Somewhere in the midst of the nineties I got a few demos (tapes) from a new Berliner project called Terminal Choice. I remember the way I immediately got enthusiastic about the dark electro sound of this band, which I highly recommended in my reviews. Terminal Choice got rapidly signed (on the Finish label Cyberware Productions) becoming an instant success! 15 years after his official debut release Chris Pohl definitely belongs to the most famous and recognized electro-underground artists from the scene. Next to Terminal Choice he set up a few more successful projects like Seelenkrank, Tumor, Miss Construction and of course Blutengel! Having always been a very prolific artist I got the idea to make a kind of 'retrospective' interview asking Chris about all his projects and experiences. It became a quite interesting and informative quest where we went in search about all these projects... and also about a few less famous projects Chris has been involved too (like Waldgeist and Pain Of Progress). (By Stéphane Froidcoeur)
SL: What did you keep in mind from the years before your first official release (cf. Terminal Choice: "Totes Fleisch"-MCD) in 1995?
CP: Oh good question.... Collecting money for buying expensive equipment... Producing some Tapes.... Going to DJs with my own burned cd and asking them to play a song... Going to some labels, but everybody told me that there will be no chance for my music.....
SL: I already mentioned you very first official release under the Terminal Choice moniker. "Totes Fleisch" directly became a kind of club-hit so how do you look back on this first success and what did this song mean to you?
CP: When I hear it today, it's really strange cause my music has changed dramatically.... The sound is sooo bad and my voice is kind of shit... BUT it was my first hit and it brought me into the big business... So I am thankful I produced this song.
SL: In a very short lapse of time Terminal Choice became an established name in the dark electro scene so according to you what made the success of this project?
CP: I really don't know... Maybe the fact, that I always did what I liked without looking to all the other bands... Not copying other bands.... I've been always true to myself and to my music.... And there is no other band sounding like Terminal Choice. All new bands try to sound like other established acts... They want to fit in a genre like hellelectro.... If u wane fit in there, there are so many restrictions and you can not be free... That's why all new bands sound the same. I never did this and maybe that's the reason for my success.
SL: The new album of Terminal Choice (cf. "Ubermacht") comes after nearly 4 years of silence. What makes this long silence and Terminal Choice being your first band, isn't it always a bit different and special to release a new Terminal Choice-album?
CP: Well I had a lot of work with Blutengel and Miss Construction. And I had a time, when I did not know, how to go on with Terminal Choice. The last album was ok, but it was so different. I produced it with Louis and he had a big influence... It was not me... I liked it and it was cool, but it was not really me...
So I was thinking about a way to make a new album and we tried, writing songs, but it was crap... So I decided to do it the 'old way', writing the songs myself and just giving them away for the guitar parts. So no one had a big influence on the songs. To achieve this release took a long time because I'd to be free of mind to start writing the songs. It was not just because I had to produce a new album...
SL: Just after the debut-CD (cf. "In The Shadow Of Death") of Terminal Choice you also launched the debut-CD of Seelenkrank, which was like the first side-project! This project revealed a kind of fetish/SM image while musical wise a more melodious approach! Why did you feel to express these themes and why did you finally stop Seelenkrank just after 2 albums?
CP: I liked this fetish thing and so I created Seelenkrank cause it was only dealing with this subjects and it was melodious, yeah... Not that hard as Terminal Choice. I stopped Seelenkrank to get out of the bad contract. It was easier to stop it instead of fighting for my rights. I also took the chance to change my style because at this point I was fed up with the fetish scene. It was a good time but I did not want to carry on with this subjects so I only had to change my name into BLUTENGEL and I also changed the style. It was perfect to me and a new beginning....
SL: I noticed in a way you brought Seelenkrank back alive in 2006 featuring the "Meister Der Verbotenen Träume" on the "Enemy Territory"-sampler. I guess a lot of younger fans this way discovered Seelenkrank, but what was the main reason for this 'resurrection'?
CP: It was no resurrection at all. We just released the cd's again on my own label and I thought it was a good idea to make a new version of this song. Yeah, indeed I thought about reanimating the project but... no, this would have been no good idea... not at this time... J
SL: I guess Tumor was your 3rd project, the debut "Neues Fleisch" being released in 1998. You here walked on a more electro-industrial sound, but what have been the main influences and musical ideas of the early Tumor period?
CP: Bands like Dive and Klinik! I liked to have a pure industrial project without vocals, a kind of club music... the music I like to play as a DJ.
SL: "Welcome Back Asshole!" released in 2005 was the ultimate Tumor-album, which I personally experienced as taking some distance with the 'brute' and industrial influence from the early releases. Did you feel it was like time for a change and why did you finally stop this project?
CP: Yes, I was finally bored by this kind of music so we did this album. It was different, but more successful. I stopped it because Blutengel took so much time. I didn't want another electro project with vocals even though the people liked it. But I kind of reanimated Tumor with Miss Construction. Gordon is my singer and I just have to do the music, which is cool!
SL: Musical wise I experienced Tumor as your 'easiest' or 'less complex' project to date and maybe the most different one in your career (being used to hear more elaborated stuff from you). How did it feel to you?
CP: Yes, you are right I feel it the same way! Just fun and dance... easy... tumor!
SL: Another project you've been involved in was Waldgeist, but we only get 2 releases (cf. 2 maxi's "Rumpelstilzchen" and "Der Schläghter" released in 1999 and 2000). What was Waldgeist all about?
CP: It was a big shit^^ I think I was drunken! I never told some one that it was me... I never appeared on pictures, but they get me^^ man, it was crap but maybe the idea for Miss Construction!
SL: You say it was a 'big shit' but the MCD "Der Schläghter" got a honest club response, but we unfortunately never got a full length album from Waldgeist! Did you feel like everything was said just after "Der Schläghter"?
CP: Everything was said after these songs. I was not interested in a full length cd even though the label was interested. (...)
When an EBM legend like Nitzer Ebb returns with a new album, "Industrial Complex" (out on Alfa Matrix), after years of silence, there's two things a magazine can do. Go the cliché way and ask typical questions a magazine often is tended to do or go for the unusual. We went for the unusual and invited both Andy De Decker and Sven Lauwers from the old school band Ionic Vision to conduct the interview with the same band they were to support later that evening in Antwerp (at the Trix) on January 22nd, 2010. Weaponed with a videocamera and a list of what they considered their most wanted questions they sat around the table in their dressingroom backstage... And do watch the 2 videos below which show the band during a rather difficult Nitzer Ebb quiz. As we said, an unusual interview. (By Andy De Decker and Sven Lauwers aka Ionic Vision - more at www.ionicvision.com )
SL: Do you believe a Nitzer Ebb reunion would have happened if it weren't for the Fixmer/ Mccarthy collaboration?
Douglas : It definitely speeded up the process, because at the time Terence called me I wasn’t doing music at all apart from privately at home as I was pretty much into film. It kind of felt my career in music was behind me.
SL: There is a serious 80's revival going on and a lot of bands from that era are doing reunion tours to cash in. Often they do one cd and lay their act down. What can we expect from Nitzer Ebb?
Bon : Initially the reunion tour was going to be very short. It was just a sort of way to come back, say hello here and goodbye. But it worked so well and once we got to that point we were thinking about it as a long term thing, to keep it going, and we still feel that way.
It’s getting harder and harder to figure out how to do things in the music industry these days, how to make enough money to justify the work that it takes to produce the music. That’s part of being flexible and part of the challenge, so as long as we are able to make space to do it and it’s feasible to do it, we want to carry on.
We don’t have any plans to smash and grab and go away again. Nitzer Ebb is definitely an open proposition.
SL: Many bands see you as their biggest example and love to continue making songs holding the typical aggression around the "That Total Age" and "Belief" period. Do you have a feel with that very small current scene that take you as example?
Bon: A lot of bands and a lot of creative artists have something that sparks their imagination either positively or negatively. So anything that makes someone get up and be creative has to be a good thing. Eventually those bands will have to accept the same challenges as Nitzer Ebb did, maybe get one album for free were you can draw heavily on your influences, after that you have to start finding your own way because it probably won’t last if you do the same thing over and over again.
If Nitzer Ebb is the spark that makes people creative that’s just great.
SL: Over the years Nitzer Ebb have had the luck working with some big names in the producing industry. Do you have a favorite amongst them and why in particular?
Douglas: That definitely has to be Flood! The relationship we build with Flood was nurtured over years of working together and us growing, not only as musicians but also as young adults. We were barely in our twenties when we first started working with Flood, so there were a lot of things going on in our lives that he helped us through, not just musically.
I think there is a closeness that we are attached to him above everyone else, probably with the exception of few other people that have been influential on our lives, our attitude and the music we produced like Daniel Miller
SL: What's the difference working with Flood today compared to the "Belief" album, after all Flood worked with Depeche Mode, U2, Editors... How precisely did Flood enter the picture again?
Bon: What actually happened was that we stayed in contact with Flood all over the years, so when we started making "Industrial Complex" he said ‘I want to mix it for free’ because he liked what was happening but as ever with Flood it was depending on his schedule and this was another part why the album took quite a long time. We finished it quite a long time before and then we were waiting for Flood, amongst other things, and it just never happened. In the end he was just too busy and he ended up more as a kind of advisor.
The same happened with Jagz Kooner, he would be virtually producing it for free, so he had to fit in between jobs that earned him a living but he also got pushed back, and by the time he was free to do something we actually made the album. Both their advice was valuable, we felt strongly about what we were doing, so it was a good reinforcement.
I remember "Promises", I felt it’s an old school Nitzer Ebb song but is it really up there with like "Murderous" or "Let your body learn" and Flood just said not to worry about it, but to accept as it is!
Douglas: That’s the good thing with both Flood and Jagz Kooner, they are both really honest and straight to the point. We ended up writing a lot of extra tracks that didn’t make it on to the album and there are a couple we put in the track listing and Flood was just like ‘doesn’t fit, doesn’t belong there’.
SL: Rumours are you are working together with Alan Wilder on his next Recoil album?
Douglas: There are a few things going on, basically over the course of last summer we are in touch again with Alan (but we stayed in touch, for various reasons, both personal and music related). I met up with Alan in London and he was asking about various people that could help him put together a kind of Alan Wilder playback DJ appearance in some super interesting cities. So I suggested him a few people and we talked about it with our booking agent and then there was the idea of a Nitzer Ebb involvement in one of those nights or vice versa, a Recoil with Nitzer Ebb evening. (...)
Editor's note: after having contacted DARPA, it seems that all of the content below was complete nonsense, Thrussell has never been commissioned by the organisation to record an album. Side-Line wishes to apologize to its readers for having run the story as being real. Bernard Van Isacker and Stephane Froidcoeur.
David Thrussell needs no further introduction! He became one of the most praised and recognized 'underground' musicians since the early 90s. His main project Snog is a reference, but still some of his other projects like Black Lung and SOMA got a worldwide recognition. Early 2008 David was contacted and commissioned by DARPA (the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency), which is a funding body of the U.S Government and the Pentagon. David Thrussell was asked to compose his most 'particular' release in his career. The album "Full Spectrum Dominance" got released under the name of Black Lung. It has been years ago since we organized an interview with this musician so this was for sure a good opportunity to get some more details about the concept and realization of the album! (By Stéphane Froidcoeur)
SL: Hello David, quite a long time ago the Side-Line readers got some news from you! How's life going and what are you actually working on?
DT: ...Well hello there...oh busy as always...just finished a new Snog album "Last Of The Great Romantics'...
SL: I guess the newest Black Lung-album "Full Spectrum Dominance" must be one of the most 'specific' and I dare to say 'surreal' experiences in your career as musician! What does this album mean to you as musician and human being as well?
DP: ...Well you know I can't remember when my life was 'normal'...maybe it never was...so I've learnt to not ask questions when strange things and/or people come along...accept it, see if it leads down a new, unusual path...so yes the whole process of the new Black Lung album was very surreal...psychologists use the term 'disassociate' to describe the act of separating from reality post trauma...when the first message came through from DARPA I was living in a teepee in the Nevada desert with my dear friend Cathy O'Brien, and I just stared into the distance and typed, "OK"...
SL: How the hell did it happen you got commissioned by DARPA and what do we have to figure by this organisation from the US government and Pentagon? How did they come in touch with your work?
DT: ...Well...my bands (Snog and Black Lung etc) are for sure 'cult' bands, we aren't going to sell a million records any time soon...but we do have fans in strange places...quite a few high up in government and the corporate world, which has an odd kind of logic, because we are not yet another crappy indie/pop/whatever band singing shiny turd songs about nothing but actually attempt to grapple in some small way with the 'human condition'...I get quite a few personal letters/messages from people in the army/intelligence services (hell I got one from a monastery) and from individuals in the CIA/NSA...I assume the first connection come through something like this...but of course I didn't ask...you never ask things like this...
SL: So how did this meeting happened (or is this top-secret) and what did they exactly have in mind?
DT: ...Actually it is like being contacted by any bureaucracy at first...you know, just very polite letters going back and forth about where our schedules might meet and so on...and then I was asked to meet with a DARPA liaison offer in a DoD building (I can't tell you where) which is when things got interesting...they were very courteous and told me they had been 'aware' on my work 'for 'some time'...I had to attend a brief training program to prepare me for DoD language and military procedure...it is all a bit of a haze now but I do faintly recall a lot of people talking, some films and sounds, strange tasting food, bright lights and very little sleep at all...I remember being very upset at the time but now it all seems like a bit of a laugh and after all that I was very co-operative with all the people I met in the command and combat structure...
SL: The info that we all can read on different sites claims that the music had to 'reflects the ideals and reality of vision 2020, a futuristic military strategy program that first saw the light of day in may of 2000'. What is it all about and how did you start working on it?
DT: ...Joint Vision 2020 is a program which is basically the underlying strategy behind all U.S military activity...this policy advocates total dominance in all spheres, not merely on the battlefield, but also in all communications, media, propaganda, economics, social structure, individual thought processes etc...it is bold and revolutionary...
SL: What made you finally decide to accept the job and in, which way did you get motivated by the 'budget' and remuneration for this concept?
DT: ...Once you comprehend the incredible grip that the military and 'defense' corporations have on our culture and intellectual environment the only sane choice is simply to accept 'defeat' and join them...and, as you know, according to Marxist theory all artists are simply 'small business' people in disguise so I had no real choice but to adopt a rational small business model and assume a symbiotic relationship with the dominant lifeform...
...Remuneration is no longer really a question for me...I have signed a military contract and having entered a number of combat zones while working on this project I must (by law) receive a full combat pension...
