The following interview was first published on September 15, 2014.
The internet is a smorgasbord of information and entertainment. One can find anything on the internet, you just have to look hard enough. I am an avid fan of prog (short for “progressive rock”) and synth music and I always wanted to know if there existed the fusion between the two genres. Eventually, I found a netlabel (a record label company that operates only online) that specializes in electronic progressive rock named Ubiktune. On this site, I found electronic progressive rock artist known as Kartmaze and he agreed to do an interview via email.
ALEX: How would you introduce and describe yourself to those who know nothing about you or about chiptune music and progressive rock?
KARTMAZE: My name is Mads Aasvik. I’m 27 years old and live in Trondheim, Norway. Under the artist name Kartmaze, I make what I like to call synth prog and progressive chiptune music. Both genres heavily are influenced by progressive rock and progressive metal.
Chiptune music is a retro-type genre emulating the music you would find in computer games from the late 80’s and early 90’s. It’s often very simple and “lo-fi” compared to other forms of electronic music.
Progressive rock/metal (not to be confused with progressive house music) tends to be very technical, experimental and/or dynamic. Often inspired by jazz and classical music, it tries to steer away from the “rules” you find in pop music. Typical progressive features are long and dynamic songs with plenty of instrumental sections, complex song structures, usage of odd time signatures, polyrhythms and nontraditional chord progressions and scales.
ALEX: What is your musical history, in general and with electronic music and chiptune? What bands, musicians, or genres do you take influence from when writing music? How did you become interested in prog and electronic music?
KARTMAZE: I started playing the guitar when I was 16 years old and I quickly started composing very simple music using the computer (mostly in a guitar tab software called Guitar Pro). I’ve also worked a bit with the piano/keyboard through the years, but mostly as a tool for composing. Around 2006, I discovered the world of proper DAWs [Digital Audio Workstations] and MIDI [Musical Instrument Digital Interface] and haven’t looked back since.
My history with electronic music and chiptune is mostly the same. Up until almost 2 years ago, I was mostly focused on traditional prog rock/metal, but then I chose to explore the chiptune genre a bit, however in my own way. During the last year or so, I’ve moved more and more away from the chiptune genre, mainly because I felt a bit limited by the simplistic style, and moved into a more hi-fi synth genre, although still keeping the focus on the progressive aspects.
When writing music I mainly get influenced by prog rock and prog metal bands. Dream Theater, Rush, and Tool are maybe the most well known, but I get inspired a lot by more obscure bands such as Liquid Tension Experiment (LTE), Shadow Gallery, Transatlantic, Pain of Salvation, Symphony X and Opeth as well. If I was to emphasize a single musician which has inspired me the most, it would have to be Jordan Rudess, the keyboard player in Dream Theater, who has released several solo albums, as well.
The way I discovered progressive music was via a friend in high school showing me LTE’s “Acid Rain”. I was an avid power metal fan at the time, but the progressive aspects of LTE’s music got me hooked straight away and it quickly led me to the closely related, but much better known Dream Theater. I’m not really that into electronic music, to be honest, so I can’t really describe how I got interested in it. However, after starting to explore the chiptune (and chiptune related) genre I discovered a few artists which I really like, for instance C-jeff, Coda and Zantilla.
ALEX: Explain your Seven Journeys to a New Home album. Is it a concept album and if so, what theme or story does it tell? The title does suggest that there is some story to the songs, after all. Or is it that each song is an independent story?
KARTMAZE: Seven Journeys to a New Home is not a concept album, even though it sounds like it judging by the title alone. The “Seven Journeys” part represents the seven songs on the album, and the “New Home” part represents me finding a new way to make and share music, basically. I like to try and give a story feel to my songs with both ups and downs and twists and turns, and therefore I thought the title suited the album and the songs on it.
The masterful album artwork for Kartmaze’s debut album Seven Journeys to a New Home.
ALEX: Why did you decide to make the album?
KARTMAZE: The whole thing started when a friend challenged me to create a chiptune and post it on Reddit. I “converted” some unused material I had lying around, uploaded it (“Brownout”) and got some good feedback. A netlabel based in Russia specializing in progressive and jazz/fusion-esque chiptunes called Ubiktune contacted me after hearing Brownout and asked if I wanted to work together with them. Of course I would, and from there on I rapidly made all the tracks on the album. I guess the motivation was that I had some tracks which I knew some people liked as well as a channel to release it through, so I didn’t think twice about making the album or not.
ALEX: Since progressive rock is such an underground and unappreciated genre, why did you make it in this style? The same question goes for progressive electronic music, let alone chiptune music. After all, electronic music is widely known for simple, energetic dance songs. What made you want to combine the two seemingly dissimilar genres?
