Love Power Experiment is a sound project that I revisit on occasion:
Recordings:
Temperature Within/Love Power Experiment collaboration – Through Fire
Love Power Experiment – The Politics of Self Mutilation
Love Power Electronics – diyNOISE cassette
Live:
Lyrics:
The Politics of Self Mutilation
the world gets uglier until i can’t feel it anymore.
when i talk to you, you’re vacant inside my own head breathing the air of aimless populations half alive under the penalty of law.
everything you’ve seen leads to the development of a bankrupt social mind decay control that doesn’t work.
now we become our own cattle for the butcher in us.
society is the greatest disease.
inside the crowd, i lose my mind.
i disappear and wait to become someone that wasn’t worth the burden of knotted back muscle tissue and a mutilated spine.
take the hammer, put me out of my poverty…
this is how i feel for hours, feeling less until less is more.
that’s when i pull my thoughts apart with pliers as a fuck you to those who own them.
with eyes burned out, conscience burned out,
i pledge allegiance to become listless and absurd.
lack of nerves provides absence of sensation.
its the only thing that i’ve ever begged for.
everything’s the same, it never changes.
sit back down, don’t stand up or move.
you’ve wasted your time, they have you under their skin. it’s the same old war.
someone told me that the faces have changed but they all look the same to me.
when you stand up for yourself, they’ll let you watch them cut off your legs.
you are the one who got cut, now you are the one cutting.
no difference like indifference from generation to famine.
every revolution revolves back to the same grave it was born from.
the only drug i need is pain killers.
kill everything in war.
for what purpose do you exist?
i can’t grasp the venom soaked cell block called your suffering heart.
it pumps greed degeneration vibrations and enslavement through plague treated tenements that hold me in them.
drained and beaten; it gets worse in this sewer hole.
social burden christ pariah – i’m the nigger in white skin.
i feel you deeper now with every passing stagnation,
fucking the disgusting vision harder than poverty fucks my head open.
my body is an evolving living cemetery and everything decays for nothing comprehensible to me at all.
there’s nothing left.
time has ruined me.
i’m blind and aborted.
i can’t see past the war.
every thing is red – the sky and the ground.
painted with the turmoil of the slaves of ideology and false love.
my eyes serve me only delusions about the world
and its people.
i’m not part of it.
i’m separated and stagnant, spiteful and ego ridden.
all i see is loss.
all i see is your face in the wounds that don’t heal.
i’m still bleeding to death for you.
the only thing i fear is the knife in your hand.
the only thing i feel is the knife in my spine.
love is a murdered child.
i’m rotting out on the inside. a million years of violence attached by a string of obsessed want. i can’t look out there anymore. i’m too sick, watching my people kill themselves over for nothing. i wish they would put their fists through my skull and remove all the lies that make up every part of what i pretend to be. they would extinguish everything and leave my corpse at peace in pieces on the ground in front of them. a marker for what they have become.
i can’t look out there anymore. my people are cowards afraid of their own facelessness.
fuck them, fuck you.
your suffering is a gift. i refuse to be seen.
your nerves are severed. i refuse to be blamed.
i need you now. i’m scared of your shadow on the wall.
i’m scared to touch you
your suffering is my gift.
please don’t hurt me.
please don’t hurt me any more.
i’ve been here forever.
i don’t know what it means to love you.
sex is a plague.
i feel like a rock when i’m in you.
i wish that i could find a piece of what you have lost inside yourself.
but i’m fixed into a hole where apathy wraps itself around my will and removes any desire to care about you in any way.
i’m lying down at your feet again without emotion.
like a pathetic invalid with no hands, living inside a dream, drooling and watching time eat itself.
20 years later, older and more stupid.
nothing has changed.
it’s been the same since the beginning –
you’re mute but i can still hear you lying to yourself.
you scold me with monotonous endless jealousy that cuts a hole in my brain that i never forget about.
your body is aging and the lines in your face get deeper and more violent every time you breath in.
and you’re one minute closer to bitter relentless mediocrity and nobody remembers you.
i don’t remember you either or care that your alive and dead at the same time. but you’re still trying to choke a feeling out of me with your hands. i don’t have the strength to move, so i stay where i am.
and the only thing i’ve mastered is ignorance and neglect.
sometimes i will have a nightmare about your tongue inserting its self hate disease into my lungs.
when i wake up, i keep my mind closed and pretend that it happened to someone else. then i keep my eyes closed and pretend i’m in another place.
and when i open them you’re still holding on.
if i cut you out, the closer you would become, flogging me with the same selfish delusions of what i should have always been forever.
nothing changes.
i’ll never save you.
diyNOISE
strained intestine.
sugar diet, what’s the problem?
it’s good for you, the pope told me so.
force it down your gorge.
in your mouth so you can’t speak.
witches burn at the stake
it’s a testament to my time
admit it, you like the corruption.
it makes lust for the whore moan.
my bathroom never looked so good.
i must be going blind.
there happens to be a whole forest here, can you see it?
under a new slogan.
under a new banner.
we are the world, we are the children.
until I sink.sunk with fever, gag angry bleeder.
numb fingers dipped in solid earth.
trees grow in my castle- you die.
why cry, every thing is easy.
stomach feel weak today.
i’m on the top looking down into your valley,
i see through chest cavity, all the broken hearts.
i see everything, even when I don’t want to.
get paid, poem is pretty.
brings tears of joy to dead looking rats.
they call themselves people,
look more like cattle for the slaughter house.
everything you read is a lie.
i know because i wrote it.the pope is a cancer. it tastes fine.
lobotomy on my self, finger fuck me in the brain.
you can’t tell the truth, the church will hunt you down.
you cant think the truth, the police will string you up.
fuck it for all its worth;
masturbation causes cancer and tuberculosis.
polluting the body and mind with cancer and masturbation.
i love it more every day. i love it in the morning.we are the world, we are the eaten.
i am the god they never had.
and i’m so weak,
i wish i was weaker
i’m so tired,
i wish i was something.
this is my home.
home of the beaten, land of desert.
home is where the slum is.
purple mountains travesty, gutters can’t hold the spoil.
answer the question for me, will you?
am i suffering because i want to?
i never sleep.
i never keep after the laughter and dirty dreams.your a looser falling out of fantasy islands,
into the crying game…
– who wants to fight that war?
energy has become expendable.
blank in the face.
accusations are made by natures host of holocausts.
point the finger at me, it’s my fault they all died.
strike with force, a seasoned malpractice, a treason off axis, ill vibration…
i’m punished,
just like you.