SL: I remember some old interviews where you didn't totally agree with some practices of the American government so it all sounds a bit strange DARPA contacted you while you finally accepted the proposition as well! How comes?
DT: ...So if the Devil invites you to dinner, do you accept?...Of course you do...not only is He an excellent conversationalist but also He always eats in only the best restaurants...
SL: Did they let you choose under which name (project) this concept would be released and why especially as Black Lung instead of Snog or Soma?
DT: ...I decided early on it would be a Black Lung project (and in fact DARPA had asked for this) as it made sense so that all the recordings made inside the military bases/bunkers/command centers could be used as 'found' sound and as part of a Black Lung 'soundscape'...
SL: It took you nearly one year to achieve the entire concept so can you summarize the different chapters you went through?
DT: ...Well there are a number processes I can't really describe in detail you understand...Part of the original DARPA brief involved the use of subliminal messages and motivational subsonics to be embedded at the final stages in the audio program...So really not only does it sound good but it is also good for you too! (you will have to take my word on that of course)...
...Naturally the after the initial introductory meetings, briefings and DoD training the first actual creative process involved making hundreds of field recordings inside bases, installations and other more esoteric centers of activity and also conducting around 200 hours of interviews with DoD, DARPA and other 'related' personnel...these interviews were not used generally in the 'music' (apart from some subtle sub-audio carrier usage), but instead were used for research, development and perception management solutions...the final stage was a lengthy editing and mix process achieved largely in the military facility at Pine Gap near Alice Springs, Australia... (...)
Noorglo became quite famous as a DJ in Italy and as organisator of the famous Decadence parties in Bologna. Besides this Noorglo is also a musician and producer launching his first official release "Hard Body Music" on the Rustblade label mixing industrial music and trance. According to Deranged Psyche who reviewed the album "Hard Body Music" is an appropriate title for a hard-hitting album that one of the best releases coming from the Italian electronic fields in quite a long time. A very good reason to talk with Noorglo... (By Elise Din and Bernard Van Isacker )
Q: Noorglo became quite famous as a DJ in Italy and as organisator of the famous Decadence parties in Bologna. Can you tell us some more about these parties? What kind of attendance do you get?
A: Decadence is the party I was dreaming of when I was a teenager and it really started a new era for italian clubbing. I started to organize it with Carlo in the early 2004 involving the best names from the European scene. I met him when he was promoting Starfuckers hardcore parties and the Sun Explosion beach festival. I was already organizing electro gothic nights with Daryl Syx at that time. We discovered that we had similar objectives about creating a union of fetish, electro, industrial, gothic and everything we learned working with thousands people dancing on festivals and parades. We never have been politically oriented, but our point of view about sexual freedom is clear. And I remind you how the Vatican is literally inside Italy...
Q: There's quite some diversity on your album, with a more experimental approach on the “Ophrmx” and a pure atmospheric end on “12”. I guess this reflects in your musical influences? Where are these situated exactly?
A: Everything I hear influenced and stimulated me. I mixed everything I knew, trying to create my own eclectic style. My 1st release contained ebm, industrial, breakcore, idm, ambient and it represented only one of my sides. I recorded about 100 tracks in 2007 and 2008, and 30 of it were potentially grantedg a place inside the "HBM" album. Before "Hard Body Music" I released a chillout work bootleg.
Q: This is indeed your first official release after some sampler contributions and remixes. Is it the typical story of the DJ trying to do better than what he had to spin?
A: Not exactly. Djing was not what I originally had in mind, but I discovered soon the power of a dj-producer, I've never been a producer. I started around 1998 and in 2000 I met Daryl Syx with whom I produced some remixes and "postwave" tracks for the dancefloors. Later on he asked me to start DJ-ing at parties he was promoting.
Q: What do you and don't like in the current scene and how did that find its way in your album?
A: I think that our scene was in a bad shape in the early 2000ies. perhaps because of the narrowmindness of artists and club owners. It was exciting to renovate... Ebm is not only a musical style, and only by resuming why it was born we can pursue and keep it modern. It was still considered a subgenre of gothic music and it wasn't positive to keeping it modern. I love the new industrial ebm wave coming from Italy and Germany and the hard dance from the Netherlands. (...)
With over twenty years of not only being active but also being quite popular in the underground electronic scene, it's probably safe to say that Johan Von Roy needs little introduction to the readers of Side-Line. However, despite years of success and many club-topping singles, Von Roy's Suicide Commando has been entrenched in pretty much every shake-up an artist could endure since his last release in 2006. Since that year's "Blind Torture Kill", he's changed labels, lost his own sub-label, became a father, and even suffered the slings and arrows of critics who made him a scapegoat for causing the whole 'hellektro / TBM' phenomenon.
Despite these personal joys and professional setbacks, don't think that this is enough to put the Commando in retirement, as Von Roy's back this winter with "Implements Of Hell" and a new set of goals. So, read on and find out the facts behind his move from Dependent to Outofline Records, why he's trying to escape the fetters of the TBM movement, and how his latest album is also about his own worldview and not just that of his inspirational serial killers. (By by Vlad McNeally)
SL: While "Bind Torture Kill" could be considered a tribute to the BTK killer, "Implements Of Hell" also derives at least its title from another American serial killer, Albert Fish. Do you think this new work should or will be seen as a 'sequel' to "Bind Torture Kill"?
SC: Well, I have no idea how the people will perceive the new album and title, but it definitely shouldn't be seen as a simple sequel to the "Bind Torture Kill" album, as "Implements of Hell" isn't a real concept album, like "Bind Torture Kill" and also "Axis of Evil" were. Sure, the name "Implements of Hell" refers to Albert Fish as he preferred to name his tools and instruments he used to brutally kill his victims his 'implements of hell', but apart from that, not one song on the regular album refers to Albert Fish. Only one song, "Infliction of Pain", on the extra bonus single inside the special limited box explicitly refers to Albert Fish, as it holds several samples from the Albert Fish case. Sure, there still are a few songs with a serial killer theme on the album, but it's not as prominent as it was on "BTK".
By the way, compared to Albert Fish, Dennis Rader (aka, the BTK killer) was just a pussy. Fish was a real nutcase.
SL: To paraphrase a quote from a previous interview, you mentioned that you were 'trying to escape the TBM movement' with "Implements Of Hell". Why is that, and do you think that you were successful?
SC: Yes, it was a somewhat deliberate choice not to jump on the oh-so-popular TBM movement; so many other bands have already jumped on that wagon, and I don't want to become a copy of a copy. Not that I don't like the TBM movement; it has some really good stuff and bands like Combichrist or Noisuf-X are its real masters, but I think too many bands sound the same these days. I already got blamed and almost stoned for being the 'grandfather of the hellektro movement', so enough is enough...! Maybe some will call me stubborn, and maybe I am, but I would rather be stubborn and have the guts to go in another direction again.
I also wanted to go back to my roots a bit with this new album, and I think I succeeded pretty well at that. For me, "Implements of Hell" is the perfect blend between "BTK" and my album "Mindstrip" from 2000.
SL: Upon listening to "Implements of Hell", I was quite surprised by a few moments of orchestral and string concerto like elements within tracks like "The Perils of Indifference" and "Until We Die". What the above part of the impetus behind exploring these new directions?
SC: I always liked that more orchestral and classical approach, especially after hearing the wonderful piano version Anthony J did of "Love Breeds Suicide". I'm still dreaming of doing a few songs with real violins and stuff some day. I think that would fit pretty well with some of my songs.
I also started listening to other kinds of music again. For years, I was stuck in the electronic scene and hardly heard any other sorts of music, but in the last few years I started to listen to other kinds of music again... so, I guess that also had its effect on the new songs as well... somehow.
SL: Also with the new single, you've made a return to the world of the music video, which is quite a jump up in terms of production quality since your last one, "We Are the Sinners". How was the experience of shooting the "Die Motherfucker Die" video in comparison, and can we expect more videos in the future?
SC: To be honest, I'm having a bit of mixed feelings about the "Die Motherfucker Die" videoclip. On the one hand, I'm pretty happy with how it turned out, on the other hand, I'm disappointed as things just had to be done too fast. We only had three days to shoot and edit the entire videoclip... I believe the result would have been way better if we had more time. But considering the circumstances, I'm still satisfied with the results. However, I know Guido (the guy who did the videoclip) can do much better - for example, I love the recent clips he did for Diary of Dreams.
Anyhow, next time we'll make sure to put aside more time for shooting and editing!
SL: On "Implements of Hell", we're treated to a new version of "Hate Me", which first debuted back in 2007 on the second edition of your "Noise Terror"-line of compilations. Why resurrect it for the new album, and considering it seems to be a response to peoples' opinions on you and your music, what is the story behind this particular track?
SC: "Hate Me" just had to be on the new album, as it perfectly reflects a lot of the hate and envy found in a few of my new songs. Hate and envy somehow can be seen as my guides throughout the entire new album, whether it's coming from a serial killer, a victim, or from my own experiences. It doesn't really matter.
A song like "Die Motherfucker Die" also deals with hate, envy and revenge, but it can be seen as being from a serial killer's standpoint as well as from my own.
Both "Hate Me" and "Die Motherfucker Die" gathered a lot of my own personal feelings towards some people in this scene. Along with the success of Suicide Commando, also came the haters who started to bash on me and my music, blaming me for nearly all sins in this world. I became really disappointed in some of the people in this scene, some of them even being musicians themselves (no, I'm not naming any names), who somehow didn't grant me this success for whatever reasons... maybe out of hate, envy, or jealousy. It's surprising to see how many people convict others - whether it's me or anyone else, that's not the point - without even knowing them at all.
SL: With your in-depth musical studies on various renowned serial killers and twenty plus years of activity, I can't help but wonder what sort of fan mail you might receive! Do you ever worry that you'll end up being 'honored' like :wumpscut: was with the Ruda murder and the Norwegian school shooting?
SC: Of course! I also worry about that, because I know many of my songs are dealing with the dark side of life and the dark side of our mind, whether being suicide, murder, violation...
Sometimes you really get the weirdest mails from people, but I still believe most of us are clever enough to understand my message and see the difference between good and evil. I do know from the statistics on my website that quite a few people end up on there after googling the word 'suicide', so I'm sure some people are visiting my website for the wrong reasons.
But on the other hand, I also do know of people who thanked me for songs like "Love Breeds Suicide" or "Save Me", as it helped them and kept them from really committing suicide, so I guess it's a bit of a knife that cuts both ways.
SL: As a surprise to many, last year saw the return of your former label, Dependent, to the scene. What did you make of its resurrection, considering you were one of their flagship artists? (...)
Out since late 2009 is Android Lust's "Resolution" box set. Originally released in 1997, this classic debut CD from the one woman electro act Android Lust has now been re-released as a limited edition 3CD box set. The boxset is limited to just 250 units and includes "Evolution", its companion remix CD from 1999, and a 3rd bonus disc of eleven rare and unreleased tracks ranging from the period 1994-2000. Both the original CDs from the now defunct Tinman label have long been out of print, and are finally seeing the light of day again as a release directly from Shikhee's own Synthellec Music. This ultra limited edition collector's set also comes with lots of exclusive goodies. Shikhee is currently working on her next studio album, which is roughly slated for a spring release, followed by an extended tour... Time for a chat with Shikhee who has been a Side-Line favourite since here very first release! (By Bernard Van Isacker) More info at www.androidlust.com .
SL: It has been years already that the "Resolution" album has been unavailable I guess most haven't even heard this material until now. Is it mostly older fans are new ones picking it up?
S: It seems to be a mix based on the feedback I've gotten so far. Lots of people who have come to know Android Lust from "Dividing" and "Devour" have picked it up as well as the old school fans.
SL: How was working back in time in 1994 when you recorded in your bedroom? I guess that with shifting economy and new recording possibilities we all move back to our bedroom... or not?
S: It's not so much that I recorded in my bedroom, but rather the limited means and experience I had to get done what I was trying to do. I had a 4 track cassette recorder, one keyboard and a guitar. I'd stripe one track to sync my MIDI keyboard, and bounce 2 of the tracks on to the 3rd, and then have 2 tracks free again. That's how the very early stuff was recorded.
SL: The whole set is quite exquisite, 3CDs, T-shirt, pin, ... Going through that older material, I suppose that you had some emotions going through you, can you describe how it felt creating this set?
S: I've been wanting to put out Resolution for a while, but I wanted to do it in a way that I, as a fan, would want it. The box set also includes a poster, a booklet with lyrics and photos from that era. The pewter pin is something very special. The design comes from body paint I used to wear at live shows. I had asked my friend Paul Komoda to paint me for one show, and it became a thing we did for a while. While it looked amazing it was just too time consuming to keep doing on a regular basis, and impossible to do on tour. This particular design came from body paint that went on my left shoulder for the CMJ 1998 show.
SL: The remix album that was released on Tinman Records also had some of the band signed to the label remixing you including I, Parasite, Cydonia and Crocodile Shop. Did it bring back good memories or not really?
It felt like a closure, and a feeling of shedding some weight that needed to go to clear space for the new. It was also good to actually go back and hear some of these early recordings and realize that yes, I have actually traveled a bit from there. The process of putting the material together felt like a closure on that chapter of my life. Mostly made me realize how much I've grown since then. A lot of memories yes. From my current perspective none of it seems bad.
SL: Apart from the companion remix CD from 1999, "Evolution", there is also a 3rd bonus disc of eleven rare and unreleased tracks ranging from the period 1994-2000. Was there a lot to be picked from?
S: There was a fair amount. A few tracks got discarded which will probably never get released. Some of the very early tracks included on the CD had to be digitally edited to get rid of DAT alignment noise. I had to borrow a DAT player from Bret because mine died long ago. Who uses DAT anymore?
Below is a video of the mastering of the bonus disc with Steve Berson of Total Sonic Media. Tracks shown here include "I Exist", "Where Angels Lie (Writhing)", "Cherished Agony (Last Drops)", "Suffer The Flesh (Escstaticus Insubstantia)", "Down", "Prisoner", "Sin (Demo)", "Used (Demo)", and "Burnt".
(By Stéphane Froidcoeur and Vlad McNeally) In early December 2009, I suddenly realized that not only was the year was coming to an end, but also a decade, and I got the idea to look back to what happened in the electronic music scene during the past 10 years. So, I started brainstorming the idea of making a special article about the subject until I realized that this would be also an opportunity to look back on three decades of electronic music as well!
