The Owl Interview with C-drik

1- Hello C-drik, could you start by telling us a bit about yourself?

(Laughs) That’s a long story…I’m a musician from Belgium mostly even if I’m not half of the time not there, I play electronic music, some experimental music, I write a book about experimental and electronic music in Asia, I’m a producer label manager and sometimes gig organizer. Well that’s it i think.

2- As a musician, what were your main influences when you first started producing music?

It was back in 1989, my main influences were by that time EBM, industrial and noise. I was playing noise and old school industrial and what people call power electronics, we are not calling that by that time we did this ‘cause we like this music and because we had nearly no money to make music so somehow making noise was quite cheap.

3- What was your best production?

Let me think a little bit, i can’t tell I’ve done so many different things, I or we evolved also to some different styles and so on and techniques so I can’t really tell. I know that some tracks i made that I find less interesting now, I made them maybe too fast or not good enough, I know that there are a few records that I would listen probably more than other ones.

4- What were your best collaborations?

There were too many, at least you ask me questions that nobody asks me… that’s cool! I don’t know… there are a few, also there were collaborations with Olivier Moroe of Iminent inside Axiom; it’s an old collaborations, we still do things and I still enjoy to work with him for many reasons, but there are collaborations that i did with Jhon Celcost or both or even the other ones I did rather say one of the most collaboration for me was the one I did in Laos with Kamsuan lao traditional musician. I don’t want to say it was the best or whatever, it’s just one important step because I made music with somebody totally disconnected form this electronic music culture in a country totally disconnected from this culture or at least alternative electronic music or simply alternative music, even the communication was not always easy because he just spoke a few words of English so we needed translations all the time! But it worked and the music spoke for itself and that was a really interesting experience.

5- Does your work symbolise experiences that you went through?

Sometimes, not always or if it is always I never noticed but sometimes it does mostly when I’m into some ambient electro acoustic noise I think, it is to me really emotional, sometimes i voluntary try to transpose my emotions into this music not especially telling the people what i want to tell, other stuff I do not especially or it is maybe unconscious.

6- Do you have any message that you send through your music?

When they are lyrics or thanks to the titles or with some sounds or samples I use, yes. Pfff, political messages and animal rights message and pro feminist messages, anti-capitalist messages, I like to find answers more than giving answers because I cant pretend that i have answers for everything at some points for some stuff I think i’m not doing wrong, I communicate that but I expect a reaction from the audience.

7- Coming to Lebanon, what did you expect?

To eat Homos, (laughs) I got to stop with this obsession… let’s say Falafel! I was expecting to meet people I already met online, see some people i have met already and see how the scene was over there. I had some expectations and it’s even better than I thought and also seeing how life generally was staying three weeks is not enough but I could get a better picture than stories on TV and so on… and to me it’s really important to go to one place and stay long enough to see how people react, speak and social behave and all the politic problems… just life!

8- What distinguishes Lebanon from other countries you have been to?

There are some common points with some countries and a huge gap with other countries. I would say that the fact that the scene is really young is one thing but I’ve been to parts of the world where the scene didn’t exist at all but this is something anyway i noticed here, maybe the strike … People are really fighting for building something here and places where it is easy now they don’t fight anymore and let live… and i think it is remarkable here are at least many that i met are trying to build something for the future, it’s not selfish they don’t pretend to be kings of whatever they think in term of the future… they said OK, there is nothing here, he started this or she started that, we are trying to build something for the future.

9- You performed live for the first time in Lebanon at The Silver Factory, how was the crowd there? did they respond to your music?

Yes it seems most people enjoyed it and many came to me to say coments. And as I read on the net some were dancing so I guess most were enjoying it, I was surprised to see so many people! It’s nice I mean for such an event somehow Breakcore is popular in the underground scene but we are not in Europe here… I was impressed and happy.

10- Is there something you want to say to this growing scene?

Nothing really intelligent! (laughs) I don’t want to say I wish you the best because it is so clichet, I don’t know… I just respect it. I know it’s not easy to organize this here because it’s easy for me to organize this in France, Belgium and Netherlands, there is nearly no problems just a few things against us, it’s fine. Here it’s a perpetual struggle so I respect it. This is what I have to say and I’m happy to see people trying their best to build something here and I expect more in the future… I’m sure.

Thank you C-drik, hope you enjoyed your stay in Lebanon.