Techno Vinyls Records ’ series of interviews, we talk to producers who have releases on our label.
Interview with Modular Phaze (Manuel Mosquera)
What does producing mean to you? When did you start your music career and what motivated you?
- Producing for me means the power of transmission, not only of feelings but of thoughts, of postures this is how I focus more on showing my position in the face of things that I think are wrong and those that are right, that is why my albums do not have titles conventional. My musical career began when. I was approximately 11 years old, I learned to play the guitar and later the bass. In adolescence I played in a Black / Death Metal band, but as in Colombia this is a minority and it is not possible to see it as a job, the band dissolved over time, due to occupations and responsabilities. The motivation in electronic music came when I was aware that I did not want to stop making music. I started making digital drums to continue practicing with my guitar and that is how I found multitrack software. When I realized that I could put all my ideas there, not only drumms, but also keyboards, basses and other arrangements, that is how I discovered electronic music and little by little I got into musical production and gradually forgot about group music. .
How have your releases inspired you throughout your career?
- It really is very difficult for me to feel inspired by something, I just stand in front of the pc I listen to some death metal or black metal, then I enter the software I create a drums , a bass and from then on my inspiration is born, and when the album finally It comes out, I’ll give it one last listen because from then on I won’t hear it again for a long time. I immediately finish one album. I leave another one ready, to finish the next day, that’s why my albums number in the thousands. I never stop, no matter how much my detractors want me to stop and quit, it will never happen until the last breath
Do you like to collaborate with other artists? What do you think about remixing? Do you like to remix or do you like to have your music remixed?
- I like to collaborate with artists, when I feel connected with their works and with the
- nuance that they want to print on the scene, I don’t like to collaborate with artists with whom. I don’t feel hooked or who simply don’t like their style. about remixes I like to remix it is very fun to take sounds from the original artist and capture another idea, with the same sounds. As for my records, if I like to be remixed but I always prefer to choose who remixes them myself. I don’t feel happy when I hear a remix for me and it sounds like posers labels.
I always like it to be something different and that it obviously has a lot of darkness
How do you choose a title for your tracks? Do you think a well-chosen track and EP title matters?
- I read a lot, I like black literature, crime novels, that’s where many of the albums come from
some also come from phrases that come to me while I watch documentaries on the lies of religions or on conspiracy theories that I take as personal truths. I like to choose the names of my discs very well because I consider that the image of the disc and the names of the discs make it easier for the listener or followers to see what I want to share and say through the electronic noise usually I cannot choose the names of the discs immediately, while making the disc always at the end of the disc, I choose the name from a list that I do all the time.
remember good phrases come to me and I write them down in a notepad and keep it there
then when I’m giving the last final listen to the album I open the list and choose the name with which I feel empathy.
Is a well-designed cover important to you?
- That’s right, as I said before, I consider it to be the most important part of the release, along with the names it is easier for the listener to know and understand the artist’s thoughts and posture a little. I consider that it is the main message in the electronic musical, since lacking lyrics or a literary message it is more difficult for the listener to imagine what the artist wanted to share. It is very annoying when the label simply uses their logo on the covers and already downplaying the image, I always try to reject or not send my music to those labels
How do you choose record labels (what is a good label for you and what are your expectations)?
- When I started I was very concerned about that, to enter a category label, today I turn to think of those times and smile and say to myself “poser”. Nowadays I am not worried about entering any special label. I do not consider that that makes me a better or a worse artist, if the label contacts me and their proposal is favorable for them and for me, I agree to make some exclusive material for them. Although it is very tiring to meet people who think that your work is free. Because so others do it for free it does not mean that all artists have to work for free by obligation with the genre, because basic services and food does not come home for free or free, that’s why I try to get all my music out of my own labels. So I don’t have to deal with anyone, but the label benefits and so do I, happy to work on other labels.
As for labels that I admire, there are many who are trying to do new things, different things
and that pleases me a lot, because they have artists who have decided to break the conventional and risk experimenting with more aggressive, more violent sounds. but I don’t have a favorite label.
How do you see track sales in the digital millennium data flood (for example: how do you see the digital sales, promotion tracks,
illegal downloads etc.)?
- I see digital sales well, it is a good way for underground artists to keep us alive, to keep the firm decision to continue. I do not deny that the peak of musical sales was in the first years, where you could not simply pirate the album with your own press you were obliged to buy it, although more than obliged it was a true support to that artist who was followed with devotion but If that happened today, we would not have even managed to show our heads many, because economically we would not have had the economic means for such an investment, and living in an underdeveloped country that type of production is very expensive so I must give it everything the credit of my career to digital sales, and also to all those who support me, without them this dream would have already disappeared. Piracy is a double-edged sword, it serves a lot as a dirty marketing style from anyone’s point of view.
but at the same time it kills your work because those pages make money with your works and do not share any percentages with the authors although it would be dishonest if I said that I have never pirated something myself. I think everyone does at some point.
for economy or for ease it does not matter. Regarding promotions, my position is more radical. I prefer that my music is not promoted. I prefer that it be sought by who really likes music, I find it more interesting than paying to climb or to be known. I find it deeply dishonest to my morals
What are your future plans for making tracks?
- Future plans are something far away for me, I consider them better as dreams, I would like to be able to produce with similar equipment. but as I repeat, they are not plans, only dreams, since here it is a very high economic expense. On the other hand, the only thing I have in mind for this year is to work slower, slower but with more quality and perfecting an own technique that I just finished a few weeks ago, where the hitting of the drums has a semi-analog and acoustic sound.
Thank you for accepting our interview request, we wish you much more success in your producer work!
- Thank you very much for the invitation and also for the opportunity to belong to Techno Vinyls, it is a pleasure
VINYL ►
Modular Phaze – Streets Of Hell
Modular Phaze – Electric Philharmonic
Modular Phaze – Soul Cancer
Modular Phaze – Battered Minds
