German musician Mike Erkau started making music forty years ago now! He got involved with multiple projects like Trackologists, Cosmic Noise Crew, Stimulus Response and his own sonic alter-ego The_Empath. Earlier this year Mike Erkau stroke back with the first new studio-album in eight years. “Black Holes” also is the first album released by Audiophob. This opus is a genius composition which is mixing good-old Ambient-Electro together with a more contemporary IDM touch; a kind of retro-futuristic voyage which might appeal for fans of Tangerine Dream and clock dva. I talked with Mike about this The_Empath masterpiece which took some time to get accomplished. This is without a shadow of a doubt one of the best albums from the year.

(Courtesy by Inferno Sound Diaries)

Q: I noticed you started dealing with Electronic music in 1993. What did you keep in mind from your early experiments and compositions and what remains today from the musician you were at that time?

Mike: It is a great challenge to consistently follow your path, to find your own style and to remain true to yourself. Not to lose sight of the big picture. To keep your heart and your antennae open for new things. Curiosity.

To think outside the box. To be inspired across all genre boundaries. It’s like picking flowers away from the mainstream. Searching for sounds and musical structures that touch something somewhere deep inside yourself. Playing around, recreating, adapting, taking apart, picking apart, recombining to find out what it does to you, and what it might do to others. To share with soulmates and walk a path together. Taking perspectives, approaches into your own toolbox. Learning and getting better. That’s exciting.

I see music as the perfect catalyst for any emotion, both positive and negative. In doing so, the balance should always point in the positive direction, because that generates the necessary energy for my musical journey. It’s an ongoing process.

Q: I read your newest The_Empath album “Black Hole” took you a while to achieve. Can you give us more details about the concept and composition of the album? What did you try to express?

Mike: The original idea for “Black Hole” came up back in 2016. At various festivals I heard some musicians whose music appealed to me a lot, and I felt like trying out collaborations with them.

Originally, it was supposed to be 6 sound structures of 12 minutes each, the theme was already called “Black Hole”, in the astronomical sense. The desire was to find out how something like that could sound. So I had 12-minute sound collages sent to me, which I wanted to use as a basis for adapting, refining and expanding them. A perfect playground, so far, so good.

A couple of massive impacts in the private sphere and the events that overruled everything valid until then  in the years 2020 to 2022 threw me completely off track and pulled me emotionally into a deep black hole.

The rat race was stopped, no one could tell where it was going, unforeseeable consequences. Omnipresent powerlessness and ambivalence. Social, ethical and moral upheavals and everywhere only masked insecure, dissatisfied, annoyed and angry people.

The mourning for the many dead, while others stuffed their pockets. The emotional hell for empathic people. “Lost Your Cygnal”, “Ergosphere” and “Supermassiph” are the most impressive sound documents for it. Luckily I always had the Cosmic Noise Crew around me at that time, and we used the lockdowns to revise the concept for the album in the studio, to explore sounds and to bring everything down to a good denominator.
That helped me a lot to get out of that black hole and not lose sight of the stars. To think positively. Examples of this are “Utopia”, “Star Cradle”, “Hypernova” and “Southern Hemisphere”.

Q: The concept of black holes seems to be a perfect source of inspiration for Ambient music but how did you proceed to transpose the concept into sounds, noises and finally songs? And can you tell us a bit more about the equipment you used?

Mike: I experimented with my hardware synths for a while in the beginning, but somehow it all sounded too ‘earthly’, too limited. In 2016, I only had a very small home studio due to lack of space. So I started chopping up the source collages, looking for loops and micro events on a granular level and creating iterations of them with effects. At the time I was collecting freeware VST’s – and experimenting my way through over 1000 plugins. Along the way I browsed the internet for sound samples -there are quite a few sound documents that have been made available to the public by NASA. Among them are recordings of the Cassini probes and radio wave emissions from supermassive black holes, e.g. TON 618, a distant, bright quasar in the constellation of the hunting dogs, or the black hole in the Perseus galaxy cluster. These cosmic sound machines can be experienced by human hearing through translation.

In 2019 I had begun to build a sound spaceship into my apartment, just as I had always wanted since 1993. Stuffed with hardware sound generators covering a spectrum of synthesis types as wide as possible. Just like in a spaceship cockpit.

In recent years, a lot of good hardware has come on the market, which is above all also affordable, as well as tons of ingenious VST plugins. I use these depending on my mood, controlled by a Novation KS5 as a master keyboard. As a mixer I use a Behringer X32Rack + S16, for the USB stuff a Swissonic 1916 with Sub Hub’s. It really wasn’t until 2020 that I had all the technical requirements in place to be able to use all these options at will. And that without hitting technical limits during every studio session.

The following hardware sound generators were used on the album, among others: Access Virus Indigo, Clavia Nordlead 2, Korg MS20 mini, Novation KS5, Arturia Microbrute + Microfreak, Waldorf Blofeld + Streichfett, Doepfer MS404, Roland GAIA, Behringer Neutron + Pro-1. VST plugins: Sonic Charge, GForce, NI Absynth(!) + Reaktor, Spire, Sylenth, Valhalla, Arturia V-Collection etc.

When I look back to 1993 – oh man. With my beloved Amiga500 with 1MB RAM and Clarity Sampler, Doepfer MS404, Novation Bass-Station Rack and Korg DW8000 with the most rickety keyboard I’ve ever experienced -without the possibilities of any audio warping and DAW controllers, let alone boundlessly huge sample libraries and tons of VST’s. You had to be inventive and willing to experiment and have fun doing it. At that time, you couldn’t buy creativity, and you still can’t.

Q: You invited a few guest artists to collaborate on three tracks from the album. I’m especially wondered how the track together with Heimstatt Yipotash happened as both of you are still involved in Trackologists? What made this collaboration different? And do you still have further plans with Trackologists?

Mike: At that time I was already on the road for a while as a VJ with the guys from Heimstatt Yipotash and we hatched the idea for a joint music project on a trip to a gig. When I started with “Black Hole”, the first Trackologists album  (cf. “No Surrender, No Retreat”) was just finished, and while rummaging through the huge collection of material, I stumbled across leftovers, field recordings and experiments, a few tracks played several times slower and so on. I then processed them further, added more layers to them and expanded them. I simply wanted to have these sounds on “Black Hole”. The special thing about our collaboration was and is that we first and foremost understand and complement each other super humanly and musically and always have a good time together.

YES, there are further plans with Trackologists. After the whole difficult time, which has more or less burdened everyone in all areas, we have resumed the common track. At the moment we are working on a come-back EP and structuring sketches and ideas for a second album, whose theme and name is already fixed. It will follow the first album musically and in terms of content, with more lyrics and a musically more homogeneous concept. This will hopefully be followed, desirably, by a series of gigs where we can really let off steam for ourselves and the audience.

Q: Next to music you also have a true passion and fascination for visual creation. You already did numerous live shows for other artists. Tell us a bit more about this other aspect of your art and do you’ve plans about any kind of imagery for the The_Empath album “Black Hole” (think about live shows, clips…)?

Mike: My fascination for visual design has resulted from the desire to see another media layer at live gigs, complementing and enriching the music, performance and light show. Not necessarily just a flickering background wallpaper, but matching the music, reacting to the music. So to speak an amplifier for the message and thus for the transported emotion.