The Politics Of Self Mutilation
Label promotions:
A) [The Politics of Self Mutilation] is LPE’s most ambitious work to date. Creating moody, almost sinister drone-infested atmosphere, D. Sullivan of LPE fluidly blends elements of power electronics, noise, found sound, and ghostly hints of melody into a hypnotic dark ambient album. This music opens lines of communication deep within the well of the macabre and fantastic, yet constantly reminds you that it is also a reflection of the stark reality of a cosmos governed by chaos. — Gene Williams…
B) After many delays and a long wait, LPE’s new album “The Politics of Self Mutilation” is now available for ordering. This is a milestone album for LPE, blending elements of dark ambient, noise, and power electronics into a soundscape of deep atmosphere. Using his voice as a main ingredient, LPE uses the power of modern technology and DIY ethics to conjure a seething well of passionate expression and mental explosion. A fantastic work for all who enjoy their sound “in your face” even at a distance…. Visit the Dark Seeds site to order your copy today. — Gene Williams.
Review from Worm Gear: http://crionicmind.org/wormgear/ LOVE POWER EXPERIMENT – The Politics of Self Mutilation
LPE produces some pretty strong textural Dark Ambient. Drifting tones and synth, evocative accents, rich low end, and some pretty engaging atmosphere. The sound quality is excellent as well, there is a lot of definition to everything and it has a nice expansive quality to it. Sources include field recordings, metal, springs, tape manipulations etc, but all is processed to the point where you don’t necessarily hear any of that specifically. There is a bit of a sameness to the drifts throughout, but the details keep the tracks moving. Track 5 takes the disc into new harsher realms, grating mid ranged pulses, feedback, shorted cables noise create throbbing monument to q-tips, but doesn’t quite have the same dynamics as the more ambient pieces. Track 6 calms things down again, beginning minimally with a brief and rudimentary melody and tectonic rumblings that extend through the track. This piece ends up being quite minimal, but does build some depth in the last minute or so. The final track is quite strong, keeping the ambient foundation, but pushing the details more to the forefront for a slightly noisier but no less atmospheric listen. This release has apparently been picked up for a proper release from Dark Seed Records. – Scott, Worm Gear
Review by e.David for From Dust ‘zine: http://www.angelfire.com/zine/fromdust/
Love Power Experiment – the Politics of Self Mutilaton
Love-Power Electronics has morphed into Love Power Experiment, and the gritty D.I.Y. noise of past efforts has morphed into 8 excellent experimental low-toned
darkambient passages on Politics of Self Mutilation. Most of the tracks on here are built around low machine-like drones, which are woven over with sparse noise,
effects (and a brief, mournful guitar part at the end of “The Loneliest Fool)”.
The overall effect is that of being twisted through the bowels of a depressive, post-industrial hell. This isn’t your average spooky noodling, but rather an intensely constructed emotional release, a pure vision masterfully assembled and executed.
Review by ANM for Aural Pressure ‘zine: http://www.auralpressure.com/
There’s a mythical place known as the musicians graveyard that some people swear exists. Full of the decaying remains of once great acts that have had their day every year more and more sadly trundle there to spend their last remaining days recalling the glory years. Pessary are there. So too The Last Few Days. And Soldnergeist. And…the roll call of names is too large to fully comprehend. If only they had the support they needed. If only they were promoted fully and brought to everyone’s attention. If only people purchased their product. If only…if only. But we…yes…you and I…can do something about this. We can make a change. A difference. We can save some of these acts from extinction. Take Love Power Experiment as an example. Here is a budding artist. A fledgling who has his first proper release taking the tentative steps into the unknown. He has a name. He’s D Sullivan. He has a face. Visit his website and stare into those cute eyes. See the sadness etched upon them. His cd is called: ‘The politics of self mutilation’. It has eight tracks. They are titled: ‘War’, ‘Everything is War’, ‘i’ , ‘The lonliest fool’, ‘Knee deep in my own blood’, ‘This womb’, ‘I love you’, and ‘Birth’. He plays a mixture of black ambient / drone / power electronics. Alien soundscapes for an alien nation. Some of the music reminds me of Troum. Some reminds me of Inade. Other parts recall a watered down Merzbow. He created these sounds using only the basest and barest of materials yet the atmospheres are tantalisingly professional. There’s a stark and chilling refinement to the music that evokes pictures of desolation and a disturbed mind at play. Ghosts of a gruesome past melding with the future. He has the potential on this showing to go onto greater things. To amplify his visions. To channel his fertile mind onto even greater works. But only if we can help him. He needs us. Don’t let his musical demise be on your conscious. I’ve done my bit by bringing him to your attention. Now you must do yours. Finance his development by buying this CD. The graveyard is no place for this artist to be.
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interviews
Welcome to the LPE Featured Artist Article
LPE is D. Sullivan. Love Power Experiment, or LPE, is the mindseed of D. Sullivan. He began his musical career in the trenches of noise, power electronics, and similar auralchemy. In 2002 he put together a power house dark ambient demo. Eventually this demo came to rest in the Dark Seeds listening “queue” and by December of 2003 Dark Seeds released LPE’s first album (the politics of self mutilation). LPE’s new CD, “the politics of self mutilation,” is here! Go to the catalogue to order your copy! Post: LPE c/o Dark Seeds, 50 Cross St., Winchester, MA 01890 USA You may also contact LPE through his site at: http://www.sexiswar.com interview by Stephen Crowe TODAY I’M HERE WITH DAVID OF LOVE POWER EXPERIMENT AND THE RELEASE OF HIS NEW ALBUM ‘THE POLITICS OF SELF MUTILATION’. WHATS’ UP DAVE?
Hey. FIRST OF ALL, WHAT DOES THE NAME MEAN?
