After my initial talk with Christian Fennesz I hung around in the green room talking to him and video artist Lillevan about software, the music industry, and alternative revenue streams. Here’s what they had to say.

Peter Dines: Could you tell us about Modul8 for a second?

Lillevan: I don’t want to force anything on you, it’s just that before you think I’m just doing Jitter things…

PD: So Modul8: how does it differ, what’s it like?

L: It differs because it’s not programmable at all. It’s a standalone application. It’s not a programming language like Jitter. It’s very easy to use, but it’s actually very good when it comes to frame rates; you can blend many layers into each other and you don’t get slow frame rates. It’s very very good because on stage I don’t like software where I’m thinking too much about software. I like to perform an idea or a texture or an aesthetic or an emotion. And I don’t want to be stuck thinking ok, where does that signal go in my patch and things, and Modul8 is just fantastic for that.

PD: How do you control it live?

L: I have a MIDI controller. You can save various setups and you can change them very fast, you can change them on the fly.

PD: And this is mostly for video, or can you also blend vector images and still images?

L: It takes just about any format that quicktime reads. Lots of flash, anything.

PD: Can you create geometric figures in it?

L: Oh sure, yeah. You can create anything - it reacts on sound, which I don’t actually use, but if you’re a VJ in a club it’s perfect for that as well.

PD: Were you using this last night at the Rechenzentrum show?

L: Actually no, I wasn’t. That was Jitter on one laptop and on the other one it was Final Cut. In Final Cut I just have about 60 timelines, and I can just try things - I can do in and out points, I can play that, and then I can use the Jitter for actually reacting in my own way, realtime, to the music.

PD: I’d like to ask you guys about the economics of creating and performing experimental electronic music. Where do you see the revenue sources coming from in the future, and what do you think makes up the largest chunk now?

Fennesz: It’s a difficult, difficult question. Obviously, I think, we have to play live more than before. I mean, I play live enough, and I don’t want to play more than that, but it’s important to do that, and… on the other hand, I think small labels like Touch, for example, when they’re functioning well, when they’re experienced enough and they’re not having too many people employed - they’re doing OK, actually. They’re doing really fine, because they are flexible enough to do anything from DVD to download to vinyl, whatever. So even if the whole industry is going down I think Touch have been performing really well in the last three or four years.

PD: I’ve seen Touch music for sale on sites like Boomkat in lossless FLAC and high bitrate MP3, without DRM. Are you okay with seeing your work in that format?

F: Actually yes, I’m OK with that. I do that myself, you know, I don’t buy CDs and I don’t buy vinyl. I get the mp3s from iTunes because for me it’s extremely important to have the thing as fast as possible. I want to have it right now and I don’t want to wait until someone is sending me a CD or whatever that I have to pick up from the post office because I’m out of town when they deliver, none of that. So… for me, first of all, it’s the musical information I want to have. Then if I really love it a lot, then I could still buy the vinyl. Or the CD or DVD or whatever.

PD: So you have a record player and buy favorite releases on vinyl?

F: I think you have to have everything; you have to have every platform available. For example, a few months ago a friend of mine has been inviting me for dinner. He’s like 55 years old and his son is twenty. And [the son] is a big big fan of mine and he really wanted to be introduced and talk to me and it was great with him - he’s a musician too - and he said he and his friends, they only buy vinyl and mp3. No more CDs. They’re not interested. CDs are not cool. Vinyl is cool. And mp3s. I found this quite interesting.

image credit: Hryckowian

PD: Yes, vinyl is making a big resurgence at some music shops in Montreal as well - mostly specialty genres like black and death metal are very big on vinyl -

F: Yes, oh yeah.

PD: While we’re discussing genres, what’s an artist or style you like that no one would predict - death metal, klezmer - I don’t know, what?

F: I like a lot of different things, really, but maybe people wouldn’t expect that I’ve been a huge A-Ha fan…?

