Séba Dolimont – SIDE-LINE

And the best 25 albums of 2021 are…

Eldrina Mich — Fri, 31 Dec 2021 12:52:49 +0000

Over the past 12 months Inferno Sound Diaries‘ Stéphane Froidcoeur selected nearly 750 productions of which 600 also got a review on Side-Line. Some productions have been refused because the style of music didn’t fit, while a lot of reviews are still to be published in 2022.

Stéphane: “I’m really grateful to all labels, bands and promoters considering my work and efforts and I hope they’ll keep on providing me new promos next year. My greatest gratitude and thank goes once again to Rich Bova (NEIKKA RPM) who for years and years now is reading, correcting and improving the reviews. I don’t have enough words to express my gratitude and without Rich I simply would have to stop this job. No need to say I’ve been once again disappointed by a few so-called ‘artists’ and label owners. The attitude and lack of respect shown by those people -luckily a very few number, is just disgusting… but I’m afraid it reflects the world we’re living in… Behind a genius artist is not always hiding a great person…”

2021 has been also a very special year for Stéphane as he celebrated his 30th anniversary of journalism with an impressive series of interviews featuring very different people from this scene. Stéphane : “Big thanks to Séba Dolimont, Suicide Commando, Juno Reactor, Raison D’Être, Jürgen Vanvlasselaer, Rich Bova, Armageddon Dildos and Bernard Van Isacker who kindly accepted to contribute to this celebration.”

Here are the interviews conducted:

Like every year Stéphane has made a selection from the best albums of the year. This Top 25 covers different styles like EBM, Dark-Electro, IDM, Synth-Pop, Ethereal, Dark-Ambient, Industrial, Cinematographic, Gothic, Post-Punk, Dark-Techno and a few related genres and is taken from the promotional material we got while compilations, ‘best of’-productions, EP’s and singles were not considered for this ‘best of’.

But now, here are the 25 best albums!

Rome – “Parlez-Vous Hate?” – Trisol
Circumpolar – “Awaiting The Dawn” – Alfa Matrix
Clicks – “Goth” – Dependent Records
Of The Wand And The Moon – “Your Love Can’t Hold This Wrath Of Sorrow” – Heidrunar Mykrunar
Crystal Geometry – “Distressing Visions” – Sonic Groove
Mechanimal – “Θόρυβος” – Inner Ear Records
Raison D’être – “Demonum“ – Cyclic Law
Zwaremachine – “Conquest 3000” – Phage Tapes
Eclipsed – “Holyiens” – Electro Frequent
Nattskiftet – “Stamplar In” – Progress Productions
Nnhmn – “Deception Island 2” – Zoharum
This Morn’omina – “The Roots Of Saraswati” – Dependent Records
Skrika – “Fifth Nature” – Cryo Chamber
Llumen – “Polygon Heart” – Alfa Matrix
Not My God – “Simulacra” – Metropolis
Seasurfer – “Metropolis” – Reptile Music
Ps Stamps Back – “Au Bout De La Nuit” – Ant-Zen
The Illusion Of Silence – “Gardens In The Dark” – Shadowplay
She Spread Sorrow – “Huntress” – Cold Spring Records
Blutengel – “Fountain Of Destiny” – Out Of Line
Agonoize – “Revelation Six Six Sick” – Reporecords
The Force Dimension – “Mortal Cable” – Sonic Groove Experiments
Cubic – “The Cubic Alphabet” – Alfa Matrix
Pyrroline – “Struggling” – Electro Aggression Records
Beckahesten – “Tydor” – Cyclic Law

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

30 Years Of Journalism – Celebration Interview with Bernard Van Isacker (Side-Line & Alfa Matrix): ‘Consider Us As An Incubator For Talents’

Inferno Sound Diaries — Thu, 30 Dec 2021 18:00:00 +0000

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

Labels Interviews: File 3: Seba Dolimont & Bernard Van Isacker / Alfa Matrix: ‘We Keep Anticipating New Trends In Order To Stay Relevant And Future Proof’

Inferno Sound Diaries — Wed, 19 May 2021 10:22:31 +0000

Seba Dolimont

Alfa Matrix has been set up in 2001 by three friends. Séba Dolimont, Benoît Blanchart and Bernard Van Isacker were all involved with Side-Line magazine, but decided to start an Electronic label. The label became a home for artists dealing with EBM, Dark-Electro and Electro-Pop, but throughout the years the label welcomed other genres like Gothic, Ambient and Industrial. Front 242, Ayria, Pouppée Fabrikk, Plastic Noise Experience, Armageddon Dildos, Unter Null, Acylum, Implant, Metroland, Zombie Girl, Helalyn Flowers, I:Scintilla, Mentallo And The Fixer, Leather Strip, Star Industry, Alien Vampires and many others joined the ‘matrix’. And I nearly forget to mention Aiboforcen which was set up by Benoît Blanchart and Séba Dolimont.

