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Electric legacyland

Dirk Serries invokes the spirit of Hendrix in his latest excursion into rock's roots
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By Darrell Jónsson
For The Prague Post
December 5th, 2007 issue

COURTESY PHOTO
In forging new sounds, Serries has drawn on everything from Slovak folk to traditional classical music.
Fear Falls Burning/Jesu

When: Sunday, Dec. 9, at 7:30
Where: Palác Akropolis
Tickets: 200 Kč in advance, 250 Kč at the door, available at the venue

Reflecting on Jimi Hendrix’s 65th birthday last week, vidnaObmana and Fear Falls Burning founder Dirk Serries says, “I can’t help when thinking about and listening to the music of Jimi Hendrix and how he played the guitar, what he would have achieved in the ’90s and today. I firmly believe that the boundaries between pop, rock, avant-garde, blues and jazz have faded enormously thanks to his bold vision and artistry.”
Serries should know. Playing as part of the post-Hendrix legacy for more than 20 years, he’s been driving the overtones of his Les Paul into uncharted space.
With roots that range from Richard Wagner to Throbbing Gristle, Serries is also inspired these days by excursions into heavy metal and Slovak folk music. Admitting old-school industrial origins while distancing himself from the ambient category, Serries says, “With vidnaObmana I was never really interested in ambient music and could never draw inspiration from that scene, despite the fact that I was making it. With Fear Falls Burning, I had the same kind of feeling, especially when I began to work with Relapse records and became acquainted with the more interesting genres of metal like [label mates] Neurosis, Godflesh and High on Fire. Before that, I was never interested in heavy guitar music. But I started to discover there was more about metal that could inspire me.
“The same goes for classical music. Morton Feldman is one of my greatest inspirational sources. Arvo Pärt and composers such as Wagner, they have been very in tune to what I really want to approach.”
With his current band Fear Falls Burning (FFB), Serries’ approach also includes also a return to primordial inspirations and lessons learned via experiments with the Slovak mountain flute known as the fujara. Praising that instrument’s unique qualities, Serries says, “If you play it more furiously, then you can create rich overtones. These tones can then be recycled, manipulated and processed into something distinct and fascinating. The didgeridoo is still a didgeridoo, a flute is still a flute, but the Slovak fujara is one of the instruments I discovered that could actually do this.”
Still, FFB’s upcoming concert in Prague will be a solidly guitar-driven performance, with Serries playing his prized Les Paul along with other vintage guitars and effects. In a rock context, FFB’s sound has been likened to increasingly popular drone-metal bands like Sunn 0))), Earth and Boris. Yet FFB maintains originality by avoiding most of the current devices used in rock music. Even the Marshall amps have been removed from the loop for FFB’s direct-to-the-board approach.
Taking amps out of the loop is something FBB shares with Robert Fripp, so it’s no surprise to hear Serries say, “For me, the most essential drone album is still No Pussyfooting by Fripp and Eno.” As for catching the current drone-rock bandwagon, Serries was already there and back by 1989. Yet he appreciates the more artful signals found in today’s drone-metal bands, while including in FBB’s sound a transcendent nod to ragas and the drones evoked in African drumming.
Taking a slightly different strategy to the space between the riffs, Godflesh founder Justin Broadrick is backing FFB at Akropolis with his project Jesu, which morphs the progressive grandeur of metal into a soaring sound that recalls the optimism of early ’90s shoegazers such as Ride and the Stone Roses. Although both artists have been following each other’s work since the ’80s, it was not until Broadrick’s 2006 collaboration on FFB’s five-LP set once we all walk through solid objects (on the Tonefloat label) that the two blended their musical worlds.
That blend includes a bit of the overtone electricity born from the historical moment when Hendrix’s guitar first tweaked into The Who’s Marshall amp stack. Now on a European tour together, FBB and Jesu’s oceanic music should be enough to satisfy all the mermen and mermaids swimming on the dance floor.

Darrell Jónsson can be reached at features@praguepost.com


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