Billain – Mirror LP (Interview)

We are back with another interview along side a top artist of the scene. We present Billain – Mirror LP (Interview), sharing some of Billain’s methods, interests and motivation. Lets get into the details below.

Welcome, Billain, happy belated birthday! It’s excellent to have you chat with us. This album is an absolute journey. I want to ask, what is the most critical element—a feeling, an idea, a piece of gear—that you have to get right before an album starts to take shape?

Billain: Thank you very much! I pay very close attention to my dreams, to the point that I’ve documented many of them, using them as stories and actual artworks. This practice started around 2010. Blockfield, Colonize, Colossus, etc., all share artworks that I had the luck to remember from my dreams. If something like that happens, I make sure it makes narratively sense to take shape in the context of the continuous connection with other albums and their lore.

I could imagine some names of artists in early Techstep/Nuerofunk that might have influenced this album or still have an impact on you. Could you share some with us?

Billain: None of the current Neurofunk or Techstep genres has any influence on me, because somewhere along the line of my growing up in hip-hop culture, I was stubborn enough to realize that it is essential to listen to a wide range of people only to learn to avoid their ideologies/signatures, as that helps you to grow your own personality. However, in developing the personality, a few names are significant, and that is the emergence of The Prodigy, which proved the exact point – that they never were a genre; the music becomes freer and more rebellious.

I really enjoy the contrast of the different tracks. The calmer atmospheric sounds change worlds. How would you describe these sonic landscapes?

Billain: Think of them as chapters in the book. The book has its own meaning, with a beginning, an end, and a middle. The book has to have a flow of thoughts. And the more thoughts you have, the more variables you recognize in a writer’s style, a writer who makes points across the canvas of the reality he presents, and of course, openness to interpretation, is what makes a book interesting. The story might be a piece of imagination or a piece of reality, but it always certainly contains a message, projecting or reflecting.

The story that accompanies the album is in-depth. How do you create this immersive depth within your sound?

Billain: The amount of technology surrounding us is staggering, and when utilized effectively, it provides numerous mental tools for fine crafting. However, it must be paired with consistent imagination to be genuinely felt, molded, or visible to those seeking to experience the depth in music. Of course, there is a cinematic way to do it. I think this is a good approach because we grew up on films, so to combine that in a new medium called “Cyberneuro” is one of many ways to experiment and discover many ways to create narratives: The narrative and the cinematic approach, combined with various emotions, certainly in 10 out of 10 cases, is what gives depth to tracks.

Overall, what does this album symbolize for you? Are there personal experiences that helped shape this release?

Billain: It is at its precipice, A reflecting point, where we, as observers, look into a surface that bounces back a personality open to our interpretation. It works fantastically as an analogy for tracks, too, as everyone finds different meanings in the faces of the tracks, which inspired me to create characters that are recognizable to tracks. All the tracks wear faces, and if you look at them, they are like Rorschach tests, facing you visually and sonically, where you are the 4th wall of the intersection of albums, dragged into my narrative, and you therefore became my album artwork.

This idea stems from the deeper philosophical paths I’ve explored, drawing from both the good and bad experiences of my life. It’s fueled by new research that sparks curiosity, even when the initial tracks seem like just club bangers. They certainly have more layers, which is of great importance to me.

What kind of artistic choices maintain your sound’s uniqueness in a genre that is constantly evolving?

Billain: These things need to be tied to the narrative I mentioned above. Narrative is everything, and if you can make a film out of the track, you have essentially what we call “Cyberneuro”. This is the essence. For the movie “Fugitive”, this was the literal case. A track under the name “Reincarnation” served as a narrative for Fugitive, and the film gained significant recognition, appearing at over 60 festivals and earning us 30 awards. So, the theory is proven correct; you can create a genre that spans various tempos into audiovisual dependence and make it work as a club piece, too.

How did you go about curating the track listing?

Billain: When considering tracks, the goal is likely to find that energy that can be felt and that can work well with each other, paired with narrative or comedic grooves, as these elements create a coherent mix that works well on the dance floor and is enjoyable to listen to later. It is great when people can keep returning to the batch and find more interesting moments, and discover hidden meanings and puzzles, and there is a lot of them.

The artwork feels that there’s a special symbolism. Can you share any insights on why you chose that particular artwork and what each unique design represents for each track?