What does it mean? Well back in the days when we first started doing noise shit, probably around 97, I was into graffiti. I used to throw LOVE around and the concept was sort of in my head at that time. I think I was mad at the fact that kids viewed love as this cheesy concept when, in my opinion, you have nothing without it. I wanted to counteract the sentiment by using LOVE as a moniker, putting it out there. And to tell you the truth, the hardest people that I know, Southsiders from LA and even a Hells Angel will tell you that the most important thing they have in this world is love, the people that they love. Even a rap group like NONPHIXION, from the projects in NYC who talks about guns, prostitutes, drugs, has a song about love. “…If you got love for your moms… if you got love for your dogs… if you got love for the streets, that’s NONPHIXION…” They actually say that they ARE love. So when I started doing this project, I knew it was going to be the name.
After that came the POWER ELECTRONICS title. That’s where the PE of LPE came from. I wanted to let people know what kind of music we were doing. It was far from cheesy and in fact was brutal noise designed to be painful listening. Eventually the project evolved and I wanted to experiment with other forms of sound so I changed the name to avoid misleading people. I wanted to keep it LPE. THE TITLE OF THE ALBUM MAKES US THINK THAT THIS IS A DARK WORK. CAN YOU TELL US ABOUT THE TRACKS ON IT AND WHAT THE LISTENERS CAN EXPECT TO HEAR?
There are eight tracks on the record and it has a running time of about 55 minutes. This is the first recording that I made using relatively updated and professional gear. I had it mastered by Phil from MALIGNANT and it’s being released on an actual label, so I put a lot of hard work into it. I think it sounds good. It’s dark. It’s “Dark Ambient”, what ever that means. It also has elements of harsh noise; I tried to make it dynamic to escape becoming bored and predictable. I think that it’s a pretty unique album, and personal in terms of its themes. The writing that I put on the sleeve is written from a first person perspective and mostly describes things that I’ve seen or been through. The writing connects directly to the sound and I think people will find the record to be heart felt if not painful. It’s definitely dark. BUT IN ALL THAT DARKNESS, HOW DOES IT FEEL TO FINALLY HAVE YOUR FIRST RELEASE OUT?
Well ya, it’s great. I’m excited that DARK SEEDS is putting it out actually. It took me eight months to put together, longer than that to come up with the concept. I put my blood into this recording. Even though the label is very young and I’m only the second artist to come out, having it released on Dark Seeds is an honor. Gene, who’s running things, has been in the game for a long time. He has a lot of connections and is straight up with his shit. I have a good vibe with him and believe in what he’s trying to do. Plus I saw what he did with the HASLAM record, which was the first release. That record was phenomenal. The packaging was good and the promotion was good, so I’m excited. I feel good. SO DAVE, YOU HAVE PLANS FOR MTV VIDEO’S OR TOURING WITH BRITTNY SPEARS?
(Laughter) I don’t know. I’d like to get some MTV exposure but I don’t think that they will go for the 20-minute suicide song with video to match thing. It’s way out of their league. They wouldn’t even play EL-Producto’s DEEP SPACE 9mm because it had boy scouts with a gun. What would they say about me suffocating myself with a NATO flag in slow motion for 20 minutes? Although they did play Ministry’s N.W.O. and JUST ONE FIX back in the days. Two brutal videos. And Megadeth’s PEACE SELLS before that. GREAT VIDEO! But that was before MTV was completely controlled by the Illuminati. Videos like that are a thing of the past, I believe. Any video that is not total mindless garbage is a thing of the past for MTV.
As for Brittany… nothing against her. I don’t think her audience is ready. Give them 15 years. WHEN YOU MAKE AN ALBUM LIKE THIS, WHERE DO YOU GET YOUR INSPIRATION?
On this album, there are a lot of inspirations. Failed relationships, sex, alcohol abuse, broken home situations, lack of money… Like I said, this is a personal album, thematically. I used to make music that had political themes or themes that could be described in the third person about society and the world. I almost tried to forget about myself and keep my personal problems out of the lyrics. This time I decided to turn it inward and expose myself. I wanted to make something that was honest with out being ashamed of what I’ve been through or how I’ve felt. I wanted to put it together so that people knew I was human and that I’ve probably felt what they have, the bad shit. There is not one person on this earth who hasn’t felt what I’ve felt at one time or another, so I’m trying to connect with them on that honest level. People need honesty from their artists. That’s what makes the work valid. Why do you think so many people like Eminem or Cobain? They’re honest about what they went through. Maybe you didn’t go through what they went through, but at the very least you know they’re authentic about it. The best heads are the ones who can put themselves out like that. You know it’s the real shit. The person turns from some Rock Star on a pedestal to an actual human being that has problems and inequities just like the rest of us. Authenticity is the foundation. After that, everything else falls into place. So I took themes directly from my life and I made sound that corresponds to the feelings and I also wrote about those feelings. Plus the artwork, which is by my man 7, fits in like a puzzle. He’s right where I’m at, he knows. THE FACT THAT YOUR MUSIC HAS NO LYRICS OR VOCALS, DO YOU FEEL THAT THE EMOTIONS ARE WHAT SETS THIS APPART FROM THE OTHER MUSIC OUT TODAY?
That’s a good question. I listen to a lot of music, and probably 60% of what I’m listening to now is instrumental with an emphasis on feeling and mood, so I don’t see myself as being very set apart. Perhaps I am from most commercial shit. Regardless, what I tried to do was use the sound to put my feelings directly in the listener. With lyrics, your mind has to interpret what is being said and an intellectual process takes place before you can feel anything. Not with vocals, but with the lyrics. So I wanted to make an album that skipped a step and went directly into the listeners’ gut. There’s no thinking needed. You just feel it. I think that’s why I do this. I’ve had a lot of bands, grind/metal bands where I was the vocalist. Vocals can be a very powerful way of delivering feeling, but I got tired of the lyrical aspect – having to accommodate to the patterns of the music. Some people are good at that, but I always just wanted to have my writing displayed and the music separated. I used to write shit then scream on the mic, not saying the lyrics at all. I did that live a lot. I would pass out lyric sheets and end up just yelling over the music, improvising the words the way a band like EYEHATEGOD used to do it. Eventually it just became boring for me to do that. That’s when I came back to LPE. LPE was around before any of my bands. NOW YOU’VE GONE THROUGH GREAT EXTREMES TO COME UP WITH SOUNDS TO PUT INTO YOUR ALBUM, CAN YOU TELL THE PEOPLE A LITTLE BIT ABOUT HOW YOU’VE COME UP WITH THE SOUNDS AND WHAT YOU DID TO GET THEM?
