Let’s start at the technical beginning. How did you get into tracking music on computers?
Kind of chance I guess… a boring summer, an internet connection and I knew about modules. I had this friend. Once, I came to play at his home and he made me listen to some modules. I didn’t care back then about composing, I was just listening at them. Then, summer 99, I had nothing to do at home, decided to download a soundtracker.
So we’re talking Impulse Tracker?
Well, for me its been IT2 for some months then FT2 then going back on IT2 :)… IT2 at first looked scary to me, but then, I noticed that it2 > ft2. (anyone can say so… its something well known even if some others wont admit it)

Did making the switch to Renoise open the creative floodgates for you?
Hmm not necessarily. You know the deal - when you’re used to make music in ONE AND ONLY application, it’s getting hard to switch to an other one. I was so much used to IT2 than anything looking differently was a mess to master. I had to figure things out… struggle with it. But then, after that, the possibility to use VSTs opened gates to me. Weirdly, it also gave me headaches
Too many choices?
Yes, that too.

Was most of this album made on Renoise?
All composed in renoise 1.2 (no, not kidding, 1.2).
So that’s a while back now, 2004?
Indeed.

Renoise was somewhat ‘young’ back then, still morphing into the stable machinery we have now. Did you find any limitations working to your favor?
At that very moment, not at all… how could I’ve been finding them? I mean… I had new things to discover: synthesis, “mastering”…

Was the music heavily produced, or was it something that flowed out easy for you?
Well, I have to explain the situation back then. I was living far from my girlfriend, far from my family… Well.. Not so far. But, far enough not to be able to see them when I wanted too. And I had this job, working as an architectural modeler… With heavy hours… So each moments I was feeling “okay”, I was making music. Some beers helped me a bit. I can’t really remember if it flowed that easily. I remember I was in front of my keyboard, making the bleeps
So it was more of a slower sporadic cathartic process?
Indeed. Completly cathartic. Thats when I started to express my sadness through a “fake joy”, if I can put it that way…

Musically speaking the speaking the album has a lot of delicate ’small’ sounds on it, was this a conscious choice in honoring the tracking heritage?
Actually, no. An old habit To make everything out of small pieces. Of course - it comes from the tracking heritage! But it’s not made to honor it.
More of an efficiency thing?
Just an old habit

Stylistically your music has had the tag ‘naive’ put to it, and it certainly seems to be the case here on this album. What’s this whole ‘naive’ thing about for you?
It’s about a different way to compose music, just not formatted to be “mainstreamly accepted”. Working on progressive ideas…

Why pink?
Because it’s the best color to express the “naive feeling” ? Because it’s cute… Because I like pink …and why not afterall?

I’ve heard people refer to your music using that troublesome genre name of IDM. Most artists who get this description tend to be dismissive of it. Is this something you’ve had to deal with in sharing this music?
Everyday. I just somehow hate it to be considered as IDM.

There’s a tasteful sprinkling of glitched percussion throughout the album. Unfortunately, many of the enthusiasts who collect non-mainstream music move in collective taste fads. Glitch as a sonic element seemed to be very fresh and prevalent around the turn of the century, but now people are moving back into nostalgic revisions and mutations, for example breakcore and dubstep. Is this a concern for you?
Well, the glitch comes from the tiny pieces of sounds. (explain more your question plz :D)
Well I’m trying to imagine people listening to this for the first time, and it would be a shame if I saw people going ‘ah this is glitchy, I’m so over glitch’.
AH yeah, these people. If they enjoy following whats “fresh” and “not fresh”.
Does that bother you?
Of course it does. I can’t understand people who are just not considering a moment - it’s MUSIC AFTERALL. A music is not GOOD because its ACTUAL. Its GOOD because IT IS. For example, breakcore is old as hell. So what? They should be over it as well. But NO, someone said its fresh so now, it’s fresh again. And maybe glitch will be fresh again in 2 years. To be said - it’s not really important.

Why has it taken so long to get this work out there?
You mean, to get this album released?
Yeah.
Ho well, regarding the name of the album - it wasn’t making sense if it had been released right after I finished it - it had to get older… Ok. I’m lying The label is having trouble to see its path through this hard world that is the music scene. The label owner, Vincent, is a great guy… He’s believing in any of the artists of Apegenine, but it doesn’t mean people will follow. And thats great, he wants to release the music he likes and not the music that will be liked! But so what? You have to find money, make choices… Some releases had to be released before mine… It’s like that
So you were OK with waiting?
I was.

Would you change the album at all now if given the chance? Or does it hold up for you still?
This album is about my life at this very moment. If my life had been happier during the making of it, it wouldn’t have sound the same. I caught a moment, expressed it. Somehow, my music changed, but its still “about myself”.

