LIS ER STILLE – Photo by Kasper Hemme
When it comes to prog-rock from Scandinavia there can be only one band: LIS ER STILLE. Formed in 2004, as an art project designed to put music on the emotions derived from paintings, the Danish four-piece has always been on a quest to redefine the way to perceive music and question the traditions of modern rock. Back in 2006 LIS ER STILLE released their first album. Now, eight years later, they played Denmark’s Spot Festival and Canadian Music Week. NOTHING BUT HOPE AND PASSION sat down with ‘The Other’, the quartet’s fifth entity. ‘The Other’ talked for all band members and answered all our questions. Sounds mystical, right? Well… LIS ER STILLE is mystical. Their latest EP Flight of Belljár (2013) carries an atmosphere that leads right into the heart and soul of the four Danes.
LIS ER STILLE means ‘this is silence’. But are they silence? Do they create silence? Not at all. Imagine the way MUSE could have gone years ago and you get a glimpse of what LIS ER STILLE are. At the same time you’ll get a glimpse of how big this band can possibly make it over the next years. Let us introduce the four Danish rockers, who talk collectively as ‘The Other’.
Showcase festivals are always a starting point for what comes next. You played Spot Festival and Canadian Music Week. What comes next?
Diving into the creation of a new album… During our stay, playing those two gigs in incredible Toronto throughout the Canadian Music Week, we came together bluntly stating our individual opinions on which to choose; Doing more EP’s in higher frequency, or doing a full album. We were unanimous on doing an album. And… To add a tickle to the plot, it looks like it’s gonna have something to do with nightly adventures.
How would you describe your music to a deaf person?
We’d invite the person to our next show. Two of us have had experience with deaf or heavily hearing-impaired people back in the days, and they are quite capable of feeling the music… Music is wonderful in that; it is a very potent physical phenomenon. As the eardrum is no longer in charge, the rest of the body fills the empty bottles.
Empowering the 99% and preparing a speech of forgiveness for the rest.
What is your main motivation when you write new songs?
Would you rather whisper or shout for the rest of your life?
In this case nothing seems more potent than the story of the whispering man that was known as such, because whenever he struggled, trying to shout though the mass of incoherent laughter at his words, never quite making sense in the maze of convention, he did from time to time share the graze of the untied expression, from the sad but comforting eyes illuminating the mist of the dying shrieking crowd; a child, an old lady or a skating deaf girl dreaming, joining in silence as the laughter died out, aroused, alive and screaming. I guess we’d shout.
Would you rather be a dragon or have a dragon?
We never did take up that question during rehearsals… Guess we’d want to be one. That way we could build a massive organ driven by fire, or go take a nap in a mountain of gold till world peace has arrived. They live for some time we’re told, right?
If you’d have to choose: which of your senses would you rather lose?
Smelling would be the least incapacitating one, regarding music. But then again… Soon they’ll be able to install new ears on everything from robots, to ships, to human beings… But still… No… Smelling.
The music & culture industry is currently about to redefine itself. Do you feel like being completely and utterly at the its mercy, or should things be seen as a chance for artists?
That thing about seeing things as a chance whenever resistance is present is a load of junk invented by the very people who stand by doing nothing or directly participates, as the creators of culture are being sucked dry. What everyone’s experienced since the physical distribution died would go well in hand with the comparison; that to equalize the music industry and the answer above to the strictly commercial, the last in mention should see it as an opportunity if 90% of everything they produce were given away. But then again… Maybe the reason why we still do fight for economic survival doing what we do, as so many others, is because the world still gains something, even if we’re available for free. The strictly commercial cling to their business like a bat to a cloth insisting it’s an insect, and when it falls, the game speaks Rise!, for should they have to give 90% away… No one would gain much, because they don’t need a new TV every half a year or a plastic promise of tomorrow. That’s the sad story leading to the neglecting of a truth to hard to stomach. A wise guy said something like this: ‘You cannot get the news from poetry, but men die miserably everyday from the lack of what is found in there.’ I think that’s how it goes. This is not about choosing a friendly ghost… This is about killing vampires.