(06.15.07) n5MD is a record label without borders. Over the past seven years they’ve pushed forward in their mission to continually expand the corridors of emotion. Several new(er) signings have etched a pattern that skews left of electronic center while the growth of their catalog continues to be fueled by a passion to merge into uncharted fields. The connection between emotion and sound, however, remains firmly intact since day one and this profile attempts to capture the entire process.
As label organizer and proud mafia leader, Mike Cadoo has forged the direction for n5MD and simultaneously inspired the ears (and hearts) of listeners all across the globe. With several musical projects including the rise and fall of Gridlock, the elusive Dryft moniker and the transformational pulse of his (current standing) Bitcrush alias, this multi-faceted artist has more than an ear for sound. Musical accomplishments aside, the Cadoo nameplate can be found in several graphic and multi-media related projects, most of which are conveniently curated by n5M : Design –bridging the ideas of music with the visual architecture of n5’s classic style.
The following Q&A took place over the past five months (coincidence?):
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Igloo :: Let’s start from the formation of Gridlock (pre-1995, or so?). What were you up to musically and how would you describe the music scene that you were into?
Mike Cadoo :: Pre-Gridlock would be an even longer trek as Gridlock itself, and I think it had even more impact on what I am doing now. At a very young age I knew I was a “musician.” My grandfather was in a Ukulele quartet in Hawaii when he was younger and he seemed to pick up on my love for music. So he bought me a toy guitar which I wore out very quickly. I learned trumpet in school and played it through most all of my pre-College school years. I then got a guitar and a bass with my parents’ help and set out to learn by playing along with my favorite records (New Order, The Cure, Sisters of mercy, Big Black, The Chameleons UK etc.)
It is a little known fact that there are 2 albums from a band named Still that I was bass player of for some years that I believe may still be available. This band being where I began cutting my teeth in some way towards the style I am currently pursuing with Bitcrush. We were influenced by the shoegaze discs out at the time as well as the darker moments of The Cure. We played many local shows some supporting for artists like Cop Shoot Cop, The Melvins and SNFU. Upon leaving that band out of frustration (for lack of a better term) I set out to do something heavier. After a year of experimentation and practice I answered a classified for a bassist / singer for a new bay area grindcore band. I spent a year or so playing bass and doing dry-lung vocals for them (Brood) as well as a 6 month stint as the second guitar player for Oakland alterna-metal act Skinlab. It is within this metal scene that I met Mike Wells who was in the very beginning stages of forming Gridlock.
Jumping from the shoegaze/alterna scene to metal was a big eye opener and I believe that my musicianship benefited from “let’s go over that section again” practice and the sheer speed, precision and aggression that I had to play. I never thought of myself as belonging to any sort of “scene” as my taste and personality didn’t seem to fit with any one of the local ones. I would go to lots of shows whether they be metal, shoegaze, alternative, jazz, experimental/noise… whatever. I think if I connected with it on some emotional level I went and I listened — I felt scenes to be clicky and somewhat closed-minded.
Igloo :: Was it around or just before 1995 that Gridlock began its formation? Judging by the discography, both you and Mike Wells began with cassette releases and the eventual signing to Pendragon, Unit and Hymen (to name a few). How did the relationship and creation of Gridlock begin and, if I may ask, how did Gridlock manage to slice a new sound from the already burgeoning industrial scene of the mid-90s?
Mike Cadoo :: I think it was April of 1995 that Mike and I had officially started working together. I met him through a mutual friend in the metal scene. He was originally looking for someone to be a vocalist for a project he had just started. We then made several demos which were received very well by listeners but not so much by labels. The problem being that we were not dance worthy. We did do a cover of Berlin’s “The Metro” that was more dance floor friendly but for the most part labels were really not into our brand of more sludgy dissonant industrial/electro. We gave most of the demos away via the rec.music.industrial newsgroup which was a great way to get the music out there. I think people latched on to us because we felt familiar but different. Very early on we used a lot of the same themes as Skinny Puppy but in most cases placed them in a more average listener structure. One never sets out to change or create a new sound in a genre. We just came from such a different angle than most of the electro industrial of that time. I think Colm at Pendragon heard this angle and gave us a shot.