30 years of electronic music sounds a bit surreal, don't you think? I guess for the younger addicts, it's quite normal, but they of course never knew a world without electronic music! But I remember in the early 80s, when listening to bands like Front 242, Cabaret Voltaire, Nitzer Ebb, The Klinik and a lot of those other early artists that it all sounded like a real challenge to compose that kind of music. 30 years later, we can affirm without any hesitation bands being active in the 80s were real pioneers, creating a new style of music that only increased in 'popularity' during the 90s and after the new millennium! I've to admit that a few pioneers were already experimenting with electronic music in the late 70s and I'm sure some even go back to before even that decade, but I think we can all agree that the 'underground electronic music' we here have in mind achieved real significance and importance during the 80s.
There's probably no real date we could name and now commemorate as being the date when the first electronic song was ever released... so the early 80s definitely remain to others and myself the early years... the beginning! So, I got the idea to celebrate this happening by a very special and, dare I say it, UNIQUE and HISTORICAL interview. Together with Vlad McNeally, my partner in crime for this interview, and thanks to the help and contribution of DJ Wildhoney and DJ23 (two other Side-Line members), we started this interview by contacting over 40 influential and rising artists from the scene. Bands, labels, DJ's, and even promo companies were contacted, each of them getting three questions taken from a wider list. We didn't hesitate to contact some famous bands from the 80s and 90s as well as artists from the last decade. The reactions were quite enthusiastic, and in the end we got an impressive contribution from over 20 of these artists!
This mass interview is intended to be a look back to the early years as well as the evolution of underground electronics over this 30 year period. Though I personally regret we didn't get more input from labels and weren't able to get in touch with a few 'big' names, I can easily imagine that all the 'missing' artists and labels just didn't get the time to answer us during the Xmas holidays rather than that they simply weren't enthusiast about the idea! Whatever, though - I would prefer to mention and sincerely thank all the artists for their great, enthusiastic and sometimes very detailed answers! I hope you'll all enjoy reading this interview as much as I enjoyed making it!
Being now involved in Side-Line for nearly 20 years, I have made tons of reviews and interviews, but this one is without a shadow of doubt one of the best! (Stéphane Froidcoeur aka Deranged Psyche).
Alphabetical order of the artists, labels, and DJs who contributed to this interview:
ADAM-X
ALFA MATRIX (Bernard Van Isacker)
ARMAGEDDON DILDOS
ASSEMBLAGE 23
ATTRITION (Martin Bowes)
BILL LEEB (FRONTLINE ASSEMBLY, DELERIUM, NOISE UNIT ao)
CAT RAPES DOG
COVENANT
CRUNCH POD (Ben Arp; also member of C/A/T)
DEPENDENT
DIVE
DJ23
DJ HIVE
DJ WILDHONEY
KMFDM (Sascha Konietzko)
LUC VAN ACKER (ex REVOLTING COCKS ao)
NEON JUDGEMENT (Dirk Da Davo)
NOISUF-X & X-FUSION (Jan L.)
OOMPH! (Flux)
PROMOFABRIKK (German promo agency set up by Leo von Leibnitz)
SEBASTIAN KOMOR (ZOMBIE GIRL, ICON OF COIL, KOMOR KOMMANDO ao)
SUICIDE COMMANDO
TERRORFAKT
THOMAS RAINER (NACHTMAHR, L'ÂME IMMORTELLE)
VNV NATION (Ronan Harris)
X MARKS THE PEDWALK (Sevren Ni-Arb)
SL: At the end of 2009, we'll be able to look back at three decades of electronic underground music. What does this symbolic anniversary evoke for you?
LUC VAN ACKER : I only took part in Old School Industrial era (1984), and I can't believe how electronic music has become so big everywhere in 2010 and so accessible for everyone with a laptop.
DIVE: A lot of good memories about listening to my favorite music and making this kind of music myself, ha! It started all with sound experiments and selfbuild analogue synths introduced to a larger audience through bands like Kraftwerk and Suicide. It became big in the 90ties - with so many bands , too many to mention - to evolve completely analogue in this decade and be a part of every scene you can think of like electro, dance, trance, wave, industrial, crossover, pop and so on and on... and the end is still far away.
ATTRITION : Well, we have been here for most of that journey... So many special memories, and for me it has all gone by rather too quickly! It has been a time of great change in music... it started with punk and post punk, and it was taken up by all of us that embraced this whole new culture of sound. In a way, this music has now come of age... although at the same time, I think it has a long way to go. There's so much more to explore....
I believe industrial music really does reflect the sounds of our lives in the 21st century... and as our lives adapt, evolve, and change, then so will the music that expresses it. Long may it continue to do so...
SL: How does it feel to be a pioneer in the genre, and were you aware that you were getting involved in something completely new and special that would go on for the next thirty years?
BILL LEEB: I feel quite honored and fortunate to have been a part of a movement that has changed, and still is changing, music forever. From the first time I heard Throbbing Gristle and Cabaret Voltaire, to the fist time Kevin and me were making sounds for Skinny Puppy and then with FLA, I felt like this was so new and underground, and that nobody in Canada understood it when I felt we were on to something completely new and different. I think this genre has always been overlooked and dismissed by the general public and music critics as not being 'real', but in retrospect they were all wrong as this is easily the most, and will continue to be the most, influential scene as time goes by... as long as technology keeps forging forward. The next three decades should also be exciting and, as it stands now, I feel bad for anybody who wasn't there for the last three decades. It was a special time in electronic music that will never be relived.
DIVE: Of course, nobody thinks he's involved in something new. I'am also inspired like so many musicians, not to say all, by other bands and music I like. That's the real spirit of a true musician, absorbing all those influences and try to create something new. And indeed I'm now for 3 decades part of this electronic scene but I still feel there's a lot to be discovered still and that's the real reason why a musician continues.
SL: Do you think we can still speak about music as being 'underground' today? What's your view on it?
NEON JUDGEMENT: Underground music is very hard to find these days; it doesn't fit into any radio format anymore. And 'clean' radio formats are everywhere now. These formats are killing music as well as the underground mentality. So, there must be underground music but the problem is where to find it. Probably on the internet, but even then there is so much music on the net that you'll need some luck to find the right stuff. When we started off with making our albums, we still had underground radio - there was Studio Brussels (BRT) with Luc Jansen ("Domino"), and there were also many independent radio stations like FM Brussels, and Radio Scorpio (Leuven) that broadcasted underground/alternative music. But underground doesn't fit into the today's system anymore... it's like the modern radio format is saying that people shouldn't bother with difficult to find music. So, now it only exists as a sub-sub-sub form somewhere in the catacombs of society. There's also the economical factor - when labels finance music nowadays, they prefer bands whose music fits into 'the radio format'.
OOMPH!: I guess it all depends on how you would define 'underground'! Underground is kind of like the opposite of the mainstream, so I would say 'YES'! Although some of the bands have achieved very high chart positions, there still is a big underground scene, just as it was in the beginning. And I think that it will always be like that, because for the mainstream audience, the electronic underground music with all its different styles is still much too extreme.
SL: From our journalistic perspective, it sounds quite easy to make music today, with the amount of software programs/synths being readily available to these numerous new bands! What do you think about this evolution?
KMFDM : Actually, I think of it as a de-evolution, as it does not mark progress but regress. After all, the art of making music, and the challenge for any so-called artist who makes music, is completely taken out of the equation. There's really no art involved when dialing up sound-presets, and operating pre-programmed soft- or hardware. Any device of that sort is as limited and/or (un) creative as the creator initially determines it to be. The result of so many 'bands' using these things is that a huge part of the current output of this type of music has become predictable, choc-a-bloc, and simply repetitive. Quantity cannot make up for lack of quality. I think sometimes of this person I know who recently told me that they had 'won a match of tennis' ... on a Wii gaming console! When I asked if he ever played 'real' tennis, the answer was no... however, he was convinced that he now could actually 'play' real tennis.
The uncomfortable parallel is that there are a lot of people out there that aren't even familiar with the real process of making, creating, inventing, and performing music. Yet somehow they think that they are, just by knowing how to push a few buttons on some ridiculous 'all-in-one' machine. If instant gratification was not meant to be a selling-point, then these toys wouldn't sell after all.
NEON JUDGEMENT: Well, with all this software and stuff, you don't need to make a large effort to produce music. So, the music has a much less specific character today. It's become much less personal. With The Neon Judgement, we started with an idea and then found synthesizers and guitars to feed that idea. We had to have a job to get the money to buy the music material. Because we had to go through doing this, it added more character to our music. Nowadays, you can get all the equipment for free and without a lot of trouble by using / downloading plug-ins... and everyone uses nearly the same software and keyboard sounds... so...
ATTRITION: Years ago, I would dream of owning a special synth or sampler... I imagined all that I could do with it... and if I was ever fortunate enough to get hold of one, I would spend so much time learning it and putting it to use in my music. Nowadays, it's exciting; we can have a synth for the price of a few minutes wait and a couple of mouse clicks, and I think it's good that it gives everyone an opportunity. But there is the danger of drowning in all of this... and I find it just as difficult to make music today as it ever was... well, music that means anything... and I think that is just how it should be!
XMTP: Oh yes, that's a quite interesting point. When I started to arrange new technical infrastructures for music production in my house, I was amazed. I remember when I established my T.G.I.F. recording studio in 1990 - it was so expensive to make professional recordings possible... even just MIDI-based music productions! A bunch of hardware filled that small studio room. Today, you have a bunch of pure digital tools that help you to realize nearly every sound you want... yet it is still within a wide range of quality and price. So, there has been no real change at all - it's now just on another level and platform. When I produced the new X-Marks The Pedwalk album, I was extremely happy about the flexibility that digital production offered me, but the most important aspect remains - one needs to have creative ideas and needs to compose good, interesting tracks. This can not be solved by technology only!
SL: What do you think we will remain from the electronic music produced in between the years 2000 - 2009?
LUC VAN ACKER: I can only speak for myself, but the electronic music genre called 'glitch' and 'sinewave' (for example, Alva Noto, Ryoji Ikeda) left a big impression on me.
SEBASTIAN KOMOR: Memories... are they a recipe for disaster? No really, there's been a lot of great music during that time, but it was also the fall of many great bands, labels, and music stores/chains. It was the years that it all started falling apart. Now, I guess it's time to build things back up and try to keep the spirit going without slowly starving the people who are behind the music, shows, and labels... well, the core of the music industry, I guess. Things are falling apart, that's undeniable. I really hope it picks up again, as music is truly something amazing.
THOMAS RAINER: What we experienced in the past decade was what I would call the 'reunification' of EBM and techno. In the late 80s / early 90s bands like Front 242 or Germany's Eco were on the same compilations and played at the same parties as projects like U96, Marusha or Westbam... It was more or less one style of music and it was called techno. Later on with different influences coming in, the styles parted and became EBM and techno, with EBM later leading to all the new styles of our subculture with the influences of rock, punk, wave and industrial. Nearly all of these styles (aggrotech, industrial, powernoise, etc.) started getting inspired by the evolved techno and it's own substyles and incorporated a lot of these influences into their own sound which resulted in bringing both closer together than when they were divided.
The 2000s further saw what some call the democratization of music. With CPUs becoming more and more powerful and affordable, a broad part of the population was able to produce and record music and distribute it through the internet. 10-20 years ago, every band had to first work their asses off in the concert business to acquire the funds needed to record a demo and maybe through that get signed to a label. All that lead to a flood of bands and projects that were thrown at the market without any filtering and that immensely damaged the quality of releases, from the recording as well as the arrangement and production side.
SL: What have been the main facts and points of evolution in the electronic scene during the last decade?
NEON JUDGEMENT: Technically, it was the software. Artistically (and for my personal taste), the French electronic artists who did a lot of good things with electronic music equipment the latest years, like The Hacker, David Carretta, Super Discount, and Vitalic to just name a few... and they do that in respect to the legacy from 'Les Belges' and what we created in electronic music during the 80s! And that's a main fact!
NOISUF-X / X-FUSION: The main fact is, that it's now very easy to make music. Everybody can start making music without spending a lot of money. For some people it's good... but sometimes I think the quality of music was better in the times when artists had to spend a lot of money to it. Back then, only the ones who were REALLY interested in making music were able to release something. Nowadays, everybody can download an illegal copy of Music Maker... or something like that... and upload their shit to Myspace.
The other thing I've noticed is that it's more and more about financial success, and not about good music. Too many bands try to copy what their favorite bands or successful bands are doing. I like bands that actually try to find their own way... because it's the only way to create something new.
SUICIDE COMMANDO: I've noticed quite a few changes in the electronic scene over the last years... some for the good, some unfortunately also for the worse. Technically, the electronic scene evolved enormously over the last ten to twenty years. When I started doing music back in the 80s, computers were still as good as being nonexistent, so everything still had to be done with expensive 'real' instruments as softsynths and music software didn't exist at that time. Today, however, they've invaded the entire market, and only few artists still work in the old way.
Not only there was the technical (r)evolution, but it also became way easier and, above all, cheaper to do and create music - those old synthesizers and samplers really cost a fortune ! This has resulted in a real flood of new artists and releases; so today, we do get a lot of quantity. Unfortunately, quantity doesn't always mean quality, so it can be considered as one of the dangers of today's scene as well.
Of course, the rise of the internet also resulted in way more bands self releasing their music, with many bands using new platforms like MySpace and Facebook to reach the people. But unfortunately with the arrival of the internet, there also came illegal downloading and the arrival of the mp3 generation which has caused a lot of real drama on the CD market. Over the last decade, CD sales have dropped drastically because of file sharing or illegal downloads, and many labels, distributors and shops have already gone bankrupt and for sure more will follow in the next few years. The CD became a dying medium.
Musically, I've seen the electronic scene more move towards the techno industrial scene, with hard pounding beats and vocal samples, and with an ever-increasing tempo. When I started doing music, 120 BPM (beats per minute) was really fast, but today songs with 120 BPM have somehow become slow, while the average song now has a BPM rate between 135 and 150. I guess it somehow follows the speed of our lives, as life also goes faster and faster these days.
ARMAGEDDON DILDOS: I think many musicians looked back to the music of the 80s and 90s in order to create something new. However, I hear this fusion of musical styles not only within the electronic scene. The sound and the music of Kraftwerk, for example, was something totally new. Today, it's hard to create something comparable... but we always should try.
DEPENDENT: Unfortunately, it has mostly been a process of fragmentation and de-evolution. Even if you look at 'industrial' music only, you will find a good dozen subgenres that have evolved and created their own smaller and smaller scenes, as many people were not really willing to adapt or to incorporate other types of music into their mindset or lifestyle. This has had a devastating effect on the infrastructure of this scene, I am afraid. In some ways, some parts of industrial are now MORE underground than they were ten years ago. But, on top of being 'underground', they have also become devalued. However - in an effort to also say something positive here - at the same token, you will have to realize that electronic music is here to permanently stay. Right now, this is the third decade of a subculture that started out as a very small venture, and the fact it lasted thirty years now is a very positive thing to me.
