Published by Alessandro Violante on April 22, 2024
K0DEBREAKER is the new collaborative project of Sirio Gry J and Ken Karter. Sirio Gry J is the mind of Monolith Records label, while Ken Karter is the audio engineer who gives to its releases their deep, dark, visceral and radical sound. Each release of the label has its concept, and invites the listener to think about it. Let’s talk with the artists about their release and its concept.
Hi Sirio and Ken, I’m very happy to talk with you about your new collaborative project. How was it born and what could you tell us about it?
K0DEBREAKER borns from the most simple and genuine intent to make and share meaningful explorative compositions. We found more important than ever to come together in a moment in which the underground scene is crumbling under the pressure of a market that saturates the spots and that it’s driven by an industry that creates ephemeral value based on Media exposition that empowers primarily cheap sensationalism instead of any sort of artistic expression, or quality. Sharing a similar view about certain aesthetic, but also seeking a similar approach to craft music was a mission that sooner or later we would have shared ending up in a project together… And it did.
Let’s talk more in depth about your first release, KrankerWeg, including 4 songs in which your sound is expressed in a different way. This versatility, which is uncommon, evokes the aesthetics of that music that wanted to refuse easy categorizations. Although today we often can listen to sound contaminations, it’s difficult to find a radical approach such as yours. Besides what written on the Bandcamp notes of the release, according to me, K0DEBREAKER also breaks musical schemes. What could you tell us about this release?
We managed in fact to merge our 2 musical identities into a brand new one, still keeping quite clear the features of both sides. A release that was crafted quite spontaneously where we both wanted to ride on higher bpms compared to our solo projects, keeping the identity consistent and the quality high as usual. As it is normal to us, we followed the pleasure of uncompromised sonic exploration, trying to find new ideas to shape. We both firmly reject pre-established formulas, even if of course we have our contaminations and influences, we always try hard to provide something new, something that possibly the listener was not even able to imagine ever. A truly important mission for us, that animates the electronic music idea from its very roots, because at the end of the day, that’s why electronic pioneers started to experiment with a new realm of electronic sounds in first place, to hear what was yet unheard, shaping the electronic matter into ideas that could not be represented otherwise. Since we were happy with how this collaborative experiment turned out, we decided to release this first work on Monolith Records, which is the ideal platform for such kind of project and its style, actually, the best one out there.
It’s been many years since you’ve started working together, and the approach of Ken Karter has strongly contributed in the definition of Monolith Records sound. How did you start working together?
Sirio: Indeed, Ken’s mastering work for Monolith Records was something fundamental to shape the indendity that the label got through the years, not only quality wise. The intention to propose such high-end production with such different sounds from the ones that were trendy when we started the project, was something that standed out immediately. By giving a truly high-end sound quality to compositions that are usually stained in the realm of fake mastering, due to their audacity in seeking to break the formulas that could justify an investment like a proper expensive HQ mastering. We were venturing together into that sonic revolution that finally enlarged the scope of ‘excellence’ to productions that were truly free from the industry dogmas again, not from amateur producers, but from artists that were expressing in fact a true rebellion against the hegemonies that shaped and imprisoned rigidly the electronic scene, making it too simple and repetitive with the purpose of keeping the control over it and therefore over the profits generated. It was a blessing to start the project with such HighQuality end output thanks to Ken and his Decode Studio; since when we started the project there were not really many heavy-industrial electronics of such quality, we ended up being a reference for those who were hungry for that sort of attitude productions, and messed with the hype out there, ending up along other projects to re-define the sound trends at some point. This wouldn’t have been possible in the same way without the skills, extensive experience and equipment that Ken Karter provided in following the Monolith Records project.
Each Monolith Records release, besides music, is accompanied by a “concept”, an important message that you want to communicate to the listener. In the case of KrankerWeg, the listeners are asked to think about social engineering practices, which is a topic particularly faced by certain literature today, although I don’t know how much is it understoood, considering its effects on the world we live in. What do you think about it?