Billain: The idea that the tracks can have faces that shift to your personality traits because of the Rorschach phenomenon is what dragged me to investigate this further, into a mirror as well. The album is a palindrome itself, and I’ve always been fascinated by mirrors. Physically Mirror works excellently on the surface of a vinyl sleeve, but digital has to be interpreted differently, so I had to come up with another way of interpreting character based on reflection, which, on some level, is Rorschach. It also helps you remember the tracks. Since people tend to remember faces that evoke specific memories or influence, over time, you’ll likely recall my orange character as part of the “doomed heart” track.

This proves the point that tracks have personality that can be translated into faces we tend to remember.

Working with labels on such a project can be pretty tedious. How was working with Evolution Chamber on such a project, and was there a reason why you picked Evolution Chamber as an outlet to release the album?

Billain: Mainly because I was entrusted with the entirety of my work and its delivery, which is the most essential aspect for every artist: the ability to create outside of graphs, analysis, and other calculations of corporate systems that only see art as projections of success that have to be monetized by the study of current trends. I believe in creating and breaking trends, not following them, so my friends James and Aaron respected my path long enough for me to repay this with release as well.

All of your albums are known for their sci-fi themes. Are there any pop-culture movies or books from the past that draw you into the sci-fi realm?

Billain: The most commercially successful one was Blade Runner. The lesser-known stuff was Heavy Metal magazine, and creators like Jean Girard-Moebius, Philippe Caza, Masamune Shirow, and Katsuhiro Otomo. The second layer was William Gibson, Bruce Sterling…My drawing came naturally without too much input, since in war, we didn’t have much media to learn from, so I had to rely on my own imagination.

What track would you say contains the most implemented energy, time, and skill that went into it?

Billain: Well, it certainly is Afterburner, because it has a compressed album in it’s essence. The beginning and the end, the ever-shifting middle, the vocals of an imaginary place. It takes time to plan the overlay and structure that can tie these elements together effortlessly.

If you could have any DJ of your choice mix this album, who would you pick?

Billain: I think Mefjus, knowing him as a friend for so many years and us passing through this scene, understands my work more than people actually know. So he would do a great job in smashing the mix.

This year, you also performed at Let It Roll for the first time. Can you tell us more about that?

Billain: There was this thing I said on my Instagram; it felt different – a nostalgic friend you’ve known for decades, but never met. I was too experimental with my Neurofunk, making it hard for promoters to find a reasonable place for me in there. As soon as sound-design- heavy cinematic experiences became a norm, I got invited. I never knew it would take years for me to be on there for the first time. The other thing is that I was naïve to think that somehow, magically, my music would open the doors to the world immediately. Some artists have a crew of management around them, while I worked all by myself.

A release this good would suggest it takes a reasonable amount of time to complete. How long did you work on Mirror?

Billain: If you measure by tracks, the range is from 2 days to 11 years. It took me 2 days to create a track from scratch, and 11 years to revive an unfinished project and complete it for the album. The time is obsolete in there, as every album stretches into infinity by various factors, and the entire wrap-up was completed in 3-4 months.

What is it like for you, personally, to have that level of creative ability and to be able to tell these larger stories through your work?

Billain: A place where I feel I belong. It was always like this since I was a kid; having a place can save one’s life, and many of my friends lost their places and lost their lives in a sad reality where having a place is stigmatized and where people divide us so they can rent us places in our heads to follow and have passion about that is sometimes not even ours. Understanding this significantly amplifies the creativity one can inject into anything they love to work on in their lives, making it stop being a career and become as natural as breathing air, which is another essential life skill, because you will learn so much more about life through the reflection of one's own work and internal to external observations.

We are at the end here. Are there any upcoming events or releases you could tell us about?

Billain: I recently worked on a sci-fi short with music and sound for a friend, which is set to release soon. Another sci-fi short with Cheng Weizhi is scheduled for the end of the year. I’ve got gigs in Hungary, Australia, and Japan lined up. Also, keep an eye out for “Cybe.in”- we’re cooking up something totally new as a Cyberneuro collective. I’ve already got more tracks lined up for next year, along with several collabs that will be revealed over time. The usual BIGTHINGSCOMING!

Links

Find Billain – Mirror LP at lnk.to/EVOC071!

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