In the beginning when LPE started out, we had no money but wanted to make something. Some kind of musical thing. We had no skills or instruments, so we just got recording devices and tried to be as creative as possible. We would basically find interesting stuff to record and did it like that. We ended up using a lot of effect pedal loops and field recordings to make tapes. As the technology got better, the recordings got better. First it was some samplers and my own four track. That turned into a computer and some decent software. I also bought a midi synth. This new record is the natural progression of having better technology available. I’m using the same methods as before, to gather sound and get creative, but now I have much more control over the final mix. The sounds themselves came from all over the place: dragging MICs across my floor, recording metal scraping inside concrete warehouses, water, broken cords plugged in. That makes great static noise. Me and my man Ryan went down to the Big Dig at one in the morning, back when it was still a complete mess, and spent 5 hours in there collecting sound. I used all of those recordings and connected them with synth tones to make finished tracks that I thought had flow and were solid. The quality of the sound is better than it ever has been, also. WHEN YOU TALK ABOUT NO MONEY AND LOOKING FOR SOUND ANYWHERE YOU COULD, DOESN”T THAT REMIND YOU OF THE SAME WAY HIP HOP ORIGINATED?
Absolutely. And Punk also. It’s all the same thing to me. The only difference, fundamentally, is the execution. I don’t separate these things. I consider LPE to be a punk band minus the band. Many of the greatest forms of music culture start from exactly the same places. Blues, Jazz, Punk, Industrial, whatever. It’s bored kids, living with a lack of resources, trying to make something and be innovative. As cultures grow out of that, differences begin to take shape and become defined. In the beginning though, it’s all just kids trying to use their environment and what is available to them to create. The greatest creativity is born out of that also. That’s why I love hip-hop. That’s what it is about hip-hop that I really love, the fact that these ghetto kids built a whole culture out of fucking nothing. They didn’t have shit. They made beauty: the art, the dance, the motherfucking music out of virtually nothing, and it became huge. I hope people don’t forget where it came from. DO YOU THINK IN 25 YEARS YOU COULD SEE MAJOR CORPORATIONS EXPLOITING YOUR MUSIC, LIKE THEY DO WITH HIP HOP TODAY?
They can do it now. LUSTMORD did scores for Mighty Morphing Power Rangers and THE CROW. The Crow was a big budget Hollywood film! Doesn’t get more corporate than that. And he’s supposed to be the father of “Dark Ambient” music, even though he won’t admit it. He’s definitely an influence to me, in any case, and I give him his props and respect because I understand that unless you are cut off from modern civilization, you’re part of the beast. Many sub-culture kids like to believe that the beast doesn’t own them. Unless they are surviving totally without money, isolated away from the grip of the invisible man, they’re part of it – even though it may be to lesser degree than many. Whatever the case may be, I won’t act salty towards an artist I like, just for trying to make a living. I’m not going to stop buying LUSTMORD records. In that same way I’m not going to stop listening to KRS ONE because he did NIKE commercials. I fucking hate NIKE as well as the fact that he worked for them, but I think he’s a great MC with a lot of positive things to give to the world. I won’t discount the whole person because they do some things I disagree with.
As for the music itself, Electronic music was part of modern commercial corporate entertainment before I started making it. Drama T.V. or Horror movies, which I generally don’t like, have scores that could be considered similar to what I’m doing now. It’s almost the reverse situation for me. Hip Hop and Punk came as an alternative to crap corporate music culture and eventually turned into it. But myself, like a lot of other kids who are into this type of shit, I’m taking what is already corporate and twisting it into a heart-felt personal form of self-expression. I’ll take an influence from what I like about the show or movie, which 99% of the time is not the movie, and try to make something that is fundamentally PUNK. It’s the music. I HEAR YOU MAKE REFFERENCE TO HAVING A LOT OF INFLUENCES, FROM HIP HOP, METAL, WHATEVER. WHAT OTHER INFLUENCES HAVE YOU HAD IN YOUR LIFE THAT PUSH YOU TO MAKE MUSIC?
You talking musically? I’M TALKING EVERYTHING.
As for my music influences… Merzbow, of course, and to a lesser extent Whitehouse. The ones you would expect are obviously there. Raison and BDN. Lab Report. I like Mathew Schultz; he’s very originative with anything he puts together. I’m also a big fan of Michael Gira, Body Lovers. That’s my man. I used to rock rhymes with his name all up in it. “Cut like M.GIRA scars and jarred from the hype, sober singing my swan-song searching for the angels of light in the night…” That freestyle shit. I like Lydia Lunch and her writing. Aesop Rock. Anyone who, as I said before, is very honest and authentic with his or her work will influence me. Anyone who can touch me with that vibe, even if what they are doing has nothing to do with what I’m doing. It doesn’t matter what people do as long as I can feel it. A lot of visual artists get me open. My man WET, who will be doing the logo for my online ‘zine, he’s a tremendous letter slinger. Everyone in that EDA crew is dope, actually. I just did an interview with SYTE from EDA, so their work is at the forefront of my mind right now. Ryan Lesion of Guernica fame, he does the music project Woven Within. His music and artwork has always been inspirational to me. I tend to really like the people who I feel have been underrated like R.A. the Rugged Man, Cage, MF DOOM. I still listen to the band Corrupted a lot. When I was working on Politics, I would listen to Discordance Axis whenever I had some down time. A friend of mine had put all of their vinyl on a cassette with Suppression on the reverse side. I used to just flip that tape endlessly. DA was so mathematical and precise, fast, the complete opposite of what I was doing. They provided the perfect balance. That was my favorite shit at that time. Lately I’ve been listening to Thirstin Howell III, Talib Kweli. EHG’s Take As Needed For Pain – living in the past with that one. EL-P’s instrumental joints. Dan the Automator’s instrumentals. Tons of instrumentals. The noise artist Viodre is kicking ass these days. Anyone who is bringing it, I’ll be listening to. IT SEEMS TO ME THAT ONE HAS TO HAVE A SENSE OF HUMOR, A HIGH I.Q. AND A VERY OPEN MIND TO TRULY CATCH WHAT LOVE POWER EXPERIMENT IS TRYING TO GET ACROSS; DO YOU THINK THAT IS THE CASE?
