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The Obelisk Questionnaire: Anthony Di Franco of Urwelt, JFK, Ramleh & More

URWELT

The Obelisk Questionnaire is a series of open questions intended to give the answerer an opportunity to explore these ideas and stories from their life as deeply as they choose. Answers can be short or long, and that reveals something in itself, but the most important factor is honesty.

Based on the Proust Questionnaire, the goal over time is to show a diverse range of perspectives as those who take part bring their own points of view to answering the same questions. To see all The Obelisk Questionnaire posts, click here.

Thank you for reading and thanks to all who participate.

The Obelisk Questionnaire: Anthony Di Franco of Urwelt, JFK, Ramleh, Skullflower, etc.

How do you define what you do and how did you come to do it?

It’s possible that I’m a frustrated science-fiction writer or film maker who makes records. When I was much younger I always thought I’d get into sci-fi writing or film, but I got possessed by the urge to make music in my teens and that became the direction I headed in. A lot of the ideas I invest in the music I make, and the themes I explore in the sounds, artwork, titles and lyrics come from ideas rooted in speculative fiction and hypothetical scenarios that I imagine and then try to frame in a track or an album.

Describe your first musical memory.

Listening to Holst’s “Mars, The Bringer of War” for the first time when I was about six years old and it being the most exciting thing I’d ever heard.

Describe your best musical memory to date.

In all honesty there’s too many to choose from, but I’ve picked one that captures a snapshot in time: In 1991, I was 19 and playing in a band called Skullflower and we were recording an album at a studio in London. We always booked late night sessions, starting at 9PM and finishing around 6AM the following day. I remember the feeling of catharsis after finishing a session and driving back home in the early morning, still buzzing, my ears still ringing and the sun coming up while listening to the session tape on the car stereo. I still get that same feeling travelling home after a good session now.

When was a time when a firmly held belief was tested?

I would say during the recent COVID 19 restrictions and lockdown in the UK.

Where do you feel artistic progression leads?

I would probably go along with the old Albert Camus quote that: “A man’s work is nothing but this slow trek to rediscover, through the detours of art, those two or three great and simple images in whose presence his heart first opened.” That seems to ring true the older I get.

How do you define success?

Realising projects, in whatever form they take. It could be a track, an album or a live show or something else but once one has finished you’re on to the next one, and then the next.

What is something you have seen that you wish you hadn’t?

The first 10 minutes of Battlefield Earth.

Describe something you haven’t created yet that you’d like to create.

I would really like to do a live show with some kind of surround sound system.

What do you believe is the most essential function of art?

Pleasure.

Something non-musical that you’re looking forward to?

Going on holiday with my family and swimming with my daughter.

https://www.facebook.com/Urwelt-111036873606621/
https://twitter.com/jfk_ax
http://www.sleepinggiantglossolalia.com/
https://sleepinggiantglossolalia.bandcamp.com/
https://liesrecords.com/
https://liesrecords.bandcamp.com/

Urwelt, Distant Galaxies Collide (2021)

JFK, Avalanche Zone (2021)

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