(Stéphane Froidcoeur / Courtesy by Inferno Sound Diaries)

Q: Was there a kind of ‘philosophy’ when you set up your label and did it evolve over the years? How would you define your label activities today?

Seba. Alfa Matrix was created in 2001 with 2 key values: running the label from an artist perspective in our collaboration approach, and focusing on a direct servicing of our customers. All this with the aim to support and market underground Electronic music with attitude with an eclectic approach. Twenty years later, and although the music market situation has drastically changed, we are still active on the same Indie music scene, we still dare signing newcomers and our repertoire confirms our quite open-minded sound range of interest. We do run the label in mutual respect and care with our roster of artists and developed a quite strong direct sales approach for both digital and physical releases.

So we quite sticked to our original mission and simply adapted our operational mode to the constantly evolving music consumption habits and we keep anticipating new trends in order to stay relevant and future proof.

Q: I can imagine you must have specific and explicit criteria to sign an artist/band. Can you give us more details about this aspect and how important is it for you to know the person(s) hiding behind the ‘artist(s)’?

Seba: Through the years, it has become harder and harder to open the gate of the ‘matrix’ simply because we want to stick to a certain maximum number of bands, but also because any new signing to the label should bring something new to the label family, add a new color to our sound/artistic palette. Also important for us is that any new addition to the label must get the green light form the 3 members of the label management team.

The art must touch us for sure, but personally, in my role of artists manager, I pay a lot of attention to the personalities of the artists, probably more today than 20 years ago! Simply because we believe in long term collaborations and to achieve such goal we better construct our relationship on solid foundations and values. So that personal click is also something I need to give my vote…

Bernard: Nowadays it takes time to launch a new unknown artist, and we work slowly, but steadily to get their music heard to the public. There is no magic formula to create instant success, it’s continuous work both by the label and the band. The first has to use the best channels to create the best value for the band while the bands have to work on social presence, and the interaction with fans on several platforms. It’s also why we have started releasing lots of singles, so bit by bit we reach a bigger audience this way via all platforms.

Bernard Van Isacker

When we started the music market was already in decline so we had to start early on with a new model to get the word out. Know that there are many bands out there and if you actually look at it, too few labels to manage all those great talents.

Q: You are already active for numerous years now so you must have seen a lot of things changing and evolving; think about social media, streaming platforms, Youtube channels… but also economic crisis etc. What are the pros and cons of these changes/evolutions and in, which way did you had to adapt/change your strategy and activities?

Seba: As owners of a company several dozens of artists gave their trust to, the least we can do is running this company professionally through a strong overall financial management and anticipating business and market evolutions to remain future proof. This is why Alfa Matrix was one of the first labels from our scene to be on digital platforms, and I even remember some were laughing about us, especially when we decided to invest a lot in streaming that is still seen as a danger by some today. Like other labels we also went through some tough economic challenges when we faced several bankruptcies from big CD distributors in Germany or in America. But with our strategy of focusing on an international market rather than putting all eggs in one or two baskets, it was easier for us going through all this, and especially with the unmatchable force of having a strong fanbase buying in direct from our e-shops and giving us more financial independence. So the decisions we make are more guided to the way we adapt our ‘go to market’ strategy: changing distribution channels, deciding how we spread our budgets and investments, etc…

Bernard: In respect to that, we have been continuously checking out new platforms to vet if they were adding value to our media mix or not. For instance Facebook was quickly used by us, but we also knew that this free ride would not continue and that at some point Facebook would close the open gates and restrict the organic reach from their pages. That happened, a bit later than we anticipated, but it did happen. The same for Instagram for example. The free rides are over and done and you can no longer count on getting free unpaid reach for every communication you do. During that process we continued to work on a direct relation with customers. So while some bands and labels have gone that far to only have Facebook as their window we never neglected the own properties we can manage for the full 100%: an own e-shop, a very active Bandcamp page which both have given that what we are looking for, namely a direct link with the fans. So, suppose that Facebook or any other social media platforms stops their activities, we won’t feel any impact as we have a direct link with customers. This under the hood approach has been working very well for us and is something we will continue to do. Social media for us are a nice extra, but nothing more than that, the real value lays elsewhere for us.

I also strongly believe in the streaming market for the future, it’s how most of the music will be digested by music fans alongside HQ audio which people will find on Bandcamp and via physical products. As far as YouTube is concerned, I share the same comment and idea which Dave Heckman made earlier this week to you. This Google moloch pays really peanuts, 10 times less than Spotify, it also offers poor audio, but surprise surprise… everybody wants to be on it. It’s maybe good for the image but not so good for your wallet in the end if you consider the production cost of a video versus the extremely low return you get from it. It doesn’t mean we don’t have to be present there, but I seriously doubt that a lot of money should be thrown at it, it’s not our preferred medium.

