“Alles Muß Raus” is the third album by Akustikkoppler, an ongoing collaboration between German artists, Matthias Schuster and Malte Steiner.

The album was completely produced on vintage and modern equipment and all tracks were produced between 2008 and 2012, and were remastered in 2021. The album is available digitally and as limited edition of 300 copies on 12” LP in translucent vinyl with gatefold cover.

Akustikkoppler was formed around 2004 but both members have a rich career behind them.

Matthias Schuster started in the 70s with his band Geisterfahrer which combined a punk rock setup with electronic instruments. In his studio he recorded and mixed most of the bands for the Hamburg label ZickZack at the beginning of the 80s. But later on in the nineties we also find him back as producer for the electro act Fortification 55 (“Heartleader”) for instance. He has been involved in other projects as well like Bal Paré and later on, Das Institut.

Malte Steiner from his side started with electronic music in 1983 in addition to his study of visual arts. First meant to be performed for the openings of his exhibitions, Malte started to distribute his music from 1987 on via his own label block 4 which released for instance the albums from his industrial projects Das Kombinat (with Andrea Pritschow) and Notstandskomitee on cassettes, later also on CD and vinyl.

Here’s the video for the track “Entrümpelung”.

You can order the release as download or on vinyl from Bandcamp.

Bernard - Side-Line Staff

Chief editor of Side-Line – which basically means I spend my days wading through a relentless flood of press releases from labels, artists, DJs, and zealous correspondents. My job? Strip out the promo nonsense, verify what’s actually real, and decide which stories make the cut and which get tossed into the digital void. Outside the news filter bubble, I’m all in for quality sushi and helping raise funds for Ukraine’s ongoing fight against the modern-day axis of evil.

side-line.com

Back in 1991 I started writing my first reviews for Side-Line magazine. I would have never thought to go on writing reviews and making interviews non-stop for 30 years. So 2021 is a special year to me, a kind of ‘celebration year’. I got the idea to celebrate this special event by interviewing people from the scene who all have a special meaning to me. The last interview in this series is one with Bernard Van Isacker. I definitely had to close the circle with this interview. Being active as Side-Line’s chief redactor and as one of the Alfa Matrix label owners, Bernard and I became close friends. We didn’t always agree on some topics, which finally brought me to leave Side-Line as staff member in 2016. We remained in touch and decided to move on working together, but in a different format. A lot of things have been said and written about Bernard -not always kind things – but I got the privilege and opportunity to see how he’s working and all what he’s doing. I can only, but deeply respect his involvement. Time to ask him some questions.

(Courtesy by Inferno Sound Diaries)

Q: Lots of people from this scene know who you are, but how would you introduce yourself and how did you get in touch with the Electro/Industrial/Gothic scene? 

Bernard: My name is Bernard Van Isacker, 47 years old, and I have 2 kids. Magnus, 4 years old, and Sebastian, 16 years old, from my first marriage. I work currently as a social media manager, web developer and CRM admin for a multinational. I also run 2 holiday houses, but for the past 2 years they have been empty due to the corona pandemic. That was a big blow to our budget, so I had to take extra work to keep on paying our bills. But we survive.

I sleep basically 5 hours per night, take a small breakfast and lots of coffee at 6 in the local Panos –both the owners Mario and Hannelore are sweethearts -before I start work at 7:30 until, 10, 11 at night. I’ll probably die working (laughs).

I first got introduced to the Dark-Wave scene when I was 14 years old and was sitting next to a guy in class who said he had heard a really sick tape. That was Nitzer Ebb’s “That Total Age”. But you have to know that I was already heavily into Depeche Mode and New-Beat (yes!) so the ‘move’ to more industrial sounds was not really a surprise. Anyhow, Nitzer Ebb had more or less the same BPM as new beat so that was easy (laughs). By the time I was fifteen I was listening to Cat Rapes Dog. Their “Maximum Overdrive” remains legendary as far as I am concerned. And after that I got hooked to Inside Treatment, Pouppée Fabrikk, and other bands from Scandinavia. I only started to listen to German acts when I went to university, and that included bands such as Fortification 55, Project Pitchfork, Psychic Force, Trial, etc..  

As we speak I’m in the middle of compiling our newest volume in the “Face The Beat”-series for Side-Line. The 7^th so far. But shoot with the questions Stephane!

Q: I guess less people know you graduated in journalism so what did you try to add/change when joining Side-Line? And how did you happen to join Side-Line magazine? 

Bernard: That’s correct, I graduated in journalism and worked at a couple of newspapers before diving into the startup world of ecommerce. That was pre-Google so SEO was still something very rudimentary and traffic was basically created via price comparison sites and massive mailings, you can call it pure spam (laughs). 

But I worked for 4 years as a journalist, was able to write a lot of solid articles, but I got fed up with the easy way things were covered (while we all knew it were lies) and the easy way things were NOT covered (because some bishop threatened to sue the newspaper –and me, for defamation). I left that world disgusted. Add to that it is one of the worst paid jobs ever. 

I got fed up with the easy way things were covered in the press

Anyhow, whilst studying one of my friends, Yves Van De Veken, told me there was this magazine that was going to be published with an attached CD compilation full of Dark-Wave music and that they would have the first issue with the sampler later that week in the Metrophone cellar, in Antwerp that is, where I studied. I got the magazine, which was in a very stylish layout, liked the CD sampler and was hooked on the review section to read about new bands. I was at that time already working part-time as journalist whilst studying, and I got access to bigger bands which I thought could fit Side-Line pretty well, so I sent a mail to Seba (who I thought was a girl) and told ‘her’ that I could arrange bigger interviews for them. Seba wanted to test the waters I guess, and I told that I could do Hooverphonic, but could also check with Dirk Da Davo  in the next week to show what I was capable of. Apparently ‘she’ really liked what I wrote and asked for more. Paradise Lost, Marc Almond, Bel Canto, … the list of interviews I did for Side-Line grew by the day.  

But I had never met any of the team. The first time I met someone from the Side-Line team back then was actually you, but I can’t recall where that was, I think it was in Brussels, but for what exactly?

