With its classical music influences, rupturing breaks and vibrant basslines, “Techno Paranoia” forces a bridge between music genres, dark and light dimensions as well as minimalistic and agitated rhythmic structures. We talked to Salim about what it all means, how he transgresses genre boundaries and how he navigates through the vast universe of sound.
What does the album title “Techno Paranoia” mean?
“Techno Paranoia” is the fear of technology, science, and what the future has to bring. Should we embrace it all or be worried? Will technology continue to help transform mankind or will it be our downfall? Only time will tell. Most of the tracks are statements or questions pertaining to those subjects. For example, in short, “Who Am I?” is about transhumanism and consciousness, “Television” touches on how hypnotized we are as a society by the media, and “Singularity” well, you can just ask Elon Musk or watch The Terminator for that. There are dark elements to the album for sure, but also ambiance and novelty. “Alchemy” and “Hollywood” are great examples of where they kind of leave the technological world behind and enter this metaphysical realm. The album is progressive in nature, shows off competing styles and displays sudden changes at times which is a metaphor of technology trends in our society today.
How do you see your music transgressing genre boundaries and how do you experiment with mixing different styles?
When I create a project I want it to be multi-dimensional but there’s nothing special that I do, I just do what I know. I feel too confined in a genre. Genres get a little vague nowadays so why get stuck in one? It gets too repetitive in style and I feel like a lot of electronic music out there is that way and there’s nothing wrong with that, but I just get bored. It’s like when you’re in school writing an essay but you keep saying the same thing over and over till you hit the required amount of words needed for the assignment. I don’t want the music to be predictable. So I try to bounce around different genres and subgenres in the electronic world in my own way. I put in a lot of research behind a track. It’s the only way I know how to fully express myself when creating audio to represent the subject matter. But honestly… a lot of people don’t care to listen to a song that switches up like that. It’s too chaotic or weird for them. People like predictable, so whatever.
The album displays an exceptional range of sounds, especially rhythmic elements of drums and percussion next to synthesized industrial sounds. How do you describe your approach in production for mixing all these sounds together?
I just go for it. I think just like writing you can sit down and outline your story and figure out where you want to go based on the feeling and intent of your thoughts. All I want to do is successfully translate what I am feeling to mp3.
It’s all about the beat, the heart of it all. It’s about the sequences you can create. I enjoy displaying a range of percussion. Every sound and arrangement has a purpose, a meaning. I don’t try to mix sounds because they seem implausible, I just mix them. Its showcased throughout the album but a good instance of that is in “Triangles” where the drum components were constructed and reconstructed over and over again until I found something fitting. If you focus on the patterns and progressions of your drums they will lead you on the right path.
I would like to thank Kamielle for the beautiful album cover. It really encompasses today’s world we live in with total surveillance and communication. The barbed wire in front gives off this feeling that we’re trapped inside this dystopia. Beautiful work. William Mahfoud with Woodworks Studios really brought out some brilliant dynamics in the mastering process. And this project was truly possible because of the sponsorship of Samuel Gagnon and the D.M.T. Records team.
Thank you Lisa (Schnuppofsky) for your time and this interview!
Listen to the preview on Soundcloud:
Release Dates:
Bandcamp (September 19th, 2018): https://dmtrecords.bandcamp.com/album/techno-paranoia
Beatport (September 28th, 2018)
Released on: https://dmtrecords.bandcamp.com
Stay tuned and keep it dark, minimalistic and technologic!
Interviewed by Lisa Teichmann aka Schnuppofsky