Q: The ongoing pandemic has affected all artistic life and activities so what’s the true impact on your label activities and do you think it will also affect your long term objectives?

Seba: First of all the pandemic affected every person behind our Alfa Matrix bands and the label staff itself, most probably first on a personal level, cos they themselves struggled against Covid-19 or lost loved ones around them. What obviously hurts the most is the recurrent cancellation of tours, festivals, shows… this is hard for all bands. The stage remains the ultimate place of communion between artist and fans. The duration of the pandemic crisis also makes it more and more complex for artists releasing new albums and not being able to perform the new songs live.

Economically, so far we have been working hard and increased our promotional efforts to support the bands. As a result we actually managed increasing our label turnover between 2019 and 2020 with over 15% although the lockdown hit us all heavily. It was a combination of efforts: we continued to deliver CD’s to shops in direct -when some of our distributors were obliged to keep doors closed for example, but also from our bands who released more digital music to also bring some nice entertaining moments to their fans in these difficult moments, but also from our fans who continued supporting us massively.

Now unfortunately we all know that the economic crisis that will follow will hurt at all levels, but we will only start experiencing the real impacts in the second half of this year. It’s then that more and more people will continue loosing their jobs, loosing a portion of budgets they usually put into art and leisure. I also hope that this sanitary crisis will lead more people to pay more attention to their health in general. So yes, the world will change for sure, and we will all need to adopt and adapt at some point.

Q: Do you think media (magazines, online platforms etc…) still have an impact and a role to play today? What’s your relationship with ‘journalists’ and how important is their work?

Seba: Media changed a lot in 20 years indeed! Print magazines have been going through tough times. The major challenge is remaining relevant as a print magazine coming out monthly while online news get published instantly and spread a few clicks further. Combining digital with print is not easy. Integrating social medias, streaming platforms, etc… in the overall journalistic equation is tricky.

It’s just like for music, the new generations tend to consider that art and information should be free of access. As a label, of course journalists still play an important role for a certain portion of music fans who still enjoy turning pages while reading and enjoying the pleasure of holding a magazine or a book in your hands. They then also reach out to the digital audience via their blogs and other websites. But the readers tend to identify themselves less than before to some specialized journalists, but will rather trust and follow the advise of some friends posting on social medias, other buyers leaving comments on webstores or other influencers. They also tend to trust themselves more and more and believe in algorithms recommending them the next music to play on their own music radar.

Bernard: Many online magazines do not publish news daily or even regularly which makes it difficult for them to stay relevant in these days of social media. In the past we were able to work with a lot of great web magazines, but these days we have to work with hundreds and most really have a very very small readership, while others have been smart enough to evolve, develop, stay relevant. Those online magazines from the past who did not evolve have seen their visitors go to Facebook and never have seen them back. Most also ceased all activity. It shows clearly that Facebook for instance is not the booster that most had hoped, on the contrary, and it also explains why many magazines are increasingly negative towards Facebook because they have now largely decided what you get to see, what you discuss about etc..

As a label we must combine all these elements to reach out to our customers/fans and make choices based on gathered experience and acquired know-how, while exploring new grounds…

Q: What do you consider as your biggest accomplishment(s)? Do you have specific goals/dreams you want to achieve and how do you prepare and see the future of the label(s)? And what are your biggest regret(s)?

Seba: I think our biggest accomplishment is to be talking with you today and celebrating 20 years of Alfa Matrix, each release from our music repertoire between 2001 and now each contributed to this success, from newcomer acts to living legends from our beloved music scene.

The only regrets I might have are first of all not to have 10 days in a week to do all I’d like to do, and maybe having put a couple of friendships in danger by starting a label collaboration with friends without having been enough aligned and synched together on strategic elements. As far as the future, I hope we will still be able supporting talents as long as possible and having the chance to release the great work from our artists, and working with experienced music supporters like you…

Bernard: I personally never expected that this story that started as an idea amongst friends would turn out to be that successful and long-lasting. Seba had the basic idea and then pitched it to Benoit and me. Since I knew Seba as a very trustworthy guy (you introduced him to me remember!) it didn’t take long for me to decide to get on board and invest in it.

Benoît Blanchart

As far as the future for the label, or any label, I guess that the love for what we and the bands do will be the biggest power behind it all. I still discover great music in this scene so we are not in desert modus. The biggest challenge will be to keep on making new people warm for this scene’s music. Not a simple task, but we’ll manage alright I think.

