- Introduce yourself; who are you, what do you do?


My name is Baphomet E.M. Tripp, and is the result of my second legal name-change to date. In some cultures a child is given a name at birth but then the name changes once the individual is older in order to better represent his or her actual attributes. Naming myself serves partly as a meta-symbol of my own self-determination, outside of any meaning that the names chosen may represent in themselves.

What do I do? Within the context of xaos, I do everything – I compose and collate the sounds used, write and vocalize the lyrics, and perform all the production work. I’ve been involved in “band”-like situations before, and I don’t really enjoy them. I prefer the freedom of being able to experiment without having to worry about whether the percussionist gets to perform enough drum-rolls in any given composition to keep him happy, or whatever.


- What is Xaos?


xaos is the name given to my current musick project. The name is Greek for “chaos”. I chose the name for a few reasons.

Most relevantly, I felt that I wanted the freedom to do anything that I wanted to within the project, and not have to worry about whether it “fit” into the project’s scope. Chaos is - among other things - unlimited possibility, so the name itself is a signifier that anything is possible under the moniker. If I want to release an ambient noisescape, I can. If I want to write a tender ballad, I can. If I want to record a pop song, or a blues number, or whatever, none of it is outside the realm of what xaos is “allowed” to be.

With considerations of style out of the way, every song can start as a blank canvas. It turns out that there are certain types of sound that I enjoy a great deal and wind up using relatively frequently – like orchestral strings, or a guitar playing a distorted power-chord, or the rumblings of machinery. But none of these are a given.


- What caused you to start Xaos?


The first xaos CD was made shortly after the breakup of a previous project of mine, called 12:20. Although I also wrote the 12:20 material on my own, 12:20 started playing live shows, and an insane (in a good way) musician named BLZboB handled the vast bulk of the instrumentation during these shows while I focused on vocal delivery and certain performance-art aspects that were incorporated. His contribution to the public sound of 12:20 was huge, and after a while we started to diverge in terms of what we thought was musically interesting. He quit, and I felt that the 12:20 project should die, since he had become such an integral part of it. To mentally divorce myself from 12:20, I made a CD of stuff that I had recorded while in 12:20 but either hadn’t fit into the 12:20 mold or hadn’t really had a chance to make it into the live shows very much. This was the first xaos release, “musterion”.


- What do you want to accomplish with/through music/Xaos? What CAN be accomplished through the medium of music?


Often when reading interviews with musicians they’ll talk about wanting to “communicate” with the audience, but if you ask them what exactly they’re trying to communicate it quickly becomes obvious that they’re talking out of their asses. Historically, I always considered my work more about “expression” than “communication”: I would do what I wanted, and not worry about what (if anything) anyone else might get out of it. This led to some compositions that were maybe conceptually interesting but were pretty unlistenable, as well as some lyrics that were impenetrable in meaning, even when read on a lyric sheet (I love language and playing with it, and would often amuse myself by obscuring the underlying meaning of lyrics in convoluted bits of word-association and other word-games that made the original intention indecipherable).

With “apokalupsis” (the most recent CD), the musick serves as a kind of dark infotainment. It describes a world of frightened masses manipulated by power-hungry idiots into consuming the planet’s limited resources in order to breed more consumers who can be more easily manipulated by fear, culminating in the self-destruction of the entire species. That’s the “info” part. The “tainment” comes from it’s being aesthetically pleasing – at least, to me.

Musick is capable of extraordinary things. The human emotional response acts below the rational radar, and many schools of magickal thought posit that this is the sort of level where humans are capable of some pretty impressive things. As long as people are capable of having an emotional response to musick, it can act as a great engine. Big business seems to be doing its best to numb people to the power of art, but we haven’t all been completely densensitized yet.


- What inspires you to make music?


Sometimes I’ll hear some piece-of-crap cookie-cutter song on a radio and want to write something else just to have an antidote. Sometimes I’ll have a lyrical idea that I think would sound good against a certain sonic backdrop, so I’ll make it. Sometimes I’ll just wonder what the effect would be of combining certain sounds, so I’ll give it a go and see. Sometimes all of the above coalesce. Inspiration can strike anywhere, anytime.


