Interview with Illusion of Safety

Yes, the first interview since.... like forever. It´s hard to follow up on an interview with the request for reviews, and releases are flooding my physical and digital mailbox. Although at other times I do get a chance to interview someone,  and in this case, it caught my attention... pretty much I do say! We are talking about a truly legendary and veteran act of industrial music on American soil, Illusion of Safety.

I must admit, I do not know much about Illusion of Safety, although I do have 6 of their albums. I do know that the act is one of those that you just keep returning to... because the recorded material is just something that you don't get to understand that quickly. But the mystery and the otherworldly darkness of their sound have always charmed me. Any fan of old-school industrial (Industrial Records) will immediately get into Illusion of Safety, that I can guarantee. However, describing the Illusion of Safety solely as an industrial act would again be a long stretch. In much the same way as acts like Nocturnal Emissions or say Controlled Bleeding, Illusion of Safety gets around various styles of experimental moods with every album released. At times they do music concrete, illbient, electro, field recordings, and very eerie sampled cut-up sound collages.  

Without that knowledge about the band, the WWW was able to provide me with some additional information. Here goes:

 Illusion Of Safety started around 1983, inspired by witnessing the final two live performances in the U.S. with Throbbing Gristle. The act was (and is still) spearheaded by Daniel Burke, and since then he has worked with a lot of different artists/people. They have had releases on such cult labels as Soleilmoon, Tesco, Staalplaat, and Old Europa Cafe (just to name a few!).  The act is still active, and still releasing albums! Which of course ( kind of ) makes them one of the oldest U.S-based post-industrial acts around!  I managed to locate the headmaster (Daniel Burke), and prepared some questions for this interview... so here goes!.

1) When you started IOS, what made you start the act in the first place, and what motivated/inspired you back then?

Originally the impetus to make the band happen was seeing the (original) final 2 Throbbing Gristle performances in 1981. They even sent out a postcard to all on their mailing list: The Mission IS Terminated. I already had some desires to do something with sound & music but seeing them live flipped the switch. I really wanted to play with that kind of provocative sound, Imagery, and ideas. The power of volume and the techniques I saw resonated with me, and probably already having misanthropic iconoclastic tendencies was fueled by their fire. Recently I recalled that seeing 2001 A Space Odyssey when it came out at the theatre was probably my earliest formative art experience. The soundtrack, that imagery, that kind of internal/external psychology, and ambiguous storytelling altered my orbit early. Play has always inspired me, and I try to keep that at the heart of my music-making, Playing with powerful sounds and images was a way to satisfy some deep desires and also to provoke which was quite a necessity back then, still present but less so now, thankfully. 

2) Are there elements of criticism of society within the sound of IOS, and if so in what way?

For sure, criticism of society, civilization, institutions, expectations, norms, humanity, you name it, we probably had something to say about it if not explicitly, then implied. In the images, the texts, and the titles, I love to play with words. To imply something without completely spelling it out is always the best way to instigate thought. I probably have spelled things out a little too explicitly at times. Always having a questioning nature, part of my goal in every artistic endeavor has usually been to provoke others to question the things that should be questioned; following rules, accepting authority, believing what you are told. I loved being an Iconoclast! Illusion of Safety Now More Than Ever.. pretty timely or has it always been?

3) Your sound has always had a kind of movie-based soundtrack to it. Do you feel that this approach is more convincing than a lyrical one?

I was always a loner, never got along well in groups, & was never a good communicator with words, It's always been easier to express myself visually or then later sonically. There have been some IOS pieces with spoken text but very few with lyrics as it were, I have never been comfortable with that. I am getting more comfortable with that now that I am making music outside of the context of IOS, actual songs, but that's a new and different story. With IOS it just wasn’t appropriate for me to try to express myself with words, implied meaning and power through sonic or visual imagery is a better way to express in the kind of way that I could. Originally I was calling our output Music Without A Film and I am returning to that organizing principle more and more, bringing back at least the sound of what the project name has always signified for me: long-form immersion into dark internal psychological soundtracks, encompassing and playing with events in large spaces, loops, shortwaves, ominous synthesizer waves, controlled feedback, traditional instruments used in unconventional ways, and undefinable cryptic voices. The emphasis on play I like to stress because it has always been present despite my serious nature. These sounds, words, & ideas are fun to play with and I try to enjoy the moment in every session or performance. I would actually love to make soundtracks for films, especially for Chris Nolan. The best I can do now is the video work making small films for our soundtracks. I have been posting the old videos no one has seen since live shows in the mid-90s on our YouTube channel as well as new ones. Collage is at the heart of what I have been doing as IOS all these years, A love for DADA is a major influence on the content conceptually, sonically, and visually. I have been using Final Cut Pro and other software doing new video work making these small films as I can and releasing one new or old piece a month. 

