An Interview with Antye Greie-Ripatti (AGF)

I first ran into Antye Greie-Ripatti's work as a part of the duo Laub, and have followed her career since then in its many and varied forms - her solo work as AGF (I'm personally particularly drawn to her Source Voice release on the LINE label), the AGF/DELAY duo with her partner Vladislav Delay, and other collaborations with Zavoloka, the trio The Dolls (with Vladislav Delay and Craig Armstrong), and - more recently, as part of The Lappetites (with Eliane Radigue, Kaffe Matthews, and Ryoko Kuwajima). A friend had seen her give a knockout presentation and performance at the recent Ableton Loop event in Berlin, and I thought it seemed like a good time to connect with her and talk about her recent work in both its recorded and in its more social and community-based forms.

Since many of us know you primarily through your released work, we don’t necessarily see the “whole picture” of your artistic activity – with Kon:3p>UTION to: e[VOL]ution, that’s even more evident due to the addition of >if*true~time[x]1+2=you.\<, the visual work that accompanies it. How do you place your upcoming release’s form and content in relation to your earlier recorded work?

I am not sure what you are exactly referring to. The single/EP format? Twenty years of record releases (It is 20 years this year)?Okay. Let’s try both of those questions....

I have not done 'singles’ before as AGF, and this is just due to the new digital release possibilities - you can now release overnight on iTunes, Spotify, Tidal or bandcamp.

My last real solo record was Beatnadel. I think the new record will continue from there, aesthetically. I released these first tracks to hint at a new record of mine and to let people know I am working on something. Actually, I was doing a lot of sound art, writing film music and stage scores, doing conceptual work and curation over the last few years and I haven’t really played "the game."

It's interesting to think that the things you describe - sound art, conceptual work, and curation are not part of "playing the game." Do you mean that "the game" is thinking of yourself or being thought of as someone who just puts out audio product? If so, then stepping away from that makes what you're doing more interesting to me - especially in terms of how you think of them fitting together....

When I said “the game," I meant the record-release/competition/market game. There is artistic practice and then there is the music biz. They have nothing in common, except that you can also play the game creatively – and that you have to if you’re short on funds.

And in terms of your overall work?

I am always struggling to find the right mixture and the right representation of my language in a record. There will always be voice, noise, off-beats and radical sounds and this weird listening aspect involved with club aesthetics. There will always be references to pop culture too and the idea of the ‘song.’ I will always think of the album like a pop record producer - it has to be a piece. a moment in time. I am weird that way, and that is good.

I never felt it represents my character or artistic language to be just one thing, like someone who makes ambient records, I try but can’t do it. That is also a problem for the business side of things, unfortunately, I am surely annoying a lot of people who liked one thing or another in my earlier work. But when I look at my first solo record Head Slash Bauch, which I made back in 2000, I think it still sounds relevant in 2016 - I am proud on it. It was released in San Francisco with Joshua Kit Clayton and Sue C. It was an amazing time!!! Lots or Max/MSP....

The new album will hopefully respond to actual reality of me and the world today.

One of the things I find satisfying about your work is its careful sense of scale and an attention to the strategic choice of tools and materials- besides your texts and vocals, there’s this same sense of craft in projects such as Field Techno, Sonic Wild Code and your hai art curatorial practices. Are there tools and practices that you think of as your “go-to toolkit,” or is that collection always in flux?

I'm not really sure what you are referring too when you ask about tools. Production? Direction? Artistic confidence? Following an instinct? I think it is rather an artistic boldness and execution style, perhaps. But yeah - in flux, definitely.

I notice that I work strangely - I think a long and hard about life, humanity, technology, responsibility, economics, and psychology. But when it comes down to making Art, I have been very intuitive and radical. And when I have the feeling that this is happening, I release it. 'Kon:3p>UTION to: e[VOL]ution' will be my 30th record release as an executive producer or co-producer, I think. Not everything seems like gold all the time, but sometimes things from this or that work surface and they mean something to someone.

Since we’re ranging so widely across different areas of your work, I’m a little hesitant to talk about specific tools, since it’s so common for people to reduce artists to their tools.

That is true. Here are a couple of photographs - from very early on and two from after 2010 - where you can see the hardware tools I have been using and evolving with. In a way, not much has changed - I am pretty much the same since day one.

I should add software, actually.

I use Logic, radiaL, Max, Amadeus Pro sometimes, and Reaktor - and more recently apps like iMPC, SAMPLR, SECTOR, Borderlands, and Fieldscaper.

