To Talk about David Antony Clark is to talk about a traveller, a man who is looking for those special places, what gives us a feeling and we are so fortunate for that; his trips, his dreams, his feelings, he translate them into his music, for we to enjoy it.
Starting from his own land, New Zealand, passing through Africa, Asia, America, Europe... A whole visual experience carried to the world of sounds in a master way.

  lee esta entrevista en español.

-You have dedicated discs to places as Australia, Africa... Why to these and not to others?

-'Terra Inhabitata', 'Australia Beyond the Dreamtime', 'Before Africa' and the locations reflected in 'Sacred Sites' are places I have visited at some stage in my life and have a very close connection with or fond memories of. For the backdrop of 'Before Africa', I've used my imagination to visualize a primeval world eons ago in Tanzania: poet's license!

-In the year 1999 you published together with Jon Mark the disc 'The Leaving of Ireland'. This disc was starting a bit your sound to enter the world of the Celtic music. How was this project born?

-My Grandmother on one side was Irish Catholic and my forebears on the other side were Irish protestant. Though this had little impact on me as a child, when I was offered a job for a year in Derry, Northern Ireland, this changed.
Suddenly I felt I'd come home: I felt a very profound and powerful sense of "heimat". I spent this year listening to Irish folk music in the pubs of Derry, Donegal, and Dublin and a life-long passion began. I've been back to Ireland several times in recent years.
At the time Jon and I recorded 'The Leaving of Ireland', I was playing in an Irish folk band here in New Zealand and there was world-wide interest in Celtic music. Jon Mark, himself Cornish, had several ambient Celtic CD's to his name so he suggested we work together on a subject that interested us both: the emigration of people from Ireland during the period of the famine. I travelled back to Ireland and spent a month visiting sites on the west coast where the famine had the most impact and 'The Leaving of Ireland' was the result.

-One of the things that always I have distinguished from your music is the use of the melody and of the production that you do on your discs. What can you tell us of this?

-I'm driven by melody. My favourite composers are the Baroque composers; Bach, Handel, Albanoni, Corelli, etc. These guys were incredibly sophisticated and confident in their approach to melody and it's to them I turn for sustenance.
But with my own music, I'm often trying to paint a picture of a primitive, ancient world. This can best be approached by the use of rhythm. So I tend to use samples of shells, sticks, stones and pumice as percussion along with more recognizable drums to create a rhythmic "bed".
For the melodic lines, I'll often use various types of flute: the Maori nose-flute "koauau", a collection of Pacific Island bamboo flutes and the Indian bansuri, to name a few. These instruments have an "earthy" primitive quality to them which appeals to me. I even have a sample of a 15,000 year old dear's toe flute which I've used on occasions.

-'Sacred Sites' is an honoring to some of the most mystical places of the world. What does feel in these special places?

-Actually, after recording 'Sacred Sites, I went back to the place referred to in "To the Ice God" - Muktinath in Nepal. Because of the route I chose to take, this involved crossing a 5,400 meter pass - the "Throrung La". So by the time I got to Muktinath I was too tired and too sore to feel anything at all. [Laughs]

Places referred to on 'Sacred Sites' are all locations where I've experienced a deep sense of wonder - above and beyond anything a tourist would normally expect. For example, climbing Machu Picchu before sunrise and finding myself alone at sunrise is something I will never forget: perhaps it's no longer possible to do this, but I would recommend taking a copy of Pablo Neruda's poem "The Heights of Machu Picchu" with you and doing it anyway. These are "my" Sacred Sites. Sites I would encourage my best friends to visit.

-Your inspirations come from many things: landscapes, cultures... Does it influence you also at the moment of composing your studies of astrology? Some day you will compose a disc inspired by the stars, planets...?

-Good idea! Let me think about it.

-Your big passions are the music, the trips and the nature and you demonstrate it in your compositions. Have you appeared some another form of art to move these interests?

-To be honest, no. I'm interested in music - not the visual arts.
I have close friends who are artists, but I was simply not born a "visual" person: I simply can't understand why a painting of a landscape is of interest when for much less money than the cost of the paining I could go there, have a glass of chardonnay and watch the sun go down. My heroes are and always were musicians and composers.

-'Shaman Dancing', this is the title of your new work. Why a disc dedicated to the shamans? Do shamans live yet? Has it content in the world in which we live the one that seems that the technology and the science have turned into a God?

-Though the term "shaman" is Siberian, all indigenous societies throughout the world have/had their shamans, medicine men and women, witch doctors: most shaman's beliefs and practices being surprisingly similar. Many indigenous societies in Asia, the Pacific and South America still maintain their traditional shamans while other cultures like the Maori in New Zealand may refer to their "tohunga" alongside modern western doctors with equal respect.
The shaman's role is to act as an intermediary between the material and spirit worlds, the known and the unknown: to explain the world, predict the future, and heal the sick. We have people who do this for us today in the West: scientists!

-What labor of investigation have you had to realize to recreate a language as the PIE?

-I first though of this idea years ago but could not find a source dictionary. Recently, I did find one and while I realize this is not interesting for some people, it really haunted me.
Much work has been done over the last 150 years researching the common root words of many of the European and Asian languages and a basic lexicon is now available for Proto Indo-European (PIE). Pronunciation and exact grammar can never be known, but a good guess can be made. I love the idea that I've recorded chants in an 8000 year old language.

-The whole disc is fantastic, it was to listen to the first track and to leave myself to transport for the energy that transmits, to project myself to this magic past in which the man was interacting with our planet and with his spirit, must we look at the past to understand better our future? Are we killing Gaia?

-If we study our past as a species without prejudice - as one of six and a half million inter-related species on earth - we may get a true picture of our place in the great scheme of things. We now have a very powerful and influential position on this Earth. Along with this powerful and influential position, comes an equivalent responsibly. I see little evidence today of this responsibility being practiced.
If we really want to maintain Gaia into the future, we all have to decide today what we each are prepared to give up. This is a very challenging decision for all of us. We can't wait for our leaders to make it for us. For example, the route-cause of most of our global problems is human overpopulation, and this is something we /can/ all do > something about!
Are we killing Gaia? If I was an optimist, I would say yes! If I was a pessimist I would say we killed her long ago. While all the 'hard' science I read makes me pessimistic, I still pray for optimism and the eventual good sense of mankind.

-Once a Spanish musician said to me: the musician without hearing only would be a physical being but not a realized being. Do you agree?

-Oh yes!

-What is David Antony Clark going to provide us in the future?

-Well, I think I've found my "groove" with 'Shaman Dancing'. It's the album I feel expresses my "real self" the closest of any of my projects. I'm really happy with it so I guess I'll be investigating this area for a while.

2006 December 3, Dunedin, New Zealand

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