livingarchiveSpotlightPhillipBKlingler

by don campau

Experimental artist, Phillip B. Klingler from Michigan.

Phillip has graciously assembled a collection of his sound works for free streaming/download.

During the heyday of Cassette Culture I don't remember having that much contact with PBK. Somehow I received a few tapes and later some CDs so I think we must have been in at least peripheral touch. I always admired , respected and enjoyed the work I had heard by him over the years. For the first few years I didn't even know his real name although it was embedded, but shrouded in his releases. To me there was a type of mystery in what he did because the sounds were so far out, alien -like and strange. It kind of scared me in the way The Haters, Minoy or some other noisemakers did. I was insecure in my little world of home taping rock music and felt it to be shunned by "experimental" artists. However, Phillip B. Klinger is not only an intelligent, articulate and eloquent spokesman for his art but is inclusive and a genuinely nice and engaging fellow. He has also made some of the most outstanding and creative work in the experimental, home recording field.

Below, some examples of his album covers, posters, artwork and photos.

Mike Honeycutt

Philip is an inspiration to the indie network. From the drone and noise of his solo works to the collaborations with the more ambient Dirk Serries - you could always count on PBK to hit you with a fresh slab of sonic mastery. Salute to the man who IS PBK!

Above, a boxset of early works.PBK's collaborations have been many over the years. Examples below of a few of them.

Above, a re-issue of a cassette from 1986 with Jeph Jerman's project, Hands To.

Below, a re-issued solo tape.

In addition to his work in audio, Phillip has also worked in visual arts. An example blow, "Huracan" from 1994.

From the Intransitive website, read PBK's remembrance of a legendary, ill fated show with Minoy.

Check it out.

Alan Herrick

I first encountered recordings by PBK in the late 80's on a cassette release handed to me by a friend. I was immediately struck by his unique ability to take noise music and make it hypnotic, seductive and remarkably ambient. All of the sounds I was listening to should have been frightening and, quite frankly, terrifying yet they melted together in a drone – yes, a glorious drone - not repetitive or boring academic meandering, the screams or howling electronics or the mechanized power noise of some of his peers. This was a tranquil sea of pure noise manipulated into a dreamlike calm - a maelstrom of focused being unlike anything I had heard before.

I sought out more of his music releases from Sound of Pig, Freedom in a Vacuum, ND, Realization and many other small labels from all over the world. Later, I had the unique opportunity to appear on a compilation, Anti White Bastards, partially curated by Phillip – which began my first communiques with him. To say that PBK has been an influence to work I have done is an understatement – and to listen back to those old recordings now reminds me even more of the effect his work has had on my own art. PBK's unique ability to mold and sculpt sound makes him a very important pioneer of his genre and one of the more timeless artists of such as his works still stand as uniquely listenable and engrossing today. PBK has also consistently exhibited one selfless character trait over all these years - that of reaching out to collaborate, teach, learn, and share with his fellow artists – always forging forward and creating new paths on which to venture and explore.

Below, some art postcards he designed for some of his releases.

Jerry Kranitz

I've always enjoyed music and audio works that require effort, give me something to wrap my brain around, and reveals new treasures with repeated listens, and PBK always fits the bill. Whether it's mind-bending spaced out explorations, sound collages, or noise, PBK challenges me with his provocative and image inducing creations.

Dick Metcalf

The music that PBK makes always challenges the listener and (if they are even "halfway" creative, will spur them on to new heights. What I had to say (in "reviewer mode") about one of his performances still holds true today... "As ever, I think it's very, VERY important that younger players & listeners be exposed to sonic adventures of this quality, so they can begin to understand that creativity IS the "clarion call" for folks the world over!" (this was in issue # 89, at http://zzaj.freehostia.com/Z89Reviews.htm)

Below, some pictures of Phillip B. Klingler's home studio.

Another collaboration with German artist, Asmus Tietchens, below.