SL: Dark electronic music has been never as 'popular' throughout the scene as it has been in the past few years! Why do think there is this newfound fascination for darker music?
SUICIDE COMMANDO: I think dark electronic music always was popular - just think of bands like Leaether Strip, Placebo Effect, Yelworc... but just like any trend, it has its ups and downs. The same happened with Futurepop and now with EBM - just look at the EBM revival of the last few years. And like it always is with trends, you always get a lot of followers... and then once it becomes popular, you also get the haters and bashers! So, in the last few years a lot of new bands jumped onto the dark electronic wagon copying their examples or influences, but only the best will survive.
SL: The internet has considerably changed our life, and I dare to say the world, and it has had a great impact on the music scene as well! Facing the pros and cons, what's your conclusion about this tool?
ALFA MATRIX: From the very start of the Alfa Matrix label, we embraced the internet at full. The fact that I had worked as marketing responsible for Belgium's biggest e-shop back in the late '90s did influence this a lot. I knew that physical stores were going to have big problems as far distribution was concerned seeing 'how' and 'why' people purchased their goods online. It was impossible that a brick and mortar store would every deliver such a service. So we became the first label to have an own webstore that shipped out worldwide at very competitive prices and therefor now have - after almost 10 years - a very targetted customers database of which most online CD shops can only dream of.
That was before downloading became a bit of a problem. When we realised that downloading was becoming more and more important (even with the piracy problem), we sought a trustful long term partner to get our entire catalogue digitalised for online downloads via all kind of services. Again, Alfa Matrix was the first label to have a worldwide download deal for its entire catalogue.
So, I think you get the point, Alfa Matrix would not be there where it is now without the internet and we try to exploit and use it at maximum when we feel that it can be properly used. It won't stop there because we are already working on something new as well, something that we see that other labels don't even pay attention to but which is becoming increasingly important.
OOMPH! : The internet is not killing music! It is helping to spread your music to everybody around the world very quickly and easily. What is killing the music (both the industry and your favorite bands) is the attitude of the consumer. They believe that it is legal to copy music without paying for it! This is wrong and it's killing your bands. If you have the need for music, you have to buy it! If you are hungry, you pay for your food... or do you steal it in the supermarket, too?
SL: Beyond record sales, the internet's made it much easier for fans to interact with the musicians they admire, as well as given those musicians a way to broadcast their thoughts and opinions without the need of interviews, liner notes, and newsletters. Do you think that's been a positive or negative facet to working in the genre?
ATTRITION: On the whole, it's positive... I think we still need interviews, newsletters, and most of those traditional ways to get the message out, but I love the fact that through everything from blogs to status updates we can now put out our thoughts on anything we bloody well feel like without needing anyone else to get it out there. It breaks down barriers and it can be liberating at times... although it can also be diverting... and sometimes it is maybe a little TOO easy to say what is on your mind... like a step down the road to the whole world hearing your every thought...!
NOISUF-X / X-FUSION: If a musician has the time to search for interesting or important questions between the spam, it's a good thing for the fan to get a direct answer to a question he can't find in any interview. But if we're talking about Myspace, for example, 95 % of the messages and guestbook entries you get there is pure spam. So, I disabled the function to write me messages and I don't read my guestbook because it bores me to hell to read again and again 'do you like me - YES or NO?' or 'we are band XY - visit our Myspace site'.
I think interviews are still the best way to give answers to hundreds of people at the same time, but a lot of people have become too lazy to read interviews and end up asking really stupid questions via email, like 'where do you play live?', and 'where can I buy (or download) your album?'. I don't answer these mails, because all answers to these questions are already on my website. If people are too lazy or stupid to read the information there, it's not my problem. Only sometimes I will receive questions via email that are worth answering.
SL: World and local politics have long been tied in with the music of the electronic underground, spanning a range of artists from Ministry to Suicide Commando. What major newsworthy issues do you think had the most impact on the genre over the last ten years, and how do you perceive those statements standing the test of time when these works are looked back on in the future?
DEPENDENT: Unfortunately, I think that the content of lyrics and topics are becoming less and less relevant for electronic music and its perception. Especially industrial music, which started out as a very artsy and almost political kind of music; it is safe to say that this is not the case anymore. I can only mention the protests against the Bush administration as the main topic of artists for the better part of the last decade... and rightfully so. I remember Ministry, Suicide Commando, Stromkern, Nine Inch Nails all singing about the same thing. But then again, everybody in this music scene completely agreed on the GWB thing, so it was almost pointless. I am a little sad to take notice that apart from those kinds of protests, I can hardly put my finger on anything else that I can remember. There are some brilliant small songs that are very nice statements that I would like to mention, like Dismantled's 'On Your Knees' on the 9/11 attack, or SVD's 'Decay' on the Columbine Shootings; both managed to impressively document the impact these tragedies had on us.
CRUNCH POD: I think the largest issues to impact the genre were the terror attacks of 09/11/01 in the US and 07/07/05 attacks in the UK. I think there were more political-type songs about the 'War On Terror' and the U.S.' response than really anything else over the past decade. I think it'll stand the test of time for at least a while, especially when considering that the U.S. is still actively involved in combat in two areas as a direct result of 9/11. It seemed to light a fire under artists after a period of time when this scene was far less politically active in the songs and albums that were being written.
DJ23: Wow, being an American, it would seem the number one answer to that question would be King George the Second and his poorly planned war, which seems to have completely disrupted the world order. Things like that I feel make this kind of genre and culture thrive, though. Ministry put out some of their best work when this country has been being oppressed by either of the Bushes. KMFDM also thrived during both Bush regimes, though at one point KMFDM and the culture were tied into an unfortunate tragedy, which hugely affected turnout and fresh faces in the U.S. events. To this day, people in trench coats are still feared by the mainstream's thought and ignorance. It seems to me, though, the rest of the world coexists with this sub-culture better than the U.S. does... there is some taboo that's still here. At the same time, however, with everyone in the U.S. being beaten into submission to look and act the same, some people towards the end of the decade have escaped and wandered into our subculture to stay and have had enjoyable experiences. In this genre, I believe certain works will stand the test of time but mainstream people will still watch A.I. and not care who that band is at the junkyard. It's all about the love for the music and having fun no matter what style of music you deal with. As long as we help educate the masses in whatever way we can to show that we are not serial killers and mass murderers and just like the rest of the world and have our own gripes, grievances and passion, we can rebuild from whatever trials and tribulations befall us all as a cyber kid, rivithead, or whatever you feel you want to be categorized as within this scene.
TERRORFAKT: I think a lot of the top news stories and topics over the past decade have really shaped the music in this genre. September 11th attacks, stem cell research, space travel, illegal downloads, the war in Iraq and Afghanistan, sleeper cells, terrorism, Side-Line Forums drama, etc. We've seen a lot happen in the past ten years in the world as we know it, so that is guaranteed to inspire and define the way artists write.
SL: It's almost natural that the new generation involved in the underground scene will look back on the previous one as being more revolutionary. In your mind, how do the nineties, or even the eighties, stack up against the 2000's? Is it a case of rose-colored glasses when looking backwards, or did you find the decade to be creatively sterile in comparison?
CAT RAPES DOG: The 80s started off in a creative burst with new wave and post-punk, where everything was possible. A lot of music from the early 80s still sounds fresh to me. New Order's Power, Corruption and Lies and Cabaret Voltaire's The Crackdown are still great pieces of work. However, the mid to late 80s didn't survive as well; there's not much I still enjoy listening to from that period. The same can be said for the early 90s with its fascination for the new techno genre. Especially horrible today is the 'techno beat mixed with metal riffs' songs from the mid 90s. I remember thinking that was so cool at the time... but it's not. The late 90s and the rest of the 00s have been more interesting. The electronic scene today encompasses so many different styles, and to me feels more vital than ever.
ARMAGEDDON DILDOS: I think we have to go back to even the 70s, when electronic music got bigger and bigger. Bands like Kraftwerk put something totally new into music and that carried on during the 80s and 90s with bands like Depeche Mode, Nitzer Ebb, Front 242, Skinny Puppy, D.A.F... there are so many bands, so forgive me for not naming all of them. And there was the growth of techno, house, trip hop, etc., as well. The music of the last decade is - to me - a conclusion of these three decades and I have to say it was not as innovative.
From their very first official release ("Snuff EP" released in 2002) the duo Carsten Jacek - Thomas Lesczenski, better known as Shadow In The Dark [SITD] became a 'hot' band in the dark electronic universe. Today they've launched their 4st full length to date and the less I can say is that this is for sure their best album to date! "Rot" reveals a harder approach in sound with several potential dancefloor killers. We tried to catch [SITD] right after their "Rot"-tour. It seemed to be a very good opportunity to get some more details from this great new album! (By Stéphane Froidcoeur)
SL: I guess you guys will be just back from the "Rot"-tour when getting these questions in your mailbox so how did the tour happened?
Carsten: The "Rot"-tour was a fantastic experience for us all. We were totally overwhelmed by the reactions of the audience. It's incomparable to stand on stage and look how the audience reacts to our music. It's a wonderful feeling to share your emotions with the crowd, to give something and get something back. We are very grateful to our fans!
SL: You went on tour with Reaper and Amnistia! How did the tour with these bands come true and how was the contact between the bands?
Carsten: Before the tour started we had a meeting with our booking-agency Neuwerk. We were in complete agreement that [:SITD:], Reaper and Amnistia would be a great package for the tour. Reaper and Amnistia are wonderful guys and we've enjoyed every minute we spend with them on tour.
SL: You mainly played in Germany, but also in the UK and The Netherlands! Do you feel some differences between the audience and reactions from these countries and where's your favorite audience and place to play?
Tom: Generally, we like to perform live. We have no preferences.
SL: In times of financial crisis and decreasing cd-sales, touring is often the best way for a band to convince people buying their cd and making some money! What do you think about it and what do you expect from the future?
Tom: Like every single band in this scene, [:SITD:] is confronted with this problem. And yes, we wouldn't be able to survive it without going on tour. We can only stand by, shaking our heads in disbelief, as we watch the music into which we have invested months or years of our lives being ripped and copied for free. Consider this example: If 75% of the audience at a concert gained entry with forged tickets, the promoter, the band, the concert agency, and the venue would all be broke in a matter of weeks…
SL: Over now to your new album entitled "Rot"! I personally experience this 4th album as your hardest one to date! What do you think about it and what kind of album did you have in mind when starting the writing?
Tom: That's right. Before we started working in the studio we set ourselves specific standards we never let out of sight during the creative process of the album. We wanted to make an album, sounding much harder and more direct compared to its predecessor. To achieve this specific, genuine immediacy and authenticity we focused on the bare essentials and removed needless dead freight. Furthermore, we upped the BPM count significantly. One basic concern of ours also was to create a certain roughness production-wise, not heard from us in such consequence since "Snuff Machinery" and "Laughingstock".
SL: How much time did it take to compose and achieve this album and where there some songs, which caused you more trouble than other ones? Tell us a bit more about it?
Tom: We're constantly working on new songs. As soon as we have any idea, we record it as demo or lyric draft. After returning from our North American tour end of 2008, we started specifically working out the collected ideas. No, there was not a particular song, which caused us more trouble than other ones.
SL: What has been the first song you composed for "Rot" and in which way did this song opened a path for the other songs?
Carsten: The title track "Rot" was the first song we've written for the new album. The red colour of the skies described here are a metaphor for the positive associations with the colour "Red" like warmth, energy and love. In our darkest ours we often oversee the positive signals and are not susceptible to them. 'Rot' is meant for all those standing on the edge not knowing how to move on. 'Rot' is a positive signal, a rescuing hand meant to keep us away from the abyss. We're purposely utilizing a pictorial language to make it possible for the listeners to find themselves within the song. There are songs not letting go of you and the title track was such a song. We basically wanted the album to have a high degree of club compatibility, but of course it's also important to constantly re-invent yourself and to explore new musical grounds for yourself. We guess, "Rot" is a good example for that. It has definitely opened a path for the other songs of the new album.
SL: More personally to you what symbolizes this colour (red) to you and especially as title of your new album?
Carsten: "Rot" is a strongly accentuated title which is expressing just what we're connecting with [:SITD:]. "Rot" (Red) stands for warmth and energy, joy and passion, but also for aggression, rage and a revolutionary fighting spirit. Everything we do, we're pursuing with all our energy, joy and passion which is something we also want to convey to our listeners. Furthermore, "Rot" is THE signal and warning colour. This, in turn, can be adapted on our songs, which you can interpret as wake-up calls with which we want to address social injustices in society. Let's take "Frontal" as an example. The song's main topic is the growing number of intrusions of the state into the privacy of its citizens, often covered as counter-terrorism. Through data preservation of phone and Internet data it is possible for the state in Germany since 2008 to trace back who was in contact with whom within the last 6 months.
With the help of this data collected from all citizens, they can now create movement profiles, trace back business contacts, and identify private relationships. Also it is possible now to draw conclusions about personal interests and the private situation of the communicating person. Other measures like eavesdropping operations or the possible implementation of a Trojan program financed by the German government are another cause for concern. We're always wondering about how passive big parts of the German citizens react about this; or better condone it. We won't look away and will express our point of view and so, we've come full circle with the album title again, because we do what we do with lots of rage in our guts and a revolutionary fighting spirit, so the title is important to the album in more than one way.
SL: As already mentioned 'red' as a color symbolizes a lot of items so what's your favorite one and why?
Carsten: "Rot" is also the traditional colour of the labour movement we can completely identify with as children of the German Ruhr area. The colour stands for our origin and roots.
SL: It also brings me to the front cover of the album showing a red flag (with the logo of your band) in the midst of a sea (lake or whatever). What did you try to represent here?
Carsten: We didn't want anything bold, but wanted to create an open room for interpretations. We wanted something that is beyond realism. The red flag on the water surface admittedly is a surreal scenario. It was our goal to explore the unreal, the dreamy, as well as the depths of the unconscious and to expand the field of experience limited by human logic with the fantastic and the absurd. That's why we chose this surrealistic approach. The good thing about an artistic depiction is that everyone has different feelings and associations when looking at a picture. There's no universal explanation neither for a song nor for an artwork. As an artist you can express your intentions with certain depictions, but that is not to say that other renditions are wrong. It's quite the contrary: Art is playing with these open spaces, so does music and also language. There's always more than just one truth. What you're getting out of it for yourself all lies in the eye of the beholder. In case of the cover we wouldn't feel comfortable with limiting the imagination of the beholder by delivering our own view.
