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For a project whose emphasis, artistic and otherwise, is upon change,
it is
no surprise that changing the name has been part of the evolution of
TDM.
Originally known as Tedium until only a few months ago, this change
nevertheless reflects an essential continuity that underpins the TDM
approach. At the moment, Peter Happen is the central figure in this
project
which operates like a play of many acts and scenes. He explained that
"we've
changed the name because Tedium was a really heavily industrial dark
performance art thing. It's still very intense, but we're dealing with
a lot
less dark imagery at the moment, so calling it Tedium isn't as relevant
as
opposed to what we were doing in the past.
Looking back to when the first curtain was drawn on TDM, or Tedium as
it was
known then, "I was mainly recording and playing live acoustically,
then I began
doing soundtracks for WILD LUNCH, a feminist performance art group
at
Melbourne Uni" explained Peter. "I got more involved
until I actually started doing my own pieces, and it eventually got
to the
extent that I really wanted to take it out into the pubs rather than
just
performing to elite theater audiences. Basically we took what we were
doing
in the theatres and started doing it in pubs, and at first we had backing
tapes, but we'd also be making noises on stage. The emphasis has always
been
on having an experience as opposed to rehearsing anything, so we would
conceptually talk about ideas that we wanted to portray, then go on
stage
and just be as spontaneous and as intense as possible in living through
these ideas".
Act 2 saw the growth in the importance of music, and consequently of
Peter,
in the TDM experience. Our humble narrator went on to describe how
"gradually, after going through all this really dark imagery that we
were
involved in at first, the music started to become more and more important.
Now the music's very important to what we do, and that's why the name
has
changed". Maintaining the desire to outwardly express that which is
within
rather than inwardly expressing and experiencing what occurs outside
the
project, Peter noted that when his music began to dominate the performance,
"I was pretty much just creating sound in my bedroom, I just experimented
and saw what came out, I was just into making noise. A lot of people
started
dropping names to me, so I had a listen to Psychic TV and Coil, which
I
really liked, and some of the Throbbing Gristle, the really funny stuff,
like 20 Jazz Funk Greats, but they weren't really influences".
With such dramatic changes taking place within genres, lineups, names
and
even artistic `categories', it is perhaps a little difficult to pin
point
where the continuity in this chameleon project is. To Peter, the unalterable
essence of TDM is that it is "like a collective, in which various people
can
work at various times. It's a vehicle for people to express various
things,
whether it be political or personal, but then again we don't really
see a
distinction between political and personal; we see it pretty much as
the
same thing". Peter seems to have the driver's seat of this vehicle
at
present, having taken charge of the follow up album to Electronic Love
songs.
"This next album I'm predominantly doing by myself because I've just
bought
all this gear, which everyone else in TDM doesn't know much about.
I'm
really keen to experiment and see what I can do on my own, so it will
probably come out under the name TDM, although it's probably predominantly
going to be just me. It's heading into a more techno based direction
in that
I'm using lots of technology, whereas the last album was done with
very
cheap gear just in my bedroom that was just an experiment".
While Peter may seem to be the lead actor, director, producer and
scriptwriter for the TDM theatricals at the moment, this will almost
certainly not remain the case. "This album I'm doing a fairly techno
thing,
whereas in a year's time I've got no idea what we'll be doing. TDM
is all
about change. A lot of it's to do with meditation and magic, and the
emphasis in meditation and magic is change, always changing, going
beyond
the old self and developing with every piece of wisdom that you find.
That's
why what we are doing now is nothing like what we were doing 8 months
ago;
we don't really know where it's going to go...".
Trish