate Side-Line on his state of mind. From his influences, to his disgust with the current industrial scene, to event how his music has been used as a literal torture devise, one may now get a glimpse as to the methods behind his 'madness'. (By Vlad McNeally)

SL: In the interviews correlating around your last disc, the remix EP "In The Company Of Wolves", it was mentioned that it was borne out of requests from fans and DJs for material of that nature. However, with "A Damaged Symphony For Depraved Dementia N.2", you revisited your material yourself. Did one prompt the other, and how did you go about choosing what pieces to revisit?

M: Uh, well�let me see if I can explain my train of thought without sounding like I'm insane. Throughout the last five years, I've gotten a lot of request from fans and other bands for remixes of my material. Although I love doing remixes for other acts, I'm not a big fan of having my own music remixed. I just don't see the point. I make my music as I want to hear it and how I want it to be heard, even if others don't care for it. Eventually, I felt I had been selfish enough with my stuff, so why not give in just once and give the fans and loyal supporters what they wanted? Together with Ben Arp of Crunch Pod, we developed the ideas for the remix releases. At first, I started remixing all kinds of tracks� and things got a little crazy. So, I decided to keep "A Damaged Symphony For Depraved Dementia N.2' strictly for remixes that only I would work on from my first two albums. The extra tracks that did not fit those criteria would be worked on as collaborations with other artists, and it became 'In The Company Of Wolves". In other, simpler words�there is a method to my madness.

SL: In the past, some of your works have had a cohesive theme such as with "Precognitive Dissonance". With "Psychogenic Fugue", subjects like martyrdom, sacrifice, and ritual seem to play an important role. Could you elaborate for us upon the message or motives behind this particular album?

M: I like to think most of the work on each of my albums was cohesive. As I've said before, I'm into writing albums, not individual tracks or songs. I know my music is not necessarily easy for people to listen to and/or understand.

With "Psychogenic Fugue", I wanted to go a step further then I've done before with the other albums, I wanted to see how far I could expand myself within the confines of my subject without losing the flow. There is no one message in the album, other than a glimpse into the mental illness known as 'dissociative amnesia'. Imagine yourself lost in time - your own time. Traveling back and forth through different people, only those people are all you. As for the various themes touched on this album, they are and will always have a home on my albums. You say martyrdom, sacrifice and ritual play important roles� and they do, as do many other themes. What rituals do we perform everyday? What sacrifices do we make in our lives? For whom or what would you make yourself a martyr for? How would you apply these to your emotional, spiritual, physical and financial lives�? It's all part of the human condition. It is our collective 'humanity' that will be the end of us all. We are all sick from it because we ARE human, and being human is not necessarily a good thing� or is it?

SL: As Manufactura goes on, you seem to be drifting towards a dark ambient sound and away from the rhythmic noise through which many first found you. Is this a conscious decision on your part?

M: Not really. I started out writing ambient pieces. Someone somewhere has a tape of my first tracks with all that dark experimental ambient material on it� or maybe not. Maybe it's at the bottom of a mountain made of trash, deep inside a city dump. All my records have had some dark ambient pieces on it, some more than others. I never think about it, though; I just do what must be done, for me. A lot of people are embracing that ambient aspect of the new album and others are still gravitating towards the harder dance tracks. It's kind of been that way from the beginning. Some discover other aspects of what I do because of the harder stuff and vice versa; like whiskey, my friend� whiskey.

SL: One word you used to describe the process of writing this double album was 'difficult'. Beyond just the sheer volume of material you recorded, what would you say was the hardest portion of this album to write?

M: The amount of work was not the hardest part. The difficulty was more of a personal nature. When I work on an album, I devote my self emotionally and physically� entirely involve myself in every possible way. This method of work places a lot of stress on my friends, my family, and those unfortunate enough to be around me while I work. Even the samples I use have a specific meaning to me. I'm not interested in shocking anyone. In fact, I could care less how most people feel about what I do. It is a personal process, it is a form of cleansing, and trying to keep your head straight while buried with that amount of material� well, it is the equivalent to your demons and ghosts, it can make it very difficult. Opening yourself to be true to yourself, in a certain way so you can face yourself, without any regret and still keep it in general thoughts for others to explore, it's quite the task.

SL: Considering this collection reflects where you've been and where you are with Manufactura on the project's tenth anniversary, should people view see this point on your timeline as having any sort of significance?