SL: Did you use new material to compose this album? What have been the main tools you used?
Tom: Various synths and software programs. Partly new, partly old. Every song has its unique requirements, which we try to fulfill. (...)
I can easily imagine 9 Elma isn't directly a name that will makes ring a bell! And yet, this French project is already active for more or less 2 decades, releasing a few good-old demo tapes and even a self-released Mcd during the 90s. After a long hibernation 9 Elma seems to have found a second life, releasing its very first official album on the great M-Tronic. "Coeur Liquide" is an album, which surprises by a progressive electronic complex sound. This project doesn't really walk on familiar standards, but sounds like a real challenge, which I'm sure will please to the lovers of M-Tronic! This interview was also quite particular to me as I know Stéphane Tremel (mastermind behind 9 Elma) since the early 90s! The less I can say is that he remains a very kind and passionate musician, which after all these years of commitment finally say a dream coming true! (By Stéphane Froidcoeur)
SL: Hello Stéphane, long time ago! After all these years of commitment I didn't really expect the official debut-cd of 9 Elma! Congratulations, but how did this album finally come true and how do you feel with "Coeur Liquide"?
ST: Hello Stéphane, I am very happy to speak with you again and answer to your questions. Less than two years ago, I was still composing with my old Atari when a radical change happened in my professional life. I had the opportunity to renew my audio devices, so I was ready to explore other skylines. In the new project, both the meeting with Grazia and the help of Laurent Le Fers (manager of the M-Tronic label) were very important. For a first album, we are rather happy with "Coeur Liquide". We wanted it to be very rich in melodies and I think we managed it. This is a new beginning and we don't want to stop here. We are already working on the next one.
SL: I know your music since the early 90s, which is quite a long time ago! How do you look back on the early years of 9 Elma and how do you explain is took that much time before the release of an official album?
ST: Today I am still proud to have participated in one of your first compilations "Elektrauma Vol 2" with a track like "Final Process", thanks again! I regret nothing from the beginning, it was very exiting. In comparison with today, it was necessary to go to the essential with few technologic devices for people like me who didn't have money. I still have this minimal and vintage approach to compose. Before the first album, nothing happened due to a lack of time. But it's like this, music is out of time, isn't it ? May be we will have some success when we will be 60. ( laugh )
SL: 9 Elma has been active for 2 decades now so what are according to you the main changes/evolutions in music between the 90s and the millennium?
ST: For me, the techno styles really brought some changes in electronic music. Also for example, some artists from the Warp label still continue to innovate like the last album of Chris Clark. Of course, there are many others. Today, music is also multimedia like photo, everybody can access easily to this technology. That's nice, but the result is a complete dehumanized music. The names have changed but we still go back to the old school style from the 80's or 90's. Today, EBM, electro dark or whatever absurd labelings are looking for an identity. Fortunately, inside this scene there are some nice bands. At the moment, it's not the same for noise industrial music, which is in crisis I think, most bands still uses the same virtual synths, the same sound banks, the same distorted beat boxes... as a result it is difficult to obtain a personal sound and have an original identity.
SL: How do you see the evolution of 9Elma in music and influences from the 90s till today?
ST: I think that learning sound in professional school has brought a lot in the development of the project. In a way the fact that Grazia is coming from Jazz, rock and soul has also reinforced our compositions. Concerning influences, we have many ones of course excepting The Beatles of course (laugh). Nobody in the music can't say you don't have any, but I have to admit that the Severed Heads album "Come Visit A Big Bigot" has left some marks on me.
SL: When we met in the early 90s I remember you did most of the composition with just a sampler! How do you look back to that time and what has changed for so far?
ST: In fact, not too many things! I still have my old Akai sampler, which sometimes I use. In the past I had one SH 101 and one Juno 106 that I sold to buy a Moog. Two years ago, we bought a Polyevolver, it's a fantastic synth with a very particular sound and very good for harmonics. We love it a lot. Except that today we use a modern computer to record audio and not a tape support anymore. Like many others, we still forge all our sounds starting from a white page and recording live plays. We don't need more, with this two synths, you can do everything, it's already a luxury for us.
SL: What kind of album did you've in mind and how would you describe "Coeur Liquide"?
ST: We did not have any specific album in mind, we just listen to our heart which becomes liquid as soon as the tracks take shape. As well, "Coeur Liquide" is the immaculate white as the very lively red, some extreme softness for a special trip and specific gravity, dynamics, this is a mystical modern tribal dance.
SL: And what does the title of the album stands for?
ST: "Coeur Liquide" is talking about itself. Everyone could imagine its own, but one is the metallic heart of the earth's crust in opposition with the excited heart of the sun in perpetual movement. Also, we talk about solar nuclear heart which one running faster than the star itself. You can imagine the magnetic strength that could be generated with earth and human beings, more complex and intense with a planet like Venus ( Venus tears ).
SL: How did the writing and recording of the album happened and how much time did it take to finalize the whole thing?
ST: I composed the songs together with Grazia. Other artists like 'Céline', (a talented singer who made her album with the collaboration of 'Eu' 'Funckarma', 'Ulrich Schnauss' on M-tronic a few years ago) put some voices on "Shaman" and Sébastien Seban added some guitars on "Venus Tears".
We started by creating sounds from a simple periodic wave thinking both melodic and emotional . We like this method, For us it's a good way to get more personality into our sound. For a full album, it takes more or less 8 months for the whole thing.
SL: Tell us a bit more about the input of Laurent Le Fers (owner of M-Tronic)?
ST: Laurent took care about the concept, cd artwork, track listing and visual aspect, and he also plays live, he has a long experience of it and is very objective about it. Cecile also takes care about a special visual aspect on stage; she's coming from the public and start painting. She's creating some strange beings/faces that we would not like to meet in the street at night. ( laugh )
SL: Tell us a bit more about this visual aspect?
ST: As I said, Cecile takes part in the show by doing some live painting, most of the time she pops up from the crowd, come on the scene and does whatever she feels like... it's like our 5th element on stage (laugh). And we also have some strong videos on stage reflecting the spirit of our music, everything is red and white.
My Life with the Thrill Kill Kult (TKK), the American electronic industrial band originally based out of Chicago, Illinois, is back on Rustblade records with the "Death Threat" album. It resulted to be a release which is showing again what the act is really about in the first place. When signed to Wax Trax! Records, along with label mates Ministry, KMFDM, and Front 242, Thrill Kill Kult helped develop the industrial music genre. The band evolved creating a sound that mixed electronic club music with heavy beats. A band which didn't bother recycling the recipe over ad over again. It did not exactly make them rich, but then again, they didn't really bother. We caught Buzz McCoy and Groovie Mann for a long overdue interview! (By Elise Din)
SL The new album "Death Threat" is out on your own label Sleazebox and on Rustblade in Europe. How did you end up on Rustblade records?
B. We were introduced to them by our drummer Justin. They seemed very enthusiastic and cool, so why not!
G. He's in Italy somewhere with his muse.
SL: Rustblade also released a limited edition version (299 copies) which included bonus mixes, postcard, stickers, a mini-cd and skull pendent. A real gem, why wasn't this released via your own label as well? We Europeans just love limited editions you know ! :)
G. Its cool that excitement still exists with that, I was thrilled about Black Sabbaths Masters of Reality CD!!! I gotta get that, Children of the Grave alt. Mixes!!!! Unreal...
B. It was enough work for us just to get the CD out as is.
SL. In the US the album was originally planned to be only available directly from the band as a physical CD and as a download, why change your mind and include iTunes and other download stores?
B. We always intended it to be available from itunes, etc... just physically from us.
G. I Guess to reach out any way we can in this day & age to be heard.
SL. Our reviewer said that "Death Threat" sometimes sounds closer to a compilation than to a new album of a band. You explore different styles and influences. Can you agree with this?
G. Yeah sorta, this album is allot of different moves/moods about change so naturally it will sound like a compilation as we are as well just a bunch of moods & mood swings.
B. I think most of our albums span a broad range of styles. that's just what we do. we don't like confining ourselves to just one sound - unless of course it's more of a "concept" CD, as our album "Hit & Run Holiday" was.
SL. The opening track "Witchpunkrockstar" kicks The Prodigy's ass by far. And "Foxxxy Rockit" sounds like it has been influenced by Stereo MC's?
B. Thanxxx for your "Witchpunkrockstar" comment!! But... Hmmmm ... I've heard the name 'Stereo MC's', but never their music.
G. I am not sure if I've ever heard em?
SL. You don't really care about trends and compromises, I suppose this has not always made things easier for you?
G. Only in the old days when record companies didn't know where to go with things unknown.
B. well, it certainly hasn't made us rich, or kept us in the graces of the "industry", because basically no one knows what to do with us or how to market us... but that's just fine. we never intended to do this to be famous or anything. again, it's just what we do and we don't compromise on who we are.
SL. With Obama entering the presidential arena, do you see less animosity towards the band compared to the early days when religious groups balked at the overtly occult imagery in both the music and the artwork of the releases?
B. No matter who is president, there will always be those zealots and religious freaks that find "satanic" elements in everything!
G. Xtains (Christians) need to go away,.. but I never watch the news anymore? (...)
Nobody doubts any longer that if you like anything synth or techno pop with an EBM aftertase, Sweden is the place to be. The trio become duo Dupont had already made their own mark in the alternative scene with the excellent 'Intermezzo', after two previous releases that had passed slightly under the spotlight. After four years of silence, Riccardo & Danucci return with a new record, keeping up the collaboration with Covenant members, and a new label, Progress Productions. Moving into a more sober and mature sound, with a record like 'Entering the Ice Age' it is easy to understand why Sweden remains in the public eye. (By Isis Catalina Milan Scheiding)
SL: Since the beginning of Dupont and also in "Entering The Ice Age" you keep many songs at a mid tempo level. I imagine you are not ones to believe more speed = more strength. What do you think makes the intensity of a song?
D: As with a lot of our old favourites the intensity is found in the transformation the vocalist undergo as it melts together with the lyrics. Some of our fans told us that the low tempo of some of our songs creates a tension between the notes, changes within the song and lyrics as well.
SL: Since I heard "Ukrania" I really liked the popish melody you gave to dark songs. I think the perfect example might have been "Ghostdance". You keep up the taste in "Entering The Ice Age". How do you find a balance between keeping the songs dark oriented but working out a catchy sort of melody?
D: It' fun dancing on the edge of a knife between heartfulness, honesty and right down attitude. Its nothing we exercise that much intentionally but we tend to end up that way. A well balanced song is probably important to catch the attention of the listener on multiple levels. It comes out quite natural.
SL: "New Dawn" has many arrangements that remind me of a house song. Even while keeping the grave vocals, would you say Dupont is more dirty electro and lighter in this record?
D: We have no idea, really. I remember us talking about house music when conceptualizing the song though. I still think we are dark electro EBM-band. Larry Heard may call us anytime.
SL: What have you been listening to lately that you could say has been a source of ideas?
D: David Allan Coe, ZZ Top, basically anything Daniel Myer throws at us, Joy Division and some old EBM tracks.
SL: I really like "Like We Never Loved" for the vibrating base and subtle melody. Would you consider that production-wise you have taken a long step forward in this record, especially in the details?
D: We just try our outmost at every turn and we might just gotten a bit better at making songs sounding better. We are no tech aficionados or stay long in the post production stage, we try to finish off songs as soon as possible. But of course like with a lot of other musicians a new tool can give you a temporary boost in tweaking sounds but not really the essence of songs.
SL: It is also one of the tracks that perhaps has a more Covenant sound. You've worked with Eskil Simmonson on this record and Joakim Montelius had remixed a prior song. How was the experience? Is the synth oriented scene in Sweden pretty tight?
D: It's pretty tight. Sweden is a VERY small country where all synthie acts know each other more or less. Eskil supported us with some song recording on "Entering The Ice Age", but apart from that the album is self-made. On our horizon Sweden has a large market share of composers in the business as well, it makes us feeling close to everyone. We meet people from Run Level Zero, Pain Machinery, System on a bi-weekly basis. (...)
Bristol's electropop stars Mesh are back. Three years after their last studio album "We Collide" - and with one member less after the sudden departure of Neil Taylor leaving Mark Hockings and Richard Silverthorn as a duo - Mesh return on a different label (Dependent Records in Europe and Metropolis Records for North America) presenting the single "Only better" and the album "A Perfect Solution". The album was recorded before the band was actually signed and shows a band free of any compromise, but still delivering exquisite electropop pearls. Advised purchase via a legal store! Side-Line talked to Rich for some more insight in the band's recent moves. (By Bernard Van Isacker)
SL: "If we stay here" surely sums up your career in Mesh, especially the complete phrase which says "If we stay here, we die here". Standing still has never been your modus operandi so to speak. Was that also with that idea in mind that this song was written?
R: No not really, but I like the analogy (laughs). The phrase sums up a feeling between two people and the situation they are in. A feeling of "every day is the same" and an overwhelming desire to break away from that. A feeling we all have from time to time when our lives seems to have reached a point and is in need of a drastic change.
SL: The past few albums have been released under different umbrella's, do you think that Dependent/Metropolis will be the final halt for you?
R: It's really hard to say. I'd like to thinks so. As a band I think we have tried different approaches with different labels. When any band starts out they (like we were) are desperate just to get something out but then the harsh reality of sales comes in. I think we have been reasonably lucky with the people we have worked with and we have sold thousands of albums but there comes a time to try new things. Dependent and Stefan Herwig just seemed like a good honest move for us. We liked what he had to say, none of the usual record company bulls**t. He also knew all about our career so far and liked what we were about and doing. It is good to work with a label you can talk to on a level, we are all working as a team, which is great.
SL: Why did you choose for this option?
R: With"A Perfect Solution" we decided to write it without a label and then nearer completion look around and find a label with the right attitude, experience and skills to promote it, that's where Stefan Herwig and Dependent comes in. We have known Stefan for years and his work with other bands and what he does in this scene. Hayo Lewerentz, our manager, put us in touch with him and we had a few meetings and we liked what we heard. Stefan also has a kind of partnership agreement with Metropolis which means a simultaneous release in the US which is good for us.
SL: Many fans wonder why Mesh is not released by a major. I think that there is still a (mis?)conception living with many fans that your kind of electropop music would easily chart, what's your take on this? Having said that, "It's gone" is a perfect pop song.
R: We have always felt the same. We are very proud and love being part of the Dark/Gothic scene but have felt we could quite easily bridge the gap between that scene and the more commercial/alternative scene in the same way as bands like Muse, Prodigy, Garbage, Placebo and even DM. We are not saying we are going to be anywhere near as big as these bands but fit in in the same way they do. Bands like that can quite comfortably play big festivals alongside pop acts and still not look out of place.
