This article is based on an interview which is available in its entirety HERE.

Chris Korda and the church of euthanasia

By Álex Balaclava

THE DEAD ZONE

New York, September 13, 2001, Ground Zero. 12 noon local time. Chris Korda and I walk calmly among, over, and in front of the rubble.

Álex Balaclava: Do you see yourself as a Star, maybe as an Underground Star, like Warhol's...?

A fireman keeps an eye on us without saying a word: he was rubbing the package with his hand and knows that we have seen him. He will discreetly invite us to leave the place now that we know his secret. We will not say anything: he is human, after all, isn't he?

Chris Korda: I'm probably a star in some ways, but I don't think that's anything to be proud of. It's one of the prices I've had to pay for communicating my vision to a large number of people.

The stench of destruction, of supreme massacre, taints everything. Human remains can be seen among the remains of a great shipwreck. That of the pride of Western civilization. The Titanic of 2001; the modern Colossus of Rhodes. The 21st century has begun, now yes, and it has entered at full speed.

A.B.: Would you define yourself sexually as…?
C.K.: I wouldn't. -Korda looks at the camera- All proposals will be seriously considered. Please include a recent photo.

I guess I thought "What's this about?" when I saw the cover of "Six Billion Humans Can't Be Wrong", with the photo of Korda in the foreground, in that subtly defiant, perverse attitude. To a certain extent similar - but less sissy - to the photo of Eno on his first album, 'Here come the warm jets' (1973).

And what about her appearance? Tall and thin like her mother (her true sex is a mystery that, on the other hand, I don't give a damn about), with a look somewhere between a dominatrix in the style of 'Ira, female discipline' and a 50s spinster (those glasses, those floral dresses she sometimes wears me...) and that sharp and ironic look... It's impossible not to fall under her spell, unless you're a faggot, a convinced heterosexual or have two grams of sanity left. Well, I'm not very convinced, they say I'm completely crazy, so I guess I'm just barely saved.

You might think, okay, let's go for Korda's music. No, let's go for the music, but we'll skip over everything else, because even if the dullards on duty think that the only essential thing is that, for this visionary, the important thing is the music and the important thing is the message; and the attitude and the aesthetics, and everything. Do you really think that Picasso, Garbo, Lennon, Warhol, Bowie or Torrebruno -big stars many, many years ago, in a century called XX- reached their status only because of their art? Na-ve-ve! The great artists make their best work out of themselves, including their own production, of course. And Korda was not going to be any less.

You still want music? You're so annoying! Get the AB or the Mondo at your local Indie Boutique if that's what you're looking for, or steal the RDL at the FNAC, or the ABC, which, for acronyms, are the same thing. Oh, so this BELIO is about Music? Ok, here it goes.

To start with, Chris Korda, fortunately, has a culture (musical and general) vast enough to be unclassifiable -which makes him, for example, cooler than Roger Sanchez- and an intelligence that places him far above the typical freak. (Do you think we were going to bother at BELIO to write an article about him/her? I'm telling you, take RUTA66, you little girls). What are you willing to expect from a musician who has made everything from popular music to unlistenable monstrosities, studied bebop and music theory for years and who has been a guitar teacher and played in obscure bands -NO, NOT GOTHIC, DON'T BE AWESOME. I'm talking about unknown bands (And here I imagine him like Evan Dando dressed as his own girlfriend with the Lemonheads). Well, don't expect anything, or you'll be disappointed. And if not, read, read her list of influences: John Abercrombie, Ralph Towner, Jan Hamer or Pat Metheny, for starters. Then, Jefferson Airplane or Grateful Dead (he calls it 70s Psychedelia, I call it West Coast Acid Rock), Pink Floyd or Yes (he says 70s Art-Rock, I say Prog-Rock, you'll say: "Symphonic? Death!!" Fuck you, of course), Fear, Suicidal, Tendencies, Talking Heads or Cars, within Punk and New Wave, and the avant-garde Lori (sic!) Anderson, Brian Eno or Phillip Glass. Good taste that lady has, in general terms, and very free, above all. Of course she doesn't limit herself to digging into electronics in an endogamous way (that goes for the fucking purists). And what do you think of their social heroes?: Dr. Kevorkian or 'Saint' Kevorkian to his friends (a turkey serving a life sentence for having assisted more than 150 people in committing suicide. No, not all of them at once), Jacques Ellul, author of "The Technological Society" (he's getting serious) or Margaret Sanger, who made birth control a fact of modern society. And that despite the fact that the other was Catholic and she supported eugenics (a branch of medicine that deals with the development and maintenance of healthy human characteristics, i.e. the opposite of euthanasia). On the other hand, when asked about her favorite movies and books, our friend mentions "Eraserhead" by David Lynch, "THX-1138" by George Lucas and "O-zone" by Paul Theroux.

