019.5 - The Deep Dive - Wushimi Complex - The Anon Database Notes and Interviews

 

The deep dive is for readers who want to dig further into the album by reading the notes and pre-review interview that is done with each artist.  It is best read after the review.

Notes

Lost in Neon - Oh man the intro to this thing is something else.  The album starts out with feedback and resonant noise that transitions beautifully into a slow brooding melody.  Immediately grabs the listeners attention and gives just a hint of what is going to be coming.  The resonance in the background never fully goes away either, giving a sense of tension to the music.  
The end of the introductory period is punctuated by a strong mechanical kick drum.  Subtle percussion drives the song into its main phase, the mechanical angle still going strong.  Gives the sense that we are in some sort of industrial complex.  The noise from the beginning continues to tease us in the background and at points it's the main driver of the song.  This balance or battle between the noise and melody creates a great dichotomy… something that is familiar (melody) vs. something that is alien (nosie).  
Around 1:33 the song fully engages and the melody and drums are no longer subtle but front and center.  There are still elements of noise present at this stage in the song but they are pushed back to be background players.  Around 2:20 the dominant melody again takes a back stage and a new melody takes its place.  The instrumentation here is very different from those used at 1:33, this is almost like melodic feedback.  Very cool effect that is used wonderfully.
Again the melody from 1:33 takes over but not in such a dominant state, much more subtle and fitting with the intro.  After the huge swell in the middle of the song, for the final minute or so the two instrumental portions combine and slowly lull the listener into an ambient outro.  The way that this song is constructed is wonderful.  There are many different elements, and I can clearly hear both Wuso and Yoshimi’s fingerprints all over the different sections of the song.  There is enough here to truly dig in, but also enough of a standard song structure that the listener can do a casual take on it as well.  
If I had to guess I would say the melody and percussion around 1:33 were from Wuso and the more feedback driven/noise melodic sections around 2:20 and onwards are from Yoshimi.  Going to have to ask about that and how the writing process was for these songs.  Great opener, gives us a full sense of what these two working together is like.  

Altered City - Again there are alien sounds to start the song.  It sounds like there is instrumentation that was recorded but then played backwards for the actual finished product for nearly every part of the introduction.  I hear guitars, synths and percussion all that sound flipped.  It's a chilling effect and while this would sound very human played normally it has the exact opposite effect played backwards.  This whole sense of familiar but not arises again.
Right at 1:00 the song breaks out of the state that was established during the intro, the instruments are now played in the correct orientation, the melody is front and center, and the percussion is very noticeable.  That brooding sense that was established early on remains with the pulsing baseline, gives the song some tension.  I swear I hear some of the same instruments that were played backwards in the intro, now played again but in the forward motion… especially the guitar.
The breakdown at 1:49 is huge.  That pulse that I talked about before becomes massive and the guitar/synth combo adds in a huge sense of that something ominous is going to happen.  I LOVE this part of the song.  This is how you do a breakdown.
Everything returns to the “verse” structure that was first seen at 1:00 for the remainder of the song.  I’m not sure verse is the correct term, this is more like ABAC song structure.  Really well written song, unlike the first track I can’t tell who’s part is written explicitly by Yoshimi or by Wuso, it's just a great mix of their respective styles.  Nice change of pace and again, excellent song.