Still, this is a Max-centric group of people. Could you say a little bit about how using Max does (or doesn’t) make sense for the way your approach material and ideas?

I have used Max since day one. Everything is done in one patch I developed from a patch called Undirected which Stephan Mathieu sent me back in 2000. I use it to create these densely layered lively ambiences which probably has become been characteristic of my work - it is always there somewhere… I like to work with harmonies. I also use Max for a lot of vocal processing - either singing directly into it or using it to process recorded vocals.

radiaL has had a huge impact since it came out and had had a huge influence on my work. I find that little looper remarkable and I use it every day. live and in studio, mainly for composing intuitively. I write sample-based music in it all the time.

More recently, I also use Max for visuals. which I have lately been transferring into .gif files and live visuals.

What led you into doing your own visuals? What tools do you use to make them? Do you approach doing this kind of work in a similar way to what you do with audio?

I have done handwriting and some freeform calligraphy for a long time, and I always thought about how to evolve this also in a live audiovisual context. I learned video in the process of making an audiovisual opera with the Lappetites in 2009. It was really exciting to dive into something new, and I'm still learning. I have help with my programming in Max - Lars Ulrich and also Sue C. have helped me realize my ideas. Right now, I'm working with 3D visuals abstracted from small video loops which contain movement, and I overlay them with ink graphics - I am experimenting with stillness and movement, so to speak.

Your recent work with the female:pressure project that Susanne Kirchmayr (Electric Indigo) started up in the late 1990s and the more recent TUMBLR-based VISIBILITY incarnation has added to a great resource and source of inspiration, and extended the antidote to the relative “invisibility” of women artists in electronic music practice.

I’m sure it involved a tremendous investment of time for you – time you could easily have been spending on your own work, in fact. Much of your activity has been curatorial, and I was wondering if there had there been any surprises along the way for you personally....

Being involved with female:pressure has been incredible. mind-blowing. The parts that I worked directly on were Nerdgirls, VISIBILITY, and #Rojava.

When FADER published a powerful article on female DJ collectives recently and started off with shout-outs to female:pressure and the VISIBILITY blog, I was really proud - my music does not reach that far most of the time. It is an absolute necessity for me to contribute what I can to make women more visible and powerful. Electronic music was supposed to be a next step human evolution - it is unacceptable to fall back in same patriarchal structures and lame white supremacy habits.

While working with the Rojava project, I have been thinking more deeply about the role of women in society. I was raised communist in a Marxist state. Despite all its faults and patriarchal structures, there was a sense of equality from the start. Until my late thirties, I didn't even think about feminism as a necessary thing. But over my lifetime, I saw the regression - and having a daughter? In no way can I accept a lack of equality.

As a thinker, I draw my influences from Clara Zetkin, Rosa Luxemburg, Hannah Arendt, and my contemporaries. I have also learned from the #blacklivematter movement - it is incredible, in my opinion, how class is diminished in their fight. If you're interested, you can find the recording of a panel discussion about these issues here.

I’m wondering what kind of advice you might have for those women and men who are full of good intention and good ideas who aren’t sure about where to start and how to go about finding their own voices… If you imagine your younger self starting out now, what advice would you have now to give to that woman to help her on her way?

That is a good question. How about: "Dear fellow women producers! Kick ass, express yourself and play the game! You will most likely win!"

I am thinking on this a lot lately, because I am giving lectures. I think that solidarity is my greatest advice. That involves a lot of different approaches:

• Resisting media reports of the single "exceptional woman."

• Encouraging other women.

• Solidarity with the other women.

• Encouraging enthusiasm for different kinds of women.

• Creating safe spaces for women/groups/minorities teach and share knowledge.

• Finding a "crew," so you are not alone.

What I mean is that we often we get played and women themselves slam others - for example, Nicki Minaj against Lauren Hill, Nina Kravitz against whoever... while they're just different women with different choices.

Feminism is for all people and there is freedom of expression to all type of people. This goes for queer people and people of color even more. My advice is to develop understanding and love for the "other" and practice it! Reach out to the other. Build friendships! That is our only chance against the absolutely fucked up hate and violence happening all around us all over.

For further reading/listening/viewing:

A look at some of what is to come:>if*true~time[x]1+2=you.\</// the self / the other

AGF twitter: @poemproducerwww.poemproducer.comwww.antyegreie.comhttps://soundcloud.com/agf-antye-greiehttps://agf-poemproducer.bandcamp.com/