Please introduce yourself and/or your project. Please give a brief relevant history.

Andy Aquarius, Celtic Harp & Gonzo Folklore. Once upon a time I met a harp builder. Together we built a harp. I figured out a way to play. Here I am. Thanks for having me.

What does the word “Animism” mean to you? This can be as literal or abstract as you wish. Does it find life in your project or in your day to day movements?

I think that objectifying objects sucks the life out of them. And since the lead culture is still based in naturalism and materialism, we’re finding ourselves in man-made environments that lack “the force” and fail to meet our animistic needs.
In a way my project is built on an animist foundation, since I co-built my harp and I feel that this focus & intent charged her up a fair bit. And while for the longest time I wasn’t really thinking about it in terms of animism, I definitely developed a way of dealing with the harp that feels like an exchange with a sentient being, and I treat her as such. When you accidentally knock your partner on a wall, you apologize. When someone’s not in the mood to play with you, you don’t – so that’s how we do it.

Do you talk with spirits or deities? Do they answer back?

There’s certainly a conversation going on. Guess I’m addressing any beings that might be around and keen to listen – it’s an open invitation, I don’t discriminate. The entities do talk back in a plethora of ways – or maybe it’s all just me bouncing ideas off myself and my environment and then externalizing the incoming messages. Probably both is true and perhaps it’s the same thing even. Some people say that polytheistic religions aren’t really polytheistic since the Gods are just different aspects and reflections of oneself. Who knows.

If you could have a secret magickal power or have one, what would it be? Or, what is it already? And finally, what would you wish to do with such a power?

I do indeed have a secret magickal power, and secret it shall stay. But yeah, I’d love to grow pines from my fingertips and throw shadows from my eyes. Besides, being able to properly fix cars would feel like pure magic to me.

What is the season of the year that resonates most deeply with you and why? Do these vibrations appear in your work?

Late summer crossing over into autumn – it’s this sort of seasonal drift on a downward trajectory that resonates with me. It’s like a meditation on decomposition. And surely this sentiment finds its way into my music.

What does the word ‘ritual’ mean to you? Do you incorporate any rituals into your daily life? Your practice? Your performances?

My ritualistic practice is a rather intuitive one – opposed to the New Age thing, I’d like to label myself as a Dark Ager. Keeping out most external influences, teachings and practices to see what arises from within after decluttering from all the noise I accumulated along the way. I do believe that everything you need to know is available to you already. Your only real responsibility is to make space for it.
New Agers engage in spiritual bypassing and transcendental LARPing. Dark Agers commit to initiatory subcriticality and holy angioplasty.

I definitely have an oscillating Sammelsurium of rituals and things I know work for me. But apart from regular meditation, there’s not much of a routine in it. It’s like with the collection of tinctures and oils I keep around. I don’t exactly know what they do, I simply keep them closeby and each single one lets me know when it wants to be used. It’s pretty straightforward and works for me.

For performances it’s definitely the tuning of the harp beforehand that I put much emphasis on. Not just to have a tuned instrument, but as a conscious act of connection. It kicks off the engine.

Do politics enter into, inform or speak through your creative workings? What are your thoughts on the creative process’sresponsibility to, or freedom from politics?

I’d like to quote Bonnie Prince Billy answering a similar question: “Ha ha!”

What does the word ‘community’ mean to you and how does it influence your process and practice?

It doesn’t influence my process much because it’s a rather solistic space I’m moving in. I like the idea of individuals leaving the community for an extended period and then returning to the group, sharing the things they learned in and retrieved from the desert. My harp space is starved of community and I believe there’s a power in that.

On a more general note, I do hope for a future state of being where there’s less society (quoting an old German Auswanderer who left for Morocco decades ago: Aaaah Deutschland, viele Leute keine Menschen!) and more community – For us to re-member and abandon the structures that willfully isolate us into oblivion and turn us into fragmented, (a)pathetic, stranded profit pirates with our splintered ship drifting in an amnesic ocean.

Why do you create?

I guess the only two things we can choose to do down here is to create and to uncreate, ideally in a healthy ratio. If you don’t do either, you’re either dead as a Black Rock or you mastered the art of absolute non-interference, which you haven’t.

The reason I like to make music is simply that it’s the best tool I have to access a wavelength that makes me feel like I’m on my way home.

What keeps you awake at night?

Mainly the low-key inflammation from all the glyphosate, food stabilizers & phthalates that my body’s kindly holding on to.

What brings you comfort and solace?

Orthodox choir music, Sardinian mountain peaks, the quiet & buzzing spaciousness after three rounds of psychotropic breath and the smell of redwood trees in the late summer sun.

In 2015 I was in a car going up to Bishop, California, and at like 2 am there was a show on the radio that I’ll never forget, Home Of The Brave by Scott Carrier. He questioned people about the end of the world and this musician was talking about how she “likes to think that whatever she’s doing in any given moment in her daily life, somewhere on this planet there’s walruses just hanging out and doing their thing”. I felt that.

What do you dream of destroying?

The two big diseases of our time, Teflon pans & consumer + combat drones. Be gone.

What do you dream of creating?

A church-like log cabin nestled in a quiet opening in the woods, next to a small stream, with a garden.. garnished with a soupçon of barb wire.

Any last departing offerings? Anything you would like to talk about that wasn’t covered?

While writing Walden, Henry David Thoreau’s mom took care of his laundry and fixed him sandwiches.