Amalgamated Mind - Brooding is the operative word here.  Unlike the other two intro’s to this point the first phase of this song has percussion.  Ambience played over whole notes with deep deep tones to contrast.  The ambient pads almost have a feedback quality to them, or they are saturated.  The treble is really pronounced and it makes it just a little bit hard to listen to, love it.
There is a major tonal shift right at 45 seconds in. The feedback abruptly ends, the percussion alters slightly and a female voice is heard.  The percussion here has a sense that either bells or metal is being hit as some of the complimentary parts, I really like that effect.
The song progresses again around 1:30 where the feedback driven pads now are the main component of the melody.  I love how they reprise their role from the start of the song and now are a much more active participant.  The pulse that drove Altered City is back and it adds another layer to the tension/keeps the whole song ominous.  
In the final phase of the song everything comes together to create this subdued climax.  There is no explosion or announcement that this is the huge finish of the song, rather it just weaves everything that came before it together.  The female voice works really well with the feedback driven melody, that natural tone of the voice vs the hauntily alien one of the pads is really one of the highlights of the album for me.  
I’m getting a running theme in the album at this point.  There is this give and take between what I’ll call ‘alien’ components (the feedback in this song, the noise in the opener etc.) vs. a much more organic or familiar sound (the main melodies in the first two songs, the percussion etc.).  It creates a distinctive sound on the album and I’m really glad that they are exploring how this manifests in different takes.  

Sentiments Ephemeres - Oh man I love the way this song starts off.  Its like I can see what the song wants to be and is going to become, but I’m looking through a dirty window and parts of the song are obscured from me.  The effects used on the instrumentation here only give the listener a glimpse of what the song will evolve into and it's a beautiful tease.  
The tease doesn’t last very long however, the percussion really picks up at 12 seconds into the song.  There is a piano that is playing in the background that has layers upon layers of effects on it, this kind of acts as the backbone to the song from what I can hear.  Other instruments take over and interplay over top of the piano.  These effects include some near noise (as we should expect from this point) additional percussion and additional synths.  
The mix and the mastering on this song in particular is very strong.  There are many threads weaving together to create a wonderful tapestry that ultimately become the song.  Each of these threads can be heard if you listen closely enough and they all interplay to create a sum that is greater than the parts.  And that’s just the first minute or so of the song.
There is a breakdown at 1:00 that strips everything except some atmospherics and the piano away.  These breakdowns in the song are something else, the ambience that they provide is a huge change of pace and brings the listener back to the basics of the song.  Each one is expertly done to this point and it's a central part of the sound created on this album.  
The further the song comes towards its conclusion the more everything just seems a little bit off.  Everything sounds like it should be there, but it's like it's just slightly off key on purpose.  I’ll have to ask about that specifically.  It's really only from 3:15 onwards that this sense is there, but it creates a really interesting dynamic.  A different take on the familiar vs. alien.  

Careful Approach - The opening melody has a robot “bleep bloop” sounds to it for lack of a better term.  Very much like how track 4 created a backbone with the piano, this robotic pattern forms what will become the backbone of the song as well, at least for part of it.  It starts off sounding completely inorganic with no sense of melody at all, just rhythm.  The way that the other instruments come in and complement his however mutates the robotic tones into something entirely musical, it takes it from something that quite frankly is not enjoyable to something that is a highly enjoyable part of the song moving forward.
This song unlike many of the others to this point has a variation on a theme structure to it.  The theme being the robotic tones that the song starts off with. There is so much going on in these three minutes that it's hard to describe how densely packed it is.
The intro contains the robotic tone and these ambient pads that have a chilling effect to them.  This whole section is really not even music, just ambience that shares no resemblance to melody… only rhythm.  
At 23 seconds in the song morphs into the first variation.  The elements from the start of the song are interwoven with light percussion and some subtle melodies.  In this context the robotic tones take on a new life and are a very enjoyable part of everything.  Its wonderful to see something that was once so foreign now take on new life in a musical context.  
Right around 1:11 the song shifts again into a short ambient breakdown but then comes back full force.  The robotic tones are almost muted at this point and the melody established at 23 seconds reprises its role.  The real star here is the aggressiveness of the metal and other accompanying sound effects.  The percussion has taken on this truly metallic sound and it makes it sound like robots are marching or some type of conflict is about to take place.
The song slowly mutates again around 2:30 and takes on this huge melodic swell with the percussion dropping and warm synths taking over the primary focus of the song.  This is in huge contrast to the way the song started and adds a beautiful dynamic to the way the song concludes.  From where we started to where we ended up this song is a huge journey and is a strong highlight to the album.

