]]> http://stripewaves.com/blog/?feed=rss2&p=767 0 http://stripewaves.com/blog/?p=756 http://stripewaves.com/blog/?p=756#comments Sat, 14 Aug 2010 10:27:47 +0000 Doperobe http://stripewaves.com/blog/?p=756

Juha van ’t Zelfde is situated in Amsterdam and well known as dj and (co-) organiser of events such as Viral Radio, Sonic Warfare, and recently, Hyperrhythm at the North Sea Jazz Festival.  I had some questions and I got answers. Check them out!

• I would like to focus, after having tried to mindmap you, on your work as beat- and bass- entrepreneur and dj. Your name is often associated with the development of beat and bass scene in holland, especially Amsterdam. You could say that you’re a key figure. How did your interest in music and djing develop through the years?

Thanks for the kind words. The role music plays is perhaps best described as a second heartbeat, a natural rhythm that I have felt since I first started listening when I was 4, 5 or 6 (I can’t really remember, but I must have been that age. Thinking about it, I actually set up my parents’ pans in the living room and drummed on 80s rock music at an early age.) Like the stories go, I too spent all my allowance on tapes, records and later on cds. Although I started with Michael Jackson, I soon caught up with hiphop when I moved to high school (when I was 12).

The first electronic music I can remember listening to that I still enjoy was the album ‘Accellerator’ by Future Sound of London, in 1991. Rich with early signs of jungle, techno and electronica, this might be the blueprint of my fascination for music with off beat rhythms. Other music I enjoyed around these years was Ice Cube, Das Efx and Souls of Mischief.

I started djing in1994, when my brother Timo bough turntables. He introduced me to the music scene in Amsterdam, with the shops and djs I only knew from flyers he had brought home. Since he was into Detroit techno and Chicago house a lot (which I liked too), I decided I would buy jungle records to add to the collection, but also to explore my own direction. My first mixtapes – actual cassettes -  consisted of early Moving Shadow and Metalheadz records. The music that was released around 1995 was the ultimate push towards professional djing. Those slowed down jungle tracks played by Amsterdam djs like Tommy and Datcho, and those trance-inducing techno Dimitri played were as inspiring as listening to Nirvana, Radiohead or Sonic Youth live.

After hiphop and jungle, all the various incarnations of UK bass music have come and gone, from Smith & Mighty and Bandulu to Digital Mystikz and Kode9. I have been a massive fan of Radiohead, Portishead, Underworld, Aphex Twin and Squarepusher, but also of Fluke, Orbital and African Headcharge. Early 2000s I discovered Vladislav Delay, Rhythm & Sound and Oval, and later on Philip Jeck, Fennesz and Oren Ambarchi. Having worked at the Concertgebouw I have heard most of the composers of the past two centuries, enjoying Feldman, Berg, Webern, Cage, Schönberg, Strauss and Sibelius the most. The latest musical revelations have been Alog, Gonjasufi, Hudson Mohawke, Dimlite, Rustie, Ras G and Matthewdavid. But in all honesty: this list is endless.

My underlying motivation for djing and organising events is primarily the urge to share music with my friends. This has grown a bit out of hand now, and I have been fortunate to be able to make a living out of it.

• You work with Yuri Cinnaman. What’s this collaboration like?

I met Yuri at Rush Hour in 2007, just after he had released Beat Dimensions, and after I started Viral Radio. We became friends and started collaborating in 2008. The first thing we did was inviting Flying Lotus and Hudson Mohawke to the Bimhuis for a Beat Dimensions night on 1 May. It sold out and was a breakthrough performance for Flying Lotus.  He recently stated that the Bimhuis was his “favourite venue in Europe.” Yuri and I run Viral Radio together. I would say 75% of our taste overlaps. Our regular Viral Radio nights we organise together, but Colors is his own project, whereas Hyperrhythm is mine. We have already had some studio time together, and will most likely continue with this in the future. But for the moment, we focus on the many festivals this summer. So far we have been at Exit, North Sea Jazz and Costa del Soul, and we still have Lowlands, Appelsap and our own Viral Radio Festival ahead. It’s a lot of fun playing together, and our styles are a good combination of deep and energetic.

