SA: Please introduce yourself to us
PK: Peter Kutin, 26 years by now, musician, soundartist, composer, listener.
Currently residing in Venna.

SA: What instruments (in the more general way) do you like to play?
PK: Since non non-western musical forms have a great impact on me, I developed a certain favour for overtone-rich instruments with a wide soundspectrum and a long or even endless sustain -> organ, hurdy-gurdy, 12-stringed guitars, singing bowls, cymbels...instruments with a warm timbre.
But I am also very curious about 'everyday objects' and what they sound like.
I think you can enjoy playing or listening to any object if your ear-brain connection is in the right mood.
Also the possiblities of computermusic are important for my compositions. They can be very sterile and cold and create a good contrast towards the warm, organic feelings and colorful timbres created by the instruments.

SA: How do you start to be involved in music? Who was an influence for you?
PK: I got to know some of the classic-composers as a kid because the tapes and records were around at our house.
Later the radio and television introduced me to all kind of forms of popular music...so, after getting heavily intoxicated by these forms of media, I had to dig a long tunnel to find my way to more interesting musical works.
As a kid the 'spaceship-sounds' from the radio when you shift through various frequencies amused me a lot, as well as manipulating tapes and listening to what they will sound like...
I never considered this as 'music' at that time. It felt more like 'foolish actions that happen to sound weird' but they simply fascinated me.
As well as the sound of the sea - the waves clapping on the coast combined with the view of a horizon - has cast a very unique mood onto me and my thinking ever since.
Further, auditory-hallucinations that sometimes appeared inside my brain when I had high temperature as a kid (which happened quite often) had a great impact. I can remember some of these sounds very precise eventhough it's been almost twenty years ago and i sometimes discovered these noises later in my music again. As if they were manifested in my subconciousness.
There were also many experiences that I would describe as jerking openings of perception (as peter ablinger does) - experiences when you become totally aware of something - in my case it was different sonic procedures that were happening around me - this could either be bioacoustic as well as music. In most cases it's nothing special, something that might even be there all the time but you never really were aware before.
Concerning instruments; Iwas trained classical guitar as a kid/teenager. I guess I did right but i never understood what these scores are really about. even today I have not gained any intersted in classical music scores. It doesn't seem appropriate for my music.
Anyways, later, by the age of fourteen, i changed to electronic guitar, because I wanted to be a rockstars.
I soon became more observed by the effects you could use with a guitar and started to do more sound orientated music. so finally i did't become a rockstar.

SA: Could you tell us about your studies at university?
PK: It is a university-course at vienna's music&arts department. I guess the right determination is "computer music and electronic media" .
It is mostly about electroacoustic composition and using certain audio-software (max, pd, etc...). Besides i was educated as sound engineer and did some studies on ethnomusicology.
But making music and listening is basically an autoditact process as everything in life is.

SA: Where do you position yourself within the artistic scene today?
PK: I don't want to position me somewhere. I just try to be where I like to be and try to avoid to be pushed in a certain corner. if that happens your movement is limited - so is your artistic spirit.
I really try to avoid getting considered with phenomenas created by the media or the art market.
I might be definied as a composer, musician or soundartist, though I am a listener in first place.
And I try to work and be free as good as I can. Though this, of course, is not possible.
And I try to help people who like to listen to get the spaces and possibilities for doing so. So there is the scene i am working for. It's tough sometimes.

SA: Coming to your research on works with sounds and field recordings can you introduce it to us?
PK: i started to record my environment/sounds as soon as minidiscs came up. As time went by, this 'obsession' developed into projects that focused on sounds from certain spaces, regions or specific soundsources (wind, ice, water...).
What began as a pure fascination for recording sounds (to detach a sound from it's original source and space and being able to reproduce it somewhere else through a loudspeaker) - a technical aespect, so to say, later turned or envolved into a simple fascination towards listening - at least it seems to me like that today.
Indeed, I hardly use headphones when I do field recordings these days. because sometimes I really want to hear what i hear.

SA: Any suggestion to start from zero and approach to field recordings?
PK: Start to listen first.
Choose a cheap recording device. see what happens - if anything happnes - to your mind when you listen these recordings.
If you like it, keep on doing it.
You can easily download freeware to edit/cut/organise your recordings (eg. audacity).

SA: What about impro in your research...
PK: To me, listening to a soundscape is listening to a real-time-composition.
It is a collective-impro, but most of the human-performers aren't aware that they are playing a concert.
That's what makes it interesting and that again is what makes it an impro.