Midnight Walk - This song takes its time to build and build.  As dynamic as Careful Approach was, this song is the exact opposite, it is laser focused and takes its time to build into an expertly crafted crescendo.  
A deep pulse starts the song off and will remain as a primary focus for much of the song.  Elements begin to be added over the pulse.  Ambient pads, whole note synths, subtle noises.  They all add to this sense that we are building towards this huge goal.  To this point everything in the album is rather quick to get going, most songs have 30 seconds at most for an intro before the percussion comes in.  By 1:30 this song is still in the building phases with a main melody only having been recently introduced.
At 2:20 the song begins to morph again and takes on a more urgent tone.  Percussion begins to come in around 2:30 but its not until 2:50 where the main melody of the song takes over and begins to dominate everything.  Layer after layer pays off and the song takes on this beautiful tone that we have reached our destination.  
The song doesn't stay in that sense of release for very long as it fades out into ambience by 3:36.  The rest of the song acts as falling action.  This whole song can be described in terms of literature or movies: rising action, climax, and falling action.  It’s really well done and another strong highlight of the album.  

Misty State of Mind - The way this song starts off is almost dark ambient.  There are almost two separate songs going on in this track.  The first is contained to the first 1:30 of the song and then there is the rest of the track.
The song begins by building this layered section of deep and dark tones that are very ominous.  The low pulse mentioned in a few other tracks also comes in here, along with some angelic sounding synth pads.  The whole opener of the song has a very cinematic feel, almost like a ship or object emerging from clouds.  The section rather abruptly ends right around 1:26 and slowly mutates into a highly melodic portion.
Sometimes in an album there are songs that just have a sense that they belong at the end of an album, there is a sense of finality to them that I can’t describe otherwise.  I’m not sure what gives a song this feel, but I do know it when I hear it.  Misty State of Mind has this sound in spades.  The melody in the second half of this song has an ‘end credits’ type feel to it (sticking with the cinematic theme).  
The percussion compliments the music perfectly, sounding the closest to a live drum kit that the album has had to this point.  It's that alien vs the familiar all over again, as the instrumentals are highly inorganic.  This is one of the best songs on the album and its placement is perfect for the album's structure.

Dreampunk at Last - I have always been curious why this song is called Dreampunk at Last.  Is this the conclusion to some journey where we have finally found Dreampunk?  What does Dreampunk mean in the context of this album?
This is the longest song on the album and also likely the most ambient in its approach, or at least in its lack of percussive elements.  This song also picks up right where the previous one left off with the cinematic approach.  The visual here is walking through a cyberpunk city with different things passing us by.  Is it a car flying by? Is there some small hole in the wall ramen shop around the corner illuminated by neon lights?  The whole thing just drips of high technology use but not necessarily for the quality of life for all human beings.
Around 3:45 there is the first sense of percussion and its very light.  There is this alternating note pattern that comes with it that is hugely saturated.  This gives it a harsh edge and eventually it starts drowning out everything else in the song, until there is nothing else and then… it just ends.  
This concussion to the album corresponds to the theme that I’ve been hearing in almost every track, the familiar vs the alien.  This final tone has a melodic sense to it but it is so processed and saturated that it takes any comforting sense that the melody has and stripps it away.  It's a very fitting way to end the album, and encapsulates everything perfectly.  Phenomenal closing track.  

Overall - This album is an album of contrasting visions.  Yoshimi brings a very dark back catalogue that is rather unique to dreampunk.  Wuso brings in a cinematic style that is unrivaled within the context of dreampunk.  The combination of these two brings a dark, yet vibrant album that is flush with strong visual elements of a not too distant future where life may not be as good for many people as it is now.
The contrasting styles of these two artists are meshed together here masterfully, I really want to know how they went about collaborating on these songs.  The contrast of the familiar and alien is an excellent touch and something I hope that they explore further should they ever do another album together.  Going to be very fun to review this album.