A few weeks later I met Seba –who you told was NOT a girl, at a Die Form concert in Ghent I think. If I’m not wrong Cédric and Benoit were also there. Since then we were like a band of brothers who went to concerts, either together or with one or two others. Sweet times I must say, we were all very young, had not yet lived ‘real’ life with all its hurdles and accidents.

Q: Early 2008 was a turning point in the magazine’s history. Former chief-redactor Séba Dolimont decided to stop his involvement so you became the new chief-redactor. The printed magazine definitely stopped and Side-Line remained only active as online magazine. How do you look back at the loss of the printed magazine and how did the transition happen? 

Bernard: I basically had always pushed to keep the magazine alive as a print magazine, but at the same time I had launched www.side-line.com in 1999 because the initial Side-Line website –on a different url, was basically just a page, looked bloody awful and served no purpose –no offense Ronan Harris. So when Seba told me that he had decided to stop with the printed magazine, my mental switch was fast and I decided to focus on the online magazine which by then was attracting a tenfold of the printed magazine anyhow. It was a no-brainer.

Going online only? It was a no-brainer.

With Seba stopping, we also lost most of the external contributors, which is logical since a print magazine has a more loose team whereas a news website has to work with a very productive small team, as Side-Line.com was by then already producing daily news updates. A small team is always easier to work with, and I had seen that with the print version of Side-Line I was already doing most of the interviews, delivering 99% of the news, while you already did most of the reviews. So, we had a winning team anyhow, why change that?

In short, yes, it had an emotional impact, but not a practical one. We had a good run, but the times were changing. And I for sure was not planning to miss the online train as you know.

Q: I think there’re significant differences between a printed magazine and an online page. Can you give us the pros and cons especially from your perspective? 

Bernard: Yes, the differences are there for sure and I think you will agree with me, but tell me if you don’t! I will give you the pros and cons as far as online is concerned, the cons will largely cover the pros for print.

Pros: 

• Write, enter it in the CMS, add a picture and post. Simple. In short: it’s fast.
• The news goes out instantly via a wide array of tools. One post on Side-Line reaches around 5000 people in the next few minutes via our different channels, above and under the hood. By the end of the day –when syndication and newsletters have kicked in, we have a 10.000 reach per item. This doesn’t mean people have read it, it means that they have at least seen the picture and title.
• The articles can be as long or as short as you want.
• We can add multimedia, which is a good way to add metadata to your articles. This was limited back in 1999 when we went online though.
• A small team can move mountains.

Cons: 

• There is a strict daily deadline to maintain each day.
• The rapidness also gives room to errors you might not have noticed or simply wrong info (although we only had a few incidents with that).
• Getting decent daily news is sometimes difficult, other times you get inundated by news,
• Some labels and bands have no clue how to write press texts and fill it with promo blabla. If there are no 4 lines of good solid facts, I usually do not publish it.
• In our case I have to be technically savy, have seo skills and have IT skills. And I know how to write. That’s a lot if something goes wrong, and we have had times when it really went wrong.
• Online income generation as a news website is not easy. Most of the labels still have no clue what online means and still think in an old school way. 
• A small team means problems when one leaves or falls sick.
• A magazine accept slow reading, a website not.

Q: Do you’ve an idea who’s reading Side-Line and is there a kind of reader’s profile? 

Bernard: Actually I do, thanks to a combination of datasets, which are limited as I hate being followed myself. The last dataset of November shows that 31% is female, 67% is male and 2% identifies not as male or female. Most readers come from the USA, followed by the UK, Canada, Germany, France, Australia, Mexico, Sweden, Norway, Belgium, Italy, Spain, Brazil, Poland, Holland, Greece and Denmark. We got data from 45 countries in total once we filtered out the accidental and spam traffic.

When it comes to the profiles, we have data of a survey that happened a few months ago on our website. 8200+ respondents later we see that half (51%) has an office job, 36% has an outside or factory job and 11% is unemployed and 2% is enjoying their pension. 

The same survey also showed us info regarding age and it goes synchronically with the data from our Facebook page: 4% is between 18-24, 34% is between 25-34, 25% is between 35-44, 27% is between 45-54, 5% is between 56-64 and 3% is older than 64. That info again corresponds more or less with the survey we did.

It shows we have mostly a very active public between 25 and 54 years old.

Q: Back in time the Side-Line forum was quite ‘popular’, but unfortunately also a place for bullshit and conflicts. Did you expect this evolution and was it the main reason to stop the forum? 

Bernard: The Side-Line forum was indeed very popular and at times had 20 to 50.000 visits a day. It was so popular that it had become a full time task to keep the spammers out, to keep things civilized, etc.. The discussion there were legendary. Some were in it for the fun, others to learn something new, and others just to anonymously troll. It was the graveyard of subtleness though (laughs).

The Side-Line forum was the graveyard of subtleness…

It ran its course, but I was so glad I could kill that baby. Just with one click: bye bye! By the end it had become uncontrollable and we had to delete 90% of all posts because the trolling really went overboard. No loss, it’s part of history, but I still have to laugh when I think of the silliness of it all.

Do you know that we once launched a T-shirt line where you could have your nickname printed on it? We sold a few hundred of those… really fun times!

Q: In the meantime, you also became one of the owners of Alfa Matrix, which became one of the leading labels of underground Electro music. What’s your input and impact in the label activities? 

Bernard: I take care of the IT, web dev, communication and digital distribution. I leave the A&R to Seba, as we each have our own department. But we do have to agree all 3 for signing a band or not. I also often am abroad and try to hook up with the bands in real life.

Q: Let’s go on with a rather tricky question. I think it’s very confusing for a lot of people to understand you’re chief-editor of Side-Line and still one of the Alfa Matrix owners. That sounds pretty incestuous, don’t you think? How do you manage both activities without too much conflict of interest?  

Bernard: Nothing tricky at all. I have never hidden the fact that I’m also behind Alfa Matrix and I am proud of it. Actually, I am not the only label guy behind a magazine, check Blabbermouth for instance, it is also successfully run by label people, possible because we have intel on both sides of the medal.