• In an early interview you mentioned that there’s a different approach to musicians performing in Trouw (famous club in Amsterdam) or musicians performing in Bimhuis (venue for experimental music and Jazz music). Tell us a bit about this. What are your future plans concerning Bimhuis?

These worlds are not so different or separated, and a lot of musicians can play at either venues, but the expectations and behaviours of the audiences can vary (even if it’s the same audience). Clubs tend to ‘force’ musicians to play more danceable, whereas concert halls can create more concentration. I like both, and both are deployed during our annual Viral Radio Festival on 3 and 4 September. Ras G, Darkstar and Knalpot will play at the Bimhuis. All three acts have played at Trouw before. But this time we – and in this case that is mostly Shane Burmania -  have invited them for a seated concert at the Bimhuis, which demands a slighlty different approach. After our festival, I am doing the Amsterdam Dance Event there aswell, with two artist from the more experimental electronic music realm, Phonophani and Oval. I intend to continue down this line in both venues, just as I recently did at North Sea Jazz Festival.

• There are various collectives in the Netherlands, like Lowriderscollective,  that are organising events. Do you see yourself as part of a collective? What are your thoughts on this?

I have never really thought of ourselves as a collective, since I started on my own, and Yuri came right after, but maybe we are. Basically we have been a duo for quite a while. But recently we have been growing bit by bit, with Rolf of Grrr designing the visual identity, Meeus van Dis directing the light design during events, Shane Burmania adding next level energy and input, Darco Cezveciyan for the critical focus, and Andrew Makkinga as our distinguished host. And then there is Aardvarck, our mad and genius uncle from Rednose Distrikt, who is a resident artist at our nights. This makes Viral Radio an ever changing network of people presenting new forms of electronic music in different contexts.

• There are some interesting producers emerging from Russia at the moment, like Pixelord.  Any plans to organise something like the Viral Radio City Editions you did this year?

I have been in touch with him for a while now, also with Lapti and Ol. I follow what they’re doing. At the moment we are trying to work something out in Moscow, instead of doing something in Amsterdam. If all goes well this will take place in September.

• What are your favourite tracks right now?

Gonjasufi – Kobwebz

Oval – Oh!

Phonophani – Mendel

Oscar McClure – Kitchen Scraps

Dimlite – Elbow Flood

Blue Daisy – Scars

Vex’d – Take time out (feat. Warrior Queen)

Kuedo – Starfox

Mike Slott – Phantom

Matthew David – Be honest

Ras G and the Afrikan Space Programme – Sloooooow Doooooown

• Are we going to hear from you as Juha the producer? Or will you stick to djing?

Producing music has always been a dormant ambition. You have to understand that working with people like Dimlite, Hudson Mohawke, Icarus, etc. is the best way to stay away from the studio. But travelling around Europe this summer and playing in 8 different countries has motivated me to visit the studio again – I need to be back on the road next year, touring is just the best hobby I can imagine.

• What hardware do you use?

For djing I use Serato 3 and a Macbook Pro. In the studio, with my producing partner Darco Cezveciyan, I use an MPC, Juno60, Nordlead 3, Nordwave, a Metric Halo ULN8 converter, Nordstage, Logic, and some other tools. Our studio is acoustically prepared to survive an atomic attack, so we should be fine for years to come…

• Anything coming up in the near future that you’re enthousiastic about?

I am very much looking forward to our third Viral Radio Festival on 3 and 4 September, with Gonjasufi, Ras G, Darkstar, Gaslamp Killer, Aardvarck, Ikonika, Knalpot and Yuri and I. We are very fortunate to be able to organise such an event at two of the world’s best music venues of its kind. For the rest, I really enjoyed Hyperrhythm at North Sea Jazz, and I hope to continue with similar events. And I hope Colors will shine.

• Thanks Juha, keep up the excellent work!

You want more? Go check

http://viralradio.net/juha

http://www.non-fiction.nl

http://soundcloud.com/search?qfulltext=viral+radio

When asked to deliver a brief personal statement, Coco declared:

“Uhm, dunno man, I hang around the LowRiders Collective, that kinda stuff. Oh yeah, I spin at Generation Bass and Impakt Festival.

