Structures and Shapes _ Interview with Ontal

How would you define these new genres you have discovered? Great selection of films and authors there by the way.

Boris: Thanks, well, most of the new genres that we discovered are 20-40 years old but one common thing is that they’re all experimental and uncompromising.

Darko: There is a lot of quality techno music nowadays that combines industrial and dark elements.

Boris: Yeah, we’re definitely pleased that the harder sound is coming back. It’s not that minimal anymore, as it was a few years ago.

Yeah, so am I, although there is some good minimal out there too. Darko, you mentioned before that certain life experiences affect your music, Serbia has suffered a turbulent past, do you think this affects your artistic endeavours in any way?

Darko: Yes and I got a lot of hatred towards the dictatorship and the unstable government. I also grew up in a semi-communist family.

Boris: It’s still unstable in Serbia, regardless from the point of view, but again, we’re converting that hatred into new sounds instead of going out to steal and beat up people because we’re angry and poor. We also prefer to stay out of politics and focus on new ideas and improve our production techniques.

Some very powerful sentiments right there! It seems you both find music to be highly cathartic!

Darko: Music is for us in the first place and then everything else. We mostly see everything as music.

Could you complete this sentence… ‘music is a means of’…

Boris: haha, no need to think too much about that one. Music is our meaning of life and we hope that more people will share the same thought.

And Darko would you agree?

Darko: Yes, I agree too.

In what ways do your approaches to making music differ from one another?

Darko: Our approaches don’t differ very much. For example, sometimes I start a track with rhythm and Boris adds bass lines, dark atmospheric sounds and melodies. And sometimes it happens vice versa. The main thing is that both of us complete the final arrangement of the track.

Boris: It seems that Darko answered the question there although,  Darko is more into the cinematic sound design and the atmosphere of the tracks. In my earlier productions, I was more into the rhythm structure, the bass line shape and some chord arrangements, but with the Ontal project we don’t have strict roles. We just do it how we do and if it turns out well, we’ll finish the track.