One of the things we use the NYLVI blog for, as some of you probably already know now, is to post interviews with people we meet from the worlds music scenes. So far we have done five interviews and today we’ll do interview number six. This time with DJ Christian Peak from Serbia,  who has just started the techno label CP Records. As a DJ Christian swears to vinyl and proclaims that he is his own influence. So let’s get started.

NYLVI: How did you become involved in the music industry?

Christian: Well well.. When I was a kid I listened music all the day, while doing something, always music was on. I liked music so much that I started to “dee-jay” on some house partyes of my friends and in really short time I discovered that electronic music, mainly techno fits me the most and that I enjoy techno the most.I just like it. Slowly I bought my first turntable [Vestax]in the year 2000.I started to buy vinyls and bought my second vestax.I was mixin’ at home, usually all the day, it was a pleasure for me and I started to play on partyes and so on and so on I am here now

NYLVI: We understand that you just recently established a label. What made you decide to do that?

Christian: I was trying to make some music, never succeeded, but in year 2003 my best friend and me made a track wich was never released, that was my first touch with producing. Later I was practising alone, trying to make some good tunes and not so long ago [2008 July - August] my friend “Hristian Stojanowski” told me that I make good tunes and I want theese tunes to be released on my OWN label on VINYL and not in digital so this is how my label was born.

NYLVI:  What is the philosophy for your label. Do you have a clear plan for what direction you want to take it?

Christian: The only philosophy is “Vinyl kills the mp3 industry”. My label will release ONLY on vinyl.

NYLVI: Are you planning on signing more artists to your label? And if yes, what will you be looking for?

Christian: That’s a question that I can’t answer you honestly right now coz my label is very new, but I am planning the second release already with Hristian Stojanowski…

NYLVI: What expectations do you have for the label - What do you think it will be like to run it?

Christian: SURE ! It will be a pleasure for me to run my label… The only expectation I have is that DJs, artists will buy my vinyls and will like them.

NYLVI: How do you plan to promote your label?

Christian: I got in touch with some distributors already so it won’t be a problem

NYLVI: As a DJ where do you play most of your gigs?

Christian: My last gig was in my home city “Novi Sad” but here I have gigs very rarely coz in this city the clubscene died. No clubs where you can listen electronic music even !
I don’t know where I have most of my gigs, I am always in some other city…
My first party abroad was in Bosnia and it will stay in my memoryes forever coz it was more than great.

NYLVI: What characterizes your music?

Christian: “Softly killing” with funky, tribal and a little bit of acid…

NYLVI: What are your main influences?

Christian: My main influence was “Marko Nastic” long time ago, Valentino Kanzyani, Umek, Chris Liebing… but since all of them sold themself to minimal [it's not techno at all] and digital [playing mp3 on partyes], Honestly now I am my own influence…

NYLVI: What is the scene like for your music where you come from?

Christian: People like it, people need it but the scene gives them minimal what makes them bored and once more it’s not techno. It’s TRASH.

NYLVI: Your label will release music only on vinyl - why?

Christian: Coz I absolutelly don’t have any respect to those who sold themself to digital. I hate digital. Vinyl makes you a DJ and not the laptop…

NYLVI: Vinyl has started to make a real comeback now within a lot of genres, reaching a wider audience. Have you seen any signs that vinyl has increased in popularity within the techno scene, which traditionally has been heavily orientated towards vinyl?

Christian: I don’t know, I think I am one of the “rebels” who are trying to bring vinyl back to techno.
The soul of techno music is vinyl, you cann’t play techno without soul, and that’s what the most DJs are doing - digital.

NYLVI: Your all-time top fives records?

Christian:

Danny Howells - I feel Love 2002
Marco Bailey - Panema EP
KSS 02
ADL 015-5
Old and new “P” releases I really like
And Umek - “Consumer recreation” cann’t be missed!