So, can you imagine what you can expect from a being who handles these references (which I know for a fact sound like Chinese to you)? Well, something a bit strange; keep reading and maybe you'll get something.

A.B.: Tell us about a particular album that influenced you
C.K.: "The Mystery of the Bulgarian Voices"

Don't you understand anything? Well, that's what I wanted to get to. Calm down, don't get upset, I'll try to explain it to you.

MOM I WANT TO BE AN ARTIST, TO BE A PROTAGONIST

A.B.: How do you see yourself? More as a composer, a performer, a global artist, all of these categories at once, or as what?
C.K.: I am a visionary, by which I mean that I have received a vision. Since 1992 I have devoted my life to expressing this vision in various forms. I usually choose a particular form because it fulfills one or more of the following criteria:

1. It reaches very large numbers of people (e.g. the appearances on Jerry Springer and other TV shows).
2. It's economically self-sustaining (e.g. "Save The Planet Kill Yourself" bumper stickers and other merchandise that propagandizes the Church's message).
3. It takes advantage of a unique situation, allowing what would ordinarily be an ineffective action to become powerful (e.g. organizing a fetus barbeque at a Catholic pro-life rally).
4. It has some personal appeal (e.g. making music, which I did before I had the vision).

Now I'm really lost. Well, I'll try to put some order and clarity into your poor little heads by way of a riddle. If I tell you that Chris Korda, also known as Reverend Korda, leads an organization called the Church of Euthanasia (also known as CoE), what kind of nonsense does this organization sound like the most?

a) The Association for the Defense of Turkeys Against Thanksgiving and Christmas Eve
b) The Village Green Preservation Society (dust off your brothers' Kinks records, folks)
c) The Association for Self-Mutilation
d) Aleister Crowley's "Golden Dawn"
e) The typical UFO cult

Don't make your already shrunken little brains suffer any more without the help of the Jíbaros and let Reverend Korda himself answer: "The Church of Euthanasia can be considered the only anti-human religion in the world. It is similar in some aspects to its sister organizations, the VHEMT (Voluntary Human Extinction Movement; translate, I don't feel like it) and the GLF (Gaia Liberation Front, which has nothing to do with Chueca, by the way)." Korda continues, "The Church of Euthanasia (from here on CoE, I'm getting tired) seeks to restore the balance between humans and the rest of the non-human species (on Earth) through voluntary population reduction. The Church has only one commandment, "Thou shalt NOT PROCREATE" (yay), and every member of the Church makes a lifelong vow not to procreate. The four 'Pillars' of CoE are Suicide, Abortion, Cannibalism and Sodomy, and all of them are optional." And what the hell does this have to do with Music? "My music sometimes expresses the ideas of the CoE and other times it doesn't. The most concrete musical expression of the ideas of the CoE is (the songs) "Save The Planet, Kill Yourself" and "Six Billion Humans Can't be Wrong." Oh, well look.

What kind of music does Korda make? Well, according to him, it can't be defined just like that, so he advises that, in order to be able to give an opinion on his work, the best thing to do is to listen to it. The truth is that these are songs made with electronic means and instruments (I want to explain things), which could be described as a kind of Electro that is a bit more danceable than usual and (thank God) more alien than usual. The truth is that in several of his songs the influence of the most genuine Talking Heads can be perceived thanks to some rather nervous rhythms and the use of keyboards in an insistent and somewhat obsessive way. Most of the pieces are instrumental, but a few include voices or modifications of them through sampling -including Korda's- that sound somewhere between robotic, absent and threatening, depending on the song. Chrissie assures that the path that his songs take from the most basic idea to the final result is one of rapid expansion followed by tedious detailed work. Indeed, the sound is very elaborate, revealing a certain sophisticated and very cerebral aggressiveness, especially in the song 'Victim of Leisure', in which the words expelled with a certain reluctance by Korda's modified voice are transformed into one another through some Chinese work with the sampler.

