Force of Nature - IDM and Experimental have almost no meaning anymore

Force of Nature is a rather new experimental music label based in the northeast United States. Signed up with the label are the bands c2, Concrete Cookie and the Maggot Farmer, Freeze Etch, LAN Formatique, The [law-rah] Collective, Perfection Plastic, synnack and more to come. Speaking to the label owners we soon realised that these people have a clear vision on how music could be sold in a different manner than how most do and know it. We gathered both Clint Sand and Peter Lee and had a long overdue chat which is now finally online ! (By Bernard Van Isacker)

SL: How did the label come to live?

Peter: The label was created in 2001 to be a companion to my radio show "A Dark and Tranquil Place" which focused on the more experimental side of electronic music. The first label release "Dark Transmissions" was a collaboration with labels and bands that strongly supported the radio program such as Adnoiseam and Frozen Empire Media. From there we have continued to release music more along the experimental side of "industrial" music.

Clint: Recently I've turned "A Dark and Tranquil Place" into a podcast available at www.forceofnature.cc/radio

We have some big plans to invest there to feature recordings of live performances by our bands in addition to DJ sets by Peter and others. Leveraging newer technologies like this will be a big focus of the label going forward as we look to adapt to shifts in how consumers want to experience music.

SL: Starting a label these days is quite a difficult task, not as such as starting up a label but keeping it alive. Why did you do it after all?

Peter: Well the label was started in 2001, but things have changed drastically in the last 8 years. Bringing innovative, and amazing artists to light keeps us moving forward.

Clint: I would say that it's not so much a question of keeping it alive, as continuing to evolve. I've spent months rebuilding the label web site to remain relevant in a reality where most fans download the music they like rather than visit a retail store.

SL: How do you try to counter the current difficult market?

Clint: I think it depends on what your goal really is. If a label has a goal to make money releasing underground electronic music... well. good luck with that. If success for us is to release innovative music that we like regardless of who buys it, failure is not possible. Many labels and artists speak to the evolution to digital formats as a sort of funeral for music as an industry. I believe that's only true if you hold on to older models which are now increasingly obsolete.

It's a difficult market for selling CDs, yes, but on the other hand, it is an excellent market for digital formats. They are very lost cost to produce and release and if you were to add up sales from all the electronic distribution sites (iTunes, Rhapsody, eMusic, etc..) you'd see there is an awesome profit margin. There is a lot of music traded for free yes, but my hope is that fans of FON music will support what we're doing by paying for high quality versions, whether digital or physical.

With that said many people have asked me why we don't just follow the "netlabel" model where essentially we give everything away. In reality we want to support fans who demand a choice of how to consume their music. Many of them still want a physical media. There is a certain ceremony to buying a physical object, to getting it home, being able to hold it and admire the artwork and packaging, and not having the experience tied to a computer. I get that. We'll continue to support those types of fans. So there will always be some cost we need to address. FON never really aims to make money from the releases, but not going broke is also nice so we'll continue to charge for some things.

Peter: Music and its emotions are important to me personally. We don't do the label for "success" but for the ability to bring exposure to bands that are doing something insightful and exceptional.

SL: What challenges do you see for your label?

Peter: European recognition...

Clint: To me our biggest barrier is time. We both have full time jobs and families outside of the label. I think we'll be able to manage this well though by keeping the release schedule small and focusing on FON as a community. Many young bands think their job is done when they get signed and the label does it all. Getting signed is just the beginning.

SL: What are the current hot releases you have ?

Clint: The most recent two releases we have done are in digital format and they are available for free from the web site. "Forced Nature Volume One" is the first label compilation by Force of Nature featuring a combination of tracks released on prior FON releases and new, exclusive material. The exclusive tracks feature brand new material by Perfection Plastic and a new exclusive track by The [law-rah] Collective provided as a follow-up to their vinyl release on the label, Vesuvius.

Recently, we also released the second in our "Natural Disaster Series" where each release will be describing a different natural disaster. It's by Wilt and is titled "Undercurrent/Floodplain". This release is an audio representation of the day before, the day of, and the day after the great Mississippi River Flood of 1993; one of the most devastating floods in U.S. history.

Free is a pretty good selling point I suspect. :-D These two releases can be downloaded for free at www.forceofnature.cc/releases

The more recent CD releases on the label also continue to achieve critical acclaim. We have Montreal duo, Perfection Plastic's latest release "Triomphe de la Matiere" which features hard, noise-inspired industrial for the dancefloor.

Mondegreen, by Concrete Cookie and the Maggot Farmer is a dissociative dark ambient masterpiece from the duo that brought you "A Great Escape from Lunacy" on Hive records and it continues to blow people away who thought they had heard it all.

