Flexipop

Some years ago I wrote an article on Flexipop for Vice… basically it was all about recycle culture… and as this is still relevant I will publish the article again below… enjoy!

The article below was already published in slightly different versions, but on paper only, in the Dutch version of Vice Magazine (vol. 5, issue 9) and in Traces (issue 1).

Flexipop: disposable pop or recycle art?

Most people will only be able to guess what Flexipop is. For a few obsessive nerdy music fans like myself it is a cultural standard, a world of its own, or even THE world. Well here is a short lesson into the history of cheap produced minimalistic new wave pop music and how some people today try to turn it into a hype to cash in on it.

The name Flexipop is not a real genre name as it comes from an UK magazine that ran for two years from 1980 onwards. Each edition came with flexible 7 inch record. You know vinyl but not regular vinyl as you could use it as a Frisbee and even bend it and fold it and if it wasn’t damaged that bad it still would play.

Anyway, the focus of Flexipop and the discs was on new wave music. Many well known bands like The Cure, Soft Cell and Depeche Mode contributed tracks for a flexidisc, often the tracks where exclusive recorded. The Dutch counterpart was called Vinyl magazine and focused as they called it themselves on Modern Music. Basically this meant more experimental and obscure stuff from the counterculture and the then real existent underground. The flexidiscs that came along with Vinyl featured mostly these less accessible sounds of the new wave genre with tracks from bands like Tox Modell, Schleimer K and Mecano.

Think cheap, minimalistic and weird electronic pieces and unpolished and raw post-punk guitar stuff. During the 1990’s when all the world was listening to Grunge one music maniac started to make bootleg cd-r compilations entitled A Tribute To Flexipop and later followed by The Return Of Flexipop and None Night Of Flexipop next to some other titles referring to the same tradition. A total for more then fifty cd-r’s where compiled. All featuring something between twelve to twenty tracks per disc. Well that is what I call a repertoire! This was done not for profit but for fun only and to keep this music tradition alive.

These discs feature a fantastic world of music with tracks from tape releases, a-side but mostly b-sides from hard to find 7 inches and tracks from obscure independent vinyl releases. During the years when nobody listened to this stuff the name minimal electronics or minimal synth became some sort of genre definition for this type of 80’s minimalistic synth-punk new wave music. Many bands featured found it an honor to be on this series, as back in the days but even more at that time only few people showed interest in their music.

Bit by bit a real cult following began to take shape. During the late 90’s this evolved into a new scene of musicians and labels producing and releasing new music in this stylistic tradition. Next to that some labels were founded that only started to re-release some of the old music. Mostly music that was never put to vinyl before. Some of this was bootleg stuff as not all the musicians that released their music on cassette tapes in the 80’s could be traced down straight away. Remember this was before the myspace, facebook and linked-in era.

Artists like Skanfrom, Bakterielle Infektion, Solvent, Lowfish and of course Le Syndicat Electronique paved the way for many artists to follow, just as labels as Genetic Music, ADSR, Invasion Planete, Suction, Was Soll Das Schallplatten and Kernkrach did their part in spreading the music to a small loyal fanbase. At the same time electro had a revival. Contemporary electro acts like I-F, Legowelt, Luke Eargoggle and in a way also Rude66 helped to shape the new electro scene, even though they had been active already since some years . Although sharing some esthetics and style elements the two scenes did not always meet each other straight away but in the end musicians, labels and audience began to mix.

The recognition of this Flexipop music as an important root for electronic pop music, even though still only for the well informed, give way to a second wave of labels and musicians to take their cue and inspiration from this style.

Social media made it easy to find the old cult heroes and ask their clearance for releasing archive music from the past. In the same way internet made it possible to reach a worldwide audience. While most labels work in the spirit of the old underground, as in a Do It Yourself attitude towards producing, promoting and distributing the music, some seem to see some cash in it.

For some years Peer-to-peer networks like Soulseek already make the Flexipop compilation cd-r’s available to everybody for free, like they possible should. But, today you can also buy compilations of these compilations on vinyl, cd and yes in digital format to pay for, from various labels. Every country some to have a Flexipop re-issue label today and it seems like every month there is a new label born which is doing the same thing.

I agree that some of this music has cultural value and not only because I am an obsessive music nerd in love with this music. I agree this music should be available. I agree some labels are needed to release this music on vinyl for the first time. But, there is a true overkill. There is a reason some of this music never made it to a larger audience as the die-hard cult following from the 80’s and 90’s. Not all of it is that good. It has cult value for sure, but not all of this music has cultural value. It seems not all labels are gifted with selective capacities or with the true blood of this counterculture music tradition.

So for the curious people who are still not sure whether this is simply disposable pop music are true art with meaning and value worth to be recycled I advice to login at Soulseek and download the original Flexipop cd-r’s, have nights of fun with the music and found out what gems these compilations hold for you. Then you can always get the contemporary vinyl productions with the songs that touch you in the end and do not need to spend hard cash on dozens of compilations of compilations. Also it should be in the true nature of any real music fan to be willing to dive into a style or genre and pick the few things that appeal to you and go on from there… and tracing the original releases in the end…

M.

Interferencje #8

ETlogo_ruitInterferencje is a section of the Polish Trzecia Fala webzine… recently  I did an interview with them on topics as social media, experiments in music, and label work ethics… the webzine included one of my dj sets / mix tapes with the interview…

You  can read the interview and listen to the mix here… and I also posted the interview below…

– What does it mean to be an independent label in social media era?

