The only thing I can be sad about was the fact that throughout the festival I was always on my way to buy that Will Smith shirt but every time I saw it I either
A) didn't have money on me.
B) Was on my way to watch or interview a band.
One day I will get it and it will be glorious!
On Sunday we managed to get an interview with Rémi and Jean; John Sprich, The Algorithm's manager and organizer of Euroblast, tagged along and we interviewed him as well at a different time so that's coming soon.
Rémi: I'd say it's progressive metal made with electronic sounds but since it's all programmed on a computer I guess it's more electronic.
2. What do you think people do more to your music, moshing or dancing?
Rémi: A little bit of both. I love seeing metalheads dancing, for possibly the first time, in some of the more techno oriented parts. Quite a few people have told me that listening to The Algorithm has made them learn to appreciate electronic music.
3. What would be your dream collaboration if you could work with any artist in the world?
Rémi: I'm really impressed with this artist called Disasterpeace who made the soundtrack to Fez and I love reading his blogs where he goes really in depth into his thoughts on music and his own musical creation. I've also been talking to this artist called Pertubator, do you know him?
Yeah, his new album is really good. He released a really cool, old school video game looking music video recently, loved that.
Rémi: Oh yeah, I've been talking to him about collaborating so that's happening. I'd also love to do a Sikth remix at some point. (fun fact, we were interviewing Aliases directly afterwards and when Rémi and Pin ran into each other they discussed this so hopefully this will happen soon)
4. Have you discovered any new bands here at the festival?
Rémi: Not really but I always think Monuments are really great though.
5. When it comes to naming your tracks I think some of the reasoning is fairly obvious when it comes to samples and such but some of there are really out there. Considering the fact that you don't have vocals or lyrics, at least not in the traditional sense, what is the process of naming tracks like for you?
Rémi: It's always different but I always like having a certain coherence, like it's telling a story. It usually comes down to saving an idea after working on it and having to name the file something so often it'll just be a working title that sticks and quite frequently it's references to pop culture, computer science or video games.
Misha from Periphery seems to do the same thing, titles like Jetpacks was yes have nothing to do with the lyrics, that one's an Arrested Development reference.
6. Considering that you have live drums and you had Max from Kandinja join you on some shows last year have you ever thought about adding something bigger, like an orchestra, or do you think that would take away the "Algorithm feel" of the music?
Rémi: I'm not sure, I'm always open to experiment though. That way you are always learning.
Exactly, even if you didn't like it at least you'd know that you tried. I wouldn't have expected Venetian Snares to sound so good with an orchestrated sound but his Hungarian album (no way I was going to try to pronounce that name) is a masterpiece.
Rémi: I love that album.
7. Do you feel like you get very varied crowd responses throughout the world?
Remi: Yeah, definitely, it's different between counties. At festivals, like this one, people are drunk and ready to get crazy but in Japan everyone get's really quiet between the songs because for them that's polite. When I start playing they get crazy but they respect the silence between tracks.
8. I've got tell you that I love watching you perform, you could have so easily gone an easier route and just pressed play on a laptop before jumping around on stage but I respect the decision to actually perform it so much. Was there ever a time where you didn't think you would perform it live and if so what changed to make it happen?
Rémi: When I started this it was a project, I didn't really think about taking it live but then when Euroblast was coming up three years ago John asked me to play and I decided to go for it. As for my performance style I always love how crazy some tech metal guitarists got on stage while still performing that complex music so I wanted to bring that to my performance as well but with a midi controller and now a keytar.
And an 8 string guitar.
Rémi: And that.
9. I know you've been making some soundtracks for video games, we got to try Lars From Mars yesterday on John's phone (an iOS game Rémi did the music for) and I loved what you did there with the ever-changing loops. Is there anything new on the horizon?
Rémi: I really want to try something new with interactive audio and play around with atmosphere. I've also been playing around with Unity trying to program my own little games.
10. A little extra question since I love video games and write about them every now and then on my blog, what have you been playing recently?
Rémi: There are a few, 140, Insurgency, Mercenary Kings and Rouge Legacy. I've also been playing Faster Than Light, I love it but I am not good at it. I've been looking at a bunch of walkthroughs but I can't seem to beat it.
You'll get there eventually.
Rémi: I also love the soundtrack in that game, it's pretty simple but it's effective.
11. Last question, if you could add one artist to Tech Fest, no matter the genre, who would it be?
Rémi: Igorrr.
Funny you should say that 'cause Olly mentioned him being a big influence on you in our interview with him.
(Following the interview we decided to grab the opportunity in front of us and ask Jean a couple of Uneven Structure related questions.)
1. You guys re-released the 8 EP last year, is there new material on the way?
Jean: Yes, we're planning to release a new album next year.
Will that be a full length?
Jean: Yes it will.
2. You did not play on Februus did you? How did you end up in Uneven Structure after Christian left?
Jean: I've been in the band about three years now and it happened pretty naturally. I was in a band with Matthieu (vocalist) before he was in Uneven Structures so I knew him already.
Well, I look forward to hearing new Uneven Structure material and hopefully I'll hear some of it live at next year's Tech Fest.
Jean: Hopefully.
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The Algorithm and Uneven Structures both have music on Bandcamp and I'm leaving the video for Trojans here as well because it gives you a little bit of an idea of what it's like to watch it live.