I started doing that during my studies, for my own tracks and every now and then at parties as a VJ. From 2005 to 2015 I was often on the road with XABEC and learned and got to know immensely. The absolute highlight from this time is still for me the gig at the Maschinenfest 2008 in Krefeld, from which a DVD was created afterwards. I am very grateful for this time. It resulted in many contacts, and when I was up for a festival, I asked friends: ‘hey, can I make a video for you’ and was in the middle of it instead of just being there. Give and take. There were also facade projections for multimedia festivals and a trailer for Tzolk’in.

Working with these techniques is no less complex than creative work with audio, unfortunately at least as time-consuming and was/is often put on the back of the line for cost reasons. I still enjoy producing videos because I like the aesthetics and the interplay. At the moment, however, I’m concentrating more on my own projects.

For “Black Hole” there are no promising ideas for live shows and clips yet due to time constraints.
A dream would be to play the album in planetariums on 3D audio systems. If it comes so far I am then quite fast with the thing.

Q: You already mentioned Cosmic Noise Crew which is another project you’re involved with. I think it sounds  even more Ambient-driven than The_Empath but what makes the difference to you between all of your projects? And do you’ve specific references and/of ‘masters’ when it comes to this kind of music?

Mike: The difference between the projects is primarily the subject matter and secondarily the intensity of the emotions that are processed with it. For a long time I resisted opening up different pigeonholes and sorting my emotions into them. However, it became increasingly difficult for me to bring all this into one mould, and for the listeners it was certainly not easy to classify it. Mixing my musical preferences for aesthetic soothing sounds alternately with brute beats and noises, I was fortunately able to get away from this by splitting up into different projects. Cosmic Noise Crew clearly has Ambient, healing musical structures and sounds as its goal, where inspiration and the musical socialization of several players come into play and complement each other. With Trackologists it’s more forward, also sometimes straight in your face -full speed ahead. Here we act out, with a view to content and sound aesthetics, but without destroying. We put in the texts many clues between the lines for the people who are looking for it. To hold up the mirror, but not only to others, but starting with ourselves.

The_Empath I need as an island for myself, but on which everyone is welcome at any time, who is able to enrich this project with positive energy.

References and masters, a tricky question to finish. I can only answer for myself. I would say to be a reference deserves everything that combines the attributes honest, technically brilliant, creative, surprising, expanding the horizon, rousing and emotional. The list is endless, and it never stops growing. My master is the universe.

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

Belgian duo Cedrik Fermont (Ambre, Dead Hollywood Stars, Črno Klank, Kirdec ao) and Olivier Moreau (Imminent, Ambre ao) set up Axiome in 1991. Both artists and friends got involved in an impressive number of projects, but they regularly move back working on new Axiome stuff. The band explored multiple influences and music genres, but the last albums became more sophisticated, mixing elements of IDM, Acid and Minimal-Electro. The new album “Field Guide To Alien Planets And Other Disco Balls” released on Audiophob is an intelligent piece of modern underground Electro. This album deserves a bit more information which was given by both protagonists.

(Courtesy by Inferno Sound Diaries)

Q: Getting back to the early work of Axiome (more than 30 years ago now) and listening afterwards to your new album I honestly didn’t get the impression listening to the same project. What has made this radical evolution and what remains from the early Axiome anno 1991?

Axiome: It’s perhaps not a radical evolution, we had more than three decades to reach that point. Unlike some artists we never got stuck in one music genre, if one listens to all of our releases it is easy to see that we have always been evolving and changing: we played Industrial, Power-Noise, Glitch, Breakcore, Acid and Electro. We sometimes went with the flow, like when we played Breakcore, we wanted to bring something new in the Power-Noise and Industrial music scene that has sometimes a hard time to renew itself. We both lived in Belgium back then and the Breakcore scene was huge in there, the audience was also very different, more related to the club scene but also the Punk scene too and we loved that energy, we were booked to play for Breakcore Gives Me Wood or for the Maschinenfest scenes that brought very different listeners, which was interesting to see but we are also both fan of Electro and related genres, we partly grew up with Punk and Post-Punk, EBM, New-Beat and Acid and also with Noise, Experimental and Industrial music, I presume all this imprinted us.

What remains from the early times is probably that fact that we like to try new things and as a duo have our own personality.

You know, what shaped our first tape recordings around 1990/1991 was not only our music tastes but also our inexperience and lack of money to buy better gears.

Q: You guys have been involved with numerous projects so what makes Axiome different from the rest and what’s the main focus when working together as Axiome?

Axiome: Axiome is the oldest active ‘band’ we are involved with and maybe with one exception, we always meet to compose, we don’t exchange files for working remotely. Which is not always the case with some of our other projects.

The main focus is perhaps enjoying time composing together, having breaks to listen to music we like and eating good food.

Q: One thing is for sure, the title of the new album sounds totally weird. Is there a deeper- and maybe metaphoric significance behind or is it just your sense of humor?

Axiome: It’s just humor, you can see it in many of our other releases. Humor is often lacking in the Industrial, EBM or Electro circles and we both like humor. We both grew up in Belgium, a surreal place that is not afraid of making fun of itself, isn’t it ?

You’ve got all these Electro artists embracing sci-fi topics, often dystopian ones but the world can be hilarious too… No alien ever attacked us so far, the problems astronautics has to deal with are Moonwalkers crapping their pants and clogged toilets on the space station. Here are some of the real space quest’s dramas. Can you imagine how it’s going to be on Mars? Settlers walking with diapers, humanity reborn! Ah ah!

Q: Sound-wise I experience “Field Guide To Alien Planets And Other Disco Balls” as totally ‘free-style’. Multiple influences have been mixed together without compromises. How did the writing process happened and did you handle specific references and/or guideline?

Axiome: We never write down ideas and concepts or music notation, here again, we go with the flow. Trial and errors. We might have a vague idea in mind but the end result is often different from the original idea if we had one. There’s no fixed goal.

We sit behind the computer and try to compose a looped rhythm, once we think it sounds good, we add sounds and synthesizers and perhaps other beats and then nowadays voices too.

The only concept that we have are the provisory titles which are often connected to vegetable names, so when we compose an album, each track is connected to a vegetable or fruit belonging to the same family. Sorry if we ruined all our fans’ fantasies.

Q: One of the influences running through your latest works is Acid music which is not exactly often used and mixed with Industrial- and related music genres. What does Acid music evoke to you and the famous Acid scene from Chicago, Detroit ao?

Cedrik : I think Olivier is more acquainted with Acid music than me. I listen to some of it, mostly old stuff, not only the US scene, I like some of the productions a lot but never dove deeply into what has been done or is still being produced. I must tell you that I don’t consider AXIOME to be an Industrial band, we have been one but what we do now is pretty different and doesn’t correspond to how I see Industrial music. Acid is related to Dance music and clubs and what we do is some kind of perhaps mutant version of Dance and Club music.

We thought I’d be interesting to incorporate such influence into something else than Techno. In fact other artists have been incorporating 303 sounds with Ambient or Industrial music for a long time now, it’s nothing new.

Q: What makes the chemistry between both of you and how do you expect AXIOME evolving after more than 30 years?

