The band UNS are leaving 2017 behind, loud and defiant. They have crossed the annual threshold with the full momentum of a well-aged false pride. “Alles Was Ich Mache Ist Kunst” is a foretaste is a sign of life is a work of art is an uprising is a surrender is a hard-boiled egg in the park and your 2018: Wherever you stand, whatever you do, whatever you will burn, whatever you will earn and whoever will break you. This will be your design! Your year! No justification, no award, a brittle what-is-is: Everything you do is art.
The group UNS are three people with a past (Kate Mosh, Klubexpress, Nonkeen), a present (public relations, Hartz IV, cultural engineer) and a future (beard, table, wind). They play drums, synths, guitar and the dog. Everything they do is art. Their groove comes crashing down the illuminated stairway, a guitar gets lost in the fog, the voice enjoys the ironic pose until suddenly everything becomes raw and honest.
FACTS:
1: Everything is art.
2: Everyone who tells you otherwise is a liar.
3: Lying is art.
QUESTIONS:
1. What is the biggest inspiration for your music?
UNS is a powerful amalgam of three people’s tastes, histories, assumptions and reservations – and the happy intent to throw all of this overboard. There’s not really a single biggest inspiration, but there’s a giant amount of jokes, tragedies, shame, pride, running gags, desperation and hedonism at play.
2. How and when did you get into making music?
We all started out when we were kids and have slowly grown into making music. For all of us, I think, this idea of making music, of playing our instruments, making noise has always been there and has manifested itself in different acts, different modes, sometimes as a means of connecting with people, sometimes as a way to escape into your own rabbit hole. UNS as a band started out as a party joke and has since become a slightly more professional party joke.
3. What are 5 of your favourite albums of all time?
Charles Aznavour – Live à l’Olympia
Erik Truffaz – The Dawn
The Doors – Waiting For The Sun
Delbo – Havarien
Candelilla – Camping
4. What do you associate with Berlin?
It’s a very loud and rewarding and demanding home full of possibilities and full of annoyances. It’s both insanely beautiful and just another bullshit town.
5. What’s your favourite place in your town?
The Parkeisenbahn Wuhlheide. It’s a wonderfully nerdy thing, very pure and untampered by hipness. It’s so full of charm and heartwarmingly unnecessary. True art. A beautiful thing.
6. If there was no music in the world, what would you do instead?
Kunst.
7. What was the last record/music you bought?
Sufjan’s Tonya Harding tape.
8. Who would you most like to collaborate with?
TOKiMONSTA, Gesaffelstein, Heinz-Rudolf Kunze.
9. What was your best gig (as performer or spectator)?
I love when things spin out of control and fall into place at the same time. There is nothing like the ecstasy of being on the brink of failure, worn out and tired, and still connecting with an audience and arriving, almost by accident, at a stellar evening. Prime example: our 2011 gig in Vogtland’s Netzschkau. It was the last show of the tour, my voice was pretty much gone, the club was half-full, it was cold and wet and our hearts were aching from parting ways with our friends Candelilla and Post Honeymoon. Then everything exploded in a cloud of noise, fun, surrender and glow sticks. It was glorious.
10. How important is technology to your creative process?
It’s a tool and an obstacle at the same time. I believe we finished a lot more new songs when we did not have the opportunity to record our ideas rightaway.
11. Do you have siblings and how do they feel about your career/art?
Across the band, I believe our siblings regard our work with a wide range of emotions and attitudes, each and everyone of them. Sometimes they’re proud, sometimes even jealous, sometimes there’s a gentle indifference and at times a hint of patience and hope that we will come around eventually.
To Listen: https://youtu.be/O3mpj2S2eiw