4) Can you name your best live performance, and explain why?.

For best performance maybe the show set up by Doug Kaplan/Hausu Mountain with Good Willsmith opening set for Negativland at Empty Bottle Chicago 8/25/2013. I played as I usually like to in front of the PA on the floor so I could experience the sound, power, & volume myself. I usually request a loud level from the soundman and use that as I can. Sometimes the output is very quiet and subtle other times pushed to the limit. In that show I hit the standing wave in the room, very powerful as that P.A. is pretty great & the performance itself felt very good, was coherent, and held a good narrative. 

Many times over the years (in my solo shows and recorded work) my tendency to shift things quickly has been too much, I think it works sometimes, but not always. It indeed lost a bunch of people who would have preferred the long-form drone and a scrap of the early days. I can’t say I blame them, that early stuff sounds really good to me now (Cancer, Of & The, More Violence and Geography, the early cassettes). I try to make every piece, album, & performance some kind of internal personal barely detectable narrative for the listener (which includes me), and the last few releases (Same Game, New Rules, Less, Instruction, & Organ Choir Drone, + Frontal) reflect that as well as a return to the earlier more soundtrack like forms.

Another good one was the Rennes, France solo show, 1997 no other performers, as was usual in France the audience was VERY enthusiastic and appreciative. I played a long set as I like to do when there is no other performers or the circumstance is right. Maybe 90 minutes, and they still wanted more, which I was happy to provide. I love to perform live and connect with people in that way (nonverbal). This music has been therapeutic for me and others, and I think of the opportunity to perform as an honor to connect and provide something useful. And if traveling to a remote location to perform rarely why not give whatever is possible? I would love to do live performance sound installation for the right event. Kevin Drumm and I played a stream from The Lab Chicago in the late 90s that was 3 hours, we had no idea.

5) Has there been a good response to your European-based releases? (Tesco, Staalplaat, etc). Did they open the door to a new audience in Europe?  

Yes, they did pretty well. That was a long time ago, and they were mostly very interesting packages too which helps. The leather pouch of Historical with a bullet through the center was a standout of many cool releases. Staalplaat did great work, a really cool place. New Rules, Same Game, Less Instruction CD on Drone Records released in 2022 was far more recent and did pretty good, I think he pressed 300 and there are about 30 left. I think those all helped get more listeners in Europe. The shows over the touring years were always a bit better in most ways over there, funded and well promoted, with good accommodations, good turnout, and some very enthusiastic receptions. Also, probably more interest from labels in general over there asking to release IOS.

7) How would you describe the sound of IOS today, compared to the early stuff?

The answer will be sprawling like the output itself because there have been many changes in the lineup of the project that have been responsible for the content as much as changing technology. We were always tech driven probably to a fault. Early on it was variable speed cassette decks along with Digitech 3.6 & 7.6 second delays acting as our samplers and loopers. Synthesizers have always played a part. Guitar and Bass guitar processed and as prepared extended techniques (seeing AMM perform in Chicago as a sensitive unit improvising together in 1984 was an altering event for me and Keith Rowe’s technique with prepared guitar was huge). Mirage sampler came on the scene and was another jump forward, then with the Emax 12-bit sampler and getting a Macintosh computer working with Deck sequencer was another jump (inside Agitator). Getting DAT recorders and a good stereo microphone in 1991 started us down a path that continues today, using field & location recordings in almost every release and performance.  

Mitch Enderle (dead Tech) and I had been working together at first since 1981 but not live, all on tape and we loved Throbbing Gristle. The first few shows as IOS 1983/84 though was the group Dot Dot Dot and I improvising together. They were coming from jazz/improv/prog-rock & were really great listeners willing to go into challenging experimental territory with the drone, scrape, rumble, & silence mode. Some of this from our 2nd show at the Cubby Bear on 2-5-84 is available as bonus material on the IOS40 Boxset and as extras on other new Bandcamp releases. But they were not into TG and the Industrial culture like Mitch & I. Dot Dot Dot morphed into CHEER-ACCIDENT and then Mitch and I hooked up with Mark Klein & Mark Sorensen and became for a few years the so-called “main core” IOS to pursue darker heavier sound work. This era was Music Without A Film and this version of the band you can hear on all the complacency cassettes, More Violence & Geography LP, Of & The, and parts of the CD’s Historical, Inside Agitator, Fifteen/Finite & Cancer. 