As far as conflict of interest is concerned: there is none. I don’t intervene in the reviews at all, and that’s where there could be a conflict of interest because reviews are subjective an sich. When it comes to news articles, Alfa Matrix gets as much attention as for instance Metropolis, and I bring it as dry as I do with all the other articles: facts, facts, facts and no promo speech.. Actually, sometimes Alfa Matrix bands complain because they have not gotten a good score on Side-Line. I then have to explain that reviews are completely out of my control to keep a healthy balance in the magazine.

I have a very clean conscience.

That other people claim otherwise on Facebook or so is their problem. I have a very clean conscience regarding this. 

Q: It’s also interesting to see next to Alfa Matrix, Side-Line is actually releasing digital compilations; the magazine also became a kind of label! The “Face The Beat”-series became a real success story. What’s the main goal of this compilation series and how do you select the artists? 

Bernard: Well, the move is not so strange I must say. In the early days there was Side-Line Records, some kind of precursor to Alfa Matrix. Then Side-Line produced compilations to go with the magazines. I just brought it to the 21^st century when I took over and compiled and launched the first “Face The Beat” as a Facebook compilation, hence the name, 10 years ago. 

The main goal is reflected by what Side-Line has all been about even when Seba first launched it: get people to know music from established and new bands. It’s a vision I embraced since the start. I added an extra touch and that is that all revenue goes to charity. 

The compilations are compiled like this: I do a call for submissions on all channels we have, there is one reminder and then I lock myself up for weeks with the material that I have received, usually thousands of demos and completed tracks. Once a first selection is made, I go through the material again that is selected and do an extra selection to make sure the best tracks are included. After that I send out the necessary paperwork and then usually almost everyone responds quickly. There are usually only 2 or 4 bands that are too late or never respond. It’s always a race to meet the deadline I have in my mind, but I usually make it on time. In the meantime, I usually have worked on the artwork and worked through the material with Erlend Eilertsen from Essence Of Mind and Lights A.M to make sure the tracks get the best possible sound on the compilation.

After that I launch it on Bandcamp basically and the platform does its work, with some help of me (laughs). It’s all a very intuitive process where clear communication is king. 

A lot of labels and bands still haven’t learned from ecommerce.

Q: You definitely were one of the first from this scene to have understood the impact streaming platforms would have. I remember you got a lot of hard reactions about it, but today you can tell to all of your critics you were right! How do you look back at this period and how do you expect things evolving during the next few years? 

Bernard: Yes, I must say that the short sight of a lot of people in the record business was reflected in the harsh attacks I got in interviews, on radio programs and on social media. Some even went so far to send me mails accusing me of killing the industry, that I was a traitor. One of my biggest critics in the end contacted me back years later saying that he was wrong and that I was right. I still appreciate him till the day of today. Only great people can apologize and say they were wrong.

The thing is, it’s not that I like this or that evolution, it is that I just can see what is going to happen and where our music industry is heading towards. Some new techniques will never take off, but it is my job at Alfa Matrix to keep an eye on what is happening in the industry and what is going to happen and see if we should invest time and money in it.

My hunch that propriety was going to be over and done with except for a solid and loyal base has proven to be correct. The success of both Spotify and Bandcamp show that my theory on mixed digital music consumption was spot on and that my critics didn’t have a clue what was going to happen.

It’s actually not the first time that I have had a conflict with my colleagues in the music sector. Back when I worked at an ecommerce startup, some shop owners said that we were killing their business. But when I once worked together with such a critical shop owner annex distributor he was unable to deliver the goods… because we sold tenfold of what he was able to get (laughs). One of the biggest channels of sales for that ecommerce shop was actually Side-Line. To give you an idea, when Depeche Mode released their single boxes, Side-Line single handedly sold all, but literally all of the stock available in Belgium in just a few days. They had to restock with copies from all over Europe because they were in limited supply. The same for the Erasure single boxes. And as far as the Covenant boxset “Synergy: Live In Europe” is concerned. That is the release we sold 10 times what the Belgian distributor had promised he was able to get… (laughs). And still we were the bad guys (laughs even louder).

I have to thank Warren Harrison from Hungry Lucy for that way of forward thinking. He opened my eyes as far as digital music is concerned and taught me to dissociate my own wishes from that of a public’s wish, and to open my eyes for new technologies. I doubt he realizes the impact he had on me. Now he knows (smiles). A good guy he is, a pity we lost contact a bit.

And the future will continue, but more in the propriety field where things are moving rapidly, think of NFT’s. Len Lemeire planted that seed in my head actually. Add to that that we will sooner or later be faced with cryptocurrency payments on a larger scale. I have a few other new technologies in mind that might be big in the near future.

One thing though that will remain key, is data. A lot of labels and bands still haven’t learned from ecommerce –namely that it is an opportunity to know who your fans are, and  they are now again missing the boat as they have put all their money on Facebook and other platforms that lock their fans into their platform without offering you any way to communicate except via their own platform. Deadly on the long run.

There is a story to this actually. I was approached by at least 2 major Indie labels in the past few years asking if I would be willing to –listen well, sell all of Side-Line’s data in order to set up an own label of Electro-Pop music. And these are indies who have had BIG artists on their roster. But they have never ever gathered data, never had a decent newsletter, in short they were flying blind once things went sour. 

Having said that, I also see bad evolutions, the platforms work more and more via AI to push releases to people in order to keep them as much as possible on their platforms. It unfortunately also leads to tracks, which are made to trigger these AI powered algorithms. The first automatically generated tracks are very ‘promising’ and they have been released for quite some time now. I personally am not happy with this evolution, as it removes the human genius from it, but like I said, we risk to see this more and more.

Q: It all looks like ‘younger’ people show less interest to write for a magazine. Why is it and how do you expect things evolving? 

