Swedish-based record label Cryo Chamber has been taking me away with their visuals and high-auditory albums they have released for a long time. From the depths of the universe, that we live in to the ancient structures of the forgotten old world, we chatted with the only man of the record company, the genius simon heath behind the atrium carceri and sabled sun projects.
Making music requires dedication, inspiration and time. Having a record company is not easy to deal with musicians, orders and bureaucratic affairs. You are both making music with your own band and owning a record label. Doesn’t all of this force you?
Yes, it’s a lot of pretty boring work running a record label too. But I enjoy the creative side of it a lot, and being able to work together with artists I admire makes me very lucky.
What do you look for in the music of the bands you signed with?
Cohesion, production quality, being able to tell a story through sound, team players.
The number of groups you have an agreement with is very high. Are you taking care of everything related to the Cryo Chamber?
Yes almost everything, some of our artists helps out in areas, like Keosz helping out with artwork at times. Luckily our artists are the nicest people, it’s a highlight of my day being able to talk to friends and plan albums together. Creating things is what I love and being able to do it together is even better, that might be why I do so many collaborations.
You have a good command of 3D and animations. Is there a story to this?
I had only slight experience with 3D until two years ago when I dedicated myself to learning it, but I have a long history of working in 2D so many of those skills are applicable to 3D.
I know there are financial difficulties behind leaving the cold meat industries, could you please tell us the begining of the cryo chamber label.
At first I was thinking of just self releasing my own albums. But many of my fellow artist asked me about artwork, mastering, promotion at the time so I figured that hey, I have experience with all of those things. Maybe I could do this as a fun sideproject, and I’ll have an opportunity to work closer to other artists while doing so. Since then we have seen such overwhelming support that I now do this more than full time.
There are stories on the projects of the label, could you please tell us the process of creating the albums (artworks, cd booklets designs and stories) did the stories comes first or the otherwise.
It’s usually a back and forth process between everyone involved. Personally for my own projects I very much do things simultaneously. I might create base artwork, and then create music for that artwork, and then listen to that music while continuing to work on the artwork, same with story and text. I’m a little scatterbrained like that, I tend to have everything intertwine.
21xx and sabled sun series had a speacial place in my heart, i would really like to watch the stories on big screen, i know you are writing short stories and making game soundtracks. Did you ever think about your stories to get involved with visual arts? Are there any offers?
That would be cool, but no offers.
What did you listen beside ambient or electronic music nowadays?
A lot of stuff always, I listen to music from a more sterile viewpoint that most perhaps. I can listen to pop music and appreciate the cleanliness of a well mixed snare. I have a fondness for UK hip hop at the moment, especially the heavily saturated sound that many artists from UK do so very well, it’s fun to apply those production techniques to other genres. Also lots of soundtracks, games and films.
Do you have any priorities between Atrium Carceri and Sabled Sun? As a human being which one express you most?
Atrium Carceri is a more personal project, Sabled Sun is more of a “Let me tell you a story” project. I need the outlet from all of my projects to be able to grow as a producer or my sole project would have too many styles going at once.
Cihat Kemahlı