Green windows
Ljiljana Petkovic is a multifaceted artist. Leading the Ljiljana Petkovic Orchestra but also as an actress in musicals and concerts and as a DJ, the continuous search keeps her alive. She loves the sentence “Only great minds can afford a simple style”, something that certainly can be applied hersefl. Presented as Ljiljana Petkovic or as her alter ego Manuela Krause, her life is full of passion for music, poetry and philosophy. Now she and the great musician August Engkilde publish an album called Hinter dem Spiegel (Brumtone, 2010), songs full of sensitivity and acoustic and electronic virtuosity. The conventions exist to be broken.
Who is Ljiljana Petkovic?
Is that a rhetorical or a philosphical question ? I guess Ljiljana Petkovic is a seed of a rare desert flower which eventually can grow into a green oasis ...
What is there behind the mirror?
Talk to Alice ;) I will speak about this later.
Could you explain us the yellow origin of Ljiljana?
Ljiljana is my birth name. The name comes from the Serbian word Ljiljan. The origin comes from the flower lily. It is an ancient and widespread light symbol, a symbol of purity and beauty, but also a symbol of death...lilies are very popular on funerals. Maybe the intense fragrance shall cover the smell of death. Of course it does not work. The same with Patchouli, a fragrance which was very popular in the 60ies and 70ies. It was said to cover the smell of Cannabis. Do you know what lilies, patchouli and cannabis have in common ? Their smell evaporates very slowly and therefore it remains present for a long time and if we want it or not it effects us...I hope our music works like that, too ;)
What do you find in eastern folk music and how does it fit with electronic sounds?
I love the rhythms, the passion... if you listen to a song from Balkan for example there is so much energy, you can hear the culture, the temper, the life...at the same time I also love the melancholic melodies - okay sometimes they can be quite pathetic, too and it can get far too heavy ! All the moaning and suffering that sounds like there is a part who secretly enjoys to stay in the role of the victim and likes to suffer... I am no fan of that ! I believe in responsibility. At the same time I like the “blue” sounds, too. They are an emotional expression of how we react to experiencing life. And to your question about electronic sounds and how they fit – Aren't all sounds “electric” anyway ? For me the question is not if it fits, it's a question of taste. We love music. The reason why we love certain sounds has only on the surface to do with the instrument that creates the sound originally. I think it depends on how sounds and music affects us.
“Immer so tun als ob” is deeply against social rules and conventions and a very melancholy tune, as if everything was lost. “Sein oder Nichtsein”, you sing. Have we all sold our souls?
“Always act as if” is a song to remind you to stand up for yourself ! It is a protest song that criticizes the superficiality of our society and shows how easy and fast we are lead astray... A critique to saying things, that sounds good but with no deeper meaning or with the intention to stand up for what has just been announced (for example politicians and their speeches). We find this behavior in various layers of our society... Polished facades, people juggling with words and gestures and always acting as if it were all very natural, hiding themselves behind...maybe here is a good moment to talk about the mirror: people can be like mirrors, reflecting an image of themselves, that is wanted by society but it is not their real “self” - this is somewhere behind the mirror, probably bound and gagged in the dungeon of their souls, hidden and unheard even by themselves. We tend to dominate our feelings with reason. “Sein oder Nichtsein” - in English: “To be or not to be” is of course the famous quotation from the tragedy of Hamlet, “Prince of Denmark” by Shakespeare... Hamlet is afraid of resolute action and to take responsibility for his life, because he is afraid of death. I guess there is a bit of “Hamlet” in each of us...we are all souls, who decided to be here at this moment of time to experience life and we are all uncertain where this life will lead to.
In “Kotki Daw (Two little kittens)” do you remember a polish child song while a warm night air comes into your room through an open window. Is sensuality a little cat?
Kotki Dva is a song about dream and reality and the question “where is the interface” ...Arleta, a friend of mine, has been singing the Polish lines of the song to me, when I was living in London. I made interviews with young women from different countries who tried to make their living in the U.K. for a radio documentary called “shop girls”. Somehow Arleta's melody stayed in my head and years later when I was back in Berlin, I still remembered her song. I did some research and another friend told me it is a Polish child song and also appears in an old Polish black and white movie, where a babysitter is singing this song to a child, but it does not want to sleep... So he sings it over and over until he gets dreamy... This story reminded me of how we sometimes fall asleep without to recognize, because “life continues” in our dreamworld just like before. Or sometimes we even “wake” up from sleeping and then it turns out we are still asleep and to wake up and get up was a dream, too...So how can we say if we are awake or still sleeping ? I read a nice story from a chinese philosopher. Once he dreamed he was a butterfly who flew from flower to flower. When he woke up, he got very confused and wondered if he is a man that dreamed to be a butterfly or if it is not also possible that he is a butterfly who dreams to be a man....I very much love this story ! Isn't that an interesting thought ?
That song finished with a blue light in your room and then you sing “Zitronenblau (Blue lemon)”. Your origin was yellow but your lemon is blue within a play of light and shadows. Are you a blue lemon too?
The song finishes with a gigantic cat in a tiger dress on high heels with big blue shiny eyes...it's a wild cat, trying to seduce the listener with her cat appeal ... you better beware !
