Wednesday 24 July 2013

Southern City's Lab

We exchanged a few emails with Southern City’s Lab, a more recent netlabel from Russia.
Can you tell us who the people in charge of the label are and what they do for a living?
I am Максим Парасюков, the only person responsible for the label, no assistants present. I work as a mechanic for a living, no musical achievements present though there were attempts to practise music, but all unsuccessfully.
When did you first feel the need to start a netlabel?
The thought suddenly occurred to me around a year ago. At first I wanted to start a music blog, but then I learned about the existence of netlabels. This option was more acceptable, as a lot of my friends and acquaintances are musicians.
Why a netlabel and not a commercial label?
To pay for an MP3 or flac, which can easily be copied and shared for free, seems somewhat ridiculous to me. Another matter are CDs or tape, they can serve as a pride subject for the collector. But I have no opportunity to publish them.
Can you name a few other labels that influenced your decision to start a label?
Clinical Archives
Your website states you focus on punk music. Is this correct? Why this genre?
We don’t just focus on punk. The quote “Southern City’s Lab, a Russian netlabel bringing in some incredible punk releases” was taken from a review written on FMA. I work with many genres. There are ambient/post-rock releases, synthpop, lounge and even works of violinists with an academic background. I love garage rock and hardcore punk, but feel like it would be boring to be engaged only with those genres.
Your website is mostly Russian, are your artists and target audience both mostly Russian?
Honestly, I do not know foreign languages at all. For the most part, our artists are from Russia, but also from Ukraine and Canada. Our target audience is generally from Europe and the US. Our fanbase in Russia is not that strong.
How close do you work with your artists?
I keep in touch :)
Are you in touch with with local promoters to organize concerts for your artists?
I have some contacts but haven’t organized any concerts.
Could you describe to us your standard process to release and promote a new release?
I upload releases to archive.org, FMA, bandcamp. I update the catalog on our website. I notify our listeners through social media. I’m also planning to do podcasts in the future.
What can you tell us of the Russian netaudio scene? Are there many netlabels active? Do you keep in touch with each other?
There are a lot of netlabels but this structure is badly developed. Very bad support among mass media and blogs.
Any particular release you are most proud of having released?
They are three:
Break The Bans – Okay! Okay!
Powerful garage rock in the spirit of Stooges and Rolling Stones. Their album really went around the world. They have a big future.
Kosta T – Informality
It is a unique album for the punk of a label. Its violin is remarkable.
Pk jazz collective & Pavkashavet Bantut – Ore Empyreum
I take special pride in this one. Joint project of artists of my label. Surrealistic verses of Pavkashavet Bantut read against the psychedelic jazz simply tear off from reality.
Thanks for your time, any last words for our readers?
What to wish to readers… I think it is critical to not give in on provocation and stick to your opinion. Thank you as well. All the best.

Tuesday 23 July 2013

Sincro

I started on a quest to interview different netlabels from different countries. My objective is to bring some light on how they operate and relate to their local music scenes. Starting from the letter A, I searched for netlabels in Argentina and ran into Sincro. So I downloaded their latest release VVAA – Menesunda and mailed them a few questions. I can tell you the compilation is focused on microsound and experimental music, which was nice to discover since I love those kind of sounds.
Y:E:T – Lightsloft
Can you tell us a little more about yourself?
We are Darío Pinto (Asolaar) and Miguel Onofri (Mezzo), we are both experimental electronic music producers and we run Sincro Netlabel. We operate from Mendoza, Argentina, a city with a population of less than a million, in the middle of a very arid area, 1000km to the west of Buenos Aires and quite isolated from the rest of the world. We don’t make a living out of music.
When and why did you feel the need to form the Sincro netlabel?
Sincro was born as a local venue in 2001. First we worked as a platform, organizing local events and trying to bring artists from other places to our town. In august 2006 we became a netlabel, with the launching of our first compilation “Artificios”. We intended to release our own music in the first place, and some other artists from Argentina that we liked. Then the project grew and became attractive to other artists, and we started to receive demos from foreign countries.
Can you tell us a little more about the Argentinian netaudio scene? How many active labels are there and how do they relate to the commercial side of the Argentinian music scene?
We can only mention the netlabel and platform “Sudamerica Electronica”, from the city of Córdoba, run by our dear friend, colleague and ally Jorge Castro (Fisternni). There used to be about a dozen netlabels, but during the last couple of years most of them have become inactive (like Natural Media) or have disappeared (like Audio:808). We are talking about our kind of music, we are not really aware of the situation in other music styles. We don’t really have contact with any other national netlabels. Netlabels don’t relate with the commercial side of the Argentinian music scene at all.
I noticed from your site that you don’t have that many artists and only release almost once a year. Is this intentional or just happens to be how you operate?
What we do is not entirely an accident, it is mostly a conscious choice. We release very little material and in brief format. Only our last compilation “Menesunda” is a full length release, because we celebrated our 10th release and 5 years working as a netlabel. We pay attention to sound, mastering, artwork, concept, etc, and we curate the material quite a lot. With only a few exceptions, we are not interested in netlabels that release a lot of stuff.
The only non-Argentinian artist on your roster seems to be the Ukranian .at/on (he has some great music by the way). How did you get in touch?
We have slowly been gathering artists that we like, basically from Argentina and South America, and then going global. We currently have 18 artists in our roster, from Argentina, Chile, Peru, Colombia, Spain, Italy, Ukraine and Japan. We contacted .at/on by e-mail a couple of years ago, then we invited him to participate on the last compilation. We like the Ukrainian experimental scene a lot, so we also included the collaboration Y:E:T (Ukraine/Japan).
Because Sincro is a small label, I assume you try to support your artists more. Is this accurate? Do you also organize local promo-events or do you work with people who do? What kind of promotion for you releases do you do?
Organizing local events is an important part of our activities. Many of our artists have performed in our shows, and we have had visits from the rest of the world as well. In April 2009 we brought the German artists Alva Noto + Byetone to our city, and we shared the stage with them.
These events have good coverage from local media. We promote our releases quite a lot, through websites, blogs and online radios.
Thanks for your time and keep up the cool work! Any last words of advice for other people running netlabels, netaudio artists or people looking to discover new music?
For people running netlabels:
Be careful with your material. Promote every single release. Be a real curator.
For netaudio artists:
Look for the more suitable netlabels for your work. Do some good research before sending any demos. Try to perform live.
For people looking to discover new music:
Don’t be overwhelmed by the huge amount of music out there. Investigate a little and you will get to the good stuff.
Greetings from the deep south.