As far as producing is concerned, believe me, I’m a tinkerer with weird ideas and sometimes a bit of luck [aren't we all, ed.].Thomas de Rijk-HALP came over to my place last week to work on a couple of remixes and he showed me some tricks on Ableton Live (r)… stood speechless… suddenly realized again how little I know about the software…

The track ["Comes to Mind", ed.] was more or less built like this: sliced up the original tune in Live, then simply **ed around with the different bits until i found something I liked. Programmed a beat and then severely compressed the chopped slices, side-chaining the compressor to the beat as to gently squeeze the slices and the beats together.

That’s pretty much all there is to it, and then of course, just tinker until it sounds good!”

Up Da Punx

Musica de Gente

Follow Me

22tape shot us a e-mail earlier telling us about his self-released EP entitled MosaicChangeTon. He released this EP a couple of months ago and he earned some well deserved positive feedback with this great 5 tracker. All the tracks are nicely produced and have a great amount of variety. If you are into glitchy beats you definitely have to check this one out. Below you will find the previews and below that a link to download the release.

22tape – MosaicChangeTon

Download page

In Lyon, (France) you’ll find Opti.  After getting in touch with music when he was 5 years old, opti traveled on several musical ways, from noise to drone and grindcore to dub, garage and jungle. All these influences joined back in 2002 when he re-discovered the uk urban scene. Opti’s music tends to sow confusion between genres, keeping the loud bass and energic stabs a trademark of its own.

Opti also CO-runs Airflex Labs. Airflex Labs, based in Lyon, is a forward thinking, bass driven electronic music Label. Co-run by Dj Perkid, Led Piperz and Opti.

The three tracks below are only a small part of Opti’s work so make sure to check out the rest of his tracks if you enjoyed it.

To Fall Under Your Spell

How I Feel

Whispering In A Tree

And we are not leaving France yet, first you’ll have to give this track by Paris based artist MoreSounds a listen.

MoreSounds – Quero Ouvir?

Stripewaves regular Milyoo is doing great lately, check out his latest productions below.

Guidelight

Face to Face

James Blake – Postpone (Milyoo’s Edit)

I also did some beat building myself last month, you might need to crank up your volume a bit.

tomlaan – Stable

tomlaan – Table

Atiq & EnK – “All Things” (exclusive preview) by stripewaves

“I’ve been producing for about 7 years now, after graduating at the SAE [School of Acoustic Engineering - Rottedam, ed.]. Until that time, I’d been playing in metal bands (turntablist/DJ/samples) which is the scene I know Enk from. He used to play guitar with the band Brainshake and, back then, already used his PC to make music – mostly with the old “Fruity Loops” 3.5.6

SW: Would you care to comment on the present-day music scene in Rotterdam?

Right now there is no scene in Rotterdam. As a matter of fact, there isn’t much of a scene for our style antwhere in NL. Sure, there’s a couple of things happening here and there, but nothing reaches a musically competitive level. Unfortunately, Rotterdam lacks many basic aspects of a music scene; especially now the WATT [Rotterdam's largest electronic music venue, ed.] has filed bankrupcy, there is in fact very little going on in town.

I used to organize events for several years – now I’ve had to put an end to that. It was a financial challenge, and it was way too hard to get audiences to respond to unfamiliar styles. People seem to prefer staying at home.

SW: Musically speaking, what are you into right now?

There are definitely a number of interesting styles i’ve got my ears on. Everything from Instra:Mental and pretty much everything that gets aired on the Club-Autonomic podcast. I am somehow attracted by minimal samples and some sort of 80’s Blade Runner atmosphere [8 bit/Aquacrunk/wonky, ed.]. You have to get into that in order to properly appreciate it, and right now i’m totally hooked, buying piles of records of the stuff.

Moreover, I listen to a lot of Synkro who, in my opinion, is proposing that 2-steppy/garage sound in a very innovative manner. I’m also a big fan of Reso – the man produces “party dubstep” with an uncanny finesse and outstanding care for details. His tracks truly are as structured and varied as a song. I would also flag out Marlow, this guy simply comes up with the sickest basslines.

Besides that, I also dig a lot of quiet music, movie soundtracks, stuff like Burial. My musical taste is rather varied.

SW: How do you go about producing a new track?

We [Atiq-Guido and Enk-Pim, ed.] deem it rather important to develop a personal style, instead of just imitating other tracks. Producing is making something you really think is radically innovative and cool, and if it’s unusual or weird, well, so be it! We find it important to stand up for our inventiveness.