In recent years the industry has been undergoing challenges to the old established system of making money. Do you think going with a Label still has good opportunities for an artist starting out?
Many people are confounding labels and majors. A label is a label is a label. I see it as a family. You make the opportunities… The problem is more on the audience side.

Do you think people are still interested in CDs?
Are people still interested in vinyls? NES? Old computers It’s fetishism. I know many people who still are enjoying buying an object.

A lot of your music is freely available online, including newer music that has an ‘updated sound’ to it compared to your album. Is this part of the marketing of Kaneel, or an unavoidable necessity that every artist faces these days?
Yes, it’s marketing. I’m releasing my music for free because it makes me look cool and generous. Because people nowadays tend to think that musicians doing glitch are not GENEROUS. Because they make their music weird so only esthet are listening and understanding it. (:DDDDDDDD°

Speaking of self promotion, it seems you’ve either actively or inadvertently made a minor celebrity of yourself in the Renoise community via some rather entertaining YouTube videos. Additionally you’ve been sporting an alter-ego named Monsieur Baguette who has a tongue-in-cheek breakcore comedic mission with a string of free releases. Has this all been a ‘bit of fun’ or part of a larger artistic plan?
“Bit of fun.” …Related to the Renoise irc channel. I had to do it

Where do you see yourself headed with your music now?
Completly nowhere of course. That’s frustrating. But it also opens a door. I’m free to do whatever I want with my music and whatever moves I want to promote it, make it evolve. So at the moment, I don’t have any label commitments, I AM FREE… (whoohooo)

Speaking of Labels, I see you have started your own - Petite & Jolie. This seems to be continuing the ‘naive’ theme but with other people’s music. What’s going on here?
That I want to make evolve as half-a-label/half-a-netlabel… Petite&Jolie is born in my head years ago. At first I wanted to make a compilation only about cute music, naive music. Pink? Kindergarten even… Anything that could be “CUTE”. But eventually it was aborted. And years after, it has relaunched as a netlabel, just because I think it was somehow “lacking”.
Is it going as planned?
It is. We got supporters, some reviews - we even made it on phlow (the official netlabel magazine) while it was our first release. So yeah, it’s going as planned, even better

What’s your message to the world?
Hmmm, there is this message on my website: “Make it happen, make it last, make it work and appreciate this moment because it’s already time to go back to real life work…” I want to remain young, as us all. But real life is trying to get me back to it. So I have to remain a kid inside my head and still, accept the real life how it is, be mature.
Duality.
Yap. You know I suffer from that

Anything I missed?
A beer.
* mr_mark_dollin slings kaneel a Fosters.
Ho and the veggie bbq.
Absolutely!

—

Get your copy of “I’ve Sketched It A While Ago” here.

FreakOST - Stonerman :: Chippy joy meets some sort of postmodern Greek folk music-doof and gets nicely noisy. Perfect for easy digestion for those on a C64 nostalgia diet wanting to see the style pushed into weird goodness.

Neä - Sad Candy :: The Basement Wigga submits some old Renoise fast tek-groove to classically trained vocalist Neä and the results are brilliantly future-tribal and strangely haunting. A strong case for mixing up electro with the acoustic world - human analogue interaction with cold electronics. Get it, and start hoping for more.

Sharku - Milkman :: Wobbly junk hiphop with some tasty vox bits and jazz pads. Funky and cleanly presented, it’s just waiting to be dropped into a set for pure weirdness injection. Fresh, in that Neptunium kind of way…

Kinoma - Helas! :: Basil takes us to some dark alley on the set of Bladerunner and gives us a slick sombre slap of music. This one is high on the gabba nostalgia, but with enough misty melody to soften the punch. Short, sweet and sour.

Kallipolis - To The One I Never Knew :: Taken from his recent “Li” album, Kallipolis continues his tour-de-force in reducing breakcore down to essential emotional elements. Light amen breaks float over gentle acid and pretty harp lines with just enough ambient soothing to cuddle the listener like a long lost lover. Moving music, both physically and emotionally.

Sunjammer - Airports :: Returning with a beasty doom piece Sunjammer shows us how to kill time waiting for the next flight. There’s a lot of rave and gabba nostalgia going on, and this will hammer nicely for people looking for a taste of the old sound. Dark and raging, make sure you keep a terror-cap on it while you listen in your plane seat: or security will shut that party down quick smart.

Astar - Night Traffic :: Mathew Mae mines an old club style here but does a beautiful job of it. Subtle with it’s nice sense of swirling space, crisp dampness, eventual emotional density and sonic delicacy, this is stuff for either the dancefloor or the headphones.