Axiome: We met when we were two years old, going to the same kindergarten (no kidding !) and even if we now live 700 km apart from each other, we usually see each other several times per year to compose music and music-wise, we still have a lot in common.

We never exactly know how Axiome will evolve, we sometimes have a plan but without guarantee that it won’t change. We wanted to make some Detroit inspired Electro and now, check our latest two albums “Who Will Control Us?” and “Field Guide To Alien Planets And Other Disco Balls”, the result doesn’t exactly fit that box.

As many events that occurred in the past three years have proven it, humanity’s future is unpredictable, so is Axiome too. A next album could be Hip-Hop or Ambient or else, this is what makes us interesting, we hope, there’s no rule.

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

Mirko Hentrich last year celebrated the twenty fifth anniversary of his sonic brainchild SPHERICAL DISRUPTED. Better than unleashing a ‘best of’ he released a totally new album plus two extra discs featuring remixes and previously unreleased material. The box has been released on Mirko’s own label Audiophob and is a new sonic exploration and mix of different Electronic styles. With this interview I want to pay homage to a talented and visionary artist who released numerous great productions.

(Courtesy by Inferno Sound Diaries)

Q: You last year celebrated the 25^th anniversary of your main music project SPHERICAL DISRUPTED. What comes directly into mind when evoking these 25 years of commitment and what have been the main facts and best memories?

Mirko: 25 years ago the first public release came out. I’d started to make music a couple of years earlier. It is a pretty long journey so far and the beginning is really far away. But on the other hand me and all the other contributors on the release are thinking that the time went by really fast. Yes, it’s very ambivalent. So, all the thoughts about the past time of making music and the past of the project is the main thing that comes to my mind regarding the anniversary.

Of course every new release was an important moment for me and the founding of my label Audiophob with Carsten Stiller, which is already 17 years ago as well. But the best memories are mostly all the great live experiences, especially the ones at “Maschinenfest”-festival or the journey to Moscow and so on. It’s always great playing live and getting the reactions by the audience immediately.

Q: Do you notice main changes/evolutions in your approach of composing music between 1995 and today?

Mirko: The way I’m producing my music evolved not that much. Of course the gear and software have changed from time to time, which brings some changes in workflow naturally. But the main approach and even the master keyboard is still the same than over 25 years ago.

Q: You celebrated this 25^th anniversary by the release of a very special album featuring new work, but also remixes. Tell us a bit more about the new songs and the entire concept of “25”?

Mirko: The concept itself changed during production process. The initial plan was to release a double CD compilation with only a couple of new tracks plus some of my remixes for other artists, which are very important to me. There are some tracks I’m still liking a lot, but they weren’t available anymore or were even unreleased, like the remixes for THE_EMPATH and MIMETIC or for my own band from the 90s, EXPERIMENTUM CRUCIS.

But due to some serious health issues I wasn’t able to go to work in my regular job for several months last year and so there was the time for more new music and for more research in the archive, which resulted in a lot more tracks I originally wanted to put on “25”. Finally I decided that the box will contain a completely new album plus the two CD compilations.

For the first time there were two tracks with vocal contributions. This idea came before the whole box thing. I had to do a remix for the project PHASENMENSCH and I liked the music I had done for it, but something was missing to make this remix complete. So I had the idea to add some vocals by Jana Komaritsa from DARKRAD. We both liked the result a lot and so we wanted to do a completely new track in this combination as well.

The other vocal track was first planned as an instrumental for which I liked to have a remix by Tino Claus from TC75, AMNISTIA etc.. But when I’d asked him, he said, that he would rather do vocals for it instead. And yes, it worked very well.

Q: SPHERICAL DISRUPTED has been always a kind of ‘sonic enigma’ to me; a true fusion between different influences. How do you perceive your own music and the ‘sound’ you create? What kind of musician/producer are you?

Mirko: I’m very open minded to much kinds of music and all of them are influencing the music of SPHERICAL DISRUPTED. Besides these influences I’m experimenting with and trying to find new sounds or a unique combination of them. But the main aim with this project is to create dark and cold atmospheres, sometimes in a quieter more Ambient style, sometimes more rhythmic or noisier.

It’s an Electronic project and so it should sound like this, influenced by the machines themselves or astrophysics themes, in which I’m personally into.

Q: I can imagine you would have liked to celebrate this anniversary by doing live performances, which due to Covid-19 hasn’t been possible so far. How do you experience the artistic restrictions due to the pandemic and how do you see things evolving for your own activities and the music scene?

Mirko: Yes, there was planned a very nice event at the venue where the very first SPHERICAL DISRUPTED live appearance took place in 2000 with some other projects who had played back then as well plus other live shows, which all had to be cancelled. I’m missing a lot to play live and of course all the nice festivals where our other label bands should have played.

I really hope that all these events can be held very soon when we all got our vaccination. But due to the mentioned health problems I personally would have had to cancel most of the events last year anyway. And so I was able to concentrate more on creating music and doing label work and so on.

Q: You are still active as DJ and busy with other music projects. But you are also together with Carsten Stiller running Audiophob. Do you still have time for non-music related activities and what means music and these different projects to you? 

Mirko: Yes, sometimes I’m pretty busy, but never that much that there is no time for other things. But of course music is an extremely important part in my life: Making music, running two labels (Audiophob and its sub label Krater Recordings), DJing, some sound engineer jobs. Besides that I’m a manic music collector and this needs a lot of time as well. A life without music is simply unthinkable!

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

André Matthes and Thomas Niedballa started their music activities in 2001. A few years later they singed to HANDS and started to release heavy Industrial & Experimental productions under the HEIMSTATT YIPOTASH moniker. The new work “Brankmanship” is their first new album in six years, but also a work revealing a more sophisticated sound mixing Industrial, Rhythmic-Noise, Experimental and Industrial-Techno. I experienced the work as the fusion between power, melody and intelligence. Both artists had a lot to say about their work.

(by Inferno Sound Diaries)

Q: “Brinkmanship” is your first new album in six years! How does it feel to have released this new work after such a long time and why did it take that long?

André: I’m surprised myself that there’s such a long time  between the two albums. The selective sense of time is sometimes very relative, I don’t feel that the time span since our last release “Mecanismos De Control” is that long. Nevertheless, six years is of course a long time in which a lot has happened, both in the small private sphere and on a global scale.

After “Mecanismos De Control”, which dealt in the broadest sense with the financial crisis in 2008 and the actions of the responsible actors behind it, we worked together with Mike Erkau (The_Empath) on our joint project Trackologists. The work on Trackologists’ debut album “No Surrender, No Retreat” proved to be very fruitful, inspiring but also time-consuming, so there was space for new HEIMSTATT YIPOTASH ideas during this time. It then took some time until we had enough material for new songs, and above all a unifying idea on the theme, a guide that should connect the tracks on the album.

We like to give our albums a story in which the songs are embedded and refer to each other. Storytelling is already important in our way of working, perhaps it also explains the longer intervals between our releases. In the early summer of last year we had all the songs ready, the tracklist was fixed and an intensive phase of fine-tuning followed. I listened to every song and the album almost every day for eight weeks and made some changes. It is really difficult for me to accept the track as finished and release it for mastering. That’s when the control freak in me comes through. Terrible 😉 Thomas does it a more Punk-style. Boarded up and good. Then I come and start to make some changes. But that’s only good up to a certain point, because at some point it gets smoother and more pleasing but not really better.