When we come up with a musical idea, we have no preconception whatsoever of the result. We just sit in the studio, fidget around with samples or with some fat-ass beat, and the track very much comes together by itself. We first assemble a looping beat, then develop it and articulate it, etc.

We used to work with Logic 5.5 but nowadays we switched to Fruitystudio and it works fine.

When we publish something we always have it mixed down and mastered at the Mokosound studios – they are the only people we ever allow to touch our music after it has phisically left our studio. Mastering should be left to people who truly are specialized engineers – it definitely is a craft apart. Each time we’re at Mokosound we learn something new – besides, when you’ve been working on a track for a while, you’ve heard it so much your ears are not objective any more.

SW: How is your musical production taking shape for the time being?

We’ve been putting our LP together and it now finally looks like we’re getting somewhere. We really tried to develop our own style and make a strong musical statement. That simply takes a lot of time. On average, we spend about 6 weeks on a single track. Since we both have jobs and we’re not neighbors, we can only meet once a week to produce.

The LP is going to be published by Mindtrick Records [Guido-Atiq's Rotterdam label, ed.] on CDs and 12″. We will also release a videoclip and plan a small release party tour – until now we’ve been focusing on the album rather than getting gigs.

In the meantime, Mindtrick Records will release another 2 single tracks, a downtempo LP by The Eerier Child, and i’ll publish my solo album in October. Plenty to keep Rotterdam busy for a while”.

With the rather stunning “Play” EP out on Rudimentary Records I grabbed Roughquest to answer a few questions for us and deliver some insight into the man behind what is to me, one of the most interesting releases I have heard in some time.

SF : For those not in the know, give us a brief run through of your history with music, and your production history in particular.

RQ : I’ve always been into computers, ever since my big brother got hold of an Amiga 500, I was hooked. I used to program games and all sorts on that thing… Until I found a random floppy disk called Octamed in the box. And that was it basically… I was totally addicted to that program. Looking back on it, it was just a fantastically powerful program… all at half a meg of RAM and at 320×200 screen resolution. Love it. But yeah, it was this that really got me into producing music. I still have an old James Bond remix I did, that I recorded off an old cassette tape. Did that when I was about eleven years old I think. It wasn’t half bad!

My other big bro was well into the free party scene at the time, so he had shit loads of rave tapes laying around and flyers all over his wall. I used to love the flyers and the tapes he had… I’m pretty sure all the old ‘92 tapes exist right now, really old Clarke and Kenny Ken stuff. Electronic music has always held a special spot in my heart, starting from raw dance music but maturing into more experimental organic sounding stuff. Future Sound Of London’s Lifeforms album is the absolute height of electronic music to me.

All of my geekery, through out the years, meant that I never really took up playing a real instrument. My parents kindly brought me a keyboard (old Yamaha something or other) that had loads of sounds and basic synth programming on it… I still practice my keys, but I’m a shit musician. I appreciate I’ll never be a good instrumentalist, I’ll leave that to the pros. I’m just the geek in the corner, twiddling with my knob(s).

SF : Your release “Play” on Rudimentary Records is at times stark, and at other times beautiful, and is sometimes both in the same moment. Are you attracted to duality in music in general or did it all come about subconsciously in the writing process.

RQ: Definitely so! I love putting things together in sound that shouldn’t really go together. I’m glad you said that, as it must surely show on the other side. That’s cool man… But yeah, as I’ve been doing more and more production, I’ve noticed that it’s less about what I have in my head before hand… It’s more about a sound or a texture which snowballs into all these different directions, then it’s me sort of knitting these all back together to make a cohesive whole. I’ve never been one to make ’straight ambient’, ’straight dubstep’ or ’straight trip hop’ etc. But I love all these genres and what they do to me as a listener… I suppose it’s sort of my quest to take these little elements, from all the genres I love, and squeeze them into something that’s (hopefully) enjoyable to listen to. At the end of the day, that’s all I really want.

SF : I personally consider your release to be a very special type of music, something to get lost in while traveling as a very welcome distraction from what’s around me. There is sense of isolation and strength in it, where as often times music in this vein can come across as desolate or fragile…it’s basically a very confident EP to my ear. Would you consider this a fair summary or am i talking out of my ass?