Artemiy Artemiev

I know Phillip since 1995 & I broadcasted many compositions from his various projects in my radio programs. Besides all that we released 2 collaborative projects on "Electroshock" in 2000 & 2002. I really like his music & consider him one of the best modern experimental composers. He is a real artist. He knows music very well & in his compositions & various projects he often creates, combines & experimenting with classical music forms, noise, timbres, samples & various instruments. And he is a real master in his work.

Below, two fine CD releases on the Russian Electroshock label with Artemiy Aremiev.

More collaborations below.

First, Dutch artist, Vidna Obmana. Then below that, Government Alpha, and then amt.

Below, two projects with southern California artist, Minoy.

Zan Hoffman

PBK's work is continually strong and never superficial. A gentleman, an intellect and a friend of over 20 years - I can COUNT on PBK to deliver.

GX Jupitter-Larsen

PBK always reminds me of how healing wounds are so sensitive to temperature changes, pressure, and movement.

Above, two solo tapes from the 1980's by PBK.

Below, his catalog from the late 80s.

Artist Spotlight

Phillip B. Klingler

(artist, PBK, collaborator, writer)

October 2010

When did you first hear about the tape scene? And were you already recording your own music? Were you in rock bands or other group projects in younger days?

I wasn't in a band in school, I was a DJ. Our high school had a radio
station and I started on-the-air in my sophomore year until I
graduated in 1978. After high school I DJ'ed on the radio and also in
disco clubs. A failed stint in the U.S. military took up a couple of
years and by the time I began college in 1981 I was focusing my
creative endeavors more in the visual arts and concentrating on
painting, all the while, of course, extremely interested in music.
Throughout the 80's, when I lived in California, I used to go to
record shops in L.A. to buy vinyl and music magazines that caught my
eye. OPtion Magazine was very important, also essential was Sound
Choice. Even the punk 'zine, Flipside, would review cassettes. It was
through those cassette review sections that I started buying tapes
from independent artists/labels such as Dino Dimuro(Dimuro Tapes),
Jeph Jerman(Big Body Parts), the We Never Sleep label, and so on. I'd
begun recording my own music, privately, sometime in early '85, rough oddities recorded on a Casio SK-1. In 1986, I purchased a four-track recorder and started working on both rock-oriented pieces and also more abstract, "outside" compositions, but only started sending my own works around the following year.

I was looking through an old issue of Option magazine, from 1987. In
this particular issue I circled in ball-point a number of cassette
reviews and though I didn't manage to obtain every tape I had circled,
I did acquire the tapes listed below:

Al Margolis, Rafael Flores, Bogart & Yutaka Tanaka - International
Mail Music Group (New York, NY)
Minoy - Landscape With Serpent (Torrance, CA)
V/A (Mark Hanley, Etc) - Camera Obscura Sampler, Vol 1 (Los Angeles, CA)
V/A (Greater Than One, Maybe Mental, AMK, Etc) - Insomnia, Vol 1
Boxset (Denver, CO)

These four tapes showed a very interesting cross-section of the U.S.
Tape Underground and I made contact with many of these artists.
Scattered about the country everywhere were musicians and DIY labels
producing and distributing self-created cassette albums. The crazy
thing is that for every tape I circled in that issue, fourteen in all,
there were ten I didn't, and there were probably a hundred others that
never even made it into that month's review section! There is a
tremendous magnitude to all this creative activity, made even more
extraordinary when you consider that all this music is still mostly
unknown to this day!

In the 1980's what kind of gear were you using to create your sound? What do you use now?

In 1985 I bought my first instrument, a Casio SK-1. My interest in
making music growing, I started acquiring more instruments: a drum
machine, bass, guitar, trumpet and a Realistic Moog synthesizer. I
liked the possibilities of the synth a lot, so I started buying more
of them, rather inexpensively, from music stores and pawn shops.
Within a couple of years I had a Minimoog, Moog Source, Yamaha DX-100, Casio CZ-101, Korg MS-20, Roland SH-101 and I would run these through analog pedal effects(spring reverb and delay) and a couple of Digitech Echo Plus units which I used for making loops. I used two digital sequencers, synced together, and could trigger my analog synths with a midi-to-cv controller. I also made use of an early rack-mount Roland sampler. I can't remember ever using distortion pedals, I programmed all of my grungiest noises on the synths and also ran a lot of sounds directly through the MS-20's external input. Over the years, I guess I decided that I didn't need so much equipment to make sounds, my studio is significantly smaller these days. Currently, I use an Alesis Micron and a Dave Smith Evolver as my real-world synths. My turntable and Numark iCDX cd player run through my Korg Kaoss for effecting and creating loops. I have six different analog and digital FX pedals, but still no distortion! Last but certainly not least is the laptop on which I have numerous soft-synths and VST effects.