Have a look at Christian’s site here

There’s an interesting column by Neukölln, Berlin based artist and writer Nick Currie, aka Momus, in the Spanish magazine PlayGround today (English version on Click Opera here). We have been waiting for this for a while, because we have been thinking a lot about genres lately, and I was really looking forward to see what Momus would write about it. We have been looking at genres from a more technological perspective, while the article doesn’t explicitly mention technology. Instead it takes more the perspective of an artist, discussing how artists mix together elements from various genres in a post-globalization world, and as a consequence how we end up with tons of sub-genres, making categorization and navigation by genre less and less meaningful. So with music as with most other things today location is becoming less important. As it’s pointed out:

That’s a kind of passive aggression, the same kind of mild subversion that makes people fill in their age as “102″, but it’s also a way of acknowledging that, in this post-globalisation world, you don’t have to be Chinese to make Chinese music, nor African to make Afro-Pop. It’s a statement about how we’re all, these days, genre-splicers.

Moving forward with the development of NYLVI the impact of technology on music is something we’re trying to take into consideration. Searching music by genre, most of the time, just doesn’t make much sense anymore. Or did it ever make sense?

We have written quite a bit about vinyl coming back and why we enjoy the format so much. I’m not going to write more about that right now. However an article about vinyl appeared in the New York Times today so I though I should post a link to it. It sums up most of the arguments for why vinyl is a great format I think.

A couple of quotes:

No longer can they use a click wheel to sample songs from Miley Cyrus, Nas, Black Sabbath, John Coltrane and the Scissor Sisters within minutes. With vinyl, listeners cede control to the artist. They let the music wash over them, in the original order of songs, at the original pace. “I have a ton of music on iTunes,” Mr. Karoly said, “but with that music I get A.D.D. really quick. With my LPs, it’s like reading a book as opposed to clicking through articles on Yahoo.”

“When you put on a record,” he added, “it’s an event.”

I also find this quite interesting:

HIGH FIDELITY James Acklin, of Pittsburgh, says it takes a special person to appreciate the imperfections in music recorded on vinyl.

Have a look at it here.

UPDATE: Interesting discussion over at Digg

As some of you might now we have an interview series going on the NYLVI blog where we do interviews with people we meet from the world’s music scenes. So far we have done four interview and today we are happy to bring you another one. This time with Sam Rouanet from Trenton Records. Trenton Records was founded in 2003 in Paris by Sam Rouanet aka Reynold and Christophe Clause aka Aspro. It has always been into releasing minimal techno music but with a strong sense of groove and depth. After Paris, the Trenton crew moved to Berlin where they set up their own home studio (Trentonite) in the center of the city.

NYLVI: When did you first get involved in the music industry?

Sam: 2000 when we started out “minimal dancin” night in Paris and we had to start dealing with bookers and all..

NYLVI: What made you decide to start a label?

Sam: I wanted to put out my own stuff without having to go thru the “sending demo” shit

NYLVI: What is the best thing about running a record label?

Sam: when you get payed.. which NEVER happens..

NYLVI: How does an artist get signed to your label, what are you looking for?

Sam: Well its extremely rare that I just sign an artist like that because most of the time they’re already friends, but it already happened thru emails demos mainly..

NYLVI: What artists are you working with at the moment?

Sam: Till von Sein, Der Thal, Theodor Zox.

NYLVI: How has techno in your opinion developed musically over the last five to ten years?

Sam: Badly.. I think the main problem is that most of the people that make techno music have no idea about music in general.. I mean I am a musician and this is what attracted me at first you know? the fact that people with no clue about music could actually compose and create something new.. BUT now you have all these kids that ain’t listening anything else than ONE kinda techno, no hip hop no bands nothing.. buy a computer and make tracks that sounds like everybody else… that shit is boring and un-creative.

NYLVI: Berlin is well-know for its techno scene. What is your opinion on the current state of the scene there?

Sam: Its bad. I mean of course you can do whatever you want here which is a great thing.. there is a lot of freedom when it comes to having parties and all.. but unfortunately the dance music scene became quite sterile… people play all the same minimal boring shit! straight up “no GROOVE” and crack head music man.. people just go to these suppose to be supa hip parties and get fucked in the head thats it.. boring shit. But there’s still a few places that have the spirit.. cookies, tape club.. the rest just became fashionable clubs for techno tourism.. I swear man, you go to watergate panorama and all these places and there are all these americans and all over europeans coming from friday ’til monday without sleeping.. just to party.. thats shit is stupid and the music is just.. you know.. the last concern on the list here…

NYLVI: What do you do to promote your label - Do you use a lot of Internet resources such as MySpace, web sites, etc?

Sam: Yeah.. mainly… internet is our main tool to promote the label.