- I personally really enjoyed reading your lyrics. How do you go about writing lyrics, and what inspires your lyrics?


Thanks for the compliment! I love language, so I put just as much effort into lyrical content as musickal content.

There’s no one way that I’ll write a lyric. Sometimes I’ll come across a phrase or word that strikes me oddly, and I’ll write it down, and thinking about and dissecting the phrase or word will lead to further contemplation. Sometimes a certain event will just affect me to the point that I feel that I have to externalize it somehow, so I’ll just start writing about it.

“apokalupsis” itself is a word that I have a lot of affinity for. It’s the original Greek from which we get “apocalypse” in English. The word means “unveiling” or “revelation” (the original Greek title of the Book of Revelations is the Apocalypse of St. John). Because the Book of Revelation is so filled with images of death and destruction, though, if you say “apocalypse” everyone associates it with violence instead of with enlightenment. So it has this sort of hidden meaning. You can take that meaning further and combine the two definitions so that an “apocalypse” refers to an awakening so profound that it destroys all previously-held truths and potentially severely damages the one who is awakened… but I’m getting into my personal philosophy here, which might have me drone on and on and get all pretentious about shit that no one cares about.

Suffice it so say, pretty much every word or phrase on the CD was carefully considered to have a meaning that at least paints an understandable picture for the casual listener, but can reward anyone who wants to spend the time with them with some added content.


- How is the album apokalupsis different from your older work (musterion & 12:20)?


Essentially, the songs are better. What this means is up to individual interpretation (and argument) I suppose, but with “apokalupsis” I have a collection of songs that combines noise, melody, rhythm and lyrical content to greater effect than ever before. I’m pretty proud of it: everything on the CD sounds exactly the way I wanted it to, as well. I use a different sonic palette than most musicians, which some people interpret as poor production, but it took a lot of work to get it to sound that bad!


- What was the process of writing apokalupsis like? How was this different from previous works?


Everything I’d ever recorded on my own prior to “apokalupsis” was recorded on a 4-track tape with exclusively hardware instruments. “apokalupsis” was written and recorded digitally (although in order to capture a certain vibe, pretty much every song has at least some parts which were initially recorded digitally, then moved onto tape, bounced around a bit, and then recorded back onto hard disk again before further refinement). Working digitally was a huge change, and meant that songs could be re-arranged and generally fucked around with much more efficiently than ever before.

In-line with the concept of nothing being a “given” in a xaos composition, none of the songs were written in any common way. “Happy New Year” began as an experiment to see if I could take a simple version of a standard “In Da Club”-type hip-hop-drum pattern and meld it with slow, more melancholy string sounds. “Gebarmutterkot” grew out of a heavy guitar riff that I pounded out of my battered old B.C. Rich, and “Hymn Null” came from experimenting with manipulating samples of my girlfriend’s digeridoo. All of these songs mutated as more layers were added and the various songs’ lyrical concerns helped shape the flow of the tracks to better underscore the themes involved.


- Any plans on releasing a follow up album to apokalupsis? If so, what can we expect on it?


I seem to not be able to stop writing musick for much of an extended period. I’m sure that there will be more to come in the future. Currently, I’m working on animating a short film in 3D: the concept began as an idea for a video for a song from “apokalupsis”, but it seems to be turning into its own entity right now. There’s months (at least!) of work ahead of me on this, so we’ll see what develops. In the meantime, the odd track or two might leak out of my studio…


- Do you have any plans to perform live? If so, what can we expect from a Xaos show?


Performing live is a tricky one. Although xaos has yet to play a live show, 12:20 used to put on some pretty insane spectacles. I really enjoy the rush, but to keep a xaos show from becoming some sort of lame industrial karaoke, I need other musicians to perform with, and at this point, I despair of ever meeting people with the personalities and talents both compatible and strong enough to really contribute to a xaos live show who would also be willing at the same time to dedicate themselves to serving my vision and leaving their own musickal ideas at home. It’s a tough spot, not made any easier by the fact that I tend to avoid social interaction with pretty much everybody.

