The sound of Heatsick comes from Steven Warwick of drone act Birds of Delay. Birds include Luke Younger and have toured the USA with Emeralds, opened for Sonic Youth and have several releases on various CDR and cassette labels including Alcoholic Narcolepsy, Warwick's own.
Heatsick is a murky pond of buzzing gains and heated, lilting tones made through a Casio keyboard put through effects and manipulation among other things. It is infectious before you have a chance to understand why, perhaps because of it's many attainable pleasantries,
sometimes honey, sometimes hate. I met up with Steven at Gorlitzer Park in Berlin to drink stolen white wine and discuss Birds, his solo effort, Sonic Youth and the drone.
heatsick
What’s on with Birds of Delay right now, is it on hiatus?
No, it’s still going. Luke and I play once a month. We usually go abroad though…like in March we went to Portugal to play and it turned out to be one of the best times we’ve ever done. We played Lisbon and Porto and it was incredible. The show was busy and we played with some cool bands.
Local stuff?
Yeah. Masked, weird trance ritual stuff, it was really good in the way that it was really heavy. I can’t even remember if they used a name…maybe the label’s name Soopa or else they were untitled. I know they are doing a piece at the moment where they play different cities in Portugal alphabetically.
How do you like playing solo as Heatsick as opposed to playing with someone else?
I really like doing it now…but when I first started it was kind of weird for me because I like playing off of and with other people…the attentions not all on you. I like it now.
Luke’s style is more abrasive and I like more warm, love-in kind of music as well.
How was opening for Sonic Youth here in Berlin?
They asked us what amps we wanted, and I kind of requested these two Fender amps…I mean, I’m not usually specific, but I knew because they had money…I kind of pushed for that. We used these Fender Twin Amps, which really did sound amazing. We were playing right against them, so for me it sounded really loud…and I thought it sounded kind of abrasive, but I listened to someone’s recording of the show, and it sounded airy and how we’ve been playing lately…so that was cool.
How’d that get hooked up?
Thurston approached me when I was in New York in March at this tape exhibition that was curated by some of the members of Religious Knives actually, and he asked if we’d play.
What were you doing before you were playing drone and noise music and what was the attraction to it?
I was always interested in more abstract stuff and it’s only when I realized that other people were making it that I started to release it and play it live. I always wanted to play it live and in the town I grew up it was like…oh that’s a nice idea, but…it’s just not realistic. So I’d just keep it to myself, my bedroom. It started fucking with tapes when I was about 14.
What’s coming up for Birds of Delay and/or Heatsick?
There’s dates in Scandinavia, a few dates around Europe for September/October and the West Coast of America.
Are you going to play here in Berlin?
We might play at the end of August actually.
Will you go to Canada?
I think it’s difficult to get through the border. I’ve had friends who have had a hard time, but we’d like to.
What do you want to say, when you sit down with your keyboard and do a show?
I like it when people say they’ve heard voices - you know, I want it be psychedelic - non vocabulary communication is more effective in a non direct way, you find it more intuitive, it’s easier to feel, but I can’t really be bothered with the confrontational aspect of it all, it’s not 1975 anymore…people have heard that stuff already. I can’t be bothered to play for people who are like…oh is this music? You know, if you can understand it, you’re going to understand it. You don’t have to study it, you just know…it’s institutive. Straight people stumbling across it trying to figure it out, I mean jesus man. It’s just an opinion. There’s no answer to it. If you don’t understand it you won’t like it, but that’s fine. I don’t feel like a missionary. I’m not trying to crusade this thing.
See Birds of Delay maybe at the end of August. Heatsick live at West Germany, 24th August. 9 pm.
Birds Of Delay live in Berlin supporting Sonic Youth