A shift came after Sorensen moved to San Francisco in 1989 & Jim O’Rourke arrived in the project. After this point, RVE cassette, Inside Agitator, Mort aux caches, Of & The, and From Nothing to Less were really a series of mostly duo collaborations. Probe with O’Rourke, From Nothing to Less with Thymme Jones, Of & The with Mark Klein, Mort aux Vaches & Fin de Siecle with Kurt Griesch. They were responsible for reigning in my tendencies & the sound of these releases/performances. These works show a more patient long-form approach, dark ambiance, more refined electro-acoustic elements & location recordings appearing.

I began sometimes working solo on Water Seeks its Own Level, Distraction, Bad Karma, and Mort Aux Caches 2….with various more fluid collaborations interspersed.  Distraction, Rules of The Game, and releases around this time reflect my use of sampling and what I liked to call Decomposition, manipulating structure and existing music into a new form, a sort of a plunderphonics approach. While we had been using tape & loopers/delays as our primitive sampling teach, once the Mirage sampler (later the Emax2) was available the game changed big time.

Then the laptop came into the picture and the music changed again throughout the mid to late 2000’s, especially in the live context. This shift can be heard in 2003 Time Remaining (https://illusionofsafety.bandcamp.com/album/time-remaining). The laptop made available (using Ableton) all sound sources at once, sampling, and sound manipulation capabilities all in one box and that was exciting, but later felt limiting and the return to and immersion in modular synthesis was like a breath of new life. The computer made it easier to sound glitched, shattered, more abrupt changes, less ground to stand on, and short attention span music. And that for a time was good, at least for me, probably lost a few along this path.

Around 2010 modular synths entered my life. Although I have had and used Moog and Roland analogs for years, the modular world really opened up some new fun and exploratory sonic areas for me. This was also the time I took a break from public music activities. Not a lot of releases in that decade, but the Z’EV/IOS record and Surrender on no part of it, Live at No Fun are fairly representational of what kind of sound collage I was making then. Some good about taking a decade off are the accumulation of raw materials available, the maturity of vision, & renewed energy. I did not record very much over that time and only chose to turn on the recorder when the output was worthy. Over time it was a lot of good raw material to draw on and all of it is modular synthesizer-based. I am using much of that and new pure synthesizer material for my Soundoferror project (https://soundoferror.bandcamp.com/), but some of it is available to use in new IOS issues. 

Thanks to Arvo Zylo (no part of it) for pushing me through the years, doing the “final” IOS CD Surrender on his label in 2015, then again getting me off my ass to get the Z’EV/IOS record issued, finally working with me to edit together Organ Choir Drone last year. Also big thanks to Philippe Petit of Modulisme for reaching out to me in 2020 to contribute a session to his program (https://modular-station.com/modulisme/session/31/) and convincing me to make it as IOS, so he is really responsible for my consideration to renew and continue the project.

Over the years only In my hands I usually tried to make every possible kind of experimental music present in every release, every performance, and sometimes in every track, part of my racing thoughts nature coming out in my art. But I have changed now and so has the music. I am more relaxed and can enjoy taking time more, so the compositions can have room to breathe and take time to immerse in depth for some time while transforming. That doesn’t mean there won’t be any surprises but overall less jarring less often. Part of that desire to shift is also just wanting to make so many kinds of music, and perhaps it wasn’t a good idea to put all my needs into IOS. In any case, what is done is done, and time to move on. At this point, I am actually working on a few other projects to keep IOS a bit purer and to move at times, backward a bit with my intentions for it.

Currently, my intention is a return to form represented in the newer releases incorporating material from 1983-now, Frontal, Organ Choir Drone, Same Game, New Rules, and Less Instruction are the most recent examples.

8) Care to explain the experience of witnessing TG in the US?

