Puppe Magnetik Interview

 

1.For those who have never heard of you before, can you tell us a little bit about the musical project?

First of all I will introduce myself: I am Aina Vitanen and I am an avant-gardist. Describing anything is always complicated. I could say I try to describe my dimension of my status through my music. I am convinced that I lived years ago, in the form of a heretic nun or a witch, I knew it since I was a child, and I still carry those childhood wounds with me.

2.In June you had released a new album, can you tell us a little bit more about the musical style that you felt for on the recording?

It is banal to say it, but my music is a funereal music, for the dead, evocative. I always try to make the sound dirty and raw, that album dates back a long time ago, I have a vague memory of it, even though it is about to come out, it is a very varied album and with an original, ancient, retro sound. There are shadows in my life, in my past and in my present, the presence of these shadows leads me to be reborn in the theater, spectator and author at the same time, and everything echoes in time and reverberates in space, leaves an echo: this is what art and music mean to me, and so I wander among these areas.

3.What are some of the lyrical topics and subjects you have explored so far with music?

Difficult question, I don't know, obviously it expresses a sort of surreality of existence, if only because I venture into traditional, remote and abandoned music, absolutely remote styles of exposing oneself, respecting the parameters of the era to which I refer. I don't know exactly what I'm talking about, but I speak as if I had a limited culture, not contemporary, my compositions are very personal, I have never written something for others, I record for myself and publish what I like. My vision is a distorted vision of facts and circumstances and I say without any fuss, it's a fact.

4.What is the meaning and inspiration behind the name 'Puppe Magnetik'?

The name was born immediately and by chance, spontaneously. German is familiar to me as the Puppe's idiea, magnetism rendered an electronic idea, but I use an almost archaic term. In addition, if magnetic this doll seems self-propelled, mechanical, almost apparently alive.

5.Can you tell us a little bit more about the artwork that is presented on the new album cover?

Of course, I wanted a raw impact, almost black metal, the cover portrays me blindfolded with an image of myself hanging from my neck, in short sewn on, as is used to remember dead people in some countries. It's the cover of me alive celebrating my funeral. It's like wearing a skullcap, I don't have a warning to others but the awareness that nothing in this life makes sense if tomorrow you're dead, and often completely forgotten, since in this life you were of no use at all.

6.With this -project you record you record everything by yourself, are you open to working with other musicians or do you prefer to work solo?

Encouraged by my family, I studied to be a classical musician. But I never adapted to that environment. I hung out with people who in August used a foulard to protect their throat, who didn't drink and who didn't take drugs. At my first audition everyone spoke of me as a prodigy, but then the situation changed. My real expressive vision was totally opposite to theirs. So I set up my own business, I dissociated myself. This has meant working alone in these years, especially to prove to myself whether I was a musician or not. With "Laudans Deum", many doors opened, musicians I was fans of started following me, and this opened a series of collaborations for the future. The next official album will be very extreme, very powerful, and will have many collaborations, I wrote every song specifically for each of them, and it will be a lot of fun.

7.The album was released on 'Rune Serpent Europa', can you tell us a little bit more about this label?

Well I can tell you that I created the label! They didn't exist, I turned to a metal label with my first demo, along with the others. They wrote to me: your album is beautiful but we don't know how to insert it and where.... If you wait a few years, we'll create a label for you. And like in fairy tales: that's what happened, in fact my album has the catalog number RSE001. The label is a sort of consortium between artists, there are 4 or 5 main producers, a very liberal place, kind and attentive people, very professional.

8.On a worldwide level how has the reaction been to your music by fans of experimental and underground musical genres?

It's the first time I have a band, so I can't answer you. There are some very dear people who write to me and follow me, in general the press has always had great feelings about me, but my project is still absolutely niche and unknown, but no one here had other expectations.

9.Where do you see yourself heading into as a musician during the future?

Terrible question. I absolutely don't know. If I knew I would already be there.

10.What are some of the bands or musical styles that have had an influence on your music and also what are you listening to nowadays?

I have a great musical culture, every music has its own atmosphere and its own descriptive moment in which it is worth living. In Berlin I went to reggae parties dressed as a nun, I don't know how to answer you in reality there are many, I would mention Paganini, if it were nothing else for his venereal diseases.

11.What are some of your non-musical interests?

Without a doubt botany, traditional cuisine, traditional life. I study the kind of potions based on psychotropic herbs and alcohol, but I don't think they are legal yet, I would like to market them.

12. Before we wrap up this interview, do you have any final words or thoughts?

Yes, I have one: the world is losing itself, it is losing its individuality, having lost its individuality in our sphere, we become uniform. Don't conform, listen to that eagle that glides within you, free it, and follow its instinct. From that moment on, the world that you will have before you will be exactly the fruit of your imagination and you will be able to modify it as you please.

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