Alone with... alllone

InterviewsWritten by Kit Dalton on

Austrian producers alllone's rise to prominence hasn't gone unnoticed. With a steady live performance schedule, and a consistent line of releases, including being a part of Ivan Shopov́'s ‘Kanatitsa' remixes album, the pair of rising producers have had a busy year to say in the least.

Never afraid to push their music in different directions, alllone's versatile sound often fuses Hiphop beats, RnB'esk synth chords and deep detailed sub movements. They spoke with us about the formation of the duo, greynote collective, and their influences.

Hey guys, hope you are doing well, how did alllone come to be?

M - Mathis

S - Hey thanks for having us.

We’re just two friends who met in our hometown of Weiz, Austria. We simply started making music together. I performed my first DJ set back in 2012 using Virtual DJ, and from there I got hooked, quickly moving on to vinyls. I started producing music in 2014 and was soon picked up by the collective ‘noise collage’. I’ve since moved into organizing big events and booking artists, and it was around this time that myself and Mathis’ first official project ‘KVNSH!N’ was born.

Fast forward to 2017, we created alllone and released our first ep. In 2018 we expanded and together with Aplot, Dotworks and our sound technician Andre Kerschhagel, founded the music and event collective ‘GreyNote’. It has been a long journey for both of us.

M - Yeah we’ve known each other for a really long time now.

I started making some breakcore and hardcore stuff with fl studio back around 2008. My first project was called jack stresig and was mainly just noise at around 200bpm. I’ve continued to make music, and some years on, was invited to join the noise collage crew, where I played a selection of dnb, hardcore and breakcore. To begin with by myself and later with Stefan as KVNSH!N.

We started to put a lot of energy in our music and DJ sets, and had a lot of gigs in graz and vienna. Shifting to smoother productions, we created a new alias for them called ‘Solo Premium’. Our first release with this project was a jungle tune, but usually we made pretty vibey stuff at around 140bpm.

In 2017 we merged the two projects, our sound got more experimental, and sometimes a bit darker. We started having a signature sound and a new part of our lives began. alllone was founded.

How do you go about starting a project? Do you have particular roles?

M - Not really. Sometimes we start with a beat. Sometimes with chords. Sometimes by recording hardware. However, we try to produce together in the same room most of the time, because we’re able to inspire one another a lot whilst making music.

We send ableton projects back and forth, usually getting the base of our tunes worked out pretty fast, but taking a bit more time over the sound design and variety.

S - I don’t think so either. The ‘’against the clock’’ method is a nice way to start, and it's working quite well for us. We have a timer with 10 min, and switch everytime the time has past. So there isn't a clear separation of roles, we just bring creativity to ‘paper’, and in my opinion it feels pretty intuitive.

What lead you to your production style? Do your tastes differ as musicians?

M - We’re trying to be as open as possible to every genre of music. I think that you can even use music you don’t like in a positive way, just by paying attention to what you do or don’t like about it and adding or avoiding that in your own productions. And sure our tastes differ somewhat, but that’s a big reason as to why our sound is like it is.

I think our production style is influenced, by listening to many different genres, and trying to put them all together in the studio, as well as on stage. We love switching tunes every minute or so live, therefore we began to produce tracks 2 minutes or shorter, whilst keeping lots of variety.

Can you tell us a bit about 'Greynote collective'?

S - GreyNote is a sound and event crew in Graz, Austria, that hosts different kinds of parties in and around our hometown. Artists like Dotworks, OME, Denigma and Deathdeathdeath are part of our crew and are producing some mad sounds for the collective.

There are actually no genre rules and at the moment we are working on our first GreyNote compilation. The collective is basically a group of friends that tries to support local artists, and push underrated genres in our city, by hosting parties with national and international acts like: Persian Empire, Spinelly, Ile Flottante, Sun People, P.tah & Kinetical, B.ranks, Monophobe...

Most of the time, Mathis is responsible for the artworks, and I take care of the event coordination. We also get big support from Sophie Sonnleitner, and Susi Possnitz in terms of administration and media design.

Last but not least, deafblind media produce promo videos and live visuals for our events.

What can we expect from you in the next couple of months?

M - We have finished some of our new stuff, and want to drop most of it this year. We made an EP with a grime rapper from austria called ‘Der Con’ that should be out in the next few months. Some weeks ago Duzz Down San (a record label from vienna) dropped one of our tunes in their DuzzUp Vol.9 compilation. Recently we also had the honour of doing a remix for Ivan Shopov, who has been an idol of ours since the hardcore days.

We are also excited about our first AV set (together with our homies from deafblind) which will be performed at the Holy Hydra Festival in Linz, Austria for the very first time!

S - We are always quite busy producing fresh tunes and organizing events. We’ve recently done a remix for Dj Alyaz (aka Self from Sapyans Records) and for ‘P.tah & Kinetical’ from ‘Duzz Down San’. Both tunes should drop this year.

Lastly, we'll try to continue being on every upcoming Rendah Mag cypher!

Rendah Mag is a creative UK-based outlet, primarily focused on exploring the nexus of experimental music, art, and technology.

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