Do you play keyboards?

I have no competency on keyboards at all, or any instrument for that
matter. I always use instruments in very crude, unskilled ways. I
remember one day, talking to Dave Prescott and he was complaining
about somebody and said "that guy can't even find middle c on the
keyboard" and I sort of stifled a laugh because I certainly could not
find it either!

Who were some of your first tape trades with?

Zan Hoffman, Big City Orchestra, Dave Prescott, Minoy.

How did you get your vast network of international contacts?

Networking activities were very difficult in those days, all done by
mail, maybe an occasional phone call. You gave info out to like-minded individuals, you suggested contacts and albums you'd heard, you sent your tapes to magazines like Option and hoped they would be reviewed, just so you could meet yet another eccentric artist. Because the audience that bought or traded for my music, well, they were sound artists too! We all knew how much work it took to lay out ads, pamphlets, folders, brochures, catalogs, tape and lp covers, etc and I'd say there was mutual respect for those who put such effort into their craft. It certainly would've been easier if we'd had the
Internet in the early days! But we were all dedicated to the concept
of networking and the usual thing was to send every person you wrote some extra catalogs, or announcements, or cards, stickers, buttons, and that person, in turn, would send them to people they were writing. This process over and over for years somehow resulted in my work getting known even in Eastern Europe and Russia!

Although it is obvious what PBK stands for, why did you use it as your moniker as opposed to your full name? Was it just easier?

Yeah, I guess it was easier, and since I had started signing my visual
art works with "PBK", I decided to continue using it for my sound
works. It seemed natural.

In addition to creating music you also contributed to the publication, "Electrogenesis" . How did that come about? Len Wiles was the person responsible for this magazine. Did you ever meet him or know him well?

Minoy introduced me to Electrogenesis, I ordered a subscription and
asked Len Wiles if he was interested in publishing an article I had
written about the correlation between cassette networking and Gibson's cyberpunk concept. He agreed and I wrote a couple of things for him. I lost touch with Len for a long time, and then about two years ago I found him again on YouTube and just as quickly he dropped out of sight again.

Did you ever contribute to other mags like Sound Choice or Option or others?

I've been a frequent letter writer and had my letters published in
several magazines. Most important were the letters published around
1990 in EST (http://media.hyperreal.org/zines/est/articles/freedom.html),
and an exchange I had with Ben Gilbert in his magazine, Chemical
Castration, regarding fascism and racism in the noise/industrial music
underground. I also did some articles for Hal McGee's "Electronic
Cottage". Most recently I was writing music reviews for the e-zine,
Heathen Harvest, before they folded.

You have done a tremendous amount of collaborating over the years. What is it about this type of work that excites you?

I've always been very interested in applying my creative approach
towards different styles of sound expression. I enjoy challenging my
own concepts, and have had ample opportunity to do so considering the wide array of artists I've worked with. As an improvising musician, it is particularly important for me to collaborate with other artists
"in-person" and I try to do that whenever possible.

When you get collaborative tracks did you listen to them intently many times before you start working with them? How do you then begin working? Improvising?

With audio sources I rarely listen to them before working with them. I
like to work very spontaneously with the sounds and let ideas flow
freely without preconception. I work very quickly when in this
process, I try to keep my critical faculties at a minimum. Then, after
the pieces are finished, I listen to them obsessively and sometimes I
can tap into the subconscious meanings behind the creative process and
begin to form a concept of what the compositions are about, what they represent, and how to title them.