SA: You and the audience... Some word about it please.
PK: As long as the audience is listening, they show that they respect the musician. that's fair and feels good for both sides.
If they don't want to listen they shall leave the room - that's good for both sides too.
If they disturb the musician by creating any kind of sound that could break a musicians concentration - that's bad and also disrespectful.
If they want to be entertained by optical means they definitely shouldn't come to my concerts.
If they want to experience sound, it makes me happy and they are more than welcome.
Musical quality is not determined by the amount of people listening to it.

SA: What about your your video and images?
PK: My video and photographic works are a side product of my audioprojects.
If the footage has certain quality it can makes sense to do something. With it and it is fun to fool around anyway.
But again, i am way more interested into sound than into image.
These two things are very hard to combine.

SA: What about your next projects?
PK: i am going to japan in february and in may 2010.
With dirac we will release our 3rd album in march.
Besides many concerts, performances, etc. I work for our studio-spaces in vienna - garnison7. i will try to organise a soundart exhibition in graz in june.

SA: you on tour...
PK: I hardly tour. i prefer to stay at a certain place or country for a longer time.
But in japan it will be like touring again with my 'band' dirac i guess.

SA: Is there any music label you would like to mention here to let people discover it?
PK: There are too many...it is unfair to name some, because i would forget so many that would also deserve to get mentioned.
I certainly like labels that focus onto quality and not quantity. that support good and ambitious music because they are really passionate about it.

SA: Could you suggest us any album or musician to let us better approach to you?
PK: Listening to my works is probably the best way to get to know me.
But you could also do a soundwalk in solitude for at least one hour.
Again there are too many influences.

SA: I would like to ask you about your place and your history with the place... The place you live. What about the music scene? some friends to mention here?
PK: I live in Vienna since six years. In the village I grew up, there wasn't any interesting music-scene at all. But in Vienna there is a good and lively music-scene. I enjoy to work within it, to play music with the people here.. musically Vienna is my basis.
There are platforms that do important things for it, for example :
http://klingt.org
http://garnison7.org
http://velak.klingt.org

For friends, I have a very deep musical-relationship with daniel lercher, with whom I founded dirac almost five years ago ->
http://lercher.klingt.org

SA: What do you think about the actual music scene in general?
PK: The music scene is so big and I don't want to waste my thoughts about it. i prefer to listen or to create music than to think about it, cause in terms of musical quality this can be quite depressing.
But you have to live with the situation as it is. I would just hope that people will be more attracted to listening.
The phenomena of the 'music scene and industry' is described very good by the austrian writer Thomas Bernhard in his novel 'Old masters' (og. 'alte meister') on page 284 to 285.
The text concludes : the music industry is the most evil thing on our planet and will destroy each and everyone of us. And these musicians who think they are doing something special are fools.
But I guess one has to read it to really understand.

SA: What do you think about the social scene in general?
PK: If a scene can still be social, that's great, because than it can not be big. It can not be a mass phenomena if it is social.
I don't trust mass events.

SA: We met in Palermo for a nice workshop from Antitesi. There you asked people to catch different sounds from the city (http://kutin.klingt.org/palermo/palermo_soundscape_final.mp3)... thanks Domenico Sciajno for your outstanding work on Palermo floor.
PK: Palermo's experimental music scene felt extremely social to me. Of course it's a very small scene, but the 'general mood' surely effects the music. The result benefits from a social athmosphere I guess. Though you always need good musicians/listeners in first place. But there are these people in Palermo and it was a pleasure playing with them.

SA: Do you work with your music or do you have other jobs?
PK: 50/50
Besides creating and recording music (live and in studio), I do sound recordings for movies or soundengineering in a theater.
I am happy about that. I don't want to force myself to live only by my music. I guess that my output would suffer, because I might get stressed because of money.

SA: Would you like to say anything in particular or speak of someone you love to SuccoAcido readers?
PK: Again that would be unfair for so many others.
So I suggest the people who read this should listen to feldman's string quartett's, the long ones, and think about the people you love.
Give them some time. they are precious.

SA: Would you like to talk about how to cook some of your favorite dish?
PK: Couscous, served with a souce made out of fresh tomatoes, korriander, ground cummin, salt, pepper, mustard, pumpkin seeds, mushrooms, chili.
Easy, cheap, tasty.
Let it get cold, then it is even better.

SA: Would you like to ask to yourself any question I forgot to ask to you?
PK: There is a small village.
And in this village, a barber shaves every man who doesn't shave himself on his own.
So, does the barber shave himself?