Well, you know more or less what it's about, and if not, buy the CD "Six Billion Humans Can't Be Wrong", released by DJ Hell's German label, International Deejay Gigolo Records. What are their concerts like? Aaah, having gone to Sónar this year.

I'VE BEEN INTO ELECTRONIC MUSIC LATELY

Sonar Park Barcelona, June 16, 2001

Shortly before his performance, harassed by journalists, fashion victims, various cool people and the annoying people from the Mothers for Life association, Chris Korda answers, like a divine sphinx, some of my annoying questions:

A.B.: Tell us what we're going to see. What are your performances like? What do you expect to see when you go to a live show?
C.K.: My performances are quite dull, like most electronic music performances. I stand behind a table, sliding faders and clicking on things with a mouse, while waving my arms around to make it look more interesting. People nonetheless find it entertaining, which is no surprise in an intellectual climate where people literally spend hours watching someone spin records. I could be a mannequin or a robot, and the effect would probably be much the same. Kraftwerk explored this idea in their live performances many years ago, by making robots of themselves, and while I admire their sense of humour, the reality is considerably less amusing.

A.B.: Have you encountered any kind of discrimination against you in the music world or are you simply seen as too weird or extreme to be discriminated against?
C.K.: Only if discrimination includes not buying my records. My music is almost totally unknown in the United States, and doesn't sell so well even in Europe, despite the tireless efforts of Gigolo records. Considering its unusual style and subject matter, it always surprises me that it sells at all.

A.B.: List 4 or 5 musicians you would like to work with.
C.K.: I wouldn't. I'm too anti-social.

A.B.: Well, then, name some musicians you hate.
C.K.: Musicians don't rate very high on my list of things to hate. They seem relatively harmless, compared to computer programmers, or interviewers for example.

(Well, that's too bad about antisociality. I can just imagine Korda locking herself in the studio's toilet as soon as one of the collaborators who appear on her album walks through the door: DJ Hell and Richard Bartz arrive, and the other one locking the door and shouting, "Yeah, look, do me a favor, mix me the Fleshdance one, that one that's not as nice as the others, I have to change my tampon. Close the door and pull down the blinds when you leave. Thank yoooooouuu ... (raise your voice and sing a song, I'll be back in six or seven hours. Kisses." Anyway, anyone can have a bad century. Or even two.)

Some time later, Korda said that his performance at Sónar went well and that he thought the audience liked it, as well as that the organizers of Sónar were very attentive and professional, and that he was extremely grateful for all of that.

A.B.: There are those who say that electronic music is driving itself into a dead end, that the only way it can survive is to be assimilated by other types of music, just as Punk was (Today, Punk is considered more of an attitude than a specific, defined type of sound, unless you're into Revival).
C.K.: Don't worry! Other equally ridiculous categories will rise up to take its place.

As for his stay in Barcelona, it seems that Korda made good use of it: He complemented his performance at Sónar by mounting an installation at the Centre D'Art in Santa Monica, within the exhibition Trans Sexual Express Barcelona 2001: A classic for the third millennium, and offered one of his "actions" at the doors of the same (he mounted one of the little numbers of the CoE that we will comment on later) the day before the concert. Unfortunately, several works of the installation (six photographs and a video, as well as a large poster of the British artist Tracy Emin) were removed at the end of July from the Exhibition. The matter is not entirely clear, because while Josep Miquel García, director of the Centre of Arts in question, alleged that this measure was due to complaints from visitors regarding the aforementioned photos - much less offensive in any case than the shit that our honest journalists dump on us daily from their media - surely this 'censorship' is due to pressure from the Department of Culture. The fact is that Mr. García had already removed the photos on July 27 without permission from the artists, Lydia Eccles, Rev. Chris Korda and Marilyn Fontenrose, or from the organizers of the exhibition, Rosa Martínez and Xabier Arakistain, and it was on the 31st when he sent an email to CoE requesting that the works be replaced with images of the performance at Sónar. A somewhat confusing and murky affair, especially considering that, although the newspaper El Mundo reported that the photos were returned to their place on July 31, the organizers threatened to withdraw the entire exhibition if all the works were not returned to their place (remember: the Lydia Eccles video and the big poster were still to be replaced). The fact is that the typical nonsense was alleged that the Emin poster (which showed a woman giving birth to a lot of money: Mom, learn!) had been put up without the corresponding permits and it was denied that it was due to censorship reasons. Finally, the Santa Monica Art Centre removed all information about the exhibition from its website, thus affecting all the artists involved in it, making it seem as if the exhibition had never existed, which reminds Korda very aptly of the "memory holes" that George Orwell talks about in '1984', through which the censors erased all traces of the event.

