Âme © KATJA RUGE
Berlin-based electronic music label Innervisions reached a milestone with its 100th release last month, a four-track EP titled Witness. The tracks are selected by Âme and Dixon and are available in three formats across digital, vinyl and for the first time, NFT.
Witness is an exploration of a heavier sound for Âme and combines with the unique sound of the duo’s solo DJ and Live performances. To celebrate the new release, a series of limited edition digital and physical artworks will be published to mark this new era for the label. With a new design, new process, bigger projects, NFT, and new technological solutions, it’s safe to say the label has a new look. In line with the work of the digital artists Claudia Rafael and Pascal Wiemers, the label is inventing a future of mixing music and art.
We asked Frank Wiedemann and Kristian Beyer of Âme, one half of Innervisions to enlighten us on the fresh philosophy of the label.
With “IV100”, the 100th release, you announce the coming of the new era for Innervisions. What inspired this renewal and what identity do you want to give to the label?
Coming towards 100, we’ve reflected on what we did and what we want to achieve in the future. We realized we had done and/or achieved everything we’ve wished for with releasing dancefloor EPs. Hence, we’ve actually considered closing down the label.
However, another option was to move in a different direction and challenge ourselves with new projects and perspectives. With that in mind, our artwork collaboration with Claudia Rafael and Pascal Wiemers was connected to the idea of destroying Innervisions and end up in white light. We wanted a clean cut with number 101 – conceptually from a business and graphic perspective. A new, developed identity is to be formed.
Dixon © DAVIT
Collaborating with the artists Claudia Rafael and Pascal Wiemers in order to create animated AI’s, you are introducing digital and visual arts as a part of the music creation process. What changes does this bring to your work? What synergies would you like to see developing?
Over the last 15 years, we have tried to start a new collaboration with artists every year to create a cover series for the upcoming releases. In these collaborations, we try to work on themes that excite, disturb, delight, and inspire us. Things that drive us and allow us to question internal processes, to open new perspectives to draw energy for upcoming projects. The collaboration with C & P started in 2020 with the idea of polarisation of growth and destruction, based on the technology of artificial intelligence. Creating an object on the record front cover that slowly eats through the back cover from release to release, destroying the Innervisions logo to end up with a white „sheet of paper“. A blank page to write new stories.
During this process, there were many conversations about the technologies used and how they could be applied to other areas, such as music. What finally led to the release of IV100 was working with machine learning and thinking about new ways to combine these new technologies with existing ones and transform them into interesting musical projects.
Claudia Rafael and Pascal Wiemers’ announcement teaser :
You want to develop the use of NFTs in your artistic and business development. How can NFTs revolutionize the practices of a label like Innervisions? Do they present any challenges?
For us, NFT’s are rather a thought-provoking impulse to the question of what is necessary for a music label. What does a label contribute to linking the artist with her/his listeners? Are there ways to shorten distribution channels? What value is attributed to music and its creator? Through which possibilities can a musical work and its rights be remunerated, by whom? So this technology leads internally to different questions and incentives to challenge ourselves to stay attentive and think about different internal structures, to reflect on them, and experiment with possibilities through projects.
The use of blockchain, AI, or smart contracts in music creation and distribution is reshaping the patterns between sender and receiver, artist and audience. What kind of interaction do you want to promote? Will it change the interpretation of music? How does IV100 represent the label’s desire to innovate communication?
The most important thing for us in the process with an artist is the communication to find out what drives and inspires the artist. Deriving formats from this and giving the audience, listeners, dancers the opportunity to take a journey with the artist and us through the respective release. Inspiring the artist and challenging ourselves in that exchange, at the same time thinking about ways to connect fans and artists very directly. The idea of the current company construct was to have short paths and to be able to act independently, to have a few instances as possible between the different processes from creation to distribution. For this reason, it is very important for us to constantly work on and look for new ways to shorten distances and to connect artists directly with their audience.
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