Nightmare Magazine 2009
The Relic and I had an interview in Nightmare Magazine, which was available at the Nightmare Outdoor event in 2009. The original interview is in PDF format and written in Dutch. For the people outside NL; The Relic also managed to get hold of an English translation of this interview, which you can read below.
Get the PDF here
You work a lot together and are friends in every day life, how did you meet eachother and how did you start working together?
Mental Wreckage: “That’s a long time ago, I believe somewhere around 2000. We met eachother through the internet, because Maurice was busy restarting the FIX Records label, of which I was a huge fan. Later on we spoke with eachother on parties a couple of times and hung out more often.”The Relic: “After a while we appeared to have the same vision on music, but also on everyday life. After the start of the Symp.tom label in 2004, our music became more similar and that’s how we started to cooperate, while maintaining our own identity and sound. Despite the large living distance (I live in Dordrecht and Lody lives in Hengelo), we see and speak with eachother quite often.”
Mental Wreckage: “Besides our music cooperation, we were booked as Dual Mechanism last year and since then it happens more often that they book us together.”
How did you enter the world of industrial? Did you already listen to it?
MW: “One day we saw an advert in a popular charts magazine saying: “Wanted: Industrial DJs”, we cut out the coupon immediately and sent it in… hahaha! No, in the 90’s I listened mostly hardcore, with a preference for the monotonous and harder stuff. Somewhere around the start of this decennium hardcore went in another direction, to a style I didn’t like that much. I started looking for new things that were more to my liking and eventually I discovered a completely different side of hardcore, which gave me a lot of inspiration. I especially liked Armageddon Project, N-Vitral, Rude Awakening and the new stuff from The Outside Agency. Mainstream hardcore is more about melodies and sample usage, while industrial hardcore focuses itself more towards percussion, drive and atmosphere. It’s not that I don’t like mainstream hardcore; there are still releases that I like, but industrial hardcore just suits me more.TR: “I’ve always been a fan of the alternative sound. I used to be a huge Ruffneck-fan. I didn’t like most of the music of that time, with the exception of a few labels. With Ruffneck it was fairly simple: Either you liked it or you didn’t. The FIX label was pretty much the same. Dark sounds in hardcore have always attracted me. Labels like Cold Rush, Dance Ecstasy 2001, Ruffneck etc. That sound evolved more to the industrial sound. Also because there are more cross-overs. Now with internet, you get in touch with so many more different kinds of music, which broaden your vision. It’s hard to say what industrial really is. For me, real industrial are releases from the Hymen label, AntZen and the stuff you hear on Machinenfest. The name industrial hardcore or alternative hardcore is a better name I think.”
Lody, together with “Mute.” you are the labelmanagers of Symp.tom and you had the honor to host the industrial area on Nightmare Outdoor. Was this the moment you’ve been living toward all year?
MW: “When we heard late last year that we could host our own area, we were very enthousiastic. Since then I’ve been looking forward to it. We made the line-up fit the sound of the label. Symp.tom was actually already linked to Nightmare Outdoor, because of the Symp.toms compilation CDs that where released after each edition and our own area would be the next logical step. I’m very happy they’ve taken that step and I also hope that this will make the label a bit more accessible for the audience. But still you have to like this kind of hardcore.”Maurice, can you describe the difference between your The Relic and Zanthrax aliases and under which name you rather play?
TR: “My first vinyl was released under my alias Dark Earth in 1998. Before that I was already using the name Zanthrax when DJ’ing. The name The Relic came to existence when I was producing for the FIX label. I was the only producer at that time and to keep a little variation I used some other aliases. The Relic on FIX 17 sounded different then the Zanthrax releases before that. On Symp.tom everything was released as The Relic, because the name sounded better than Zanthrax. All my sounds started to become more alike, so I decided to stick with only one name now, whether it’s hardtechno, doomcore, darkcore, industrial hardcore or acid. I think it is more recognizeable to use one name. I now only use the name Zanthrax in the weekly radio show with Ben Harder.”Can you describe some good and bad properties of eachother?
TR: “Lody can be a little bit too perfectionistic every now and then. He can be working on a track for weeks and when it’s finished he doesn’t like it anymore because he has heard it too often. A good property is that he has his very unique own sound, recognizeable in the kicks and drive.”MW: “I think Maurice produces a bit too fast sometimes. Sometimes he makes loads of tracks in a few weeks, but they don’t sound “finished” yet in my opinion. I would put a bit more time in details and edits. For me that’s more important than the amount of tracks you make. A good property of Maurice is that he can make a lot of different styles, what makes him very diverse.”
What can we expect from Mental Wreckage & The Relic in the future?
MW: “The new Dual Mechanism is coming. We’re also working on a cool remix project, one that I’ve been looking forward to for some years, but I’m not going to spoil anything yet. It will probably be around the end this year. Furthermore a few cooperation tracks with Moleculez, The Relic and some other artists are going to be released. Besides that I’m also working on a guest release for another label. I also have quite a few nice bookings for this year.”TR: “Many new productions from me as well as Dual Mechanism. I’m also finishing some tracks together with Moleculez and Lody and there are some nice remixes coming. A lot of tracks are ready to be mixed. There are also some nice bookings. This will both be solo as well as together with Lody. I also hope to make a sequel to the mix-CD “Symp.toms 4 – Life Below 20HZ”, since this one was received very well.”
You can find more info about Mental Wreckage, The Relic and Symp.tom at: www.symp-tom.nl