Bernard: If we look across the board, most print magazines from our scene are gone, and when we look to the online press, most online magazines from our scene are gone or are unable to keep up with the daily news pace like we do for instance. I often get requests from people if they can start writing for us, but their mail always ends with this question: ‘How much do you pay?’ Knowing that we have never received any money, it’s rather cynic that people who have never proven a thing think they can ask money… So I will repeat it again, THERE IS NO MONEY TO MAKE with an online magazine about Dark-Wave. 

As far as contributors is concerned, I am happy with the team I work with now. I can count on you and Jan-Ronald, basically the main contributors next to me. You both have a very professional attitude and we are friends most and first of all.

The evolution will depend on the fact if there will be more people willing to invest money and time in these kind of projects like running a magazine. We all know that nowadays you will not earn a living from it, on the contrary, you need some financial backup to keep a website up and running, pay the licences for plugings, data storage, and so on. And that’s without the hours of unpaid work on top each day.

Q: I already had discussions with people –including label owners, who no longer belief in the real impact of magazines today because of streaming platforms and other channels like YouTube. What’s your point of view and do you think magazines are enough taking care to adapt and renew themselves? 

Bernard: Well, this is not a problem for us honestly. Side-Line online is still about kickstarting new and young bands. And that’s mainly why people check Side-Line as we have the finger on the pulse to know what might become hot and what not. Remember Suicide Commando, Apoptygma Berzerk, etc..? They got pushed by Side-Line back in the days when they were largely unknown. Once we give these small bands an initial push they have to continue and work from their side as well and that’s when they get in the flow of things with the streaming platforms for instance nowadays.

Side-Line online is still about kickstarting new and young bands.

Take a magazine like Side-Line away and many small bands will never ever get a platform to develop. The same goes for our compilations, they serve to push smaller bands to a wider public. Consider us as an incubator for talents.

Know that I also regularly get contacted by the biggest bands in the scene directly with news, because they know we will publish it and they know we have a very good reach on a daily basis.

The AI used by streaming companies is a very big part in the music consumption and trying to trigger it is not something that is easily done especially with smaller bands on indie labels like I said earlier. The streaming Ais therefore still leave a lot of pearls untouched. Roughly 5 to 7 million songs on Spotify have never been played you know… That is HUGE.

That’s where magazines enter. Take me for instance, I basically have no time to start looking for new music, and I always look into our own review section for new material. So as a gatekeeper a magazine still has its purpose, at least from my point of view. I once did a test and played a few tracks and checked what the services would deliver as suggestions. They didn’t offer anything extra that interested me compared to what I got from your reviews, but instead offered a lot of junk extra so that I would have to weed out anyhow. It kinda proves that these Ais are still not capable of matching the human ear and feeling. Maybe that will happen in the future, I think so, or I would be really disappointed in our human genius (laughs).

That is of course as far as my own consumption goes. 

Now, I talked about the gate keeping function which has been the purpose of a good magazine. It’s my belief that a niche magazine which has a steady output of well selected news and articles will keep that gatekeepers function intact. Let me explain, most music magazines have over the years changed their focus on more popular bands, new music styles, added games, clothes, TV and showbiz in their mix just to get traffic. Look at NME for instance that is now ruled by clickbait articles and rubbish content. It has nothing left that reminds of the good old NME. All of its roots have been removed for the sake of clicks.

Another example is Techcrunch. This online tech magazine was the best back in time, but then it got taken over, and suddenly they started to pour out tons of clickbait articles, which had nothing to do with what the magazine was about in its early days and that was: talking about startups. I used to be a daily reader, I stopped simply because I couldn’t keep up with all the extra news being posted that was way out of the scope they had in the past. 

Less is often more, also for magazines. 

It comes to this, stick to your roots and make sure you have a continuous and regular number of articles posted.

From a label’s point of view, I have always worked on both. Now, since I usually work with new bands, it’s not always easy to have them launched rapidly like we could in the past. It now takes time. And I also understand the labels when they no longer see clear. There are roughly 1500 journalists out there that claim to have a magazine that handles Dark-Wave. 80% of which basically has a blog that has 10 visitors a day. Good for them, but I don’t believe in them. Basically, and we have to be very honest, there are close to no magazines left in this scene with a wacky team like ours that is day in day out constantly working to get a certain number of articles online.  

Those left still reach around 50.000 people daily on their websites and socials combined per day. And that’s a rough estimate but I’m very close, I think. Not exactly peanuts in a scene this small like ours. And quite a good crowd to for instance push smaller, unknown bands to.

In short, yes, I do believe in our future, as long as we stay loyal to our vision and mission. The numbers show it, we are reaching more people than ever, and not thanks to Facebook, but thanks to our daily newsletter, push notifications and all the other channels combined.

Q: Next to Side-Line and Alfa Matrix you’ve been also involved as organizer -and later as organizer ad hoc, of the now defunct famous Belgian underground festival ‘Eurorock’. A lot of things have been said about that festival. How do you look back at this event(s) with hindsight? 

Bernard: A bit like SABENA, such a bad experience never again (laughs). 

I’m still unable to talk about the first 2 editions I invested money in, due to some legal matters, but suffice to say you always have to look out who to trust. I lost a lot of money there, and evicted myself right on time from that very toxic situation. The 3^rd time, I was contracted – as I never wanted to be an investor again- but never got paid. In the end I had to solve most of the shit together with the stage managers who just like me were contracted and never paid. The shit thrown at us afterwards by people who have no clue is  exemplary yet not exceptional in this or any other scene. 

I made sure that every single band I had placed there was paid correctly. Most were grateful I made this happen, others cashed in and badmouthed me in public. So far for the thanks (grins). But I never forget… nor forgive (laughs).

Q: I know you prefer avoiding the question, but next to music you’re also politically engaged. What can you tell us about the subject?

Bernard: I’m not really trying to avoid it, I just think it’s not part of my work for Side-Line or Alfa Matrix, period. I always have tried to never mix it with both although some people are trying to frame me one way or another, usually because they don’t get my sarcasm. But now that you ask about it, yes I’m politically active in one of the biggest elected and ruling parties here in Flanders. That has been an excuse from extremists and activists to attack me in public, call my employer and frame me as ultra conservative, ultra catholic or even a pur-sang fascist. Well, sorry for those lunatics, but I’m as much a nationalist as any Norwegian hanging the Norwegian flag in their garden (that’s roughly every Norwegian with a garden) and as catholic as Macron. And as far as the other words used by ‘my’ critics, I don’t like the woke culture that is being pushed in our faces. Period.  

