Hiele
Antwerp-based double bass player and electronic musician Roman Hiele recently released two albums: the mini-album ‘Mélodie 2020’ and the full-album ‘Stadspark’.
“Between lucidity and drowsiness”
Do you see ‘Mélodie 2020’ as kind of a prequel to ‘Stadspark’?
Roman Hiele: ‘Mélodie 2020’ and ‘Stadspark’ never had to do anything with each other. They both live on themselves. More attention was put into ‘Stadspark’ in regards to sound shaping, experimenting with different rhythmical content etc. It’s ‘story’ walks on other path than ‘Mélodie 2020’, the last one being somehow a bit more ‘pleasant’ and less demanding for the brain.
What kind of record is ‘Stadspark’? Or what kind of record did you want to make with ‘Stadspark’?
‘Stadspark’ is a thin line between lucidity and drowsiness. It dangles somewhere in the past and the present. Shaky clusters of melody and stripped harmony but without being random. It did not had to sooth the ears, an exploration going a bit beyond obvious harmony and scaling pleasantries, but still with form, pulse and (at least) for me ‘sense’.
Why did you decide to start a new label with Yves De Mey and Allon Kaye? Why could this album not be released on Entr’acte, for example?
It’s 2020 and the world needed another (vinyl) label.
With ‘De Ziltige Olijf’, you own your own studio.
De Ziltige Olijf is just another bedroom studio that moves along to wherever I’m sleeping in the world next. A bunch of old-fart synths, too many cables and two nice Norwegian radio mixers stem from an early obsession to collect sound equipment that doesn’t involve staring at a screen. Staring at a screen is something I’m pretty good at tough.
Do you let others use your studio as well?
In De Ziltige Olijf some mastering and mixing has been done for others. Expanding to more collaborative projects ‘in my bedroom’ is definitely a goal but let’s see who wants to get involved with me next… musically obvzZzz.
How did you get ‘into music’ in the first place?
Suzuki Method and Solfège early on, then as a teenager drenging in improvisation and jazz dogmas, and onward free music. I studied violin and afterwards ‘the big violin’.
‘Executed and concluded’ between 2015 and 2019, you write on Bandcamp about ‘Mélodie’. What do you mean by that?
Executed and concluded is a time stamp that marks a hectic, weird period for me, moving a lot of times, not having one fixed space for recording. In the meanwhile opening up a restaurant/venue in Antwerp. Recorded material from here and there was scattered laying around. I used it for concerts, and it developed along the way mangling it during these gigs.
’15 – ’19 is a reminder for myself that sometimes things take time and persistence is a beautiful thing.
Why did you release 2 albums in one month?
‘Mélodie 2020’ was laying around. ‘Stadspark’ was going to happen. I got impatient and dropped mélodie. There is something else to come out later this year.
Are you planning on releasing ‘Mélodie 2020’ on vinyl later on?
Maybe on a CD?
– Joeri Bruyninckx
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