MDC interview#21 "Gore Tech"

Gore Tech
The dystopian anxiety fueled sounds of Gore Tech represent the cutting edge in nuevo-industrial, future-phobic drum & bass music. From as early as 2011, Gore Tech has been welding together the rough edges in state-of-the-art technophobic nightmare-ish sound-scapes, working in collaboration with other production outfits, bands and products alike to produce their unique styles of Drum & Bass, Future-Doom and Dub.

Q.Earlier this year, your label "EXE" organized Label Night in Manchester for the first time. JK Flesh, Imaginary Forces, Aaron Spectre etc, unique lineup played at EXE Label night, what is the concept of the event?

The EXE Label night was a great opportunity for us to put on a mixed sub-genre event much like the ones we enjoyed when we were coming up, where the acts were all different but all equally intense and interesting. This was certainly one of these events for us. It was awesome to be able to put in one room some of the artists I’ve been inspired by at the same time bring the Manchester tribe together all under one roof for EXE.

Q.Why did you start "EXE"? What kind of activities are you planning for the future?

EXE Project was launched out of necessity really, There wasn’t really anyone doing what we wanted to do and with the combined experience of label mates Krafty PK,(Unjustified Records / Roots Weekender) Todd Robinson (Earache, Noize-Tek and Endtyme) and myself we built EXE Project. Noticing also a void in the experimental electronic music scene in the north of England and wanting to bring something to the surface. Collectively we’re involved in and inspired by a wide variety of music and wanted a platform to showcase this. Without the need to try and stick with one sub-genre, also we wanted to give a platform to Manchester's un-sung heros of the underground.

Q.Where are you from? When did you get interested in music?

I grew up in the North of England deep in the Peak District, I was raised on a council estate here and spent a lot of the school holidays at music festivals with my parents, surrounded by the traveller communities. My Dad was a folk musician in his spare time and my Mum was a collector of music from Punk, New-wave, Prog-rock, Dub and so on, we were also members of a community Samba group that would attend world music festivals and Fringe festivals. I was always interested in music from a young age, the town I grew up in was known for it’s live music, I played around on a number of different instruments but nothing quite stuck like the computer, When I first started producing, that’s when I knew I’d found my instrument for life.

Q.UK has released a lot of Industrial music since long ago. New industrial sound is still emerging and Industrial is passed on to the UK younger generation. I also feel the impact of industrial on your music. What do you think of the relationship between UK and industrial?

Yes, Indeed, If you take a step north of Watford Gap you start to see the landscape change, it’s mills, factories, quarries and so on. Birmingham was the heartland for a lot of industrial sound including a number of the groups you’ve listed based purely on the sort of place Birmingham is. Manchester and it’s surrounding areas were the birthplace of the Industrial revolution (see Steamboy) it’s a bleak city and it’s skyline hasn’t changed much in over 100 years. We’re surrounded here by crumbling mills and factories, these weigh heavily on your subconscious growing up here, so when you come to write music it’s there. Goth, Rave, Industrial and to a certain extent Punk are all counter-cultures you can attribute with Central and North of England, the death of industry and the birth of apathy. I like to think I’m carrying- in some small part - the industrial blood throughout my musical productions, as being greatly inspired by a lot of this music I’m now living in the environment that created it in the first place.

Q.When did you become "Gore Tech"? You released 12 "records from Peace Off in 2012. Please tell me the background of the release.

Gore Tech became a project officially in 2011 when I returned from the US back to Manchester. I’d had such an adventure I just wanted to capture it all in music again. I was living in a squat at the time and really only had limited access to equipment but after writing some music I realised it was rather different than the music I’d been writing before and wanted to give it a new title. Little over a year I’d see some this music released on Peace Off in collaboration with Llamatron.

I had been listening to Peace Off Releases for sometime and I was talking with the artists on the label such as Stazma,Broken NVP and Llamatron at the time and as you know, we’re a small family in the ‘Scene’ so Stazma had sent Rotator some of my music and he got in touch. Frank and I first met in Beirut for Massacore back in 2012 and hit it off, We released the Heretic EP that year also. We’ve been friends ever since. I have almost all of Peace Off on vinyl now, along with some framed prints from DZGNBIO. I’ll admit, I could be a little obsessed.

Q.You participated in Anaal Nathrakh's "Desideratum",How did you decide to participate in the work?

This came about as Mick Kenny put a shout out for some electronic music producers to work with on a new album. Todd Robinson pushed him my way and we started sending each other files, Mick was already familiar with our ‘Sound’ having first met him at a Industrial Techno event in Birmingham a few years earlier. He wrote the album fully in what seemed like two weeks and sent over the stems to me in Germany where I was living at the time and I’d built sections for each track and I’d send them back. Anaal Nathrakh have an unrelenting ferocity to their sound combined with the themes of human nature and despair it was really interesting to ‘unleash’ sonically with them. I also contributed some sections to their 2016 album ‘The Whole of The Law’ but primarily the work was most featured on ‘Desideratum’

Q.You have played in many countries. Where was the most impressive country? You lived in Germany for a while. How did you feel about the German music scene?

The German scene is relentless, I was fortunate enough to be part of some amazing musical communities out there such as Subland as well as be exposed to some scenes I never would have experienced were it not for living there such as the Techno scenes Berlin has some incredible squatter communities as well with a real emphasis on DIY culture I really enjoyed. As for impressive countries I’ve played before, I’d say Lebanon was insane, a really energetic community putting together a real counter-culture movement there against all odds. It’s a place I would like to return to one day if the chance ever arose.

Q.Last year, UK departed from the EU. Does this thing to affect your music?

As for travel, I’m not sure yet, negotiations are underway, we’re currently trying to elect the Political Party to do that now. It’s deeply upsetting as I, as well as many other people here in the UK consider themselves to be EU citizens first, before being British and having this taken away from us has really affected England. We’ll have to make some tough choices this year it would seem.

As for my music itself, I’ve always strived to put honesty and energy into my music, and more recently It’s been more politically charged. There’s a lot of music to be written about the times we live in and the environment that we’re in.

Q.Gore Tech is represent cyberpunk worldview with sound. Who is your favorite cyberpunk author?

You mean besides William Gibson? I have a friend who works in cyber-security who has recently been sending me books, one is Altered Carbon by Richard Morgan, it’s a rush, well written and conceptually rich i’ve not finished it yet but it’s blown my mind. Alongside this I read ‘Ready Player One’ by Ernest Cline. (Ironically currently being made into a movie being filmed in Birmingham) this was recommended to me by Krafty PK, Well worth reading.

As well as my Graphic Design output (Machine Throne) I’ve also launched a blog to promote Cyberpunk culture, Art, and news under the name Winterµte where I’ve been sharing work by designers and illustrators such as Haedre, Emil Öhlund and submillimetre. All who’ve worked in designing graphics for electronic music in some form.

Q.Please tell me about your new release and goals.

This year will officially mark 5 years of Gore Tech (Since my first release with Peace Off) and my fifth Mainframe Warfare release. It’s been life-changing to have got out of here and partied the world over inside the electronic music community. As for this year I’ll be working on more music, some of the new tracks featured in Mainframe Warfare MK V will form the basis for the next album, at present I’m looking to play string of new shows in new countries while I still can as well as focusing on EXE Project to bring more events and releases throughout the year.