HEIMSTATT YIPOTASH has always stood for a certain amount of unspoken joy in experimentation, and of course I don’t want to and should not optimize it to the max. At the end of 2019 the master was finished and we were very proud to be part of it, I think I can speak for both of us. The album shows so many different facets and yet, in my opinion, never loses the red thread. It is an astonishing further development to its six years older predecessor, especially when you listen to both of them one after the other. Now, a good year after the completion of our songs, I can say for myself that I can still get excited about the titles, despite listening to them umpteen times. 🙂

Thomas: I feel like André: the previous album “Mecanismos De Control” is somehow still present and doesn’t seem so far away. However, after that album there was a bit of ‘air out’ and we concentrated on the joint project Trackologists with Mike. During this joint work we were able to benefit from Mike’s knowledge for our own composition and production process. Thanks to this input, we then invested much more time than before in the current album “Brinkmanship” to compose and produce the tracks as cleanly as possible without losing sight of the worn edges.

Q: That’s maybe why I experienced this new album as your most diversified production ever; a true mix between different influences. How do you explain the evolution from the early, rough Industrial productions till “Brinkmanship”?

André: I think the driving force behind our work is experimenting with our possibilities. Personally I was inspired by Rhythm Noise and related styles. Especially by the fact that you suddenly got the chance to become creative yourself. That was in the mid-nineties. Until then I was rather an enthusiastic consumer. Records and concerts -I took everything that excited me, and that was always very comprehensive. Whether AlternativRock, Grunge, Punk or Avant-Garde, EBM, DarWave, Rhythm Noise -I could and still can get enthusiastic about many styles.

That was my input, and has remained so to this day, with some small cutbacks. For every time and for every situation there is the right music for me. So at some point I started to become creative myself, using pickups and microphones to shape and record noises and soundscapes. In addition, I had the possibility to merge the whole thing together using simple PC tracker programs and thus record my first (mostly very repetitive) songs. In this phase I found a like-minded person in Thomas and from then on we complemented each other in initially still separate projects. In the following time we self-released some CDRs, which we mostly distributed to friends and acquaintances and played a handful of concerts in small clubs. Our equipment at that time consisted of two PCs including tube monitors, pickups and lots of stuff. At some point we were actually allowed to play at the “Maschinenfest 2004”, and so we joined the HANDS label there.

Label boss Udo Wiessmann offered us to release an album on HANDS. It was a huge thing for us, it was incredibly inspiring and expanded our possibilities enormously. From this time on we officially called ourselves Heimstatt Yipotash, in reference to the previous solo-projects. With the years and every further release the learning curve in what we did and how we made music increased. In addition to the initially dominant intuition and joy of experimenting, we also gained a growing understanding of songwriting. In principle, we taught ourselves to make music over time, we are the absolute autodidacts 🙂 And -as mentioned at the beginning, we experiment with the respective possibilities we have.

Thomas: Since the beginning of our musical journey together, we have loved jumping between drawers and playing with listeners’ expectations. We actually always do what we want to do and do not look for disco suitability or the satisfaction of listening habits or expectations. But at the same time we don’t turn a song around until it absolutely sounds “especially creative and different”. We are insanely happy that Udo has always allowed us this creative freedom and that we can release our albums on the HANDS label without ‘censorship’ or ‘creative guidelines’.

The songs of the first albums sound for us now, with the distance of the years, both from the composition rather ‘simple’ and low-fi. Also some of our own musical preferences are shifting, which is reflected in the current songs. You find  more influences from IDM and other ‘song based’-styles than the more dominant Rhythm Noise of the earlier years. More stringency in sound and less jumping between genres could possibly be helpful to be more successful. But that has never been our motivation to make music. We want to entertain, but at the same time we want to encourage people to think, do research and also to exchange ideas. All the albums we have recorded so far reflect our view of society, the world and our environment at the time.

Q: Can you tell us a bit more about the writing and production process of the new songs? And what makes the chemistry between you both?

André: The driving force for each of our albums is usually to tell a story. The narrative element is already strongly pronounced. In the case of the debut “Storegga Effect”, for example, it was the cyclical sequence of major natural events with mass extinctions and the subsequent renewal or regeneration of the biosphere. The most narratively dense work to date, “Urban Night Motifs”, was a dystopian plunge through a dark, dirty and violent metropolis at night. We wanted to achieve a similarly dense atmosphere again on our current album, because I still like the soundtrack-like gloomy atmosphere very much.

The content of our songs is always close to the problems of the world and we have often addressed them. Also this time we created many songs that take a stand on global problems, so like new catchwords like genetic engineering, artificial intelligence, data surveillance or old scourges like war, corruption and abuse of power. Originally the album should be called “Tribunal” and it should be a kind of condemnation of the conditions. From today’s point of view, it seems to me to be richly bold and naively superficial. We had already taken this direction somewhat with “Mecanismos De Control” and we didn’t really want to go on further like this. We changed the context and formed the songs into a kind of taking status of the world today (“Artificial Ego”, “Fix, Find, Finish”, “Belt To Blender”). We contrasted this with our personal feelings, anger and powerlessness (“Progress”, “At the Edge Of Words”) and the desire to escape this mad world (“Step Into The Void”, “Separation”, “Trigger”).

Seen in this light, the current album is less combative than the previous one, but rather pessimistically resigned. Perhaps it results from the realization that no matter what happens, no matter how bad the disasters and wars will be, people still rarely learn from mistakes, and that in the end the predator prevails. Our way of working is usually to sit together (usually in Thomas’ arbor), connect our equipment and just jam away. Sometimes the first ideas come up, sometimes we just do sound exploration and fill our sample memory. The resulting song sketches are then moved back and forth a couple of times, and at some point the individual track develops its own character, which is then worked out. It’s not that we set ourselves a concept and then work it out, it all starts intuitively, almost like jazz from the gut. 🙂 If the track comes to life, it gets a name and is then shaped in the desired direction. When you finally compare the sketches and the finished track, you are amazed and get the impression that the song has a life of its own and we are just the obstetricians. It has always been like that, and I think that’s what makes up the way we work.

Thomas: Instead of the rehearsals and jam sessions that are usual with ‘classic’ bands, we have now established a well-functioning ping-pong method for us: if not out of jam sessions together, relatively many sketches are first created at my place. These are partly loops of only 10 seconds, but can also be rough song structures of three minutes. André takes over these beginnings and works on them with his own preferences and moods. This gives the sketches a completely new dynamic and complexity, which you often can’t even think of when you tinker with them alone. The nice thing about our joint work on songs is that nobody has a special role as ‘songwriter’ or ‘drummer’ or similar, but the songs can always develop without ‘selfish’ wishes or preferences. Neither of us has the claim to put more songs than the other on an album or to always have to listen to our own samples in the finished song. There are tracks that completely change their sound several times during their creation.

The possibilities of working with, in our case, Ableton Live are simply indescribably beneficial here. For us, it is amazing how the songs on the albums ultimately come together to form a harmonious product, without us planning it that way from the beginning. All our albums had a common thread, which we often only found during the ongoing creation process, without having to ‘bend’ the songs.