SL: Is it in the end media charts that matter for a band like Mesh?
R: The key to success for a band like us is Radio. In the past we have had a reasonable amount of airplay which has helped but I think if people got to hear it on a regular basis it would be a different story. Yes the charts would also be a big boost, the media would certainly take notice if you were riding high in the charts. The last single "Only Better" entered the charts at 84 I think, without any major radio play, so you can only imagine what it could have done if it had.
SL: Then again, one of the first things I thought was, how can a Bristol band make such a brilliant album while a multi million dollar budget band like Depeche Mode doesn't even succeed in recording 9 decent songs for an album...
R: Oooo I'll have to go carefully here won't I? (Laughs) Is it about the money you plough into it? I'm not sure it is. We have always prided ourselves on writing, recording, producing and mixing ourselves, what you hear is part of us, we put our all into the recording of our albums and I think that shows. We don't have the budget to pay some overpaid producer trying to be the next big thing; it's an honesty thing with us. Perhaps when you have made your millions and become icons of a genre of music with adoring fans all across the globe the desire and need to raise the bar with each album fades. Depeche will always be Depeche and the fans will always love everything they do...good luck to them.
SL: With Neil leaving the band, didn't this make you wonder if it was all still worth it?
R: After the "We Collide" tour Neil surprised us by said that he wanted to leave the band. Initially Mark and I weren't sure if this was the end of mesh. We both thought long and hard what we wanted to do, but soon came to the conclusion that we wanted to take it further and that it had been such a big part of our lives that we wouldn't know what to do without it.
I have to add that we both felt let down by Neil's decision as there was still a second leg of the tour to do. This left us with a problem to find someone who could fill his position. That person was a good friend of ours, Geoff Pinckney. We had known Geoff for many years as one of his early bands Glasshouse had supported us and we had stayed friends since then. Geoff was also a very good musician and vocalist. We have done a few rehearsals and instantly knew it was going to work. The four of us have a great chemistry when we are all together and totally understand each other which is a good feeling.
Mark and I make music for no other reason than because we love it. It certainly isn't for the money (laughs). (...)
Richard Viduna hails from the Czech Republic. Being signed on Advoxya Records he has just launched his 3rd full length. "Wartorn" became a conceptual album where the author can exorcize his fascination for SF and cyber themes. Musical wise mulpHia can be easily linked to the typical and 'old fashioned' dark electro scene. During the interview it clearly appears that R. Viduna isn't at all into more 'modern' and 'trendy' forms of EBM and especially when mixed with techno and/or trance elements. Can we speak here about 'conservative dark electronic music'? Or is this musician just a kind of dark electro 'purist'? This interview will maybe reveal some more details about it, but up to you to make your opinion? (By Stéphane Froidcoeur)
SL: Hello Richard, can you briefly introduce our readers to the universe of mulpHia? What are the most essential elements you want to reveal about your project?
M: Hello readers, my name is Richard Viduna and some of you maybe know me under my nickname mulpHia which I use on internet and also as a licensed artist name. I love science-fiction (prefer cyberpunk), post-apocalypse/catastrophic and horror books and movies, I also like to watch TV shows like BSG, Farscape, Fringe, Doctor Who, Big Bang Theory, Dr. House and lots of Britcoms. As you see - regular nerd J. Oh and I compose music for fun. Mostly for one man project mulpHia which is part of Advoxya Records family and secondary for something I call under working title Necrobit, and it is crossover between 8bit sounds and driven EBM sounds. There was one live show of Necrobit at Prague Dark:Live:Fest (with P.A.L. or Twinkle for example) and there is material minimal for one CD in my pocket. I also like to create some computer graphics, web designs, some kind of video manipulations, write some lyrics/poems/stories. Today's elements and standards of computer generation.
SL: Do you remember the way you get into electronic underground music and what made you decide to set up mulpHia?
M: There were 2 or 3 major steps for me.. first hearing of Skinny Puppy (greatest band ever) and Front 242 ("Tyranny For You" still stay one of my best albums I ever heard), beginning composing music on 8bit Atari800 in Chaos Music Composer (hail to the king) and the last step was the start of my own band called E/Wire (more FLA oriented sound) with my friend. Some live concerts with these band, 3 or 4 promo CDs. I think I have uploaded the whole one show on Youtube J
SL: What is the electronic scene in the Czech Republic all about and how do you as artist try to get a wider recognition?
M: I know Depressive Disorder released a new album this year - its "The Chronicle Of Fear" at Monopolrecords and another project called Tear still playing live and creating some new stuff. I've no idea what's the status for Immunology (Advoxya) or No Name Desire (Monopolrecords). I know these bands made at past some several shows on some very known gigs as Castle Party or Wave Gotik Treffen etc… and our local EBM legend Vanessa is making a new album at this time and will be produced by Alexander Hacke. There're also other projects like Anhedonia, Beamship etc. My version to get wider recognition is mostly multilayer internet oriented (official web, MySpace, social networks) 'cause at this time I run only like a studio project.
SL: You already released 2 albums in 2007! What did you keep in mind from both releases and how do they sound like?
M: Promos of these albums actually dated from '03 and '04. And when Dmitry from Advoxya contacted me I completely remastered and recreated these albums officially for the label (some songs were lost, some weren't good enough anymore etc. - so I wrote some new). "Dark Sides" has been called dark wave by some people and electro-goth by others. "Bleeding" included more guitar samples, it's darker and has been called electro-industrial.. I called both 'old-school with 80-90 horror movie atmosphere' -J I really love both cd's. And I hope we also release and rework my first full vocal album called "Pereat!". As I read at some official reviews and FWYH info (J) this cd's sound closely like early work of Solitary Experiments, Cephalgy, The Fair Sex … with goth influences on top. So buy it and make your own picture J
SL: Your new album entitled "Wartorn" has been introduced as being more aggressive! How do you explain this evolution and what's the consistence of this 'aggression'?
M: I think it's just because I'm really an old-school guy. I don't like that much the new-fashioned EBM scene; every new stuff is almost the same, there're too much dance/trance acts in the EBM scene right now (and of course there are exceptions) .. and this is maybe the way I can face my daemons. I will be one of them, I will be my own daemon.. I do aggressive dance flick-J story (lyrics) maybe does a job too. Previous lyrics were only dark thoughts, depressive feelings. These times are more about a fight.
SL: "Wartorn" also seems to be a 'conceptual' album dealing about stars, wars and intergalactic expeditions. What is the concept all about and how did you came into these subjects?
M: Not about intergalactic expeditions or beauty of stars (oh my god it's full of stars J ) but it's about final fight situation because there is already war proceed. And we are loosing it. I think the concept is inspired by Starship Troopers, Aliens movies, Quake and Starcraft game (although I always play with Zerg race). Human race is an aggressive race, so why to look back, there'll be always some war till we die, till we touch the stars.
SL: I found some information about a so called 'Brigade of 50 guns'! What is this part of the concept all about and from where did you get this idea?
M: Yeah, Brigade of 50 guns is the main part of the story. Last and forgotten. Brigade of 50 were really 50 brave persons, soldiers - warriors. But war is always about dying so in the "Wartorn" time-line we can talk only about a few of them. Ten maybe twelve - last from Brigade of 50 guns. They are beware attack, they are under fire, they are torn, they walking to the NeoJericho station. 50 Guns is glue of the story. But we can't forget they have families, loves, children down here on Earth.. and about them will deal the second CD.
SL: And what is the musical part and sound of "Wartorn" all about?
M: 4x4 repetitive rhythm and EBM driven sequences at +-140Bpm, simply dance war J
SL: It took you 2 years to launch a new album! What do you keep in mind from these 2 years and especially from the writing process of "Wartorn"?
M: The writing process was hard. During that time I took a new job so I had not enough free time to give full attention to work on an album. This is the primal reason for this long time, but there was already an idea for the concept and I tried to stay on that way.
SL: What does the front cover of "Wartorn" stands for and what did you try to express here?
M: It's a smashed and torched creature at the moment of a bomb attack under the sun (which is maybe evoking a modification LP letters in word mulpHia) .. this creature can be an a angel or it can be you. I like the little torn soldier motive in the "Wartorn" title. (...)
Born almost out of happenstance, Thomas Rainier's hard electro-industrial project, Nachtmahr, seemingly went from being a mere DJ intro track to a full-fledged power. Bouncing back from his first EP (which sold out in a matter of days) and debut, he returns to the music front with Alle Lust Will Ewigkeit, which is certainly the band's most cohesive and catchy work to date. Now fresh off his second U.S. tour, Thomas takes a brief time-out from his ever-hectic schedule to fill us in on his American adventures, his brief touches on controversy, as well as what comes next. (By Vlad McNeally)
SL. First off, you've just returned from your second tour of the U.S., this time hitting up the East Coast with your American tour partners, Alter Der Ruine. How did that go, and how was it compared to the first leg, where you toured the West Coast?
T. Fantastic... the ADR guys are great to tour with... though it is hard to compare both tours since they were both quite good and the areas are so very different. I would say, though, that of the places we played this time, the best was probably QXT's in New Jersey. They went crazy for us there! It was definitely one of our best U.S. shows... maybe one of the best Nachtmahr shows in general.
SL. So, you would say that was the most memorable experience from the tour?
T. It's hard to say, there's just so much going on in America... and it's such a large country that each place is very different from the others. Still, the ADR crew is a lot of fun, so even when we played places like Philadelphia, where we did an early show in a record store there, it was a crazy time. At one point, Mike (from ADR) even took his wireless keyboard out onto the street in Philly and was playing out there live for any passers-by... it just a crazy time!
SL. From what I understand, you're a big gourmand and fan of exotic food. Did you get the chance to try anything really exciting on your tour?
T. Not really - you generally don't have the time on the road, but all of us became big fans of Sheetz while on the road. They're the best place to stop for sandwiches. ADR did also take me to Casa Bonita, which is this crazy Mexican restaurant place in Colorado. Where else but America are you going to see a guy dressed up as a gorilla jumping off a cliff into a pool indoors while eating Mexican food?
SL. Before Nachtmahr, it's pretty well known that you achieved a lot of success as the mastermind of the band L'âme Immortelle. Why did you choose to finally tour the Americas as Nachtmahr?
T. Well, with L'âme Immortelle, it would be impossible. There are six of us, not to mention our equipment, instruments, the visas... everything else that would be needed to get our stage show overseas. It's not that we're not interested, it would just be easier for any promoter to come over to Europe to see us instead of fly all of us over to their city. With Nachtmahr, it's easy. It's just me and my partner, some synths, and our backing video. Still, I don't want anyone to think we don't put on a show because of this. We're not just one of those bands that sits there behind laptops - it's just we play a type of music that lends itself to easier travel than something like Immortelle.
SL. When you first began Nachtmahr, you stated in interviews that it was an outlet to release some songs you wrote to segue into your DJ sets at Club Pi back in Austria. Is it now a full-fledged side-project?
T. No, it is more than a side-project for me at this point - it's a full-on project. But yes, when I first started, Nachtmahr was just a few tracks I put together to use as a way to segue into my DJing at Pi. People there liked it so much, though I was convinced to put in onto CD, which eventually became the first EP, Kunst ist Krieg. It immediately sold out, and that was a big surprise!
SL. For me, it does seem like your new album, Alle Lust Will Ewigkeit, really feels a lot more coherent as a whole, like Nachtmahr has been fully realized in your mind with this one. Do you feel that's true yourself?
T. Definitely. With Kunst, as I said, it was mostly just a few songs built of that original intro track, which was "Schwarzflug", in case you were wondering. By Feuer Frei!, I had an idea of where I wanted to take Nachtmahr, but I think anyone who listens to the new one will see that this is now a full-fledged band.
SL. One aspect that impressed me with the new album is the media push you've given it - from its striking packaging to releasing several songs in advance via Myspace. In a day and age when a lot of labels have strayed away from sending out physical releases as promos...
T. Actually, we did do that for Alle Lust. My label friends (Trisol Records) were pretty much against it from the start, but I think... or thought... it was really important to get it out there to the fans, and the DJs. I thought you know, if I sincerely opened the gates and was generous with the scene, those feelings would be returned. But you can pretty much guess what happened - even before the disc was released, it was already all over the internet. I don't think I can justify trying those methods again.
SL. That's terrible, though it's pretty par for the course these days... I mean, do you think it all helped in terms of spreading the word, despite the mess?
T. I don't know... probably not. Then again, maybe it did, but you can't tell by looking at the amount of sales. I do want to be seen as, you know, part of the scene with Nachtmahr, not some guy who is above the average music fan or DJ. Still, when you lose as many sales as you already do to the downloaders, it's like throwing away money since who knows how many of those people would have actually gone and bought the CD if I wasn't generous and gave it away. (...)
There are only a handful of groups in the industrial scene that have truly achieved cult following. Einstürzende have become an image, a t-shirt must have; whereas Throbbing Gristle are the icon of avant-garde culture through music. In the background, Spain's unique Esplendor Geométrico have been crawling up generation past generation to a quiet yet massive recognition. Their constructivist and strong images, united with a music investigation based on pulse and rhythm make Arturo Lanz and Saverio Evangelista's project one that renews itself with every record. "Pulsión" is the name of their latest release, and from different corners of the world, we got both members to answer some questions for Side Line. (By Catalina Isis Milan Schneider)
SL: Espendor Geométrico is not only one of the paradigms of industrial music, but also of music with a political load. Esplendor Geométrico's image and samplers seem to be as important as musical production. Are they?
AL: Regarding political views: every person has their own ideology, needless to say, and this makes you act differently in different situations. That is the way it is and we are no exception, though, we don't intentionally try to reflect this in our music. If it seems there is a political load it is because of the voices we use. However, they are not chosen for their message but for the tone and strength of the speech.
SL: Stalin in the 80s and revolutionary socialism and Islamism in current times. Does Esplendor Geométrico work as an inverted reflection of mass media?
AL: I hadn't thought about it. As I said, speeches in Arab are very sonorous. It doesn't matter what they say but how they say it.
SE: More than Stalin I would talk about Lenin, of the Russian revolution, of the constructivists. Also about the futurist. A collection of people, movements, countries, images that have always had a big influence on E.G because of their evocative depth.
SL: Listening to your music, it seems the relationship between machinery and revolution is inevitable. In your opinion, is industry related to political movements?