For the rest I’m happily married with a Mexicana, one of my best friend is a Turkish Muslim, one of my closest friends is transgender, and in my scarce free time I help people with learning disabilities to learn social skills. That should say enough. For the rest, I keep politics out of Side-Line and far away from Alfa Matrix because it’s basically not music. I don’t ask our readers about their political ideas either and I frankly don’t care.

However, I must say that over the years we never had remarks from readers when we post reviews or news from hardcore communist bands, but that we always get harassed by a very tiny group when a more conservative band is being covered. That’s a pure fact. I never discriminate, but I see some others discriminating people because they don’t agree with the ideas of this or that band. Rather disturbing…

I have a very good story actually regarding this. I once got an email from a guy, who started a rant because we had posted a review of a certain band on Side-Line. He called them fascists, racists, etc, etc.. But when I went checking his Facebook profile, I immediately understood why he was specifically attacking that band. His Facebook was filled with anti-semitic and anti-Israel rants… and the band he talked shit about had a Jewish singer. Shocking, but reality. 

The same for some BLM activists who have been attacking Side-Line in the past because we talk about –and I quote: ‘White men bands’. It is the same as attacking Motown Records because they have a  black repertoire. Most of the criticism can be explained by checking who is saying what about whom.

I know 2 famous bands in this scene who have made anti-semitic rants behind closed doors, I was shocked and told them this was really not right. One band member –member himself of a communist party, has since then been talking shit about me whenever and wherever he can, I guess in order to cover himself in case I make his name and emails with rants public. I also know bands who are very homophobic, but for the sake of things pretend they are pro LGTB-rights. In short, if I would write a book about the dirty wash I have witnessed over the years I think I would have a bestseller (grins). 

I personally don’t believe in left or right. I believe in doing good or doing bad.

Anyhow, I personally don’t believe in left or right. I believe in doing good or doing bad. I prefer doing good, under what political umbrella that may be. I also believe in taking responsibility for your own actions, and hard work. Locally I’m quite appreciated because I talk and listen to everyone, what their skin color, political belief or sexual orientation may be. And if they have a legitimate claim or need, I will try to help.

Q: Quite recently the Side-Line server crashed and you started a crowd funding to pay the costs. Your action was quite successful and Side-Line has been reactivated, which seems to prove Side-Line still means a lot to labels/artists and readers. How do you look back at this stressed period? 

Bernard: I was like ‘NOT AGAIN!’ when I realized it was not just an issue of rebooting the server when the server didn’t fire up as planned. We already had lost our previous site years ago due to a server issue and lost years and years of data… so you can imagine I was kinda stressed (laughs). But luckily enough, I had been working with this software engineer (editor’s note: Martin Rosselle) in another IT project. He is working for some of the biggest companies I know and he literally has made a name as being somebody who solves problems, a Winston Wolf in the software sector as you wish. I contacted him and told him we really needed the site back operational pretty fast and if he could help out. He canceled all his freelance work he had planned and asked me to come over so I could follow closely and help with the work. The error we had, was even for the engineers at our hosting company quite a real conundrum. Hell, they even asked us to please keep them informed as to how we would solve it because they had run out of options.

I took a 5 days unpaid leave, jumped in my car at 5 in the morning and drove 3,5 hours to set up shop at Martin’s place. In the car I was thinking of how to finance this endeavor… I’m already pumping thousands of Euros into Side-Line each year, but corona made that a lot of my income had completely vaporized so an extra financial blow like this was just very, very difficult. 

Then while I was having a coffee at a motorway restaurant, somebody sent me a WhatsApp message saying: ‘Hey Bernard, I saw your message that the site is down and that you guys are working on it. If you set up a crowdfund, I’ll gladly help!’ I was like, ‘really would people help out?’ So whilst doing the last hundred kilometers I was thinking ‘why not, if it gathers enough to pay half of the bill then that would already help a lot ‘. 

But it turned out to be really overwhelming… I’m still emotional when I think of it really… I saw the donations pouring in, from readers, bands, small labels, small PR companies, artists. I was actually very positively surprised that it were the smaller labels and bands next to lots of readers that came forward to support this crowdfund. I haven’t heard a word from the big labels… One of the biggest label bosses in this scene did send me an email… asking when their news would be up… no help, no question, nothing. It strengthens me in my vision that we have to stay an incubator for new talents and new and smaller labels, as they are definitely more connected with us… 

I did learn another lesson from this though, and that is that I need to delegate more. Jan-Ronald Stange has been helping with design, and I contracted Martin for our server maintenance and security so that we can intervene directly with the right people when needed. 

Q: What have been the best and worst memories from all the years you’ve been involved with Side-Line? 

Bernard: The worst: seeing others suffer. You know what I mean. 

The best: it is wonderful to stay friends for all these years with people with such different characters inside the team. And Side-Line also opened the gate towards other people I respect, I got in contact with Jan-Ronald Stange thanks to a lunatic groupie, so that ended well (laughs). And I shouldn’t forget Anne-Laure, Erlend, Marianne, Leydi, Simon and so many other people who have become close and reliable friends thanks to Side-Line.

Basically, working at and with Side-Line is the proof for me that one doesn’t need to stay in his/her own echo chamber to respect and be respected. You know that as well, I have told you that in a recent text message remember?

Q: Are you sometimes thinking about the end of Side-Line and also the end of Alfa Matrix? What should be the best way to say goodbye? 

Bernard: I have a pretty compulsive character, however, Side-Line has been a constant element in my life for the past 30 years. I always dedicate 2-3 hours per day to the magazine, writing articles, working on the site’s cms and machinery behind it, answering a ton of emails… It survived 2 marriages so far as well (laughs)! So no, it’s a part of me, and I haven’t really thought about stopping although there have been moments that I think, who the hell am I doing this for… But then you get a big thank you mail from a band or reader or label and that’s enough to kill off those negative feelings.