That’s great it is having that effect on you. As a producer of that music, I couldn’t ask for a better reaction to it. It’s funny you say it’s a confident sounding EP though… I felt anything but confident with the tunes, the mixdowns, the mastering etc. Maybe it’s because it’s the first time my tunes have been taken seriously. I literally poured my blood and sweat in to it, for about 2 months solid, to bring them from work in progresses to the finished thing. Literally thought of nothing else… I was so unsure of every aspect. But now I can relax more on it and sort of feel proud of my efforts. I’m glad it still came through confident, as the ideas were bold and brash to start with, glad they survived the mental turmoil!

SF : What’s next for Roughquest?

I promised myself to get another EP out this year, if that happens or not is another story. The first EP was a push to define my sound somewhat. Though, in all honesty, I have no idea what that sound is yet – but I think that keeps things a little more interesting (for me anyhow). I recently invested in a decent controller for my laptop, so I’ve been furiously working on doing little mixtapes too. I’m not a conventional DJ, never will be, but I do love to mix music I love. I’ve already done a few for a few blogs and sites and definitely want to do more. I’m hoping to keep these fresh and interesting and not just the normal hour-long two-track DJ mixing thing… So please do listen out for these ones. I’m starting to think seriously about doing some live stuff too, but this may take a while to form yet. It’d be great to find someone to do it with or at least to help ease me into it a bit, I lack confidence sometimes… but one step at a time I think!

SF : Who is currently getting some play when you are not working on your own productions?

SoundCloud is such a great source of new music… It’s a fantastic site and I love how viral it is. There is some people out there doing some amazing music, better than anything I hear knocking around usually… Altair is one guy. He does the most soulful, clean, crisp productions. He recently did a collab with Es.tereo (another guy to check out). A lot of Vandera’s work is great. Anything by my mate Stuart K (Mr Lager in the dubstep circles) and ASC… anything that guy touches at the moment just turns to gold. Also checking out a lot of Muted’s stuff too. A good friend of mine Fonik is quickly getting his free music label up called Manifesto Music, which will feature a release from Muted. I have a finger in that pie too, it should be an exciting project and release! Aside from that, Rhythm & Sound gets a lot of love from me, a lot of old Future Sound Of London, Thom Yorke (and Radiohead) and I’ve recently been getting quite into hip hop (as you may tell from some of my mixtapes that’ll be coming out…) I always try and keep an open mind with this stuff. I’m less about the names and the genres really… If it’s good music, it’s good music!

If you want to keep an eye on Roughquest you can get him on Facebook, Twitter and Soundcloud.

I would also strongly recommend checking out his Bare Ingredients Mixtape which can be found here.

Error Broadcast!! One of the most interesting young labels at this moment! They’ve been releasing dopeness since 2009.  Absolutely essential for the experimental Hip Hop and 21^st century beatmusic lover! Brainfeeder and Beat Dimensions come to mind when I need to tag ER BR. You can download most of their music for free in reasonable quality or you can pay some bucks to enjoy uncompressed audio.

I had some questions and Swift, one of the founders (other one is Flip) of ER BR, had some smart answers. Check it out!

• Could you please tell us a little bit about your personal background?

Swift: My name is Sven Swift, I’m living in Germany. Beside my job at Error Broadcast, I coordinate 12rec. which is a Netlabel dedicated to independent Pop music. Furthermore I’m writing about free music at Phlow Magazine and some German-spoken blogs.

• Already active in many aspects of the music scene, what made you decide to work together with Flip and start ER BR?

Swift: Zymogen and 12rec. had a cooperative release in 2007. A handful of electronic music artists remixing a UK folk youngster Crepusculum. Coordinating this one, Flip and me were chatting a lot and found ourselves to be fans of instrumental Hip Hop. The genre felt new, and people were enthusiastic about new input. So we decided to launch Error Broadcast. If you are a music lover you always need to do something new, and that EB thing felt just right!

• It seems that one of the basic ideas of the label is to map the beat scene globally. What are your thoughts on this?

Swift: There are certain hotspots… Everybody can tell you that it’s L.A. and London where the exciting beats emerge from, Bay Area especially imho. We follow a lot of labels and artists that come from the UK and US west coast (actually, kid Shlohmo is from S.F.) but there’s so much more to discover! With Pixelord and DZA we are focussing on Russia and Moscow these days. Naturally, Italy and Germany are important to us. Some hot names from Belgium and the Netherlands, Austria, Bulgaria, Serbia… We are trying to find something fresh in places people forgot to look. Not only following but looking for new trends, too! Ha ha.

