… also in our recent print 31st issue with 350 pages!
… also in our recent print 31st issue with 350 pages!
The founder of Kindcrime since 2008, is a morbid take on industrial and EBM techno, besides being a Vietnam veteran in modular synthesis combat, supporting the DIY mentality to expand and fortify the cultural value of electronic music. After more than 15 years of Djing and producing, he has released several vinyl albums and EPs on a multitude of legendary labels and played all around the world often bringing his full modular live rig.
Trin1ty is a futuristic electro and breaks blueprint, co-founder of 3DEN, it represents a venture into solarpunk aesthetics influenced by IDM, string theory and metabolism philosophy. Conceptually and sonically proposing positive scientific breakthroughs and viable alternatives that can inspire and even give real solutions for the environment, to be able to exploit the real power of technology and help in the transition to improved and more inclusive cities and societies. Non-binary cuz quantum.
Your artistic project Alessandro Nero has been established for a long time and recently started working on the new project “Trin1ty”. Why did you come with the urge to create a new project under a different name?
How would you describe the difference between them?
Alessandro Nero is heavily influenced by Industrial music, Death Metal and Berserk, the objective with it is to promote raw Techno and EBM music, mainly analog sounding and with the kind of attitude that points fingers to the problems in society, to expose the rotten of it, channeling an aggressive aesthetic that evokes the operational role of violence used everywhere, to support and indulge into ideologies that usually are patriotic and imperialistic, in Alessandro Nero there’s no space to compromise with the real dark side, it’s like the world depicted by Kentaro Miura, our same cold world, the dark place called planet earth that’s orbiting a single star, we can’t build over a house of cards, superficial policies and identities are killing semantics and basic philosophical and moral concepts humanity assimilated centuries ago, we should embrace sexuality at a quantum state instead of binary, that is extremely radical and inadequate as for today.
From this comes the necessity to create Trin1ty, I can understand the other side of the coin in terms of aesthetics and the necessity of gazing out the window with an open-minded view, so I want to embrace this journey where offering positive scientific breakthroughs is part of the narrative and actually the main focus of it, if Alessandro Nero is sinking in a dystopian Cyberpunk society, Trin1ty is a Solarpunk fairy that tells the tales of meritocracy and bio-technological utopia, also the sound Trin1ty proposes is Electro, mainly inspired by retro sci-fi and the necessity to express my love for Battlestar Galactica and Star Trek.
How did you come up with the names of your projects?
Regarding the name of the label, from 2007 to 2009 I was the webmaster Of GotNaruto, which was a very big platform regarding this particular manga & anime, we were a great team, and the owner, who is also an incredible visual artist and a senior designer director now for Nvidia, at that time was sort of my mentor and had this web designing group called Kindcrime, I thought the name was too cool and I was a big fan of them, so when they moved on with it I finally decided to use it for my label and was probably also an incentive to do it.
Regarding Trin1ty, as I’m very interested in numerology, to me Alessandro Nero represents the red dragon, its number is the number one and represents vitality and strength, but my destiny is the number eleven, the number of the monkey, which represents, besides the magic of art, the duality between male and female energies, Trin1ty is a way to express this concept, as I was saying before, between the binary code and quantum physics, obviously it has also a very dogmatic meaning, you have to read the Matrix books by Valerian Valdamar and explore the contemporary Kin Maya’s mathematics, everything in the universe vibrates at a certain frequency.
The first line on one of your socials we can read: “ Modular synths ultimate Neuromancer” and we know you are pretty deep in the modular synth world without this introduction. What’s your story behind getting into it? What do you think is an advantage of this way of creating sound against other non-modular setups?