Ummm, No. Not necessarily. I don’t think of it that way. It seems like it would be pretentious of me to think about my music in that way. I suppose having an open mind would help, but it’s not necessary. I’m not trying to exclude anybody or act like I’m doing something esoteric or more important than what anyone else is doing. Also, you certainly don’t need a sense of humor because the music is pretty much humorless. If anything, I take myself too seriously and people should laugh at me for that. I never can think that I’m superior. I’ve often felt inferior to people. This record was a way of coming to grips with that, in all honesty. The only thing you need to understand is that we all go through the same kinds of shit and we all have different ways of dealing with that shit. This is my way. I’m just trying to talk to whoever wants to listen. And whoever wants to listen is who I’m trying to talk to. A lot of people won’t feel my shit because it’s not what they want to be hearing. I can accept that. It is slow, depressing music. And a lot of those people probably have high I.Q.s. WHAT ABOUT THE OPEN MIND?
The open mind might be there. Maybe people can respect what I have done but not want to listen to it. There are billions of people in the world, my music’s not for all of them. I accepted that going in. I’m not trying to convert anybody. There are enough people out there who will like my music for whatever reasons, whether they have a keen intellect or just enjoy the way the sound hits them, that I won’t have to give a fuck about the people who don’t. I have a good friend. He’s very intelligent. He’s probably more intelligent than I am in many ways. But he had a violent past, smoked crack for eight years. He told me that he couldn’t listen to the record because it reminded him of when he was up in some apartment with no cash, just fiending for days. Going through withdrawals and shit. O.K. fine. To tell you the truth, I take that as a compliment because he actually understands what I’m putting across SO WELL that he can’t listen to it. He understands it TOO well. My homeboy, he’s a graffiti writer. ABORT. He’s a depressed person sometimes. He told me he liked the record but can’t listen to it because it’s too suicidal. Might push him over the edge, perhaps. It has that mood to it. It’s just not for them. Some people may not understand or care about it in any way. They might prefer Brittany or something that rocks hard for them to slam dance to. That’s fine. Other people might like it without understanding what I’m trying to put across. That’s fine as well. Whatever you want to get from it is great, even if it’s nothing. SO EVEN THOUGH YOU’RE PUTTING THAT MUCH TIME, ENERGY AND EMOTION INTO MAKING AN ALBUM, TO HAVE SOMEONE REFER TO IT AS JUST GARBAGE OR NOISE, THAT DOESN’T AFFECT YOU?
No one has referred to my stuff as garbage. Realistically though, back in the Love Power Electronics days that’s exactly what it was. Noise made from garbage. If some asshole wants to diss my shit, fuck them. I can’t care. But if Lustmord came down and dissed my shit, then I would have to go back in the lab and work twice as hard, because he’s the master. Then I would care. I hope Raison doesn’t diss. I wouldn’t retaliate; I’d just have to work harder to make a better product because they’ve been in it and have also put their hearts into it. That’s not the point, though. I know you’re talking about the ignorant asshole out there. My point is, who really gives a fuck about what the ignorant asshole has to say? WITH THIS ALBUM, WHAT YOU HEAR IS YOU ALONE CREATING THIS
Oh ya, it’s all me. WHAT IS IT LIKE TO SIT THERE CREATING THIS, PUTTING ALL THAT TIME IN AND NOT HAVING ANY FEEDBACK? GOING OFF YOUR OWN INTUITION?
It’s isolating. It was a lonely process. I had a relationship die because I spent more time with the record than with her, but that’s what I wanted to do. It was worth it. I would work 40 hours a week, then come home and work 40 hours a week on the record. Just didn’t go out for eight months. I’m actually getting back into that mode because I’m starting work on the next one, but ya. I had to learn the equipment; I had to go through that process. This is the first album that I’ve put together completely on my own so I had a lot of emotions tied up into it. Was it going to come out well, was it going to be wak’ I just gave it my all and figured that this is what every artist starting out solo has to go through. TELL ME A LITTLE ABOUT THE ARTWORK FOR THIS ALBUM.
The artwork is by 7. He does all the art for the project. I’ve known him for a long time; he used to submit stuff to my magazine and did shit for my old band Sankhara. He’s pretty nasty with a pen. He actually did a series of books and told me to use whatever pictures I wanted from them. The way his mind works is similar to the way I feel most of the time, so the work fits in perfectly with the music. It’s right on target with what I’m doing. To tell you the truth, I don’t think he draws anymore. He burned all his originals and I haven’t talked to him a minute. I was lucky enough to get some of the originals before they went up in smoke. He’s extremely gifted. He would never sketch or make draft copies, just draw it once with a pen and then hide it in a folder somewhere. I’m not sure that he even likes to draw, he just stopped doing it, but that’s the kind of person he is. He wanted me to call him “7” because he hated the fact that someone might know who he was if I used his real name. I think that he just wants to die or be forgotten, which is something I can understand – although I’m not speaking for him because I could be wrong. Regardless, on this record I have a theme of hands going on. It’s dope. You have to see it. It works with the recording. I KNOW YOU HAVE A WEBSITE. TELL ME A LITTLE BIT ABOUT IT.