The release, as much as the label project itself, always aims to provide tools for interpretation and understanding, tending to shape personal realities. We are not trying to provide a view of things, but the tools to view things through the own eyes of the listener/reader. It’s almost a social mission, because we believe that arts in general should always somehow provide some sort of different perspective, prepare the field for some sort of confrontation, which is a practice that is getting lost in our times. No one wants to face what’s creating unconformable feelings or difficulties of any kind, and in an Era where people can escape such things so easily with technology and various social conventions, humans are growing almost unable to live certain feelings, forgetting or not caring about the importance that those questions have in personal growth and development. Looking away from problems, both inside and outside the person, surely makes such problems more problematic in the long term. We try to provide something useful to open up the mind of the listener, something to think about, but it’s also important as something to give context to the pieces of music and enjoy them on a much deeper level. The experimentalism that we propose wants to serve a well defined purpose, it cannot be just a mere exercise in style in our times, since that was mostly done already a long time ago.
What’s nice is that we gathered a good amount of like-minded people, sort of sonic-psychonauts, that like to explore both sonically and mentally certain different perspectives, but also for those people that literally live by the status quo, it gets complicated to enter the realm of ‘difference’ let’s say. We are aware that we can’t push everyone out there to think about certain things, but we are glad that we can share such an approach and provide some solid thinking-material with quite a good amount of people.
K0DEBREAKER logo
Sirio, I follow your label since some years, but I didn’t know the “Deaf Souls” series. KrankerWeg is its tenth release. Would you like to explain us how Monolith Records releases are categorized?
The MDS series (Monolith Deaf Souls) can be considered the most the most extreme catalogue of the label. The name ‘Deaf Souls’ is because of the dominant ‘atonality’ of the pieces released in this catalogue, but the reality is that in order to match and use such unstable matter properly, a producer needs to have the finest ears in order to do something good or even just meaningful, even if the result may sound far from harmony for the unexperienced listener. This catalogue focuses mainly on unique timber studies, most often involving “noise” intended as a sort of shapeless dark matter that by definition poses itself as the contrary of “sound” which is instead intended as a meaningful and defined happening, instantly readable and understandable. All MDS releases take on this challenge and aim to shape such matter into something perceivable as a meaningful happening, something ‘liquid’, yet somehow definable because constrained within meaningful boundaries able to outline a shape. Rules are self established here, by the ability to craft that matter into something that can be somehow understood by different minds than just the creator’s. Each mind reacts differently or slightly differently to this kind of experiments, understanding or putting the accents on different things, according to their background, experiences, taste and of course even biological design and neural connections. The liquidity of the MDS series is in contrast with the more traditional MRDG series for example, which instead are truly ‘solid’, by following more traditional formulas of sound design to tell stories based on well defined concepts. We can say that the MR series for the vinyl is a compromise between the MRDG and the MDS series, putting both aspects at the service of each other basically.
KrankerWeg is a release having a radical and uncompromising approach to obscure electronic music, having both strong industrial music echoes and references to the roughest and the most distorted techno music expressions. Which relationship do you have with past music? What has an influence on you?
Exactly, influences for this project come from our own life experiences, involving a lot of sounds over the years indeed, we don’t really look at any project out there, and we believe that it quite sounds like that. The goal was to unite our two visions into one, visions that had influences for sure, but such influences got sorted already in our minds differently, took a completely new shape, and finally converged as something new into something even newer and that even ourselves could not predict or expect in an exact way.
How much the environment in which you live has influenced your release and, in general, how much has it an influence on your sound?
It depends what kind of ‘environment’ we are talking about. We are both very passionate about sonic research and music development, especially in our studios, but admittedly it got harder and harder to find interesting sounds in the clubs over the last few years in Berlin. The ‘scene’ seems dull and unreasonably ‘conservative’, like not being ready to further explorations of newer sonic fields, instead, sticking to pre-existing and pre-established (in other years) identities seems to be what’s more interesting for the crowds right now. It is something quite in contrast with our exploration lust at the moment, but such dynamics are not relevant to us or do not affect our need for exploration.
Have you already thought about bringing this project live?
Not yet, but we will when the time will be right both for us and the ‘scene’; when there will be curiosity again in the dancefloor meaning the crowd being ready to transcend the club or festival dogmas that limit variety (and even quality quite too often).
What are you actually working on?
Our projects together didn’t really change since we start working together, we are constantly trying to push the edge of sonic exploration through experimentation, and we put it to good use in the dancefloor, so that it does not remain something for its own sake and confined to the exercise of style, becoming accessible instead. We do that in many different ways, and now with the K0debreaker project too.
Thanks for the time you’ve dedicated us. If you want, invite the listeners to buy your new release!
It was a pleasure, we are confident that the right people will find their way into the K0debreaking practices already if they got interested in reading this interview…