Yoshimi Interview

Q-01 The entire album feels like a true fusion of W U S O’s cinematic style paired with Yoshimi’s darker sound. Was this done with intention or a natural result of the song writing?
Q-02 How did you end up working together? Was this a long planned project or did it happen spontaneously? -

I’ll answer the 2 first questions simultaneously. I have to say first that there is no collab track in this album and the first 4traks are mine and the last 4 are WUSO’s. I was contacted by WUSO around Fev 2019 and he already had 3 tracks finished. I knew his work from BLUDHONEY Records’s release and liked his music a lot. I started to work on this split album from March and think we finished working on it at the end of August to early September. WUSO realized the ending track at last. Like I had already WUSO’s 3 tracks when started, it was easy for me to have the whole image of the album and the way to go. We did not have a deep discussion about sound direction but think the result is something natural from what WUSO showed me first. His tracks sounded so exciting and inspiring.

Q-03 Can you detail how the songs were composed? - Answer in YQ-05

Q-04 I noted that one of the running themes in the album is this contrast between the mechanical and dark ambient aspects of the music vs. the more melodic and familiar structures such as the drums. Is there a reason for the inclusion of the percussion? Was it ever considered for this to have a more ambient style? -

WUSO’s track's inspiring point was his beat and percussion which sounded very nice and I also love percussion sounds. It was natural for me to make the musical atmospheric with beat and percussive feeling.

Q-04 The album has a very cinematic feel throughout, up to and including a closing credits type feel in “Dreampunk at Last.” Was this album written with an overall narrative in mind? If so could you detail some or all of what is being communicated? Or is this something that is left up to the listener to decide for themselves? -

There was no specific indication from WUSO to me about a story behind but I always imagine a part of a story when writing songs and try to make the music telling something. I think this is a type of album that the listener can have free imagination.

Q-05 Most of the songs have either a dystopian or cyberpunk feel to them. The one exception is the final track “Dreampunk at Last.” Why is this song titled the way it is? - I think WUSO will have the answer.

Q-06 There are several moments in the songs that I refer to as breakdowns, where the beat stops and the music is allowed to breathe in ambience for a few moments. This is common in other genres, but not as much in dreampunk. Can you explain how you came to add these sections of the songs? -

It was natural for me to make a breakdown of these songs. I like to change the flow and give modulation, it can make tense to the song and think it is a way to drive a story more pronounced and in its shape. There are a lot of ways to drive a song but with beat type tracks, I like to make dynamic swing and its turn to be a kind of surprise element in the song.

Q-07 In Misty State of Mind the percussion used sounds very close to live drums. Were these sampled or did someone actually perform on a drum kit? -
I think WUSO will have the answer.

Q-08 The album structure seems to be in two halves. The first four songs are constructed in an ABA format, whereas the last four songs have more linear song writing. Was there any difference in the way these songs were produced? Is the song placement on the album done to separate the songs into two distinct sections? -

It is because the first 4 and last 4 tracks are made by different artists.

Q-09 The music on this album is very beat driven. Much of dreampunk forgoes percussion entirely. What was the reason for the inclusion of the drums? (if any) -

As answered in Q-04, the inclusion of drums was natural.

Yoshimi Specific Questions:

YQ-01 Your musical career started well before the current dreampunk genre came to be. How did you get involved with this genre? Do you consider yourself a dreampunk artist? - 

 I’m here now because I had chance to join Dream Catalogue in 2016 and big thanks to LILITH twin who introduced me to HKE in 2015. The first time when I listened to Dream Catalogue’s music, I could not imagine that my album can be release from the label because I felt that each sounds are different, but finally turn out well releasing my first album Tokyo Restricted Area. I know that my music sounds a bit odd to the dreampunk genre fans but I think my music will be odd anywhere. I listened a lot of music in my past that are now elements of current dreampunk. I’m maybe not a pure dreampunk artist but think I have lot of common elements in my basics.

