And now a word from Dry Eyes–one of the two behind Siccum Records—on his musical project.
Hello, I am Dry Eyes. Starting in January 2017, shortly after Donald Trump was elected to the Presidency of the United States, I realized that the world had changed in a very dark way, and this feeling of darkness, ignorance, and of being pushed toward tribal conformity gave way to a creative impulse in me in order to express this ugliness that I felt.
Thus was born Dry Eyes. The name Dry Eyes refers to two things: Something someone once told me, that every time you do something for motivations of Ego, love for all cries tears of blood. I do not know if that is true, but it was a notion that has haunted me ever since. The second notion is a quote from the Book of the Law by Aleister Crowley, which refers to a winged creature that “pecks at the eyes of Jesus on the cross”. I felt that more than the literal figure of Jesus, this referred more to the kind of person I was. Later, I came to interpret the phrase differently, as Love pecking at the eyes of the man who sees the suffering in the world, which is an interpretation that, knowing Crowley, I do not believe would be characteristic of him, but which I chose to harbor in my heart.
Feeling the darkness of the world envelop me, there was great sorrow in my heart which I could nonetheless not feel, and thus my eyes were Dry. I did not cry. I simply created.
In the course of a few days I created the first Dry Eyes EP, which is self-titled and contains five tracks in various styles. Although I had acquired many skills when it comes to producing music on a computer, this release had terrible mixing and mastering, which, for some reason, gave it a unique atmosphere which many seemed to like. The style was likened by one reviewer as a mixture of Coil and Raison d’Etre, which I found to be a bizarre and incorrect notion. The EP accurately captured my feelings of claustrophobia and social isolation. An interesting fact about this release is that it caused a slight bit of buzz on Russian blogs. I was noticed, a bit. I made a tape run of this release of 100 tapes. I did not sell a single one, and I wasted $270 getting them made. I also made a small, handmade run of 3 inch CD-Rs, and also did not sell a single one of these. Oh well!
I quickly followed this up with Cash Coffin, a release which had me experimenting with many different styles of mostly post-industrial music. I had produced some CDs and I did not sell a single one, but at least the expense was not much.
Over the course of my musical output I have experimented with many styles of music, even inventing my own. I started a series of Noise Improvisations, which were cross-faded musique concrete recordings with mixing changed and effects applied on the fly.
On the release Resonance was evident a kraut-rock influence, an influence mostly gleaned from my love of Tangerine Dream. This influence would be developed on some later releases and modified to produce a unique style of music that could no longer be called post-industrial in any real sense. On the release Invoking the Stars is evident a ritualistic take on the kraut-rock-industrial complex I had created, with hypnotic drumming.
For a while now, I have made tracks that are 14-minutes long, and released them. They have become less dark, as I no longer am afraid, despite the chaos around me. I embrace chaos and channel it into creativity.
And that, so far, is the story of Dry Eyes.