• All your music is digitally available. How do you decide if tracks will also be released on vinyl?

Swift: We do vinyl releases with artists we are in close contact with. Typically, there’s a free MP3 release to introduce the name before we invest in wax.  I like the idea of a music label as a family – a bunch of likeminded people that support each other rather than buying the most hype artist available. Therefore, it is important to us to be cool with the artists AND the beats they conduct.

• What releases can we expect of ER BR in the near future?

Swift: By the end of May the DZA beat tape “Five-Finger Business” will drop. This is a nasty one! Highly talented producer from Moscow, DZA is central to the Russian beat scene. His crew How2make runs a lot of real cool events over there… He just graduated from the Red Bull Academy, and I bet we are witnessing the beginning of something special here. We already got him for a vinyl release, haha!

AEED (CH) and Comfort Fit (DE) will have their vinyl singles just after the DZA tape. Both artists are longtime friends of EB and we are proud and happy to have these singles going eventually. The AEED wax will feature AD Bourke and fLako for remixes, and with the Comfort Fit 7”, an exclusive Shlohmo treat can be found… Good stuff, you bet.

Did I mention new Pixelord muzak to drop later this year? It’s true; this man is a maniac. A gifted maniac. Ha ha.

• Any famous last words?

Swift: Stay curious. Peace!

So go check out   http://error-broadcast.com/index.php/ and spend your well earned money  and support Error Broadcast!

Peace out!

DZA -Vavilon joint

B-Ju -Metronoma

Yoru (sometimes going as Beckett for DJing/productions and as Rory for the real world ) is one half of the minds behind the ever growing and ever impressive Rudimentary label (the other half being Andy(SomeoneElse). Starting off with a simple club night where they lads could ensure music they enjoyed by controlling who and what was played they had the aim of providing good old fashioned cross genre fun with the simple ideal that music is good or bad and should be enjoyed accordingly. “We started it off as a night where we wanted to play stuff we enjoyed, from all musical spectrums, and over the years we’ve had various hair brained schemes to further this aim, and along the way somehow ended up booking some amazing guests for some deadly nights, which are more or less random occasional events”, says Yoru.

“On top of that we decided a label was a good idea, as there are a tonne of producers from both here, and elsewhere we reckon deserve to get heard by a wider audience, so we’re working slowly on that one, we wanted to get the ball rolling so we started off digital, but we hope to produce some physical media sooner rather than later…”

The lads also have a weekly radio show on Feile FM in Belfast, (which i can assure you is well worth your time to listen to – Shatterfreak) and future plans revolve around expansion of the label and possibly even a magazine as well. That’s right, on paper, something so novel these days it pretty much has to happen.

Coming out soon on Rudimentary will be Roughquest’s “Play” EP, which is a delightfully dark and dubby spin through eclectic soundscape elements meshed together in perfect harmony with heaving lows and assured and flowing broken beats. It really is a fantastic EP. Take a listen at the below.

http://soundcloud.com/rudimentaryrecords/sets/roughquest-play-ep

If you like their vibe, check out Rudimentary at http://www.twitter.com/Rudimentary records and http://www.soundcloud.com/RudimentaryRecords. These folks are music hungry as well, so feel free to contact them about anything at all at info@rudimentaryrecords.com

The whole vehicle is aimed firmly in the direction of giving more exposure to great artists. It’s not about having a “good blog”, i think we could sit here and churn out links to video’s from well know artists and all day and get a pretty sweet readership but that’s not really what we are about. No offence to any of the bigger names, but you have plenty of coverage, lets give the little guys a chance.

It brings us on nicely to the main topic of this ramble. Soundcloud. It’s always been our main source of posting content for a good reason. It’s filled with talented people and offers a pretty sterling service, so more and more people are using it. The last few months have seen some pretty big names with Soundcloud accounts and the numbers are growing. Blogs all over the net are linking up to it to bring attention to the folks who dwell within and if i had to put money on such a thing i would bet the house on Soundcloud currently enjoying a daily sign up rate that would make any net entity happy.