On “Storegga Effect” the mutual influences of environment and human beings on each other were the main theme. “Perpetual Beta” focused more on the mechanization of the world and the anonymization of the individual in society, but also on the simultaneous (self-zchosen) revelation of very private things, for example on the internet. “Urban Night Motifs” highlighted a modern and realistic, but also dystopian metropolis in the current time: psychological problems, pressure to perform, pollution of the environment, social injustice and increasing loneliness of people were the topics. “Mecanismos De Control” extracted this view on a political / social level, whereby we chose the situation in Argentina in 2001 as the main theme. “Brinkmanship” could now be interpreted as a once again ‘zoomed up’ view of the whole world politics and its influence on each and every one of us.

Q: “Brinkmanship” indeed appears to be a critical reflection about the world we’re living in. What’s your perception about the latest news events like the Covid-19 pandemic, the presidential election in the USA ao?

André: “Brinkmanship” is indeed a critical examination of the state of the world. The term means as much as the politics of absolute risk, the planning of one’s own destruction, the play with fire. There are many political examples, the policy of nuclear deterrence during the Cold War is only one of them. Even today, the term can be applied to many aspects. We have tried to cover some of the topics on the album, even if many things are missing (climate change, environmental destruction, etc.) There are many questions that most people are reluctant to ask, because the answers might question their way of living. Will artificial intelligence dominate us one day? Will we become slaves of omniscient networks and algorithms? How dangerous is genetic engineering? And is it ethically acceptable? What do animal experiments and factory farming and the perversities associated with them say about our humanity? These and countless other questions, some of them more or less philosophical, occupy our minds and are a recurring theme in our songs.

Much of this can be discussed controversially, and I too have no productive answers to many of them. Nevertheless it is important to ask these questions and to deal with them. Because if you don’t face it, you are much more receptive to ‘strong men with simple solutions’, which brings us back to the actual topic. The multitude of questions seems to overwhelm a large part of the people intellectually, there is no other way to explain, for example, a President Trump, Erdogan or Putin. In my view, Trump is one of the most stupid and incompetent people you can imagine at the head of such an influential superpower. But Trump is for me not the cause, but rather the symptom of a certain social and societal degeneration that can be observed throughout the Western world.

The most pressing current issue is the Covid-19 pandemic. The exceptional situation in which we are currently living is magnifying the acute social upheavals like under a burning glass and is a test of character for each individual. Whether and how measures to contain the infection will be effective will only be known when it is history, because much of it cannot yet be assessed. It is therefore easy to condemn decisions in retrospect and to know everything better. As a realist, I see the situation, recognize possible risks and try to avoid them without hysteria. In my opinion, it would sometimes be helpful for many people if they could look at things more soberly, abstractly and then stick to the facts. That way, prophets and conspiracy theorists of all colors would have less of an audience.

Q: Because of Covid-19 artists can’t no longer play live, which must be frustrating when you’ve a new album out. How do you try to face the situation and what do you expect from artistic activities during the next few months?

André: Of course this is extremely frustrating for us! Originally “Brinkmanship” was supposed to be presented at the “Elektroanschlag” festival or at the “Forms of Hands” and we had prepared some limited bundles with iron-on patches and stickers for the record release. Due to the Covid-19 pandemic and the restrictions, all this became obsolete. The release date was postponed to August, and unfortunately we had no chance to present the album live until now. And it’s through concerts that you can reach a larger audience. As far as that is concerned, we really fell victim to a bad time.

But it’s not just us! Much worse affected are artists who have to live from their art, who depend on the income. As far as that is concerned, we are well off as ‘amateurs’ and too much complaining would be somehow indecent. Well, what the future will bring, we will see. Maybe we will try ourselves as street musicians 😉 At the moment, it’s mid-October, the infection numbers are rising again and I don’t believe in a return of the festivals soon. What this means for the whole music industry, promoters and labels cannot yet be estimated, but the coming period will certainly not be easy. Many are acutely threatened in their existence. That is something you should bear in mind! Therefore: ‘Support your artists! Support your label!’

Thomas: Yes, it makes us sad not to be able to present the new material live and experience the feedback of the audience. But in the current situation we have the big advantage over musicians who have to earn their living by performing, that we both have regular jobs and therefore the band has been a pure hobby project from the beginning and doesn’t have to feed families. So we see the situation as very uncomfortable for us, but for the whole music industry, especially the independent labels and concert operators, with far greater concern and fear for the future of the many employees and enthusiasts.

We house label HANDS are also severely affected by cancelled concerts and closed clubs. This is the best way for each of us to help: Buy CDs and merchandise directly from the small, fine labels!

Q: Next to HEIMSTATT YIPOTASH you’ve been also involved with other projects. What can you express and maybe exorcize in these other projects –like TRACKOLOGISTS, and do you plan new releases?

André: I am cautiously optimistic when I say that there will be a sign of life from TRACKOLOGISTS in the near future. Optimistic, because all three of us have a great desire for it and already have concrete ideas for a release; cautious, because all three of us are involved in other projects and therefore many things simply go slower and need more time. It will probably be like with the first and so far unfortunately only TRACKOLOGISTS album: we will set ourselves a lot of goals, we will meet several deadlines and still get it finished. 🙂

Thomas: I think the chances of an upcoming release of the TRACKOLOGISTS are good. We love the project and the slightly different development process than at HYMSTATT YIPOTASH. TRACKOLOGISTS songs are much closer to the EBM and IDM than our own tracks, but working with Mike enriches our own way of working immensely as we benefit from his knowledge and set the bar high ourselves. Whether there will be another masterpiece of “No Go!” depends mainly on the simultaneous availability of (too) much time, extremely obscure sample collections and large amounts of alcoholic beverages…

André: Thanks for your questions and hopefully see you soon live!

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

Genre/Influences: Experimental, noise, abstract, industrial.

Format: Digital, CD.

Background/Info: There’s less info available about this record. Kaffee Und Kuchen is a Polish noise project, which has performed at some famous industrial festivals such as “Maschinenfest”. This work features 21 songs, but is it all about collaborations with other artists? Remixes? Live takes? Mystery!

Content: The work features 21 songs and a nice selection of artists such as Philipp Münch, Graubrot, Carsten Vollmer, Hypnoskull, Emerge, Beinhaus ao plus Kaffe Und Kuchen. The influences are quite diversified, but the abstract-, experimental- and noise genres are mainly featured.

+ + + : The concept and cover of this work both are intriguing. Sound-wise I’m more into the industrial-like tracks and I again was impressed by the retro-industrial style of Beinhaus. Philipp Münch’s minimal-experimental electro-like cut is also worthy of examination. One of the most surprising and unique cuts of the album is the one by Graubrot, which has something industrial hip-hop like. Gehirn.Implosion might get the award of most original project for their kind of noise-techno contribution. Hypnoskull still stands for exciting industrial sounds. I also noticed a cool rhythmic-noise track by Kaffee Und Kuchen.

– – – : This is extreme music for a very restricted number of music lovers, but the good thing about it, is the diversity.

Conclusion: Some releases have something enigmatic and that’s precisely what I experienced listening to “Sahnestücke”, but it will for sure appeal for visitors of “Maschinenfest”.

Best artists: Beinhaus, Philipp Münch, Graubrot, Hypnoskull, Gehirn.Implosion, Kaffee Und Kuchen.