YQ-02 What were your influences (musical or otherwise) while writing this album? -

It is very difficult to say because musical influences comes out often in an unconscious way and sometimes things listened decades ago can be the source. Or many kind of different sources cloud be mixed and have result to a chemical reaction that myself can not realize. But for this album surely WUSO’s track were the influence and source of imagination.

YQ-03 What equipment did you use while making this album? (you do not have to answer this question if you would like this to remain private) -

I use Studio One for DAW and mastering. I do not own any outboard now (except the MC76 limiting comp), so all was made in my desktop PC. For this album I used a lot of synth sounds from the mid 80’s like Oberheim Xpander and Prophet VS (plugin versions) and also used u-he Diva for modern touch. Reverb is very important for my music and I use mainly VSS3 (TC Electronics) and UltraReverb (Eventide). Compressor is also essential for me and uses mainly the Brainworx townhouse Buss Compressor, I am a huge SSL fan and love it.

YQ-04 Your music is distinctive within dreampunk due to its dark and nihilistic tones. How did you arrive at this sound? How do you see your music evolving in the future? -

I think my dark sound is from the beginning when I started making music from 16 years old. I don’t know were from it comes but surely from my musical background. Layering experiences during years, I think I have now more wide range of expression than before. I don’t have specific objective about how I want to evolve my music in the future but I want to keep my mind open as possible and try to keep making music. My feeling these days is maybe more to thank you for I can keep myself making music than the want to evolve.

YQ-05 How do you compose your music? Has it evolved over time? -

It is difficult to answer because I compose from piano pieces to contemporary orchestration and lot of type of sounds. For this album type of music (beat, dark energy type), I generally start by choosing the kick sound and make a simple loop with some percussive sounds. Once I have a loop that fit to my direction, I make a lot of variation of it, sometimes using FX like stutter edit type things. Structuring the track with loop variations, I add some synth phrases to be the key of the track, or sometimes melody comes first. Once I have my basic structure, I start thinking about intro and ending, how do I start this story and end it. If I add to say something specific in my composition, maybe I don’t use chord or not thinking vertical for voicing. I think manly how lines goes in timeline. I see fine sequences to long note pad sounds as melody and see the synergy how all tracks are moving forward. That is also related to why I like make breakdown part. Did my composition evolved over time? Yes and no. I can say that I did not compose something absolutely new in the last 30 years. I feel that my past time line concerning my composition experience is not linear but spiral. I also had some period that I did not making music for few years. Sometimes was like one step forward and two back. Every time I try to do something new, I feel ‘It is the same way I passed before’. My state of mind, situations, age, environment and lot of parameters are different but it is like to learn new expression or words additional to a language I already know, or learn a new grammar when challenge to a new type of beat I never programmed before. That’s why I think artists need to create songs that going few steps forward from where you are to tow you to the next cycle.

YQ-06 Where do you see your musical directions going in the future? -

I have several type of sound like my Japanese Ghosts Series or like contemporary style like in the album ‘Fragile’ and sound you can listen in this ‘The Anon Database’ album. .Maybe to create a sound that assimilate my different aspects can be my next direction.

YQ-07 Is there anything further you would like to say about your music, this album, or any other projects you have going on? -

 First, I want to thank you WUSO for having me part of his split and had a lot of joy to make tracks. And big thanks to all who listen to our work. Maybe a 2nd Wushimi Complex in the future. Personally, I have a new album release at the end of January 2021 from Dream Catalogue. It is very sad news about the label that shut downs but really hope for its re-open one day.

WUSO  Interview

Questions for both:

The entire album feels like a true fusion of W U S O’s cinematic style paired with Yoshimi’s darker sound.  Was this done with intention or a natural result of the song writing?

