. . . . . / . / . /\\ / . / . ////// ______000______ O . / / [[[[[[[[[..... [_|_|_|:: |_|_|_] . / / . :|[[[ | |::_| . / . [| ______| \_/ . o / / . @ ----[ .][ .] . . . . . | \ | _________________________ / / . | ==== | / ____________________ /| / / | | / ///////////////////// / | / / __\ |_ / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / \__________/ =========================== The Great _ _ _ __ | |__ ___ ___| |__ ___ ___ | '_ \| '_ \ / _ \ / __| '_ \ / _ \/ __| | |_) | | | | (_) | (__| | | | (_) \__ \ | .__/|_| |_|\___/ \___|_| |_|\___/|___/ |_| _ _ _ (_)_ __ | |_ ___ _ ____ _(_) _____ __ | | '_ \| __/ _ \ '__\ \ / / |/ _ \ \ /\ / / | | | | | || __/ | \ V /| | __/\ V V / |_|_| |_|\__\___|_| \_/ |_|\___| \_/\_/ Introducing Jos Lieferink a.k.a PHOCHOS, He might look like the most bad ass skilled hacker in the business but he is not...PHOCHOS is an amateur astronomer and electronic musician from The Hague Holland. Since the late 1970s he has been producing and releasing an incredible number of CD's and tapes, mostly on his own private Orion records label. Phochos has long been a treasured secret, hidden from the general public in a maze of porch housing in the Laak neighborhood of The Hague, Holland. Phochos is a colorful, slightly eccentric personality who has achieved a cult status in the underground electronic music scene all over the world. Having no boundaries in style nor any regard what people think of him....he is mostly known for his deep cosmic ambient projects but he just as well might make some vocal pop trance, caribean cocktail music, melancholic detroit techno or even a smacked out tape smudged Ron Hardy style Chicago edit. In 2012 disaster struck when a devastating fire burned down his house and studio, destroying a lot of synthesizers, master tapes and his personal music collection. Resilient and determined Phochos raised from the ashes like a phoenix and rebuild his W.A.H. (Work At Home) studio and started producing music again. He is currently on an unstoppable momentum releasing at least one album each month! We had the honor to interview Phochos; the "heavy-weight champion of cosmic space music"((C)6-trak) and ask him some questions about his career and music. S.Hadow Wolf meets up with Jos on a rainy afternoon at the snack corner of the Megastores, Holland's biggest indoor mall mostly abandoned since it opening in 2000. We order 2 bakkies pleur (The Hague slang for coffee) and start the interview: Shadowwolf: How did you start composing your music, electronic music wasn't something ordinary to be interested in during the 1970s? Phochos: I started in 1977 with a Magnus Electric Organ (a "chord" organ from New Jersey America, popular with ambient musicians). I mostly replayed songs from Jean Michel Jarre and I played a little bit of guitar and flute. I recorded these songs with a very simple cassette recorder. I mostly listened to Jean Michel Jarre, Vangelis, Klaus Schulze and Kraftwerk....but I also symphonic rock like Genesis, Pink Floyd, Kayak, Camel and stuff like Rick Wakeman and Emerson Lake & Palmer. Shadowwolf: So how did you came in contact with electronic music exactly? Phochos: My brother had the Oxygene cassette-tape from Jarre, Thats where I first heard it...He always tells me that he is the culprit that got me into this music. I also heard it on the radio, there was this show called Walhalla on the VPRO dutch state radio. Shadowwolf: Your first release was a cassette called "Atmosphere/Touch-Inn" released in 1985 under the "Work of Honour" alias. I've never heard this release could you tell us a little about it? Phochos: Atmosphere/Touch-Inn was mainly inspired by the music of Adelbert Von Deyen. I used a Casio synthesizer and a Yamaha MK100 Work station, recording on a Fostex X26 4 track cassette recorder. I made some stuff under the "Work of Honour" name before but this was, I guess, the first "professional" release. Around 60 copies were made, I sold them and gave them away as promotional copies. Shadowwolf: What kind of equipment did you use in the 1980s? did you use sequencers? Phochos: Too much to mention, but to give you slight impression: Yamaha ME30 , Viscount CX3, Yamaha DX27, DX100, Korg MS10, MS20, Polysix, Roland SH101, Juno 1, Siel DK70, Yamaha PSR600, Roland D20, Casio SK1, SK5 samplers, Casio MT240 and a lot more stuff I forgot about. I would record everything track by track, first the drums and the sequence parts, then strings and choirs, effects and as last track the solo synthesizers. Shadowwolf: When did you start using a computer? Phochos: My first computer was a Yamaha MSX CM5X music computer, i used the build in sequencer software, later I got an Atari 1040STE with Cubase. Shadowwolf: Did you play a lot of games on your computer? Phochos: I always played them, mostly snooker and pool games and car racing games like Formula 1 simulators. Shadowwolf: Where does the name Phochos come from? Phochos: Phochos is a composition of two words, the moon Phobos and a Tangerine Album called Logos. I changed the G of Logos into CH and replaced the B from Phobos with it...resulting in Phochos. Shadowwolf: As an amateur astronomer Space travel and Astronomy play an important role in your music, what are your favorite subjects of these fields? Phochos: My favorite Space Travel subject is the unmanned space exploration... the planetary and deep space probes and the astronomical research satellites. I get shivers when I see a rocket launch, I always watch the live broad- casts of the launches from Kourou (The European Space Agency's spaceport in French Guiana). I am also interested in the planets, the moons, the sun, cosmology and the creation of the universe. Shadowwolf: Do you believe in extraterrestrial life? Aliens, Reptilians or have you ever seen a UFO in your astronomical stargazing? Phochos: I do believe in extraterrestrial life, but not as aliens are normally depicted in science fiction movies etc. These aliens look too much like humans and I just don't believe their evolution would be the same as on earth...it could be that somewhere far away in space intelligent sponges exist or something else, something we can't comprehend. Shadowwolf: In 1987 your started a new project called "Mindsearch"... tell us about that... Phochos: When I was at Highschool me and a friend started dabbling with electronic music which resulted in the mindsearch project a few years later. But it got horrible reviews in the KLEM magazine(a famous dutch electronic music paper zine in the 1980s). Later this project became Mindsearch's Revenge, fueled by a vengefulness drive against the KLEM review, to show we could do better. Shadowwolf: In the 1990s you mainly focused on the PHOCHOS projects, did the new 90s technology change a lot in your way of working? Phochos: I started to use the Atari 1040STE with Cubase and in the late 90s a PC with Cubase. Instrument-wise a lot of workstation synthesizers like the Yamaha PSR2700, Technics WSA1, Korg 01W/FD, Yamaha B200 and Roland D20 Shadowwolf: You call yourself "A Berlin School Producer" (Berlin School = the style of electronic music that grew out of Krautrock in the 1970s with very synthetic sequencer-laden trippy riffs like Klaus Schulze, Ashra etc.) Is this your favorite music? Have you ever been in Berlin in that time? Phochos: yes this is my favorite music, my heart lies with the Berlin School with a lot of sequencer riffs. Besides Schulze there is Adelbert Von Deyen, Tangerine Dream, Conrad Schnitzler, Wolfgang Duren and Rolf Trostel. I have never been in Berlin. Shadowwolf: Adelbert Von Deyen, didn't he paint some cover art for your albums? Phochos: Adelbert Von Deyen is my biggest example. I asked him if we could work together but he stopped making music for now, so then I just asked if I could use some of his paintings as my cover art and he said yes. Shadowwolf: Did you ever perform live? Phochos: Once, in 1987 in The Hague, but it wasn't a big success. I was too nervous and didn't prepare it very well. Despite that I got an applause from the small crowd, around 15 people. Shadowwolf: Are there any synthesizers you would like to own in the future? Phochos: Yes sure, the ARP 2600, Minimoog, Andromeda, Phatty Moog and the new mini Korg MS20. We asked some Phochos' fans on the internet if they