Rate: (6).

Artist: www.facebook.com/KaffeeundKuchenNOISE

Label: http://krater.audiophob.de /

www.facebook.com/KraterRecordings

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

Jérôme Soudan is one of those artists I personally consider as a ‘visionary’ artist. His Mimetic project is the best exposure to realize the constant avant-garde approach he tries to inject in his work. He belongs to the ‘pioneers’ who incorporated techno music in the industrial scene, but he later on moved on with elements of IDM. Mimetic is a kind of reference, but still a project that has the power to entertain different scenes: techno and industrial! He this year released the compilation-album “RVSTD1:1998-2019” on Les Arts Minis, which is an opportunity to seize the evolution of the artist and his strong connection with techno music. Jérôme Soudan is a fascinating man, but still an essential artist from the electronic-underground scene.

(Courtesy by Inferno Sound Diaries)

Q: You this year released the compilation-album “RVSTD1:1998-2019”, which covers more than 20 years of Mimetic, but especially the ‘techno-driven’ tracks. How do you look back at more than 20 years of Mimetic and tell us a bit more about the main purpose of this album?

Jérôme: At the beginning I wanted to create a solo-project as I was involved in a lot of diverse collectives such as Von Magnet for instance, but after a few years I knew I wanted to keep that project alive no matter what direction I’ll take. During these 20 years I guess I was an alien on many different scenes. Right now I’m more into the techno scene as a DJ, but even here I’m not a typical one since I’m not that young DJ still at school, but more like a veteran who’s using his background in every set. I got a classical music education, but quite rapidly during my studies I got more interested into the experimental-, electro-acoustic- and at the same time rock- scene…

Mimetic is actually born in Berlin, but not from the techno scene. I was more into industrial-experimental. I was one of the members from the Berliner act Column One. But from the first Mimetic-album on I already incorporated some techno sounds or rhythms. Other productions were more into electronica or IDM, but still featuring techno-industrial elements. What I see nowadays is a lot of good techno-industrial acts such as Perc for instance or even Paula Temple who are directly influenced by those indus-techno sound we used to do in the beginning of the 2000’s…

The main purpose of this album was to show to the young generation what Mimetic was doing in the past, a  kind of hybrid techno that they don’t know since some of the releases were not available in digital format. And it was also important to me to release it with a common thread so everybody can feel the links between the years.

Q: Speaking about all these influences, I however noticed an evolution in sound/influences throughout the ‘Mimetic-years’. Right in the beginning your music was more into industrial/experimental and ambient music, but quite progressively techno- & IDM elements joined in. How do you analyze this evolution and the impact of techno music globally speaking?

Jérôme: Actually the German post-industrial movement leading by labels such as Ant-Zen, Hymen or Hands has a strong influence in the techno scene, but it’s a bit involuntarily unfortunately. Most of the strong techno artists of today never heard of “Maschinenfest” while actually when I play in a techno event I can play exactly the same sound than if I was in the merche area of “Maschinenfest”…. There are some people from that industrial scene who say to me that they have the feeling I get lost from their scene. I don’t think so, I actually think every movement has got their artists who tend to repeat their formulas while actually the style is moving quicker than artists who are representing that style…. Techno is like other styles, stealing from others. And besides, techno is not all the time a hype style… Every decade it’s coming back, with a young generation seeking to know more, but I remember times where only house-music was the hype, and techno was considered as a non-respectable genre.

I consider techno as really dynamic and a strong music style; a kind of political atmosphere close to punk-music. I know that Iggy Pop hates techno music. But I think he was never in a rave party so far, because he could have seen the same energy. For me DAF was more important than others in that way, they played basically on the punk scene for years while actually their sound is still really present in nowadays techno, in that sense, industrial-punk was maybe more involved in the future than they pretend to be! I’m not surprised to see DAF playing in a lot of techno festivals since 10 years now.

Q: You were one of the ‘pioneers’ to mix industrial- and techno music while today most of the industrial artists are adding techno music to their compositions. This evolution is quite interesting while at the other hand the ‘real’ industrial sound and spirit have been a bit lost. What makes the link between industrial- and techno music and what do you expect for the coming years?

Jérôme: Right at the beginning industrial-music was a music for and coming from the cities (‘industrial music for industrial people’). This movement was born with artists such as Throbbing Grristle in the UK and Einstürzende Neubauten in Germany, and it was during the same years of punk-music, because the attitude was punk, not the music of course. But those artists were using electronic sounds in a very creative way while in parallel in Detroit (USA) a few artists started to use electronic music, but more in a rhythmical way. If you take the song “Yü Gung Fütter Mein Ego” there is the techno energy in it, it is repetitive and strong as hell.

For me there is the link between industrial to techno; it’s definitely the city, the sounds of the city, the power and the violence of the city. The ‘real’ industrial sound and spirit, like you say, is still here, but actually more into a scene of ‘niche’. This is something you can maybe relate to contemporary art, there is a language you have to understand in order to feel that music and it’s actually not easy for everybody. Since life is becoming more and more an everyday fight, people feel more attract by a music which is talking directly to their body, with a strong bass and a strong repetitive rhythm. Instead of what people are usually thinking, techno is a cathartic music for every-day hard-worker, and not simple party music. It’s definitely not a surprise to me to see that techno music is going stronger and stronger in South-America or Asia as well. It’s very important for me to keep an urgency in the music, something that stays strong, powerful and alive. You can listen to Stravinsky’s “Le Sacre Du Printemps” or The Young Gods’  “Skinflower” or “Surgeon” and feel the same power!

Q: Over now to the writing of your songs. Can you give us a bit more details about the different stages you’ve to go through to compose a song/album and do you’ve special criteria/references when speaking about the global production process?

Jérôme: First there’s a long process of  prospection; listening to sounds, travelling, walking in a city, recording maybe etc… Next comes a long process again; working on a few sounds for days, experimenting, transforming the sounds etc.. Then, I’ve to build a track, a kind of montage like a film, with a ‘scenario’. Then I move on adding effects and giving a ‘heart’ to the whole track and doing a kind of pre-mixing. Then comes the mixing, which can be quite long. A track is never finished! And then I let it to the mastering experts. For me the global production has to include a good balance between frequencies, this is the only way. I love when you hear every details, for instance if you listen to a Max Cooper track, which is amazing…

Q: You also did an impressive number of remixes for other artists and among them Björk. What do you try to achieve when working on a remix and are there some remixes (maybe like the one for Björk) you kept in mind?

Jérôme: Well a remix is usually a very interesting operation, because you have to dive into somebody else’s universe and make it your own track without altering the original sense of the track. But sometimes it’s delicate to do, because you cannot adapt yourself to every style, so now I’m really choosing the artists with who I work on that remixing aspect. I usually keep only half of the sounds the artist gives me and re-write a few lines and create new sounds, and I basically change the structure too. At the beginning I listen and listen to the original track, trying to find in which direction I would have been if I was the composer and when I find my own focus then I can go on and re-create a new structure.

Q: I think to remember you lived a few years in Berlin, which is often considered as the ‘place to be’ when it comes to techno music. What has been the impact of your ‘Berliner years’ on your creation and your evolution as musician/producer and are there other places/people which/who had an important impact?