N Sound - Attica :: Taking breakcore to much more interesting places with grandly reverberated industrial vistas, N Sound gives us a delightfully uplifting soundtrack to a post-apocalyptic junkyard party. It’s grittiness is seriously good.

Edsche - Remembrance :: Soulful plinks in an ambient space mourns in demo-style flow. This track is a definite for those looking for something sombre and quiet.

Vitaxin - Just Ice For All (Government Killer Edit) :: Annide returns with a wicked hybrid of chip, disco and noise. Sounding like a sidechained wet dream of old C64 game soundtracks mashed with some positively strange textures, there’s enough cool in here to excite the most cynical retro enthusiasts. Perfect for club playback and nerd-dancing.

Encryptio - Laptop Lullaby :: Simply lovely in sonics, Encryptio only gives us a short little taste of a wonderful lush musical world. It has a joyful drone with playful kinder-melodies, perfect for setting a scene or guiding a transition. Like single piece of scrumptious candy to be savored.

NeuRoTiX - le Donne Del Giovedi’ Del Mondo :: Neurotix returns bearing the gift of an XRNS. This track has nice noise and parades convincingly digi-texture meeting sleuth jazz. An art piece, and interesting listen.

mr_mark_dollin - Absolutely Doomed :: Dub industrial plod meets warm emotive guitar solos and stream of consciousness spoken-word dream narrative. Glitchy and bittersweet.

Achenar - Survive Yourself :: Achenar brings the doom with a frosty barrage of orchestral-industrial drama and bile. Distinctive vocals sets this apart from the crowd. Taken from his recent commercial release All Will Change, you can expect a solid musical offering. Celtic war meets celestial cyber-annihilation.

The format will be as follows: Name of artist or artists with website link; a title which is a link to the mp3/ogg of the song (we’re not doing streams at the moment); then followed by a short description of the song. You can also subscribe to The ReSelektor Podcast. At the moment the podcast only features availible mp3s, not the songs that are in OGG or are hidden behind PHP downloaders.

Without further ado, here is The ReSelektor - 1

Beatslaughter - Innere Leere :: Released for the Camomille 100 release, this is Beatslaughter at his slick and dark peak. Crisp sound-design rolls funk-glitch grooves over reflective ambient atmosphere. Strange futuristic sounds grunt in primitive echo, a soundtrack to de-evolution.

Mushen - Breakhopcore :: As the title suggests Mushen tries his hand at a street-smart acid groove fusing breakcore’s fast percussive antics and the arrogant strop of gansta-hiphop. Amen and acid nostalgia abound.

BotB - Kreissägebläter :: BotB makes a second submission into his recent foray into creating nightmare dramas of epic proportion by welding breakcore violence with Wagnerian orchestral excess. This very well could be the song played with the next war in your local neighborhood.

Kaneel - Pyjama Lapin :: The multi-talented Kaneel continues the dark brooding emotion of recent work with his trademark cute melodic weirdness and melancholic melodica. Released for the excellent first compilation of Petite & Jolie.

It-Alien - Churches Of Umbria :: The Renoise Ninja-Grandmaster It-Alien returns with an epic folk-classical soundtrack that has a richness that no one else is capable of. We’re still asking the question: How is this possible to do with a computer?! Listen and believe.

Dufey - Story of Tellus :: Asking us to extend our empathy into the future, Dufey drops a strong and clear ethnic groove: full of enough lush melody and emotion for your own future-dreaming to slide right into.

Kenny Beltrey - Ffwd :: With a breath of fresh sonic air Kenny Beltrey returns with a straight-up groove that begs being danced to, along with atmospheric repeated melodies sweet enough to carry you through the night.

Hektic - Back To The Future :: Short and sweet, Hektic marries oldschool tracker blop with enough thick and weird sonic texture to put this in a class of it’s own.

Danoise - Kys mit blodrøde smil :: Totally unlike most dance oriented scene music, Danoise masterfully takes us on an emotional journey through pop-folk with excellent placement of avant-noise. The soundtrack to soul and sky being ripped open.

Void Pointer - Stoorzender :: Difficult to categorize but unmistakably irresistible, Stoorzender grooves with uniqueness. Bridging zones between psychadelic and hiphop, it’s a lofimat danceparty on an inter-dimensional ice sheet.

Le Monsieur Baguette and Mushen - The Unbelievable Attack Of Les Horrid Bananas :: Monsieur Baguette teams up commando style with Mushen for an all out breakcore gorge-fest full of comical insanity and pure pining emotion. Amazingly done with nothing but native Renoise effects, check out the XRNS here.

Alex Strain and mr_mark_dollin - Uneasy :: Dark cinematic introspection weaving through lost jazz melody and doom-atmosphere. Free of drums, deep space is given to a tense narrative, like waking up sweating from some obscure nightmare.