So originally the album was meant to be done between No Death and myself, I already had a lot of the ideas when it came to my tracks for the record. But when No Death had to bail on the project I pivoted to someone that I wanted to hear more from, that being Yoshimi. I contacted him and gave him an idea of what kind of sound we should approach as this was more of a split with a common theme. I think it just worked out nicely cause Yoshimi is incredibly talented and then I was able to curate the album so that our tracks meshed seamlessly.

How did you end up working together?  Was this a long planned project or did it happen spontaneously?

It was something that I wanted to do for a long period of time because I feel I understand Yoshimi’s style well. After my split with No Death fell apart I was like “oh well this is a good opportunity I guess”, contacted him and boom made it work.

Can you detail how the songs were composed?  

The general idea of the album was to approach sounds that were darker, industrial, and full of rhythm. Something akin to what you would hear in a club in a dark city. So that’s kind of what we went with, Yoshimi took it in a real cool way with the percussion and tones that he used. He has an incredible sense of atmosphere and subtlety so I was glad it worked out. On my end I wanted to approach something cinematic in nature but also create a darker tone. The one exception to this is probably Dreampunk At Last which is my sort of mission statement to the genre.

I noted that one of the running themes in the album is this contrast between the mechanical and dark ambient aspects of the music vs. the more melodic and familiar structures such as the drums.  Is there a reason for the inclusion of the percussion? Was it ever considered for this to have a more ambient style?

We could have gone in a more ambient style for sure, and in some cases we do. But we figured that if we’re going to have a record that’s supposed to combine our sounds, it’s better we take this opportunity to experiment a bit. Yoshimi is fantastic with percussion and I’d like to say the same for myself, we’re both great at creating atmosphere while also implementing percussion and structure. In the end we think we were able to bring out a lot of cool themes with this idea.

The album has a very cinematic feel throughout, upto and including a closing credits type feel in “Dreampunk at Last.”  Was this album written with an overall narrative in mind?  If so could you detail some or all of what is being communicated?  Or is this something that is left up to the listener to decide for themselves?

I think we wanted to keep it a bit ambiguous. We generally wanted to approach the sound from a very urban clubby mindset with a brooding atmosphere, one where everything is kind of dangerous. The biggest inspiration for this was The Hive from Deus Ex: Human Revolution and it’s where a lot of the ideas came from. I recognized though that although there was a lot of experimentation with this record, it kind of went in a new direction that people might not be familiar with, and so I wanted the last track to show both sides of dreampunk, yes it can be ambient tones that can evoke feelings, but it can be extremely epic with percussion and bass while still keeping those themes.

Most of the songs have either a dystopian or cyberpunk feel to them.  The one exception is the final track “Dreampunk at Last.”  Why is this song titled the way it is?

There are several moments in the songs that I refer to as breakdowns, where the beat stops and the music is allowed to breathe in ambience for a few moments.  This is common in other genres, but not as much in dreampunk.  Can you explain how you came to add these sections of the songs?

In Misty State of Mind the percussion used sounds very close to live drums.  Were these sampled or did someone actually perform on a drum kit?

They were programmed and processed by me (wuso), for this one I kind of just wanted booming drums, the snare in particular I wanted to have a long tail so I compressed it, slapped on a verb with a long tail and lots of space, worked out I think.

The album structure seems to be in two halves. The first four songs are constructed in an ABA format, whereas the last four songs have more linear song writing.  Was there any difference in the way these songs were produced?  Is the song placement on the album done to separate the songs into two distinct sections?

Yeah so the first half is entirely by Yoshimi. He approached ABA mainly because of his influences. For me because my influences from places like psytrance, downtempo, uplifting trance, I try to approach things with one big climax in mind. Forms like ABCA or ABAC kind of works out for a lot of trance music and that’s what I implement in a lot of my music. I think I put my stuff on the latter half of the record because I think it kind of helped open up things a bit, lighten things up to bring some cool melody and structure in. While Yoshimi’s half gets you into that dark state of mind that you really need to get used to for the percussion and basses that come onto this record. It’s really good at establishing an environment than my half for sure.

