Phoenelai with 2063 ..aug2005

This Interview was taken at the release of the 'Tribute to THX1138' ep.

2063:
How did you come to netaudio and what opportunities does netlabel offer the artist?

Phoenelai:
When the glitch & microsound movement really took off I started researching a lot of the artists and found out a lot of them were attached to netlabels. I then found scene.org and internet archive and was completely amazed. Here I could pick my style of music and download it for FREE! Some people will argue that the music is not the quality of real - or I should say physical? - labels. This is not true… I found amazing talents out there; and that's what it does! It connects you with an audience. Artist “just have that need to produce” and get their work out there! It's what we love to do and feedback like "hey I really enjoyed yada yada track" is what we love to hear. I really wish that more people who download would do reviews on the label- or collaborative sites like earlabs. This is how I do it: let them know that you like it!


2063:
Is there any particular reason for choosing 2063music as your "homebase" as an artists? And do you think that a connection to one specific label is important, i.e. for personal musical and artistic progress?

Phoenelai:
I have to say when I first discovered you it was with Octagone [comment: a netlabel 020200 ran till 2003]. I love your music choice and artists there, so when you told me you got more into 2063 with recent music I was really hooked! I appreciate 2063 releasing my music, because it is an excellent netlabel and hope other artists are eager to join in and be part of this wonderful community! What I love is the feeling of fitting with the 2063 family and hope to continue sending you excellent future 2063 releases.

About the other question: I think certain artists fit with certain labels. Some artist like to bounce around and go from label to label which is fine; they will get more exposure. Even when they do that, they still picking certain labels. They ask questions like: "How I like the artists there, the web design & feel etc?"

2063:
Your latest release the 'Tribute to THX 1138' has a real obvious source of inspiration (the movie from George Lucas) than your other works. What feelings did you have when making this ep and do you think your music has a visionary or environmental relevance?

Phoenelai:
Well... I didn’t want to just steal a bunch of audio clips and call it a tribute. I was impressed with the “What’s wrong?” sample when Richie Hawtin did it with the FUSE project on Plus8 Records. When this new DVD release came out I was really impressed with the whole thing. The audio, the packaging, the remaster was completely incredible! This is my first “movie theme” release and I can't say that I will do many more. I wouldn’t say it's visionary but what i wanted to achieve was change the mood of the soundtrack. The soundtrack is very dark and grim. I wanted to project a "brighter" futurist kind of rework or soundtrack if you will. Maybe people in the future of the movie THX 1138 are happy by being controlled; it’s a safe and it's a clockwork style of living! This is funny because my music is usually dark drones etc: this wasn’t the case this time. On top of it all it has beats-- which I normally do not do because I really don’t feel that I do very structured songs that well. Outside of all this I still feel like it has the Phoenelai sound; everyone else will have to be the judge on that one.

2063
Does electronic listening music in general have a environmental, technical or even a political role (e.g. changing peoples mind, give new views etc.)?

Phoenelai:
I'm sure that some artists have all those things in mind. Back to the days of Meat Beat Manifesto and Consolidated they had very strong and potitical things in their views. For me… not at all. I'm not into politics really, I just care about the sound!

I think that todays electronic music really makes you think about the concept of music itself. For example Microsound. You are sitting there listening to 5 minutes of static and glitchyness stuff and you ask yourself "hey…can I really call this music?" A funny story...one day while I was at work, on my computer was playing “Vidna Obmana & Asmus Tietchens (Motives for Recyling) - 4th Theme". Well, this is a really dark sweeping drone track as you may or may not know. So one of my co-workers was staring at the ceiling and I looked at him and said “what’s wrong?”. He said: “You hear that? Something is really wrong with the air conditioning unit!” I was cracking up for at least 10 minutes,then explained that this was a track that i was playing on my PC! My wife usually doesn't understand my music and probably never will-- but that's okay!

2063:
Is ambient or electronic listening music dead?

Phoenelai:
Definitely not! To give you a little history: i started listening to industrial when i was in high school in 1988 (<---old fart). I started buying lots of industrial dance. Then after I got out of the USN (service) i started DJ'ing/producing in 1994. Since years has passed of course and the music had changed! I was playing progressive trance, minimal techno etc. In the early 90's the chill rooms started at the raves. The early “ambient boom” was amazing - there was a lot of great music coming out; the volumes of it was incredible…almost too much. I would say that ambient has slowed down since then, but there are still fans out there and ALWAYS WILL BE! Just not as mass popular as it was. The true ambient fans will still be there listening. That’s what they do! They take THE TIME to listen; to their surroundings, the environment & the music!