VooDooMan

Marián Meravý a.k.a VooDooMan (17. 5. 1980 – 20. 10. 2015) was an experimental musician, painter, programmer, writer and radio presenter based in Bratislava, Slovakia. He authored 9 music albums, tens of humorous podcasts “Rádio Haluze” at Rádio Tlis where he also worked as a sound engineer. He ran his own music label called Oshipanah Records.

He often mentioned being inspired by Coil, Jackson Pollock and Andy Warhol.

VooDooMan's music was usually very experimental, challenging traditional concepts of melody or rhythm with more abstract compositional processes, musique concrète or nearly harsh-noise attitude. His music contained for example sampling of his own voice or voices of other people (sometimes through telephone line), own distortion techniques and various acoustic recordings of custom-built instruments.

He started to release his work after a push from Andrej Chudý, his colleague from Rádio TLIS. He never performed live, even though there was an attempt to organize a concert by 900piesek and Hargi from FUGA in Bratislava.

VooDooMan was a very skilled electrical engineer. One of his projects was a complex electronic circuit designed to control vacuum cleaner through his computer's sound card. His aim was to create an electronic interference in the power grid, which he then planned to use as an unconventional sound source for his music. His electronics knowledge was all self-thought – he dropped out of high-school and studied from university textbooks.

VooDooMan also built his own radio station, which he used to transmit his podcasts to his neighbors.

VooDooMan was an experienced C++ programmer, contributing to various open-source projects as well as programming his own musical programming language, similar to Pure Data. He often used to dive deep into processor architecture and maximise utilisation of its resources via assembly code instructions. He used to maintain his own servers, located at his home.

Telephones have been often present in VooDooMan's work. His mother used to work in Slovak Telecom – a national telecommunication company and he, as a child, got to experience the old analog telephone exchange. He was well versed in the various technologies underlaying telecommunication.

Apparently VooDooMan liked to randomly select and call telephone numbers in the phonebook, which sometimes resulted in new friendships. He also sampled some of his phone calls in his music or in “Rádio Haluze”. The ones made for his podcast were mainly prank calls to various commercial or public institutions.

Oshipanah Records:

• Ultranet Refresh
• Posteuphoric airiness goes to the lethargy
• Love, peace and suicide
• Mob psychosis of zombies
• Communication subsystem failure
• Red sabbath
• The difference
• Stuck in the infinity
• The little night music generator

LOM:

• Voice from Antidimension

Memories: Ach, Baška, Danky, Jonáš, Vladko
Voodoman's homepage
Arena aggregating fragments/and online presence

https://lom.audio/releases/04-voodooman-voices-from-antidimension/

Rozhovor VooDooMana s VooDooManom https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W_uZkVqBP6w

Rozhovor Jonáša Grusku s VooDooManom https://lom.audio/voodooman-a-hlasy-z-antidimenzie/

Rozhovor s Luciou Udvardyovou pre rádio Wave http://www.rozhlas.cz/radiowave/kumst/_zprava/voodooman--802648

Dokumentárny film The Sound and the Fury – Cadillac Face and the Noize Konspiracy (Gianmarco Del Re, 2016), v ktorom vznikli rozhovory o VooDooManovej tvorbe https://vimeo.com/218776622

kto bol voodooman

• mam pocit ze aj hackoval(ale to by trebalo s gndom potvrdit, nie som si ista)
• recykloval veci pre zvukove nastroje
• maloval obrazy(jeden z jeho napadov ktore som aj videla bol, ze mal velmi dlhu rolu baliaceho papiera na ktoru kreslil rôzne veci postupne(tvrdil ze ho inspiroval Pollock) a planoval to potom vyvesit tak aby ludia chodili vytahom a pozerali si na tom tak detaily toho obrazku…)
• pisal a prepisoval/coveroval texty piesní
• + skupinou Travis, mne raz rozpraval (a myslim, ze to je aj niekde v buklete niektoreho albumu, alebo niekde pisane na webe) ze by chcel niekedy urobit pesnickovy album, ze aj pise texty, ale nevie spievat, tak z toho asi nic nebude.
• kedysi (okolo roku 2004/05) bol na irci taky room ze 'cajovna', netusim nakolko by to mohlo byt zaujimave, alebo ako sa k tym ludom tam dostat/vypatrat ich, ale tak som sa o nom dozvedel ja prvy krat a imho by vedeli nieco o nom povedat
• @ tlis akvarko sept 2009 https://i.imgur.com/90cUmqd.jpg