The Freeze Etch release "Vessels" is a dynamic excursion into a world of thick organic rhythms, striking melodic textures, and surging ambient momentum. If you're a fan of the dark IDM style popularized by labels like n5MD and Typmanik audio, this release is a must-have.

Finally there is my own work as synnack. Defying an easy description, synnack fuses different styles with new media performance mediums.

Last year we released "v2" on Force of Nature and this began my relationship and involvement with the label. v2 builds on my prior releases which were only available on synnack.com to create an combination of ambient, glitchy soundscapes and crunchy rhythmic mayhem. If you're fan of all the different little sub-genres that we're involved in, yet still long for something you haven't heard before that brings them all together in one cohesive body of work; this release is for you. It's very difficult to categorize and has something for fans of all types of underground electronic.

A special feature of the v2 release is that each CD package includes a card containing a unique "regcode" which can be used to register on synnack.com for access to additional songs unreleased tracks, videos, discounts on additional merchandise, and more.

All of these releases, of course, can be purchased from the label on our distro page at www.forceofnature.cc/shop

I have 3 releases planned on FON for 2009 with synnack. v2.5 will be a digital release of electronic improvisational music. I have been working with an increasing amount of custom-made software and field samples and v2.5 will showcase a focus on using them to produce more "live-like" recordings. v2 took 3 years to make and was the result of intense tinkering. v2.5 will go in the opposite direction and exist almost entirely of sounds created spontaneously.

We also have a DVD in the works of synnack videos by video artist Jennifer McClain of 0xf8 Studios (www.0xf8studios.com). The DVD will feature videos for tracks on v2 containing all original footage taken and manipulated by McClain. You can preview some of her work as well as check out footage of my live set at some of the large industrial festivals I've performed at like Infest in the UK and Kinetik in Montreal on our YouTube channel at www.youtube.com/synnack

synnack - "Ants in the Water"


Finally, I will be releasing the 3rd release in the Natural Disaster Series on FON titled "Katrina". I was born and raised in New Orleans and my family pretty much lost everything in the storm so this release will have a particular meaning to me. I have been collecting field samples and audio from video footage taken during Katrina and plan to compile a haunting audio representation of that experience.

Beyond synnack, 2009 will feature a new release by Lan Formatique, a digital remix release of Perfection Plastic and more.

Get your industrial music CDs at the following eBay sites:
	eBay USA	eBay België/Belgique
	eBay UK	eBay France
	eBay DE	eBay Nederland

SL: Why did you sign these acts? What made their music stand out compared to the rest?

Peter: Each band has had a personal connection with Force of Nature. A lot of them had contact with me through the radio show, and would send unreleased tracks for me to play over the air. We sign bands who's music truly stands out, and crosses genre boundaries. As a radio dj, i look for key elements in each artist. Some noise. IDM or dark ambient bands have a tendency to take a formula and follow it. We look for bands who avoid this and try to bring the elements of several different genre's together to create a emotional and enjoyable journey into a musical soundscape.

SL: With a history in being in a band, how do you judge the demos that get sent to you?

Peter: As well as Clint being in a band, I am a dj, and have been for almost 15 years now (an am also in several bands). Music production is a MUST and quality issues are extreme for me. I insist that people send me a mastered copy, for review.

Clint: It's funny, when I first expressed interest in releasing synnack v2 on FON, Peter demanded I send him a CD even though I had the full demo tracks available for him to download. Though I have gotten him to accept digital formats now, I totally see where he was coming from. If someone can't be bothered to do more than "check out my myspace!" then should we be bothered to care? There's just too much music out there. There has to be a way to prioritize and being able to provide an electronic press kit and high quality demo or CD is a baseline to even get in the door.

Peter: That's how i work with my band, and that's how i expect others to act. If you say hey "here is my myspace link", I will just delete the email. if you want to work with Force of Nature, then take the time to send me a mastered demo.

Clint: For all of the reasons I embrace digital formatted releases, there are drawbacks as well. Many people use a lower standard when releasing something for free on the internet. I guess they think "oh well, it's free anyway" and cut corners on artwork, production, and mastering. We outright REFUSE to do that. We put the exact same effort with the same standard into a free digital release as we would a CD or Vinyl. I can't tell you how many "digital releases" (usually compilations) that I've downloaded from labels claiming to be "high-quality" where there is no apparent sense of mastering, inconsistent or absent ID3 tag data, or low quality or missing artwork.

In some sense it's odd to focus so much on quality when you're going to encode it as an MP3 anyway, but if all goes well, the new download shop will offer loss-less formats such as FLAC, ALAC, or even .WAV/AIF versions of identical quality to mastered CD.

Luckily though, once we do decide to release something, I have my own mastering business, 0xf8 Studios (www.0xf8studios.com) that we can leverage to make sure what we do release is the best quality.

SL: Is it your idea to add lots more acts to you label?