My biggest regret… we all know it’s very time consuming and it’s not always easy to find a good balance between family life and work. As far as my two colleagues is concerned, I know how to separate my private life from work, so even if we have some catfights about certain things (we have to agree all 3 on something or it doesn’t happen), we remain loyal friends above all. And as far as how we function together, you can say that the structured thinking of Seba combined with the fuzzy logic style of thinking of Benoit and myself is an ideal breeding platform for great adventures!

Inferno Sound Diaries

www.side-line.com

Labels interviews with Alfa-Matrix, Dependent Records, Infacted Recordings, Metropolis Records, Progress Productions, Trisol

Inferno Sound Diaries — Mon, 17 May 2021 15:19:27 +0000

We all have to admit a lot of things have changed in the music industry during the past years. The evolution of social media and the increasing importance of streaming platforms just are a few, but essential elements, which had a serious impact on our habits and the way of listening to music.

I think it’s not simply a coincidence if sales of physical releases –but especially the CD format, are progressively going downwards. I was already thinking for a while to get in touch with label owners to hear what they think about it all. The ongoing pandemic has touched all artistic activities; no more live performances and no big festivals for a while now. It definitely has its impact as well.

I decided to contact some of the leading labels from the Electro scene and ask them about a reaction. Most of the label owners kindly accepted to contribute to this massive interview.

During the next six days, you’ll get an interview with one of them every day. They all got the same questions to answer, which makes it interesting to compare their points of view. It’s also an opportunity to discover who’s hiding behind these legendary labels.

This interview series took me a lot of time, but my efforts got rewarded by the detailed and informative answers I got. I want to thank Torny Gottberg (Progress Productions), Dave Heckman (Metropolis Records), Séba Dolimont and Bernard Van Isacker (Alfa Matrix), Stefan Herwig (Dependent Records), Alex Storm (Trisol) and Torben Schmidt (Infacted Recordings) for their input.

I’m also planning a similar interview later on this year with other- and smaller labels.

(Stéphane Froidcoeur / Courtesy by Inferno Sound Diaries)

Inferno Sound Diaries

www.side-line.com

’30 Years Of Journalism – Celebration Interview’ with SEBA DOLIMONT (Alfa Matrix): ‘If You Don’t Try To Anticipate The Future, Then It Will Get You’

Inferno Sound Diaries — Sat, 17 Apr 2021 17:00:00 +0000

(Courtesy by Inferno Sound Diaries; Stéphane Froidcoeur)

Q: We met more than thirty (!) years ago now. Back in time you were busy with Side-Line, which was a kind of ‘fanzine’. How do you look back at these ‘early’ years and what was your motivation to get involved with a magazine?

Séba: Time flies doesn’t it?! Well, the crazy idea of doing our own ‘zine’ was thrown on the table by my friend David Noiret back in the days, one of these nights at university when we were having fun, listening to music, having some drinks and reinventing the world… But the next day when we met again at school, the idea was stuck on our respective minds. Side-Line was born! With the aim to have a true fanzine devoted to dark underground music cos the only mag we had then in Belgium was getting more & more mainstream… We wanted to defend and promote the music from the side-line. We were then carried away by the unexpected positive response on our first issues.

A bunch of friends rapidly joined the team including my all-time friend & partner in crime Benoit Blanchart, Lol Chevaux from France… and YOU!

Q: Side-Line finally became one of the most renowned- and leading Electro/Industrial/Gothic magazines from the scene. What made it that special and maybe different from others?

Séba: Looking back at it, I think our true devotion to the scene and the quite wide musical culture of the editorial staff made the difference. We were also lucky to be one of the few first mags written in English (and this way accessible to a much wider audience) while at that time this scene was mostly covered by German mags. Once we had the opportunity of getting published on professional glossy format (by a German label (Celtic Circle Prod) and later by Claus Müller of Orkus!) magazine before becoming fully independent, powered by the unique design touch of Didier Delhez and with the challenging concept of having a CD attached to the magazine, we instantly got the massive support from all record labels, bands and the fans!

By then we had also started embracing the internet, many many years before everyone, thanks to the initiative of Ronan Harris (VNV NATION) and later the arrival of the one and only one Bernard Van Isacker who came and reinforced the digital and commercial strategy of the magazine, but also enlarged our journalistic approach thanks to his many connections with bigger bands and major labels. We were on orbit!

Q: You finally left Side-Line in 2007 because of some health troubles, but still to focalize on Alfa Matrix. As a label owner, what’s your perception of media/magazines today? What’s their impact and importance for a label?

Séba: This is still one of the most difficult decisions that I made in my ‘music’ life. But when as a father of 2 young boys you are stuck by a virus that abruptly attacks your heart and almost kills you, the long days and nights you spend at hospital allow you questioning your priorities in life. To find a more appropriate balance between family, your main job and your music passion, there was just one too much in the equation. I felt I still had much more to learn and experience for the label rather than for a magazine. I could also inject more flexibility in the label planning than for the magazine which had a strict release date planning and always imposed us long sleepless nights before the closure of each issue.