The Gridlock aesthetic being Mike Wells’ early vision was heaviness in electronics. The drums on the first disc utilized heavily degraded samples and outboard effects to create a different beat structure rather than the standard kick drum on every beat. Syncopation in the percussion became a Gridlock constant. I think it was when we did this and also added the outboard effects to the synths that the “Gridlock sound” started to form –these tools gave us more depth, girth and width than the standard industrial bands of the time. I do feel that it wasn’t until our second album that things really started to take shape. I think this is when we felt we could further push the envelope of what was Gridlock. At that time the sub genre tag “post-industrial” seemed to come about as a descriptor for what we were doing.
Igloo :: How would you describe the finale/demise of Gridlock with the release of Formless (Hymen Records), in your own terms?
Mike Cadoo :: Describing this correctly, fairly, and properly considering that I have never spoke of this in any length to anyone may be rather tough, but I’ll give it a try:
I know this is to be in my own terms but think a good place to start would be using some comments from Mike Wells’ Gridlock retrospective as it gives a good amount of insight into how he felt about things.
There is a quote that really leads me to believe that the end of Gridlock was a very long slope that started sometime after Further (Pendragon Records)… “The Further time-frame pre-Dryft is my happiest memories of the band. We wrote for hours and hours at a time, and our camaraderie and collaboration was fantastic. The music flowed-through us without even trying, it seemed.” I found this comment interesting and something that I feel speaks volumes about why things happened the way they did. Even though this comment is about the Further time-frame I feel it is best to go even farther back than that to explain this properly from my viewpoint. I really had less to do with writing the music per se for the Synthetic Form (Pendragon Records) and preceding demos as most would think. My main contributions really being that I wrote one song and did all the vocals. I did do some sampling; I guess what you would call creative support and maybe some synth-work but for the most part I was new to the whole electronic music situation and did only what I could. With Further I did have a little more input but I still did not have the chops needed to write on Mike’s level. Shortly after further I did tracks that would eventually become the Dryft Cell (Unit Records) album as a way to do some tunes on my own, work on my writing skills and mainly to get the drum and bass bug out as I was really into the dark/tech-step of that time. The owner of Unit Records who I met with on occasion to hang with and have some beers dug the tunes and we agreed to release an album. I really felt that Gridlock songs like “Without” and “Scrape” should really be the limit for Gridlock in that direction so I thought it a plus that I could learn, fulfill a musical urge, and make something that could allow for the creative flow of Gridlock to be unhindered by me forcing one specific genre or style into its parameters.
I really didn’t start to have, what I would say, any serious musical contributions until Trace (Unit Records). This is where Mike no longer was the “principal songwriter.” Even though it was a long record to make because of the fire and subsequent studio relocation I still feel that was the record that is the most “us” and not just him.
With Gridlock originally being his baby he did have some sort of veto power in what I brought to the table musically. The Dryft Mytotyc Exyt EP (Component Records) was comprised mainly of parts or sketches of tracks that I intended as possible Gridlock parts. He passed on them and rather than let them go to waste I thought it a shame not to release them. After Mytotyc Exyt I then stopped the Dryft project altogether, as I thought I really wouldn’t need another outlet for my extra curricular musical works mainly because I felt that Gridlock would have less boundaries to define itself by that point.
Now Formless is another beast unto itself. It ultimately led to the complete breakdown in communication between us. Formless as an album was something we, for the most part, wrote separately then put together. Sometimes after months of work, rework, and rework again –it was literally, as its title, formless in construction. I did express to Mike after Formless that I was unsure how we would proceed to the next disc. The reason being that even though it was the toughest disc to make of the 4 albums and we did it in a more disjointed fashion construction wise, I thought of it as our best musically. I still feel to this day that the song “Return” is one of the best songs we ever wrote together. I now know that “Return” stylistically was where I always wanted Gridlock to be and my eagerness to get to that point musically was what probably made the first 2 discs so memorable for him. I think Mike was simply unhappy with the direction I wanted to take Gridlock and I don’t blame him. Gridlock was his baby.
