THIS IS THE COMPLETE UNEDITED INTERVIEW WITH DIRK HOFFMAN AND HYBRYDS. IT APPEARED IN A VERY SHORT VERSION IN GERMAN MAGAZINE ZILLO - DECEMBER 96.

In most of your releases yet the meaning and function of the ritual stood in the foreground. While the ritual in social unstructured, so-called primitive societies with a strong connection to religion still has an important function for the community; in western civilisations, the hunger for more and more consumption has replaced the religion as first moral code. What is the function of the ritual nowadays for you about. ?

Religion is part of mankind. Since 8000 years a poisoned mental system has blinded mankind : The monotheistic system, the great cruel god : Jaweh, worshipped by the Jews, Catholics and Islam.This system destroyed the first religion of the human race, the Mother goddess culture, or the connection with earth.The monotheistic religion has cut off the human race from his real destiny. In ancient times and now, still in so called “ primitive” cultures, religion had a different meaning. It was the connection between man and nature. We have to know that all our contemporary knowledge is build on the indoctrination of the monotheistic religion. I am very sure that in the times before Jaweh, religion was a social system, created by mankind, to find his place in the world and the universe. For me it was even an atheistic system, it had a complete different dimension than we are used of religion now. Religion made it possible to create magic, myth and the ritual. These systems were needed to give understanding to life. It were these systems that made the human race crawl out of the mud and build his world, and for me all things went wrong when the tribes of Israel invented the male God, to conquer and kill. Nowadays the ritual is still in all his aspects part of life in our western society, but it is not recognised as a ritual anymore. A ritual can be anything where you give meaning to, by repeating curtain movements they get an extra dimension wich can be valuable for your inner spiritual world. We have to start thinking on a different moral level, give meaning to life on a personnel way, not following any leaders, nor believing any guru’s. Religion should be a personnel and atheistic system, which you can use to place yourself as human between the other humans, every human is an unique God.
Although the system of capitalism has penetrated our entire life, there still seems to be a strong search for a suitable spiritual system, because a lot of people realize, that capitalism can not solve all our problems. Where do you see the reasons for the fall of the traditional big religions and how do you judge the chance that new spiritual systems are able to replace both the big religions and capitalism?
The impact of the traditional monotheistic religion is fading because it is easy to see how much hate and destruction they cause. Almost all the wars and problems in the world are directly connected to the concept of the monotheistic God.Capitalism is just a part of the monotheistic indoctrination. Fundamentalists are trying in a last attempt to destroy all the others that don’t believe in their God, they even kill each other for this. These fundamentalist are the great danger for the future of the human race. As reaction we see a so called New Age movement , a collection of diverse systems, disciplines and people. I am suspicious against this because they all have the same structure : A guru, a leader, you can buy salvation, when you pay , you can get advisement of the spirits.....I think that individualism that until now has a negative taste, should get his value back. If you understand yourself and except your individual needs than its easy to understand we are all the same.New spiritual systems will not have the dimensions contemporary people expect.

With “ Dreamscapes “and “ Mistrust Authority” you realized two totally differentconceptions and also different musical solutions. In which way do you usually create a record? Do you always think about the concept first and then create the music around or create first the music and than the concept ?

We make our music on a very unstructured way. Different styles from etno - ambient - industrial - whatever are created day after day. There is no concept first. Only the equipment on wich we make sound. We mostly use acoustic sounds which are electronically processed. We have cheap and second hand effect processors and they are very important in creating the sound we want.These basic structures are archived and finished on moments we feel, sometimes years later. It can go on to all directions, sometimes an ethnic basic can turn out to be an industrial finished product. After a while I start to structure these archived basics together in my head. Then the concept starts to be born. My ideas of life in all his aspects are intermingled in the music by using text or voice samples and finally the finished product get shapes.
With “ Mistrust Authority “ you both pick up new musical sounds and a unusual subject. In which way did the idea arise to deal with political and religious suppression? What was the inspiration of LO-TEKS and William Gibson about ?
Mistrust Authority is a purely industrial concept and is actually one of my oldest musical concepts, this was the music I created before I was involved with the KLINIK. It was only recently I was pleased with the sound because we now have better technology at our home to record it. It is music I make when I am bored or angry, very powerful but simple music. I am also fascinated by the future of the human race. Virtual reality, computers, the Webb, all these reflections of human imagination will bring us a new way of thinking.The future , William Gibson has created in his books is a very tangible one. His books deals with the battle of the individual against the system, against political and religious suppression.A world that will be dominated by technocrats and wherein technology will be used ( instead of religion) to dominate, to rule. Its important that we use all we have to arm us against this. We feel ourselves as LO-TEK, we use old and secondhand gear, its only recently we could buy a computer. Technology was simple to expensive for us to afford. People ,who can not buy technology will have to create their own material, recycled from the consumption society.
Did the harsh electronic music also served as an outlet of suppressed feelings for yourself or did you create the sound more as an encouragement for the audience ?
As I told you , this music is specially for me a way to steam off. Actually I was quit surprised for the positive reactions. There is so much obscure and harsh stuff on the market that is in fact only interested for the one who made it. It where other people who showed me that my personnel music was also for them very enjoyable.

What kind of instrument did you use ?

Mistrust Authority was released on vinyl, with a sober cover, to fit in the concept of LO-TEK . Actually I personnel don’t like the sound of vinyl anymore, its not clear, it is different than my master tapes, created in our studio. The music is made with a drum machine and some old effect processors, and a compressor / limiter. The original recording is made with some special frequencies, which make the inside of the brain goes mellow to create a cybertrance. In the future a new cyber release on DAFT will show you the difference between LO- TEK vinyl and digital media.Dreamscapes is a totally different musical concept. What did attract you on the dark side of life ? Is it an attempt to feel comfortable with everybody’s dark side ? What is the conception of the work about ? What does the subtitle :” Structured sound for an unstructured mind “ mean ?
Dreamscapes is for me an intense trip into my brain. It is very personnel music.It deals with the other side in ourselves, the dark side. Before the monotheistic god appeared there was a world with other moral values. The monotheistic religion splitter our inner world in 2 moral concepts, good and bad, god and the devil.And only one part was to be accepted. But to know our really inner self,we also have to accept the other side. In modern science one can see that everything exist out of positive and negative elements. Together they form the complete part of existence. So its too with people, they have to accept each aspect of themselves in order to exist. I don”t see the dark side as bad. It is a part of ourselves that contains the information of our germs of existence> Survival,killing instinct,the animal side. The things that were in us before we became human. It is not possible to deny these things, they were needed tools to create the human race. And know its time to understand these aspects of destruction, so that we can use them on a positive way.“Structured sound for an unstructured mind” deals with the fact that we have to learn to structure the input in our brain. All we get are loose parts of information which are transported in our neurons and hopefully with an chemical reaction gets together and give us a pulse to act. We can learn to structure our imagination and become more creative. Use more of the potential we have inside.We have to learn to use Magic again.

Why did you work so long at this CD , from 1990 to 1995 ?

It took me 5 years to complete this CD, because the bits and pieces I created didn’t fall together, there was no connection between the ideas, the words, the sounds. For years I archived the immense puzzle of abstract information in my head and suddenly one day it felt all together. In 3 weeks I finished the complete CD, it was like magic, my hands were working with technology but these hands were steered by a high level of clearness in my brain.It was an intense emotion.

Future plans ?

We recently performed partly the Dreamscapes concept live in Leipzig and Weischenburg, and we will be touring with SONAR in Germany with the cyber punk concept. A cyber CD release on DAFT to support the live tour, and Yasnaïa just released her first solo CD on World Serpent.
sept 96