Since then I have unfortunately seen so many scene magazines falling apart one after the other because of a general disinterest from readers and a lack of support from labels and other potential advertisers. The difficulty of being active on a shrinking underground scene, in a fast evolving world where social media’s and internet sites rapidly challenge the relevance of your articles or the freshness of your news bits. And too many invested way too late in a combined complementary offer mixing on-line and print, or just did not. I am still very admirable and respectful though for the job and activities run by the few surviving print mags like Sonic Seducer or yet Orkus!. Their longevity is exemplary. Today as a label you need to mix various medias to reach your audience cos more than ever, the consumer today is king and decides his/her own information modes. Tough tough… but congrats to all journalists still investing time and energy in defending and supporting our beloved dark music scene. Without people like you Stef, who would we be?

Q: You set up Alfa Matrix while you still remained involved as chief editor of Side-Line. That sounds rather incestuous, don’t you think? How do you look back at it?

Séba: I hear you. It’s a point we discussed at creation of the label actually. I rapidly decided to be only publisher of the magazine and stopped my editorial activities. I focused only on the coordination and business side of the job, selling adverts, etc. And we always gave journalistic freedom to our editorial staff: no censorship, even for advertised releases… But our experience with the magazine and its related website was also one of the leverages that were there to put Alfa Matrix on orbit. We knew exactly the impact that Side-Line could have to help us launching new talents and new releases… So yes, you can describe it as incestuous, but in all magazines you can see clear financing by specific record labels and you see many band members or even label staff in editorial staff of several magazines. I see it more as expertise sharing. And if the connections and affinities help, this is what business is all about isn’t it?

My past work at Side-Line definitely helped me signing many artists to the label cos I had built a strong contact or friendship with them through the years…

Q: Alfa Matrix this year celebrates its 20^th anniversary. What does that mean and how did you see things and the scene evolving over the years?

Séba: Honestly, I would have never thought that 2 decades later, we would still be up & running, and especially with such an impressive repertoire and diversified constellation of artists around us. It’s been an amazing adventure. With lots of exceptional moments. Lots of ups and downs also of course. Several bankruptcies from big distributors which each time put our finances at risk. Also a radically changing and constantly evolving music market on which you need to challenge yourself continuously to remain relevant and future proof.

If I were telling you that the future is bright and beautiful I would be lying to you. It’s obvious that there is no way back at this point. The dark underground scene keeps shrinking and losing ground. The several economic crisis, without mentioning the current pandemic and the changing music consumption habits all have heavy impact on sales potential. So I expect the physical format to be more and more limited and eventually get replaced by streaming. This is it! But with the right knowledge, it’s always possible to adapt your business model and move ahead. If you don’t try to anticipate the future, then it will get you.

Q: Physical sales are going backwards for years now. What do you expect during the next years and what will be the impact on the scene?

Séba: Bigger bands will still have some limited physical releases. Smaller newcomers will be available on streaming platforms. Once streaming gets generalized, the notion of albums will vanish and get replaced by one-song releases, getting published the next day they get recorded and mastered. Time to market will get zeroed and release radars will feed us proactively… and here again the underground world will loose more & more visibility against the algorithms. So yes, when people do not react timely and invest more in supporting younger acts, this will smother our indie art slowly but surely. But at Alfa Matrix, as long as we will have the energy to do all this, we’ will be there for you and for our artists.

Q: FRONT 242, this year celebrating their 40^th anniversary, has been for sure your biggest signing; like a serious accomplishment for an underground label! How did you convince them to join the ‘matrix’ and how is it working with such a legendary formation?

Séba: The arrival of this cult Belgian band to the Matrix was indeed an amazing boost in our ascension in our very first months of existence. Years of friendships and mutual respect brought us together and it’s been a very great, fruitful and inspiring collaboration with them in all simplicity. Things flow and are obvious. We now released their ’91 live albums and managed selling out before release date, with over 50% of the pressings sold in direct by ourselves via our own webstore thanks to our amazing staunch fanbase. This is something we are very proud of.

The official collaboration started with the MALE OR FEMALE trilogy. Patrick and Daniel asked me back then helping them finding the right label for this new project cos they had been very deceived by labels from their past experiences. Back then Alfa Matrix was a tiny label with 5 bands, so I did not even consider making them an offer. I rapidly brought them a handful of contractual offers. And then they asked us why there was no offer from Alfa Matrix cos trust was very important for them! The rest is history. Respect to them and thank for the eternal trust.

Now when you say it’s our biggest signing, they are indeed a true legend. But it does not mean we don’t have other artists selling more than FRONT 242 actually! You could be surprised sometimes of the potential of our eclectic roster of artists…

Q: Some artists and their ego… you for sure know what I’m talking about! How do you manage this situation as label owner?

