FLeCK is another underground bass music producer from Athens Greece.
Like the other producers I’ve interviewed recently and myself, he comes from the old school and is pushing post modern electronica forward into new realms.
Although FLeCK is an active participant in the Future Jungle movement, he also produces other genres including dub! So he is a multi talented producer with serious depth of production, and is very popular on soundcloud too.
FLeCK also manages “Breathe” records which hosts other remarkable artists.
OK, lets have a few words with the man then!
ZL – Your music is very much reggae influenced…please tell us some of your inspirations of that genre
FLeCK – My first approach to reggae music was when I was a teenager and used to go a lot to reggae parties in Athens, I used to listen a lot of reggae and dub music back in the days.
I also started collecting records and producing jungle music in the 90’s and I loved all this reggae vibes in jungle ,all these ragga vocals and dub mixing styles. I was inspired a lot by artists like Burning Spear,Black Uhuru,Lacksley Castell,Barry Brown,Rebel MC and many others.
All these sounds have definitely influenced the music I produce nowadays.
We both know about electronica’s “stagnant” period, it seems things are starting to go in the right direction. What do you see as your own role in bringing about much needed change in the scene?
In my opinion,music producers must try to create their unique,original sound.A sound that can be recognizable for each one of them.Repeating and immitating the style of others,using standard preset sounds (which happened mostly to dubstep music) can lead to that stagnancy I think.
It’s a bit hard and difficult but it’s the only way to get away from this rather sterile period. It looks like that things are getting in the right direction lately, I mean I found myself listening with entusiasm some new releases,which was not happening to me for a long time!
Original creativity is the answer!This is the role that every music producer should assume in order to progress. It’s also true that listeners are more interested in new genres,have more “open ears”,maybe because they experienced on themselves that stagnancy in electronic music.
You make a lot of dub based music, what inspires you to do so?
It’s the sense of freedom this music gives me.It’s the echoes and the delays,all the effects you can use to create the dub vibe! Effects you can find in nature,in caves,in canyons,in the jungle. It’s like designing coloured sounds.
It’s the bass that creates all these strong vibrations.Inspiration comes out of these elements. For sure.”
Many want to produce, few actually achieve success, what advice can you give aspiring producers to increase their chances?
My advice is to keep working on it! It needs hard work and it needs time.Success is relative.
For some musicians success is making lot of money out of music,or beeing famous. For others,success is making a good tune that you listen to it and say,yeah,I like this!I’ll do some more of it!You know,beeing satisfied by your work and its results.
Anyway,success nowadays is quite ephemeral,even for the most famous and rich artists. So, concentrate on making good music,that you like first of all, is my advice.All the rest comes by itself with a bit of luck of course!
Outside of music, what are your interests and philosophical outlook?
Well I read lots of books,classic literature mostly.My time is very restricted because of my work so the few hours I have at my disposal I use them on making music or hanging around with friends.
I’m very interested in the political situation that has been enstablished in my country the last couple of years, I follow it closely. The economic crises,the rise of this extremist movement that caused a big increase of racist incidents in Greece and all these really negative changes that are happening right now.
I try to keep beeing informed and with my eyes open on this.It’s unacceptable that we leave this crap spread further.
Is future jungle gonna get big?
Jungle music and the whole jungle scene was big, really big in the 90’s. Jungle never died, you can find its elements almost in all contemporary electronic music genres and styles.
Future jungle is just jungle music that woke up from its hibernation and found itself in a place where 140 bpm beats rule. And it fitted right away to its new environment.I think it’s going to get bigger and bigger,one cannot escape its energy.In my opinion,is one of the next big things.2013 is going to be a big year for this genre.
Go check FleCK out here:
soundcloud.com/fleckathens
zaclaurent.com 