When you create collaborative tracks for others do you try to sculpt them to the person you are sending them to? Or do you challenge them to work with whatever you've done?

I usually collaborate with artists whose music I know very well, so
maybe yes, I can anticipate what type of source material that person
may enjoy working with. But it's really sort of random. I usually mix
it up, I send sources that I feel the other person will have empathy
for, and also some surprises just to see what might unfold.

Have you done many live performances , either solo or with others? Have you traveled outside of your local area to perform?

I have performed some concerts over the years, I wouldn't say a lot,
maybe two or three times a year. I've been based in Flint, Michigan
for about 15 years now and in that time I've performed on the east and west coasts and some of the central U.S., and also in Paris, France.
My preference is to perform in a duo, or group situation. I like the
live dynamic of two or more musician pushing each other towards more inspiring improvisation.

Here's some names, can you give brief comments about each with some personal observations or connections?

Minoy:

Minoy was one of my first contacts in the cassette network and very
eccentric person! He had a fragile personality condition characterized
by extreme mood swings. At times, he'd seem to thrive on lack of sleep and could stay up for days on end recording music. Other times there was no way to reach him because he would be out of it, laid up in bed depressed and not moving much. I am one of the few people, apparently, who met Minoy in person, we collaborated at his house in Torrance, CA on several occasions. He had a vast knowledge of art history and was a very good artist himself. He taught me a lot and introduced me to many of my early contacts in the Cassette Underground. We worked very closely together through 1987. Minoy had a strong drive and sense of competition but he could be petty and jealous at times. Even though he had asked me to keep the hoax project, "Disco Splendor", our secret, when the project started to get some attention and positive reviews, he abruptly switched us over to using the name of "Minoy/PBK". After we stopped working together we had no further contact, which is sad. But I still have a lot of good thoughts about him, and I respect what he did creatively. He is one of the originators of Mail Art and Cassette Culture, and an extraordinary composer whose work needs to be better known.

Artemiy Artemiev:

Artemiy Artemiev is another prolific electronic composer, mostly for
Russian films and, of course, has a strong lineage in that direction
what with his father, Edward's, work for genius film director, Andrei
Tarkovsky. His music is cinematic and imaginative with vivid imagery.
Artemiy's endless activities on behalf of the Eastern European and
Russian experimental music scenes are exceptional. His label,
Electroshock Records, known for it's emphasis on dramatic electronic
and electroacoustic music, has brought many artists to the spotlight,
such as Antanas Jasenka and Anatoly Pereslegin, and he has also helped
document the important works of the elder Artemiev.

The Haters:

Conceptually, the purest, most elusive, yet most prolific of noise
artists. An enigma.

Al Margolis:

Al Margolis, well, here you have a cat whose efforts on behalf of
Cassette Culture, are simply inestimable! Al's open-ended policy
towards releasing experimental music via his label, Sound Of Pig, was
a way of capturing the WHOLE cassette underground scene, like taking a snapshot, and I think that makes his label especially important. He essentially documented an entire sub-culture from it's infancy through to adolescence. About that time, early 90's, he started to receive flack from Option magazine, where they lambasted Sound Of Pig for putting out too many releases, and it's true that every crazy
experimental noise project was put to Al's attention as a possible
release on his label. He, in fact, documented the scene so
extensively, there were over 300 releases! Pay attention youth of the
noise culture, Sound Of Pig's cassettes are still available, the
catalog is online here: http://www.pogus.com/catalogue_sop.html

Chris Phinney:

I corresponded with Chris in the past, but we never met and I really
don't know him too well. He ran a damn fine label, Harsh Reality, with a bunch of crucial experimental releases and also put out some of his own music under the name, Mental Anguish. A fine artist, gentleman and a family man by the look of it.