Séba: Well… it’s a tough one indeed. Now of course to be an artist and have an own creative concept, having an ego and a very own vision helps and makes you more pertinent. The main problem is when artists with a strong ego don’t have both feet on the ground and have no realistic grasp or knowledge of the market’s reality. Then things can turn wrong cos they can have unrealistic expectations. Sometimes also the ego is so strong that they turn into control freaks and prove not to be able to efficiently collaborate. We have been there a few times…

Being myself artists manager, through the years I started putting more and more attention to the persons themselves and not only the music. I need that click, that trustful gut feeling that tells me ‘yes we can’… Before signing anyone we take the time to talk, explain who we are, how we work. This way I try building a collaboration on solid grounds. Cos we really believe in long term collaborations in our label management concept. And when you check the longevity of the collaboration we have with a large majority of our way I wish I could do, I’m proud of the many friendships we built thanks to music…

Q: You’ve been an ‘artist’ yourself as you also were the singer of AIBOFORCEN and [IN]TERNAL. What did you keep in mind from both bands and why did you finally quit?

Séba: Yes indeed. It’s funny cos we actually started the label to self-release our 3^rd album of AIBOFORCEN. We had several nice offers from big German labels but were so much deceived by our previous record deals that we made the decision to launch Alfa Matrix. But in the end through times the label activities prevented me from being in studio and at the end, the decision became obvious. I’m so happy Benoit continues injecting life into the project. I still of course help him from distance, making connections for new collaborations, giving him tips from demos he shares with me, etc. He’s currently working on his next album and what I heard so far is once again amazing! But here again, it was a deliberate choice, keeping the balance between family, my time demanding job and my music passion.

While [IN]TERNAL was more of a one-shot project with friends without constraints. We were all free at the right place at the same right moment, all wanting to do something new outside our respective main projects. I am still very proud of that album we released on Zoth Ommog back in the days…

Q: Thanks to music, you and I became very close friends. Any specific souvenir or anecdote you want to share?

Séba: So many memories that it’s too hard to pick a specific one. But chronologically, I will surely mention receiving your ‘Deranged Psyche’-compilation tapes on which I was each time discovering new bands… I had found my master ;-)! Bringing you massive orders of CD’s from my travels to Germany. Our exceptional adventures on the road driving from one festival to the other across Europe with some special souvenirs of preparing you the craziest sandwishes I could up to sleeping on soccer fields… Memorable after party nights with our Spanish DJ friends of Girona. The first days of FUZE BOX MACHINE up to NEBULA-H. Without mentioning the amazing editorial moments within the Side-Line teams and nowadays your honest, neutral and objective support to our Alfa Matrix label. But above all the unique friendship we both constructed that is today above all this music adventure and even makes that we can meet and talk hours long without even talking ‘music’…

Inferno Sound Diaries

www.side-line.com

‘Click Interview’ with Kilmarth: ‘Music Is A Legal Drug That Has The Immense Power To Make Us Escape’

Inferno Sound Diaries — Sun, 19 Aug 2018 17:00:14 +0000

Belgian solo-project Kilmarth is driven by Cédric Wattergniaux. I know Cédric for quite a long time. We both got involved with Side-Line magazine. We met at festivals and always had great moments talking about music. I know him as a passionate music lover with an eclectic choice. Throughout the years he started composing music on his own and this way he set up Kilmarth. A first self-released EP “Catharsis” saw the daylight. It might be defined as an electronic mix between multiple influences, but in the end it comes close to IDM and experimental electronics. This interview is an opportunity to get more familiar with this new project.

(Courtesy by Inferno Sound Diaries)

Q: It seems you’re already composing music for several years now. How did it all started and how did you finally come to deal with this kind of music?

Cédric: As long as I can remember, music has always been an important part of my life. I listened to it, analyzed it, I wrote about it … but my biggest dream has always been to compose it. This dream was buried deep within me, but my ego told me that I was not able to do it. I once made the very late decision to finally take music theory lessons at the local music academy to better understand what music was from a theoretical point of view. Then I tried the classical guitar, which I abandoned by acquiring my first synth, a Korg Triton. As for the musical style, I did not try to get into a current one, it’s naturally the sounds that I liked the most that I chose to compose the music that related to a genre already present that I of course, liked a lot already.

Q: The name Kilmarth is directly linked to the great Daphne du Maurier, but what inspired you in this project name and the work plus life of this author?

