We got in touch with Rich Vreeland, also known as Disasterpeace, for a few questions. Together with Eirik Suhrke (aka Phlogiston) he curates Pause netlabel, focusing their releases on the 8-bit / chiptune genre.
??? – Why
Thanks for agreeing to answer my questions. First off, can you
tell us a little more about the guys who run Pause? I believe both of
you are chip musicians, working freelance on videogame soundtracks when
you started Pause, is this correct?
Yes. We were mostly writing music for fun, I think we had both started
to work on a few small games by then, but it was nothing major at that
point.
Why did you feel the need to create a netlabel?
We wanted to create a place where we could host our music, and the music
of our friends as well. We had a friend who ran a netlabel before us,
but it shut down, and there weren’t too many alternatives back in 2007.
Were there other netlabels that influenced you early on? Can you do some name dropping for us?
We were both involved with Megatwerp, and I think Eirik might have been involved with Inpuj as well. I was definitely inspired by 8bitpeoples
in some ways, namely the way they handled themselves on the web. At the
same time, we felt that we were interested in creating a different kind
of catalogue, something more in tune with our personal taste in music.
Pause is known for releasing chip music but it also deviates to a
few branching genres, can you summarize what the careless visitor will
encounter when browsing your catalogue?
Mostly chipmusic, some game music of various kinds, and some electronic
music too. There is a general focus on instrumental music, and more
specifically, interesting forms/structures, melodies, harmonies and
rhythms.
Any particular release you are most proud of?
Not counting my own albums, I think some of the compilations we put out were pretty good. Sea of Ice and Heartcode come to mind. I was also very into ??? – Wall You Need is Love, which I helped to master and assemble, as far as track order and transitions are concerned.
You recently announced Pause stopped their activity with their
100th release. Can you tell us a little more on the reason why? Lack of
personal time?
Eirik and I may have slightly different reasons, but for me, I think
we’ve reached a point where it has become clear that our priorities lie
elsewhere and our interest in curating music is not nearly great as it
once was. I’ve become very busy just writing music and living and stuff,
and I saw this as a chapter that could be closed gracefully at 100. We
hadn’t really given Pause its fair level of attention in about 2 years,
so it seemed reasonable to let it go.
Your farewell message mentions you achieved the goals you set initially set out. How do you measure the success of a netlabel?
I think largely about the impact it had on its artists and the
listeners. Pause was never about money, it was always about exposure and
craft, and I think a lot of people found a lot of great music because
of our site, and that was always the prime directive.
Do you believe digital platforms are replacing the role of labels?
Not only bandcamp and soundcloud but also commercial ones like
tunecore, beatport, etc?
Yes, to some extent. There are still successful netlabels like Ubiktune
that show that there is still something to be said about the power of
assembly. Ubiktune has a very distinctive sound that comes across in the
albums they choose to release, and there’s a good kind of
predictability in that, in the sense that you can always count on them
to put out a certain kind of material. If you enjoy that style, then
that is a great resource to have. Me, I’ve always enjoyed the frontier
of the internet, searching out new artists and albums one by one, so I
suppose I don’t miss being part of a netlabel too much. Though
certainly, if I got a call from Ghostly or Warp, I wouldn’t walk away
from that.
Did Pause have connections with local promoters to organize local events?
Nope. It was strictly an online affair. Eirik lives in Norway, and I
live in the states, so coordination was difficult. I did organize one
Pause show a couple of years ago, which was an instance of Pulsewave
(http://pulsewavenyc.com) in Brooklyn that I helped put together.
Can you name a couple of releases from other netlabels that you wish they had come out through Pause?
Cheap Dinosaurs – Cheap Dinosaurs, would have been rad.