Sexiswar.com. That’s the site. It’s basically a home for everything related to the project. I designed it with help from a good friend of mine named Clay. Clay is responsible for a lot of things related to LPE including the video that will be projected at live performances and remixes of songs for the site. I consider him to be a member of the project and he does his own noise/ambient project called Slaves To The Metropolis. People should definitely check that out. Anyway, the site contains 7’s artwork, photos, writing, sound and other information about what I’m trying to do here. It’s a work in progress, all the time, but it serves as a home base for people who want to see everything that I’ve made. I’ll have the whole history of LPE up there eventually. All the old 4 track recordings – re-mastered by STTM, photos from the first sessions and all that shit. There is also a merchandise link where people can buy the Sankhara VHS. It’s a 2-hour video filled with live footage of my old grind bands and Love Power Electronics shows from 99 to 2002, along with a gang of other shit. Even though VHS is obsolete, it’s only 6 dollars plus shipping. I also have T-shirts, stickers, the magazine that I used to do, and of course the record. I also do a web ‘zine. The link for it is on the site. It’s called CON.SECT or Connected Sections. It’s sort of a free time side project run by my friend Dave Porcello and myself. Dave is like my tech support guy. He built my computer and will be projecting the video for the live performances. Me and him do the ‘zine, and it’s basically an offshoot of my old hard-copy magazine Bloated Sewer which had interviews, artwork, record reviews – Hip Hop, Punk, Grind, Noise – whatever. Con.Sect is similar to that. It has interviews and art displays from people who inspire me to keep on living. I decided to do it like this because I didn’t have the energy to work on music and do a hard copy ‘zine simultaneously. I enjoyed giving interviews so much that I didn’t want to give that up. Hooking it up on the web allows me to do a little at a time without much stress. It’s something that’s fun and counteracts the loneliness of working on my records. I hope people check it out. YOU MENTIONED LIVE PERFORMANCE, TELL ME ABOUT THAT.
I haven’t played live in a minute. I don’t enjoy playing live that much. I consider myself more of a producer than a live performer, although I will be playing some shows to promote the record. Back in the days we used to just set up equipment and do improv noise. That was fun. The audiences usually seemed to like what we were doing. My buddy Josh Heffernan who did the project with me from ’98 till about 2000, he used to book all of the shows. And he used to save the show when I couldn’t get the right signal flow or my equipment died. He was better at the live thing than I was. Right now, I have some ideas in the works about what I will be doing in that live setting. Clay is working on a video to be projected that I’m going to play behind. I’m getting some equipment together that will allow me to manipulate sound smoothly and the video will serve as a distraction from the audience having to watch me stand there and twist knobs. That shit sucks. When I had my grind bands, I did vocals. I used to jump in the audience and beat myself with the MIC. It was animate and interesting to watch. But the noise thing, stuck behind some sampler or pedals, that’s boring to me. So the video should provide something interesting for the people to look at while I play. And the visuals will be directly related to what I’m playing, thematically. It’s not going to just be some pretty colors or abstract patterns floating across. It’s something that we are working hard on. IF THERE WERE ONE WORD YOU COULD USE TO DESCRIBE YOURSELF, WHAT WOULD IT BE?
I don’t think I can answer that. Probably sensitive. Sensitive skin (laughter). WHY IS THAT?
I don’t know. That’s just the way I was wired. It’s a birth defect. WHERE DO YOU SEE YOURSELF IN TEN YEARS?
Probably dead or in jail. I don’t see much hope for the future. I’ll probably be a monk. OK. DAVID SULLIVAN, LOVE POWER EXPERIMENT. THE ALBUM, THE POLITICS OF SELF MUTILATION.
That’s it.
AND WE’RE GONE.
……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………
Interview conducted by E. David via email, March 2004, for From Dust ‘Zine
http://www.angelfire.com/zine/fromdust/
FD: You have a very diverse musical background… What
kind of projects have you been involved in? LPE: Ummm, I’ve been involved with a few projects.
Love Power Electronics was the first, back in ’96.
Then I started a drum machine band, No Christ for the
Poor, which was trying to be extreme blast grind with
human themes. That eventually turned into Sankhara
when we got a real drummer. Sankhara was a lot slower
with more of a dynamic, but still brutal. After that,
I went back to LPE and changed the name to Love Power
Experiment. That’s what I’ve been doing ever since. I
also used to write rhymes and freestyle all the time,
but I never made an official project out of that. FD: The sound of LPE has changed a lot over time, from
raw DIY noise to a more dark ambient soundscape on the
latest… Did things just kind of turn out this way or
was it a more planned change? LPE: It was planned. When I first started as Love
Power Electronics I didn’t know how to produce music.
I was never a musician and I had no understanding of
how to make records. I was introduced to noise through
bands like Man is the Bastard and Suppression, bands
that incorporated noise into all of their recordings.
Those guys opened my eyes to artists like Merzbow and
Whitehouse. After that, I just wanted to get involved.
Noise provided the perfect outlet for my desire to
make music because, like I said, I was never a
musician. So I hooked up with my man Dan Bennette and
we put together a tape of feedback loops routed
through effects pedals. We recorded and mixed it on
his four track and put it out. That’s why it sounded
raw, it was raw. We recorded it in one take and mixed
it in one take. We didn’t know how to do anything
else. Just mixed it and put it out. As time went on, I
invested in equipment and the sound evolved. I ended
up getting down with Josh Heffernan, who played guitar
and he had his own pedals and shit. Together we put
out the demo that you heard. DIYnoise. That was the
second LPE tape. That tape was much more experimental
than the first. I used some drum patterns and a Miles
Davis sample on one track. I did spoken word over a
piano loop on another. We put in a bunch of field
recordings and guitar parts. I spent a lot of time on
the mix and the tape on a whole was more textured than
the first. Layered and more complex. It was a natural
progression that happened, and it was planned to be
that way. When I decided to go back to LPE after my
bands disintegrated, the tendency to progress was
still there. This time I had a better ear for music,
more production experience and much better equipment.