Cédric: “The House Of The Strand” is a book I literally devoured when I read it, about 15 years ago. I am passionate about history, it is also my job (I am a history teacher) and the idea of time travelling has always been a child’s dream. The idea also to ask the question… Is it the reality of this trip or was it solely based on the absorption of a drug was a very interesting idea. So, I like to say that music is that drug that can be taken to help us penetrate other worlds, to penetrate the brain mysteries of some great composers of our time or earlier. It also makes me think of this excellent movie, that is for me, “Strange Days” by Kathryn Bigelow and James Cameron (1995) where the hero penetrates the recorded thoughts of people by means of an apparatus connected to the brain. Music is a legal drug that has the immense power to make us escape and to paraphrase Dave Gahan, that unites people who are so different.

Q: You recently self-released your debut work “Catharsis”. What is it all about? What did you try to accomplish (sound-wise) and what has been your working method?

Cédric: I fell into a big depression almost two years ago. I could not do my job anymore. Finding myself in front of my DAW and my synth has become gradually a habit and also a therapy to get out of this problem. For 6 months, I almost never left my studio and “Catharsis” was born from that. Fortunately, I was able to count on my family and a handful of friends who have always supported me.

Q: “Catharsis” is the kind of work I instantly linked to productions released on labels such as Ad Noiseam, Tympanik Audio, Ant-Zen, Mindtrick Records, M-Tronic… Do you feel related with these labels? Would you like to get signed by a label or do you prefer the DIY attitude?

Cédric: These are magnificent labels that have written the most beautiful pages in the history of our scene. It would be an extraordinary honor to be part of these record companies. I think that the power of a label to distribute music is a major asset in a society where it is now necessary to put music almost in the ear of an auditor so that he can listen to new things. I do not have the time or the gift to be able to handle all parts of the music business as I should while living a normal life with my family. On the other hand, it is also important, for an artist, to have a free hand in the creative process. It is therefore necessary that everyone can have his own territory for the partnership to be effective. It must also be said that the world of music has experienced an incredible upheaval in recent years. Will these labels still exist in five years? The future will tell.

Q: “Catharsis” is a sonic crossover between numerous genres and influences, but how would you analyze the sound of Kilmarth and how do you see yourself as an artist?

Cédric: I, like many other people before me, served as a sponge to several artistic movements (literary, pictorial, …). The daily life that I could absorb for years and reject in the form of “Catharsis”. It is difficult for me to highlight, for example, a musical genre that I particularly like to achieve this result, although it is obvious that electronic music, in general, remains the one that has the most marked throughout my life. For the rest, I like to control what I do; like composition, production, artwork or even videos. Kilmarth is a personal project, although I like the influences of outside musicians like the help of a friend for one track on “Catharsis”. I would like to see more collaborations like that on future productions.

Q: You’ve been involved with Side-Line magazine for numerous years. What did you learn from this experience as a journalist and does it appear to be a precious experience now that you’re composing music yourself?

Cédric: My Side-Line years were an extraordinary experience. First of all because I was able to meet people who belong to our scene and that I respect a lot: you, Séba Dolimont who remains one of my best friends, Bernard, Benoît… I could also ‘meet’ people who I admire a lot musically like Klaus Kruse (PNE), NoyceTM, Mesh, Das Ich, De/Vision, Iris… It was a wonderful school to discover how the world of music is from the inside. From these different elements, I was able to build my project by being influenced by countless elements that have appeared throughout my life. Composing my music has also brought me even more respect for these artists that I met since the first demo to flamboyant careers. Each piece sometimes hides many efforts and often an incredible job that most people who listen to music or criticism cannot imagine. So I would say that the influence exists in both directions. I cannot criticize an album like I did in the past…

Inferno Sound Diaries

www.side-line.com

Interview with Daniel B / Prothese: ‘I Don’t Want To Be Confined In A Genre That Creates Expectations And Borders’

Inferno Sound Diaries — Wed, 20 Jun 2018 17:00:02 +0000

Daniel B will be forever linked to Front 242, but in the meantime we all know he also releases music as Prothese. This project revealed a more experimental- and noise approach of music. During the past few years Daniel again started to compose new stuff as Prothese. Like it or not, it sounds like music being created by a sound surgeon who’s decomposing and recomposing sounds and noises. It gives me the idea to ask a few questions to Daniel, which I have to thank for his kind contribution. The interview was possible thanks to the help of Alfa-Matrix owner Séba Dolimont while I also have to thank Side-Line and Peek-A-Boo for their interest to each publish this interview as a kind of ‘collaboration’ between both Belgian online platforms.

(Courtesy by Inferno Sound Diaries)

Q: Prothese is your very own project so I can imagine it also is the most personal one, reflecting the best your own vision about music and sound creation. What does it really mean to you and can you tell us a bit more about this ’vision’ and ‘sound creation’?