M: It's up to the listener. I've never given myself any significance, nor do I expect it. To be perfectly honest, some people have said I've been able to do what I do because of talent, others say because of hard work� I personally see it as just dumb luck. I'm fortunate that DJs and music aficionados like what I do, that a good chunk of people find value, interest and, as you say, significance in my music. A few musician friends have told me that some of the notoriety I've received is due to my failure to see myself as a worthy musician. I just simply don't care. It's just music, dark electronic music that I write for myself. I share it with people, because many of them have expressed how my music has helped them in one way or another. I'm not trying to 'achieve' anything. As for me, I'm celebrating this decade of music in astonishment that I haven't lost my hearing completely. The doctors told me I would be half deaf by now, but not yet� not yet.

SL: On your Myspace site, I took notice of your new music video for "Indignant Imprints O Time"'. Why did you choose to move this particular track into the visual realm, and what's the significance behind its imagery?

M: It's one of my favorite tracks. I love the way it flows; it's strange, yet full of feeling. I wanted to make a small video for it almost as soon as I finished it. The imagery is based on the word 'magic' and how it applied to the ideas of Charles Bukowski and David Lynch as well as my own. It's abstract and broken apart. I also used the theme of "Psychogenic Fugue" to complete the thoughts.

SL: While researching this interview, I came across a rather extensive 'thank you' list of yours, points of which piqued my curiosity. For example, the entry on Mexico City you remarked that your visit there marked a 'pivotal point in your life'. How so?

M: It was pivotal in that many significant endings and many beginnings spawned from the three wild days I spent there. It will remain a bitter sweet time for me. I remember visiting the pyramids in Teotihuacan just outside Mexico City. I remember expecting a rush or energy to come to me as a signal of things to come. None of that happened, but what did hit me was the complete and utter silence at the top of the pyramids. A calm and peacefulness came over me with each gust of cool air, so peaceful I almost found it dull. However, it is what I now TRULY consider my very first and real experience of 'the calm before the storm'. It was a doorway, and the path ahead proved even more intense than the path already traveled. The album "We're Set Silently On Fire" was born from that point forward, and I'm now a very different person because of it.

SL: The writer Charles Bukowski has clearly an influential figure on both your life and your work. In one interview, you commented that when you discovered his poetry collection, "Love Is A Dog From Hell", it marked a turning point in your life. If you could, would you mind elaborating on you discovered Bukowski and the story behind this moment that was as you said 'the fist in (the) face that (you) needed'?

M: I was a wild child, a crazed teen. I did some things as a young man that I still can't wrap my head around. As Mr. (Eddie) Izzard once said, I was 'living on the edge, right on the fucking lid'. It's wild to think of all the different people I have been� always intense, always on edge, but with completely and vastly different lives. When that book arrived in my hands, it hit me like a mountain. I think I read the whole thing in one day. I devoured every word and I read it again, and again. I think I simply substituted one addiction for another, as I started collecting anything I could get my hands on by him. I was finally awake.

Bukowski's words became religion for me but it was even more significant than that, because I knew his words to be the truth. At one point in my life, I lived not far from where he lived in Los Angeles. I know of the people and places he wrote about and they were very real. Like a child who once believed all the fucked up shit he had witnessed and experienced were simply dreams, Bukowski woke me up and instilled in me that in fact REALITY is far more fucked up then any twisted dream.

SL: In terms of your own work, it's often been remarked that violence is your personal muse. Even though this has gained you a bit of notoriety over the years, with Bukowski in mind, do you see a positive aspect to dragging this aspect of human nature out into the light?

M: I've always been intrigued by people's resistance to violence. There is beauty in violence. It worries me how far in denial the majority of us living outside the second, third and fourth world countries are about violence and its true nature. The world has been forever ravaged by human violence, wars, and death; even most homicides are committed by our friends, by our family, by our lovers� and this has been the truth as long as we've been living. Many still believe were something more, something better than human. My friends, we will NEVER BE ANYTHING MORE than human. It's as if we all fear what we truly are, and that's really sad. Ancient civilizations, including those seen as the most civilized and educated, knew this to be an essential part of our nature. Be it violent passion, violent love, violent living, violent emotion, violent breathing. That anger, that exquisite rage is inside you at this very moment. That excitement you're trying to suppress IS violence, and that violence IS human. Be human.

SL: One word that perhaps is overlooked by casual observers is that past the gritty realism, Bukowski often revolves around the first word of this volume's title - love. Considering love and violence often go hand-in-hand, to what extent does love play a role within your lyrics, and your overall work?

Ah, well� there it is, then� is it not? Each of us defines love as we see it. The irony is that we are all blind to love. I believe we are all love fascists, love dictators. We are all forever in a vicious circle of demanding love on our individual terms and conditions to the point of madness and isolation. Love's deadliest aspects do play a significant role in my work and my lyrics, from 'Sacred Sin', to 'All Things Must Die', and everything in between. Love is the ultimate yet flawed DREAM that we all share.

