Stazma The Junglechrist
http://stazmathejunglechrist.com/
If Breakcore is dead, then Stazma the Junglechrist is the resurrection!
Hailing from the same French stock as Monster X, Rotator and the infamous Peace Off imprint, Julien Guillot has been smashing up raves all across Europe since his first release on Peace Off in 2008 and is showing no signs of slowing down.
Having taken the early breakcore ethos of genre mashing and amen splicing, Julien delivers his sound of rave, gabber, jungle and dub with a modern, tight production that seems synonymous with the French these days.
As well as making a name for himself with releases on Meganeural, Structural Damage and Peace Off, it is Stazma's live show which displays his work best. A frenetic, yet finely tuned assault on the senses.
Q1.
Where is your hometown? When did you start make a music?
I grew in a small town stucked between la Provence and the Alps called Digne Les Bains in the south of France. It is a very nice quiet place surrounded by mountains and forest but it is indeed very boring when you are young as there not much to do. So we started a small band with some of my best friend, Rock / Metal style, I was playing bass guitar and doing (badly) some vocals. When I became a bit better at playing bass I played some improvsed Grindcore / Funk / Reggae / whatever whith some other guys and I loved it because it was totaly studip, violent and unpredictable. I also played with my oldest friend David Decastille (now a very talented film and video maker that you should check) a simple bass / drums impro band and we did a couple of small show in Digne with it.
I started electronic music at the end of high school, first experiment around 2006 I think.
Q2.
What time's start to your solo project "Stazma The Junglechrist"? Did you make a Breakcore from the beginning? What is the origin of the name?
Stazma came in 2008. I was making diffrent type of music but mainly Jungle oriented stuff and my first alias was Mastaz as I was listenning to Puppetmastaz when signed in on my first website to share my music with other producer. So when it became a bit more "official" I wanted to change the name and a friend told me I just had to reverse the actual to get this : Stazma. The Junglechrist is because I had long haire and a beard so I was a bit of a lookalike of that well know fella.
Q3.
I think that in France there is a large Breakcore scene.Who is the artist of Breakcore that you have to experience for the first time in France? What do you think of France Breakcore scene now?
The scene now is very quiet even if we have a lot of very talented producer still in activities like Igorrr, Ruby My Dear, Rotator. My main influence at the begining was the Peace Off roster especialy Rotator, Krumble & Cardopusher and was lucky enought to get my first track ever released on this label ! The problem with nowaday scene is like in most place in Europe the small clubs are all closing so it become very hard to organise events. It is or super small with a shity sound or you have to pay very high fee for big venue that you can't have full so you loose money and in the end there is not many people left who want to take the bet and spend the energy of trying to make it happen.
Q4.
Please tell me the equipment you are using currently.
Actualy the studio is : a Desktep PC assembled by myself, an UCX audio interface by RME, Adam A77x speaker, a 500 rack with some Elysia analog studio gear (Eq, saturation and soon compressor), bass, guitar. I bacame a massive analog synth geek in the last years and I have so far a Moog Sub Phatty, a Elektron Analog Four, a Xoxbox (303 clone) assembled by 2Methyl himself and a modular case with modules mainly from Intellijel and Make Noise.
Q5.
When did you start the mastering engineer? Please tell me that your cherished in the mastering of work.
I actualy studied sound engineering from 2008 to 2010 and I have always been more interested in studio work during my studies and mainly mastering because it the moment when you can spend time on details and also you have most of the time only the finnished track to work with and you have to get the best of it with what you have. I think my first client were Kaometry records in 2011.
Q6.
You using a lot of sampling.Currently, you do not have too much to the sampling.Was there a change in something feelings? Do you feel the complex or guilt of something to sampling?
I still love sampling and the technic behind it : searching the sound you want, cut it to pieces and re arrange it. The thing now is that I use the sound I record from my synths or other instruments more than pieces of other songs. I don't feel guilty at all but it is more of a personal choice, I have more fun making my own samples. Exept of course when it come to breakbeat and drums as i'm still massively using the most sampled piece of music ever, the mighty Amen Break.
Q7.
Please tell me about the concept of "Itch".
I used a lot of acidish sounds on this record and the general amiance make me think about insects trying to eat you alive or something like that, I feel it like something itching everywhere that you can't get rid of. Tim Futurorg did an amazing job I think to illustrate that.
Q8.
You did a Live in a many countries. Where do you remain in the most impressive?
The craziest memories are from Lebannon and Japan. Lebannon because it was incredible to discover such a dedicated scene in the Middle East, guys and girls struggling against the establishment of the region for real. And Japan because when you come from Europe and you land here in your country you feel like you did a jump in 25 years later than you where at home, it is the future !
Q9.
You have released a maby of FREEDL.also released a record & CD. Is there a difference between physical and FREEDL?
What I prefer to do actualy is to always have a physical support but leave it free on internet. Now with Bandcamp for exemple we can let people choose if they want to pay you or not and this actualy surprising to see how many give where they are not told too. If you want to hold something in your hand you can buy the cds or vinyl but as many people don't have records players or even cd players anymore it is important that they can get the music on internet in digital files, and in that case I prefer to let them the choice to give money or not because to me music it for everyone.
Q10.
Please tell me about the future of the schedule.
I have a split vinyl release with Infekkted from Greece coming on Prspct Rvlt but no release date yet and also a vinyl from my side project Repeat Eater (https://soundcloud.com/repeat-eater)to be released before the end of the year I hope on Lyon based Handicap recording and my first gig with this project in Berlin on the 22 october (with also a set as Stazma). A project i'm working with called Mat3r Dolorosa http://www.mat3rdolorosa.com/ also just released his new albumso we are gonna be touring a bit with this from now to 2017 I guess. And of course I gonna write some new music, I'm planning to go back to something extremely violent for the next one but it is still a secret so don't tell anyone !
*This interview was recorded on October 1, 2016*
Interviewer : Ume(Murder Channel)