But if we would close shop, I guess it will be with a big bang (smiles). But so far so good.

If we would close shop, I guess it will be with a big bang.

The same goes for Alfa Matrix, as long as we can find good bands to push, we’ll continue.

Q: You and I have had some personal issues, but I think that thanks to Side-Line, we became and still are good friends. Any specific souvenir or anecdote you want to share? 

Bernard: Ah yes, we have gone through some turmoil you and me. I guess that is just part of good friendships, it’s like a marriage I guess, either you make up or you go to a lawyer (laughs). I guess we both learned from our private wars and have learned to respect each other. And that is what counts, we learned to see what unites us, not what divides us. And we never had to hire a lawyer (laughs)!

But speaking about the special moments… Well, racing on a German motorway at 200 km/h in a BMW to get home in time to drop of some equipment and then realize we could have delivered it 2 days later as well…. That was quite a memorable and especially dangerous moment we shared (laughs). Honestly, it was completely irresponsible, and I would never do it again, whatever the reason. Had we crashed, a magazine would have disappeared, a label and a few bands would never have seen the light of day and my sons would for sure never have existed and most importantly this: some others could have been injured or killed. I never drive fast nowadays, if I’m too late for a meeting so be it, but usually I start on time, it also avoids unnecessary stress and gives me the option to also have a coffee underway.

I also remember some sectarian veggie restaurant somewhere in Brussels where we ended up via John Sellekaers I think? That was quite weird for me… the food was ok though, but I’m not really into sects (laughs). But aside from that, I kinda miss sitting in a restaurant with all of us, you, Seba, Benoit, Cedric, and a few others which are still part of my inner circle, but who I don’t see enough. Luckily at least you and me did a good restaurant now !

Inferno Sound Diaries

I have been working for over 30 years with Side-line as the main reviewer. My taste is eclectic, uncoventional and I prefer to look for the pearls, even if the bands are completely unknown, thus staying loyal to the Side-Line philosophy of nurturing new talents.

www.side-line.com

When we first heard from the Swedish band Circumpolar, Jonas Mattsson and Patrik Wallin, it was very clear that this band was bound to fill the gap that has existed for more than a decade in the electro scene, and that’s good olschool darkwave electro which we got to appreciate with bands such as the original Skinny Puppy, Abscess, Fortification 55 and many others, albeit with an up-to-date production.

This newcomer act took us literally by surprise with the release of their “We Will Remain” EP, this was like the scene in “Ratatouille” (2007) where Anton Ego tastes his dish, the ultimate flashback to those good old darkwave days.

Out by mid-November but now already in pre-order via Bandcamp and on 2CD via the Alfa Matrix webstore is the album “Awaiting The Dawn”. We already got to hear the complete album, and it surely was right what we expected: dark and somber darkwave electro with tormented vocals. The limited CD edition of the album comes out as a digipak double-CD with a 9-track bonus disc gathering the two “We Will Remain” and “Until The End Of Time” EP’s which appear on CD for the very first time.

On Bandcamp you can get the album separately so you don’t need to buy the EPs a second time. If you haven’t got the previous two EPs, don’t hesitate. You can check the material out below. Very warmly recommended.

If you want an extra glimpse of the new album, then check out the teaser below.

Bernard - Side-Line Staff

Chief editor of Side-Line – which basically means I spend my days wading through a relentless flood of press releases from labels, artists, DJs, and zealous correspondents. My job? Strip out the promo nonsense, verify what’s actually real, and decide which stories make the cut and which get tossed into the digital void. Outside the news filter bubble, I’m all in for quality sushi and helping raise funds for Ukraine’s ongoing fight against the modern-day axis of evil.

side-line.com

Genre/Influences: Dark-electro, electro-wave, dark-pop.

Format: Digital, CD.

Background/Info: “Suicide Songs” marks the return of Black Heaven. After an absence of eight years Martin Schindler –who’s better known for his involvement with the gothic project Mantus, reactivated his ‘electro’ project, which has been introduced as an ultra dark opus.

Content: “Suicide Songs” in a way stands for the dystopian world we’re living in; a world that is driving mad and, which seems to have its impact at the artist. All these feelings have been transposed into a melancholic, danceable electro-format, which is mixing electronics together with pop, gothic and new-wave. The music has a retro feeling reminding me of the 90s and especially Fortification 55 comes to mind. The songs are dark and melodic, and also feature noticeable lyrics about the disillusion of the artist.

+ + + : I like the retro-90s feeling, but more than that, this album reveals great melody lines (which is not that surprising if you’re familiar with Mantus), a dark electro-wave sphere and danceable rhythms. I also like his dark timbre of voice, which only accentuates the darkness of the concept. There also is a cool song “Another Life” with female backings. The main strength emerges from the carrying choruses. This album features several beautiful songs. Black Heaven doesn’t really bring something new, but this dark opus has something refreshing in times dark-electro artists became the copy of another copy.

– – – : It’s not that easy to release a new work after a hiatus of eight years. So it will be not that easy for Black Heaven to bring this album in the spotlights. From a pure musical point of view, some songs are maybe a bit too similar, but I’m not complaining.

Conclusion: Black Heaven strikes back with style! This is the right album to put this project back on the map.

Best songs: “No Love”, “Wake Me Up”, “When I’m Dead”, “Another Life”, “Leave Me Alone”.

Rate: (8).

Artist: http://sepia–music.com/bh / www.facebook.com/Black–Heaven-183146875047967

Label: www.trisol.de / www.facebook.com/pages/Trisol–Music–Group/104166526285471

Inferno Sound Diaries

I have been working for over 30 years with Side-line as the main reviewer. My taste is eclectic, uncoventional and I prefer to look for the pearls, even if the bands are completely unknown, thus staying loyal to the Side-Line philosophy of nurturing new talents.

www.side-line.com

A few weeks ago, we informed you about Circumpolar, a Swedish darkwave project consisting of the duo Jonas Mattson and Patrik Wallin. The band got featured on our free charity download compilation “Face The Beat: Session 5” with the track “Until the End of Time” which instantly brings up memories of those good old days when the darkwave scene had great melodic bands around in the vein of Abcess, Fortification 55, or even Inside Treatment.

