2009-04-18 | Katarzyna NINa Górnisiewicz and Marco Gariboldi | e-mail interview

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Marco Gariboldi: You’ve released two interesting tribute albums: "Replicate01" (FLA) and the excellent "Songs from the Hydrogen Bar" (Chemlab). Do you think of possibly repeating this experience in the future? Are there any other great bands that you want to pay tribute to?

Ian Proudfoot (label owner): The tribute albums have been amongst the best selling releases we have done, so there might well be another one in the future. Like most covers albums they have really split opinions, some people think they are complete sacrilege and others have seen the more fun side of them. If I was to put out another covers album it would like to do something completely radical. There was a really interesting Pulp Fiction covers album put out by Re-construction called Cyber Punk Fiction in the 1990’s. I would like to put out something along similar lines. At the same time I also weary of putting out another covers album and becoming the new Cleopatra records.

Marco: You've just celebrated 5 years of MoMT Records. You have released twenty albums so far and your roster includes a dozen artists; Are you happy and proud to have achieved this goal?

I’m very happy with the music that I’ve released. It’s been a long hard slog most of the time, with many ups and downs. The proudest moment so far was when Skink getting played on BBC Radio 1. We gave us faith that we were releasing music that other people understood and liked. As for achieving my goals with the label, I’m still working on that. I really want to make the label full time job with a regular decent income. On that side I’m getting there slowly.

Marco: Vultures, Audio War, and partly UCNX are the more Industrial Rock artists of your roster; Are there any chances to see more industrial-rock artists on your label? or do you prefer to focus on experimental electronica?

I can see the label’s focus swinging more towards experimental electronica with the next few releases, but Industrial rock has always been one of my favourite genres since the day I was blown away by Ministry’s Land of Rape and Honey. If I receive any demos from shit hot industrial rock acts then you will see more bands of the ilk of Audio War and UCNX on MoMT. At the moment the only demos I seem to get are from bad Indie bands and Gothic Metal bands. Two genres of music I can’t stand.

Marco: We are already part way into 2009; can you give us some previews about the next MoMT releases?

The debut single from Indigo Virus is due out this month it’s called "Head Space". The Indigo Virus album "Biomechanical" will follow in a couple of months, its been delayed because its still being mastered and as we’re getting it done for free we can’t complain. UCNX and Audio War are working on new albums, but there are no fixed dates for this yet. There should also be the debut release from my own project Semi0n due out by the end of the year. We’re busy working in our local practice rooms at the moment on how to add guitars and live electronics to the tracks. We have recently been joined by Skink on guitar and his music knowledge and ability is pushing the sound a lot further. Check out our Myspace page (www.myspace.com/semi0n) for work in progress.

Marco: You have a great collection of Vinyls and CDs, which is your Top Five? and your Top Five Want List?

Top 5 records? Can I have a top 100? Anyone who has seen my Discogs record collection) knows I have a wide and varied music taste. Since I’m doing this interview for an Industrial rock zine. I can give you 5 of my favourite Industrial rock albums they are.

The Young Gods – TV Sky
Ministry – Psalm 69
Godflesh - Streetcleaner
Swans – Cop
Skin Chamber – Wound

As me again tomorrow and you’ll have a completely different list.

There a few rare things I’m after but most of them go for stupid money and off the top of my head I can’t think what they are. There is however a few new releases I need to pick up, which I think people should also check out.

Flowering Blight – The Perfect Pair
Zu – Carboniferous
Therapy? – Crooked Timber
Beehatch – Brood
Harmonic 313 – When Machines Exceed Human Intelligence.

Marco: There was a meeting few weeks ago between Berlusconi, the Italian Prime Minister and Brown, the British Prime Minister who have demonstrated a clear intention to cooperate to tackle the crisis. They tried to find a solution to strengthen (reinforce) the Pound and the world of work, to avoid protectionism even assuming to have nationalized banks (argument partially retracted). Are you anxious about this crisis, which seriousness is still far from being quantified? Does this crisis changed the way you live in everyday life?

I’m not anxious about the crisis as I predicted the crash years ago. You can’t have £3 trillion worth of personal debt and an economy based around ever increasing house prices and not expect it to come of the rails. Combine this with 10 years of global unregulated banking capitalism and you’ve got a recipe for disaster and that is what has happen. Alistair Darling are Chancellor has admitted that the economic slump is going to be worst than he predicted and I personally don’t see an end to the downturn for another few years. We’re in a similar economic situation to that the Japanese found themselves in the 1990s and they had a stagnant economy for 10 years. The recent G20 settlement to pump more money into the IMF and to get more credit into the banking system is like giving an alcoholic more drink to cure him of his alcoholism. The massive over reliance on credit led us to the current situation. It makes me think that the Anglo- Saxon model of Capitalism has been broken for longer than people are willing to admit.

On a personal and label level we have been effected by the reduction in people’s spending. The last couple of months have seen really sluggish sales; however I live a fairly simple lifestyle and don’t have any debts to worry about. In a perverse way I am enjoying some of the foolish actions and of our Politicians and the greed of the general public being shown up for the follies they were.

Marco: You've launched the official MoMT MP3 Store. Considering the printing costs, do you think to continue to sell physical copies of your albums or you’ll sell only digital copies in the future?

I planned to do more stuff digitally as it is a far quicker and cost effective way of getting our music out there. We started printing fewer copies of albums about 2 years ago as there has been a definite move to digital sales and there are now less physical places to sell CDs, with loads of record stores closing and even on-line stores such as Metropolis no longer stocking titles from other labels. I still want to put out physical copies of our releases but they will be in less number and for singles we will burn CD-R to order. This of course would change if the demand for our releases dramatically increases.

Marco: You run also the Kill-Music website. You write interesting reviews, do you know it? ;) Are you going to update soon this website?

I’m glad you like my reviews, goes to show that my journalism qualification hasn’t gone to a complete waste. I’ll be updating the website when I have the time. With running the label, working on Semi0n and Quartersized and taking over the running of a monthly DJ night, my spare time is squeezed. Kill-Music is one of those things I keep meaning to do more work on.

Marco: You are a great admirer of Sid James (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sid_James). I think that the title of the compilation Carry On Lovin' is a sort of tribute to James? Am I wrong? How is the passion born for this artist?

I am indeed a great admirer of Sid James. Hence I use his name for my Internet postings on a variety of music forums. Carry on Lovin’ is actually a tribute to the film of the same name and also the place where I took the label name from. MoMT or Miracle of Modern Technology is used to describe a dating machine in that film. Sid James was for me the face of the Carry On films, he always played a variation of himself and the films themselves have a basic bawdy humour. Its something typically British in its nature and probably doesn’t translate well to other cultures.

Marco: In the sky there are increasingly the chemtrails, clearly different from the classic contrails. Have you noticed these trails too? What’s going on above our heads?

I think the governments of the world and seeding the skies with pacifying drugs to make us all subservient to the alien lizard masters that really control the universe. Well that’s what David Icke told me. It would however go someway to explaining the success of Coldplay and other similar bedwetting radio friendly bullshit music.

MoMT at Myspace | Youtube

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Pictures come from Ian Proudfoot's archive, all copyrights reserved by © Ian Proudfoot.