AL: Even thought it has nothing to do with our music, of course the assumed technical and industrial development conditions social development, and all ideologies that are related to this development. Historical materialism, for example, explains social and ideological changes in history based on technical development. Isn't' the daily use of internet and new technologies a permanent revolution?
SL: Being that both members of E.G live in different continents, how does the distance affect the creation of new material? Is the fact that one of you is living in an oriental culture reflect anyway in the music?
AL: I live in Beijing, China. Regarding the Chinese, we are not too different. I get along pretty well with them (my wife is Chinese). I don't think it reflects in the music in anyway. Regarding the composition of new material, we don't have a problem. I normally create the bases and introduces the voices and Saverio enriches the bases with sounds and perfects the sound in each song.
SA: Distance obviously influences [our work], but it also influences in the past, when Arturo lived in Mallorca and I lived in Rome. In this sense, technology really helps, with Internet distances have really gotten smaller.
SL: You have worked on "Pulsión" for almost a year, and since 2003 you hadn't released a record with only new material. Did you look for a coherence in the sound since the beginning of the recording or have you been modifying and rejecting material?
AL: There is no coherence between compositions, at least in any conscious way. It is Saverio and Andres Noarbe that choose which songs are included in the record. Personally, I don't really care.
SE: The way E.G Works has always been based on instinct; more on passion tan reason. But seen in hindsight, I would say this work has ended up being more organic, with a strong inner coherence.
SL: "Pulsión" is the perfect name for the record. Seems the main ingredient in E.G is the beating in the song and then the construction around it. Do you work over preexisting sounds or do you create them from cero?
AL: The bases are created from cero. The voices we use are manipulated and introduced.
SL: Do you work over bases first or the other elements?
AL: First the rhythm, then the arrangements.
SE: In general over the bases first, and then all other elements. (...)
Cyclone B has been because of some reactions against the name reduced to CB. This duo established in Estonia is because of their geographical position like composing in the side line of other dark electronic bands and that's a real pity. I discovered a few interesting bands active in these former republics of the former USSR, which are really worthy of examination. CB is for sure one of the most familiar names and thanks to the huge efforts of their label (Advoxya Records) they progressively gained some more recognition. Their latest album "Evil" doesn't bring that much innovation, but is a quite efficient and well-crafted piece of dark EBM. "Evil" has enough potential and dancefloor-songs to catch a wider audience. I think it's like our duty to get you a bit more familiar with this band and the fascinating "Evil"-release. We asked some questions to Rad, the mastermind of CB! (By Stéphane Froidcoeur)
SL: After the "Consequence Of Hidden Truth"-album released in 2005, it took your 4 years to achieve this 2nd full length! I think a lot of things happened in the meantime so can you briefly tell us what it was all about?
CB: Hi! First of all I would like to say thanx for the interview. About your question I can keep the story short. Miro left the band....L
SL: Another kind of change is the evolution in your band name, which seems no longer written as Cyclone B but CB! Why this evolution and was it possibly related to the contradictory Cyclone B?
CB: We were just tired to explain the meaning of Cyclone B and decided to name it more shortly - CB. However it still means and refers to the name of the gas, which was used in WW2 by fascists. And we are still in case to make remember people all over the world about the Nazi's and Communist's crimes. However in Germany our name remains still the subject of different gambles - does the CB-members are Nazis or not? Both my grandfathers took part in WW2 and fought against the fascists. Do we need to explain something more about Cyclone B?
SL: How do you look back on the writing of the "Evil"-album and what comes directly into mind when evoking this 2nd cd?
CB: It is hard to explain... I heard the rhythms, sounds and melodies in my heart and mind... then I run to the keys and PC to play and record what I heard and felt... Sometimes it appeared during my dreams at night so I woke up and started to compose.
SL: What is the title of the album referring to plus what have been the main lyrical sources of inspiration for the "Evil"-album?
CB: You just need to watch any news-channel to understand what we are talking about on this CD. Evil is everywhere, it surrounds us, it possesses our minds, manipulates our souls... Politics, unemployment, homeless people, AIDS, terrorists, drug addictions... it's all the sense of our album.
SL: How did the composition of the "Evil"-album happened and what has been the input of both band members?
CB: I did all of the music and next I let it hear to Igor. We discussed what needed to be changed and/or added. Than Igor wrote the lyrics according to the feeling of each track. Next I hummed the vocals and finally we both came into the studio for mixing and mastering.
SL: How do you see the evolution as band and as musicians from "Consequence Of Hidden Truth" towards "Evil" and were there some elements in the sound you wanted to change?
CB: Hard to say and especially if real evolutions took place our work as musicians. We previously gave some kind of freedom to emotions and dealt a lot about it. I guess we want to change a few things on each new album and I hope we can manage it this way on our further works.
SL: What have been the main evolutions in your studio material and equipment? What have been the main tools for the composition of the "Evil"-songs?
CB: During all work for the "Evil"-album I constantly thanked God for the VST technology. These virtual instruments gave me more, than all synths I've used. Cruel music snobs could say that it's unprofessional, something sounds not so bright and so on. I want to reply them: if you are a real good composer, you will compose successfully with any kind of equipment and if you are nothing, zero - most perfect professional equipment will not help you.
SL: What kind of sound exactly did you have in mind when starting the "Evil"-album?
CB: Frankly speaking it's the sound of early FLA.
SL: Right and several songs (like "Negative" and "Destroy") remind me to some earlier work from the 90s of Frontline Assembly! So what means a band like FLA for you?
CB: For me it's the best praising all of the songs that have been written for the "Evil"-album. My love for industrial music has begun with bands like Ministry, NIN, Nitzer Ebb, Front 242 and of course FLA. FLA gave me most of the inspiration for this album and hope for the future as well. (...)
Tyske Ludder is one of these bands that made a comeback after a rather successful career in the 90s. Their EBM style didn't change that much, but sounds now more original than back in time. That might be rather strange, but as they say themselves in the interview the bands are much more similar in sound today than in the 90s. In a way it makes the strength of Tyske Ludder and this will be for sure only accentuated by their new album "Anonymous". While "Anonymous" sounds as a rather typical Tyske Ludder-release it also reveals much more diversity in the song writing finally resulting in their most accomplished work today! All comebacks aren't always that successful, but this one is for sure an exception to the rule! (By Stéphane Froidcoeur)
SL: What kind of album did you've in mind when starting the composition of "Anonymous"?
Olaf: We have no special ideas when we start working on a new album. It growth while we are working on it. We have some themes and sounds but no real concept. One of the main question was to know how the different work procedure we decided for "Anonymous" should affect the music.
SL: I personally experienced this album as being the most diversified ones and definitely the most achieved release to date! What importance and meaning does this album takes in your discography?
Z 67: In our opinion "Anonymous" is the most mature album in our discography. We tried to work on advancement but we tried to orient ourselves on the typical Tyske Ludder style. We didn't want to loose our identity as electronic band. We think it worked.
SL: What have been the main sources of inspiration for this new album (musical and lyrical wise) and what does the title "Anonymous" refers to?
Albert: Normally human beings and there behavior inspires us for most of the songs. We catch a theme and then Olaf starts composing the first music lines or I start writing a text. Then the idea growth and when it's ready we work on it together in our studio.
The title "Anonymous" on one hand shows our respect to the Internet activists named Anonymous that fight peaceful against Scientology, but on the other hand "Anonymous" is a synonym for falsehood, violence and cruelty that sleeps behind the anonymous mask of mankind. Titles like "Bastard" or "Narben" discuss sleeping sexual violence like abuse, "Gebet" shows the thoughts of an extremist while he is preparing for murder. "Fixthebeat" decries the calculating song writing of some bands and projects to get into the alternative charts or higher. Take the real beat and melody and your are in. Fuck yourself and beat the chart.
SL: The "Sojus" album released in 2006 symbolized you come back as band, but in which way is this album different with the "Anonymous"-cd?
Olaf: The new album "Anonymous" is different from our other albums. Some songs are more experimental and some are more danceable. We decided to change our working process for the album and had with Sebastian from Wertstahl a second producer for the entire production. The master mix was done by Jan from NoisufX and gave the songs a finishing touch.
SL: Referring to this 'come back' how does it feel today to go on with Tyske Ludder and did you experience some differences in the way of working with the past?
Z 67: When we stopped in 1996 we were burned out, that's right. There were no new ideas neither inspiration and there were a lot of other more interesting things than Tyske Ludder. Today we have a lot of fun and we are very relaxed working together. The whole procedure of producing is different. In the past we had to do the entire album in a few weeks sitting in a studio with our ideas and trying to get good songs in a short time. We worked on our own and we were isolated from other musicians. We were forced to work with an Atari computer and one sampler because of a lack of money. Nowadays each of us has his own small studio and we are sending ideas by email. When we have the feeling to have a good idea we meet at our real studio and begin to form and work out the idea. Some songs need more time while other ones could be ready in one night.
SL: I guess you can perfectly compare the 90s and the 2000 years so what are the main differences in music, writing techniques, recording and production and last but not least labels and distribution?
Albert: In the 90s it was much more harder work to compose songs and find the real sounds. There were limited possibilities getting synths and samplers and we had to work out most of the songs in a studio, but each band had their own sound. Today you have a lot of bands that sound equal playing the same style and sometimes its difficult to say in what way they are different. It's much more easier for them creating a song instead of an entire album. The differences between the labels today and in the 90s is that they have much more choices getting new bands and therefore it's very difficult for new bands getting a good contract.
SL: The re-release of your 90s albums has been a good way to get younger EBM fans a bit more familiar with the 'early' Tyske Ludder albums. What have been the reactions for so far and how did you come to re-release the 90s albums?
Z 67: Most reactions were very positive because people recognized that Tyske Ludder shows advancement throughout the years. A lot of younger fans like the old stuff and we play a lot of old songs in our shows. Most fans knew the lyrics of the old songs and that makes you proud in a certain way. (...)
Based in London (UK) Seize can be easily seen as the most atypical band from the Alfa Matrix roaster. Miles away from the dark electro standards, the violent crossover formulas and powernoise outbursts Seize brings a 'cleaner' sound that moves in between pop fields and breakbeat electronics. It has been always a discussion if Seize belongs or not to the underground scene. The new album "Constant Fight" will only re-animate this point, but like Steven explains in one of his answers they never have chosen their fans, but the fans choose Seize! Who cares to which kind of scene they belong or not, Seize has shown more than once that they can please to a wider audience. Add to this that there's much more crossover between underground, mainstream and even commercial music today than ever before! "Constant Fight" has been released 5 years after their previous album, but Seize remained always active on stage (and in studio as well) while they were also part of the legendary Visage. Time to catch iSandi (Sandrine Gouriou), Steven Young and Rosie Harris for a chat! (By Elise Din)
SL: "Constant Fight" has been finally launched and I guess it must have been like a relief! How do you feel now with this 3rd full length?
iSandi: We are very pleased and relieved indeed!
Steven: It has taken so long to get to this stage, it is a real feeling of relief. But now "Constant Fight" is done and out there, I am looking forward to working on the next album... and hopefully getting better.
SL: There's a lapse of time from 60 months between this new album and "The Other Side Of Your Mind" being released in 2003! What happened and how do you look back on the past years?
iSandi: It was all due to a combination of personal and band issues, also some massive technical problems, in which 8/12 songs we planned to released, got wiped out our computer. It was really frustrating and we kind of lost faith after that. Then we decided that we should get up and try again.
SL: Without entering into details I think to remember that you, Sandrine and Steven were married while I heard you're now separated. In which way did this 'situation' affected your work as musicians for Seize?
iSandi: Who told you that Steven and I were married? Married to Seize yes! We still are, and so is Rosie too! ;o)
Rosie, Steven and I have become very close friends, like a family. But we never let our private life affect the band plans. It can influence our song writing and inspirations, but that's all!
SL: There's a cliché affirming that you always get stronger after a period of turmoil. Do you recognize this and especially when referring to your band and the new album?
iSandi: Indeed, we feel stronger than ever as a band now, after going through shit. We now know who is faithful to SEIZE and we stick together as a band.
Steven: That loss of files did knock our plans a little... Some of those songs we still haven't recreated yet..
SL: And what did you learn out of it?
iSandi: Not to use PC anymore! ;o) Don't take anything for granted!
SL: What are the main ideas behind the title "Constant Fight"?
iSandi: The fact that it was a constant fight to finish that album. But we got the idea after I wrote the track "'Fight For Your Constant Sun"'.
SL: Can you compare and analyse "Constant Fight" with your previous albums "Lunacy" and "The Other Side Of Your Mind"?
iSandi: Yes, "TOSOYM" was more a electronic based album and some songs were very Euro/Pop , "Constant Fight" is a more musical and mature album, we really wanted to combine the best of the "Lunacy" and "TOSOYM". Also it represents what we have been influenced by since the last one. After 5 years, you tend to evaluate musically and know what is best for your band. We wanted to have guitar riffs and heavy bass lines.
Rosie: The first 2 albums were quite a bit different from each other and "Constant Fight" helps to tie them together, as well as taking the song writing forward.
Steven: I think all 3 albums reflect where we were/are as a band. Musically and emotionally..
SL: I personally experience some changes in the influences from this album while I'm missing some of the 'trance' elements which characterized your previous work?
iSandi: We have always been a Break-beat/Electronica band, not a Trance band. We didn't want to have to use the same elements again. We wanted to compose more Breakbeat/Drum and Bass tracks to appeal to the UK market we are targeting and for the Pop/Electro tracks, this time we chose House elements for this one. It's all down to our music influence.
Steven: Like I mentioned for the last question. I think each album reflects where we are musically and emotionally. After "Lunacy", Sandi, and I did a lot more clubbing, and I think that was reflected in "TOSOYM". Its of a time in our lives. The same goes for "Constant Fight". It's more mature, and conveys a bit of clubbing....... But also a bit of melancholy.
SL: What's the real input of Rosie Harris and the other (new) members inside Seize?
Rosie: I make a really good cup of tea.
iSandi: Rosie has always been an asset to the band, she started as a keyboardist and backing vocalist, then she started to learn bass and soon took over all the live bass lines. She also designs and looks after our website: http://www.seize-music.com .
She also designs all Seize flyers, posters, stickers etc... and did both of the new album covers. Her boyfriend Mark takes most of the pictures of the band and together they work on them for our need. She is very dedicated, even though she lives in Bristol and has to drive 2 hours to rehearse with us. We are very happy with her input.
Michel our drummer is from Belgium, he joined the band last year. He replaced Sean. He brings the balls to Seize's music and also looks after booking the rehearsal rooms!