I started diving into Modular synths around 2014, it really fascinated me at a technological level as the potential for sound designing is infinite, as clichIJ as it may sound, you can literally do whatever you want! To be honest, Ansome was one of those artists who really inspired me to pursue it, so I asked for a loan from the bank to build my first 2x104HP system, at the beginning I was very inspired by Surgeon but then Ansome really was a game changer for Industrial and Techno made with the modular, also his attitude, I had the privilege to play with him a couple of times and one time in 2017, at a packed Kindcrime label showcase in Barcelona, we also played an improvised modular b3b together with also Brayan Valenzuela that was as always too drunk to even function and I remember I played just a lousy noise the whole set, for the rest I played just a few sequences over Ansome’s bashing drums, at that time I had practically a fully analog setup, no samplers, no external mixer, I now really think that is crazy how I could do live-sets with that.
Now I’m the kind of guy who loves menu-diving in modular, so analog-digital hybrids, and with this kind of vision, you can really do whatever you want and easily dig into a world of Euclidean or circadian rhythms, piano phasing, and almost sacred geometry if that’s your goal. Nowadays I don’t really fully enjoy my drums if I don’t pass them through my modular rig and all my recording process (MidasU24 > SSL2), but even if I advocate analog modular synthesis and it’s part of my concept and one of my biggest banners, it doesn’t mean I don’t find digital music technology extremely powerful and useful.
As we know, Kindcrime Recordings has been your label for over 12 years. It’s a long journey and how do you come up with all of this along the way from choosing the right artists & sound to visual aesthetics? How would you define your label?
Now Kindcrime is there to be one really consistent Industrial techno label, as we propose both heavy industrial Techno and EBM, we are calling it Cyberpunk as we believe is actually a well thought-out way of putting it, to start merging all these different concepts and sound designing visions into a unique aesthetic and universal electronic dance soundscape for all those insane in the brain. Since 2016 I have co-own the label with the lovely Katerina who has a significant role in its visual development it.
I founded Kindcrime in 2008 as a dark and tear-out Breaks label, primarily inspired by Sons Of Mecha and Mechanoise Records, so I started by releasing many artists from that label at the beginning in late 2008. The label had passed through many changes during the years, at some point we were the label with the most Breaks releases back in 2012 or something (we have around 300 Breaks releases now, 95% were released before 2012) then Breaks became Trap music as an electronic dance music genre and the charts were destroyed by this new wave, I really couldn’t enjoy this new sound, that wasn’t interesting Trap music to me, also now that I think about it in that period as a label owner I had a fixation with the charts, so as the dark and heavy Breaks sound was disappearing as a scene and movement, I decided to stop proposing it.
I have tried many different approaches to keep it interesting and underground and always wanted to show that other ways of doing music were possible, and to treat it as a countercultural phenomenon that affects society, the fact that you can make something cooler with a low budget than with a lot of budget, it’s key in understanding counterculture and build a meritocratic community not based on capitalism, the necessity to embrace the DIY culture for ourselves and the planet, we are the sons of Post-punk then Synth wave and Industrial music, this at least is the spirit of the music that was made in Europe after the end of the Punk movement that is probably the genre I identify the most with (GG Allin, Joe Strummer and Henry Rollins are truly three heroes of mine) and that I still like and inspires me at a sound designing level and it’s deeply connected with my roots and my basic self more than anything, has become something easy to do and feel, at least, ok with it.
We’ve seen you are also involved in the project 3DEN could you reveal to us a bit more about it?
3DEN is our new Electro and Breaks label, fun enough because as I was telling before, Kindcrime was born as a Breaks label that then turned Techno, the first vinyl of 3DEN will be released in November and distributed by TripleVision, it will be awesome, named “遺伝学 Vol.1”, that means genetics in Japanese: 4 tracks only on vinyl and 10 tracks total also in digital and tape formats. I can reveal that the artists on the vinyl will be top rapper/singer and producer CATNAPP, electro mastermind Dagga, old school pioneer Umwelt and myself as Trin1ty with an old-schoolish electro piece called “The Human Cloner”, the full release will display the crĿme of the contemporary Electro scene.
The world of 3DEN is a utopian reality about Neo-Futurism architecture and sustainability, green club culture, radiation free spaces through plants, relaxing and regenerating illumination and highly balanced nourishment, besides this we want to showcase all the positive breakthroughs in the scientific community and propose positive and motivational content. We dream for 3DEN to be a force of enlightenment.
