NATürlich (Patrícia Bateira’s queer alter ego), an autodidact musician, who has been producing sound atmospheres for visual projects since 2007. Active as an improviser and research composer, NATürlich launched the new music project Give Guitars To People in 2018, a meta-idiomatic sound venture. Together with Jochen Arbeit, they continue their sonic experiments exploring the intersections between sound art and music. They are pleased to announce the release of ‘Kinetrix – a Kino Konzert‘, Give Guitars To People’s most recent improvisation. A 31 minute version of the full track is now available online at Ausland-Berlin, where it was recorded.
A journey in search for new sounds beyond the boundaries of their instruments, Give Guitars To People range across genres. From ‘drone’, ‘rock’, and ‘electronic ambient reminiscent of Tangerine Dream’, the multi-stylistic approach mutates the Give Guitars To People experience as a trans-formative assemblage of wide tonal possibilities. Their debut album, ‘The Look Of Silence Vol 1’, released on ReR Megacorp with the participation of Vítor Rua (Telectu) is a transcendental and ethereal collection of sounds with natural interpolations in which their singular processed guitars progress, overlaid, through closely packed intonations.
FACTS:
1: The truth is always transparent. That is why not everybody sees it. Privilege is invisible to those who have it because colonialism never ended. It’s been reformatted and capitalism is used to sustain it. These systems ruin the planet to the benefit of the rich in detriment of everyone else.
2: Whether you like it or not, in the west, we’re the infinite consumer mob, part of the oppressor.
3: You have to be prepared to piss someone off to change this.
QUESTIONS:
1. What is the biggest inspiration for your music?
No rhetorics. Language formats our brains. It is a learned rational process, establishes frontiers, separates us from one another. The field of sound is a vast ocean. Listening, authenticity and the healing it potentiates are my biggest drives as a means to bridge the interconnectivity between Queer value and natural worth with a cathartic resonance. NATürlich is an artistic endowment out of the desire to revisit a former self, the girl who wanted to be a boy; a person and a music project dedicated to the decolonisation of subjectivity and the deconstruction of the concept of norm. Bearing witness of what seems to be disconnecting us from everything, my music epitomises the urgency towards a world beyond the binary, respecting multiple systems, treasuring sustainable relationships, intersectional and intergenerational transformation.
2. How and when did you get into making music?
I got into sound first, in that moment the ears developed, still in Mamma’s womb, when I heard for the first time: Gosh! We sound lovely! In my early teens, my selective lobes began a platonic relationship with the E-guitar. My family couldn’t afford one. I shared a bedroom with an older brother. No space for the amplifier either. So my aunt, an angel from Paris, found a cheap classical guitar second hand and gave it to me. But it felt like shedding light on Pink Floyd’s ‘Dark Side of the Moon’ with a tennis racket… I used my whole allowance on a new set of phosphor bronze and changed the nylon strings. The arm started to bend, slowly detaching from the body. Too much tension. That’s how I learnt about frequency and begun making my own music.
3. What are 5 of your favourite albums of all time?
That’s such a mean question…
Deep Listening – Pauline Oliveros, Dempster, Panaiotis
Unjust Malaise – Julius Eastman
Reflection on Creation And Space (A Five Year View) – Alice Coltrane
Bitches Brew – Miles Davis
Moondog – Moondog
Africa – Amanaz
Sorry, I lost count. Shuffle please.
4. What do you associate with Berlin?
The sound of bird poo hitting the pavement while sipping a coffee on a Sunday afternoon. Inspirational. Raw. Pragmatism. Bravery. Life + Art = Activism. Kapital. Gorki. Home. Green. Gender-fluid. Hot summers. Shorts. Having my bicycle stolen, twice.
5. What’s your favourite place in your town?
The water tank of the Wasserturm in Prenzlauer Berg. Amazing echo. Would love to play there!
6. If there was no music in the world, what would you do instead?
Superhero stuff. A lot of noise too.
7. What was the last record/music you bought?
‘Music For Empty Flats’ by Martina Bertoni. Out now on Karlrecords and Bandcamp.
8. Who would you most like to collaborate with?
Give Guitars to People started as a collaborative venture. The plan is to keep it diverse, continue to invite musicians, add different instruments to our constellation. The wishlist includes Phew, Galya Bisengalieva, Farida Amadou, Gavilán Rayna Russom, Mary Halvorson, Tara Transitory + Nguyen Baly, Paolo Spaccamonti, Blixa, Julia Reidy, Brian Eno, Kaija Saariaho, Laurie Anderson, Arto Lindsey… So many incredible artists out there.
9. What was your best gig (as performer or spectator)?
Hermeto Pascoal at HKW was better than recreational drugs. A few days later, it was still manifesting itself.
10. How important is technology to your creative process?
It’s the queerest part of my electronic body. Like a limb, it stretches into the future towards different galaxies.
11. Do you have siblings and how do they feel about your career/art?
I’m fortunate to have gathered an impressive bunch of sisters and brothers, who closely follow what I do: Fatima is part of my ears, Grada is super-proud, for João I always sound like the lesbian apocalypse from Tavira, Connie finds it spherical, Pichy maintains my time right, for Sasha is always glorious; Neco said ‘Krass’ when the album was out, Deniz listens closely, Tobi was the first backing me up, Monica came to all Berlin concerts, Christian too, and Sivi writes theatre plays listening to it in loop mode. My real brother, Miguel, thinks I am insane, but is totally supportive and keeps track, especially of the CDs we didn’t sell last year, loving that I continue the space oddity in the family. We still laugh a lot together.
With the mini-tour to promote the album unable to proceed due to the pandemic, NATürlich and Jochen Arbeit made Kinetrix accessible to international audiences as an audiovisual concert. It premiered in 2020 at Meakusma and at cinema Corso (Belgium). It launched Sud Sonico’s Xenomorph Screenings (Italy) in a collaboration with Sonofmarketing and Threads Radio (UK), where the full audio concert is available in 2021. Give Guitars To People are supported by DG-Artes, a body of the Ministry of Culture of Portugal.
Photo © Martin Walz
Website (GG2P) | Facebook (NATürlich)