Hal McGee:

Hal Mcgee and I have had a somewhat tumultuous relationship over the years. We are both strongly opinionated and have clashed on occasion. But I respect Hal a great deal. This is something I came to realize over time, that Hal McGee must be considered one of the greatest of the first generation of noise artists. His heaviest works, the things he released under the name Dog As Master, are some of the most powerfully violent noise works ever released! And another cool thing about Hal is he's been an open book, sharing his knowledge, it's
evidently a compulsion for him, he is a teacher at heart. We were
lucky to have Hal there to document the Cassette Network's activities
at a time when nobody else was, and to have it come from an insider, a person who was so deeply involved in it, made his efforts that much
more authentic.
How is making a personal expression, or autobiographical approach, possible in experimental music? I guess what I am asking is about instrumental or noise works specifically. Is it even important to you to do this?

Yeah, you and I were talking about this earlier... To me one of the
dilemma's of creating noise music, because my work relies a great deal
on chance over practical method, how then do you create a unified
style that is original and belongs to you since the variables are so
unpredictable? Many jazz musicians with brilliant technique are easily
identified: John Coltrane, Eric Dolphy, Thelonious Monk, Charlie
Parker, Cecil Taylor and so on... When you get to John Cage, who is
dealing more conceptually with chance elements, randomness, silence,
acoustic spaces, etc, well, where is the style? Take it even further
to people like Chris Watson(former Cabaret Voltaire), or Dale Lloyd,
who release field recordings? How do you identify the artist?? It
seems the more separated we get from the actual hands-on creation of a set of sound parameters which we can control as expressionistic
devices, the less identifiable to that artist the music becomes. This
argument has no bearing whatsoever on the beauty, or aesthetic quality
of the music, only on this one identifiable aspect of "style". I
definitely hope to create a music that is unique to me, that like a
painting, would be recognizable as being created by my hand, but
technically speaking, because of the way I work, I can only
approximate what might be my own sound because I never rely on the same set of performance parameters in the creation of the pieces.

You have a wide ranging knowledge and interest in many types of music from rock to jazz to experimental and much more. What draws you to the type of music you make yourself?

My technical limitations in the actual hands-on performing of music
have a lot to do with it. I came from a radio DJ background and was
already on-the-air at 14 years old working at my high school radio
station. I became very well-versed in using tape, turntables and
effects to create commercial spots for on-the-air. But, as far as
performance of music, I never had the patience, I suppose, to learn
how to play instruments properly. Later it occurred to me that I
actually could use even very limited techniques instrumentally(as long
as they were expressionistic) with what I already knew about recording and overdubbing and find a relatively close sound to what I was hearing in my head.

What are some primary influences?

Listening to the music of John Coltrane inspired me a lot. The
brilliance of his technical approach, the restructuralist aspect of
his work with standards and stage/screen music, the sheer unrestrained
beauty of his compositions, all made his music extremely important.His
new wave jazz recordings like Meditations, or Live At The Village
Vanguard Again! showed how "universals" could be expressed in very
emotional, noisy and primal sound settings.

Burroughs and Gysin, are very important, their various methods of
creative transformation will continue to infuse the works of artists,
musicians and writers for a long time to come. Through them, I learned the value of chance juxtaposition.

Early SPK were obviously a huge inspiration for many of us,
exemplifying the strong and abstract use of noise elements that, even
though lo-fi, have authentic emotional strength and grittiness. I
didn't discover SPK until maybe 1987, so it was after the fact, but
hearing them made me understand better the path I'd already chosen.

In the late 80's, I had been working with sound already but I was
looking for a model of some sort and found Klaus Schulze. His early
works and the one thing he did with Tangerine Dream were fascinating. As a solo performer using synthetic sounds to create long, slowly evolving soundscapes (which, to me, were "sonic paintings"), I
definitely felt something in common with him.

One other I must mention is Sun Ra. I have grown to love this man's
music more and more. His work is, for me, on the same great level as
that of Coltrane. Sun Ra's search for different sounds and
combinations of sounds, his use of modified keyboards predates the
circuit-bending movement, his solos on the Minimoog could often be as cacophonous as anything you might see at a noise concert today! The conceptual basis for his art, the sociopolitical aspects, and the
self-production of music outside the mainstream all make his work very important on many levels. From large-scale works to solo piano
recordings, Sun Ra is essential studying for listeners in the 21st
century.

