To Build a Universe – Interview with OTT at Ozora ’22
Written by BLAZE
We meet up with OTT backstage at Dragon Nest during Deva’s full house concert and just before his epic set.
Ozorian Prophet – Whenever I listen to your music, the idea of circularity comes to my mind. I always feel that you are doing smaller and greater circles, loops that go in circles, and I always feel like I tend to gyrate to your music.
OTT – Things always end up where they started, definitely. So if I start in a place, I always end up back where I started, so there is a kind of circularity.
OP – And is that conscious?
OTT – It’s just one of the many patterns. I like symmetry. So, if I have something on the left, I need to balance it with something on the right. Always. I cannot have the meters doing that (shows two index fingers at different angles), coz that’s just ugly. So I have to balance both sides, they always have to be outputting the same amount of energy. It might be a different thing, like a flute here and a sitar there, but there has to be a balance. But circularity too, and many other shapes. It’s about making shapes and putting them beside each other. If you were making a painting, there are circles, but there are squares and triangles and all kinds of shapes.
I have a thing where I like to finish up where I started. This means that the sound at the beginning of a song is the same as the end, so if you bound it up into a Moebius strip, it could go on in an indefinite loop forever. You could wrap it around. So circularity is a good observation, it’s definitely a thing I do.
OP – Do you have any instrumental music background?
OTT – I played synth in bands. I was a drummer first, and I am an alright drummer, I would be fine if I practiced, but I have no inclination to do so. There are so many other things to do, like bass and synths and guitar and vocals. I can’t really specialize just on one. For me, it’s all about editing and building.
OP – You mentioned shapes. There is a – somewhat rare – approach that music is spatial, not something linear in time.
OTT – Yeah. It’s nothing to do with notes and dots and lines… music is all about texture and spaces. I am building a universe. It’s like I am building a sculpture, a 3D shape and I can see it. I can’t really describe it in words, because if I could, there would be no point in making the music. It’s like children who have these activity centers, these toys for infants, and there is a mirror, there are things that you turn, things that you press, a button that goes ding-ding-ding, one that goes brrrr: that’s what I am building. I am trying to build something that does that, or hugs you or pushes you over. I am trying to make a kinetic sculpture. But I think that’s what everyone is doing.
Imagine if you are making a curry. You are not just making some slop to feed humans. You are putting little things in, you are making a sculpture, a taste sculpture. But then you taste it and it’s more than just beans and some rice. And you go fucking hell! And you never make it by following a recipe, you are not going, like “I need two grams of this”, you are not going, “is this right”? You are creating.
You are not just giving people calories, but something substantial. So this is what I am trying to do, not just to give people some sound, but to give them a novel experience.
OP – India. It keeps coming back in your music a lot.
OTT – Again, cooking analogy. You are gonna make dinner and you go: “I think it will be an Indian theme tonight”, so you make Indian. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t. But it’s a distinct flavor. And it’s almost like Indianness. This song means Indianness. I don’t speak Hindi, I don’t speak Urdu, I don’t speak Punjabi, I don’t understand what the lyrics are, but I love the flavor. I love what Indians do to some pieces of music. Rather like what they do with some food. If you give an Indian cook some food, they will do a different thing with it than if you gave it to an Italian, a French, or a Hungarian chef. And the English chef would probably just fry it or boil it.
OP – Yeah, tell me about it, I lived in England. I suffered with the food.
OTT – Hungarian… come on. It’s the best food in the world
OP – I looove it.
(Both laugh).
OTT – I almost use it as a flavor, as a readymade thing. So many people have been to India and experienced it. What I wanna do is that when they are sitting at home, in London, it’s raining and it’s miserable, and my music comes on and boom! they are straight back to their holiday, back to where they had those feelings. And it works. And you can send, transport people to anywhere, you send them like that! (snaps his fingers) send them to India with just one instrumental sample. Boom, there you go.
OP – And finally about Ozora.
OTT – It never changes; it just gets better and better. Just the infrastructure gets better. Like the Dragon Nest wasn’t here when I started. The Dome wasn’t here. The Nautilus (office space). It just gets built up and built up and built up. I can’t imagine it ever stopping, I can’t imagine it ever not being here. This land is so soaked with Ozora festival vibes and flavor. You could not ever not do it.
I miss Daniel. Daniel’s the reason I played here, Daniel liked my music. He went: put that guy on, I like his music. And I played here every year. And every time he came backstage and we had this weird conversation. Coz he speaks no English, and I speak no Hungarian, so we would just do this conversation and sort of smile and nod, and talk like that. He was such a nice man. He absolutely loved it. He built a really big thing.
One year we were playing the Main Stage with my band, OTT and the All-Seeing Eye. We had a very hectic sound check, and my head was throbbing, so I drove our rental car from the Main Stage to a small group of trees for a nap. It’s the backroad that leads back to the office and you are not supposed to go there, no one except security and organizers. So there I am, taking a nap, and there is a knock on the window and it’s two security guards and Daniel. And he goes like, oh, it’s you! And he took the security guards away and allowed me to sleep there. I felt like a VIP.
OP – And Dragon? We’ve been having you here for ages.
OTT – I particularly like being here. I love this stage.
OP – Cool, coz I wanna leave you to listen to Hungarian folk music coupled with electronica now: Deva. Who knows, one day you may cook a sonic goulash. Thank you for the interview.
OTT – Cheers.
Cover photo: Laszlo Kun – Ott in the Dragon Nest
Photo credit: Sasha Hippie Koala
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