why it’s been a month since the last transmission of C-6.
Actually, there’s no major reason, other than this shared existential crisis club known as life. It’s been a busy one my friends. Up to my eyeballs with work, creative projects, and at the center of it all, time with my family. I have a bunch to share from those projects, but for now, I want to focus on some amazing things that my friends are doing. So with that in mind, let us dive in…
We have a new installment of SAMPLE SIX, wherein I quiz fellow artists about who they are, what they’re working on, and how you can best support them. This week, my buddy Stefan. He’s got a new album dropping tomorrow from his project Henges…but I’m getting ahead of myself and him. I’ll let him take it from here.
SAMPLE SIX
Who are you?
Hi, my name is Stefan, I have been making/playing music since I was 3 years old, so that's 45 years and counting. I'm a forever traveler, having lived in many countries over the years and absorbing a lot of music from each place I have lived in and the people I've met. Maybe one day I'll stop moving around? Who knows.
What do you make?
I make three things as art/expression. Music, Video and Synthesizers. My music can be found under the following aliases: 18 Slashes (Drum and Bass, Genre-bending electronica), Henges (Industrial Dub), Your Ancestors Knew Death (Post Punk) and A Death By The Seaside (Trip Hop/Doomgaze)
I've started working with Syrup Moose Records so some of the releases will have better visibility and will collaborate with other labels as time goes by. Been working on a new self contained video synth design that I thought would be done by 2022 but looks like it will be ready around 2024.
Why do you make it?
It's mostly a form of self expression, I have found out that the one voice people can't take from me is my music, you can not listen to it, but there’s no way you can prevent me from speaking through it. Weirdly enough music, since I was a kid, has been part of my inner monologue, if I don't make it, I get very much in my head.
How did you get started?
My first band was when I was 13 and we talked about making music way more than we made music so that made me interested in "solo" setups, which happened to coincide with computer music, samplers and sequencers becoming more affordable. Still played in bands for years after but also had the ability to release my own music as a solo electronic artist as technology allowed and jumped on that bandwagon early. A lot of my releases in the early 90's were the most barebones ever with a secondhand and partly failing Ensoniq EPS sampler and Roland D-50 because that was the gear that was cheap at the time, the moment I got my first rackmount sampler it was game over tho :) It did make touring those setups very interesting... and very expensive.
Video happened as a necessity back in the 90's, I kept recycling old VHS decks and built some very crude mixers/switchers so I could have some visuals while playing and I started building synthesizers as a way to justify my Electronics Engineering degree, but ended up using those skills mostly to mod video and audio equipment to do horrible things with.
What are you engaging with?
Currently have been heavily into Narrow Head (Awesome band, really knocking it out of the park), the new Fucked Up album (How do they do it so far into their career) and enjoying some retro-gaming as I prepare for some new projects. Last book I read was The Agency by William Gibson, really interesting concept to explore (Stubbed multiverses and time travel via quantum tunneling of information) which is starting to seed some ideas for a future project.
How can we support you?
You can find my ever evolving list of projects here at https://linktr.ee/18slashes
But yeah, honestly the biggest support I get is when someone says "Nice song, that really made me feel something" which really makes me feel like I'm properly communicating, failing that you can buy my releases on Bandcamp lol.
So one of the projects I mentioned earlier? Stefan commissioned me to create a series of four lyric music videos for his new Henges album, and let me tell you, it’s been a blast working on them. The first two are complete and can be see below:
The next two will be out soon, so be sure to subscribe to the YouTube channel to catch them when they premiere.
Switching gears just a bit, what’s everyone reading these days? I’m convinced that reading and reading well is such a tough skill to develop and maintain, especially as we’re constantly inundated with a barrage of information, some of it more incoherent than not. My cousin loaned me his copy of The Myth of Sisyphus by Albert Camus and it’s been consuming a lot of my thought-processes lately. I’m about halfway through, hoping to finish it soon. Camus’ focus on the absurd in this collection is right up my alley. This bit in particular got my attention:
“War cannot be negated. One must live it or die of it. So it is with the absurd: it is a question of breathing with it, of recognizing its lessons and recovering their flesh. In this regard the absurd joy par excellence is creation. ‘Art and nothing but art,’ said Nietzsche; ‘we have art in order not to die of the truth.’”
We live in absurd times my friends. I hope you’re all doing as well as you can muster, given whatever pressures and demands you might be facing. Take time to create…creation as an act of resistance. We’re in this together.
Until next time…
In which we explain...
Currently reading John Wray's Gone To The Wolves. Enjoying the hell out of it.
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/62039317-gone-to-the-wolves
Also just picked up Romans For Normal People from the library because I'm still a theology nerd.