I was able to try things that I never had the
resources to try before and I had a solid idea of the
direction that I wanted to go in. Because I had been
focusing my attention on loud, aggressive and angry
music for so long, I wanted make something that was
more reflective, internal. I wanted to explore
different emotions in different ways. Ambient was a
natural direction to go in after years of extreme
metal. It was a conscious decision. It was planned
out. I’m sure that on the next record I will change
and progress past what I’ve done with this last one. I
get bored too easily. I want to always keep switching
up the structure and experimenting. Thus the name. But
one thing I can say is that the DIY aspect hasn’t
changed much. That part is still the same. FD: What’s next for LPE? LPE: World tours and Bling Bling! No. I’m working on a
bunch of things. I’ve been focusing my time on
promoting the record, which just dropped on the Dark
Seeds label (www.darkseeds.com). It’s called The
Politics of Self Mutilation. I hope that people will
check it out. I’ve also been preparing myself to play
live. My homeboy Clay and I just finished the video
that will be used as the backdrop to the live
performances. I came up with the concept and he laced
it. It came out fresh. Especially considering that we
both work and have no real money to drop. We made the
video with no budget, zero dollars. He spent many
hours of his free time hooking it up, so I have to
extend to him some major props. I consider him a
member of LPE; he’s like my multimedia guy and the
person I bounce all of my ideas off of. His feedback
is usually right on. Aside from the video, I’ve just
been practicing up with some new equipment and trying
to get myself ready to face the angry mobs of hateful
noise fans. FD: Any plans to do live shows? LPE: Yes. FD: You also did a ‘zine. Is that still going on? (If
so) How is it progressing at this point? LPE: The ‘zine was called Bloated Sewer and I put it
together myself with contributions from writers and
artists who I was down with at the time. I did two
issues. The second is still available through my
website (www.sexiswar.com). The idea was to interview
bands I looked up to and mix that with tons of
visuals, poetry, reviews, whatever I could come up
with. Just saturate every page. The first issue
featured Los Crudos, Assuck, Grief, Guernica,
Agoraphobic Nosebleed, and original artwork from
Alert, Ges, Kem, Life (who went on to do work for
people like Cage and Rahzell), and a gang of other
heads. The second issue has interviews with
Noothgrush, 7L&Esoteric, Enemy Soil, DROPDEAD, Monster
X, MSBR, and Prophetic Disclosure – with artwork from
a ton of people. I had a fun time working on that
magazine. It was a good experience. When I decided to
revamp LPE, however, I knew that I needed to devote my
attention 100%. It became more important to me than
anything else, so I stopped working on the magazine
entirely. About a year and a half latter, after I
finished the record, launched the website and hooked
up with Dark Seeds, I felt that I set up a solid
foundation for LPE. That’s when I got that itch to do
another issue. I really missed talking to all the
dope, inspirational people, so I decided to hook up a
simple version of the ‘zine on the web. It became an
add-on to the already existing site, and I named it
CON.SECT. Right now I have about 200 photos from local
graffiti artists and 5 interviews: KtheI??? – A
progressive rapper from Cambridge who just moved out
to Chicago, the experimental group Encomiast, the
noise artist VIODRE, graffiti writer Syte from EDA
crew, and the dark ambient artist Haslam who’s record
came out on Dark Seeds just before mine. Also, I just
commissioned my man WET to hook up the logo, and he
painted it on a legal wall. It’s a dimensional, about
4 feet by 9 feet, silver and gray with a black
background. It’s off the hook. I just loaded a picture
onto the intro page last night. You can get directly
there: http://www.omnisect.com
FD: What else do you do when not working on music? LPE: I work 40 plus hours a week at a health food
store. It’s a great job, mom and pop style. When I’m
not there I’m usually working on the website, the
magazine, reading, jacking off, etc. I’m usually
always doing something that involves LPE, though. It’s
a constant for me. My head’s always in it. Plus I
don’t do things that other people like to do. I don’t
have a T.V. I don’t like going to the movies. I’d
rather make my own entertainment. LPE is my
entertainment. FD: Are you still politically active? LPE: Not in the conventional sense, no. But making
the kind of shit that I make is a form of political
activation for me. I communicate ideas to people. Real
human and alternative ideas that haven’t been
processed and reprocessed and force-fed to you. I
think making art is automatically being politically
active, especially when it comes from an underground
perspective. Let’s face it, we’re stuck in the
underground because America doesn’t want art.
Corporations don’t want an alternative perspective.
They want you to buy shit. Mass produced and easily
digestible garbage. I don’t buy a lot of things. I’ll
use my money to buy tools, a synth or sampler. I’ll
use my money to buy somebody’s painting or CD. But
that’s the extent of it. I try to spend my money where
it counts. I commissioned WET to do my logo. 100
dollars. That’s 100 dollars well spent. In his pocket.
America doesn’t like that. America wants you to spend
that money on cigarettes and home entertainment.
Alcohol and fast food. Shit that will destroy you and
make you weak. Shit they can tax you on. Fuck that. I
don’t buy a lot of things. I’ll make it myself, get it
used, or get things from people who have made it
themselves. America is getting to the point where
making your own shit becomes a form of civil
disobedience. Huge corporations own America and I’m
part of it, but I decided a long time ago that I was
not going to be labeled a consumer. My identity is not
“consumer,” like I was born and live to buy these
corporations’ bullshit products. I’m a person. I’m a
human being. After that, I’ll buy some things, pay my
rent and eat. But Before anything else, I’m a fucking
person. I try to paint that picture for people when I
create. When you buy my work you’re getting a piece of
somebody’s soul. In return for you’re hard earned
dollar, my blood on record. It’s not static material.
That’s gotta be worth more than the 64″ T.V. screen
they’ve got all of my friends brainwashed into
spending $500 on. So, ya. My political stance is
centered on making my art, by any means necessary, and
staying conscious of where my money goes. Supporting
other artists and small businesses, etc. Those two
things may not seem like much, but America is becoming
a police state. Pretty soon I’ll be a terrorist for
trying to offer people an alternative viewpoint. I’ll
be thrown in jail for refusing to give my money to
Ronald McDickface for genetically altered crapola,
designed to give me colon cancer and a host of
allergies. Pretty soon everyone will be in prison, and
you won’t be able to think about boycotting Wal-Mart.
Wal-Mart will be your father. FD: What would you like
to see happen in the world in the next 10 years? LPE:
If I had my pick, I think that I’d like to see the
American public wake the fuck up, even if just a
little bit. And I have to include myself in that
statement, because I understand that there are people,
yogi’s and such, who are infinitely more conscious
than I am. Within the next ten years I want to put
myself in a position where I will progress
spiritually, consciously. I would like to see all of
humanity trying for that same goal. Right now,
however, I see the human race spiraling in the
opposite direction. The way people view life is
becoming more static, physical, superficial. The most
obvious illustration is people’s obsession with money
and consumerism, but another important example is
hate. Hatred is almost always very superficial.