Jérôme: Yes Berlin was important, especially because it was right after the end of the Wall. I left berlin in 2000, and before that it was such a field of experimentation, it was a great time there, not only for techno-music, but also for experimental-music, architecture etc. There were so many unofficial clubs and parties, bars, events in some destroyed buildings… I was usually going out in Tresor Club and in E-Werk which was a few meters beside. But I was playing in the same time in Komische Oper and some experimental places such Podewill, NBI or Grüne Salon (VolksBühne).

Another aspect that was really important to me, is that I met a lot of people from East-Germany. They usually didn’t speak English very well, but they had another way to create and it was really interesting. Nowadays those artists usually left Berlin as it became after a while too hype and too expensive for them. A lot of those artists are now living in Poland or Praha or even Baltic Countries… Today I think Berlin is still interesting for techno-music, especially because there’re hundreds of clubs and it’s a good thing for music, but if you look for some good emergent artists and scenes, I think Europe has to check a bit more outside. Africa is bringing now some good electronic music, Asia and South-America are becoming strong. There are still wonderful events in Europe, especially in the Eastern countries, but the business is coming quick and even the underground events in countries such as Croatia are little by little leaded by West-European business men. Speaking about West-Europe, an important impact I don’t have to forget is the venue itself, and especially the ephemeral squats which are given an important place to experimentation. In the 90’s there were still a lot of squats in Europe and I knew a lot especially in Holland, Belgium, Germany and Switzerland. Those places are more and more rare of course and it’s a pity as they were a teaming with great emergent artists….

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

French solo-project Sylvgheist Maëlström this year released its fourth full length album in history. Driven by Julien Sylvgheist the sound can be the best defined as a sonic osmosis between different genres such as industrial-, experimental-, rave- and intelligent dance music. The new work entitled “Norillag” and released on Hands again reveals a fascinating, visionary approach of industrial music.

(Courtesy by Inferno Sound Diaries)

Q: There’s a hiatus of 4 years between your previous album “Pripyat” and “Norillag”. The least I can say is that you weren’t in a rush to achieve this new work. So when did you start the writing of “Norillag” and what kind of album did you want to accomplish?

Julien: The process of composition has started slowly in 2015 with the first sounds. I played a new track at each live performance. There was not conceptual idea. Music is a feeling and the right emanation from experienced feelings. It is a direct and raw reaction, out of control, without premeditation. A new part of life started with the work around mental confrontation, mental alienation by work oppression and so you can find a new context in life getting you to compose music.

Q: Most titles of your albums refer to very explicit places on earth so what inspired you for “Norillag” and the titles of the tracks?

Julien: “Norillag” stands for alienation by labor, dehumanization by accepting the inacceptable, a bleak subject matter, an inspiring moment of music. For the fourth time, I take on a tour of the world, way off the beaten tourist track, but to a location that bears witness to man’s propensity for self-destruction like no other: Norillag, which is a former Soviet gulag and nowadays the (arguably) most polluted city in the world, where people work in conditions that are inhumane beyond comprehension. Acid rain and smog -by some estimations, one per cent of global sulphur dioxide emission comes from Norilsk’s nickel mines. And yet, local authorities and the Norilsk Nickel complex directions attract people with large sums of money -to suffer the most horrendous work conditions. The workers accept the pollution and the severe health hazards as a condition for profit, effectively turning todays Norilsk into a revenant of the Soviet gulag and its dark history of forced labor –and death.

Q: Sound-wise ‘industrial’ music remains the guideline of your music, but it has been mixed with diversified influences such as techno-, experimental- and trance music. Where does this eclectic approach comes from and what’s your personal vision about ‘music’ and ‘sound’?

Julien: Industrial, techno, experimental, trance music, ambient, drum&bass, dubstep, jazz, new wave, metal… they represent all my music influences and background. I’m listening to these different kinds of music for 30 years now and with a real appetite to discover new universes and new ways of expressions.

I (Sylvgheist Maelstrom) began to play electronic music between 1995 and 1999. In addition to the universe of scholarly music (contemporary, in particular) in which I bathe since childhood, the musical influences are clearly identified: Einstürzende Neubauten, first, Orphx then. From this noise influence is born Sylvgheist Maëlström. In 1999, I went to Sweden for my architectural studies. It is there, in a country where the natural immensity is everywhere – colossal, dominant -that the concept Sylvgheist Maëlström really took shape. Sylvgheist Maëlström -literally ‘ghostly spirit of nature’ -is indeed the sonic translation of the uncontrollable movement of the environment taking back its rights over civilization. Nature regulating itself, without regard to the human traveling through its lands. Thus, at the heart of the Sylvgheist Maëlström project, a question emerges as to the cyclical nature of catastrophic phenomena but also, more fundamentally, to the inevitability of destruction, the inexorable nature of deaths and disintegrations.

Q: Do you’ve personal criteria and/or references when you’re composing music and do you’ve a kind of procedure when writing your songs?

Julien: If I’m a musician, I’m also architect and painter: so three media and three ways of exploring the same themes -nature, death, destiny -which allow me to express and transcend my feelings and obsessions. I’m collecting images (films and photos) of various destructive climatic phenomena for years now. This approach, started following the loss of loved ones, comes first from an ‘unidentified’ need; which becomes conscious around 2008, date on which it becomes systematically. These annihilations at the scale of the climate and the world (floods, storms, cyclones, lahars …) -founders of the artistic process of Sylvgheist Maëlström -are the thousand times magnified image, planetary, destructions of the intimate. This reflection reflects the insurmountable shock faced with the disappearance, the absolute idleness experienced in the face of what can not to be mastered. My musical work is therefore the result of an extremely intellectual and artistic constructed process (begun almost twenty years ago) as the fruit of a sensitive personal journey. It is also an affirmation and the possibility of fighting through creation the inevitability of annihilation. Creation as an antidote to loss, as ‘anti-fate’. An anti-destiny all the more powerful as creation is collective.

The composition process takes place at the very first beginning and takes shape as a sound collage, with a ‘color palette’ created for each track. The track construction starts with sound confrontation.

Q: I think you’re one of those ‘visionary’ artists composing the ‘industrial music from the future’. What means industrial music to you and especially when you’re looking back to the real pioneers in the genre such as Test Department, Throbbing gristle, Einstürzende Neubauten ?

Julien: If I look back to the pioneers, ‘Industrial’ means to me performing art with our video musical media, but especially noise experimental, based on recorded sounds (percussion and urban sounds) or sampled sounds (synthesizers, sequencers); originally my project was aimed to become the fusion of electronic music and death metal.

Q: How do you see yourself as live performer and what’s the importance of playing live for Sylvgheist Maëlström?

Julien: Since 2011, as part of the festival “FDLMEI” in Paris, the concept of Sylvgheist Maëlström is based upon video art. Indeed, thanks to my brother lighting creator Sebastien Michaud, the project takes on an unexpected scale. The music and the themes literally take shape with the images manipulated live. The work of my brother, totally connected to the rhythmic (via MIDI), marries the sounds, the nuances as well as the movements of the pieces. The result is breathtaking: the listener is then plunged, as penetrated by this universe; the scenic device leaving room for images (“Maschinenfest Festival” in 2014, “Transient Festival” in 2016, “WGT” in 2017, “Forms Of Hands 2018”.

