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Joined: March 04 2008
Location: Retirement Home
Status: Offline
Points: 3658
Topic: Humus Posted: March 15 2011 at 07:36
Humus was founded in 1987 by Jorge Beltran as a one man band, where he played all instruments in home recordings made through the ping pong recording technique. He chose the name 'Humus' based the earthy, humus-like sound caused by sound degradation caused by the reduction mixing. During the late 1980s and early 1990s Beltran released five cassettes, causing interest in the underground quarters of Mexico City, where there had been a long history of progressive rock that managed to exist despite all the adversity a Latin American country faces in terms of making independent music business.
I got in touch with the band through Jorge Beltran and the band answered my questions.
Your
biography has been covered in your ProgArchives profile so let's
bypass the biography details. But why did you choose that name and
which bands were you influenced by?
I
first knew about the term "humus" from a book that
described the different elements of soil when I was in high school in
the 70's. I liked the fact that it was something that had died, but
would become alive again into another thing through the earth
cycle. Since then I always wanted to name a band Humus but that did
not come into fruition until the 1990's.
I
think Humus has been influenced by everything that we have heard
during our lifetimes, whether we have liked it or not, "good or
"bad". The music and groups that we didn't like influenced
us on how not to play that thing, and of course we have tried to
emulate and create from the things we did like. Another way to say
it, we like most everything good from Elvis to Napalm Death...But to
be less ambiguous, let's mention the top bands that have influenced
our music, considered favorites too:
THE
JIMI HENDRIX EXPERIENCE
LED
ZEPPELIN
YES
FRANK
ZAPPA
BLUE
CHEER
GURU
GURU
THE
BEATLES
CARCASS
KING
CRIMSON
BLACK
SABBATH
THE
ROLLING STONES
POPOL
VUH
and
many, many others.
This
is an archive based interview also intended for the fans you get well
after both you and I have passed away so let's go straight to your
albums. Please give us your long or brief views on your albums,
starting with.......
Tus
Oidos Mienten from 1992
This
was Humus first LP, but actually the sixth opus. This album
represents the culmination of years of work of a one man project that
started in 1987. I recorded most of the tracks without thinking they
would be appearing as part of a record; instead I thought they would
become the sixth home made tape, but fortunately the work became a
Long Play, and gave recording status to Humus.
Humus
from 1994
The
success of the first LP opened the possibility of making Humus an
actual performing band, so several other musicians got involved in
the project making this album a group effort,
but maintained much of the original vein of the one man project
as it once was. However, it is darker and heavier than its
predecessor, inpart due to high tension between the participants
during recording sessions.
Malleus
Crease from 1996
My
favorite Humus album. By the time of the recording sessions we had
switched to 8 channels. Even more muscians participated in this album
than in the prevoius one, but i think this is the most cohesive
Humus album so far.
4º
from 1997
Four
Degrees has the distinction of having the most unorthodox Humus
collection of
songs
in the long track "Fatscope" because theyall come from
diverse sessions that go back to the early 90's up to 1997, and the
tracks all have different origins and themes. And I always liked the
fact that the two big tracks on the album ("Fatscope" and
"Usa Las Tijeras") are completely the opposite
regarding structure.
Whispering
Galleries from 1999 (not credited in PROGARCHIVES yet).
This
album has been the only one not produced by ourselves, and the
conditions of recording were not optimal. We had always made
records in a relaxed environment, but in this case we were forced to
make only one take for each track, and were allowed to do overdubbing
in only one of them. The band does sound unrehearsed because the
drummer at that time had only been in the band for two weeks, so the
album is plagued with mistakes. The guitar is a flat instrument for
most of the album, but anyway there are some brilliant moments
in some of the tracks due to the capacity of the then bassist Victor
Basurto.
The
rumours tells me that you have recorded at least five unreleased
albums since 1998. What is the truth here and is there any plans to
release these albums ?
Yes,
there are several unreleased albums by Humus that have been ready
(mixed and mastered) since 1999. You heard that there are five,
but in reality there are ten albums waiting to be released
as of 2011. Those who used to be our record producers in Mexico and
Europe in the 1990's have incomprehensibly refused to
release any new Humus material, in spite of the great reviews and
response our music has received since it first came out. One of them
opted to re-release some of the old albums, an that was not bad,
but we have ALWAYS been working without rest to produce at least one
new album per year, including their cover designs, credit and song
lists, etc... Fortunately, many of our fans have been able
to listen to some of the new tracks of the many unreleased albums
through different postings we have made in the internet, namely
youtube, myspace, and at our Humus official site..
How
would you describe your musical development from Tus Oidos Mienten to
your latest recording?
It
has been a long way. We as a group (and I in a personal level) have
improved our musical skills through constant practicing and studying.
I have particularly learned a lot from most musicians whom I
have played with during all these years, specifically on how to
play better and more difficult guitar lines and riffs, as well as
on how to compose more elaborate and sensible (full of
feeling) music. Although the original primitive drive is still
there, we have also evolved by incorporating new influences and
styles, and the new digital technologies and their benefits, as can
be heard in our first single from 2011, "We Respect
Your Decision", which will be posted at the end of March in the
internet.
You
tend to operate very independent from any trend and scene out there.
But which scene do you mostly associate yourself with ?
When
the first album came out, we marketed it as "progressive",
because we thought the Humus music would fit under
that umbrella term, but soon reviews in magazines and other
publications from Italy, the U.S., and other countries mentioned
it was "psychedelic", a term we didn't even thought
was in use any more by then, but we enjoyed that labeling much
more, because this way we found ourselves connected to a
much wider musical universe than just being plain prog! We
also like to think we have some roots in the Stoner genre, as
some of our fans and friends from other bands have pointed out. And
we also have been called Space Rock (we like that too!).
You
have released four albums and have done some gigs. What is your experiences with the music industry and the gigs promotors ?
To
be honest, I have found mostly human misery in the music industry,
meaning that it is a dog eat dog situation. There have been some good
gig promoters and very bad ones. To go into detail would be boring
and deppressing. That's why we have almost "disappeared",
as Faust once mentioned in one of their albums from the 1990's. But
juts as they do, we have always been making new music. The
current band members are all professional and highly trained
musicians: Dierk Roshman (Germany) is an incredibly virtuosic
keyboard player with classical influences, and the solid John
Westminster (England) punches drums like nobody else in Humus since
1997.
What
is your plans for this year and beyond ?
We
hope to put out at least one album this year, but our plans in
general are:
Make
more albums. Release those albums. Release all the albums we have
made. Take our music concept out there. Make more fans around the
world.
To
wrap up this interview, is there anything you want to add to this
interview ?
We
would like to thank you for this opportunity of talking Humus music,
and we hope readers find the time to look for, listen to, and
grab HUMUS albums. We also invite everybody to check out new
HUMUS efforts as we post video or steaming links in
our official webpage.
Thanks
again.
Dierk
Roshman, John Westminster, Jorge Beltran.
Thanx to Humus for this interview
Their PA profile is here and their homepage's here
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