If it does happen, it will be a calculated effort to evoke the banishing of forces inimical to individual liberty – I can’t stand to go see a musical act perform and all they do is stand around on stage. I also can’t stand to just stand on stage while performing. It’ll be a show.


- What do you think of industrial artists collaborating (either on a track or a split cd or whatever)? Any plans for collaborating with any other musicians?


Industrial artists (or any people at all, for that matter, whether they consider themselves artists or not) can do whatever they want, as long as they leave me alone. I’ve had some offers to work with other musicians – we’ll see if anything comes of any of it. I don’t actively seek these collaborations, so it’s possible that I come off as disinterested to those who might otherwise have already done some work with me. Any such collaboration would pretty much have to be short-lived: I’ve tried being in a band, and it doesn’t work for me, although with the right people I enjoy doing this sort of thing on an occasional basis.

I have done a couple of remixes to date – that’s one way to “collaborate” that’s pretty comfortable for me, since I still get to work in isolation, but am working with someone else’s material, and as the remixer get the final say on what the end result sounds like.


- Would you ever sign with a major label?


Sure - as long as I would retain creative control. I understand not wanting to be associated with a multinational corporation, but if the trade-off is that one’s work is experienced by as many people as possible... it beats working for a large corporation as a wage-slave without the creative outlet.

I’m not holding my breath, though. When industrial musick started to get big in the 90’s, labels showed little understanding of the nature of the beast and tried to capitalize by signing “industrial” bands like Stabbing Westward. It quickly became obvious that the majors had no idea what the scene was all about. After that burst of popularity, the genre was pretty quickly marginalized again, and I imagine the majors aren’t in a hurry to sign anything that sounds like xaos, anyway: it would stick out like a sore thumb if a xaos song popped up on the radio between a couple of pop-punk tunes or whatever the hell is being force-fed these days.


- It seems that these days major labels are signing a lot of bands that don’t have a history (no previous releases, no previous bands, etc). Do you find that having done DIY demos and releases is helpful?


As far as getting a major-label deal is concerned, I find that being young and conventionally pretty while lip-synching to mindless feel-good canned music written by committee is helpful. Whining about how your girlfriend dumped you overtop of a major-key guitar melody also seems to wow the kids these days.


- It seems that a good deal of Old School Industrial has died out and no one really remembers the values that started industrial. Do you think industrial is coming to an end, or is there a chance it could be revived and perhaps a return to the original values and ideals behind its origin?


We’re actually drifting from musick into linguistics here: who owns language? Who defines what is “industrial”? I mean, it was what Throbbing Gristle called their work, and the stuff that most people refer to as “old-school industrial” doesn’t exactly sound like “Slug Bait”.

I imagine there will always be a place for musick about things like the dehumanizing effects of post-modern society – at least as long as such conditions exist (which will likely be for the foreseeable future). Just because some people write techno and put distorted vocals about how sad and/or angry they are on it and call it “industrial” doesn’t mean that these issues are no longer a part of the musickal landscape: it just means it may not be conveniently categorized for people at their local retail music outlet.


- What do you think of contemporary industrial/ebm music?


To be honest, I’m not really very plugged-in to the current “scene”. While working on “apokalupsis”, I poked my head up out of the sand to have a look around and see what other people were doing, and just wasn’t very interested in much that I heard. I’d rather not sit through a CD of dance-floor anthems waiting in vain for an intelligent lyric or interesting musickal phrase to come along. I’m sure there’s good musick being made: I just don’t know who’s doing it. I’m looking forward to the next Skinny Puppy CD, though.


- What do you think of the use of sampling in music?


I think that the sampler is the single most important musickal instrument of all time. As a kid, I bought “(Who’s Afraid Of?) the Art of Noise” and was blown away by the use of automobile sounds, for instance, played like an instrument – not as a sound effect, but as an integral part of the song. The sampler allows for the manipulation of any achievable sound as a musickal element, which is incredibly liberating – it makes the musician’s source material effectively infinite.