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SL: Beyond Bukowski, you've noted that filmmaker David Lynch has had a big impact on you. How so?

M: I consider Bukowski my teacher, my professor of REALITY. David Lynch is my teacher, my professor of DREAMS. The two are the most influential artists, philosophers, writers, and human beings in my life. I was exposed to "Eraserhead" when I was a young, thirteen-year-old dumb fuck. Unlike Bukowski's fist-in-my-face kind of awakening, Lynch's work slowly descended upon me like a magnificent black, warm, comforting, and dangerous cloud. I was immediately hypnotized as if inside a dream, not just by his imagery, but by his sounds. I've made it a point to see all of his work and it still has such power over me. Witnessing his work is like going to confessional after years of unbound sin. I finally got to meet him in person in 2007 here in Los Angeles. Speaking to him in person, staring right into that man's eyes, was as surreal as any of his art. I actually had the nerve to give him a signed copy of my album "Presence: Into The Here And The Now", which features a cover of a song written by Lynch himself, "I Float Alone".

SL: Occasionally, you mention that during the early part of your childhood you lived in Colombia. Do you think growing up there had any impact on your poetry and your music?

M: Most certainly, that country is embedded into my fucking soul. I think it's perhaps the reason why I'm a bit� different. I don't see things the same way as most of my friends do. My perception and beliefs on death, violence, love, drugs, food, religion and music have all been heavily shaped by having been born in that place and living there long enough to taste the beauty, the majesty, and the madness of that tragically beautiful and hopelessly violent place.

SL: When you first began to create your own music, I found it rather fascinating that your work started with tape-to-tape experimentation. What were those early days like, and what were you trying to capture back then versus now?

M: Those early days were fun yet stressful. I had more ideas than actual ways of musically realizing my ideas. When I had some time alone, I would sit on the floor and create strange tape loops. I'd turn on different appliances around the house and record random bits of madness. I like some of that early material, but some of it didn't do anything for me. The pieces I did like were mostly dark and twisted noise ambient pieces, in the style of Sleep Chamber, who were one of my influences. All the work I did before computers is lost, and I'm a bit sad about that because there was a particular piece that I really liked, one that I think would stand up to my material now. As for what I was trying to capture, is pretty much the same thing I do now� a piece of my mind trapped in another time.

SL: You've stated that you've received fan mail from 'prisons, jails, hospitals, rehab, the Middle East, and war torn nations'. This makes me curious - what would you say was the most touching letter you've received? Conversely, what was the most frightening or repugnant?

M: I've been mostly moved by the mail concerning turbulent times, how some folks have been moved and or helped in some way by my music. The one that stands out the most in my mind is one of the first I ever received. A girl had stressed how the music was unlike anything she had heard before, yet she said she completely identified with its structures and thoughts. She found the music to be violent, haunting, sad and disturbing. What moved me was that I later found out through a third party that she had been mourning the death of the love of her life for some time when she had heard my music. Another one that really got to me was a young girl from Seattle who was going through chemotherapy for a brain tumor� I don't know if she ever recovered, or if she died.

As for the most frightening or repugnant ones� I couldn't tell you, because I'm not easily shocked or disturbed. Sure, I've received some that were kind of fucked up, like someone who wanted to play out the words and samples to one of my tracks with me. If you know my music, then you know there was probably something terribly wrong there. The only one that kind of gave me the chills was when I heard that my music was being played at full volume through the massive P.A. systems attached to Hummers during the blackout night raids in Iraq in 2004. It's where they would cut the entire power to an entire town. These marines would then storm into town blasting 'Killing You' in complete and total darkness to blindfold and subdue questionable individuals. According to one soldier, he said that the Iraqis who had to endure the night raids classified my music was as 'demonic'. They even had a name for it� but I can't remember it. That was kind of fucked up for me, since the soldiers were practically using my music to energize themselves as well as to terrorize the shit out of their counterparts. That wasn't exactly what I had pictured my music to be used for, but alas� we are only human.

SL: In a previous interview, you stated that you've tried to stay away from the 'scene clubs' and the people and atmosphere that come with it. Do you find that you and Manufactura are better off without it?

M: I, as Karloz I'm better off without it. Manufactura, on the other hand, has always lived in the clubs and I doubt that will ever change. Personally, I just don't care for what is happening to the clubs that are advertised as being 'industrial'; they are so far removed from what they are preaching. The new generation is unaware of the roots of this kind of music or what it actually stood for, they don't even seem like they care. They're force-fed the fashion and there's a multitude of bands that all sound the same no matter how much you want to dissect it. There are con men passing them selves off as promoters who claim to care about the scene, it's fans or the bands with which they claim to be 'good' friends. The only artistic merit they are ever interested in is the 'art of the scam' so they can pay their rent, their fancy cars, fancy clothes, delicate 'Prada' shoes, and fancy Hawaiian time-shares.