KARTMAZE: For me it’s prog or nothing when it comes to composing my own material. I don’t think I would’ve released a solo album which didn’t have roots in progressive music at all. I guess it’s due to my love for the genre, both as a composer and as a listener. However, in regards to electronic music and chiptune music, more practical reasons comes into play. Before discovering chiptunes I used countless hours recording prog rock guitar tracks with which I never got really satisfied with. Also, I wasn’t interested in investing the hours required to hone my guitar skills enough to be able to play whatever I wanted sufficiently well. I started to get fed up and the pure MIDI way of composing came as a breath of fresh air as I didn’t feel I was hindered by my own skills (or lack thereof). The specific chiptune genre was merely a coincidence as discussed in the previous question, and I felt it was a platform I could bring something new into and still attract both chiptune and prog enthusiasts. Now that I’m moving a bit away from the chiptune genre, I’m starting to converge back to more traditional prog rock only with less guitar and more synth focus.
ALEX: Have you ever been in a band, virtual band, or otherwise collaborated with another musician? Have you ever composed any music for a video game? Live performances? There are chiptune cons and other conventions that would love to hear this sort of stuff done live.
KARTMAZE: Yes, I played guitar in a prog rock band a few years back where I also did most of the song writing. We never got to play any live gigs, but we sounded quite good actually.
At the moment I’m part of what I guess you can call a virtual band called Megalixir. We are 4 people (2 from Buffalo, NY (guitars + bass guitar) and 1 from Houston, TX (drums) and myself who do MIDI synth programming). We make SNES [Super Nintendo Entertainment System] covers our own way from time to time and have fun doing it. We recently did a cover medley of a somewhat obscure game called Demon’s Crest, which I think turned out really well.
I have not composed any music for a proper video game yet, but something might be in the works.
To be honest I haven’t even considered doing any form of live gigs as Kartmaze. If I had to do one I think it would have to be a proper live performance with a band playing my music with me playing the guitar or something along those lines, and I’m not seeing that happen in the foreseeable future.
ALEX: What are your views on prog, electronic music, rock, and other genres of music and how do you think they affect others’ view on musicianship and music in general?
KARTMAZE: Prog is what matters to me as a musician and as fan of music. However, I also respect all kinds of other music as well, especially those genres which requires some form of musicianship. Electronic music has for me mainly become more of a channel to distribute my prog music through, but I really enjoy other forms of non-progressive electronic music as well such as synthwave/outrun 80s synth music (e.g. Mitch Murder and Lost Years) and more traditional lounge and chillout electronica. However, I stay far FAR away from dubstep.
The thing with prog is that you often need to listen to a song two, three or maybe ten times before it really starts growing on you, and most people usually like to think a song is catchy right away. And many people honestly don’t find prog catchy at all. Prog is something many have to be introduced to in small doses before really being able to appreciate it, I think, and it’s quickly dismissed by lots of people. Others think that prog artists are just a bunch of show-offs and believe they try to play as technical as possible just for the sake of playing technical (although, in some cases they might actually be right on that one).
ALEX: What instruments do you play and what software or hardware do you use?
KARTMAZE: I play the guitar and a little bit of piano. I program all my music in MIDI note by note in Reaper using a wide variety of VST plugins such as LennarDigital Sylenth1, Superior Drummer 2.0, Plogue Chipsounds and EastWest Symphonic Orchestra.
ALEX: Now that Seven Journeys to a New Home is finished, what do you have planned in the future?
KARTMAZE: A new Kartmaze album is about to be wrapped up. I entered a studio in town September 1st for proper mixing and mastering and I’m expecting it to be released during this fall. It will be both very progressive and melodic, a bit more dynamic than Seven Journeys and most importantly less chip and more “hi-fi”. Also, it will be a concept album. After that I’m thinking of maybe bringing my guitar a tad more back into my music, mostly for some texture to make the music less sterile and synthetic.
ALEX: Last thing before you go! What similar artists would you recommend, chiptune, prog, or otherwise?
KARTMAZE: I’m careful with comparing my music with others’, but genre wise, if you’re looking for progressive synth music, I’d recommend artists like Jordan Rudess, Derek Sherinian or Vince DiCola. Of the much lesser known artists I would recommend checking out Ubiktune’s artists C-jeff, coda, Zantilla, Shnabubula, and Fearofdark, just to mention a few.
You can find Kartmaze on http://www.kartmaze.bandcamp.com and http://www.soundcloud.com/kartmaze/. The new album is scheduled to come out in October 2014.
About the author – Alexander Emenheiser is an electronic progressive rock/pop artist (http://www.soundcloud.com/adesyndicate/) and Flash animator on YouTube (http://www.youtube.com/adesyndicate/).