Things have been going pretty fast since then. The band has signed to Alfa Matrix which is immediately releasing 2 EPs/singles from the band. The first being “We Will Remain” which holds all new material, 5 tracks that is with 2 clocking in at 7 minutes plus. We really felt young again listening to these tunes!

The second single/EP is a re-release of their self-released download EP “Until The End Of Time”. These first 4 songs are inspired by ancient rites and metaphors of the perpetual cycles of the stars, the sun and the moon and life in general.

Bernard - Side-Line Staff

Chief editor of Side-Line – which basically means I spend my days wading through a relentless flood of press releases from labels, artists, DJs, and zealous correspondents. My job? Strip out the promo nonsense, verify what’s actually real, and decide which stories make the cut and which get tossed into the digital void. Outside the news filter bubble, I’m all in for quality sushi and helping raise funds for Ukraine’s ongoing fight against the modern-day axis of evil.

side-line.com

(Interview / photo by Eldrina Mich) While the charity download compilation “Face The Beat: Session 5” is still reigning the charts on Bandcamp, we decided it was time again to speak with Bernard Van Isacker, the brain behind this compilation. He is also Side-Line’s chief editor and resides with his family (and 2 cats) in Ypres, a small town nearby the French border in what’s called the Westhoek or Maritime Flanders. During the First World War, Ypres (or “Wipers” as it was commonly known by the British troops) was the centre of the Battles of Ypres between German and Allied forces, nowadays it’s a bit calmer.

I meet Bernard on a cold Friday evening at The Times, a small pub on the border of the Ypres market square.

SL: The previous interview was in June of 2015 when the 2nd volume of “Face The Beat” had just been released. It’s like yesterday!

B: Time flies very fast indeed. Good to see you are still looking great (laughs)!

SL: The compilation has been doing quite well since its launch, it went straight to the number 1 spots on Bandcamp in the alternative, industrial and goth charts.

B: Yeps, and it even was the 2nd most downloaded release on Bandcamp the day of its release, so yes, quite spectacular. It’s not really a surprise though, all of the volumes kept on being downloaded ever since the project started and I kept getting questions when the new volume would be released. But most importantly, I think we have a very strong list of tracks on this volume.

Next to that, the power of Bandcamp has become very clear here. The moment the new volume was launched Bandcamp’s notification system sent out a huge blast to a massive amount of people informing them and as a result you saw the release climbing very fast in the charts.

SL: I don’t know of any other scene compilation which has succeeded charting that fast and so high on Bandcamp?

B: Me neither (smiles). I have already been asked by a lot of people from inside the music industry how this is possible with a compilation that doesn’t feature the biggest names from this scene like Front 242, VNV Nation, etc.. But it’s especially the fact they can discover new and less wellknown bands that makes people wanting to get hold of it. Speaking of which, I especially want to thank Raphael Beck (darkTunes), Andy Skyqode (Skyqode) and Seba Dolimont (Alfa Matrix) who have been good allies in the past few years – and again this time – in getting the series up and running. They have valued the series since day 1 and I really appreciate that.

SL: Was the start so difficult?

B: When I started with this series a few years ago, in 2011 that is, not many labels believed in the concept, some did like the ones I mentioned earlier. The hesitation was mainly because I decided to feature a lot of smaller and starting bands. For me that was THE reason to do it that way because this is actually the core idea behind Side-Line since day one: being an indie magazine that is a platform for bands to get noticed, unknown and known, starters and established acts. Since the start of the series, the influx of submissions for the compilation never stopped, a lot of bands want to be on it and especially those who stand behind the charity causes that we support.

SL: It took you a while to come up with this 5th volume, I think I have seen some preliminary cover artwork some 2 years ago already?

B: Yes (smiles). It would initially have been released in early 2018, but something came up in mid-2017 that jeopardized the whole project. Let’s say that some mainstream label thought they could just harass us in taking over the concept. It kept on causing problems till mid-2018. I won’t say more about this, suffices to say, we won, they lost (smiles). The first cover artwork you refer too (Editor’s note: you can see it below) was made in November 2017 during a stay in France, at Le Mont Saint-Michel, together with my wife and newborn son Magnus.

SL: The cover artwork produced at that occasion had ‘the final side-line’ as subline? What was the meaning of that?

B: Back then I was really doubting if I would go on with the magazine or not. So that artwork would have been my final word on the matter.

Sorry I didn’t inform the rest of the team, but it was really on my mind to pull the plug. It isn’t all that unlogical, it takes lots of time to keep this doing and with a new baby in the family, I wasn’t sure to be able to handle this all. My other ‘companion de route’, Stef, also has had his fair share of not so pleasant news, so the toxic mix was there and it played around for a while…

I think we all have those difficult moments when there’s too much going on. Plus, and that’s on a personal level, often you don’t really get any ‘thank you’ back for all of the work that you do, and I’m not only talking about Side-Line or so. When you do a lot of (mostly unpaid) work for very little return on several levels, it starts nagging.

Then in February 2018 I was in Oslo with my wife and I visited Jan Ronald Stange, our local correspondent there. We have gotten along really well since meeting I think in 2010 and when I’m in the Nordics I always try to pay him a visit. And believe it or not, his enthusiasm is kinda infectious (laughs). My wife also noticed that, and said something like: “It’s time you get the same enthusiasm like Jan in your work again”. That made me thinking… Anyhow, here we are (smiles).

As a result I binned the first cover artwork idea and went for a completely new approach. But it was only last month after visiting Maastricht in The Netherlands together with my oldest son Sebastian that I found the perfect artwork idea. I saw this great bronze lion face on a big door, watched it closely, took a picture and in the hotel I started playing with some ideas. I sent those to Simon Helm from Cold War Night Life to ask his opinion and we picked the final one.

