The Static Park Questionnaire 04 - Poète Maudit

01 What is your name / age / nationality ?

Zach Hill / 19 / American born, German descent (I can't play the drums.)

02 How did you get into noise ?

I started out playing in punk bands, and eventually learned I liked improvising and making weird sounds and screwing around more than practicing structure or songs. From there I went on to free improv techniques, then building my own simple instruments, then to electronics. I love noise because literally anything goes in it.

03 How did you choose the name of your project / What does it mean to you ?

Les Poètes Maudits is a collection of poetry curated by Paul Verlaine. It was one of the first collections of poetry I ever read outside of school textbooks. It was a collection of poets he deemed to live outside of the norms of society, such as Mallarmé, Rimbaud, Corbière, and himself (under a pseudonym). I am still a very avid reader of poetry, especially the early avant-garde (Dada, concrete, Surrealist), Beat, and Romantic eras. In turn, my tracks are all titled after lines from old poetry, predominately from French poets.

 
04 Which one of your releases would make the best entry point into your work ?

I tend to have two styles, one being long, droning, ambient pieces made mostly from field recordings. For this style, I would say "The Conqueror Worm" is one of the best places, especially if you don't want to deal with 40+ minute pieces.

The second style is more traditional power electronics, live recording, and handmade instruments. For this, I would say "Come from forever and you will go everywhere."

  
05 How do you record ? (live, sequencing, multi-tracking etc..)

I alternate between multi-tracking and live recording. I also use a lot of field recordings which I then digitally manipulated.

06 What is your favorite piece of gear ?

Although I don't use it as much of late, it would be a modified, cheap old guitar of mine. I keep it strung/tuned CCGGCC, I've built a killswitch into it, plus some cosmetic changes. I use it for extended techniques and drones, predominantely.

07 Do you play live ? How is it different from your releases ?

I have yet to play a live show. I would love to start.

08 Who would you like to collab / make a split with ?

John Wiese, GX Jupitter-Larsen/The Haters, and you. Originally one of my biggest wishes was to work with Vomir, but that's already in progress.

09 Do you listen to other types of sound/music ? Which ones ?

Oh, I listen to all kinds of things. A lot of old punk, avant-classical music (Cage, Stockhausen, Penderecki), (free) jazz, and old blues.

10 What is your favorite record at the moment ?

Of albums I've bought in the last year or so, I've really been excited over Melt-Banana's Fetch. Also, I've been listening to Daniel Menche's The Marriage of Metals a lot lately.

You can listen to Poète Maudit HERE

And HERE is his Facebook page