My friend Jay Closser was really responsible for introducing me to TG and other bands of that sort during a visit in 1979. Later when I moved there for a short time I was part of Aktion Direkt Faktion a power electronics group he was doing with Ray Sena and Robert Gillespie out of Sherpa Studios in Orange County. I went to LA in 1981 to visit Jay and see the TG performance there. Their performance was powerful, and their presence and command of the tools were very inspiring. Genesis was a force by himself, his presence was intoxicating, and he commanded your attention, I think his interest in magic was represented during performance and also just in conversation, in any case, he exuded charisma. Their tech was also really cool, they had these custom flight cases with the gear well fit in so that the lids came off and became the foot pedals and the tops were the rack gear. Peters's “sampler” system of multiple cassette decks gated by a one-octave-built keyboard was inspiring. My only complaint about the L.A. show was the lack of Cosey’s guitar in the mix. We were way in the back though, the sound was not the best. Years later Jay reminded me I was the first person to leap onstage after the concert and gave her a kiss. We were so inspired that a few days later we looked at each other and said lets go to S.F. and see them again and got on a bus. 

We arrived at 7 AM the day of the show and had time on our hands so we went over to Minna Street and found Ralph Records. Beautiful metal gated doorway we were admiring when someone arrived to go in, asked us what we were doing, said we were Residents fans, invited us in and showed us the new One Minute videos, gave us a bunch of posters and buttons, We even saw the Residents studio from a distance. Then we walked to Kezar Pavillion and arrived about 6 hours early. One guy in there was laying out mats to protect the floor, asked us what we were doing, and told him here to see TG, he asked us to help and we ended up helping to build and set the stage up. Saw the sound check, and talked to Gen at length, he was extremely congenial, and he even lent his Bass (with the prized Gizmo!) to the bass player from Flipper during their set when he was broken. That show was magic, really felt like spirits were flying. It was apparent there was tension in the band at these shows as Gen introduced Paula. They had just married in Tijuana before the shows, and later it was revealed the breakup of Cosey and Gen was the end of TG.

9) Can we actually spot you amongst the audience in those TG shows? 

I don’t know about LA. Never saw a video. Is there a guy jumping on stage after the show and giving Cozy a kiss?? No! I actually had that in the answer in the interview that target video was, those guys were stepping all over us on the stage filming and finally, they asked us to get off the stage, and nowhere to be seen in that video

9) Future of IOS? What are the plans right now?

Also thanks to Arvo, Immanent is IOS40 a 10 C-60 tape set, in black case edition of 40, includes the first IOS releases on tape from 1986-1991 + bonus tracks from the second IOS performance in 1984, + live performances in Colorado 1988 taken from the More Altitude Than Attitude tape on We Never Sleep + digital files with many rare flyers and photos pre-1991 available digitally. 

Another IOS Modulsime session Focused Systems Approach #3: [Buchla/Euro] >More Margins Of Error is imminent as well as 2 contributions to his next Buchlaïsms compilation series. https://modular-station.com/modulisme/

11/4/23 is the 40th-anniversary performance, the first in Chicago since 2015, on the CLEAT 16 Channel system at Elastic Arts Chicago along with CHEER-ACCIDENT and Hali Polombo. Doing a set of old school improv and the presentation of FLOAT a multi-channel piece about water which will be recorded in Binaural and released as CD on Andrew Weathers Full Spectrum label.

Performances in SF were the first since 2015 on October 5th & 8th.

Euro tour set up by Auf Aubwegen in November so far Hamburg 11/22, Bremen 11/23, Münster 11/24, Brussels 11/25, & Amsterdam 11/26, more to add. We are seeking more opportunities there…

Ongoing additions to BandCamp monthly subscriber exclusives of new and old unheard material at least 10 minutes in addition to other scheduled releases. https://illusionofsafety.bandcamp.com/ 

The issue of very heavy dark industrial early IOS recordings recently unearthed from 1983/84. 

Revised edition of the 1997 dark ambient double CD Of & The as vinyl.

T-shirts in 3 designs.

Spontaneous live-action streaming on Facebook might end up being a semi-regular occurrence. They remain available to watch after for some time as well.

New video work as well as uploading the very old videos unseen since live performances in the 90s on https://www.youtube.com/@illusionofsafety

A good place to keep abreast of all is: 

Linktr:  https://linktr.ee/illusionofsafety 

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/soundoferror/

Bandcamp: https://illusionofsafety.bandcamp.com/

Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@illusionofsafety/videos

Thank you for reaching out.