OMAHARA INTERVIEW | WARP | 04.07.17

FIERCE TRUTH, SHIFTING DARKNESS.

THE LIVE PERFORMANCES OF TASMANIAN DARK AMBIENT TRIO OMAHARA ARE SOMEWHAT LEGENDARY IN SCOPE, INVOLVING A DEDICATED AND DIVERSE CULT FOLLOWING,
A SERIES OF OBSCURE LOCATIONS AND AN INTUITIVE IMPROVISED APPROACH TO PERFORMING THEIR OWN ORIGINAL SCORES. ON THE VERGE OF THE RELEASE OF THEIR SELF TITLED SECOND ALBUM, RYAN LYNCH SPOKE ABOUT THE CREATIVE INFLUENCE OF GEOGRAPHY, THE SUBTLETIES OF BAND CHEMISTRY AND WHY OMAHARA MAINTAIN THE RIGHT TO BREAK THEIR OWN COMPOSITIONAL RULES.

As an ambient trio founded in Hobart, how much do you feel that the geography and the climate inform the way Omahara approach writing?

A lot. Definitely. The recording of the new album happened in an old sandstone building in the domain that has no windows and no heating and about two power points. It’s an old gunpowder storage facility from servicing the cannons which were used to defend the city. We recorded over two and a half days in the middle of winter and it was freezing cold as you would imagine, so I think that you can definitely kind of hear that sort of coldness in the recordings.

Did the Tasmanian seasons in general also influence your song writing?

I think it’s more about the landscape not so much the change of the seasons themselves. I think it’s more of a kind of reflection of the land that we live on rather than the weather conditions that come with it... But I guess you know, the constant moments of calm and then the sudden storms of weather or noise...that’s definitely a big part of it.

Is there a particular art form that inspires your musical compositions? Do you find inspiration in novels, visual art or theatre?

No not really, I think for me personally (and I think it’s pretty equally true for the other members of the band) what creates the music is coming from an internal place. We’re projecting a psychological landscape into what creates the sounds of the music, so when we perform I stare at the ground for a third of the set and have my eyes closed for the other two-thirds.

So it’s almost meditative?

Yes and it’s always different so we have pieces of music that we write but they’ll never be performed the same way twice. They’re written to an extent but they’re also structures that can be destroyed at any moment. We have the freedom to explore the pieces live and they change depending on where we are and who’s there, what each individual is feeling and what’s going on with us at the time. We’re very close. It took a long time to find the sound of the band from the first day we started going “Ok we’re going to start this project.” It was another two years until we actually performed. It was just a matter of nutting out ‘Who are we?’ and ‘What do we sound like?’ and ‘How does it work?’ So you have to be very comfortable with each other for that to work and for you to feel comfortable basically bearing your soul. One of us will look at the other one and raise an eyebrow in a certain direction to a slight degree and you know what that means in terms of what has to happen musically.

That’s actually very exciting for an audience to watch as well. You guys don’t have any issues with pulling audiences either. For such an obscure genre really, in such a remote area you don’t have any issues with that and I think that kind of chemistry is testament to that success.

Yeah and I think a lot of it is actually just friendship. I couldn’t imagine being in a band where you don’t have that friendship because you spend so much time together. Even when
we don’t even really perform live that often I guess. So when we do and people show up it’s really astounding because we don’t make it easy for people. We play outside and run our gear off generators and make people drive to some weird location where there’s not usually a gig so yeah, when people actually attend it’s like ‘Wow you’ve jumped through all the hoops to get here!”

Yeah but maybe people are also getting bored of the traditional gig set up these days. Maybe people are looking for something unexpected?

Yeah well that’s a really big priority for me because it’s kind of like if you come to one show, and then you come to a second it’ll be a completely different thing. You won’t hear the same song twice, you should never see the same show twice because it has to be unique to that environment and those people and everyone who shares it at that time and then that moment’s gone. And then it never happens again. That’s what makes it authentic I suppose.

You’re about to release your self titled second album - a double vinyl. Without giving the mystery away can you give us any indication of the thematics, the tone or the direction of your second album?

Wow OK, well you’ll need a comfortable seat because it’s over an hour’s worth of material.

You need to bring your own heating pads for your hands?

No because we’ll warm you with a nice hug that comes from the speaker. That’s what I would like to think happens but that might not actually be true. I think musically it’s a sound that’s recognisable and it’s still obviously us but probably the way that it differs from the first album is that it’s a little bit more sure of itself, of this entity that we are, where each of us individually don’t exist it’s just like this other being. We feel it’s ok to extend a very quiet passage of music and do that for as long as we want and feel comfortable with it. I think it’s also a bit more fierce in places too.

Can you put your finger on why that came through with this album?

No that’s the thing, because I only know the certain pieces of music that I’ve written and I’ve contributed pieces to in terms of the overall score. I know what that means to me and it’s usually something quite personal. But with the other people I don’t know what’s influencing them on a personal level so it’s kind of this weird thing where you’re pouring your heart out behind a double mirror. It’s kind of like charades on a foggy mountain and everyone’s beyond the horizon line.

Keep up to date on Omahara news at www.facebook. com/OmaharaBand.

-Amanda Laver