Artist Interviews 🎶 Studio Tours 🎛

Happy Holidays friends! I hope you’re having a wonderful time 💗💗

Slight change in release day for this issue, because of Christmas day! 🎄🎄

Today in the spotlight, Quim Font

Currently in Germany, a solo experimental musician that is involved in the making of modular synthesizers 🎶

Interview & Studio Tour

Who are you and what is your relationship with music?

I am a solo electronic musician and a band musician, bassist and vocalist.

My electronic project is much more personal and experimental. I am from Chile, but currently I live in Germany, in a small town and I have dedicated myself to experiment with techniques, learn new instruments (from playing drums to tape machines and synths) and currently I design modular synthesizers with a friend who lives in Mexico.

Music has never been my job, but design, but this year both paths came together and I'm into it.

Which piece of equipment in your studio is essential to your production process?

Delay/loop.

I had for a long time a Danelectro Reel Echo on which I created loops that I then recorded digitally. But nowadays the Memory Man is my favorite device, which I always use in my creative workflow to "photograph" the loop or base sequence on which I produce.

What is the least expensive piece of gear that gave you the most results?

A Sanyo cassette deck to which I did Circuit bending to modify the speed. With it I made a series of albums using my father's old cassettes. In them came the so-called “canción protesta” folk music of resistance to the Chilean dictatorship. It's a kind of dark and politically charged folk Eccojams. They are the last 3 albums on my bandcamp.

Walk us through your process for creating and producing music.

I'm currently using a lot of the eurorack modular system we are working on, making demos and videos. I just turn everything on without patches and look to make a sequence or drone that I like, whether it's through textures, a field recording, a melody.

Sometimes that loop goes through a cassette, through the tape recorder or simply in the delay. This functions as a trigger that allows me to dialogue with a musical idea in the same way as I would with another person. I generate a musical dialogue with chance.

What is a production technique that you always come back to?

Looping found tapes or sound landscapes and using minimalist techniques of repetition and overdub.

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How would you describe your style?

I don't think I have a certain style, but there are aesthetic factors that reappear, such as ambient drones and concrete music operations.

What is a big challenge you have as an artist?

Being isolated in a new country. I was used to being part of an underground musical community in Santiago de Chile and now I am in a very different environment, far from the cities. So the challenge is how to not get discouraged even though I don't have that rich community with which I could play live. The Internet is useful, but the goal for me is to play live and with other people. The ritual of getting together to listen and make music.

I have dedicated myself to create diverse music, without thinking about gigs or albums. I have made music for dance and for short documentaries. That kind of stuff, I work online at a distance.

Has building a hardware setup changed your perspective on music or life in general?

It allows you to play alone. I was used to playing in bands where the creative process was organic and horizontal. Now I only have my own ideas, so I use a lot of chance and error, I try to use new techniques that surprise me and ignite the creative spark.

One tip on how to spark creativity?

Going out into nature.

Music appears by itself, from the body or from the mind. You have to give it space, prepare a context for it, make experiments, try something new.

A book, movie, article, or album that has inspired you?

“Irreales del Monte”, a mix of electronic Ambient with Chilean Guitarrón, a very rare country instrument even in Chile.

Αnything else you'd like to say?

I would like you to see the modular synthesizer we have been designing with my friends from Mexico.

There was a Kickstarter campaign that ended on December 18. We achieved 100% in 20hrs! We are now producing the units. And during the next year (2024) we will be making more commercial copies and other more specialized modules, not so generic.

This system is designed to be the gateway to the modular world. Designed from Latin America for the whole world. Oficina de sonido makes very peculiar and niche instruments like LGA Sirena Dub or the tropical machine Hanan Cumbia, take a look at it, the project is really fresh.

Where can people find more of your music and connect with you online?

instagram | bandcamp | instagram (Oficina de sonido ) | kickstarter

Gear List

• Oficina de sonido - My First Modular | Eskite | Hanan Cumbia | Monotheremin

• Bleep Labs - Nebulophone

• Corazón de Robota - Copernica

• Arturia - Microfreak

• Elektron - Octatrack

• Yamaha - PS400 | PS3 | Reface CP

• HEX - Memory man | Cathedral | Platform | Pitchfork | BigMuff Pi

• Squier - P-Bass

• Tascam 4 tracks digital

• Tascam 4 tracks casete

• Uher - Variocord Tape machine

In Case You Missed It

140 - TASTEOFSLOW

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Giannis @giannis.kampiotis