As such, Soundcloud is turning into quite the promotional tool, you have the audience attracted by the big names being exposed to the smaller ones…you’d really be a fool to not have a Soundcloud by now. It’s the most obvious direction the future of online music promotion is going to take if the cards fall right.

It’s also a bit of a shark tank. The talent level is pretty damn high if you know who to look for, a kind of friendly competitive nature seems to exist around the idea of pushing things, refining things, doing something new and just generally improving your own skill set. As such, I have a new list of awesome for you to get in your ears. It’s a mix of the small and the on the way, the bedroom producers and the guys who seem to be on the cusp of some pretty big things. There’s also one or two names in there who are doing very well, but the joy of Soundcloud is you just can’t ignore a good track.

Long live Soundcloud.

DFRNT – “Dangerous”
DFRNT – Dangerous by DFRNT

policy – “A Platform in Queens”
A Platform in Queens by policy

Soft Wasp – “Angel on the Beach”
ANGEL ON THE BEACH by Soft Wasp

Adam Kroll – “Just a taste of me”(cheers Inofaith!)
“Just a taste of me” by Adam Kroll

T-woc – “Dub Father”
T woc – Dub Father (AC7R02) by allcitydublin

Marina Faib – Sabre “One Hundred Teeth” Remix
Sabre – one hundred teeth (Marina Faib remix) by Faib

Subreachers – “Elysian Fields”
Elysian Fields by SubReachers

Introspectionist – “Sincere”
Sincere by Introspectionist

In a new thing for Stripewaves, i’ll be tracking down some of the most interesting underground electronic music producers around the world and getting them into some brand of chat client for a talk about their music, how they do things and how they view music in general. First up is Inofaith from Holland. His interesting brand of electronica wanders from Dubstep to DnB via IDM and Hip Hop and he has been known to experiment with some glitchy goodness as well.

SF: Hey Inofaith, thanks for taking the time to talk to us.

Inofaith: You got my full attention.

SF: So, for people who may not be too aware of you or your history, do you mind giving a brief run through of your production history?

Inofaith: I come from playing the piano, was inspired by hiphop and started making things on a computer at 14, techno and hiphop beats, later drum and bass and triphop. In the process I got in touch with scratching and beatboxing as well.
The last years I’ve been learning a lot productionwise, and my sampling has grown more into field and foley recording and sound design.

SF: You do seem to be a very “hands on” producer, i have seen a video of you using a Korg KP3 as well as anyone i have ever seen. Do you think this is a remnant of starting out with the piano and the later progression to the decks?

Inofaith: Well yeah the piano and scratching are certainly ways of expressing yourself using your hands. But I also feel that having used a computer to produce music has aided into thinking about sound and patterns in a visual way. When scratching, or shuffling beats on the kaoss pad you sort of see the patterns before you do them.

SF: Do you have a general framework for production involving the various means you have to produce sounds, from sound design to field recording etc, or is it simply a matter of starting with whatever element grabs you at the time?

Inofaith: I used to just impulsively start working after I got a new sound from somewhere, but most of the time you start hitting a wall and discover you don’t have all the elements you need at hand. It’s like starting to cook a meal while you havent prepared any ingredients. This doesn’t have to be a major problem sometimes. But if you are in this inspired zone where you want to just create, you don’t want anything getting in your way of putting down your mood or ideas, so I’m getting more structured in the sense of organising ingredients and having commonly used elements set to my preferences.

SF: Do you even set out at the start of a track to write a track of a specific genre, or is that just something that occurs naturally in the early stages?….or not, as the case may be, a lot of your work could easily be labeled as several different genres, with all the cross appeal that usually implies.

Inofaith: In my early dnb and triphop work I did have my bpm counter fixed most of the time. But nowadays I usually hum a melody or beatbox a pattern and write that down or save it in a memo recorder if I’m not near the computer. Based on that, I start out by tapping the tempo in and go from there. I feel that staying true to that initial idea that gets you grooving is often the best way.

SF : You really seem to believe strongly in that first moment of inspiration and we have talked before about the importance of different avenues of inspiration for artists, what can set you off and get you thinking about a beat, or humming a melody?

Inofaith: Well, the funny thing is that these ideas mostly arise when I’m in a place nowhere near any means of recording, like in the shower, toilet or when riding my bike. I often find myself rushing trying to get back to my computer to save my idea haha.

