“Anemone Tube was founded 1996 in South-Germany; since 2010 based in Berlin. The audio works of Anemone Tube are a unique blend of dark ambient/noise, industrial and soundart with a strong psychogenic impact. The use of constantly shifting and altering sounds and moods is possibly one of the most intruiging things about the audio creations of Anemone Tube.(…)” [via official website]
How would you summarize this past year on an artistic and personal level?
This year has been a funny mix of entrepreneurship, laziness, vigour and disorganisation.
Which album(s) have you listened to most often this year (not necessarily released in 2014)?
Surely my label`s release “Towers of Silence” by Last Dominion Lost, which I listened to at least 25-30 times, not only because I was coordinating the whole production of that album, but also after its release, I just couldn`t get enough of it; same applies to Krank / The Grimsel Path “Verdant Hum” Tape. Besides that, I think, Gerechtigkeits Liga “Dystopia” LP, Desecresy “The Doom Skeptron” LP, Artificial Brain “Labyrinth Constellation” LP, “Morbus Chron “Sweven” LP, Pestilence “Obsideo” LP, Dissecting Table / Sektor 304 ”Utopia/Decay” Split LP, Beneath “The Barren Throne” CD and Deicide “In The Minds Of Evil” CD have rotated the most often.
What was the best gig you’ve attended?
There are several performances worth to mention, which were outstanding, most importantly Nocturnus at Nuclear War Now Festival in Berlin, but also Con-Dom and Martin Bladh at Epicurean Escapism Festival / Der Tag der Befreiung ist nah as well as Ke/Hil and DogPop at Tower Transmissions Festival, Dresden.
What was the best non-music related cultural experience you’ve had?
The most exciting cultural experience surely was my intense pursuit of the work of Pier Paolo Pasolini. Triggered by the Berlin exhibition „Pasolini Roma“ (Martin Gropius Bau, Berlin) I read a few books about him and saw most of his movies, i.e. “Edipo Re”, “Teorema”, “Porcile” and the highly beautiful “Medea”, which is surely one of the most important movies ever made. Pasolini`s socially critical, political views had been very farsighted and are even now, 50 years later, of great cultural value. His ideas of the return to the religious, spiritual and the individual are more important than ever before in view of nowadays uninhibited consumerism and globalisation and the resulting alienation from nature and traditional values.
Equally demanding was the exhibition “The Anthropocene Project” (Haus der Kulturen der Welt, Berlin) about the “anthropocene”, an informal term for the epoch, in which humanity has become one of the most important influencing factors on the athmospheric, geological and ecological processes on earth.
My visit of the National Museum Warsaw is also worth mentioning. Its gorgeous Gallery of Medieval Art left a lasting and strong impression. Another very memorable “experience” this year was watching the documentary “The Act Of Killing” (Josh Oppenheimer, 2012), a wicked piece of art, unavoidably involving the spectator, discombobulating reality and fiction. Further on I really had a good time with Meinhard Miegel`s non-fiction book “Hybris: Die überforderte Gesellschaft” (engl. “Hubris: The overstrained society”).
Was there an event within this past year that has significantly influenced your philosophy and outlook on life, or your perception of the world around you? For instance some specific place you visited, people you met and so on?
Meditation workshop in a monastery outside of Berlin Spring 2014; Any meditation retreat is a tremendous enrichment, always making me aware of the value of life … I will spend the days around New Year`s Eve in a buddhist silence workshop, too.
What was your greatest disappointment in 2014?
Time.
Your plans, hopes and expectations for 2015?
After having organised three industrial music festivals in a row since 2012, I decided to take a break next year. It turned out, that we need more time for the preparation of the Epicurean Escapism CD/DVD Compilation III, which will be the final edition of the series. The next and last Epicurean Escapism Festival will therefore take place in Berlin in spring 2016.
There are a few Anemone Tube releases in the making. After having accomplished my recordings for the Post Scriptvm / Anemone Tube “Litaniae Mortuorum Discordantes” Split & Collaboration LP (literally “Discordant Death Litanies”, based on a semi-fictionalised biography of J.S. Bach, written by a 19th century Russian author), I am now fully concentrating on the long overdue album “Golden Temple” (the successor of “Dream Landscape” and “Death Over China”), which is planned for mid/end 2015.
End of march will be a small tour together with Dave Philips with performances in Switzerland, Lithuania, Germany and The Netherlands, … dates soon to be announced.
Santa Sangre 