There is also the first Bitcrush disc (Enarc: Component Records) –I think it may have been the final point from which we could no longer work together. During most of the time I was completing the music for that album I had little or no contact with Mike — and because of this I did not tell him about it until it was pretty much done. I don’t want to make it sound as if my solo outings and my creative input were the only reasons we split –they are just some of many reasons why. Both Mike and I are guilty of being really bad communicators. We both took things terribly too personal and when business and personal get mixed up it gets difficult, things get out of control, communication breaks down and just like that it’s over.
After Formless we agreed to have a break for us to each spend more time with our expanding businesses (n5MD and Mike Wells Matering respectively) He decided during this break to make his statement about Gridlock being over and compose a “retrospective.” The retrospective I feel is accurate but is missing the viewpoint from the other Gridlock key member.
Since that day I have not heard a word from him. I do think that it’s important to note that I really do wish him the best in all he does. I have no ill feelings towards him what so ever. I owe all of my knowledge in recording music the way I do now to him and I will be forever grateful and acknowledge that. But, I actually feel we are both better off without Gridlock (and maybe each other) complicating our daily lives.
Igloo :: Can you expand on the growth of your own projects which started to take shape in the form of two “side-projects” (Dryft and Bitcrush) a new record label (n5MD) and sister-net-label, enpeg?
Mike Cadoo :: Dryft, as you now know, was really more of reactions to what was happening during my time in Gridlock. I did recently revive that moniker to do a comp track for the Xynthetic label and remix for Daniel Myer’s Architect project. Bitcrush is really another animal altogether. The first album (Enarc) was really to be a transition from the things I did before. I was trying to very slowly get “somewhere else” musically –a cleaning out of the old ways of working/writing if you will. The Shimmer and Fade EP (enpeg) was a further experiment with guitars and real drums and this I feel is where I really started working in a new way in the studio. With the latest album In Distance (n5MD Records) there was no thought into how it should sound. That new way of working from the previous EP has given me the freedom to not over think or over guess things. I really wanted to get to a place musically where no matter what instrument I used it would still convey what I was trying to “say” and all fit in a cohesive manner. I may be stating the obvious but I really like music which is honest and emotional. I wanted to finally get to a point where it was easier to do that.
As for n5MD, it started back in November 2000 with the first release, a compilation called MD1. For those that don’t know we started releasing only on pre-recorded MiniDisc format. Sony ended up deeming the MiniDisc a dead format and I was left deciding if I should call it a day or go to CD. Luckily I went to CD because it gave the label an almost instant wider audience. I really attribute the success of n5MD to the artists. They all work very hard at their craft and I think it shows. I am very excited about the current roster and the releases we’re working on –but then again I always say that. We were one of the labels that very early on jumped into doing its own digital distribution so most of our back catalog which is out of print is available via download. It was with this download system that enpeg was started. Enpeg is basically a net label with a catch. Each release is $2. It doesn’t matter if it’s a full-length album or an EP, it is downloadable for $2. This way the artist gets a little money for their works. Enpeg started mainly because n5MD was getting quite a lot of demos and we were really unable monetarily to release all the good ones. So I thought this sister-label would be a good alternative. It also has proven a good test bed for developing artists, n5MD artists that want to branch out a bit, and pro-net release artists that want to test out a new way of getting their music distributed.
Igloo :: You’re about to wrap up a new album for n5MD, can you tell us more about where this one will take us, or better yet, where it has taken you?