Paul is based in London, he is English, a Northerner like Steven! ;o) He joined the band a couple of month ago. He replaced Ellie who was our temporary guitarist. Paul's been working in the music industry for more than 10 years, for several major labels, so he knows his shit. He is a talented guitarist, he can also sing and play keyboards. He is looking after Seize management and promo side of things.
SL: How comes you finally decided to incorporate new members in the line-up?
Rosie: If you go and see a band live, then you should expect to see something played live, right?! Electronic music is incredibly difficult to transfer well to a live setting and without it looking like you're miming to a backing track and playing nothing live - nobody has 50 pairs of hands to play all the different parts, so by bringing in a live drummer and guitarist (and bass of course) into the set up, we are able to add something extra to the live shows instead of the audience feeling like we've just turned up and stuck the CD on!
iSandi: As for the changes in line-up, Sean wanted to become a professional drummer, so he joined Mesh. We are very happy for him, we remain friends. We've known Ellie for years, when I asked her to join Seize I knew it was going to be temporary until we found a full time guitar player. She is the lead singer of Trauma Pet and she is also very busy with her PHD, her private life and she lives far away from London. All that commitment with Seize was too much for her, so we had to let her go. She is still our friend.
SL: You guys were live members of Visage. What did you keep in mind from this period and are you still in touch with Steve Strange?
iSandi: We loved the experience. We learned a lots and from all that, lots of doors opened for us. I'm still in touch with Steve and I talk to him every other day, we have lots of plans in the pipeline I'm not allowed to talk about just yet. We often do UK shows together, our last ones was near Norwich, we performed for the "Hear and Now"-tour in front of 10,000 people, it was great fun! Steve is so motivated with his new plans that he has now moved to London and lives near my flat.
Rosie: Steve still sometimes calls me if he was meaning to dial the number of the person above or below me in his address book. It's always good to catch up.
Steven: I just want to add, that the experience we had especially in Germany with Visage Mk11 was really good fun, and a time that I will never forget..
SL: All I've heard about Steve Strange wasn't always that positive, but what kind of man was he?
Steven: Hey, he's not dead... yet ;-)
Rosie: He is funny - every day is an adventure with Steve. He is very generous and sweet.
iSandi: After the German tour in 2005, his confidence was down because of the bad press he'd received. People don't understand that Steve's health is fragile and sometimes he cannot deliver as much as some other 80's artists do, but he is now under a strict diet and his health is getting much better, and so is his mood, so expect to hear from him again very soon! Here in the UK he's on TV and now stage. Check out his Facebook page to see it yourself. www.facebook.com/pages/STEVE-VISAGE-STRANGE/44053193184
SL: Back to "Constant Fight"! I noticed some comments from people affirming that Seize moved at the 'side line' of the underground scene! What's your opinion here and do you consider you ever totally were part of this scene?
iSandi: Seize has always been an underground Dance/Electronica band. It's just that the Goth and industrial fans listen to our music, which is great to have a wider audience! But Seize has never been a part of that scene really, although we have lots of friends who are dark electro artists and we like to support them. As for the "Constant Fight" feel, it represents what our influenced have always been: Dance music and Break/beat.
Rosie: Well, we as people were a part of 'the scene' to a certain extent, so it is right to say that as a band, the music has been influenced by our friends and the music they play, of course. But we listen to other types of music, go to different types of clubs and certainly don't dress in a way that people would think we were Goths or whatever, which I think the music probably reflects more. So to answer your question.. We were never TOTALLY a part of it, but we were a bit...
Steven: Would you say Depeche Mode are part of 'the scene'? I guess they are but have a much wider appeal. What I'm saying is; you can be part of lots of scenes. I have always said: We don't choose fans - they choose Seize. Personally I'm happy if anyone likes our music. (...)
I'm often complaining about the huge quantity of bands and releases sawing the daylight since a couple of years now. Too much bands are simply sounding the same and less new bands really bring something interesting. The quality is too often reduced to a small number of bands and when one of these bands is signed on a small label located in a land that we can't really consider as a main electronic influence you'll understand that we sometimes simply pass near talented projects. We'd the chance to get a promo copy from such a genius new band named Frontier Guards and hailing from the Czech Republic. The album "Predestination" sounds as an intelligent mixture of electronics reminding to legendary bands like Clock DVA and Lassigue Bendthaus. More than a simple music project Frontier Guards also consists of a strong visual aspect and after the interview with the project's founder Martin Pavlík (Atreid) it becomes very clear that music and images can't exist without each other! (By Stéphane Froidcoeur)
SL: Who's hiding behind Frontierguards and how do you finally meet and start with this project?
MP: Frontier Guards project consists of two members, namely Martin Pavlik (audio/vocal) and Tom Galle (images/projection).
SL: What have been the main facts of Frontierguards before the release of the "Predestination"-album?
MP: Frontier Guards is a continuation of the audio-visual project H.E.E.L. ( www.monopolrecords.cz , www.beamship.cz) on which Patrik Lev (Depressive Disorder) contributed as well. Frontier Guards is, in fact some sort of a 'loose continuation' of that project; just Patrik Lev is no longer involved in the project.
SL: Electronic music and the Czech Republic sounds a little bit surreal to me so how did you get in touch with electronic music and do you remind the first bands/projects you've ever heard?
MP: The first groups I had been able to define as 'electronic ones' were Depeche Mode, Kraftwerk, Front 242. That was around 1989 and I was just fourteen years old. Nevertheless, at that time (in the 1989 - 90s years) here in the Czech Republic (the CSSR actually) you could meet some very interesting projects which could be called as 'electronic ones': Oceán, Vanessa, Neue Spräche.
SL: I noticed on your myspace site an impressive list of bands mentioned as being your 'influences', but I was really wondered to find no mention of Clock DVA and Lassigue Bendthaus, probably both very close to your music! What can you reveal about your real sources of inspiration?
MP: Clock DVA is of course one of the 'electronic' symbols which I really consider for their work and I've no objections when it comes to my own influences. I think to come quite close to projects like Pain Station, Haujobb, Laibach, Disharmony, Frontline Assembly.
SL: What kind of music did you have in mind when setting up the project?
MP: Which kind of music? That's quite a special question and the answer is even complicated. When creating Frontier Guards I was mostly inspired by the images from Tom Galle. His images were quite sufficient for my inspiration. Nevertheless I must say that probably every musician is influenced by numerous musical leitmotifs of various favoured and even not too favoured bands - in short, such a pot-pourri of musical motifs. And thanks to these 'inspirational sources' comes the idea of ones 'autonomous' musical and sound constructions from which originates the own composition.
SL: What means the "Predestination"-album to you now released on Aliens Production?
MP: To harmonize with the ambient and electronic exposure and with the Tom Galle's images and moods or spirits. But it wouldn't be enough. It's probably today's classical scheme of the man's existence and this humanity's dependence on the beginning and the end. The main momentum of this CD is the definition of the final end of an individual. The question is however how to define this final end and therefore this CD has to offer somewhat as an 'open end'. I don't want to relativize something which will end, but on the other side we can see any end as an evolution aiming to somewhere, or some shift-over, and probably as something there is no need to feel sorrow for.
SL: And what do you keep in mind from the writing process of this album and what have been the main difficulties you encountered?
MP: The main or biggest creative problems? When I could speak on behalf of Tom, it would be undoubtedly the number of images, which he had to create - there are about 700 of those images which are showed during the live show, and every single image had to be created with some moods, eagerness and will to create them in such an 'artistic´ manner. But, when creating the image's part, the time had been the biggest problem. And at the musical level I had the problem to tune to or harmonize with quite a different kind of music I am generally used to do - see BEAMSHIP (www.beamship.cz).
I pretty like some harder electronic music and along with it I have some feeling and time to pursue philosophy, to ponder religiosity, and so on. And when speaking about the musical part it was the hardest thing to me to 'tune' to the 'transcendental wave' which would complete the image's part of the Frontier Guard sensibility. (...)
The German label Zoth Ommog was one of the most famous and prestigious labels from the 90s EBM scene. Some of the most famous bands got signed on Zoth Ommog and I'm sure I don't need to refresh your mind by evoking all the names. Somewhere in the shadow of those leading bands Zoth Ommog also signed a few more bands that never got the same fame although they were quite interesting as well. One of these bands was the German duo from Second Disease. When releasing their official debut-cd "Flame - The Dark Tone" in 1996 on Zoth Ommog they in a way entered in the history of the label. Zoth Ommog went down and Second Disease joined the smaller, but interesting Mascinenwelt label, which went down as well. Lars Hofmann and Ronald Kraft took some distance from their main musical project and concentrated on their daily job. But the fans of the band and Torben Schmidt (who they knew from their Zoth Ommog period) didn't forget Second Disease finally pushing them to bring the project back to life! And here it is! "While The Masses Sleep" has been just released on Infacted Recordings and brings a real interesting challenge to the contemporary and established dark EBM standards! (By Stéphane Froidcoeur)
SL: What made you decide to start composing again for Second Disease?
Ronald: Last year we showed up on myspace. This established a lot of contacts, and we received a lot of comments and requests. People also asked for new songs. So we decided to offer some new stuff.
SL: How did it feel to start back working together and did you experience some differences in the way of working/composing?
Lars: There's absolutely no difference in the way of working, we complement one another perfectly. We still have the same views and preferences.
SL: 8 years have past since the "Am I God"-album from 2001. What have you both done in the meantime and especially musical wise?
Lars: We were very busy due to our jobs, that can sometimes be quite occupying. So we needed to set other priorities.
Ronald: Of course this does not mean, that we did not make music at all. There were some nice ideas, and I also produced some songs for my project Lifeless Air.
SL: What have been the main ideas behind the new album "While The Masses Sleep" and where does the title refers to?
Ronald: Although we think that the songs go very well together, it's not a concept album with an overall deeper meaning. We just like the title and like to keep it flexible in terms of interpretation. For sure it was somehow also in our minds to play with words regarding being back on track again.
SL: What's the link between the picture on the front cover, the title and the music?
Lars: We wanted to have something you keep in mind and that catches your eye, something unique and slightly different. We honestly like the cover of "Flame The Dark True" which is really 'red' in Europe, and it's still in people's minds by recalling the color. Besides the music for sure! So the new cover needed to have something comparable.
Ronald: Going in these directions, the cover designer did a great job. The picture is one possible interpretation of the title by him. And behind the obvious interpretation there are also other ways of thinking about it. But that's up to the viewer or listener.
SL: Musical wise, what is this new album all about and how would you analyse your sound in comparison with your previous work?
Ronald: "While The Masses Sleep" is a further development of "Flame The Dark True". As said before there's no common meaning, every song stands for itself and tells its own story.
Lars: "Dogma" and "The Dogma Remixes" were more or less a collection of songs, but not really one piece of work. Like "Flame The Dark True", "While The Masses Sleep" again represents one entity.
SL: I personally perceive some strong influences from the 80s (The Klinik) and the 90s (Mortal Constraint) running through your work, but what does it really say about your sources of inspiration?
Lars: We have many sources of inspiration. Of course, these are EBM acts like Skinny Puppy or the ones you mentioned. But we listen to many kinds of music: pop/rock, synthpop, trance… When making music all these things unconsciously find a way into our songs. Mostly the final result is EBM or dark wave, because this is the best way for us to express ourselves.
SL: "While The Masses Sleep" is definitely not an average dark electro release like we often used to hear today! How would you qualify your album when compared to the current dark electro releases?
Ronald: Hmm, it's really unconventional. We do not try to follow any rules, but produce the music we like.
Lars: "While The Masses Sleep" is very complex. It's great to discover a song bit by bit, over a longer period of time. So it does not become boring after listening to it twice. Most of our songs have some kind of anticipation effect: You already remember special parts of the song when you start listening to it.
SL: What's your opinion about the current dark electro scene and are there some noticeable releases/bands you want to mention?
Lars: There are a lot of copies, but also fantastic acts like Interlace, Cryo or Neon Cage Experiment. But we're are not fixed on listening to "black" music only. We really like to discover all kinds of musical styles.
SL: Your album has been mastered by Kolja Trelle (from Soman) who is an artist belonging to the most recent generation from the dark electro scene! What do you think about the work of Soman and especially about his mastering work?
Ronald: We like Soman very much, great sounds and full of energy. Kolja also did a great job by mastering "While The Masses Sleep" . Most of the songs really gained some expression. (...)
Available now via the Alfa Matrix webshop is the most anticipated third volume of Leaether Strip's 'Retention' box series through which Claus Larsen is re-releasing his complete back-catalogue: 'Retention no. 3'. The 3rd volume in the series features 'Solitary Confinement' which is the album that has forever seated the Danish artist on the throne of classic dark EBM. (...)
Lots of A-ha new is pouring in. A-ha manager Harald Wiik has announced that the Norwegian act will release expanded deluxe editions of their bestselling albums 'Hunting High and Low' and 'Scoundrel Days'. (...)
De/Vision have launched a brand new video for 'Rage' taken from the album 'Popgefahr' out on March 19 on the band's very own label Popgefahr Records. (...)
For an upcoming Faderhead video project the band are looking for a girl that would like to be the lead actress in this. They are basically looking for a young woman who would be comfortable portraying a young woman with minimal amounts of dialog. (...)
Recoil's 'Selected' which is going to be released worldwide on April 19th, will be available as a single CD, double pack CD, limited edition 4 x vinyl box, and a limited edition deluxe 4 disc box set. (...)
Sebastian R Komor (Icon Of Coil, Zombie Girl and Komor Kommando) is quite a busy bee. The Norwegian synth wizzard is to release no less than 3, well 4 albums in the next months... (...)
Some will have noticed that the most recent DVD releases in this scene have been tagged with rather big and ugly 'age labels' on the front artwork. (...)
There seems to be quite some activity behind the Front 242 curtains. Last night, Alfa Matrix announced a brand new Front 242 DVD, 'Moments in Budapest'. (...)
Out now is the 2nd album by Unter Null aka Erica Dunham. 'Moving On' was engineered by Claus Larsen (Leaether Strip) and reveals a more matured approach, including on stage where Erica Dunham is now supported by a full live band. (...)
After releasing the albums by MDM, Artifact, and We Got This Far, Spiralchords Music now inked a deal with Florida's industrial rock band DeadStar Assembly. (...)
On May, 7th 2010, Lacrimosa (aka Tilo Wolff and Anne Nurmi) will release a new double-CD with 17 previously unreleased tracks to celebrate the band's 20-years anniversary. (...)
![[SITD] - Ultimately the most important thing is the result, not the fact if an artist makes use of popular software programs or good-old synths](http://www.side-line.com/images/uploads/interviewsitd09.jpg)
SL: Is it in the end media charts that matter for a band like Mesh?
