Here's a "What if?" question. The phone rings and it is someone who says, "I want to release my next album on your label." Who would leave you speechless?

Nicolas: That's a very hard question. In fact, it happened once. A band I am a total fan of sent me a demo of a side project and I refused it. It broke my heart because I love that band. I never thought I would say no to this person, but he sent me something that I just didn't really enjoy.

It was electro-acoustic. Very, very calm. I think it would have been better if it had been a bit shorter. He might release it somewhere else; I have no idea. It is a very strong CD and is a good thing that I would enjoy buying and listening to at home, but I wasn't enthusiastic enough to work on it. But it really broke my heart.

I just released a CD from Uniform which is a side project of 2nd Gen, a band from England who are on Mute Records. And when he approached me, I was really speechless. When I began the label, there were a few bands that I am a total groupie of -- that I am fan of -- and so far I've released two side projects of these bands. One is Sanctum and I released the Mago side project, and the other is 2nd Gen. I almost made it. [Smiles] When I release a Techno Animal CD, I can stop the label and be a happy man.

Here's a pop question for you. Pick one: rhythm or texture.

Nicolas: I would say texture. I listen to music that has no rhythm sometimes. If I would compare the question to clothing, I would say that the fabric is more important than the designer. That is a hard question. Drum OR bass. [Laughs] I'm passing on this one.

Do you find the Internet makes the label more global, more borderless? I know that on any given day, at any given time, I can find you in three different places online: San Diego (the Black Box Industries Forum), Germany (the Recycle Your Ears forum), and Yahoo Groups (wherever those servers are) for the Ad Noiseam mailing list. And I know that I can get any CD that I want -- delivered directly to my house, faster and usually cheaper than I can find it in the chains -- by shopping online.

Nicolas: It is definitely a big plus. But I don't think you can work with only the Internet. That's an illusion. You cannot have a label -- even at the size of Ad Noiseam, which isn't huge -- and advertise only online, only communicate online. It helps in the beginning when you don't have money for advertising in a print magazine or when you don't have a distributor to take care of things in countries that you don't even know anything about.

It is interesting to get feedback from the whole world. I get email from people in Japan or South America that have listened to Ad Noiseam CDs. It's wonderful. These people probably wouldn't take a pen and paper and write me a letter to say what they think. So it is a big reward. But it is an illusion to think that you can only work through the Internet. If you do that, it stays very, very superficial. It is a very precise audience. If you want a wider audience, you have to work with print magazines, you have to get your CDs in stores and not just into Internet mailorder places.

As for distribution online, I think it is a good thing that you can order the CD from a place like Malignant or myself and get it delivered to your place, but I think it is still very important that you can still go to stores in your area where you can buy these CDs. I don't want to limit the audiences of Ad Noiseam's releases to just people who are in the know, that know where to find these CDs and stuff like that. I want people who have no idea about the CD to be able to go to the store and discover it, to find it in a store and listen to it and like it.

I think all of us when we started to listening to music, we were fifteen years old and we just went to the store and listened to what was there. We went to the store -- we didn't know what we wanted -- and we found something that we liked. We didn't already have an idea of what we wanted to buy because we had looked on the Internet. Well, there probably wasn't the Internet at that time, actually.

If you want to get fresh blood to listen to your music, you have to be physically there in the store. I would love to get Ad Noiseam in the supermarket because that would bring more people to the music. I'm totally opposed to limited edition releases. Music should be as widely available as possible.

Jonas: The downside to the Internet is that you are exposed to a lot of music these days. Too much music.

Nicolas: Too much music, and only two ears. [Laughs]

How many records do you get a week?

Nicolas: [exhales and shakes his head tiredly]

Okay, let me rephrase: where do you find the time?

Nicolas: I can't listen to everything that I get. At home, I have between three and five hundred demos and albums that I should listen to and review, but I haven't gotten to them yet. I feel really bad about, but every day I get emails from people asking me when I am going to review their album and it is a huge pile. I will never see the end of it. I am sure of that, and I am sure that I miss very good things too. But I just can't do it.

Jonas: I was lucky in a way because back then you reviewed everything you got.

Nicolas: [Chuckles] I tried to review everything I get, but it is just impossible.

Jonas: Well, yeah, you have some criteria.

Nicolas: Yeah, some things appeal to me. I can't explain it; sometimes I'll open a package and I'll want to listen to it right away and other times, I'll be like, "Okay, I'll listen to it tomorrow." But it never ends up being listened to it. And I feel bad about it.

I have one last question for you. I come to you and say, "I'm starting a label tomorrow. What's the one piece of advice that you think I need to have before I begin?"

Nicolas: Think of the people who listen to the music. Don't think about getting money. Don't think about getting famous or something like that. Just think of the person who is going to buy the CD. The music has to be good. The release should look good, it should be widely available, and it shouldn't be too expensive. Yeah, you have to care of the person -- you have to respect the person -- who is going to be your customer or your fan. That is the most important thing. You aren't going to fool anybody.

Jonas: There must be a million billion things you have to consider when you start a label. You have to make it available, you have to have distributors. You can't sell it off of one website.

Nicolas: There are a million things to think about from paying the band, to producing the CD, to getting the physical object, to getting it sold, but the main thing for me is to not think of the person listening to the CD as a fool. Don't think of them as someone who will accept a bad product or too expensive of a product or whatever. If you do that, the person will buy your CD once and never come back. It would be an insult to that person so you just have to take care that everything is well done for these people.

On the web:
Ad Noiseam
Tarmvred (official site)

Inside Earpollution:
Tarmvred Subfusc album review
Andrey Kiritchenko Kniga Skazok album review