Mike Cadoo :: The album is around 80% done and its title is Epilogue in Waves. I feel it is a logical progression from In Distance in that I do utilize some of the same elements but this album is far less electronic than anything I have done since the inception of Gridlock. Some songs seem to have no electronics at all. Even though I do use the computer to record, edit and sequence the songs sound much closer to what a band could actually play than anything I have done in years. The emotion and sonics are still there… I am simply using a different pallet of sounds to get my point across. I think it will be one of the first releases of 2008 for n5MD as the release schedule for the rest of the year is fairly full.
Igloo :: How would you best describe n5MD’s output in terms of musical style? While I understand most musicians on the label (new and old) have their unique qualities, how do you go about the artist selection/filtering process and what is the main ingredient(s) that determines a physical release?
Mike Cadoo :: I would say that over the past few years n5MD’s musical style has broadened quite a lot. The label started pretty much as a experimental electronica/IDM label but I think because I don’t really listen to just one type of music, this early style preference morphed and expanded into something that has less boundaries than before. IDM is a term I never liked using to explain what n5MD releases mainly because the “D” is for dance and n5MD was not about dancing. I now feel that with every new signing we are pushing the boundaries of what the label has done before. Last Days for instance was a big jump in what I feel is a different direction. The Bitcrush disc, the new SubtractiveLAD, Tobias Lilja and Lights Out Asia records are also a stylistic shift in directions we have yet to go as a label. But for those that really want n5MD to release experimental electronic music we release albums from Funckarma/Quench, AEM, Proem and Arc Lab.
When selecting artists/releases for n5MD I tend to take a quite a bit of time, I listen a lot. Some artists probably get pretty impatient with me because I can take so long to review things. I do this as I feel it is not fair to just give it the once over and then pass or sign off on it. For things to get to the next step I not only have to have some sort of mental connection with the music but I also listen for a sort of aural depth –mainly depth of technique or song writing. Things continue to expand when it comes to the confines of the types of music we release. There are always things in the works that would further push n5MD in directions we have yet to go.
Igloo :: Has the ‘business’ of running two independent labels affected your own musical output or does it just impose time constraints and efficient scheduling for in-studio work?
Mike Cadoo :: Yes it has. But it comes with the territory. The n5 offices and my studio recently moved. Before they were both in my home crowded in one of our 2 rooms. When it was in the next room it was easier to put down ideas then go back to them a couple hours later or work on tracks late into the evening. With the birth of my son it was time to get an office/studio space. The studio is now across town so I have to go somewhere else to write/record so that changes the times I have to spend on music a bit… Also the fact that the label, especially with the new mail-order expansion and stepped up release schedule, is much busier than it used to be so I do often find myself doing n5 business on what I try to allot as personal creative time. But I enjoy both so it’s all about balance.
Igloo :: How would you place n5MD’s critical path to success in terms of organizing artwork, track selection, mastering, distribution (both physical and digital)? Do you ever ponder the impact n5MD has had in a world overflowing with sub-par music releases? How do you align the label amongst so many trying to create even the slightest footprint?
Mike Cadoo :: This is an interesting question as “aligning the label” sort of alludes to a sort of competitive vibe which does unfortunately exist among labels which I never bought into or cared for. I feel that n5MD as a whole does what it does and that’s it. I really don’t have much time to think about what other labels are doing or trends in the industry when making decisions about releases/artists. This may be bad business but I just do what I feel is right for the label; artists on it, our loyal listeners and of course myself because I’m ultimately driving the crazy n5 bus. The later may seem a bit selfish but n5MD can only get behind releases that I personally believe in 100%. I have not always been successful in getting people to hear or view a release as I have but I try my best.
The day to day organization of running a label does have a lot of relatively boring details that are always part of running any business. There are also other details that usually pertain to art or creative differences that should be, and I hope, are transparent to the listener. Those details for both physical and digital releases I think are better being in that realm of transparency, I feel that if I do my job correctly, the music, and to some extent, the art/packaging should speak for themselves.
