Markus Wormstorm (Sweat. X) :: Interview

Part author, poet, sound-designer, sweat-x, real estate agent, black heart gang and Smit, Markus Wormstorm has put quite an indent in the industry of the creative. Spawned in the local area formally known as Pretoria, Wormstorm has been involved in numerous projects that range from creative writing to poetry to music.

Moving from collaborations with the enigmatic, semi-cogniscant, donkey rattling Felix la Band to successful underground projects such as the “Constructus Corporation”, with the likes of Sibot and Waddy Jones, he then moved closer to the forefront of the minds of the better South African public as one half of the sinewave that is “The Real Estate Agents“. After the disbandment of the realty-based electronic duo (which is now back up by-the-by!), Markus sits and watches his synapse crop yield flavourful, tasty fruit – Sweat X + The Black Heart Gang (click to check them out)…

All this whilst he sleeps in a mental asylum!

Don’t Party said “hello“, and here’s what Markus had to say back:

1. So your real surname is Smit… how did Wormstorm come into the picture?

I read alot of sci-fi novels whislt growning up. escpecially F. Herbert and Ian M banks. So Wormstorm finds it origins in Sci-fi. Also I never wanted to be comercial, and I figured that a name like Wormstorm would keep most posers at bay.

2. You have had a lot of success overseas with Sweat X, playing all around the globe, has this success changed your outlook on this country’s music industry? Do you still enjoy playing in South Africa?

I really like South Africa in general. I needed to travel a lot to realize that though. As far as the music industry question my answer will have to be: what industry? I think us kids have a lot of talent and a different outlook on things as opposed to Europe, and the States, which is great. I’m a very self involved artist and care very little what people think, if people are into the stuff I do that’s great. So in that way I’ve never been to concerned with “the industry” …

3. You live in an old Mental Asylum… how did that come about? Does it not make you feel a bit crazy, maybe with the influence of some residing “ghosts” of the asylum’s past?

Er…yeah it can be a bit creepy, thinks do on occasion go bump in the night. I have a ghost which locks itself in different rooms sometimes. such a mission, I have to get locksmiths and stuff when it does. So its a bit more a schlep than an inspiration. Our house is really nice though…. It’s a blackheart gang museum (theblackheartgang.com) Ree and I both collect antiques. check out my site to see pictures of it www.mysterio.tv

4. What DAW do you use to create music?

What the fuck is a DAW?

5. You use a lot of external, self-recorded sound-scape stuff to make your tracks, for example, I remember that you used the sound of spit on the hot plate of a stove for the snare in the track “Jihad on the Dancefloor“… what is the force behind this? Are “tweaked” industry sounds not good enough?

Yeah I remember that…it was “whistle” though …. I think? Anyway….no I….well this is gonna sound pretty weird: Recording and treating your own sounds brings another element to my music. It might just be me, but I believe that a song can become a spell if you create every sound from scratch. Something to do with the meditation and the time.

6. How’s the APC-40 treating you? Are you now a new Ableton convert because of it?

blah blah blah

7. Do you own any external gear (musical not for recording) in your studio?

Sure… juno, pianos, guitars, xylophones, samplers,electronic drums…

8. Do you write music everyday?

Most days. I’m a published author so I spend lots of times writing stories and things. Ive been working a children’s sci-fi novel for over a year now. Its called ” the boy who could stop time”

9. You’re writing a lot of acoustically based soundscape kind of stuff now… you can definately descibe it better than me..

a. how would you describe it?

They are very rhythmic cyclic pieces written for clarinet, cello and violin. Deeply mysterios and ingaging. Below the acoustic stuff is a bed of pulsing, heart beat like minimalism.

b. what drives your interest in this style?

Composers like Steve Riech, John Cage, Arvo Part, Gorecki and Philip Glass have always been part of my live. In some ways these classical guys are an inspiration to the club stuff I do. Now that I’m a bit older I find that I am mentally ready to write my own compositions.

10. If you were a pie, what pie would you be?

Pi squared

11. Who would you get to eat you?

Music journalist Dave Durbach. Hopefully it will transport him to another dimention and he’ll be gone for good.

12. You got anything funny for us?

Yes! “In” music journalist Dave Durbachs review someone left this coment:

Sweat.x is proof that apartheid worked. Ndebele + Boer = KAK HOUSE MUSIC

…haha