NYLVI: The lack of a proper model for digital music is a huge challenge for labels and artists these day. What do you think is the best solution at the moment for dealing with all the free downloading?

Sam: Well, big subject.. I’ll be straight up, I think some digital shops just dont do their job properly when it comes to provide a service and trying to save the industry. Take Beatport for example, they are like the main platform when it comes to electronic dance music.. They make SO much money on a daily basic and they dont even try to educate the kids about it.. I mean no Label Features or History (appart from Minus or other big labels-.).. no articles or interview or educational programs of HOW this whole business works and how to behave if we wanna save it!!! On the top of it their website is just horrible.. which is their store front! I mean I am cool with digital format.. its part of the future.. but I see all these kids playing CD’s with no clue of who they play, what label etc etc.. they just play the shit.. How do you want people to be concerned if they dont know what is going on??? Beatport is doing what The republicans are doing in Canada with he Sand Oil.. There is a new resource here and instead of trying to make a profit in a long term vision and create a REAL industry that last and grows, they just take the whole market and make as much money as possible as fast as possible.. Look at their release policy? 2 week exclusive digital release before vinyl comes out.. then 4 weeks now we are up to 8 weeks!!!! I mean come on… whats the next step? exclusive beatport and the vinyl dont come out??? Which already exist anyway.. Why can’t we work this out all together?? saving vinyl for the people that still are into it and build up a REAL digital format with security issues, protection against free download etc etc??

NYLVI: Vinyl has started to make a real comeback now within a lot of genres. Have you seen any signs that vinyl has increased in popularity within the techno scene, which traditionally has been heavily orientated towards vinyl?

Sam: Well its quite the opposite actually.. Like I said before, lots of people are just building an industry around digital release. Beatport, Minus Richie Hawtin and all these people.. the new Marketing strategy of Minus is the Environment now.. Motherfuckers are trying to tell us that making Vinyls is polluting and digital format is green! Yeah.. it might be true actually.. even though I am not sure since in order to use a digital Format you need a computer and Making computers pollutes way more than making vinyl, I mean in quantity how many computers are being made in China and all?? Have you ever seen these cities in China where they have people sitting on the floor destroying old computer parts with a hammer throwing it in the fire??? And then Hawtin who is the head of the label goes to play in Ibiza with a private jet and shit.. I mean thats just fucking ridiculous.. I have to say that the independent rock scene for example is a much better example of people that really ARE into the sound of vinyl and the object.. I think in the techno scene apart from the DJ’s and the emotional attachment that they could have with their records, being into vinyl was just a hype man… now everybody is into MP3’s.. Internet and all.. But you know there is still a few assholes like us that just wont step down :-))

NYLVI:. Your all-time top fives records?

Sam:
1 - John Coltrane - Love Supreme
2 - Bob Marley - Burnin’
3 - Curtis Mayfield - Superfly
4 - Donald Fagen - The Nighfly
5 - Lalo Schifrin - More Jazz meets the Symphony

OLD School baby

So vinyl records are making a comeback. Well, it’s not like they ever really went away. Among collectors, within certain genres and for music passionates it has always been the preferred format. What we’re seeing is music recorded on vinyl breaking into a wider audience. As a consequence more new music is now released on vinyl and we’re seeing re-issues of previously released records. Great!

We have talked a lot about NYLVI being a marketplace for vinyl structured to reflect the world’s music scenes. What we have not talked that much about is the efforts we are making to turn NYLVI into a great place for discovering and buying rare records. It’s our vision to have as many of these records as possible and to be a place where record collectors can meet and share the passion for record collecting.

I’ve spent some time this morning digging through a tiny fraction of the records we will make available once we launch and it’s been an interesting search. Seems like there will be a ton of rare records, promos and limited and special editions. We can’t wait to make these records available on NYLVI.

If I only had the money to buy the Vinyl, 7″, limited edition Love Buzz Big Cheese by Nirvana released on Sup Pop Records, which was limited to a thousand hand numbered copies in red. Well, maybe later, so meanwhile off to look for something cheaper.

We’re going to the huge record collector gathering, First And Last, in Berlin tomorrow so among several things we’re spending some time today putting together a flyer. It’s in Velodrom and starts at 11am and ends at 17pm so if you’re in the Berlin area and are looking to buy some records and connect with fellow record collectors it might be a great way to spend parts of Sunday. Tickets can be bought at the door and some information is available at the Velodrom site here.