Especially when it’s the kind of hate that can be
classified and used to organize people. Racism,
classism, misogyny, homophobia. It’s based on very
external and easily definable qualities. Skin color,
social status, and gender. Qualities that are easy to
detect and see with the eyes. That shit rarely has
anything to do with what is beneath the surface. It’s
a tool that the hierarchy uses to divide us. White
skin vs. black skin, blue bandana vs. red bandana,
Christian vs. Muslim. The list goes on forever. Hate
is sensationalized in the media, also. Marilyn Manson
had a shirt, “Love to hate, hate to love.” I remember
thinking, ‘what is this guy talking about? Love is the
most important thing anyone could ever have!’ But
that’s how it’s designed to be. Another example that I
think is worth mentioning is porn and the porn
industry. I’m not against it, necessarily, but I’ve
noticed that it’s more mainstream than it ever used to
be. At the same time, it’s becoming more violent and
grotesque than I’ve ever seen it. “Two dicks in my
ass, one in my mouth, I love being a whore!” Its very
design is superficial. Selling sex, making money. No
spirituality involved. Just physical, static, sex. For
money. It has it’s beneficial qualities, but at times
I have to ask myself, ‘how far are these people
willing to go? What’s the next level?’ There is no end
and it degrades my brain after a while. In the next 10
years I’d like to see the American public fighting to
gain some form of spiritual awareness. I’d like to see
people fighting to see beyond what the naked eye shows
them, and the corporate controlled media tells them. I
think that, by itself, would do the world a lot of
good. FD: Who/what influences you musically? LPE: Life influences me. The experiences that I’ve had
influence me. I take my inspirations directly from
situations I’ve lived through or that the people who
are close to me have lived through, and I try to make
something positive out of it. That’s how I like to
create. It usually has a lot to do with how I’ve felt
in different circumstances. Growing up broke, feeling
self conscious about my social status, that was a big
influence. As a kid, I often felt alienated and
inferior. That influenced. I remember back in the
days, feeling like I had no way to communicate to
people, and it created a cycle of loneliness and
depression that I didn’t know how to get out of. I
started living inside my own head too much and become
bitter, spiteful. When I first started out doing
music, I was pretty bitter. With my bands, I just
wanted to use the mic to decimate all the people I
hated. After a while I realized that it wasn’t these
people that I hated, it was myself that I hated.
That’s when I came out of my hole. I began talking to
people, trying to learn how to talk to people. I had
no idea how to talk to people. Then I started the
magazine. That helped me out a lot. It was hard for me
to do it, but that’s when I began to grow up. I
realized there were tons of people who have gone
through the same kinds of things that I have. Some of
those people didn’t go through as much. Many went
through a lot more. But all of them have FELT the same
ways that I have. That’s when I saw the light and r
realized that if I was ever going to make anything
valid, I had to cut myself open and give people a the
pieces of my self that I wanted to hide from and
forget about. I had to take my influences from these
experiences and feelings that I had built up, and just
put them out there. That’s what I tried to do with The
Politics of Self Mutilation. FD: How do you approach musical creation? LPE: That has changed a lot over the years. Where I’m
at right now, I try to focus my attention on specific
themes or a premise, and that becomes the foundation
for what it is that I’m putting together. I try to
have a clear idea in my mind of what I need to get
across to people, and I work around that. Next I’ll
work on writing; write down different lyrics might be
used on the insert or whatever. Then I’ll sit down for
a bunch of months and try to create soundscapes that
sound something like the way I feel when I think about
the themes I’ve come up with. That’s the process. On
Politics…, I wanted to make something that could
open me up. It was an attempt to heal some wounds and
connect with the listeners on a most honest level. I
had a number of prose about shit that I was going
through at the time. Alcohol and drug addiction in the
family, relationships gone bad, money problems… The
same shit everybody goes through. I decided to take a
bunch of that writing and match those feelings I had
to the sound. Then I decided to include the writing,
just to give people a better idea of where I was
coming from. That format worked out well for me,
although a lot of people were confused as to why there
is writing but no vocal lyrics. Now they’ll know. FD: Any bands you would recommend? LPE: Godspeed You Black Emperor. Reflection Eternal.
There are millions. Droune. The heads who are in my
camp, I’ve gotta push. Temperature Within, STTM and
Haslam. Viodre. KtheI???. Bombshot. The Arsonists.
I’ve been listening to a lot of Leadbelly lately.
Bringing it back. There are so many heads, dude. Karl
Heinz, Cephalic Carnage. Despise You. he Angels of
Light. Everyone out there who’s creating from that
underground perspective. We all have to support each
other because we are the only thing we really have.
Nepenthacea records, rock, rock on. Bostonnoise.org is
a good resource to check out for local Boston heads,
also. I’m on there, word up. FD: Any other thoughts? LPE: Thank you for supporting LPE since the beginning!
I appreciate everything you have done for me and I
wish you the best. United we stand, divided we fall. I
hope every noise artists everywhere keeps that in mind
at all times. Only then will we be able to build
something solid.
You’ve been around for a quite a while and have been interviewed a great many times, so I’m trying not to ask questions that you may have gotten 100000 times over. Forgive me if I do not achieve this.
Do you notice that people cop your style?
Do you have anything else in the works aside from Aricebo and LM (not including that which is JOB related)?
After so many years of being entrenched in sound design, how do you stay motivated and interested to keep going and innovating?
Tell me about the subject matter and the inspiration behind it.
Tell me about some of your side projects. It seems that each one of your projects reflects a different side of your personality, so how do they differ from raison d’être in sound, theme, etc.?
Who are some of the people who you have worked with in these projects?
How are your record sales? I know that in the US, this kind of music is almost completely overlooked. (In Boston, for example, a Dark Ambient artist will play to only about 3 people – the noise/pe scene, however, seems to be a bit larger.)
What is the Anti-Tank Guitar? 
Why did you decide to make this a Matthew Schultz release as opposed to Lab Report? 
How did you get your sounds for that record, is it all ATG?
Ha ha, ok. Outside of sound you do a ton of visual artwork including painting, photography and sculpture. Can you give me a little insight into each of these things, in terms of what inspires you to create them?
I remember reading that Lydia Lunch went through a similar experience (past life/concentration camp – only she was the victim) It’s fascinating and makes sense when one looks at/hears your work. 
Now, your sculptures are very interesting to me. I want to ask you about the process that you go through when putting one together.
You also work with the medium of film, and have about 7 available on your site. I haven’t been able to see them, so can you give me an idea about what I might expect or what you were going for?
You also design clothing, tell me about that.
Con.Sect 