Daniel: As you know when creating under the Prothese moniker I have a very eclectic vision of sound creation. I don’t want to be confined in a genre that creates expectations and borders… and fans with a narrow vision of music. Creating music for me is also a question of mood and exploration, also machines can direct the way you approach music design and finally I like to explore music in a fake time frame… going back to how music was made in the 80’s or the 60’s psychedelic period

Q: I experienced early Prothese works as pure experimentalism and the treatments of noises while the recent productions feel more structured and accessible. How do you see your own evolution as musician and especially Prothese from the early years till today?

Daniel: The last release “CHZWaaR+ZMe+aaL” was more structured like the work I did in Front 242, but my recent cassette release “30.30.333 / 31.31.333” (released on Wool-E-Tapes) goes back to very noisy musical exploration. Also end of this month, beginning of June I will release a double CD called “Hollektrokraut / Hellectrokraut” that wants to take the listener in an electronic- krautrock territory, or at least my interpretation of it anno 2018.

CHZWaaR+ZMe+aaL (Bonus Tracks Version) by DANIEL B. PROTHÈSE

Q: I’ve always been fascinated by a kind of controversy that states that experimenting with sounds and noises is not the same as dealing with music! What do you think about it and do you rather feel as a sonic scientist/architect or more as a musician?

Daniel: Well…. all noise is music and all music in basically noise, if somebody thinks that music is only there when you have notes and melody, he better should be an accountant or is already one.

I never feel as a musician… because maybe I have a skewed view of what a musician is…. somebody that masters an instrument while I don’t master instruments (in the classic terminology) while I work with electronics and computers most of the time.

Q: You have always been fascinated by noises and sound treatments, which I think reveals a real creative approach and composing process. Do you have some personal criteria and maybe references when you’re experimenting in your studio and is there a particular way of working?

Daniel: Not really. As I said before, usually it’s the machine/computer program I’m using, which dictates where you go, but sometimes you get a challenging idea (complete theory at first) of a way you could start a piece. From there, of course, accidents and other factors will push you in or out the theoretical idea you had to start with. Also setting limitations is a great way to direct your creation.

I also sometimes in the process get reminded of music /composers/genres I know. And then I use these to direct my process by addition or abstraction or just by incorporating a little cliché.

Q: The early years of electronic music were characterized by good-old analogue- and modular synths, which you’re still using today. More and more artists are getting back to these pieces of equipment, but can you tell us a bit more about your affinity for these ‘instruments’ and their complexity?

Daniel: The instruments are not really complex, and it is also not just for the sound (I’m not really into the analogue vs digital thing, I like both…. but I think tubes are more musical (lol).

The thing is that with analogue the manipulation of sound (because of knob for function design) is much faster/intuitive… a bit like playing a music instrument like a guitar or a violin. And we still have not explored all the possibilities of what analogue can do (there is also the ageing process and the inherent difference between even the same machines).

Today we see a mix of technologies (certainly in modular synths), analogue and digital being interfaced and modulated by each other.

Q: I remember that you released the SPEED TRIBE project, a special and somewhat conceptual project around the legendary ‘Le Mans’-race! I personally think the noise of race cars is one of the most orgasmic sounds I’ve ever heard. What do you think about it and do you have other exciting sources of noise?

Daniel: I’m really old-school when it comes to orgasmic sounds. I love sport cars… for their acceleration, but also for the sound, there is that total immersive feeling when you drive a 3.5cc (or more) car, that you will not get for the moment with an electric car. With an electric car you get an incredible acceleration, but it feels clinical and remote.

Another noise I really appreciate is what you find in repeating / looping machinery- and nature noises.

Q: Design also seems to be an important part of your work. Also the way you play with words, languages and spelling song and release titles. Tell us more?

Daniel: There’s not really much to tell. I hope it speaks for itself. I just feel that the package is an integral part of the final product/object/creation and if you use words, they also should direct/misdirect the recipient of your creation.

Q: Early this year, you made a very strong live performance with Prothese in Belgium. Many people in the audience told me it had the original core strength & power of FRONT 242 that they are sometimes missing nowadays. What do you think?

Daniel: I must say I was surprised by the reactions because I did not expect it to go so well and without a glitch and second by the nice comments I received afterwards. I hope I will get more possibilities to show the stuff live (wink, wink… promoters (lol). I cannot comment about the missing parts.

Q: What’s next on the Prothese front? You’ve been quite prolific lately!?

Daniel: I just have more time and desire to develop and create…. but then the most important is to just release it and not file it away as I used to do all these years.

And as I already mentioned, I just released an experimental cassette on Wool-E-Tapes (1 hour of musical noisy stuff), also available to download or on a USB-digicard. I next will self-release the double CD: “Hollektrokraut / Hellectrokraut”, which is planned for the beginning of June. By the end of the year, there should be another Prothese project (more structured and hard like “Chwaartz”) and also a new Nothing But Noise release.

Inferno Sound Diaries