“[Enig’matik Records] explores rich soundscapes that often have deep emotional content, bringing music that really shines in a personal environment and invokes past memories with interesting and abstract visions.” Jake (aka Sun In Aquarius and Enig’matik director) connects with igloomag.com’s Five questions.
Igloo Magazine :: When did Enig’matik Records start up and what was your inspiration?
Jake / Enig’matik:: Enig’matik had its first release just over 12 months ago, with the process leading up to that first release about 6 months in the making. My inspirations came from various spectrums of life and also the music industry in general. I’m lucky enough to call some of the most talented producers in Australia my friends so I knew that I had a good platform of artists to start building a aural portfolio in order to inspire a lot of people and in turn have a solid base to start inviting more internationally based artists to join the collective.
I was inspired at the thought of growing a label and then giving talented up and coming producers a real chance to shine on an international level with some of the worlds finest experimental producers—I didn’t get a whole lot of pleasure self-promoting myself as an artist, as I’m sure most people don’t—so one of my main focuses behind creating a label was to be able to promote other artists music, while in turn having my name in the mix as well. I guess it’s a bit of a guilt-free way for me personally to spend a lot of time promoting, because it s for something I truly believe in and it benefits others in a sense. In my limited experience I also found record labels to be sometimes tedious to work with, mainly for the delay in release time, royalties etc, so I wanted to give myself and fellow artists something we could all agree on together was a fair deal, as a collective.
I also wanted to open up the lines up communication between artists and hopefully spark a collaborative environment that will hopefully see Enig’matik being joined by various film-makers, animators, designers and so forth, which will in-turn grow into a exciting cutting-edge platform for artists to express themselves in new and exciting ways that they previously didn’t have access to.
Igloo :: Who were some of your initial artist relations and did your physical location hinder any progress?
Enig’matik :: Being an artist myself, I had spent the previous year travelling quite a bit to play at festivals and events around the country, slowly meeting all the regular artists that often done the same, I found that they are all some of the most genuine nicest people I had ever met, and their music was incredible, so there was no hesitation in inviting them to be a part of Enig’matik in the first stages of its conception. there’s a select couple of artists that have been with us from the beginning that I truly believe are producing some of the best experimental music in the world, such as Mindtree/Mindbuffer and Auma—so they will alyways remain at the forefront of Enig’matik and I will be pushing and helping them to hopefully end up being signed to some of the worlds most well known labels.
With access to the internet I found physical location is not an issue with a net-label for me personally, I was fairly remotely located from the other artists involved but it didn’t cause any problems, the only thing that was slightly frustrating was slow internet speeds living in a bush environment, but coupled with amazing surroundings I couldn’t really complain.
Igloo :: What were some of the challenges (if any) starting up a label? How did you envision the label to stand apart?
Enig’matik :: Experimental music and in our case the more deeper glitch based end of the spectrum is obviously not as popular as some other forms of electronic music, so there was a challenging aspect in gaining a fan base, this attracted me more than anything though as I have always preferred to steer clear of current social trends and instead forge my own path, so it gives us a chance create our own brand of music with no expectations which I find very exciting, I think we will continue to gain respect as a unique label by showcasing real depth and cutting edge sound design in our releases, Personally I believe more richer detailed music has much greater longevity with listeners finding hidden nuances even years after their first listens, so I feel this will ensure a long life for Enig’matik.
I [also] wanted to open up the lines up communication between artists and hopefully spark a collaborative environment that will hopefully see Enig’matik being joined by various film-makers, animators, designers and so forth, which will in-turn grow into a exciting cutting-edge platform for artists to express themselves in new and exciting ways that they previously didn’t have access to.
Igloo :: What is your motivation in keeping the label moving forward into the next decade?
Enig’matik :: I am never short on motivation and am constantly surrounded by incredible artists pushing boundaries in various forms of media. I have every intention of growing Enig’matik into something which I cannot yet fathom and am very driven. The fact that we are now getting some of the world’s most respected producers like Si Begg and Kilowatts wanting to join our collective without waving money in front of them is enough satisfaction for me to know that we are making waves in the right places. I believe we will continue to earn respect with incredible artists joining our collective for this reason.
Igloo :: Tell us more about how you (and your staff?) take the label’s “sound” to the listeners and fans. Distribution, campaigns, word of mouth etc.
Enig’matik :: I produce music under the alias Sun In Aquarius, which most people associate with liquid sound design. I find this the most satisfying namely due to my upbringing and love of the ocean and all marine life, when I started to focus on writing music more full time it drew me away from the ocean and surfing which was my main focus at the time, so by producing this type of music I find it puts me in a meditative state in the studio which I find extremely similar to surfing and the thought cleansing aspect which comes with it.
Enig’matik’s sound is quite eclectic, we don’t want to put any genre tags on our label, I would prefer most of the output to be unclassifiable and unique to be honest. We explore rich soundscapes that often have deep emotional content, bringing music that really shines in a personal environment and invokes past memories with interesting and abstract visions. With technological advancements coming very regularly there are some amazing new aspects for sound creation and we hope to bring music that exploits these new advances and can really make people stop and listen to some of the awe inspiring creations that can be emitted through frequencies.
In terms of distribution we have started as a net label but we have lots of ideas to expand this into leftfield methods such as mobile apps and some more interesting unique methods which will be revealed soon. I am also touring North America for 3 months in just over a months time to help promote our forthcoming compilation, whilst on the tour I plan on getting some people that will represent our label in key places to ensure our artists can tour over there regularly. Not long after that I will be expanding to other countries such as India, Brazil and Israel to ensure the Enig’matik artists can get a platform and stage for their music that they deserve.
For more information about Enig’matik, visit their website at enigmatiksounds.bandcamp.com or visit facebook.com/enigmatikrecords.