Three of us went down to the Open Coffee event in Berlin today to see what the startup scene here is all about. It started off pretty badly with two of us first taking the wrong metro, ending up here, when we were supposed to be here. So we arrived a little bit late. Well, all god except from that when we finally managed to cram ourselves into one of the sofas, next to the third guy, who was on time, we spilled one of the coffees all over the table. The mess got cleaned up, thanks to a very helpful bunch of entrepreneurs with napkins, and we got to introduce ourselves, which went pretty OK.

So what is the startup scene in Berlin like? Judging from the first impression there seems to be quite a few interesting people here building cool stuff. We mostly spoke with the guys from Directed Edge, who are building a recommendation system for social networks and various e-commerce services. It turned out that these guys were quite knowledgeable about techno music as well so it was a really interesting conversation. We also met a woman, who is making awesome, but expensive lamps.

So what about music startups? Well, as far as I know we were one of two music startups there and we’re really looking forward to see what they are up to. SoundCloud, which is another Berlin based startup building a service, which enables easy transfer of digital files, was not there, but they are probably someone we should get in touch with at some point.

For more information about the Berlin startup scene Fred Wilson wrote up a nice post over at A VC when he was here earlier this summer.

Wish you all a great weekend!

There’s a post up on Gawker now, which takes a look at the Wall Street Journal article: “More Artists Steer Clear of iTunes”. According to the author iTunes, the single largest retailer of music in the US, which sells nine out of every ten digital download in the US, has not done much good for the music industry. Royalties paid to artists are lower than expected and it’s reported that many artists, as a result, have gone back to trying to sell whole albums, which is said to be more profitable than selling singles.

The author outlines a pretty dark scenario for the music industry. As he writes:

“So here’s what will happen: iTunes will continue to dominate, but slowly lose market share to other players in the digital music space. Downloads are here to stay. Wal-Mart will continue to dominate the market for people who desire CDs of horrible, trite songs like “All Summer Long.” When the CD market totally dries up, Wal-Mart will figure out how to dominate the digital space and become a major competitor with iTunes.”

However, there is light in the end of the tunnel: “One day far in the future, some brilliant young person will figure out how to translate the business sensibility that made indie record stores great onto the internet. Till then, bow to iTunes and like it”.

Hopefully someone figures out a new business model for digital music sooner than later. However, I think this scenario is less dark than described above. It’s to some extent depending on the eyes that see and how you utilize the opportunities outside of iTunes. There are plenty of small social web pieces, which can be tied together and be a powerful whole if things are done right. And there definitely are other ways of making a living than sales of digital music, and there will be many more, which have yet to be thought of. However, things have probably not evolved enough yet to make THE thing appear. And I guess that’s where the brilliant young person comes into the picture. “To translate the business sensibility that made indie record stores great onto the Internet.”

Just wanted to let you know that we have added “What People Say About Vinyl” in the bottom of the right column. What it does (no surprise) is showing what people write about vinyl records on Twitter. It’s updated quite frequently, but you need to hit re-fresh for it to update. I like Twitter for a lot of reasons, and using Twitter search to track things that interest me is certainly one of them.

NYLVI has an account on Twitter so if you want to stay in touch and receive updates or tell us something you can connect with us there, as well as here on the blog of course. We’re also on a few other services (listed in the right column) so feel free to add us as friends. It’s much appreciated!

I thought we should do a post on LP covers today. However, before we move on to look at the great wonders of cover art I just wanted to point out that yesterday’s post about the news that the independent record store Sister Ray in London had to close down, despite of strong growth in vinyl sales, triggered an interesting conversation in the comments section. Thanks a lot to Chris from Big Black Disc for reaching out with his opinion about this. We would very much like to get more opinions about this, as I for one, see a lot of opportunities for the independent record store.

Well, so to the LP covers. The whole NYLVI staff has spent some time today to dig through the Internet for our favorites and below is our top five list (after quite some argument). You might not agree so we would love to hear what your top five is!

Map of Africa - Map of Africa

Sonic Youth - Goo

Roxy Music - Country Life

Losoul feat. This Time - The Number

Louvin Brothers - Satan is Real