WE ARE THE LIVING...STILL.

Boston, MA, USA: birthplace of CoE and the setting for most of its shows. Korda and his troops land in front of a supermarket and set up a human barbecue with a tasting of meat (human, of course); or an assault on a sperm bank with a giant 5-metre-long rubber penis; or a barbecue of foetuses at a pro-life demonstration (these people like the summery thing of grilled meat by the pool); or an 'appearance' on 'birth control' day in the middle of a series of politically correct organizations, who are naturally scandalized while watching the members of the CoE parade their paraphernalia, which includes 'The Being' -an extraterrestrial entity-, a giant RU-486 pill (the abortion pill), Korda in drag -as always-, with a megaphone and shouting his slogans, which also appear on the t-shirts and banners of the procession: "Save the Planet and Kill Yourself", "Eat a Queer Fetus for Jesus", "Sperm-Free Cunts for Earth" or "Pedophile Priests for Life" (This last one perhaps comes from some childhood trauma of Korda).

A.B.: Do you consider the American people, Western man, or the entire human race in general, stupid?
C.K.: All of the above.

In reality, this is a story that is more noisy and flashy than really aggressive: if you look at the photos of the demonstrations, you will immediately notice that CoE is more interested in provoking and spoiling the party than in causing real social damage. In fact, CoE is an organisation that rejects violence and coercion to achieve its ends, and is against the destruction of nature. Precisely, what it wants is to prevent the existence of too many people on this poor planet from destabilizing it irreversibly. CoE seeks to prevent the Apocalypse, and of course, the data it provides about the future of the earth are discouraging.

It seems that in his 1992 vision, Korda realized that human beings were perfect imbeciles (he was not far off), not as unique or magical as they pretend; that there were too many of them who were totally vulgar and despicable, and that they would do well to voluntarily reduce themselves until they were balanced with the rest of the species. Okay, there are more arthropods on Earth than humans have populated it in a thousand years, but they do not dump waste into the seas killing thousands of beings, they do not strive to destroy the jungles or build weapons whose cost could feed millions of souls. But not everyone understands it that way.

A.B.: Who are your enemies (if any)?
C.K.: Leftists, especially the hippie non-violent kind who stage these anti-globalization riots. Every time the Church shows up at a leftist demonstration, the hippies try to beat me up. Non-violent my ass! These people demand total conformity; it's terrifying. The right-wingers can be just as dangerous, but they are usually less hypocritical about it.

A.B.: I think there is a lot of black humour in most of your words and public statements. But I imagine that many people in the US see you as a threat. Do you think your comments would be viewed in Europe in the same way, or on the other hand, would they not take you seriously? Do you find many differences between Europe and America?
C.K.: I don't know about Europe as a whole. I have found a receptive audience for my ideas in Germany, and to a certain extent in Spain. The absence of nationalism in post-war Germany may help to explain why anti-humanism is taken seriously there; for a generation that grew up ashamed to be German, being ashamed to be human is not such a huge leap. About Spain I'm not so sure; possibly it's because of the centuries of Catholic repression, and the anarchistic ideas that flourished briefly during the civil war. Regarding America, the originally proposed cover for "Six Billion Humans Can't Be Wrong" provides an illuminating example. The photo shows me lying inside one of the ovens at the Dachau concentration camp. The photo couldn't be used in Germany, but in America, it poses no problem; most Americans are so ignorant of history that they assume it's a pizza oven.

His campaigns are of course not very successful, so don't think that one day you'll read in the papers that three million people have committed suicide after buying a Korda record. But the fact is that he/she doesn't do these campaigns out of a leftist ideal that seeks to change the world, but only wants to show the ugliness of human society, and to convey to the rest of humanity why it deserves extinction. He/she is not concerned about the future, and believes that, after the annihilation of the human race, there is a remote possibility that another form of life will flourish.

