The Interconnectedness of All Things

By Hisham Bharoocha

Though located in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, the inside of Hisham Bharoocha’s home looks like any apartment you’d find in the neighborhoods of Tokyo. There is a cluster of smallish rooms used to their full extent, filled with copious amounts of stuff so neatly stacked, and in such myriad configurations, that they belie their density. The effect is that the place doesn’t feel messy, just lived in.

On a low table in the living room (just to the side of Wolfgang Tillmans book, Lighter and an article clipping entitled “Growing Conscious”) are countless numbers of disembodied arms, legs, eyes and other body parts, all on paper and clipped from various magazines and newspapers that he’s amassed over the years. “The cover is almost done,” Bharoocha says, gesturing to the collage-in-progress. “I didn’t paste anything down yet, so feel free to make changes.” Over the last few weeks we have been back and forth with edits and changes to the design of the cover for this issue, and we’re nearly there.

By Hisham Bharoocha

To his fans, Bharoocha represents something intangible and so very attractive: success in careers in multiple fields. Equally at home in both the visual arts and music worlds, he is of that rare breed of artists that can command respect in many spheres, and is able to lend weight to projects through his standing in his creative community. Theme sat down with Bharoocha to spend a little time with him and his many thought processes to get an intimate look into the life of one of the most vibrant young New York talents.

Let’s talk about collaborators — you have a fairly sizeable community that inspires and works with each other.
It’s totally organic. Whomever I tend to get along with as a person I can find a reason to do something with — maybe because we have a similar drive to succeed and get our work out into the world. I end up connecting with the people that have that drive.

Like with the Boredoms, as a kid I was always a giant fan. I was striving to be a better musician and I thought that everything that they did was so amazing, and the quality of our musicianship
lined up.

How did you guys meet?
I used to work at a guitar pedal company and I was trying to get [Boredoms] a sponsorship — which was an excuse for me to talk to them [laughs]. I eventually quit that job but we kept in touch; I was in contact with Yoshimi and she asked one of my bands, Pixeltan, to open for her band OOIOO. David Portner and Noah Lennox played, this was way before Animal Collective. Things just happened naturally.

Back when Black Dice first moved to New York, there was this practice space available in Williamsburg and a bunch of our friends’ bands moved in: Animal Collective, Gang Gang Dance, and Black Dice, and we were all friends because we all played music. We had similar interests like trying to make something a little more experimental or whatever.

Getting connected with Mark Borthwick was pretty natural. My ex-girlfriend Susan Cianciolo was friends with him, and I was always a fan, we’d go over there for dinner and became good friends. We started playing music together even though he wasn’t a trained musician.

It’s the same for everything. Everyone just meets each other along the way and things happen.

So he’d never played music before?
He started playing [as] Will Shine after we started playing. I’m not trying to claim full responsibility for that, but I think it’s cool to get people to work in different mediums.

By Hisham Bharoocha

We had a really fun traveling group for a while, we did some gigs in Japan with Mark, Susan and different friends. Whomever was around and could play would come. It had to be a similar sort of vibration in terms of people: Peaceful people who are chill and not trying to impress with their musical skills. It was never about showing off; it was about trying to make something that sounds good and has the right feeling to it.

Rob Lowe, who’s in the issue, I met him not that long ago. He used to work at this club, Empty Bottle in Chicago, and he was the guy that you deal with whenever you go to the club. We became good friends after we did a show together in New York — we had really similar styles but totally different at the same time. It’s the same for everything. Everyone just meets each other along the way and things happen.

Let’s talk about “vibrations” for a minute. It’s something that seems to come up quite often with you. Why?
It’s not as super New-Age-y as it sounds! [Laughs.] When you’re looking at something you have a feeling that moves inside you and that is a vibration. Lately I’ve been doing a lot more black and white line drawings; because the colors are exact opposites of each other it creates a vibration, and the way I draw it is to show these different types of movements. Sometimes in your daily life images pop into your head that remind you of a feeling you had, or you’ll think of music and hear it in your mind. All these things connect to each other. Like in a dream, all these crazy things happen, but they’re all things that exist in your mind and it might not make any sense but in your mind it’s somehow connected. All these melting images or feelings like happy-sad. The different line qualities are like shapes moving into each other, trying to create a movement, which is representative of a vibration.

It’s like the feeling you get from music. When you hear a [new] song you like, you can tell immediately. You’re getting the vibrations of what that is. It comes in through your ear as a physical vibration and your mind is deciphering how to think about it.

I like that idea in all of my work; those moments of when something is going through your senses into your mind and getting filtered, affecting your body in different ways is just so fascinating to me. I like looking at the systems that people use in daily life as well as in the way they make artwork. Everybody’s work describes their personality and it’s pretty amazing when you see it.

I feel like vibrations are just everything. People might say “that guy had a good vibe” — that’s totally valid even if you didn’t want to be so “spiritual” about it. If that person is communicating with you for just two seconds, you know by the tone of their voice if they’re giving off a sweet sort of feeling or if they’re just tense and angry. It’s in their body language as well as how they speak. That’s all vibrations. I think all of life is just a bunch of different vibrations.