Cyberpunk is a big part of your world. What are the main parts of it that fascinates you? Any favorites to share that could inspire people to follow and understand core aspects about this niche? If you would pick one fictional character to incarnate who it would be and why?
I loved back in the days to read Gibson, Sterling and Maddox, I think it’s an infinite source of inspiration and a very intricate and surrealistically detailed type of literature, I’ve written some Cyberpunk stories and one of my big dreams is to write an entire cyberpunk book that is a mixture between a philosophy book and a romance (I am developing it since more than 10 years), also the impact it had on Japanese animation, Neuromancer was released in 86 and Akira in 88, and in my opinion soon after Cyberpunk started to become our present reality as the whole concept is that the setting should be developing in a non distant future, so in my perspective the day by day of this harsh living is simply Cyberpunk at this point, and the inspiration is everywhere, endless. And I don’t want to forget to mention movie directors like Carpenter or Cronenberg, who are in the same way an infinite way of inspiration and transmit a very strong dehumanizing feeling for technology and can be watched over and over again.
What are your secrets to being productive and effective? And doing so many projects with the success you have?
“Success is not final; failure is not fatal”. And be always authentic, the answers are inside.
Who are your favorite producers and never ending sources of inspiration? Who is the closest to your sound if you think, there is any musician who does?
Today some of my favorite artists are Sarin, Blush Response, Crystal Geometry, Schwefelgelb, Pablo Bozzi, Kris Baha, I’m happy to be able to call some of them friends, during the years I was also deeply inspired by artists like Perc, Regis, Ansome, [KRTM] and I still am, somehow with my project Alessandro Nero I’m in between gatekeeping these two nieces and proposing a hybrid of hard EBM and heavy industrial techno often infused with broken and experimental rhythmic noise, I’m also very inspired by Post-Punk and Dark Wave, for this reason is just incredible to have on my last EP “Operation Mind Control” a remix by Lebanon Hanover producer and singer William Maybelline aka QUAL on Kindcrime, where we also recently released a track from Front Line Assembly’s Rhys Fulber that premiered on Keyi Magazine.
When it comes to Electro I’m deeply inspired by artists like DJ Stingray 303, I think his label Micron Audio is just legendary, especially his release “Molecular Level Solutions”, this really inspired me to create Trin1ty with which I debuted full modular live after DJ Stingray at the reopening of Tresor Berlin after the pandemics in 2022, that was a little dream coming true and the very first inception of a new path for my music.
Any upcoming goals you would like to share?
I just hope to be with the ones I love in a fine house with a big green garden. Also hope to finish my book and some video games I’ve been working on for too long now! I’m now learning TouchDesigner to build an AV live with modular synths and virtual reality through projections, and I hope clubbing will evolve into something more elaborate soon. I remember I always wanted to release on Aufnahme+Wiedergabe, I have a forthcoming remix on a IV Horsemen vinyl remix out at some point there soon.
Another thing I would love is to build a giant Industrial / Synth-wave supergroup, I’m releasing in September an industrial Techno release “Ostkreuz Acid” (where my studio actually is) in collaboration with my fellows Eyes Gone, Desert Drone and SUNDS from the Autonoma Industriale crew based in Berlin, while in parallel I’m working on some stuff with Notausgang, IV Horsemen, Vittorio Di Mango, Lorenzo Mancino, Elen Payne, Unconscious and others of my favorite producers of the genre to start building a strong community, the same with Kindcrime as we are also soon starting a new Various Artists concept for just mainly upcoming artists, as I really want to focus on fomenting counterculture in young generations.
Talent: Alessandro Nero / Trin1ty @alessandronero_ofc
Label: @kindcrime_recordings
Pictures: @keyistudio
Make Up: @katerina_payne
… also in our recent print 31st issue with 350 pages!
… also in our recent print 31st issue with 350 pages!