I do sometimes use the old (some would say “tired”) technique of sampling a line of dialogue from a film or t.v. show and dropping it into a song. This is usually done with the intent of underlining some lyrical component of the composition, and in the case of the infotainment aspect of “apokalupsis” serves to authenticate various points with third-party reports that contextualize and confirm the content.


- How is the industrial scene in Edmonton?


Not being a part of the “scene” per se, I really have no idea. I know that there are some interesting projects around – some of them are myspace “friends” of mine - but I’ve never seen them live. I suppose my attitude is part of the problem: if more people like me actually went out to clubs the scene would probably be healthier or more interesting, but I can’t stand the thought of paying too much to drink in order to hang around with a bunch of pretentious “I’m-more-goth-than-you” types listening to uninspired whip music.


- What would you like to see happen in industrial music or in the scene? What can be done to get to that point?


Well, in my perfect world, no-one would really worry about “industrial” musick at all and would just try to find their own voice rather than try to re-create what innumerable other musicians have already done innumerable times. How do we get there? First we have to kill the herd mentality that’s endemic to our species. I wish us all luck with that.


- What are the top 10 albums that inspire Xaos?


The following is more a representation of artists whose work I enjoy, and the CD of theirs that I tend to enjoy the most. I didn’t list 10, because these are the only ones that immediately jumped to mind, so they must be the standard, I guess.

Numb “Language of Silence”
Swans “Soundtracks for the Blind”
Skinny Puppy “Too Dark Park”
Faith No More “Angel Dust”
Godflesh “Streetcleaner”
Art of Noise “Who’s Afraid Of?”
Throbbing Gristle “Second Annual Report”

Although they don’t have a CD yet, an old acquaintance of mine is in a band called Destroy All Rational Thought, which I will here-and-now declare to be kick-ass. Their live shows are something to behold.


- What are your favorite books?


I generally prefer non-fiction over fiction, although I will never get rid of my copies of “The Cipher”, “Bad Brains” or “Skin” by Kathe Koja, as she is an amazing writer and should really stop composing children’s books and go back to writing about creativity and obsession (in my humble opinion).

Anything by Hakim Bey is pretty amazing, as are the magickal manuals of Crowley and Peter J. Carroll. I also really like the compilations that Adam Parfrey edits, and Christopher Hyatt sticks his nose in some interesting places. I recently read a book called “Underground!” published by disinformation that’s all about alternative archeology and related subjects that was thought-provoking. I read quite a bit, actually – if I really get going I won’t stop for a few pages, so I’ll just put the brakes on now.


- What are your favorite movies?


“Fight Club” is a classic exploration of the emptiness engendered by consumer society. It should be watched at least three times by everyone in the Western world.

I also really like “Heart of Darkness” – the documentary about the making of “Apocalypse Now” – which, as Coppola himself says, records everyone involved in the production little-by-little going insane. It makes “Apocalypse Now” itself seem almost tame in comparison.

“Gozu” is also amazing – a sort-of surreal horror-gangster-comedy movie from Japan. There’s no way to really describe it and do it justice. Anyone reading this who hasn’t seen it should go rent it right now (though you won’t find it at Blockbuster!).

Like books, there’s too many good films to list. Most movies given a wide theatrical release are pretty boring, so most of my movie-watching comes from the alternative video store down the street from where I live, and the small cinemas in the Old Strathcona area of Edmonton, like the Princess and the Garneau.


- What is currently on the Xaos agenda?


As mentioned earlier, I’m working on a 3D animated short film right now, which xaos will be scoring. And I have some ideas brewing in the back of my head for some more sonically-oriented material that I’ll probably start spewing onto hard disk before too much longer…


- Any last words?


“Nothing is true, everything is permitted.”


- Thank you very much for taking the time to do this interview, I wish Xaos success in the future!

Right back at you.

-december 2006    by [.d4n b4rr3tt.]