How do you feel about toeing that line between commercialism and art? For example 88 Boardrums being sponsored by Nike, and also Le Meridien has a bunch of artist’s rooms and you have a piece in there. How do you think that reflects on how people perceive you?
It’s a tough call. If I didn’t have to do that stuff to make a living, I probably wouldn’t do it. But that said, there are certain people that you’d like to support. For example Jérôme Sans who organized the collaborating artists for the hotel, he started Palais de Tokyo in Paris, he’s like a real curator, and I think that was smart of the hotel to invite him to do that because it makes you relax about it. You think “hotel” and you’re like “What?” I don’t think any artist would think that could be a real thing, but it ended up being really cool because of the way it came out — Jérôme’s team was really respectful of the work and did a nice installation of it.

If that person is communicating with you for just two seconds, you know by the tone of their voice if they’re giving off a sweet sort of feeling or if they’re just tense and angry. It’s in their body language as well as how they speak. That’s all vibrations. I think all of life is just a bunch of different vibrations.

Sponsorship is inevitable if you really want to make something happen, it takes a lot more time to get a grant. When there’s money involved, it changes things so much. Right now people are only buying things they know they can turn around and sell. In that way I think it does help that I’m interested in all these different things. You know how some people are like “I can’t do that, I’m an Artist!” Well, I gotta eat. I want to have a family eventually. The clock is ticking. You gotta make stuff happen. You have to keep pushing your mind to see what you can do but still stick to your interests and moral values as much as possible.

Do you consider yourself Buddhist?
I believe in the philosophy stuff, but I don’t do any chants or anything. I do this meditation practice called Upajjhatthana, the original meditation teachings of Siddhartha Gautama letting people know that they shouldn’t make him into something to worship because he was just another person.

I ask because a lot of Buddhism centers around the notion of “letting go” and letting things just take their course. You’re very prolific but you seem not to get caught up in the stuff a lot of other artists and musicians get caught up in.
Trying to keep up with all these projects means I can’t be as involved in going out and meeting people. I still have to do all the things that everybody has to do to make a living — making sure people know that I’m still working on new things all the time with all media. On the inside I still worry like “are people going to like my next album?” I try and put things out of my mind — the goal being the work should be the best that it can be, and trying to get your ideas across as clearly as possible.
I’m conscious of the things that are going on in the world — contemporary culture, street culture, fashion, music, but I try not to let those things influence how my work looks or sounds. When I was a kid I’d always do the opposite of what everyone was doing because I didn’t want to be the same. Looking back, I recognize that I wanted to be original. I don’t think I can fight that.
Even in the experimental scene things can get stagnant, flat and self-referential to such a boring degree, so for me, the punk thing to do after making experimental music was to make pop music, or more composed music. I know the experimental scene is going to hate it, but it’s not for them, it’s for me and a good challenge.

So the new Soft Circle album is pop?
Yeah, the album definitely has a lot of pop-style things in it. There are lot more typical song structures. Verse-chorus with lyrics, so it’s pretty different than the first album that came out a little while ago.

It’s really been a fun challenge. Some things that I’ve done make me uncomfortable, but I like riding that uncomfortable line, because that’s where the magic starts to happens. When you can push yourself and people are not sure what they think. When you play that kind of music for the kids that don’t know anything about it or your background, and they just like it — that’s success right there.

It’s not completely pop either. You can definitely tell [from the music] that I come from a more experimental background. My friend Ben Vida is playing on the album as well and he’s like a newer addition to Soft Circle. He wrote all his parts for the album. It’s cool to collaborate with somebody that you have the same level of drive to make something that sounds different and new. I’m really looking forward to people hearing it.

Even in the experimental scene things can get stagnant, flat and self-referential to such a boring degree, so for me, the punk thing to do after making experimental music was to make pop music, or more composed music. I know the experimental scene is going to hate it, but it’s not for them, it’s for me and a good challenge.

Does it freak you out sometimes, the people that you’re working with? Do you ever have a moment when you’re on stage and you think to yourself “Holy Shit, I’m on stage with the Boredoms!”
Definitely. I’ve gotten used to it with the Boredoms because I’ve been playing with them a little longer than some of the drummers they’ve been inviting to play with them — it’s cool to see them that excited too.

The last show that we played at Terminal 5, Eye was just on fire with his performance. It was like when I was in high school and first saw him play in Japan with Concrete Octopus — he was the same person with the same gestures, and the same reason why I was so fascinated with what he was doing — just right next to me. I definitely smiled then!

It’s cool to have a team of friends up there. We could look at each other and be like “This is awesome!” [Laughs.] You know? It’s cool to be able to do that and be open, not “we’re serious, we’re serious right now!” and just play.

Yoshimi always laughs at me because I have a really serious face on stage because I’m just trying to make sure I don’t mess up. I sometimes forget that Yoshimi was a big influence on me — she’s a friend now, so that’s definitely very cool. Even with people like Mark Borthwick — I’m still in awe with how amazing what they do is, you know.