It differs I guess from your point of view as a label and attitude towards social media, culture and an audience… it also differs from the vision and mission you have as a label.

You can take the world as it is and this world includes social media networks… or you can question the world as it is including social media networks…

I do not trust regular media channels… and in fact I do not trust big companies and established institutions… I do not want to claim that all you read and all you are told through these channels and by these companies and institutions are lies… but I would like to stress that at least the perception on reality published and spread around is mostly not my perception on things…

But back to social media networks… to me these are inventions, maybe not intended so but mostly used in that way, to distract people/yourself… I have been on Facebook myself and my experience there is that 99% of all things people post is complete nonsense… but still people waste a lot of their time with it… maybe afraid to miss out on something…

Also I have experienced that people rather comment on, or simply just “like”, nonsense and do not pay attention to true content… and also I like to call it Fakebook… this as most people just “like” their way around it without being truly involved in what they say they like… I doubt they even if most people know what they are liking most of the time… sorry… I would like to be more positive and give people more credits… but this is my personal experience after observing this platform for some time…

In general people on internet like to present themselves and their lives in a different way as it really is… better, nicer, et cetera… the negative sides and less beautiful parts of live seems mostly to be left out… social media only seem to make this trend more evident…

So after some time on Fakebook and getting rather negative I decided to delete it… I had many so called friends and many likes on a labelpage… but it had no value… and as an experiment I deleted it all… and I can tell you I did not loose any real friend, fan or webshop customer… and it keeps me more relaxed not being drowned in lots of nonsense and people who present themselves very different as they really are…

A little side note… my intention is not to offend people and I know some people out there make use of Fakebook or other social network platforms in a well thought way to get some selected information they look for…

And… another side note… I still use Twitter… this is it is more old school media to me… it is more sending instead of (fake) interaction and I use it for spreading label news and stuff… also I do use Soundcloud and Mixcloud as these platform are content based…

– Do you think experiment in music is still possible? If yes – what does it mean?

Experiments are always possible…. But maybe you mean if I think it is still possible to create new and original music? If you mean this my answer is yes and no… it is hard to create something new and original but it is possible… but what is new and original? Words like these have become hollow and overrated concepts… and how to judge what is new and original? Anyway… I think it is very hard to come up with something truly new and original… something like pioneers did like Throbbing Gristle and Cabaret Voltaire did for example…

But still… in the context of today you can make a difference and have a sound of your own… even if it is not as mind blowing and not as out of this world as the stuff some artists did before… so to me artists today who have a focus on creating a sound of their own unrelated to trends and hypes have meaning… if you do this your are authentic to me… and that has to me more value as trying to be new and original…

Same thing goes for experiments… experimental music is today often a genre or style definition… which is crazy to me… popular music can be experimental… just as music in any style of genre… but what is an experiment? To me an experiment is trying something out you did not do before… this can be anything… like if you always work out your concepts completely before going to record a track then doing a one take recording from scratch is an experiment… and if you normally play on a keyboard in the regular way but then use only pre-sets for a track then that is an experiment too… are these experiments original and never done before? No of course not… but is it relevant? As long as the music created is good, honest and authentic…

So yes… I am sure experiments are possible… but I think truly original experiments are rare… like truly original music is rare…

– How would you describe the ET work ethics?

I would define ET as non-conformist, truly independent, DIY and being part of the counter culture… …

To explain a little bit what I mean with this… I have been running my label since 2004… I have seen many labels come and go… I have seen hypes come and go… I have seen scenes come and go… and I am sure I am still here because I always do what I want and when I want… content wise and business wise…

Being truly independent is part of this for me… for me independent is not a hollow concept or part of an image but a way of thinking and working… in short it comes done to this… every single record I ever released has gone through my hands… from concept to distribution all is done by myself… for me it is the only way… of course I am working with people for mastering and who work with me on the design of the records… and I am in contact with many “industry“ people like shop owners, journalists, other label owners… but in the end I am an einzelgänger… my label and releases are never part of any scene and always ahead of and/or ignorant of hypes and trends, so never aiming at easy success in any way… I aim at long term relevance not at quick and easy satisfaction for a specific target audience… and the only way to do is for me is to have control on the complete process of production, promotion and distribution… and this is only possible if you do not have to make compromises with anybody else…

Due to this and due to the fact that I am outspoken about these things I have not always made friends with other labels, or musicians and some other people in this “music world”… but I am not here to make friends… I am here to make relevant releases… releases that add something to the masses of records released every week (day?)… and… I value the few freaks and collectors out there a lot who cherish my label and releases…

– How do you choose artists too cooperate with?

First of all the music has to interest me of course… in the end my label is on invitation only… the reason why is simple… I get lots and lots of requests from musicians who think to know what I am doing with my label and what my focus is… and they are 99,9% of the time completely wrong…

Secondly I like to see or feel somebody understands what I do on another level… I do my best to find musicians who understand and value my way of working… of course I have been disappointed several times… but that is part of the game I guess…

What I do not like are musicians who see my label as a first step and who think they can become bigger and “popstars”… and in the end most musicians have a phase like this…

Through the years I worked with many musicians… and at this point I work with a selected group of people I trust… maybe they have some different ideas as I have but in the end there is a basis of common views on the “music world”… and I am always open for new collaborations… but as said… attitude is as important as sound…