Peter: Actually, with moving more towards a digital format, we could. Hard copy music will still be released, but we will be doing more and more online releases as well. It will be small though, with us continuing to find artist that we can create a relationship with.

Clint: I would prefer to have fewer artists who are more prolific than more artists who are less active. To date, the FON releases have been mostly one-offs. We'd like too see more of a label community going forward. I think we will indeed be able to expand the roster with the digital shop for Forced Distro but not to the point where we're just releasing music with no promotion.

In the end, why would someone release their music on Force of Nature if they can just release it themselves? What function does a label even have anymore if people can just release and sell directly to fans?

My view is that labels no longer represent the sole means of distribution and promotion that they once did. The internet has changed that requirement of a label. To me labels are curators who host communities of like-minded artists that adhere to a certain aesthetic and standard of quality. The goal is that when you release on FON you have an instant connection to a community of fans who might appreciate your music. That's much different than putting your music on your own web site or MySpace and hoping people ever find it.

SL: These days we get swamped with internet services for bands, in the end you hardly know what you should do. What services do you consider to be indispensable for your bands and why?

Clint: I'm a big fan of Andrew Dubber's blog at www.newmusicstrategies.com Andrew advocates some fairly forward ideas about the role of the internet and downloads to new bands. Clearly it is a completely different world for a new band hoping to release music today than it was for me back when dial-up was the only thing anyone had. In his blog, he discusses the need for new bands to connect with their audience directly and make them part of the experience. That band web sites are not just a place for someone to read about your band, but also to PARTICIPATE in it.

As such I will be adding a commenting system to the Force of Nature web site as well as encouraging fans to join the various discussion forums focused on the music we release.

We maintain profiles on many of the sites you'd expect, MySpace, Facebook, etc.. Links to our profiles and other contact info is available at www.forceofnature.cc/contact

SL: What would make your life as a label manager easier?

Peter: Clint actually calling me...

Clint: Telephones are so 2005... Seriously, the only thing I ask is that people give Forced Distro a chance. We'll be doing some innovative things for customers in hopes of building the premiere site to purchase underground electronic digitally. We'll give away music for free as MP3. Ask you to pay a small amount for high quality, loss-less format full releases and continue to support physical media. We'll even leverage existing digital resellers like iTunes for those who prefer that way. The idea is that it will be up to you how you want to support our bands and label. Just, so long as you do...

Some things drive me crazy about the way music is sold online on most sites. Forced Distro will be different. We WILL NOT force you to "register" to buy something. We WILL NOT try to sell you a release using some dorky explanation. How many times can you read about a release that has "distorted blah, with ambient bleh, and epic blerg, with complex atmospheres and blah blah beats". Does that have any meaning anymore? I have an idea, how about letting you listen to the whole thing first instead and if you like it, buy it! Novel idea. You will be able to listen to every new FON release in its entirety before buying. We'll also allow you to search and browse for music based on more meaningful attributes. You'll be able to do things like "show me all releases containing crunchy beats with minimal vocals and glitchy loops" rather than just using "genre" names like IDM and Experimental which have almost no meaning anymore.

SL: Digital releases are increasingly getting more importance in the revenue for a label. How does your label see this evolution?

Clint: As you can tell, this is a key focus for the future of Force of Nature and will be of any label to remain afloat. Underground music fans will always be collectors at heart and I think for many people that still means a physical object. So, we'll continue to release on physical media like CD where it makes sense. But some of the new models are interesting and solve a lot of issues that can help keep music going.

One idea I'd like to explore is where we release the majority of music online in digital format, but every year produce a double-disc compilation on CD with interesting packaging that contains a combination of music we've already released digitally with remixes and exclusive tracks by our bands. I think this is a great compromise that allows us to get a lot of music out with no revenue loss (as digital) but still cater to collectors who enjoy the advantages of a physical media. We'll see.

Peter: I am scared of the future. I miss REEL TO REEL tape.

Clint: Heh. This is another thing that makes our situation unique. Peter has a very old school, DIY style that I respect and it helps balance out my tendency to want to push things towards new models. At the same time, I'm dragging him, kicking and screaming into the modern age. It's a good balance. Hopefully side-line readers will check out our releases and agree. Thanks for giving us some time to talk.

Coming up in the next months are new releases by Lan Formatique ("The Sadness of Distances" - June 2009) and the threesome Terrorfakt/Scrap.edx/Edgy who are to release the split CD "Northeastern Supremacy" also in June 2009. Each artist will provide 2 original tracks, and remixes of the other artist. Coming up as well are Vomit Arsonist with "Wretch", Perfection Plastic with "Remix Revolution (remixes)" (released as a free MP3 album) and synnack's "v2.5" also released as a free album. The year ends with the synnack album "Katrina", the third release in the Natural Disaster series where each release describes a particular natural disaster.