NAC Smooth Jazz
©2001 Radio & Records
R&R charts

IN DEPTH with YULARA

Peter Petro
Asst.NAC/Smooth Jazz Editor

Part 1 - February 13, 2001
Part 2 - Feruary 21, 2001

Interview February 13, 2001 with Peter Petro.

Yulara are named after an Australian village; the name translates as Òthe howling dingosÒ. Their Òstealth jamÒ music centers around the saxes and flutes of Annie Hilsberg and the production vision of Robert Matt, both natives of Berlin. Hilsberg was the first woman to study classical Saxophone at the Conservatory of Berlin and went on to get a degree from Berkley; Matt studied at the Grove School in Los Angeles. They describe Future Tribe as more outgoing and more visible than their previous projects, even though their last album on Higher Octave (distributed through Virgin) was released in 25 countries.

R&R:	How do you do live dates?
Annie H.:	Andrew McGuiness, who played with the James Taylor quartet when he was 17, plays a full drum sets but triggers also loots of loops and electronics. Nippy Noya, who has played with Billy Cobham, Seal and Peter Gabriel, plays percussion for us. We try to have the same quality live as we do on the record, but we explore new feels, like on "Ho Doi", which is very slow and mystical with ocean sounds on the record but evolves into a double time jungle feel live.
Robert M.:	We're a full seven-piece band, and we create some of the samples live, and the percussion sounds are often triggered by our percussionists. Vocals are done live, including the Aboriginal undertone singing. We also play with sound filters, which are controlled by the feet, and Andrew plays the didgeridoo. Annie Plays the flutes and sax and plays around with the delays. I'm also triggering samples myself. In live shows we even have traditional African dancing and belly dancing onstage and videos with images of nature that we can influence with the music in real time. To us, an old drum like a djembe can be entered with the same spirit as a sampler or triggers. As long as the spirit is the same, you can play around with the new technology without getting caught in the electronics and perfection. I often envision the studio as one instrument, and the main instrument is always the heart. Some people are afraid of the electronics and say it's not live. If you imagine that the grand piano was invented only 400 years ago, and imagine How the must have started to use that as a new instrument, it's the same thing with the computer today. We combine the two extremes, very ancient instruments with sounds, signal processing and programming. Actually we're not combining extremes, it's just different angles to the same point.
R&R:	The album opens with "Om Namah Shivaya". What does that mean?
Annie H.:	It is Sanskrit, which is one of the oldest languages. OM is the sound of the void from which everything comes and to which everything returns. Namah means "I Bow to" or "I honor" and Shivaya is like Shiva and refers to the inner divine self. So you are saying "I honor the divinity that is within me" or "I honor my higher self" It' s a great mantra that gives you protection, calms you down and frees you of all these bullshit thoughts; it can take you to a different dimension.

Interview Feruary 21, 2001 with Peter Petro.

R&R:	Higher Octave seems like a great place for you, not only in terms of your music, but the mission behind it.
Robert M.:	Absolutely. They are really close friends, and when we first met it was like coming home. It makes us happy and strong to know that weÔre a part of that family. It is great when you have a label that stands behind you and loves your music. (Excecutive producers) Dan Selene and Matt Marshall were like great mentors; they gave us total freedom with our sound, but, of course they mentioned some thinks that they had in mind. They were never big chances but rather, helpful thoughts that helped the music evolve. The chant that goes into the song and returns to the chant in "Om Namah Shivaya" was Matt's idea and Dan helped us with the sequencing on the album.
R&R:	Musically speaking, where do you find yourself in the dialogue between the importance of authenticity and respect for cultural expression and the power of combining influences to create new sounds?
Robert M.:	This was always a big issue, especially on the project that incorporated Tibetan monks. On the one hand, to listen to the monks by themselves is so wonderful, and you don't need anything else. But if you create a new soundscape for it, you can bring the sound to people who would not be in touch with the music otherwise, who might even be afraid of it. In every case, whether we use traditional instrumentation or are simply inspired by that music , it is always a question that you have to answer for yourself. I hope that we are always true to the spirit that is originally behind the music. I think that if these traditional composers were alive today, they would want to use the new tools, too. We try not to turn around the intentions of the musicians who were involved in inventing those traditional styles; we want to be close to that, but inside of a new generation with new tools. We're just trying to sing along. When we are playing together , it's great to learn from each other, an I think this is the key of musicianship, to learn from each other and discover our connections to each other.
Annie H.:	One of our greatest concerts was five years ago for the opening of the Peace University in Berlin. They invited the Dalai Lama to speak, and his entire speech was on music, talking about how music can cross all boundaries and borders, connects people at the heart and helps us to see that we all belong together as one human family. We played right after his speech for 2000 people who had been sitting all day at the Tempodrom and the people were so happy to get up and dance! It was such an honor for us to play there, and we felt that he was speaking from the same perspective as our vision of music. It's a way to get past the "Berlin Walls" that we have in our heads.