Igloo :: While it’s true that emotions in music can cause elevated feelings (both positive and negative), how has your personal view of music changed (if at all) since the inception of n5MD? Are there certain styles of music you gravitate towards (outside of n5MD) that inspire you to keep the labels ’emotional’ aesthetic intact? And on a similar note, do you feel music must contain formations of emotions in order to ‘touch’ the listener?
Mike Cadoo :: I think my view of music as a whole as not changed much –this may be sad to say –or it may be good to say –I’m not sure, but it really hasn’t. I still look for the same qualities but I feel I am better at articulating what I couldn’t when I was in my 20s. I still listen to most music other than my own as a listener first and never as a musician. I even try to do it with my own music to some extent but as any artist will tell you it is virtually impossible to be that objective about ones own music.
With having made music spanning several genres over the years I think it has benefited n5MD to some extent as I can hear the honesty and emotion across genres –I feel it’s important for continuity when trying to expand a label such as n5MD into other areas without completely jumping into another musical realm entirely. If I had to boil down a musical description to encompass all the different artists in genres of music I gravitate to I would say that I tend to gravitate towards melodic, sonically rich music that displays emotions in a relatively honest manner, if not overtly heart on sleeve. Some examples of non-n5 artists that are currently making music that I feel fit that criteria would be; Jesu, Hammock, Apparat, Sigur Ros, Dalek , Helios, Isis, Burial, Mono, or Idaho. They all span different genres but are all sonically rich and honest about their music in what I feel are very personal ways. This sort of honesty is really what I connect with, I’m not entirely sure if other people find or feel the same connection I do with certain music whether it be an n5 artist or not. Everyone listens to music differently and they can have emotional connections with the music they listen to so it’s impossible to quantify connections with music on that level as it tends to be a such a personal thing for both the artist and listener.
Igloo :: Tell me a little more about the relatively new n5Mailorder section of n5MD.com and its affiliated titles from a wide variety of labels, artists and associated n5 cohorts. How do you select and manage this aspect of the business as I’m sure it takes up a large slice of time to commit to accurately, effectively and successfully.
Mike Cadoo :: Well the initial success of the mailorder I really can’t take credit for. I always wanted to expand the mailorder but I knew I could not do it correctly on my own. Paul Stephan who is actually my old roommate does most all of the day to day mailorder tasks. I still do the modifications that are needed to the website and do the ordering and accounting but he does everything else. He’s kind’ve a behind the scenes type of guy but I still want to give him the props he deserves.
As for the releases and labels we carry –they are somewhat of an extension of n5MD albeit sometimes in a more experimental direction. We try and look for things that are not readily available here in North America and that fit into that general bracket of what we like and respect. We are getting in more inventory as time allows and really hope to be a place where people can come to find new and interesting artists that have limited availability here.
Igloo :: Any chance you would like to expand on some non-musical activities –confectioner, fatherhood, espresso, beer, J-walking tickets etc.?
Mike Cadoo :: (laughs) The J-walking ticket I got at LAX. We were picking up Stephen (SubtractivLAD) and I didn’t use the crosswalk. I actually had Keef Baker and his wife Linda with me and they followed me in my sprint across the street. They are from England so I talked the cop out of giving them a ticket… (chuckles), I think he knew he would be wasting his time giving them a ticket. He probably looked at Keef and thought “…that guy is probably gonna wipe his ass with anything I give him and post it on the internet.” I think in this case the cop was right.
Fatherhood: Is great! As we teach him things he teaches us in the process. I learn something new at least every other day if not about life, about myself. It is very rewarding in the purest way possible.
As for confections, espresso and beer… the later two I partake in and enjoy very much. I spent most of my 20s as a confectioner/chocolatier. It seems so long ago and world away from the music industry… weird thing is I still remember the recipe for caramels.
Igloo :: Thanks for your time!
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For more information about n5MD (and Mike Cadoo’s Bitcrush project), visit their website at n5MD.com. [Purchase n5MD Releases
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