It's like the scene has lost it's FUCKING BALLS in general and is getting dressed in LITTLE PANTIES for nothing more then regurgitated 'DAS BULLSHIT'. There's nothing hard or punk or revolutionary about it anymore. Everybody wants to be happy, get-a-long friends and hold each other's hands, cocks, or pussies at the 'industrial' or 'power noise' concerts. It's incredibly WEAK, so fucking weak and so fucking SOFT that even my reputation as being 'controversial' and 'infamous' is glorified, and I'm a fucking NOBODY! So, I like to stay away, 'cause god forbid these precious and delicate 'freaks' get their itzy-bitzy feelings hurt or their teeny-weenie titties twisted at the so-called 'INDUSTRIAL DISCO-TECH' club. It's fucking 'GHEY' is what it is; there is no HEART, no GUTS, no BRAINS.

SL: As a musician, what would you say was the most important lesson you have learned to date?

M: I learned to be true to myself at all costs, to never paint myself into a corner. I try to diversify my styles and interests as best as I can. This year alone, I've been working on at least six different projects, each with it's own identity and it's own sound. The most important of them being Broken Fabiola, with which I just signed to Tympanik Audio (an amazing label) for a new album called "Severed". The others will be made available on-line in the next couple of months. Variety in every way is important to me. My music reflects who I am and my life in that it's never the same way twice. I mix things up and keep them interesting, even if it means destroying and rebuilding myself to do it. I think because of it, I'm fortunate enough to now be working with what I consider the most progressive and forward thinking labels in the U.S. industrial and dark electronic scene, Crunch Pod and Tympanik Audio.

SL: What do you make of the 'terror EBM' scene? Do you think it shares a stylistic kinship with your own work?

M: To be honest, I don't know what that actually means. Is it like scary EBM�? 'Cause, and perhaps I'll actually date myself here, but I remember when Suicide Commando and Hocico were known simply as EBM bands. Most people don't even know how long these bands have been around. As for the clones� well, this scene has always had its clones, just like every other fucking music scene. I personally don't know enough about the terror 'aspect' of EBM to talk about it. As for some of the bands that are 'labeled' as such, I think they as much as I were influenced by the earlier generations of electro-industrial bands, so naturally there might be something we all like in common. I, on the other hand, have had more 'labels' attached to what I do then I care to count or mention. I'm just not a one trick pony. I like my music like I like my drugs. I like to ride sunny side up, sunny side down, sunny all the way around!

SL: Considering the wealth of material out there, have you given thought to putting together a printed collection of your poetry and / or lyrics?

M: I've been asked about this quite often, and yes, I have thought about it. I doubt that anyone who actually publishes poetry would be interested in mine. I've thought about doing it on my own, but it would probably have to be more then just the poetry� perhaps some of my prose, photography, and drawings as well. It is in the back of my mind, but I don't know whether there's anyone really interested in my writing in that aspect, so it may or may not happen. Time will tell.

SL: In an interview you said that the phrase, 'an elegant suicide is the ultimate work of art' caught your mind when discussing your artistic endeavors. In terms of Manufactura, what do you foresee for your project's future and its end?

M: I never saw anything past the first handful of tracks I wrote back in 1998. After that, I never saw anything past the first album, "Regression". I want to end it all every hour on the hour of every fucking day, but I'm still here and I don't know why. All I know is that I made a promise to myself before all this madness came to me� a promise that I could never break. I will stop writing music when I'm deaf or dead. Based on what the doctors have said, as well as my own calculations, I think I have a bit under ten years left. Whether anyone is interested in releasing my music, or hearing it at that point I don't know and I don't care.

I live one day at a time. I make no fucking plans anymore, I've found it pointless. I go where the wind and the rain go, where my mind and my soul feel I should go on any given moment. I took myself out of the game at a very young and early age; I've just been waiting for the game to be taken out of me. People like me, the cursed, the damned and forsaken, get to live long and painful lives. The key is to make the pain into something you love and to keep it fun at all costs. Keep it loose and fuck the haters. Whiskey helps, drugs are cool, women rock, but music's better. Die now, or be lost forever.

Band: www.manufactura.sistinas.com / www.myspace.com/manufactura
Label: www.crunchpod.com / www.myspace.com/crunchpod

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46030

Posted by: FOXDIE on Jan 04, 09 | 12:04 am

Good interview , very honest and
interesting .

Posted by: Endif on Dec 17, 08 | 1:30 am

Awesome interview. Thanks for providing, Sideline. =]

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