PD: A-ha! Me too, actually. Love that stuff. [to Lillevan] Do you want to chime in on the economics of digital downloads?

Lillevan: Well, being a video artist, digital downloads aren’t very high on the list of priorities because bandwidth is still a problem, but I certainly see it going that direction, and I think also that labels - as Christian was saying - labels that love what they do, don’t just want fast success but take care, are very precious about their things, that they will sustain themselves. I think also there will be new forms of releasing things. Like now I see bands are releasing a book with the CD because that just makes it more interesting for fans to have the book, and they buy the CD. If they didn’t have that they’d just download the CD illegally.

PD: Added value.

L: Yeah, exactly. It’s just added value. If you really take care and make a nice product. It’s been the same with Rechenzentrum. We make nice covers and put in an extra CD with the DVD so people have it for their car radio… things that people like to own. I like to own a nice product as well, but I don’t like to own a CD that after three months the bits of plastic are breaking off at the edges. And then it’s scratched and I can’t play it anyway. And the cover’s this size on glossy paper. I don’t like to own that, I don’t like to pay 25 euros for it but something that’s really nice, whether vinyl or CD with a nice packaging, nice design…

PD: That’s true. When I’m trying to decide whether or not to buy a CD, I think of the cheapness of the packaging, how it will break. It’s a catch 22 because you want to support the artist, but you feel like you’re stabbing yourself in the back paying so much money for it.

L: Yeah, sure, there’s little bits in the middle, they break off and every time you open the CD falls on the floor. It’s not a great design feature. But I think these added value things, books, DVDs - I mean that’s obviously my specialty being a video artist - but DVDs in collaboration with things, also subscriber things are working very well. I think maybe you know about Einstuerzende Neubauten and their scheme, you know them? Well they’ve created a system which is very interesting, a subscriber system so people subscribe to the band, pay 35 dollars a year. And for that you can watch the band on the Internet recording their album. You can log in anytime during the night time when they are recording, you can watch them, listen to their fights, you can make suggestions. One member of the band is on every night, a different member, just to answer questions where people can say “why did you change that bass line, bla bla bla”.

PD: So it’s like micro-patronage. Everyone can be a tiny Medici supporting their favorite artists.

L: Exactly. And that’s worked fantastically for them. They’re earning money for the first time in twenty years. Before they were on Mute and they were recording and they’d have to go on tour to pay Mute back for money that they didn’t recoup. Now for the first time it’s working and they give shows that are just for those people, just for supporters and they come from all over the world to Berlin or to Austria and these people travel all over the world to see them. And it’s really attracting their fans and keeping them. It’s working very well for them. Also a very nice idea is when they play live - on the whole American tour they were doing it - they record the show and they go backstage immediately and burn CDs of this particular live show. And they give it to the supporters, free, with a photograph of the band standing outside that venue in the morning they arrived - and signed by each member of the band. People really love this. This is like a really special event, this CD is super special. And they only pay 35 dollars per year for all of this added value. And I think they’ve got a few hundred thousand supporters now, which is great.

PD: That adds up! After a while you’re talking real money.

L: And I think it’s great because you see the music industry, so many people complaining, ahhh you know it’s, it’s all falling apart, and instead of complaining you come up with a new idea. And they’ve been rewarded for this idea. They’ve won prizes at media festivals in Europe for not complaining but coming up with a new business model. That’s great.

PD: Have you thought about doing some of the same things, burning DVDs of a performance after a show?

L: To tell you the truth, after a performance I do quite like to go to the bar and talk to people [laughter] instead of going backstage, getting my DVD studio and starting to encode mpeg 2 but the idea is very nice.

PD: Well you have to have people do that for you.

L: No but actually what I would, to your suggestion, I wouldn’t mind for example putting the performances on the Internet next week for people to download or something, that’d be fine.

PD: Like a paid iTunes download?

L: One day when I have time I might get around to it. I think it’s a good idea.