This is the first part of an ongoing interview which was started late in '97. The questions were asked by Mnemonic from Moscow and sent, via email, to stevvi who then snail mailed them to the depths of Wales... which is why the thing has taken so long. Now that the Welsh duo have finally caught with the 20th Century (just as it's ending) and have a net account things should move along a little quicker.

Mnemonic: Hello!

Somatic Responses: Greetings !!

M: Are you sure you are humans?

SR: Yeah, we are pretty sure ! We eat, sleep, shit, kiss, have sex and write music. We consider most of these to be mostly human/animal traits (all being somewhat stereotypically). However, there is a distinct possibility that we are unaware of what we really are due to mysterious events in our child-hoods that are unexplained by physics and logic.

M: Why Somatic Responses?

SR: Basically, a Somatic Response is an "event" found in everyone's nervous system. It is a voluntary movement totally by your own command. Be SOMATIC !

M: Most names of your tunes frequently contain mentions of other worlds, dragons, subspaces and passages. In the whole, does the song name reflects its essence or it means nothing to you and you just follow the principle: "damn, let's call that shit as weird as it sounds"?

SR: We feel that the song title can be very suggestive, this has it's positive and negative attributes: Positive - the title can guide the listener to certain soundscapes, places, phases, dimensions (being spatial, temporal or other), smells etc…. it can truly represent how we feel (consciously or unconsciously) about that piece of music. Negative - The title can be too suggestive, crushing the listeners imagination into a pigeon hole of conclusions. And of course, some titles are complete bollocks, where we are just expressing (or vainly trying to) a sense of humour… something we feel is lacking considerably in this "scene".

M: What is your music about?

SR: It's about creating soundscapes, using new and hopefully interesting sounds. We have no preset ideas of what our "sound" is - only that it stimulates ourselves and possibly others who listen. We don't believe that we are predominantly "dark", but we do explore alien emotions/atmospheres, which to us stimulates greater thought (this being the neutral zone where a person has more freedom to think what the music means to them). It is easy to label something which is misunderstood as being dark, rather than looking at other alternatives.

M: Passages... is it somehow connected with Jim Morrison and his Doors? (maybe the same concept)

SR: This to ourselves is connected to movements into new directions, there is no direct intention to link the concept of this record with that of Jim Morrison and the Doors, especially as we are not aware of the direction/intention of their music in the first place. But if the link is made, maybe there is a similar train of thought?

M: By the way, what(who) had the most influence onto your creativity? Did you follow someone?

SR: Basically we got into a lot of Electro music because the sounds to us were new and interesting so we evolved, always listening to music/sounds which we found new and interesting. In answer to who/what interested us, it is a mixture between technology and people who had a vision for breaking boundaries of outdated sounds and formulas all of which are too numerous to mention. There have been many artists who have inspired us, but the general vibe is that there is good and bad music dependant on tastes and for us to focus on one or many styles may detract from our philosophy of sound and music. Maybe this doesn't answer the question as to how we make the music we do but it deters people from thinking there is a set path for people making any form of experimental music.

M: Some of your songs turn me in a distorted condition of mind. Whether you've been in a distorted condition while creating them?

SR: No ! We're usually in a caffeine environment (coffee, tea and Diet Coke). Also, the fact that we live in the middle of nowhere (the only noise you can hear is one of the few remaining coal mines humming with dull enthusiasm on the background) may answer why some of our friends are hard/noisy (in comparison Brian Eno made one of his most subdued pieces in the middle of New York City). We are passionate, almost obsessive about our music (is this a distorted mind?).

M: Don't you think your music outstrips our time?

SR: This is something that we are trying to do, both consciously and subconsciously (we suspect). We are always trying to progress in sound, style and structure. Maybe this leads to our music being devoid of classification, therefore this kind of view is almost inevitable.

M: Tell me about your vision of the future... (machines eating humans, total apocalypses, nuclear winter etc...)

SR: Please lighten up !!! We're ultimately positive in our approach to life and music. We do not have a pessimistic view of the future. As for a view of the future, technology will ultimately make life more wonderful.

M: Some styles of techno become very popular nowadays (such as Goa, House etc..) so do hardcore. Don't you think that popularity is the first attribute of degeneration? Do you want to be popular?

SR: We think the point is basically that if your music becomes popular and it's truly what you believe in, this is positive regardless of the style (not necessarily meaning that we are fans of the forms of music you have mentioned). The problem occurs when artists become enveloped in aspiring to be successful and their style of sound is effected by current trends in the market. So the moral is "Do and express what pleases you as an artist" (if this doesn't sound too wanky).

SR Message to Moscow: We would like to thank you for your interest in our music. It is very inspiring to learn that our music has interested you in Russia and there is some common belief and imagination shared in the experimental on the whole. We both really enjoyed answering your questions and look forward a great deal to the next communication.

To be continued....