For me being in a calm place or moment can work. I think its just having no impulses from outside that allows you to really listen to your own ideas or mood. But I can easily get inspired by having watched a movie or reading an interesting article, also traveling to new places gets the mind going. As far as melody or beat goes, that really depends on the mood I’m in,obviously an energetic mood will yield faster beats etc.

SF: I know you are a big fan of sountracks, and have used quotes from films such as Event Horizon and Lost in Translation in some of your tracks, this all adds to your music having a very strong visual drive behind it, it’s easy to close the eyes and just see images when listening to your work…do you think this is a happy result of your own efforts married with your inspirations or is it something you strive to acheive?

Inofaith: I think its something I do both unconsciously and intentionally. When I create music I want the track to take me somewhere. Most structural things are done on just feeling and anticipation. But I’m also busy with trying to find combinations of sound and image. I tried VJ-ing and video sampling, I even worked with video artist Eboman for a while. But I discovered that literally showing a sound and where it came from takes away the mystery and perhaps “abstractness” of what music can evoke in people. So I got back to shaping sounds so they fit a certain mood or image much like film scores guide the things that happen on screen. It’s often debated that the soundtrack of movies actually make up more than 50% of the whole thing. I find this very interesting.

SF: You made a video for Fix Yourself, which was you on a very nice looking couch with your KP3, any more plans to have video’s for more of your tracks in the future?

Inofaith: Yes, I’m always thinking about that. But as a one man project it’s very time consuming to write good music plus creating worthy visual content as well. That’s why I’m focussing on music first. A nice video clip with a bad song isn’t going to work. A good song can stand on it’s own (and that’s where the more-more-than-50% phenomenon comes in). On the technical side I have some equipment I want to upgrade before I feel confident to set off on this visual journey.

SF: I’m looking forward to the day it happens I have to say. There seems to be a lot of very talented people over in Holland and the scene seems to be very strong over there. What’s it like from an inside perspective and who do you think is worth watching out for?

Inofaith: Yes, I’m quite proud to be from Holland I must say. There seems to be a tendency towards innovation. Maybe that has to do with the Dutch being very open minded but critical as well. Holland is relatively small in terms of population, we have a tight scene around here and most people know each other.

People I think you should really look out for would be TMSV: who makes deep mala-esque tracks with great percussion, Myrkur: who’s a genius in ambient and melodic things, HALP: very promising synth-crazy works. Beer has got new live things in store and The Illuminated boys are starting to shake up things in the south of Holland. In terms of events Subway is doing big events. And allthough he’s from Germany, I really love Adam Kroll’s work. At the moment I’m also doing crazy mashup DJ sets b2b with Erwtenpeller which is a lot of fun.

SF: Finally, as well as the music and the video experimentation, you are also an avid photographer. Do you consider them all to be different paths, or is it all just different arms of the same creative monster?

Inofaith: They are different formats, and both sides have their benefits and limitations. But for me they have a lot, and I mean a lot of overlapping aspects. Both technically and conceptually. Working on photos/video and music back and forth has got me theorizing about audiovisual relations. There is still a lot of things to discover in this field and I feel the tools for working with them are still at a very immature stage. Taking photos is also I just enjoy, be it going to a party with friends or taking a walk somewhere. Just like listening goes for recording or sampling: It lets you focus on the details of everyday things, which makes you see differently.

SF: So is it reasonable to assume that one of your long term goals is to put something into the public domain that combines audio and visual aspects and does both mediums justice…that is definitely something worth looking forward to.

Inofaith: Yes, like you said, it’s a long term goal. I’m learning things all the time as I go along. And I don’t want to rush anything. There is lots of possibilities as to what form concepts like these can be shaped in.

SF: Well here at Stripewaves we will most certainly be keeping an eye on your creative content in all media, thanks very much for taking the time to talk to us.

Inofaith: thank you, my pleasure.

Don’t forget to check out Inofaith’s own Soundcloud page, and if you are really digging his work as i am be sure to become a fan on Facebook.

Dawn is Late
Dawn is LatebyInofaith

Girls go to Bed Early
Girls go to Bed EarlybyInofaith

Fix Yourself
Fix Yourself (*live: see music video)byInofaith

Reticent
ReticentbyInofaith