”Zitronenblau”- lemon blue ! is a song with complete different topic. I chose by intention a lemon, because if we only think of lemons, our mouth gets watery - we have a sensual idea of the fruit, because we experienced it. We remember how it smells, we remember the taste and this all in the second when we hear about and think of a lemon... and of course we have seen lemons , so we know they are green when they are not ripe ore bright yellow...I decided to sing about lemon blue to add a moment of confusion, a surrealistic moment ...don't you think blue lemons look beautiful ? The topic or theme of the song is an invitation to be here and now at this very moment. All that counts is now, what we experience now and what we feel now. We can never describe with words or with pictures what we experienced, it will always be an interpretation of our experience. Experience is “now”
A kind of sadness dominates the whole album, is life a sad experience?
Life is an experience. The way we react to the experiences are our emotions. There is a big spectrum from all kind of emotions, depending on what we experience. Sad emotions are in any case a part of it and we can not deny them. In our society we are trained to always function and in case to function we need to be happy. Happiness is not a permanent state, it is a momentum. The same is sadness. Happiness and sadness are equal. There are times to be happy and there are times to be sad. If we want to live to our full potential, we need to embrace it all and that means we have to get in touch with our pain and sadness eventually.
Tell me about the musicians in the orchestra.
The leading role in the orchestra is my friend August, August Engkilde. In the music magazine “Grooves” they wrote some years ago he is “The next Level Teo Macero” and I must say he is really a very fantastic producer with a great talent and an remarkable ear. He creates very detailed, layered, polished and cohesive sounds and I am very glad he agreed to work with me. August is a great source of inspiration for me and a great teacher. I learned already a lot from him and luckily August is quite patient ;) I never learned any instrument professionally, I can play the main chords on an acoustic guitar and a bit keyboard, melodica and bells. I can write lyrics and melodies come to me easily. Enough to create basic ideas for a song or to play LOFi music. I used to do before and had even a tour through Siberia just with my little Casio keyboard. It was fun for some time. But when I listen to music myself I get tired of this retro keyboard sounds after some time. Then I want to hear more...I want to discover sounds within the recording I did not hear before. I really enjoy to discover...
My dream was to create an album, which is multilayered. I have basic knowledges of recording and production, too, but my main interest is to sing and to tell stories. Therefore I wanted to work with someone who has the same passion for production that I have for singing and shares the passion in telling stories – August ! For “Hinter dem Spiegel “ most songs were ready on a very basic level – the chords, vocals and melodies. Without August non of the songs would sound as great as they sound on the album. He really made some shiny crystals out of unpolished pieces of glass... and I am very proud he did. He is a professional musician who studied Jazz in Copenhagen and New York. His main instrument used to be the bass, but he is quite a multi instrumentalist these days. Unlike me he has a lot experience in making albums, too. He has been involved in more than 30 Jazz, Latin, Electro, Dub, Hip Hop, Break Beat and other electronic/experimental releases on renowned labels with his own projects or with other musicians like Pole or Senor Coconut.
So to come back to your question – mainly August is the orchestra, he played most of the stuff on the album. I also played a bit melodica, bells and keyboard and we had a friend playing some acoustic guitar and Richard Eigner played some of the drums. For most of the live shows we played so far, August and me were accompanied by the digital orchestra and by my friend Christian. Christian Buchmayr is an architect who developed an amazingly beautiful visual concept for our live shows. He is an artist with a conceptual approach using mostly self made content, combining analog photography and digital 3d tools, which are mainly used in an architectural context. He is a designer and architect, who likes to play with geometry, abstract shapes, surfaces, colors, rhythms and proportions. His compositions are less striking but very subtle and atmospheric, creating emotional patterns which interfere with the environment and sounds, adding another layer to our music and the performance.
So far it was unfortunately not possible to perform with more than 4 people on stage. It's a question of budget, you know....but our dream is still to play one day with a real big orchestra ! Maybe after the release of our next album. Cross your fingers!
Manuela Krause develops her artistic creativity in many different fields., for example, playing the main character in a techno version of “Cabaret”. What does artistic creation represent for you?
Creativity can be expressed in various ways. Sometimes when I work too much on my computer, I bake a bread or a cake. That's a great way of creation, especially because I can eat it afterwards ;) For me it is very important to create something, if I don't do, I feel like I am exploding. I get angry and eventually very sad and depressed. Creating is a natural way to celebrate live. I am the most happy when I create. It is not the result that counts - okay unless it is a cake or something similar, than the result is important, too ;) , otherwise it is the whole process, being involved in the process, dealing with facts and improvising, seeing how something turns from an abstract idea into a very concrete shape. It is magic and great and new every time. I love to take part in the process of creation. I don't need to think much about. It is happening naturally if I don't stop myself. It's a daily challenge to keep moving, changing, all the time and this is what really makes me feel alive.
Give me a colour as a symbol of your present and another one for when you think about the future.
My color is green, always – it is the color of nature, the color of life, of plants, green is calming, green grows, green is the symbol of hope and survival. Did you know that green is found in most national flags of desert regions ? Surviving the endless desert can only be assured when you arrive a green oasis in time....
Interview by Juan Carlos Romero
Photo courtesy of Ljiljana Petkovic
Photo courtesy of Ljiljana Petkovic