The music on this album is very beat driven.  Much of dreampunk forgoes percussion entirely.  What was the reason for the inclusion of the drums? (if any)

Throughout my entire career I’ve always implemented percussion in dreampunk and firmly believe that there’s a place for this. You don’t always need to follow the 2814 formula as many do, there’s always room for growth and I think a lot of my records are a testament to that.

Wuso Specific:

Do you consider yourself a dreampunk artist? Why or why not?

Oh well I’d hope so. I think I’ve produced most of my albums with dreampunk in mind, but I also try to make my albums incredibly personal. I’ve been invested in the genre for half a decade and all of my albums have come out on generally dreampunk based labels. I don’t know, you decide.

What were your influences (musical or otherwise) while writing this album?

As previously mentioned, The Hive section from Deus Ex: Human Revolution was a huge inspiration. While yes the imagery of the monolithic corp controlling the city is absolutely there, to me it’s also insane how somehow you can be living under the circumstances, your life being controlled by the letter, and still find a way to have “fun” within a club setting with sketchy figures. Except you’re not having fun, you’re numbing yourself to reality, which is kind of ironic in a way because that’s exactly what corps do.

What equipment did you use while making this album? (you do not have to answer this question if you would like this to remain private)

Mixture of things. While I’m trying to implement more acoustics into my sound, mainly it’s things like FL 11 (fuck 20), Spire, Serum, Kontakt with loads of libraries, Sylenth, Reaktor, loads of things.

How do you go about writing your music?

My usual process is to conceptualize how I want the general vibe to be. Do I want it to be a bit more industrial based with some dark tones, I go from there. But typically the track will take a life of its own and transform into something else entirely. This was the case when it came to Midnight Walk where it just found its way to be a cool synthwave esque track. But yeah overall generally I try and stick to a specific vibe, but I'm not gonna prevent a track from going elsewhere.

How would you say your songwriting as WUSO has evolved over time?  Is your songwriting approach any different now than it was when you first started creating music?

I’ll kind of expand on this because I’ve been making music for a good period of time now. In my original aliases I came from a culture where the single was everything. I spent weeks or months working on single songs from a wide array of different genres (see: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZnXs-UBW53A
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rsd78-sIs_M (honestly like the best track I made under this alias)
https://soundcloud.com/sebastienms/sebastien-martin-schultz-its-time-to-stop

But what I found was that despite working in these different styles and trying to pick up these different production techniques, I wasn’t totally satisfied as I felt like I was following genre instructions. Dreampunk allowed me to break out of my shell and really experiment with something that I wanted to pursue now that I had the tools to do so. Initially I think I took this approach to music of just making whatever I wanted, really focusing on specific aesthetics that I wanted to make regardless of rules. But as time went on, I started to focus on developing different sounds that I had built in previous records, refining them, continuing to experiment, etc.



Your style is very distinctive within the dreampunk genre.  How do you see your music evolving in the future?

First of all thanks! Secondly I think there’s some styles I want to approach in the future that might be a bit more grounded. I’ve really tried going the distance with big concept albums and this new one that I have coming out on DC in the future is the epitome of that I think. I’m currently conceptualizing my next album and trying to find the sound for it to see what direction I want to go in, but I’m doing this while trying to learn 3d motion graphics and trying to develop in other areas. I think though you can see much more immersive stuff from me in the future, really world building stuff.

Is there anything further you would like to say about your music, this album, or any other projects you have going on?

Obviously the big thing I want to mention is that outside of this project don’t forget to support dreampunk artists. There’s a lot of really cool artists in the scene right now doing a lot of great work and they deserve your support. Dreampunk is growing at an exponential rate thanks to everyone involved and it’s only going to get better.