Interview with Axel Helios of Shabu Recordings
March 13, 2014 | Philip James de Vries
Montreal-based outlet Shabu Recordings is a small digital & vinyl label that’s quickly building itself up to be a reliable source of melodic, kraut-influenced sounds. The label’s founder, Axel Helios, is an electronic musician who recently graduated with a degree in electro-acoustics, and who’s released a handful of tracks on the label himself.
With a roster of artists that includes Avus, Jesse Somfay/Borealis, Norwell, Falling From Cloud 9, Niccolò Bianchi and many more, the young label is a high quality niche specializing in outside-the-box electronic music.
Analog Sermon: When did you start Shabu? What drove you to create a label?
Axel Helios: I officially started Shabu in 2011, but the name “Shabu Recordings” had been in my mind since 2009. My good friend Gab Rhome and I were planning a trip from Quebec city to Igloofest in Montreal for a James Holden show. As we were looking for Asian food, we came across a Japanese meal called “Shabu-Shabu” (which is delicious by the way) and we liked the sound of those words. We came up with an idea that if we were to start a label at some point, we would call it “Shabu Recordings.” Fast-forward to 2011; my own experience with releasing with labels at that time was very limited and I was still in college studying music. I had two bad label/music industry experiences in the same week, and I was stuck with the idea that no labels would want me or would be professional enough to my taste. The channels offered to me at the time seemed bleak or unattainable. During a phone call from my parents, I was telling them about my misadventures, and that’s when ‘the spark’ happened. Within hours, I called friends of mine to tell them about my idea of starting a label. At the time I didn’t have many contacts who could tell me how to proceed with this idea, or where the resources needed to make this happen could be found, but I was driven by the joy of discovering a new territory I hadn’t explored yet. For weeks following I worked tirelessly on making Shabu Recordings a thing. That’s when I contacted some talented artists I found through Soundcloud — like Niccolò Bianchi — and told them about my project. I don’t know if it was my motivation that convinced them to trust me with handling the music that came from their souls, but that’s pretty much how I started Shabu.
AS: How would you describe Shabu’s sound? What type of music do you prefer to release?
Axel: When I started Shabu, one goal always prevailed: creating an environment where artists don’t have to deal with the strict rules of genres and can make something where they can experiment. It’s really hard to describe the sound of Shabu as influences come from different spheres of music. I, for instance, was into hard techno when I was younger and I studied in electroacoustic music, making soundscapes and noise, but some of the other artists have backgrounds in punk, industrial, gabber, house, or minimal. When I’m asked to pick a “genre” for categorizing purposes in most of the shops, I end up choosing “techno” or “leftfield/electronica” as they are really vague, and in the end nobody is going to complain about it. Music inspired by Krautrock seems to be the common thread where all of [the Shabu artists] join together.
I prefer to release music in which I can get easily lost. That doesn’t mean “dreamy” or “hypnotizing,” but more engaging, not only mentally but physically too. I like to be filled with the music rather than be unengaged and have the time to start criticizing the track itself.
AS: What do you love about running a label? What do you hate?
Axel: [I love] the moments when I receive a track, remix, or demo and I get this intense joy from what I am listening to. The first time it happened was when I got Jesse Somfay’s remix of “Sleeping On An Igloo” after working on the label for a week or two. Seeing how those endless days and nights of running around to create a label and putting it all together result in such a beautiful piece of art is what hooked me up. Even at times when I’m depressed and can’t really see anything good coming out of my environment, moments like this still happen for all of the works that I have received and released so far. It isn’t only a temporary moment of joy for five (or six, or seven, etc.) minutes, my life now revolves on finding these wonderful moments, sharing them with the world and making sure they stay in the social consciousness as a resource people can turn to feel something. Along the years, I’ve also discovered several other outputs that seem to aim for that specific goal, and that makes me feel like I’m not alone.
On the other hand, I hate how I need to try to find a way to adapt Shabu’s presentation to the horribly low attention span of the masses. We can always debate on whether or not the music democratization is the culprit, or the social media and all, but what I see is newcomers trying to shout as loud as the bigger labels that already have a bigger voice which results in cacophony and an overload of information. If I check my Facebook newsfeed, it seems like the only way to get heard would be to be friends with your listeners, or to be a label that has been running since the dawn of humanity. People will stick with what they know or what is close to them. We could also be debating whether the music is created exclusively to be heard by others, but that’s another topic.
AS: What artists are you into at the moment? Is there anyone in particular you’d really like to see release on Shabu?
Axel: My MP3 player broke two months ago and I’m quite busy, so I don’t have many moments where I can stop and listen to music these days. Right now, I’m really feeling the new Mondkopf & Vaghe Stelle albums, and the new Forbidden Planet record. Sigward’s new tracks he’s been sending me are really great and I’m really excited about the last Falling From Cloud 9 track he put on Soundcloud. I sure would like to see the electronic music equivalent of Shakespeare on Shabu (Aphex Twin, Autechre), but I would also really like to see artists I’ve liked a lot in the past few years appear, for instance Vessel, Lukid, Pye Corner Audio, Karenn, Hyetal, Moiré, Ricardo Tobar, Professor Genius, and Orphx.
AS: What are your thoughts about the current electronic scene in Canada?
Axel: One thing that comes to my mind when I think of Canadian electronic musicians would be space. I don’t mean like “space rock-ish” but more so that it creates an environment, a scene you get captivated in. I don’t know if it’s because we’re unconsciously influenced by the fact that we have loads of space for the small population that we have, but it’s a constant I’ve been seeing.
If we talk about it as a whole though, it’s evolved in a strange way. I personally grew up in the countryside, and at that time it felt like I was the only one listening to electronic music, and if not, it was mostly club house and 90s euro dance (even though it was the 2000s). Most of the music being produced and played at that time seemed like it was trying to copy what was played by the mainstream DJs on the radio in the 90s. Now, being in Montreal for almost 5 years, I’m seeing the bigger picture and how it’s evolved. I like how people go to shows from all scenes and crews. For example, when we had the launch night for Shabu, people stayed ’til the close of the bar after Jesse played a one hour set of ambient music from 2am to 3am; I remember it being packed at the end with people applauding.
The one thing I’m really concerned about is the diminishing number of possible venues/outputs all across Canada for music in general. When I started Shabu, I would send releases to some shows on CBC that don’t exist anymore. Sure, electronic music is more mainstream now and it’s omnipresent in a way, but the outputs for local or “not known at the mainstream but still popular” talents is getting incredibly small. It seems to be a tendency all across Canada from what I see.
AS: What are your plans for the future of Shabu?
We’re almost done restructuring Shabu, so we should be able to release more. There are a bunch of things coming up soon, such as the new Sigward, Birdcage, and Norwell EPs, as well as other compilations like the SHARMX and SHAVA (the next one will focus on Canadian artists). We also have a Borealis EP coming up, of which you can hear some of the tracks in the podcast, and I’ve been working on and off on my debut album for some time now.