had some questions for him: Matt Groody: Do you have a favorite snack in the studio? Phochos: If I am recording in the studio I usually take a few hotdog sandwiches or a bag of crisps. And a bottle of wine for the spiritual inspiration ha. EricM1: Whats your favorite train model? And do you travel with the train often? (Phochos is a model railway enthousiast check his youtube channel for some cool videoclips of his trainsets http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iDEdKeTUB28) Phochos: The dutch trains are my favorite, the "hondekop" and the "muizenkop". I also like the Wadloper (a Diesel locomotive). I never travel with the train or bus because I get sick. Thats why I have my electric car. Unknown: Which Synthesizer would you like to bring with you if you would travel into space with a spaceshuttle? Phochos: I think the Korg Monotribe, its small and with some headphones I can be entertained for hours. Shadowwolf: Thank you Jos aka Phochos for your time! Phochos: No problem PHOCHO-LOGY: A GUIDE TO PHOCHOS's MUSIC: It can be difficult to get a clear picture of Phochos's music because there is so much you simply can't see the trees through the forest (or the other way around). You might end up at some weird vocal trance album, thinking it all sounds like that and missing out on some truly essential raw ambient stuff! Phochos's bandcamp page lists almost a hundred albums at the time of writing but this is constantly changing: releases and tracks are shifted over the place all the time and every week albums are deleted and new ones creep up ...check it out on http://phochos.bandcamp.com To get some direction in this giant maze of music we devised this list of essential classic Phochos tracks: The Lunar Rills and Mountains Pulsating in slow movements, like an ancient exotic dance this track takes the listener to zero gravity floating over the moon of planet Phochos (From the album: Asimov Rising AT Heinlein Point, Orion Records) http://phochos.bandcamp.com/track/the-lunar-rills-and-mountains Mindsearch's Revenge - Ordovicium Starting out as an off the map Summer Madness soundwave it slowly transforms into a ***very*** weird but enchanting Conan The Barbarian meets the AMIGA populous soundtrack, but not for long as we end up at a crystal beach with cybernetic early 90s seagulls finishing in a rocky coastline lighthouse with a cosey biosphere-esque glow. *** Essential TRIP material *** http://phochos.bandcamp.com/track/ordovicium Point of Equinox The soundtrack of a rainy tropical thunderstorm with DRAMATIC HEAVY strings crisp, slightly descending into a pool of psychotic tension, but then always released by the powerful flash of lightning that is Phochos's luminary tonal structure. http://phochos.bandcamp.com/track/point-of-equinox Frimaire Autechre meets Popul Vuh, submerging the soul of the listener in waves of ever so pleasant cadences. (From the album: Annee Republicain Orion Records 1997) http://phochos.bandcamp.com/track/frimaire Knitting Full on 70s Italian style epic cosmic synth disco, very much with a similar vibe as automat's - The Rise and Genius (From the Tale of Two Cities album 2003, Orion Records) http://phochos.bandcamp.com/track/knitting SuperNova, New Stars Driving high tension NRG with the typical Phochos Microkorg choir sounds (Creation 2002 Orion Records) http://phochos.bandcamp.com/track/supernova-new-stars The Crystal Sun Supercool baroque space disco techno spiced up with some rare phochos vocals This would be an excellent backing track for a vintage TROS ter land ter zee & in de lucht episode (with jack van gelder) (This doesn't make any sense if you are not familiar with dutch TV which is a good thing I reckon) (Out of Time, Orion Records) http://phochos.bandcamp.com/track/the-crystal-sun-2 UPDATE: I wrote this like 3 weeks ago and in the meanwhile Phochos produced a few more albums, definitely check out these: Twenty Nine Years http://phochos.bandcamp.com/album/twenty-nine-years The W.A.H sessions Volume 2 http://phochos.bandcamp.com/album/the-w-a-h-sessions-volume-2 KlavierStucke http://phochos.bandcamp.com/album/klavierst-cke Written by S.Hadow Wolf