WE ARE ALL BIN LADEN

A.B.: Do you feel horny or rather insecure about the possibility of new terrorist attacks?
C.K.: Definitely horny. I know I'm not the only person in the United States who got a sexual thrill from watching the Twin Towers get blown up, but I'm one of the few who will admit it. It's nice to see Americans getting fucked for a change.

If you don't believe what you read, go to www.churofeuthanasia.org and download the lyrics and cover art of her latest single, "I Like To Watch," in which she describes masturbation triggered by the attacks on the towers, ending with "I can't find a rag so I'll wipe myself with the American flag." CoE doesn't support terrorist actions directly, but Korda seems to admire terrorists on a personal level. Bear in mind that if our character had enough power to do so, she wouldn't build the towers again, or a mausoleum, or a Hiroshima-style Disney-style Peace Museum, or anything. No: "If I had that power I wouldn't be a pain in the ass. I would release an airborne virus that would only kill humans, with a second release a few weeks later to finish off the politicians and generals once they had left their bunkers." Cool, huh?

A.B.: And what do you think about the club culture? Would our friends do well to wear gas masks when they go out to drink, just in case they play one of your records?
C.K.: Blessed are the masses that worship at the perfectly standardized, plastic altar of disco. How nice that in our brave new world, the great stars are DJs, who have mastered the fine art of consuming records. How inspiring that thousands gather to watch the great consumers spin their oh-so-unique and expensive treasures. How grateful we are for the deafening volume, which relieves us of the tiresome burden of communicating with our fellow partygoers. How noble that an entire generation of humans have permanently damaged their hearing. The notion that in every country, at every hour, people are wearing the same clothes, saying and consuming the same things, and dancing to same boring music, fills me with indescribable fear and loathing. What slogan could more aptly describe the horror of a fascistic, sterilized world than the Love Parade's slogan, "One world, one future"?

You know, Hitler was a faggot, after all.

IT'S FOR THE CHILDREN (DEATH SUITS YOU SO WELL...)

Disneyworld, Orlando, November 1st. Or what's left of it after three American Airlines planes took a bite out of it three days ago. Some Japanese people take photos in front of the charred ruins. A member of the rescue team ejaculates on what looks like very organic remains. Today Korda is more handsome than ever.

A.B.: Did you imagine 15 years ago that your life could be like this? And what is it really like?
C.K.: Not so bad. I live in a rich country, so I don't have any serious problems, the way someone in Lebanon or Afghanistan does, for example. My main problem in life consists of coming up with new reasons not to kill myself. So far I've been successful, but it's getting more difficult all the time.

A.B.: A normal day in the life of Chris Korda goes by...
C.K.: It's not that interesting, trust me.

A.B.: What are your fans like?
C.K.: It's depressing, I don't want to talk about it.

A.B.: Any advice for newcomers to your music?
C.K.: Don't forget to mention the Church of Euthanasia in your suicide note.

A.B.: What do you think of the Underground nowadays? Is there a chance that it still exists or not, due to things like the Internet (since many people nowadays talk about the 'Overground' and not the 'Underground')?
C.K.: As I understand it, the term "underground" describes a marketing strategy that targets young people. I don't know what other meaning the word could have in a media-soaked global society.

Perhaps Chris Korda deserves to be where he is: in the shadows of success. Perhaps the reason musicians fail to change the world is that they are not hateable enough. I probably want to see Chris Korda as a Terminator cross between Walter/Wendy Carlos and Jane/Wayne County. But perhaps even in these unbelieving days people like Marlene Dietrich, Anton La Vey, early Roxy Music or Orson Welles in War of the Worlds (all infinitely more talented than Korda) would not have made the slightest impact. If that were the case, all the air fleet and all the towers in the world would not be enough to change the spiritual mess of the West. But the truth is that, if it were to be tried as an antidote just in case, I would make sure that some of those we are not going to convince to commit suicide, like Jennifer Lopez, Paulina Rubio, all their fans, the mayor of Madrid and the next six government teams, would take a little flight. Not to mention all these marketing directors. And I repeat: just in case.

(For more information, visit www.churchofeuthanasia.org)

The preceding is a translation. The original language is here.