Sébastien Michaud brings the themes of Sylvgheist Maëlström, he makes my reflections live, but also deploys a clear visual universe, to really enter in his deep music production, to feel my chaotic mental seasons, as a life variation.

For live performances, Sylvgheist Maëlström focuses on video to hypnotize the audience. Raw nature expressive images have been transposed into sounds revealing an hypnotic and mesmerizing power. As an actual mental control by images, the process of this combination loses the audience in a duality of sensations and meditations. My current set is also turned to narcosis, the dream, the memory and the reminiscence.

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

Patrick Stevens set up Hypnoskull in 1992. The Belgian producer became one of the industrial pioneers experimenting with techno influences of was he just a techno producer walking at industrial fields? Twenty five years later Hypnoskull has accomplished an endless number of productions and has achieved one more new opus entitled “Die4.Generation”. The album has been released on Ant-zen revealing a new overwhelming production.

(Courtesy by Inferno Sound Diaries/ Pictures by Tom Van Hee)

Q: 1992 – 2017! 25 years of Hypnoskull, I think it can’t leave an artist insensitive. What comes into mind when evoking this anniversary and why did Hypnoskull became the main project you ever have been involved with?

Patrick: It came as a surprise almost. I realized it somewhere in the beginning of 2017. What can I say? Well, it is a confrontational thing to discover that your brainchild became 25 years old. It simply means I became 25 years older. The most frightening part is that it doesn’t feel like that long. I mean, in my mind it is always ‘just the start’. I always want to improve things, sounds, messages and I think the entire anniversary thing put my feet on the ground showing me that time is running fast…

Hypnoskull became the main project simply because it was my own solid solo-project. Obviously I can’t throw myself out or get thrown out, which is pretty difficult, cause I had plenty of moments when I just thought it was done and nothing should be added. But after that I felt the urge to create and improve again.

Q: Artists often release ‘best of’-albums to celebrate this kind of event, but you simply released a new album. I’ve always considered ‘best of’-albums as something for teenagers and grandparents. New work is more original don’t you think, but what can you tell us about this new opus?

Patrick: I don’t know if I can admit what I will say now, but I don’t like the idea of a ‘best of’ format because each and every time I released albums or EP’s, each and every time I kind of ‘don’t like’ the result. Like I said before, I can only think about improving it. So the day a new album hits streets I am already ahead in a kind of future and most of the time working on new material… There will be one exception now in 2018 and that is the vinyl release of a few tracks from the 1999 “ffwd>burnout!” album on the Berlin techno label Repitch Recordings. I agreed on that one because of the fact that it will also contain a great remix by a producer I respect a lot, and because the people behind the label are superb young producers who were highly influenced by what we were doing in the nineties.

But what can I say about “Die4.Generation”? Well, it’s my most worked out album ever on all levels.

Q: It also seems to be a very personal and somewhat intimate album, but at the same time still a bit political- and social like. What is it all about and where do you place this work in the wide discography of Hypnoskull?

Patrick: I’d place it in the shelves called ‘more mature works’. I mean, it is on all levels indeed very personal, and in my opinion extremely political. It is a personal kind of ‘internal’ call to not lose radicalism. In times where ‘radicalism’ is only portrayed as something negative, I dare to call it a necessity for any sane society. Radical ideas have always inspired lots of people, and being radical does not mean being violent. Radical art, literature, film, music,… noise. Everything I do myself comes from so-called ‘subversive’ art. I want to stay awake and question everything, and I hope I can influence some of my audience to do the same.

Q: I think you’re one of those artists who created a sonic bridge between industrial- and techno music. But you already did it in times when techno music was not really liked by industrial lovers. How do you explain the crossover between these music genres?

Patrick: To me there was always a logical connection. I started as a techno producer in 1994 and I have always produced the rougher kind. So, with my background in alternative music also I rapidly started to mix those two worlds into one new form. To me it is not even a crossover, rather a logical match. The cold, monotone drone of machines – mathematical, straightforward, hard. And yeah, it created a kind of ‘new’ subculture in industrial music with lots of new events back in the days like f.e. “Maschinenfest” and some others.

You can believe that nowadays I am very pleased to see and hear that a lot of huge leading technoclubs are scheduling serious industrial techno or sometimes even the ‘real’ stuff. Esplendor Geometrico in “Berghain”? Hypnoskull at “Kit Kat” or “Arena”, who would have predicted that to happen?

Q: So you’ve been in a way a ‘visionary’ artist who dared to innovate and explore new sonic paths. What’s your perception about our contemporary ‘underground’ scene and elements/movements of innovation?

Patrick: I never thought in terms of scenes. That kind of both helped and did not help me. I think a lot of innovation in music is done when you dare to suck in a lot of influences and spit them all out in some other form. So I mainly believe in that kind of open mind which is required to do so. So… I don’t think a lot of innovation will be done when you limit yourself inside a scene, with very own sets of ‘rules’ and expectations. Like I said, that attitude also worked very much against me. But it brought a lot too. Always new kinds of live situations for example, or finding yourself suddenly working with people like Dutch super-producer Kubus, a hip-hop beatmaker. I don’t regret.

Q: I would like to get your opinion about music and journalism and especially the evolution (referring to social media, streaming platforms etc) during the past few years? What can we expect from the future and what does it mean for the music industry generally speaking?

Patrick: I studied journalism myself so I like the question a lot. I think the ‘new’ media brought a lot of advantages and disadvantages in the same time. It is much easier to get music and messages ‘out there’ now, but also much more difficult to be seen amongst the millions of others. So the traditional music media don’t play that important role anymore. I don’t think that is bad, since my impression was anyway that the traditional music media and the music industry were playing dirty games anyway. Endorsed interviews and reviews as a part of the marketing plans of some managers who didn’t care if they either sold music or cars. As an underground producer I never cared about coverage anyway. It was nice to get, but also ok to not get coverage. Nowadays I see that the effect of f.e. being inside the mix or podcast of a promising new or established deejay brings a lot more fresh attention and new audience. That’s a great, and musical way of promotion. I discovered a lot of new interesting music myself by listening to these mixes.

The future… Well. Who knows… I am ready to be surprised any time. As long as I can be surprised I will believe in the future.

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.

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Out in a few weeks is “Maschinenfest 2017”, a compilation including all artists who have performed at Maschinenfest 2017. You can order this set right here. This year’s event will take place from Friday 27 October 2017 until Sunday 29 October 2017 at the Turbinenhalle in Oberhausen, Germany

On the compilation you’ll find material from the following bands: Ah Cama-Sotz, Alarmen, Aphexia, Dive, Empusae, Esplendor Geometrico, Gatto Nero, Geneviéve Pasquier, Gold, Goreshit, Greyhound, Haus Am Rand, Horskh, Imminent/Synapscape, In Slaughter Natives, Lustmord, Meta Meat, Mono No Aware, Monolith, Nur Zwei Linien, S.K.E.T., Siamgda, Somatic Responses, Suicide Inside, Sutcliffe Jügend, Yura Yura and more.

Maschinenfest is a yearly, 3-day underground music festival in Germany, featuring industrial, power electronics, noise and other alternative electronic performers.

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. Besides music I’m also an SEO and AI content flow specialist and have an interest in everything finance from stocks to crypto. There is music in everything!

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