How have you been able to balance family needs with your own need to express yourself through your music? Has your family commented much on your music?

Music and art always belong to their own time-frame, it doesn't matter
how futuristic the may seem, they could only be made at this time, in
this place. So, what we have today, in the U.S. music underground, is
a bunch of people who cannot make a living with their music. They can hardly buy a new instrument with the money that they make. Everything comes out of pocket! The fact that we cannot make a living at it, does that make us hobbyists, or dilettantes? I think the answer is "neither", for experimental musicians, noise artists, etc it's simply the paradigm of their experience in the music underground of this time period. There is no money here, so it's up to the artist to define for themselves just WHY they do it! Are we all ego tripping? Our families have to be involved with our music, because any of the hours I take to pursue my art, I take away from my children, my wife, my friends. For me to do that, because of this compulsion, knowing that the result will not bring any money, well I'm either crazy or inconsiderate! But the people close to me realize that I can't stop this obsession if I wanted to, so they, as much as possible, have embraced it... Their graciousness has been my greatest gift!

There seems to be a healthy involvement of women in the underground music scene now. Why do you think there were so few women in the "early days" of Cassette Culture?

If you ask me, I still don't think there are enough! In the Noise
scene anyway it's still mostly a bunch of guys.

Do you think Cassette Culture has a legacy? And what would it be?

My question would be- does the institution deserve a legacy? Wasn't
Cassette Culture simply the propagation of more products, the egoistic
manufacture of more me and you? In reality, weren't we simply
reproducing our music and selling these products on a small-scale
version modeled after the indie labels which were modeled after the
mainstream labels? It was important to make our reproductions
"professional" looking, not so much as a matter of pride, but to
establish that we had successfully aped the ways of corporate
marketing and created a product which justified commodifying our
music. I remember Minoy saying that he would price his cassettes high
because to do otherwise would be selling himself short, in effect
saying his work wasn't worth anything. And for Minoy, who hand-crafted every tape with his own artwork, he also felt every cassette he made was an artifact, a collectible. That aspect of Cassette Culture, in
the present tense, has become even more prevalent, with ultra-limited
edition releases, artist-created packaging, all designed to appeal to
the collector, another method for commodification. There is another
thing, most artists in the tape underground would trade their work, in
fact, I remember a lot of catalogs indicating "Trades Welcomed". I
strongly believe that the one who is really taking steps in the right
direction, currently, is Hal McGee. He sells his albums as cassettes
to those who wish them, and also provides free downloads of the same releases in both mp3 and lossless format, plus he's an incessant
trader. His dedication to the true legacy of Cassette Culture, which
was always dedicated to a strong trading/giving away for free ethic,
is immeasurable and he is the one to study on this.

The internet is great for self distribution and immediacy. What do you think is the downside? Flippancy? attention deficiency? Lack of depth of personal relationships?

No downside as I see it. I read some things today about how music is
being digested differently now, attentions spans are shorter, we are
devolving from AOR back to hit singles- or so they say. The corporate
powers-that-be would love for us to believe that, they always made
their money off the single anyway! But the enlightened listeners I
know still listen to the album all the way through! How a person
discovers music, how a person walks any path of knowledge, can't be
dictated by me or anybody else. In my life there were many things I
shrugged off as a younger man only to discover later how wrong I'd
been. The internet is like a huge book and the oft times convoluted
discovery process for internet users (which, incidentally, other than
porno sites, is still baffling to the corporations) leads just as
often to the obscure and esoteric as it does to the mainstream.

What drives you to keep creating?

I am alive. The same thing that drives me to want to live another day,
a profound curiosity.

What are the plans for the future?

I am trying to live present-tense right now, I'm running behind on a
lot of project and have so many things on my plate currently that I
don't want to think too far ahead!

What's the best URL for people to explore your work more?

If you go to http://pbksound.com there are links on the sidebar for my catalog, discography, net label, etc

Thanks Phillip, good luck with all.