SL: Why Simon?

B: Long story cut really short. I knew Simon was behind Cold War Night Life, and one thing led to another and I got to meet him a few months ago when he was in Brussels. Jean-Marc Lederman told me he was a decent guy so the more reason to meet up. We ended up talking for hours in a small restaurant, the Arcadi in case you wonder, about all kind of things. And Simon got to learn to eat Stoemp with saussage, a typical dish from Brussels (laughs)! Cool intelligent guy he is with a clear view on a lot of things. I like straightforward people and he for sure is one. On top we kinda share the same humor, something really important. Simon also has been writing some stuff for Side-Line since then. I trust him and value his feedback, hence why I asked for his feedback.

SL: In the press release for this compilation it’s noted that the release is by far the darkest you ever compiled. I tend to agree with this. Personally, it reminded me of “040 Hamburg Strikes Back!”, the compilation released by the defunct label Hypnobeat in 1992.

B: I love that compilation! For me it was the first time I got to hear from Fortification 55, the band formed by Björn Petersen and Jan Kruse. They made some great albums back in the days. Thanks for the compliment, it was really that feeling that I had when going through the selection here!

SL: I noticed you also had a megamix prepared to promote this release, how did that come about?

B: I actually hadn’t prepared this at all. It was pure coïncidence. Shane Aungst, who made the megamix, contacted me a few days after the release was out saying he had picked 20 something tracks of the compilation to create a megamix. It turned out to be one that was 1 hour, 33 minutes and 21 seconds in length featuring 23 tracks and the quality was excellent! After mailing back and forth I created a cover for the megamix and Shane edited the megamix into 2 because Bandcamp was unable to feature the full length in one cut. Perhaps they should increase the 600 MB limit when you want to release a megamix (smiles).

It’s a nice extra on which Shane has been working for hours. We plan an interview with him in the next days actually.

SL: Something else. You informed us a few weeks ago that Side-Line had opened a channel on the mobile app Telegram?

B: Yes, that’s correct. The reason behind this is that Facebook is more and more becoming a no-go for indie news discovery. I for instance use Twitter a lot more for my news digestion, because Facebook really is rubbish at getting decent news in my feed even though I follow some really good sources. At Side-Line we could easily write clickbait articles that would get spread a lot. But that’s not what I want, and on top the team really wants to continue bringing news about smaller bands. But that’s not what Facebook wants, so it deliberately doesn’t push those newsitems to our readers since the ‘engagement’ is lower.

Facebook is really becoming a graveyard as far as non-commercial news is concerned. Unless you pay and even then. I don’t expect Facebook to get any better, on the contrary, it will get worse, because the shareholders will want more and more. Facebook can only deliver this by squeezing more and more money out of our pocket. And with their Libra project becoming a nightmare, you can be sure we the publishers all will have to pay for it (laughs)!

You know, Facebook has censored a ton of our articles because they didn’t like the artwork used by the band’s featured. Rammstein, Apoptygma Berzerk, Siva Six, Alien Vampires, Combichrist, articles from all of these bands and many more were simply censored and banned from the network … pretty frustrating.

SL: So Telegram is the way to go?

B: Yes. The service offers you the possibility to send out newsupdates to an unlimited number of people in one go without it being stopped, hidden away or censored even. I prefer this kind of news updates where I chose what I want to get.

People can join us on Telegram via this link https://t.me/sidelinemag (install the app as well, on desktop or mobile) and they will get our news first before it gets posted on Facebook. The good thing is that the channel is ad free. You just get our news and you can leave a like or dislike, and that’s where the comparison with Facebook ends. I’m personally also using Telegram a lot more to connect with people instead of Whatsapp. If you haven’t got an account yet, make sure to sign up!

SL: What’s coming up next?

B: As far as Side-Line is concerned I’m working on a few projects, but it’s too early to announce anything yet.

SL: Last question, what keeps you busy besides Side-Line?

B: Ha, a lot of things, too many things really. Besides my daytime job as a social media marketeer and CRM responsible at the Belgian branch of a multinational, and running 2 small holiday houses, I’m still heavily involved in Alfa Matrix, Bob De Moor, collecting original drawings by comic masters and a lot of local ‘policy work’, the latter is often draining a lot of my patience (laughs). I also have started running to stay fit. Every 2 days I try to do my 5 kilometers, early in the morning before having a breakfast at the local Panos, which opens at around 5.30 AM. It’s a perfect way to start the day with fresh energy I must say.

Eldrina Mich

As Eldrina Mich I work as a go-between and a devil’s advocate when it comes to Side-Line. If our own staff needs to be interviewed then ask the questions no one else dares to ask.

www.side-line.com

The 1st track on our free (or pay-what-you-want to support our charity work) download compilation “Face The Beat: Session 5” is by Circumpolar, a Swedish darkwave project consisting of the duo Jonas Mattson and Patrik Wallin.

The song is the title track of their debut EP “Until the End of Time” which the band self-released on Bandcamp. The song instantly will bring up memories of those good old days when the darkwave scene had great melodic darkwave bands around in the vein of Abcess, Fortification 55, or even Inside Treatment.

There’s more about this band that caught our attention. For instance, unlike most bands these days, Circumpolar isn’t afraid of releasing lenghty songs. “Until the End of Time” for instance lasts for a good 7.07 minutes, and that’s the shortest song on their debut EP! It wouldn’t surprise us that this yet-unsigned band gets picked up by a label pretty soon. You can check the song below!

The band also just launched a Facebook page, make sure to hook up with them!

Check “Face The Beat: Session 5” on Bandcamp to discover the other bands. All donations will go to charity.

Bernard - Side-Line Staff

Chief editor of Side-Line – which basically means I spend my days wading through a relentless flood of press releases from labels, artists, DJs, and zealous correspondents. My job? Strip out the promo nonsense, verify what’s actually real, and decide which stories make the cut and which get tossed into the digital void. Outside the news filter bubble, I’m all in for quality sushi and helping raise funds for Ukraine’s ongoing fight against the modern-day axis of evil.

side-line.com